All across the muddied, straw-lined streets of Misthold stamped the busy feet of the free people. As usual, the misty morning breeze carried with it a spirited clamor—the cries of babes swaddled in their mothers’ arms, the shrill laughs of children at play, the raucous anger of men, and the perpetual bargains and offers of would-be merchants in the east. Rhythmically, the sharp ring of Honorbound hammers broke from their forges in the north. In the center of the outpost, wood structures lashed with rope grew taller by the hour as they were malleted together by wiry bands of sun-kissed slaves. The steady beat of palms against hide drums sounded in the west as Ashblood warriors held public displays of their ancestral combat rites. An uneasy quiet blanketed the pale, gloomy structures to the south.

In a travelers’ lodge that smelled of wood smoke, leather, and sweat, two figures concealed in grey woolen cloaks stood out amongst a few others that still slept or lounged about. Leaned against the central support beam of the spacious tent, one of the cloaked figures anxiously tapped his booted foot, his attention fixed on the entryway. The other of the cloaked pair kneeled closer to the eastern wall, still in the furs of their bedding, with her hands clasped together and raised to the long hood that concealed her face.

“. . . as thee have provided.

Grant us thy forgiveness,

Cleanse us of sin,

That we may walk in thy light,

Be made whole in thy light,

And forgive our neighbor’s sin . . .” she whispered under her breath, reverently.

“Hurry it up, will you, Mariya?” her companion issued directly into her mind, his lips unmoved.

At that, Mariya halted and raised her head slightly. “Darren, I have told you not to invoke Samaan while I am praying.”

“You’re sure taking your time,” he retorted, playfully captious.

Mariya gave a slight flinch and turned over her shoulder just barely in her companion’s direction. “What did I just say?”

Darren rolled his eyes and sighed. He unfolded his arms and walked from the lodge to the outside, where the air smelled of petrichor and animal dung. Mariya resumed her quiet penance from the very beginning. Darren swept over to the stokewood façade of their tent and rested against the solid wall of it. Behind the open counter next to him sat the lodge’s bored keeper, the wear and sympathy of a life hard lived present in the elder’s stare as he watched slaves toil away in the distance.

“Do ya think it’s weakness that drives us to enslave our own kind?” the lodgekeeper threw out suddenly, as unexpected as a foot-high root along a path.

Darren fixed his gaze on the laborers as he turned the question over. “Greed?” he posed, somewhat uncertain. “Were you ever a slave?”

The lodgekeeper grunted in consideration. “Aye, greed. Makes sense.” He paused. “A long time ago I was, but that was a long time ago. Ya kept yer travelin’ business to yerself. Fine by me, folk who hide their faces ought to have reasons. Then, tell me somethin’ from yer days. How’d ya meet yer partner?”

“It’s not a very interesting story,” declared Darren.

“Rarely is, hm?” The lodgekeeper sniffed hard.

Darren breathed his amusement. “She tried to kill me. Well, we tried to kill each other. As you can see, we made up.”

That earned him a chuckle from the lodgekeeper. “Ya don’t think that’s interestin’?”

“Not how he tells it,” quipped an unamused voice. Mariya had quietly taken Darren’s side.

“That so? And what’s yer take, lass?” The lodgekeeper shifted his attention and propped his chin up from the countertop with a rather hairy arm.

“If we have time later, perhaps over a drink,” offered Mariya, as she glared at Darren.

The lodgekeeper grunted in approval. “Granted her kind eye. Enjoy yer stay in Misthold.”

At the pagan farewell, a deep scowl twisted in the corners of Mariya’s lips; her fingers twitched beneath her cloak. Darren turned to leave and put a light hand on Mariya’s back. A chill shot up her spine, and she roughly shouldered off the touch. Darren recoiled, shrugged, then awkwardly offered the lodgekeeper an open palm and headed north. Wordless, Mariya followed Darren. The pair crossed the busy plaza that stretched before them, past dozens of strider- and slave-drawn carts loaded with builder’s materials, grain, alcohol, trade wares, or harvest. As Darren and Mariya made their way to the north quarter, they began to draw the contemptuous stares of passersby, slaves, loiterers, and craftsfolk alike, very few of whom were less than a head taller than the cloaked pair.

