Dromin - Book 1 Ch. 33 - 35

Hello readers! I'm so grateful to all of you who have been reading my story. I have been enjoying telling the tale of Mathew in the world of Dromin. For those who are not aware, I do not write to a schedule, as writing is a hobby, not a career. I apologise if I go two months without an upload, that's to make sure what I do provide is of the highest quality I can provide. I'm not making this up as I go along, I'm structuring the story ahead of time to develop a clear sense of progression. This takes time and I like the freedom to just write when I enjoy it.

A heads up, as the story progresses, I will need to branch more and more into other character's POV. This section has two chapters like that. I find that they are useful for properly explaining the weight of certain key events rather than Mathew's POV ( which advances the plot according to Mathew, but doesn't explain what the world is doing in the interim).

Lastly, if you like the story, leave a comment to let me know what you liked best! I don't think there's an algorithm or anything, just I like knowing that the little things I agonized over were appreciated by someone.

Enjoy!

Chapter 33 - Night Watchman

The morning came with disturbing news. Assignments were handed out before the day's training and the relevant blades were given their orders. But when Cort announced the morning roster, my name wasn't on it. After reading out those names, he moved on to the afternoon roster and, again, my name wasn't assigned to a unit. I drew a long breath as a sickening feeling moved into my stomach.

Night Watch.

Whilst filling in for the town watch was generally a safe job, and paid poorly accordingly, the night shift was a very different beast. In the two weeks we'd been at the Arena, the Blades who had been assigned to Night Watch were always the experienced, higher-ranked blades. Rarely were white blades chosen and even then, those that were chosen were usually about to be promoted. But never bladelings like myself. It paid the same as a regular town watch job, but there were many problems that came out at night which simply weren't present during the day. Thieves, drunks and criminal gangs roamed the streets at night and inexperience was deadly if not backed by solid training.

It had been mentioned that at least one of the criminal gangs in the city was organised enough that they had their own promotion system for managing their ranks and that killing a member of the watch was part of their promotion process. That extended to Blades of Mondarin who were filling in. I'm not sure how much of that was hazing the new recruits and how much was true, but I wasn't so confident in my weapon work as to discount the threat.

But, when Cort read off the unit roster for the three Night Watch units, my name wasn't there. Curiously, for some reason, I was assigned to Gate Duty. More curiously, the Night Watch patrols were organised into three-man teams.

The standard was four.

Cort grinned at me sickeningly. "Mathew... you're not on the patrol roster, at least officially, but I reckon you need some experience... with me and Brendon on the River District, sundown to sunup. You'll take Aaron's place with us and he'll take yours. I'll personally make sure you don't fuck up your first job."

Well, so much for being nice.

"River District isn't so bad," whispered Brendon. "It's the wealthier side of town, so we won't be by ourselves. Each of the wealthy houses has guards that protect their town houses, so if you run into someone stealing or mugging, they generally help out. It makes their lives easier because most of the gangs don't bother with the River District now. It's not worth the risk."

"But to be partnered up with Cort?" Rio whispered. "That's not right. He doesn't take watch shifts... he says it's beneath him."

I knew it was wrong. But what was I to do? It was easy to run off to Gleeson or Thorpe and ask for reassignment; I'd probably even be successful, but Cort was a predator and a bully and he'd singled me out to be his next target. This was a pest, but it was also an opportunity. Either I could run away and he could continue thinking I was weak and, realistically, I would lose face in front of the other Blades, or I could lean into this assignment and earn the respect of the Arena, even if Cort would still hate me.

One thing I learned on Earth was that people loved a survivor. Someone who got handed a shit sandwich, but made it work and came out stronger. I'd grown up in Australia where the 'Aussie Battler' was a respected stereotype; the farmer who got smacked down time and time again, but kept getting up to keep the cattle station running.

Then there was the risk: what did Cort have planned? Teams of three meant that he wanted us separated, but why not just go with me alone? Then again, the River District was relatively safe, so an 'accident' wouldn't be as believable. Maybe he just wanted to make me sleep-deprived so he could crush me in the morning with drills?

I figured that, with the exception of him literally stabbing me in the back and having to kill Brendon as well, I'd probably survive the night. Even better, Brendon was known for being particularly good with the halberd; he could handle any bandits that might try their luck. But as I warily accepted the assignment and looked at Cort's shit-eating grin, I knew that something was terribly, terribly wrong.

The day went slowly.

