“The only person more terrifying than a creative sorcerer is a creative sorcerer who stands among the Chosen or the Damned.”

— Proceran Saying.

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It had been some days since we had gone past our first major stop on our return up north. The Three Peaks. They were two massive towers leaning against the sides of the southern entrance to the Twilight Pass, with a bastion on the other side. Monstrously tall walls had straddled the space between them. The granite masonry had loomed so tall that it looked as if the mountains were constructed more by man than nature. Seeing them from the south had been no less imposing than the first time I had seen them when arriving from the north.

I planned to enter the Chain of Hunger from the Rhenian Gates. They were further north, and something told me that they were closer to the destination that my vision was guiding me towards.

Something was off-putting. For a while now I had felt an uneasy churning sensation within my presence somewhere up ahead. It felt like a ravenous maw, an empty belly that could never be filled. I suspected it was Ratlings. I didn’t know for sure.

“-And so I was wondering is there anything you can do similar to scrying that I can study because I tried adapting the transcriptions from that book to my own system of sorcery and wasn’t able to make any progress.” Yvette spoke from in front of me.

“Nothing that wouldn’t knock me out for a few days. Sorry Yvie.” I replied.

We had left the sorcerous books with Cordelia before departing. One of her wizards with a more scholarly inclination had taken to examining them. They had found an explanation on how to scry. Unfortunately, it was entrenched within the Trismegistan school of sorcery. The principles would have to be adapted to another methodology before we could properly utilize them.

With nothing better to do on the road, I had brute forced learning to transfigure the most basic of edible foods with Innovate. Biscuits, some fruits, and bread. I didn’t know how deep into the Chain of Hunger we would have to travel. I did know that there was almost nothing to eat there.

There was not a single part of me that wanted to dine on Ratling.

“This is unreasonably hard I’m sure it should be easier than this I’ve adapted different workings that were simpler than this and didn’t have an issue why is scrying fighting with me?”

The steady reverberation of Sisyphus’s hooves continued unabated on the treacherous ground underfoot. We were deep in the Twilight Pass. I’d guess maybe halfway in. Mountains loomed all around us. The air was damp, cloying. Late summer rains had ended only an hour past, and a strong early morning wind blew from up ahead down our way. It sounded like an angry choir of dead souls.

The desolate, rugged countryside around us made for grim scenery. Stelae of granite carved straight from stone lined the side of the path we followed. Most of them had large iron pegs hammered through them. I did not understand the significance of it.

“That’s just how it is sometimes.”

“Well it's annoying just like trying to change the world from one shape to another you make it look so easy and all I get is nightmare landscapes and a headache for trying if it wasn’t so important I’d just leave it alone I’d rather work on something else.” I couldn’t see her face, but I suspected she was pouting.

“Hands on the reins,” I instructed firmly.

Yvette’s damp blonde hair bobbed directly in front of me as she enthusiastically looked from one side of the path to the other. Occasionally, strands of hair would come dangerously close to ending up in my mouth. She pointed at features in the landscape absent-mindedly while she spoke. I doubted she even realized she did it.

It made it hard for me to keep track of what was up ahead.

Learning to ride side-saddle with a kid in front of me had been the kind of challenge I did not expect to have. Learning to ride side-saddle with this excitable bundle of energy was even more work than that.

“Fine,” she huffed, lowering her hands back on top of my own. “See those crows up there why are they flying today's so dreary I miss Song it feels like we’re missing someone without her oh look can you hear that there is some loud noise up ahead?”

There was. Repeated rumbles and cracks. It sounded almost like I imagined an avalanche would if it was heard from a distance. I wasn’t certain what was the cause.

It had me on edge.

“I don’t know. I miss her too.”

Yvette complained about Songbird’s absence frequently. I missed her as well. It was as if our small group missed some of the energy it had before. Thinking about her hurt. I hoped that she didn’t dismiss my offer.