Mariya’s focus warily shifted from one gaze to another. “I take it we aren’t very welcome here,” she whispered.

“The Honorbound don’t take kindly to outsiders. Especially from Rendt. You have to earn respect—sekrii, they call it.” Darren turned towards the sound of a heated disagreement in a tent to his right.

In another moment, two burly men in furs tore through the animal hide wall and careened into the street. They slammed their meaty fists into each other’s faces and ribs as they rolled about in the mud and straw. A well-placed blow from the bigger of the two smashed neatly into the other’s chin. The smaller of the two men went limp. The victor of the brawl pushed up from the ground and spit off to the side before wiping the blood from his nose. His breath labored, he looked wildly at Darren and Mariya before he huffed and returned to the tent he had prior torn through. A wave of laughter and cheers greeted him.

“Sort of like that,” claimed Darren dryly, as he gestured with an open hand to the broken tent.

Mariya stared down at the man laid still on the street, his face flushed, bloody, and smeared with dirt. “Charming.”

Darren stifled a laugh. “Just you wait.”

The two continued on their way and eventually arrived in a section of the quarter with a number of stone buildings that housed forges, where worked artisans, apprentices, and slaves alike. Brazen, Darren strode into one such smithy, where the simple phrase Axes and Blades had been roughly chiseled into the greystone of the outer wall. Mariya hesitated at the entrance—her survival instincts kept her firmly under the open arch. It appeared little more than an unremarkable workshop, the kind that could be found in any town in Rendt, if not even more poorly equipped and less furnished.

A massive stone furnace was seated in the center of the building, surrounded by a ring of anvils and walls that divided up the space. Slaves that bore axe-shaped shoulder brands bustled in and out of the rooms. Some carried metals and unfinished weapons around, others served as extra hands for those who worked to forge. A pair of sweat-drenched laborers shoveled dark lumps of brol into the base of the furnace, while heat, the grind of whetstones, and the steady clang of the smith’s hammers filled the air.

A gruff but womanly voice addressed Darren and Mariya. “Get out. We have enough work.”

In the room closest to the entrance, hunched over an anvil with a worn hammer in hand, with arms that could have been tree trunks, was a giantess in a blacksmith’s leather apron. Unfazed, Darren took a step forward and pulled back his wool hood.

“Are ya deaf?!” shouted the blacksmith, irritated. “I told ya—“ But as she looked up from her work, a length of metal that glowed red, nearly in the form of a sword, she stopped short. Her anger gave way to disbelief. “By the chip in His axe . . .” She stood up from her anvil slowly. “Yer Yssgra’s boy. And ya went and grow’d.”

Darren kept his stance and expression neutral. “Svenne Aronkin.”

The giant blacksmith flipped her tool around, caught it in her glove, and pointed the grip at her nearest assistant. “You, finish this.” Her tone was immediately serious.

The tall but heavyset young man confusedly took hold of what he was offered. “Ma’am?”

“Don’ stare at me slack-jawed, son. Get to it.” Svenne’s tone was keen as a sharpened edge.

The young man bobbed his head in earnest and took the smith’s previous seat, a rounded, worn stump. He set the hammer in his hand to the glow of the unfinished metal and grunted with effort as sparks flew from the blade that awaited.

Svenne returned her attention to her guests. “Quiet as ya are, I imagine yer wantin’ to talk in private.” She began to walk towards the back of the shop and motioned for them to follow with a wide, leather-gloved hand.

Darren looked over his shoulder at Mariya and gave her a sideways nod. Mariya relented, and the two crossed the lively space to the back. The room they were led to was a closed storefront with a chest-height wooden counter that separated the lobby from the workshop. A handful of wood stools were lined up against the customer side of the counter. The walls held rows of stone racks full of well-crafted blades and axes of varied purpose. Wood shields reinforced with aronite studs and animal hides painted in the Aronkin clan colors of red and green were displayed centrally along each wall, with the exception that two hung on either side of the door to the workshop, both with pairs of ornamental crossed axes behind them.

