It wasn’t that unusual for a city to prohibit a foreign army inside its walls, even if that ‘army’ consisted of only one hundred strong and under contract. So when Corwin waddled his way toward Speranzi, she was already prepared for what he had to say, at least part of it.

“Brigands… I see.” She frowned deeply. “This is like that time, isn’t it?”

Corwin knew what she meant, three years earlier, a city required that she station her soldiers in a nearby forest so that their citizens would not be ill at ease. In reality, there were reavers and escaped criminals within and the organized force would inevitably encounter them, resulting in a ‘free’ cleanup of a problem.

“Yes, it’s like that time.” He acknowledged with a nod that felt like a weight pressed against his head.

“At least the bounty was good.” Speranzi remarked with a winsome smile that chilled to the bone the few who saw it.

“Just… do me a favor, and don’t send anyone after them. I know it seems like easy money, and normally I wouldn’t ask. But this is different.” He insisted.

“This again? Look, a peasant and a slave are-” She began, but stopped when his hand came to her shoulder. One of the very few to feel comfortable reaching out to touch her in any way, it was made more palpable by the fact that she could already smell the sweat forming on his palms.

“Please. Just do this for me. I know you think you’d be doing something to appease the gods for whatever you think you’re being punished for… but you’re not. Just please, for me?” Corwin asked and in a rare moment of near nervousness while she looked down at his fat sweaty palm on her armored shoulder, Speranzi nodded.

“Fine. Give my soldiers an extra ration of ale and I’ll tell them to stay encamped and not leave. We’ll call it even, I give my word.” Speranzi promised, and Corwin’s body relaxed.

“Thank you. I’ll wait so that we can go in, and an extra ration will be fine. Just don’t take too long, I’d like to make sure we get set up before sunset.” Corwin said, all business again, and Speranzi inclined her head.

“Naturally.” She replied and with a piercing whistle that caused the hundred and one to flinch, she called for her soldiers to gather and settle in for a long, lazy day.

“It’s not fair that we don’t get to go in.” Skana groused and approached the campfire.

“Agreed, just because we’re a hundred strong, experienced mercenaries armed to the tits with sharp pointy things and accustomed to blood and slaughter… why should they feel the least bit nervous?” Micah asked and tossed a log into the flames.

“Ye- wait… sarcasm. Of course.” Skana replied to the caster and groaned. “I asked for that. I guess I didn’t think it through.”

“No, no you did not. Is that just a thing for you?” Micah asked, the not even remotely subtle dig was enough to make her snap as she sat down, the cool moss of the log that served as an improvised seat was a little damp, her pants would be dirtied later but accustomed to a little dirt, she ignored it. Instead Skana’s eyes were fixed on his.

“Give the girl some rope, Micah, she’s alright. She hasn’t done anything-” Darion started to protest, but before he could finish, Micah barked a rough…

“Shut up.”

“You shut up.” Skana snapped at Micah, snarling at him, “What did I ever do to you to get this much hate? I’ve never met you before coming here, but you’ve done nothing but insult me since day one. Did I do something to you in some other life?!” She raised her voice and from other nearby crackling flames, heads turned toward the noise of the start of an argument.

Micah, to her surprise, did do as she said. He shut up, he stared at her in baleful silence, and she met his tense, hard eyed stare with one of her own.

“You really don’t know, brigand?” He asked, and she winced at the word.

“Reaver. Bandit.” He spat the words out with hate thick on his tongue, and though Skana winced, she accepted them as truthful accusations.

“Bastard.” She accused him in turn, and it was his turn to wince. “What in the seven hells do you know? Pampered brat.” She spat into the flames in disgust and the embers beneath the licking tongues of fire hissed.

“I got thrown out of my house, how dare you say something like that peasant!” He hissed back.

“Your mother was a peasant. And you got ‘thrown out’ with a full education and probably a purse full of coins! What do you know about anything, caster!” Skana hissed at him, “I can’t even read! You left a home, mine burned! The things I had to do to stay alive, you’d have cut your own throat to avoid!” Her eyes filled with tears of rage. “Bastards like you wouldn’t teach anybody anything unless their mother got screwed by the right father! Bastards like you would have left me ignorant of everything! I learned how to survive, how to fight, the only way I knew how! The only people who would teach me anything… even if I did have to hide what I was! Fuck you!” She balled up her fists and leaned toward the magic caster.

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“Fuck you, your lordship! Yes, I was a bandit! A reaver! A brigand! But what makes you any different than me! Just a bigger gang and a bigger treasury! You got lucky, finding Lady Jadara! She kept you honest! If it weren’t for her, maybe you would find your way into some lord’s service with your magic, but every person at this fire would be no different than me!”

“How dare you!” Micah snarled back at her and reached to grab her, but before he could, Darion’s hand came out and took his wrist, stopping it cold before it could come close.