We lapsed into silence as we rounded a bend and caught our first glimpse of the crenelations topping the walls of the Volsaga Fortress. The structure was built on a narrow land bridge between two cliffs. It loomed up above us. It would be a while before we had climbed high enough to see it properly. The fortress was one of the more well travelled routes deeper into the Twilight Pass on the route to Rhenia. That wasn’t surprising. While there were many trails that led through the path, there were some places that were almost unavoidable, and it was one of them.

That it was a natural choke point that made the location easy to defend just made it all the more convenient to the Lycaonese.

I stiffened. One of the towers was sending a warning signal.

“Trouble ahead,” I warned, then signalled for our horse to speed up. It accelerated to a brisk trot.

The tremors grew louder from above.

We continued our ascent. Both of us were now fully alert.

It took a while, but we drew close. The sounds grew more and more concerning as we approached. I guided our mount around a corner. Rubble to our left gave way to an open view, and I couldn’t believe what we saw on the other side.

I brought our mount to an abrupt halt.

Yvette had gone stiff in front of me. Then she slowly started to chant under her breath and reached a hand into her reagent pouch. I was looking over her right shoulder, trying to disbelieve what I could see up ahead. My gaze was locked solely on the display.

Am I dreaming?

I blinked, lifted my hands from the reins, rubbed my eyes and gawked.

What I was seeing had remained the same.

We were about a hundred feet short of a fork in the road, coming down the left side of one of the prongs. Large rocks to our right blocked our vision. We were unable to properly see the contents of the other path. That was not what had me lost for words.

There were over a dozen giant, snarling, furry bipedal creatures applying brute force to the walls on our side of the fortress far ahead. Their limbs were as large as tree trunks and swung ponderously from side to side as they continued to maul the defences. The barrier looked like it was teetering on the edge of collapse. Chunks of masonry had been torn out, and parts of the wall creaked ominously. It sounded as if it was about to fall into the crevasse.

Each of the creatures stood about twenty feet tall and made significant dents in the rock when they struck out against the side of the fortress walls. Bolts pierced their sides. I doubted that even a single one of them wasn’t injured. Ratlings. They were definitely Ratlings, and judging from the size of them, I’d guess that they were Ancient Ones.

Hordes of much smaller rats swarmed behind them.

Yvette’s fingers blurred, rapidly tracing delicate symbols in silver into the surrounding air. It was the hardest I had ever seen her concentrate. She was chanting under her breath and clutched a vial of my blood tightly in her left hand.

Did I need to worry about her killing here?

… No, I decided. There was nobody from one side of Calernia to the other except me who would even give this a second thought. Nobody would bother their conscience over seeing every Ratling dead. I didn’t think I could remove their compulsion to eat. Triumphant hadn’t been able to solve this problem with demons. It was unlikely that I could. That wouldn’t stop me from trying.

“Careful,” I admonished absently. So long as she didn’t do something with collateral damage, I wouldn’t raise a fuss.

Yvette kept working on her spell.

If this assault was the extent of it, I could have dealt with it. It would have been weird, sure, but I’d seen weirder.

It wasn’t the extent of it.

Each of the Ancient Ones had what appeared to be cones woven out of some kind of fabric — I’d guess flax — bound around their heads, limiting their field of view. They had harnesses on their backs made out of the same material. Some of the smaller Ratlings were making use of the harnesses to ride the Ancient Ones as mounts. The riders carried weapons in one furry clawed paw. Some carried bows, others carried spears.

A long, narrow pole extended out in front of each giant rat, and something was dangling from the end. I reached into a pouch and pulled out a telescope, raising it up to my right eye. Adjusting the lenses, I narrowed in the focus to see what it was. Each Ancient One had a distressed baby rat baited in front of it at the end of a rope. The babies were suspended at eye level, just out of the Ancient One’s reach.

If I had seen it in a picture or painting, I would have thought it was comical. It wasn’t so funny seeing babies dangled as food on the end of a rod for real.