Mariya pored over the room and found an exposed section along the far wall near the banded wood door that led outside. As she leaned her back to the stone and folded her arms, she eyed the heavy stokewood latch to the door, and a potential escape route formed in her mind. Darren dragged one of the stools back some and sat on it, then nonchalantly leaned onto the countertop with one arm.

Svenne removed her thick gloves, rubbed her heavily calloused hands, and then gently set her palms against the wood of the counter. “Is Yssgra—”

“All of them are dead.” Darren finished the thought for her; the delivery was rehearsed and detached. “I’m sure you’ve heard.”

Svenne closed her eyes and hung her head for a moment. “Aye,” she said finally, and with a sigh she continued, “I heard. I had hope, but I assumed the worst. How did ya survive?”

Darren lowered his voice. “My clan’s patron protected me.”

A darkness crept over Svenne’s mood. “Yer patron?!” She looked around, wary. “Him?” she whispered, fiercely.

An intense quiet descended on the room.

“Don’t,” warned Darren, his voice calm but austere.

“Oh, I know better than to name evil.” Svenne unsteadily looked back to Darren. “And I think I know what yer here fer.”

“I figured you might.” Darren’s expression turned somber. “I lay claim to Yssgra’s life debt.”

This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

“The debt, eh?” Svenne nodded slowly and deeply. “Will ya be takin’ mah son, then?”

“Agh. I’ve no use for a slave.” Darren dismissed the idea with a swipe of his free hand.

A listlessness enveloped Mariya. Unable to shake it, she fidgeted against the wall. No use for a slave, hm? she thought to herself wistfully.

Svenne’s eyes lit up and she let go of a single guffaw. “Had me goin’ there ya did! Suppose yer mother raised ya a fine lad. Naught else to expect from a fine healer like her.”

“A what?” Mariya cut in suddenly, disturbed. “She said your mother was a healer?”

Darren swiveled slowly over his shoulder before he answered. “That’s right.”

“Impossible,” rejected Mariya coldly.

Svenne straightened out and folded her arms. A grin found her wide lips as she answered the challenge. “Yah well, ya Rendtian’s love tellin’ folk what they can and can’t do, don’tcha?”

At the bite, Mariya tensed up and ran her fingers over the knives tucked under the leather guard strapped to her thigh. “Healers are a sign of Izz’s grace. They wouldn’t be born to a godless land like this.”

Svenne clamped down harder. “Shows how little ya know, lass. And if I were ya, I’d keep those blades to yerself. Be a shame if ya lost an arm. Or two.”

Mariya ground her back teeth together. “Tch.” She flicked her robe and folded her arms.

“Get on with your business before I start cutting my way out of here,” Mariya sent into Darren’s mind, as she shot him a look that could have struck him dead.

Taken aback, he inadvertently blinked hard.

Svenne raised an eyebrow as she watched Darren. She looked over her guests and bounced a finger between them. “Are ya two . . . ?”

“If that’s your idea of a jest, I don’t find it very funny.” A measure of disgust was present in Mariya’s tone.

Darren’s eyes went wide, and he clenched his jaw back briefly as he shifted his focus to the grain of the wood counter.

Svenne was nothing but amused. “Tah! Coulda fooled me.”

“Darren,” said Mariya venomously, her patience all but gone.

Darren waved his hand back and forth exasperatedly. “Yes, yes . . .” He gestured with an open hand towards the far side of the room. “This is my traveling partner, Mariya. We have a—” He paused. “Mutual agreement.”

Pressure bore down on Mariya as memories of the past returned in fractured bits and pieces that cut like broken glass. She clenched her fingers against herself.

Svenne unfolded her arms and leaned her elbows on the counter as she brought her hands together. “And that would be?”

Darren leaned to the side as he peered into the workshop. “Seems like you all have your hands busy.” He returned to his prior position.