All those on night duty were excused from training to get rest and prepare for a sleepless night. Except me. Cort ordered me to train with the silver blades and run drills with them all day as he "didn't want me to cut my own head off." He, on the other hand, went back to bed.

So I joined the silver blades in their sword drills, advanced halberd work and unit tactics.

Gee, I thought Cort was brutal.

In their defence, the silvers were nicer about it than Cort. They allowed me short breaks and encouraged me when I got smacked down, but they didn't accept weakness or excuses. These were seasoned mercenaries who had all seen friends die in battle. They were training for the real deal and expected me to keep up. And so, when Gleeson came down for his hour of training, I was expected to be in the ring too.

I'd actually been waiting for this; I was curious to see how my Krav Maga, Jiu-Jitsu and Judo would fare against his grappling swordwork and, overall, it went like everyone expected.

Not well.

But in the last round, the dwarf came close enough to me during a disarm attempt and, as he went to twist my sword and leverage it against me, my old sensei's voice came screaming through: "Weapon fixation!"

I was too focused on keeping my sword and he was using it against me. As he spun the sword, I let it go and it was quickly flung far out of my reach by the pressure the dwarf had applied, but in that split second, I had an opportunity to attack. As Gleeson continued the disarm, I stepped in close to his body and deep into his guard, and used the momentum to elbow him in the visor of his helm, completely ringing his bell. I quickly slipped my arm under his sword arm and I locked my hands behind his neck and spun hard. The dwarf flew with it in a tight circle and, for a second, I thought I'd done it.

But then he went light: not resisting, not stumbling, just letting me turn myself. I felt the trap a heartbeat too late. I started to switch directions, loosening my grip to steer his head the other way, but the instant that pressure came off his neck, he slipped his head under my arm and vanished behind my shoulder. His boot hooked my ankle as his weight yanked my shoulders back and down. The world tilted. My back slammed into the sand and the air detonated out of me in one ugly gasp...

... just as Gleeson dropped his knee into my sternum.

The dwarf was off me as soon as he had driven his knee into me and stood up, grinning knowingly, as I held up a weak hand and rolled to the side. The Platinum Blade chuckled as I emptied the contents of my stomach into the sand. When I finally finished coughing and retching, I glared up at him and saw he was actually looking kind of impressed.

"It's been a long time since I've had to counter that kind of grapple, Mathew. I doubt any of these Silvers would even be able to slip my guard like that. Good work. Take a spell, get a drink. NEXT!"

I stumbled away to the water station and rinsed my mouth out, spitting the putrid taste into the sand as I'd seen more than one silver blade do after a training session with the insanely gifted dwarf.

As I sank into a squat against the stone wall that separated the Arena stands from the sand, an older silver blade came across and sat down next to me. I recognised the twinkle in his eye and remembered that he was the one who had mysteriously told me to stop acting my age a week before. Curiously, I hadn't seen him since (I assumed he'd been on assignment somewhere), and at the moment, I was too winded and worn out to really give him much thought.

"That's not a style of fighting I would expect someone like you to attempt, let alone almost pull off, against Gleeson."

I spat some more water into the sand beside me.

"I've picked up a thing or two."

"In the Shadowspine Plains?" The man was neither asking nor making a knowing statement. His inflection suggested that, whilst some people assumed that from my accent, he didn't believe it.

"I've been around."

Once again I noticed the mottled silver, bronze and copper streaks in the man's brown hair. He was older than me, but he didn't look nearly as old as he felt. It irked me that I couldn't read him like everyone else. When he spoke, the meaning revealed was deliberate. He knew how to modulate his voice to only ever give away what he wanted, and nothing more.

"How mysterious," the man said with a chuckle. "You are an enigma. A white blade who can barely fight with a sword, however, almost knocked a living legend off his feet." He hummed a little tune which, even in my exhausted state, I filed away for later. It was a haunting little tune in a natural minor mode. Aeolian? Probably. Repeated notes a perfect fifth from the tonic and then drifting back down in dotted quavers. I could work with that, write some words... so I mentally borrowed it.

"You can have that one," he said, as if he'd read my mind. "I can see another musician a mile off. You're not a hack or a part-timer, either..." He pointed to the ring where Gleeson was 'educating' yet another Silver Blade. "This is your hobby, isn't it?"

I said nothing. I was used to reading people and seeing who they were, but having it turned on me was uncomfortable. Worse was how accurate this damn fellow seemed to be. He wasn't just insightful; he seemed like a bloody psychic which, given that magic and Gods were real, gave me no little discomfort.