I clamped down on my nausea.

Now that I could see more details, it was surprising just how much more there was to take in. One of the Ancient Ones briefly turned its head my way while shrieking as molten tar was poured onto it from above. I tried not to gawk. Its ears had been sewn shut, presumably to mask sounds that its handlers didn’t want it to hear. It turned away before I could see more. I hadn’t had a closer look at its snout, but I would bet on something being done about that as well. The tails of many of the larger rats had been covered with broken metal scales with protruding spikes.

The Ancient Ones were rather predictably unhappy with all of this, and fought rather ineffectually against both their handlers and their assigned targets. They seemed like they wanted to take a bite out of everyone. Their aspiring commanders were not spared from their gluttony. If there weren’t so many of them, I doubted this would be effective. However, there were plenty, and they were currently trying to breach the Fortress ahead.

How did they even arrive here?

I was reasonably certain that this many Ratlings should not have been able to reach this particular part of the Lycaonese defences.

Projectiles rained down from the fortress. Not just bolts from crossbows, but also burning oil and wizard’s fire. Every now and again, a projectile from one of the ballistas above would smash into one of them and send them staggering back. It surprised me how resilient they were. The smaller Ratlings returned fire. They sent back arrows that were more ineffective than not, smashing against the defensive emplacements above.

Large, gaping chunks had been torn out of segments of the walls.

Don’t think too hard about this.

I spent one of my spectres, and the rubble we had just passed vanished. A shimmering, golden rectangular prism manifested around the Ratlings, boxing them in. I placed the telescope back into the bag, then focused back on my prisoners. I was certain some Ratlings lost their paws to the effect. That didn’t concern me. Keeping people safe did.

Now I had more time to think.

I wasn’t sure if there was anything I could do to alleviate the Ratling condition, but it would only take me the briefest of moments to attempt the most basic of experiments. It wouldn’t be anything thorough. It would only be the first idea that had come to mind upon feeling them as we approached. More comprehensive experiments were something I would look into later, in a more controlled environment.

I would end their lives quickly if my attempts did not work.

The angels hugged me closely, so close that it was almost suffocating. That, more than anything, warned me that I wouldn’t like what I found.

I reached out towards one of the smaller Ratlings mentally and pushed against the hunger inside of it. The hunger fought back. Shoving it out wasn’t easy. It was hard, harder than simply attempting to kill the beast would be. The sickness inside of it was not content to leave and clawed against me viciously. I succeeded after a brief struggle against the malicious force within it.

The Ratling immediately fell over dead.

Did I make a mistake?

I frowned.

I repeated the experiment. This time I was more deliberate. I wasn’t trying to kill the Ratlings, at least, not yet. I was trying to remove their hunger. The pressure I applied was more calculated for my second attempt.

Once again, the Ratling died.

A third, then a fourth. Each time I was met with the same result.

An ugly suspicion started to form and with it acid started to rise up from deep inside my stomach. I hadn’t experimented much here, so I hoped that I was wrong. I believed that the force that drove the Ratlings to hunger was responsible for animating them in the first place.

If you took that away from them, then their existence came to an end.

It was likely next to impossible to cure their condition without killing them in the process. Impossible to offer them the opportunity to merely exist like any other race. They were cursed to be forever hungry or not to exist at all. Killing them was a kindness — both to them and everyone else — because there was no other way to halt their suffering.

Eternal hunger or death were the only choices they had.

Deep within the pits of my soul, a part of me howled in outrage. What kind of monster would go so far as to do something so utterly vile? Who would make a species that was doomed to suffer like this forever?

“Creation is a canvas

And I hold the brush;

Let the Gods Above guide me

As I change the pigments of the paint.”

The sonorous chanting from in front of me came to an abrupt end.

It was as if the entire world stilled for a moment. A shrieking silence tore through the pass. Colour bleached out of reality around us. Everything wilted. The small shrubbery growing out from between the crags, insect life, moss on the rocks and even the rocks themselves.