Svenne nodded shallowly. “Aye, that we do. Yer point?”

Darren’s tone was steel, but his voice was near a whisper. “We have some business with the inquisitors. A few of the men we are looking for should be in the vanguard of the Crusade. So, which clans are preparing for war?”

Svenne stiffened at his words, but her answer was just as quiet. “Is this what ya ask o’ me?”

Darren was unshaken in his return. “On my mother’s life debt.”

This earned a heavy sigh from Svenne. “Just the two o’ ya?” Her tone betrayed her disappointment. “Chosen by a patron or not, Yssgra would never forgive me if I sent her son to his death!”

Darren pushed a dry laugh through his nose. “There’s nothing more for her to worry about.”

Svenne stared Darren hard in the face. “Agh! Ya know yer mother wouldn’t want ya livin’ fer revenge!” She sighed again, the weight of it greater still, then locked Darren with her deep brown gaze like a mire as she searched for the truth. “No, ya know that . . . and I know that look in yer eye. Seen it a few times now.” Svenne pushed off the counter. “Sour bastards ought at least pay a little, eh?” Svenne turned her attention to Mariya across the room, who had yet kept her face hidden with her woolen hood. “Ya bloody Rendtians take our homes, our lands, our loves. Worst all, ya trample our honor.”

Mariya hmphed callously and turned her head to the side.

Svenne straightened to her full height, nearly twice Mariya’s size. “Yer lucky ya travel with the son o’ the woman who saved the life o‘ mah own. I’d sooner bash yer head and throw ya right out o’ here.” Svenne spit on the ground behind the counter. “But on the life o’ mah friend Yssgra, I’ll hand ya a tip. Seein’ as it’s like to off few o’ them holy crusaders.”

Mariya swiveled her head back toward the conversation.

“Got a map?” Svenne shot at Darren.

“Aye,” he answered, as he reached into the leather pouch beneath his cloak. He produced a yellowed roll of parchment and spread it across the counter.

With a thick finger, Svenne jabbed at the north of Freelandr. “Inquisitors been comin’ in all along the northeastern border with Rendt, mostly the foothills so far. Nobody knows where they are holin’ up, but it ain’t hard to tell where they’re goin’. Spearbury . . .” She traced her way south. “Grayridge, Suntusk—all destroyed from what I’ve heard. Them and some villages we won’ hear about. Strider Lords havin’ talks o’ comin’ up to the north. As fer the Bound clans—Aronkin, Koryllssen, Tlainvoc—all armin’ and tryna rally others.” She straightened back out.

Darren tented his brows as he took a charred piece of wood from his pouch. “Your own?”

Svenne nodded firmly. “Aye. Aronkin don’ let bad blood sit. Elder wants a right blade, axe, or spear in the hand o’ every warrior and able slave in Helinsc to Beilruun. Plans to mount an offense in a few weeks’ time.”

With the charred wood as an instrument to mark, Darren circled the outposts and villages of note. “I think we can make use of this. Thank you, Svenne.” He rolled up the map he had lain out and returned the tools to his pouch.

“I’ll be waiting outside.” Mariya quickly lifted up the latch on the door to her right, which opened with a creak and a groan. She slipped back into the morning fog that ran through the streets, and the door shut behind her.

“Bit testy, that one.” Svenne winked at her guest and offered him a closed fist.

“You’ve no idea.” Darren smashed his knuckles to the smith’s and held there for a moment.

“She seems a good lass, homeland excepted.” Svenne pushed her fist against Darren’s as she spoke. “Don’ ya go lettin’ her die, ya hear?”

At that, a dry smile found its way to Darren’s face. He lowered his arm. “Odd you should say that.” He came off his stool, made for the door, and sent the old smith a wave. “Best of luck with your work.”

“And don’ ya go gettin’ yerself killed either.” The spirit in Svenne’s tone fell as she turned back into the smithy. However, in the next moment, she shouted ferociously at her workers. “Alright ya sorry lot! I heard ya slowin’ it down! Ya nosy sack o’ pricks! I want to hear nothin’ but the sound o’ shovels, hissin’, and hammers!”