I hadn't had a chance to practice much music since coming to Dromin. A little singing on the road with Laura and the twins when we first left Copperwise Village was the only time I'd really had the time. Basic survival and then, what I could only describe as PTSD, had completely sapped any creative impulse. But this mysterious Blade of Mondarin was right: try as I might, train as I might, this was my hobby. Emergency medicine was my hobby. I was good at it. But I was only the best at one thing.

Music.

I was a skill junkie. A jack of all trades, and a master of only one. But, despite my degree, my years of experience as a concert pianist and vocalist, the decades of teaching, the gigs in grimy pubs that went until 1 am and only ended when some drunk guy tried to make off with your foldback speaker... that mastery wouldn't do me any good here. My most practised skills, my profession, the very essence of who I was, hell, the very seat of my soul were useless here. I was relying on nothing more than hobbies and passing fancies to survive. No, it was worse than that; I was relying on those meagre skills to protect others.

How fucked up was my ego, believing my side skills were enough to bet other people's lives on?

I breathed out a long sigh in resignation.

I felt the man's eyes bore into me. "You're mighty quick to focus on the negative," he chided, quirkily. "I'm not trying to depress you."

"What the fuck are you?" I snapped in a moment of clarity. This man had near psychic levels of perception. He was easily older than me, and the more he spoke and the more I looked into his eyes the more I believed he was older than anyone here.

"I'm a musician, like you. Tell you what, I'll give you some advice. Tonight, be you. All of you. The medic, the knight, the hero, the paladin, be it all. Make no mistake, you're good at this. But tomorrow, when you get back to the Arena, you'll need to be the performer. Be what you truly are to hide who you truly are."

I stared at this man, who got up and jogged back to the ring where Gleeson stood waiting. He put up a good fight against the dwarf, before being soundly beaten and thrown across the sand like everyone else. But now, I saw that it was different: it was a performance. He telegraphed his attacks, fell into his throws. And Gleeson? He looked like he was in a hypnotic dance, going through the motions without realising that he was being back-led by this weird Silver Blade.

It troubled me. I didn't like it when I wasn't the smartest person in the room.

Ok... that was arrogant. But I had got used to being relatively perceptive and intelligent compared to most people and having this guy come up and... I don't know. It was irritating that he had this air of mystery and I was just playing catch-up. That said, I guess I knew how Erica, Asha and Laura felt now.

The afternoon progressed slowly after that little chat. I started examining my skill set and a sort of panic began to set in. The strange Silver Blade had opened a hole in my confidence and I was analysing my ability to actually survive the night. I wasn't a knight, nor a mercenary. I wasn't a battlefield medic or a doctor. More than anything, I'd been damned lucky. I was a man who had a bit of martial training, some experience with emergency medicine and the power of a God filling in the gaps, a power that was intermittent and dangerous to use.

Dangerous? It was outright fatal. I'd killed people. My entire life, I'd never needed to kill anyone. But within a month of arriving in Dromin, my death toll was what? Eight? No, the bandit made nine.

How does anyone live with themselves?

But as slow as the afternoon went with my mind spinning in circles, before I knew it, Cort, Brendon and I were walking down streets that I'd never seen before. It was a nicer part of town, certainly, though it still had a smell of raw sewage that was somewhat diminished by the moving water of the river that flowed freely around the Westfall Keep and the fragrant, flowering bushes that I imagined had been planted on the verges for this exact purpose. The smell was fainter, the roads were paved, and it looked like there was care taken in regard to the continuity of the architecture. It wasn't opulent by any stretch of the imagination, but if I had enough wealth to live anywhere in Westfall, and couldn't leave this pestilent hellhole, this would be the obvious choice. It was also close to the Keep, which I imagined led to some additional protection if only because there would be additional guards at the castle should something go terribly wrong, such as a fire or a riot.

Cort was silent on the way to our route. With the exception of a harsh order to follow him, he said nothing to me or Brendon on our way to the River District. I had no intention of passing the time with him, or getting to know him better. I just needed to get through this night, and if he wanted to ignore us, then that was fine with me. We had been on the streets a little over an hour, weaving our way around the rather nice roads, ignoring the city folk and being ignored in turn. Brendon and I had tried to have some sort of conversation, but were silenced roughly by Cort. The Silver Blade set a decent pace and after the second loop, as we began a third, I realised that it took about half an hour to walk our entire beat. The entire time, we had seen no trouble, so my nerves were finally beginning to settle. It was about halfway through our third loop when Cort stopped in the street at a building that was obviously not a residence, but also not a tavern. It smelled of flowers and perfume more than most, and a warm light streamed out of the windows. Cort looked at the building for a moment and turned to us.