The desolation.

I was not certain what it was that Yvette had done. Whatever it was, the effect was certain to be huge.

I…should have been paying more attention to her.

There was a loud crack. A thunderous detonation. Her spell was not limited to the prison I had built. I threw up a transparent shield around us. Sisyphus neighed nervously. My reaction turned out not to be necessary. A shimmering silver barrier demarcated the region the spell was within. For a few heartbeats, it was as if space itself within the sphere had been folded into a Gordian knot.

Then the barrier faded, and the spell came to an end. The world where the Ratlings had been…didn’t really make sense any more. Bizarre, malformed sculptures growing half out of particoloured glass and half out of rotten flesh occupied large parts of the land bridge. Rocks carved into abstract shapes jutted out of the ground like the trailing figures made by the smoke of a fire. Phosphorescent liquids oozed all over the place. Puffy, floating clouds of unknown substances hovered in the air. Fossilized Ratling corpses frozen in their final moments lay below the walls.

There were a few, vanishingly rare corpses of Ratlings that were left unchanged.

Weird, unknown objects composed of geometric forms were shimmering in and out of existence within the blast radius. The air itself had an odd blue tinge to it. It smelled rank, sulphurous.

It looked like some of Yvette’s worst failed attempts to perform transmutation. In fact, I suspected that was exactly what it was. She had tried to transmute everything within the zone, she just didn’t particularly care what any of it turned into.

I shuddered.

This wasn’t acceptable as a weapon at all. Not just because it was inhumane. There was no telling what manner of side effects would occur. If she needed to defend herself, she could do it without turning enemies into macabre sculptures. It wasn’t like I hadn’t explained appropriate tools of violence to her before. I was about to scold her when she started to slump forward on Sisyphus. The effort had knocked her unconscious. I grabbed her, preventing her from falling over.

Deal with this later.

I began the process of smoothing out the landscape ahead. I indiscriminately turned Yvette’s monstrosities back into polished stone. There was no way I was going to risk leaving the consequences of this unchecked.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

I gently nudged Sisyphus, ordering him to move closer.

Rather unsurprisingly, the horse refused the request.

Smart horse.

I dismounted and floated Yvette gently off Sisyphus as well.

“Halt sorcerer! Identify yourself.” A deep voice called out sternly.

How is this man able to keep his cool?

I turned my head back towards the fortress. A man in scratched and bloodied ornamented steel plate armour approached me at a sprint. His helmet was down. He had the markings of an officer.

“I’m the Aspirant. I was sent by Cordelia Hasenbach to help.” I answered. “Give me a moment.”

The man looked doubtful. That was unsurprising. I reached into one of the bags hanging off the side of my mount and dug around for a few heartbeats. It took a while before I found what I was looking for.

I pulled out a pile of documentation and gingerly held it towards him. He reached towards it and I pulled it back quickly. I was not prepared to allow him to muck it up with the filthy state of his gauntlets. Grumbling, he pulled up his visor and came closer. His face was covered in sweat and grime, and his moustache looked like a greasy worm rather than hair. His blue eyes began to skim across the page.

“Are you able to restore our defences?” He gestured towards the hole in their fortifications.

I was about to answer when I felt something enter the edge of my range. It came from another path on our right leading up to the narrow land bridge that held the Volsaga fortress, and it was moving fast.

I stiffened, then immediately held up a hand.

“Something’s wrong,” I replied.

The man immediately went on alert.

I didn’t know what it was. It gave me a migraine simply to sense it. Whatever it was, I could hear its lethality in the song of the world. It screamed danger at me. It felt like a bared blade that was infinitely sharp, slicing through the very fabric of creation.

“Do you also feel that?” I whispered to the man under my breath.