The clamor of the workshop swelled just as Darren pulled up his hood and met back with Mariya in the muddy streets of the north quarter. As the door closed behind him, the heavy wood latch clunked back into place.

“And where are we off to next?” posed Mariya as she followed Darren, who had begun to walk back the direction they had come.

“Now we kill time until sundown,” returned Darren, his tone a touch pleased.

That earned a hard sigh from Maryia. “I thought you would try to pull this. You want me to learn about the heathens.” She sounded less than pleased.

Darren only shrugged. “Oh, what’s the harm? May as well enjoy ourselves.”

Mariya’s voice quieted as they passed a gang of men that waited outside a tavern. “And how exactly does that work with your idea of ‘laying low?’”

“I’m not so worried about the tribes as—” But before he could finish the thought, Darren cut silent.

Decorated in the rare furs of several ferocious predators, a tall, heavyset warrior stepped in the road and blocked the way. “Ya have business with the Aronkin?” His tone was as guarded as his posture.

Mariya was purely tickled. “Not so worried about the tribes, are you?” she sent into Darren’s mind.

Darren cleared his throat but kept his eyes on the man’s hands and stance. “Just their smith. Turns out they are a bit busy.”

The man straightened his back and squared his shoulders. “I don’t like folk who hide their faces, cos I don’t much like spyin’. Who are ya? And why are ya botherin’ our smith?”

Although he hardly came up to the clansman’s chest in height, Darren stood his ground. “Why should I give my name before I’ve heard yours?”

The man bristled. “Borkyll Aronkin, seventh warthane. Don’t tell me ya were just tryin’ to get yer hands on some Honorbound steel. Tell us who ya are and what business ya had with our smith, or we’ll knock it out o’ ya.”

Two large men in furs and leathers departed from the side of the tavern and flanked Darren and Mariya at the north end of the street. As they were surrounded, Mariya instinctively put her back to Darren’s. He could practically feel her muscles stiffen as lightning shot up her spine. There in the middle of the street, Mariya froze as she sorted out her thoughts on the slight warmth that spread between her shoulders. The only things she could remember that her back had been up against thus far were either a cold wall, a cold bed, some cold bars of rusted aronite, or the cold chest of an abuser; here was something altogether different. The hair on her arms and neck stood on end. Her pulse raced in her veins. As the tension started to overwhelm her, everything suddenly seemed to slow down. An idea brightened inside her head—a suggestion like the promise of a shoreline in a storm. She did not question the calm, and instead embraced it.

Mariya sent a single thought to Darren and did not wait for a response. “Grit your teeth.”

“Huh?!” exclaimed Darren, just as Mariya twisted him around with a hard yank on his right shoulder.

To the shock of everyone who stood in the road, Mariya slammed a closed fist square into the heel of Darren’s jaw, and he had not grit his teeth. A few gasps fluttered around, but there was only a sharp pop that sounded out as Darren’s eyes rolled up in his head. He dropped to his knees briefly before he fell face-first onto the ground. Borkyll’s men took an uncertain step back.

Mariya shook out her hand and pulled back her hood. Wisps of her short, dark hair that had avoided her tie billowed about. “You’ll have to excuse the manners of my traveling partner there. You may call me Mariya. The one in the dirt is Darren. And if you must know, we’re bounty hunters looking for leads.” The lies came to her effortlessly, as they always did.

Borkyll stood there, mouth agape for a moment before he gave his own chin a rub. A smile pulled up the corners of his thick, knife-scarred lips. “Why’d ya let him talk first?”

~

Darren awoke with a start to a roar of stomps and laughter. He pushed off from a wood table that smelled like weeks-old ale. His eyes traced around an unfamiliar tented tavern full of mostly drunken Honorbound clansfolk, when his ears caught hold of a familiar voice that shouted louder now than he had ever heard before.