“Don’t even think about it, Micah. She’s got a point.” Darion answered, while he was not heavily built, his hand squeezed on the magic caster’s wrist.

Micah suppressed his wince and yanked it back as Darion released it.

Skana flashed a grateful smile at the young warrior, then faced her taunter. “I did what I had to do to get strong enough to follow Lady Jadara. That’s all.”

“And how many villages paid the price for you?” Micah asked, “How many people did you cut down to steal from their corpses?”

Skana pursed her lips tight, her bright green eyes did not so much as blink, “Fewer than paid the price of buying your services, I promise you that. And besides,” she looked around the fire to the half dozen soldiers, “for half the people in this camp or more, their fathers are worse than I ever was, your lordship.” She stood up, “I’m warm enough, I’m going to take a walk.”

Nobody objected to her departure, though at her back there were harsh noises of half guttural and half whispered words, the noise of a few shoving bodies quickly followed, but Skana did not look back, she kept walking away from the lit flames and toward the darkness.

“Asshole.” She muttered, barely noticing that the glows of campfires were becoming dots with every step away.

The outline of the city walls lay in front of her. “She told us to stay in camp.” Skana muttered it out loud.

But the words of Micah hung in her head. ‘Bandit. Brigand. Reaver.’ She looked up at the walls and the gates, the guards and archers. “Then again… I never was too good at following orders. It’s just a spot of fun, and fuck me but I want another drink.” She smacked her lips, the extra ration of ale had hit the spot, but she wanted to hit that spot again.

Skana wavered a moment, “Screw it.” She said and activated her martial arts.

The walls were clearly patrolled, but with the advantage of the darkness and the lack of expectation that anyone would do what she was about to, Skana felt confident in her expectations.

She took off at a dead sprint, the ground flew past her feet and she rushed toward the wall, she jumped, one foot struck the stone, she pushed off, toward the outcropping of wall that made the river gate, and pushed again, carrying herself up, and up, and up almost faster than the eye could follow.

A blur of motion carried her to the crenelations on top just as the nearest guard’s back was turned, she could smell his sweat and hear his breath and the flickering of the torch in his hands. She heard his heavy foot take another step away from her, and then she was gone.

The long fall might have killed or severely injured anyone under normal conditions. But with both her martial skills activated, she hit the ground, rolled, and got up to walk off as if she were just any other person walking through the city at night.

If anyone saw her now, they’d never know she didn’t live there.

The city was impressive in its way. No building was on exactly ground level, and it wasn’t hard to figure out why. Built on the Long River’s most dangerous, and if her guess was right, one of its only easily spannable places, the fear of floods must have been constant.

As such, every building sat on a series of blocks almost as tall as a person, and notably each block seemed to have holes bored through them in even increments to allow the passage of water through to the other side.

‘I wonder if it overflows often?’ Skana asked herself, she could hear the flow of water not far away as she killed her mana burn to keep her strength up. Her face brightened, “I guess I’ll have to ask that when I find a tavern!” She said and began to stride deeper into the city, while Laylan wasn’t the size of Prioche, it was considerable in its own right, and if she hadn’t known what to look for, it would have been easy to get lost.

But she did know.

‘When the sun goes down, the beer is where the lights are!’ She reminded herself of the rule Bodger taught her years before, ‘I owe at least one drink to the man, even if he was scum.’

She was alone with her thoughts on the long walk through the street, only following the distant guiding lights that lit up the city center where most taverns and places of night time entertainment could be found. And being ‘alone with her thoughts’ was the last thing she wanted.

Alone, the troubling memories began again to reassert themselves. ‘That glow is just like my village, the day it burned to the ground… the day they all died… I’ll drink to them all tonight… someone’s got to. Someone’s got to…’ She told herself and squeezed her eyes tight shut as the recall of the noise of the shrieks of the dying reached her ears again and again and again.

And worst of all… ‘You coward… hiding in the woods and watching it all happen… piece of shit… piece of shit… piece of shit…’ She cursed herself and the old sense of horror that settled itself on her with nothing to distract from the moment.

The screams of the slaughter from the day of invasion were replaced by the screams of other slaughters and sacrifices…

‘A few drinks will quiet that…’ She told herself… and another scream caught her ear.

The light was close, very close.

But it wasn’t as bright, as the woman’s scream of agony was loud and piercing.

It ripped through the air and ripped through Skana’s soul and yanked her out of memories of a vanished life and back to the present.

Her heart raced into her throat as she tried to place the distance and direction of the scream, a scream she’d heard before.

A scream she’d heard on the walls of Prioche.

‘What could make Speranzi scream like that?!’ She wondered, and without thinking, Skana took off at a dead run toward the next scream to rip through the light to find her ears again.