It reminded me of the fight with the Absence Demon, only so much worse. The feeling was concentrated, honed to a fine point. I doubted I would be able to influence what I was sensing if the situation called for a fight. Whatever I was feeling terrified me on a visceral level.

And it was slowly drawing closer.

“No, Chosen?” He replied questioningly.

I floated Yvette carefully back onto the horse, but kept her held in place by the air. Then, I climbed back on our mount right behind her. I didn’t want to be anywhere nearby. Whatever it was scared me enough when I could only feel that it was there.

“It’s like there’s the idea of a blade approaching us, severing everything around it.” I explained brusquely. “Return to your fortress and warn people. I don’t know how dangerous this is.”

I wasn’t usually actively aware of the area in which I could actively impose my will. Right now, I very much was. It was like there was a small segment of it that had been carved out. A place where the world no longer made any sense to me.

All of my senses shouted at me that I should be somewhere, anywhere else.

I started the process of preparing to lift us up into the sky. I didn’t know if this assailant could fly, but I considered it likely to be safer than on the ground. That was when I felt the Angels lean in close once more. With them came the sensation that everything was fine. I did not need to run.

Just run.

I was sorely tempted to ignore their advice. I felt like I was bathing in white phosphorus. There was only so much trust I was willing to extend, and this pushed me to my very limits.

“You’re fine Taylor. You’re safe. Everything is fine. Whatever it is, it is on your side.” I muttered to myself under my breath.

Now if only I could convince myself of that. It felt as if I had swallowed my antithesis.

The world screamed at me each moment I sat still.

The man had started to run back to the Fortress. I dismissed him from my thoughts and sat stiffly. I kept up cleaning the surroundings, focusing on removing the more concerning material first. Anything to keep myself occupied.

Don’t think about it.

Repairing the walls would have to wait until whatever it was that scared me so much arrived. I didn’t have the focus for it at the moment. Eventually I could see what it was that I was so terrified of.

A figure appeared from around the other side of the bend in the road on the right.

It was an elderly woman. She was short. A lot shorter than me if I was standing on the ground. She walked rapidly towards us. At least, it looked like she was walking. Each step somehow consumed so much space that it was as if she was running faster than a horse. She was swiftly progressing her way along the newly redecorated section of mountainside. Her movements were deceptively calm.

She leapt up over a chunk of debris that I hadn’t found the time to clean up just yet, landing on our side of the road. It was an impossible jump. A movement that no ordinary person would have been able to make.

Everything about her was fluid. It was as if there was nothing about her white robes that constricted her at all. She held a blade in her right hand. The empty sheath trailed on her left. She raised her head. Her skin was creased, and her face was mottled with spots. Her eyes met mine. They were hard, but they softened once they settled upon me.

She turned to Yvette’s sleeping form, and her gaze hardened once more.

Why does she scream murder to my senses?

“Good afternoon, sister,” the figure called out.

Careful.

I didn’t know if there was anything I could do that would set her off. All I knew was that I wanted to keep her peaceful.

“Good afternoon,” I replied. “What’s your name?”

She looked over the scene grimly and sheathed her blade. “I am Laurence de Montfort.”

I froze. That was a name that I knew, even if it was only by reputation. The Regicide. The Saint of Swords. She was a hero held in high renown, even in a place as harsh as Rhenia. Although I doubted that was as true for the nobility. I hadn’t taken a moment to ask the nobility about the Saint, but I suspected they would not have anything positive to say.

After all, she was responsible for slaying one of the Proceran Princes.

I didn’t know if I could convince her to help or not, but she would likely be a valuable ally deeper within the Chain of Hunger.

“I’m Taylor, the Aspirant.”

Her entire demeanour shifted the moment I spoke.

“What’s one of Compassion’s kids doing up north?” her voice was laced with concern.

“Augur said I was needed here,” I blurted out. “There is a Horned Lord coming. Are you able to help?”

The Saint of Swords went still.

“A Horned Lord is a few years ahead of what you can handle, kid.” She chided.