“. . . and it was just spewing out of his neck! All over his stupid, gaudy uniform, all over his ‘pretty’ hands!” Mariya not only wore a huge, uncharacteristic grin on her face—she laughed as she wiped her eyes. She took a deep swig of the mug in her hands and made a few faces as she swallowed. “All that fuss, and it was just a sliver of glass!” She giggled. “It’s true!”

On all sides of Maryia sat Honorbound clansfolk, all regaled or merely appreciative of the break in monotony. Darren watched in awe, disturbed by a scene he would have never thought possible. Mariya cast him a sideways glance and did a double take when she noticed he was awake.

“Darren.” Mariya’s tone subdued. She stood up from the crowded table. “If you will all excuse me for a moment.”

A few of the clansfolk gave her confused looks, but every one of them merely returned to their cups or listened to the next to speak up.

With her steps more of a fluid meander, Mariya slipped through the din of the tavern to Darren’s table. “How’s your jaw?” she started off. Her mood quieted as she sat by his side.

Darren opened his mouth wide, put a hand to where he had been hit, and ran fingers over the area gingerly—it was still a little sore. “You sure didn’t hold back. How long was I out?”

“Oh, not long. Sun’s still up. And I held back plenty.” Mariya leaned her elbows on the sticky wood of the table, took a sip of her ale, then made faces at it. “Eugh. Do people enjoy this swill?”

“Bound clans are known for making strong drink. I don’t know if anybody has ever said it was any good.” Darren eyed his partner’s flushed expression. “Are you drunk already?”

“Not yet . . .” Mariya brought her cup to her lips. “Maybe.” She lowered her hands to the table, stared down into her slosh of dark ale, and fell silent for a small time. “They never let me drink. Only times I ever did were by myself, on some mission in some shitty, backwards traveler’s inn. All by myself.” A loneliness crept over her expression and left her with a cheerless, wrung-out smile like a tree limb ravaged by frost. “Izz frowns upon those enamored of drink, you know.”

Darren scratched the back of his head. “And what does her book say about knocking people out in the street?” A childish grin played at the corners of his mouth.

Mariya breathed a laugh, took another sip of her ale, and winced. “It says that if all turns out fine, you shouldn’t complain.”

A bar slave in rags approached the two with a drink and set it down in front of Darren. “For your headache,” said the young man, before he hastily made his way off to some other task.

Darren raised a brow. “But I didn’t . . . ?” He traced his gaze around and caught an arm that raised up a stained stokewood flagon across the tavern.

One of the Aronkin clansmen who had circled Darren in the street earlier shot him a grin and a wink; the ring of folk Mariya had prior entertained stomped the floor and drummed the tables with their palms. Darren sent Mariya a shameless look, shrugged, and raised his mug to the jolly stranger. The two started a chug as they locked eyes. Darren flinched at the foul, bitter taste but managed to drink about half, then coughed and raised his mug aloft with a smile. His drink partner did much the same, then excitedly slapped the arm of the man next to him. A wave of cheers half-heartedly bubbled around the tavern.

“A new friend of ours?” posed Darren, his face contorted in a small misery, as he sat back down and turned to Mariya.

“Norm Aronkin. The other one who looks like him is Yobek. Of course, you remember Borkyll. The other two are sons of Borkyll’s uncle, his father’s brother,” detailed Mariya, her voice low as she took another sip of her ale. “The large, armed woman across from them is Goerra Tlainvoc, ninth warthane to her clan. She is with her younger brother, Jothen, a warrior under her. What do you think they are all here to discuss?”

Speechless, Darren glared at Mariya.

Mariya blinked a few times and flicked her eyes between her cup and her conversation partner. “What?”

“I figured you were just having fun.” Darren shook his head in disbelief, sipped his ale, and weathered the disgust.

The lonely smile returned to Mariya’s face. “Is that what it looked like?” She scoffed quietly. “To think, you were the one who killed me . . . “ In reflection, she paused. “But enough on that. We have tactics and travel to discuss.”

“Aye.” Darren pushed up both his brows with sarcastic enthusiasm and drank deeply of his ale.