"Right. We've done it twice. You know the route now?"

I nodded. Brendon rolled his eyes.

"Good. I have a contact that I need to speak to. I'm..." I could tell he was fishing through his brain for an excuse "... getting intelligence for some high-level bounty contracts, so not a word to anyone. If everyone knew this is where I get them, they'd all come down here to pick them up first and they wouldn't get distributed fairly."

I couldn't believe that anything this man said would sound sincere, but this was further from it than even I had imagined, so I just nodded in feigned acceptance.

"So you want us to wait... or...?"

Cort snorted in derision. "No, I want you to continue patrolling the route! Useless boy! Keep patrolling as we have and I'll finish my business inside and join you later. Every time you pass here, I'll see you, and when I'm done, I'll come out."

Alarm bells were ringing in my head. This was insane. Even I, inexperienced as I was, knew that this was a load of crap. I could be pretty sure that this place was a brothel. I knew his 'contact' was probably rented by the hour, so who knew how long we were going to be on our own? Probably two cycles at least. First job on the streets and my CO was leaving to go wet his dick.

But without any opportunity to argue, he disappeared inside and we walked our route, a little slower than the pace Cort had set, as the moon rose higher. We had brought a lantern for when the sky got dark, but I hadn't had to light it as my eyes picked out every detail in the silvery glow cast by the rising moon. Brendon lit his as the shadows grew longer and deeper, but I left mine unlit at my belt. The elven boon provided by Erica and Asha's mother played back in my mind. She had kissed me and, whilst the kiss itself was pleasant, the surge of magic through my body was what I truly remembered. Almost a month ago now. That magic was subtle, but amazing. The way I could see and hear better, the way I blended into the shadows and moved without a sound was still a novelty to me. As a kid playing lantern stalk games or spotlight, I loved creeping forward and hiding from the searchers. Knowing that I could do it properly now was pretty cool.

"I cannot believe the Blade Warden would just send us off like this! Mpuuzi!" Brendon muttered, shaking his head. "No... I CAN believe it. That's the worst part of this. It's exactly the type of thing he would do. Night Watch are supposed to have at least four Blades per unit! Three is unheard of and then he goes to find a malaya?"

I assumed 'malaya' meant something akin to 'prostitute', filing it away for later as Brendon scanned the streets as we walked, muttering in a language that sounded similar to Swahili. "Ni wazimu na ufisadi! Yeye ni mwendawazimu! Does he want us to be killed?"

I was inclined to affirm that, yes, Cort probably did want me dead. But Cort was also a typical self-entitled bigot. The rules were meant for everyone except him and he could use anything to justify his behaviour because, according to him, he was right and everyone else was wrong. And, whilst I thought malice was definitely part of the equation, I suspected there was a lot of entitlement there too.

As we walked, I noticed a few things. Earlier in the evening, we still saw people working and labouring, but now that it was fully dark, the activity had shifted to social pursuits. Unlike around the city gates, a lot of the establishments where people would drink were purely taverns, with no accommodation at all. People congregated here, enjoying a pint quite late despite obviously having worked hard all day. I'd seen the way people wasted no second here and I guessed that it extended to the way they socialised.

Brendon chatted with a few locals as we passed them. Waves here, a handshake there, and we stopped to speak to an estate guard or two he knew from previous assignments. And, despite Cort abandoning us to our route alone, it was quite pleasant. Brendon filled me in on the way the routes worked: how we walked in the centre of the road to avoid ambushes, reminding me to check the eaves for bandits moving on the 'rooftop highway' and just generally filling me in on the way the society worked after dark.

Four laps later and Cort still hadn't joined us. It was now close to midnight by my count and I figured we were on our own for the rest of the night. Even the private security the richer families had hired were retreating inside their employer's gates and leaving the streets. We were alone. The 'good and honest folk' who had been enjoying the nightlife had all since retreated to bed and the streets were quiet now except for those sneaking into the surprisingly large number of brothels. Ok, it was probably only three or four that I could count, but that seemed unusually high for the district in my opinion. I had read that brothels were usually on the edges of medieval cities, not in the middle of the wealthier districts, but here they were, in plain sight. Another reminder to me that this world was not a straight copy of medieval Europe, magic notwithstanding. I needed to keep track of the differences in culture here.