“You believe me?”

“I only just departed from another of these border forts, it had been overrun. Those longtails aren’t intelligent,” she pointed at the remains of one of the massive Ratlings. One of the few that were still around. “They don’t scheme. They should have tried to eat each other — I wouldn’t expect an attack like this. Only the very small and very old ones have a head between their ears. If they’re here in groups, it means there’s some kind of trouble deeper in the Chain.”

“I was told to come,” I replied. “Wouldn’t be here otherwise. Don’t know if I can kill it or not but… I can certainly help out.”

I reached out with my mind and continued the clean-up. Once I had finished, I began the process of actively reconstructing the gaping hole in the fortress walls.

I turned back towards her.

She looked at me thoughtfully.

“Well, no point putting it off,” the Saint declared. “Prepare for trouble, priestess. We’re going after the tiger in its own lair, so expect this fight to be a notch above anything you’ve been in before. Leave the sleeping kid and the horse at the fortress. Let’s go kill some Ratlings.”

She looked like she was about to start wandering off.

“Wait,” I interrupted her. “Yvie’s coming with.”

“You’re bringing an apprentice where we will be heading?” she asked incredulously. “Kid, are you wanting to die?”

“She’s not my apprentice,” I replied. “She’s my ward.”

If I felt I could trust anyone else to take care of her, then I would have left her behind. Unfortunately, I was certain that anyone else would tell her to toughen up. They would try to make her into a weapon and tell her that her trauma is normal. They wouldn’t help her to deal with it.

I also wanted to talk to her about what she had done.

“The Gods above draw no distinction between the two,” she stated.

“I put some effort into protecting Yvie,” I told Laurence.

“That isn’t the danger. Even if it was, that outfit of hers will do piss all against Ratling spears.”

It was actually very dense silk that I had made implausibly durable in the same manner as my robe.

“I reinforced it,” I corrected. “Anything that can cut through it would also cut through steel.”

I’d also burned a week’s worth of phantoms in order to make Yvette a blade that was impossibly sharp. There was a risk that it would call down the Gnomes, but I doubted that they would perceive it as a problem. The item was closer to magic than science. I had no hope of making one on my own without assistance, and nobody on Calernia would stand a chance at reverse engineering it either.

It was a weapon that could cut through anything at all if she ever found herself needing one. Items like it wouldn’t do much for me. That didn’t mean that they wouldn’t help the people I cared about.

“Relying on magic tricks is a good way to get killed,” she challenged.

“Better than nothing at all,” I replied.

“Fine, but have her stay at the back where her talents can be useful,” Laurence stated. “Don’t complain to me when this all ends in tears.”

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The day was finally reaching its end. It had taken over half an hour for Yvette to wake up again. She avoided meeting my gaze and had been quiet ever since. She slunk around like a naughty kid that knew that she had done something wrong, but didn’t regret doing it, and was afraid that her mom was going to be disappointed with her. I wasn’t sure what to do.

I would give myself at most another day or two to think over how to deal with this.

It was likely that she feared I was upset with her for killing the Ratlings. That…wasn’t the problem. The issue was how she had done it. It spoke to me about how she felt about her parent’s deaths. The emotions that she had suppressed. I was going to have to talk to her on the subject.

Trying to raise her made me feel sorry for my dad.

We had made a brief stopover at the fortress before departing once more. They had been under attack for over a day and had come dangerously close to having their defences collapse. Ratling assaults that were calculated and organized were far from normal.

Even if they were well-prepared for Ratlings, the nature of the attack had taken them by surprise.

Laurence was guiding the way deeper into the mountains. She had actual experience in the region. Yvette and I were following behind. We had abandoned the actual roads. At first, I had questioned why we were heading this way. This wasn’t the normal path into the Chain of Hunger. Laurnce had told me that she was following the trail of the force that had attacked the walls instead.

The sun was setting by the time we made camp. Currently, I was in the process of slowly reshaping the terrain. I was carving us a miniature stronghold into the side of a cliff face. The excess matter was turned outwards, erecting fortifications that we likely would not need.

I didn’t expect any attacks during the night. I couldn’t sense any of the wrongness nearby. Now that I knew what to look for, it was obvious to my senses when Ratlings were close. They had a taste to them. Like diluting tea with vinegar.

Knowing we were likely safe wasn’t an excuse for me to be careless.

We had encountered a few more bands of Ratlings since the meeting with the Saint.

I felt the sliver that was the Saint approach me from behind. She was still uncomfortable for me to be around. I was sure that I would have trouble sleeping. I was willing to tolerate her presence if it made this calamity more manageable.

“You crossed blades with the Warlock once?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

I stopped what I was doing as she sat down on a rock to my right. I sat down beside her. The two of us had our backs to the eastern cliff face, facing away from the dying sun. Yvette knelt beside a cook pot before us. The flames crackled heartily as she watched the contents. Her attention would drift every so often, before it would snap back after another rumble from the fire.

She averted her gaze guiltily when she noticed that I was looking her way.

Sisyphus stood beside Yvette, his dappled coat shining in the light of the fire. The Saint had thought bringing the horse along was a waste, but I was confident that without the use of my abilities we could keep up better with a mount.

“The man’s killed thousands. Are you prepared for when you fight him again?”

I blinked.

It wasn’t a question I had been expecting. She had stated it as if it were a given.

“When, not if, I fight him again?” I inquired.

“You’ve had your loss, and it ought to have been decent practice. You tried taking a hatchet to the rot, but your first fight came before the rising sun.”

“I don’t think I can beat him,” I admitted.

“It’s good to know your limits, but you’re flinching” she cautioned. “You don’t have to win the next clash of blades, although it would be a blessing if you did. Even if we can only arrange for a draw on your terms, then the knife to the throat is assured, kid. Don’t you know about patterns of three?”

“That explains a lot,” I grumbled.

I grasped what she was referring to. It wasn’t that I hadn’t known about patterns of three in stories, but more that I had been thinking of stories in Calernia in terms of the more obvious tropes. It hadn’t occurred to me to consider the broader narrative structures. The information helped to contextualize the fight with the Arcadian Artist. If I had known that we were fated to meet again, I would have been far more alert.

The Saint was an experienced hero. Probably the most experienced hero I would ever meet. She was grouchy and acerbic, and I doubted I would ever like her, but that didn’t mean her advice wouldn’t be good.

“Have you ever heard of the Two Hundred heroic Axioms, Taylor?”

I hadn’t. For all that they sounded important, it was difficult to find any information on Names at all. I suspected they were all trying to hide their weaknesses. It was frustrating and counter-productive in the long term. Heroes would have a much easier time if they could easily find out more about those who came before. History was doomed to repeat itself if it wasn’t made easily available for people to learn. It made me wish for the internet.

“No.”

“They’re pieces of advice. Following them helps a hero live longer.” she explained. “Phrases like ‘If your band is split during a harrowing test set by a villain or ambiguous entity, you may safely assume you will next be reunited in some sort of cell or unfolding sacrificial ritual,’” she quoted.

“Any others like that?”

It would surprise me if I didn’t recognize most of what she mentioned. I would still ask so that I could hear about local stories that I was unfamiliar with.

“There are more common axioms like ‘don’t swing from chandeliers while wearing armour’.”

“Do people actually do that?”

“Of course they do.” She sounded affronted. “Kid, you’re a hero. Listen to your choosing. Learn stories, then make sure to drag villains into the right ones. Don’t shy away from ending their lives once you pull them in, because that’s when they’re as good as dead.”

It was an exceedingly monochrome way of viewing the world. One that didn’t fit the person that I had decided to be.

“My choosing suggests otherwise,” I replied. “What other advice do you have?”