The women on the streets enticing men into their establishments were, however, exactly how I would have imagined them. They were dressed scandalously, showing too much for polite society but remaining covered just enough to be decent. The girls' faces were caked with thick layers of rouge and powder; their lips were stained crimson against pallid skin and it was difficult to tell if the perfume came from them, or from the ribbons of pink-tinged incense smoke that curled through the brothel doorways.

"Do people actually find that attractive?" I muttered to myself.

Brendon overheard. "Cort. He's the kind of mpuuzi who finds it attractive."

I chuckled. "You and your sister keep using that word... what does it mean?"

Brendon smiled. "Just an insult from our homeland, it means..."

Suddenly, a scream in the night cut through the air. Brendon and I shared a look for half a second, and ran towards the sound. Rounding a corner, we found the source of the commotion: a pretty young girl, around the same age as the twins, maybe younger, who was struggling against the arms of a man who had them wrapped around her middle. She was crying and kicking as four other men were gathered around. They were dressed similarly in neat, clean tunics, each cinched with a leather belt. But crucially, all five of them had arming swords on their hips: good weapons, not crude or second-hand like commoners held. Each of them matched the others: they were a set.

"I'm not a whore!" the young girl screamed as we ran up.

"What is this?" demanded Brendon and he lowered the point of his halberd at the men. "Let her go. Now!"

I followed his lead.

The five men turned casually and, with my gift of elvish eyesight, I even caught one roll his eyes as he saw us. The group of men were uncannily similar: their stance, the way they turned, even the identical cut of their jawlines. Not brothers, but drilled into uniformity by the same drillmaster. They were almost synchronised, and I knew at once that these were no ordinary thugs.

The man holding the girl tightened his grip on his prize as another snarled at Brendon.

"Stand down! Fucking Blades always interfering where they don't belong. Hasn't Cort told you to keep your fucking noses out of our business?"

Brendon tightened his grip on his halberd and I slid my feet forward to tighten our two-man formation.

"I don't know who you are. Let the girl go, Citizen."

I could tell that was a careful lie. These men were obviously identifiable and, whilst I didn't know who they were, Brendon clearly did. But he was playing dumb and I had a feeling I knew why. The way they talked, the way they moved, the way they seemed to think they could order Brendon around... I'd heard that Lord Arnias had units of knights as a personal guard, and I suspected we'd just run into some. Or, at the very least, some form of law enforcement. Maybe Brendon thought that by playing dumb, he wouldn't get in trouble for challenging them. Maybe he felt that if they identified themselves there would be a scandal. Either way, it was a slim chance. These men exuded an air of entitlement and I could tell they were used to taking whatever they wanted. And they reminded me a lot of Cort.

The men laughed derisively, and my fears were confirmed as one of them grabbed a patch on the sleeve of his tunic and turned it so we could see it properly. It bore a coat of arms.

"See this? Now you know who we are. Stand down in the name of Lord Arnias. This girl is..." He paused for a moment and one of his unit chimed in.

"... being taken for questioning. She is suspected to have knowledge of threats against the Lord's life."

The first man grinned and nodded. "Yeah... that."

They had spoken the same way as Cort had when entering the brothel. Apparently, corruption was so widespread here that only the thinnest veneer of an excuse was required to let men in power do whatever they wanted.

But Brendon called them on it. He had a fierce look in his eye as he took a step forward, and I followed his lead. "Bullshit," he said, rejecting the Athnian Knight's excuse. "Let the girl go. You want to gang fuck a girl, go pay a malaya." He indicated to the struggling woman. "She is not for sale."

The knights all drew their swords as one, except for the brute holding the girl. He tossed her casually to the side first, then brought out his sword. Mercifully, she was able to run off into the dark and disappear, hopefully, back to her home.

Then, we were alone. Just blades in the night on an empty street. The private estate guards were conspicuously absent. No other citizen had been brave or foolish enough to investigate the girl's cries. I didn't think for a moment that the people were ignorant of what was happening here; they were just trying to keep themselves from being next. Brendon looked uneasy. He had done exactly what he should have. That was his job, and though these men were undoubtedly dangerous, he'd interceded on the girl's behalf without a second thought. But I could tell he didn't want to have to deal with the fallout.