She paused, looking me over critically. “Do you know who the most dangerous villain I’ve ever faced was, kid?”

I considered the question. I didn’t know enough about the Saint of Swords to give a definite answer. That didn’t mean I couldn’t give no answer at all.

“It won’t be a fighter. It will be a mastermind. Someone dangerous because of how smart they are.”

“The most dangerous villain I ever faced was my first: an alchemist so sickly he could barely hold a sword.”

“Did he create plagues with long incubation times and kill people that way?”

“No, he made antidotes. Potions to end plagues and heal the worst of injuries.”

“What was the problem?”

“People were going missing, and I looked into it — bandits and criminals, as it turned out. He was keeping them in cells and using them for bloody research.”

“Human experimentation. What happened after you caught him?”

“I let him off with a warning. I told him he could use animals and not people.”

“He didn’t listen,” it was obvious where this story was going, “or he pretended to listen. Made something useful. He ingratiated himself with people. They ignored what he did to keep him around.”

Songbird would have been similar, only more personal. I felt chills. Was letting her go a mistake?

“You understand then. There can be no truce with the enemy. I know it will be especially hard for you. Compassion is your wheelhouse, and it isn’t mine. Don’t let your own feelings blind you, Taylor.”

“This villain. Did you stick around or visit every now and again?”

“I wandered by when the calling came to me. I have never remained in one place for long.”

“Change is hard,” I began carefully. “Without someone to guide him, it would have been easy for him to fall back into old habits.”

Not that I thought that someone whose first recourse was to lock people up and experiment on them was likely to look for change.

“You’re young. I’ve seen many of these ‘turnabouts’ over the years. Damned that made their apologies and swore they’d never meant to hurt anyone. None of them kept their word. There can be no compromise with the enemy,” Laurence repeated firmly.

I was not going to argue about this with her. Laurence was old. Old and likely stuck in her ways. I would never change her mind. I didn’t agree with her conclusion. Good was about guidance. She hadn’t provided any. Setting down rules and expecting someone to follow them was the act of a ruler, not a teacher.

“I think that if he had really wanted to be redeemed, then he would have lost his Name,” I answered diplomatically.

“I hope you can still believe that there was even a chance, in a decade,” she said.

“You think I’m going to fight the Warlock again?”

“There is no certainty except under the grace of our Gods, but it would be foolish not to prepare,” she stated confidently. “You’ve already fought with the Warlock once. When the time comes, unsheathe your blade and don’t hesitate to slit his throat.”

I wondered why she hadn’t just gone across the border and tried to solve the problem herself.

“Because I’m one woman, not an army, Taylor.” There was a flash of pain across her wrinkled face.

Had I said that out loud?

I turned away, looking back to the fire before us. Yvette’s attention had fully drifted. She had her head buried in a book and her nose kept twitching. I smiled sadly watching her.

“In the past, I fought the Ranger. She left me in the dirt with a hole in my chest. I would be dead if it weren’t for Tariq wandering by.” she finished softly.

“Anything else you think I should know?”

The two of us sat there watching the fire as the sun set. The Saint continued to talk. She shared her perspective on what it meant to carry a Name. I didn’t agree with much of what she said, but I understood the crucible that had made her what she was.

She had gone from tragedy to tragedy. It was a common theme I noticed in every story that she told. The Saint of Swords always arrived after the first disaster. Her Role was to prevent the second one from occurring. It was hard to avoid becoming bitter after living so long and only seeing the world at its worst.

I sat and listened. I wasn’t willing to contemplate fighting a war without ever considering negotiation except in very specific circumstances. There were times to set down rules. Agreements that could be made that would benefit everyone. The dogma of the Saint of Swords was one that would only ever end in ruin. If we were joined together against other people and not a race that was compelled to be Evil, I would probably put up much more of a disagreement.

That didn’t mean I wasn’t willing to hear what she said.

After all, it was my chance to learn more about the life of a hero from somebody who had lived it, one story at a time.