"Are you sure you want to do this, gentlemen?" I enquired, trying to keep my voice steady and casual. "As far as we can tell, the situation is resolved. We have no further quarrel with you." My heart was racing. I was completely outclassed, and thanks to Cort's cruelty, my shoulders and forearms were already aching from a full day of drills.

The lead knight scoffed. "Fucking Blades of Mondarin need to be taught a lesson. I see five against two. Yeah, we want to do this."

Brendon adjusted the angle of his halberd to cover the men as they fanned out. "I see unarmoured chests and gloveless hands holding arming swords. I see heads without helms. This is not going to be good for you."

But his face betrayed his false bravado. It was a bluff. We both knew these men could outflank us. We both knew that a copper and a white blade together could not beat five knights, even with our advantage in arms and armour. Maybe we knocked out two or three of them. But not all five. I also suspected that, even if we survived, there would be consequences for standing up to the Lord's men.

"We'll see," came the snarled reply.

The men advanced simultaneously and we both let our halberds fly forward. We'd been trained to aim for the top of the torso, to use quick and efficient cuts and thrusts, but these experienced men were more than up to the challenge. They slipped by the heads of our weapons, quickly moving within our reach and forcing us to withdraw to place ourselves back in the proper range. Strikes came quickly, but we were able to parry and block with the hafts of our polearms and keep the men occupied with our superior reach. Suddenly, one of the knights lunged forward, past the head of my halberd in an attempt to run me through. I sidestepped and brought the butt of my weapon up in an arcing uppercut. The man's head snapped back and I brought the halberd back down, brutally, into his collarbone and he went down, hard, on the street's rough stone. The Athnian Knight groaned and rolled onto his side, clutching his broken clavicle as his sword clattered across the stones. Alive, thank God--or Goddess. I was sick of killing, but that didn't mean leaving an armed man at my back. Before his companion could close, I drove my heel down across his lower leg, just above the ankle, where there was little muscle to protect the bones. The tibia and fibula gave with a brittle crack. He screamed and curled around the injury. He was alive, but he wasn't getting up.

Brendon was struggling against three knights, keeping them in front of him and moving the axe head in a tight, circular guard which both parried the knights' attacks and kept the point in front of him. It didn't give them much opportunity to gain ground but, despite his near prodigious talent with the halberd, he was in full defence. I suspected that it was only because of that talent that he was still alive. As it was, I heard intermittent tings of the knights' swords as they glanced off his coat-of-plate. Sooner or later, they would find a gap.

I had been distracted by Brendon's situation and the other knight in front of me rushed forward, slapping the halberd away with his sword and grabbing the shaft with his free hand. I dropped the polearm, slipped another deadly thrust and closed the distance between us. I slammed my pauldron-clad shoulder into his sternum, driving the metal armour into his unarmoured torso, and the knight grunted as the wind was knocked out of him. But as I grabbed the halberd again and wrenched it back from his grip, the knight lifted his fist into my chin with surprising speed and I stumbled away from him, both of us taking a second to recover.

I wanted to help Brendon and take some pressure off him, but this damn knight wouldn't give me a moment to intervene. The man was flashing his steel at weird angles and it was taking my entire effort to keep him at bay. My armour rang as his sword glanced off my pauldron. Next, I felt the point in my chest, thankfully stopped by my own coat-of-plate. I took a step back and adjusted my length. I was at my skill limit here and my anxiety was growing. The knowledge that I was a novice in a master's game was thumping in my head. I heard a body hit the ground with a thud. It was one of Brendon's opponents. He was sporting a large open wound in his chest, a gaping cut through his ribcage and sternum, and spilling the contents of his torso onto the ground.

No. I wasn't ready for this. And even if I could beat this man, I wasn't ready to kill again. My breath quickened, my heart started racing and the sweat began pouring from my brow. My chest tightened, the crushing weight bearing down on me.

My opponent slipped past my axe head again, and I barely had the presence of mind to deflect a cut to my right. He stepped close and drove his boot into the outside of my right knee. The joint folded inward, sending a line of searing pain along the inside of my leg, and it collapsed beneath me. My knee felt like fire. In desperation, I swung the halberd in a crazy arc, low and tight, and the axe head cut cleanly through the knight's leg, amputating it below his knee and sending him screaming to the cobblestones.

Behind me, Brendon shouted something I didn't quite catch, but I whipped my head around to find him clutching at his chest, his hand coming away from it bloody. One of the knights had managed to find a gap in the armour. The sword tip had passed between two of the sewn-in segments of his coat of plate and into his torso.

I stood on my good leg.

My right leg was ruined for the moment. There wasn't much I could do but hobble forward. One of Brendon's two remaining opponents rushed at me and my temper flared as I watched the other leap towards Brendon and kick him in the chest.

I whirled my halberd and prayed, remembering at the last moment the divine energy I could put into my weapon. I'd been hiding the superhuman abilities with such fear of discovery that I wasn't used to drawing on them yet. In the heat of combat, I'd forgotten all about them. Now, I willed the power to the fore and it glowed within me as my weapon descended upon the knight. The man lifted his sword to parry the axe head, as would be the normal and expected defence, but the blade of my halberd glowed with an intense, holy radiance and cut through the metal of the weapon and passed effortlessly through the clavicle of the knight. Just like that one lucky strike against the tree while practising in the forest weeks ago, I watched the divine wrath carry my weapon through his body and leave a deep gash in the road's stone.

The knight fell to the ground in two directions.

I turned to help Brendon, but stopped in horror as I watched the last of the Lord's knights rising from where he had fallen upon Brendon. Brendon was limp.

Lifeless.

Blood was everywhere.

As quickly as I had dispatched his comrade, this knight had killed Brendon in just as little time, falling upon him and cutting at his exposed throat.

The smiling, dark-skinned copper blade, always helping, always encouraging. A loving brother who looked out for his sister, looked out for everyone. A man whose family extended to everyone he met. He would have made a good paladin of Bambinae.

No chance for last words. No 'look after my sister' as he faded heroically into the next life.

He was now, suddenly and irrevocably, just an empty shell on the street.

The man turned to me, smiling, victorious as he looked around him at the unconscious and dead scattered on the cobbled stones. Brendon's life had stained his white tunic red, but the man didn't even seem to care.

"Your turn." he taunted, laughing. The adrenaline from his recent kill was running through his body inducing some kind of mania. "Business before pleasure. I'll have to find her again, but that shouldn't be hard."

I blinked. This man. This monster had trained, fought and served with his unit. One was unconscious, two dead and another missing half his leg and this abomination's first thought was that it was slightly more inconvenient to rape that poor girl?

There are worse things than killing, echoed a voice in my head.

My heart rate slowed. My skin dried. My breathing returned to normal.

Allowing this man to continue to rape and murder makes me complicit. There was no way of telling whether the thought was mine or Bambinae's.

It didn't matter.

I dropped the halberd.

I stepped forward onto my ruined leg, not feeling the pain.

Bambinae was with me.

I was vaguely aware of drawing my dagger as I moved with a deliberate, divine wrath, but the movements were no longer just my own; Bambinae was with me.

Remove the cancer of unrepentant evil. Bambinae was with me.

It was the mission she gave me when we first met.

The man wore a complicated expression. He wasn't smiling any longer; he looked confused as he finally realised that he hadn't tried to stop me while I had slowly, inevitably, moved forward. I could feel the level of divine weight hammering down upon me, so it must have been crushing for him and he seemed paralysed on the spot by the immense force of it. His sword clattered to the stone street, lost through fingers that refused to hold it any longer. The Athnian Knight stammered something defiant. Something hateful.

But nothing repentant.

Even in the face of divine judgement... he was not sorry.

The knight still hadn't moved as I stepped up close to him, so close our faces were almost touching, and I looked sadly into his eyes and deep into his soul. He was so completely lost in his own self-importance, his own hatred, that he would never consider that he could be wrong.

I felt a deep, unyielding sorrow.

Why did I feel sorrow for him?

I realised then that I didn't. But Bambinae did.

Everything this man could have been, all the good he could have done, but chose not to. He rejected humanity. He rejected morality. He could have been a man who was welcomed into her arms as a blessed child. He could have been like Brendon. But, instead, he chose to kill that beautiful, beautiful man.

So, I embraced him. We embraced him. I held this monster in my arms as the tears slid down my face. He didn't understand. He couldn't understand. Regardless, he needed to experience kindness and love at least once before the end.

"You could have been brilliant," I whispered as I held the condemned knight. "I'm so, so sorry." His pupils dilated with the sudden pain as I slipped the knife through his ribcage, piercing his heart, just as he had broken Bambinae's. Then, the light left his eyes as he crumpled to the ground.

Remove the cancer of unrepentant evil.

Mechanically, I forced myself to move to the two surviving knights as I knew what had to be done. I didn't want to; I didn't want that blood on my hands. But, far more than that, I didn't want whatever crimes they committed tomorrow to be because I let them live. And in that righteous, divine wrath, Bambinae laid them bare before me. Not their future in every detail, nor some ledger of sins, but the truth of what they were: men who had chosen cruelty so often, and so gladly, that mercy would not change them tonight. And, with that knowledge, I could predict, with a certainty that made me sick; that if I walked away they would do this again.

There was no higher authority to appeal to; they were the Lord's knights. I couldn't capture them and take them for trial on my own. And even if I could, there was no system of justice for these men; they operated with impunity, without oversight. There was no system or person to prevent them from doing this again.

And again.

And again.

But I could put an end to their abuse.

I could have stopped myself. Bambinae was guiding me, but she hadn't taken complete control. That wasn't her way. She wouldn't force me. The choice had to be mine. I could have walked away, but I didn't. This was terrible, this was horrible, but it was necessary. I hated that I agreed with her. I hated that I had to be the one to do it. I hated that the responsibility was mine. And despite their sins, these two were at my mercy, this was straight-up execution. This didn't seem right.

But letting them live to continue the cycle of abuse seemed wrong too.

Bambinae wasn't pushing. She knew what she wanted and I knew her reasons, but she was letting me sort through it all at my own pace.

Every breath I stole from someone seemed like tar clinging to me, staining me. How many lives would I have to take? But that girl they were about to rape: that was someone's daughter, someone's sister. Maybe she was someone's Erica, someone's Asha or someone's Laura.

Laura.

And, with that thought, it became, undeniably, my choice.

And Bambinae was with me.

I hugged one close, weeping for his potential as I drew the knife from his heart. Then I did the same to the other, whispering a silent prayer that somewhere, somehow, he might be given a chance at redemption in another life. Like Donatu, it was so final. Like Deriostos, it was necessary. And like all of them, it went against everything I believed. Finally, with nothing but corpses and an aching sorrow around me, I turned to the lifeless body of my fellow Blade.

I cursed my stupidity. I should have remembered Bambinae's power earlier. I'd even been told earlier in the day to be the paladin! I could have tried to charge my weapon earlier. I didn't move faster, as I had with Deriostos; I didn't use super strength like with Donatu. I was supposed to protect the innocent. What was I doing?

The night air was still and the street devoid of any sound, as if the entire city was taking a minute's silence for the fallen hero. That's exactly what he was. A hero. Brendon's lantern flickered out, having been broken in the fight, and the lack of even such a subtle flame seemed to plunge the street into darkness.

I dropped next to this brave man as my injured knee gave out underneath me. Brendon's throat had been sliced clear open and, despite knowing there was no amount of healing that I could hope to achieve that would replace the volume of blood he had lost, I ran the power through my hands in a vain attempt to bring life back into his corpse.

Nothing.

I could feel the emptiness of the vessel in front of me. Brendon was gone. Whatever afterlife awaited him, he was already there. This shell was here, and it was no longer him. Tears in my eyes, guilt making me want to vomit, I staggered to my feet. My knee throbbed from either a torn ligament or a broken bone, I wasn't sure, but I willed myself to stand. I had one more job to do and my knee could go straight to hell for all I cared; it wasn't going to stop me.

I slipped my shoulder under Brendon's lifeless body, sucked in a breath at the pain and began my long, agonising walk, dragging us both back to the Arena.

Chapter 34 - Thorpe

Penaton heard the cry of pain as he approached the gatehouse. It was the cry of a man who was prepared for it, expected it and knew it had to happen, but was still overwhelmed by the sheer agony nonetheless. He noted the trailing moans were stifled as the man tried to hold on to his dignity.

The Commander rounded the corner and found his soldier collapsed against the interior wall of the gatehouse, just inside the portcullis. His leg was splayed out and the head medic was beginning to splint it while the White Blade bit down on a piece of soft dowel, breathing hard from the intense pain. The cries had obviously been from the traction the medic had applied to set the leg.

Thorpe had seen it all too many times before.

"Just take the laudanum," urged the second healer, with a small cup raised to the man's lips, but it was slapped from his startled hands as the soldier threatened to bite through the wooden rod.

"No opioids." He breathed hard through his gritted teeth, then ripped the dowel from his mouth.

"You have no idea... how strong that is... There's no fucking... Narcan for if... you... get it wrong..."

His voice broke into a shout.

"JUST SPLINT THE FUCKING LEG!"

Penaton didn't know what Mathew's objections meant, but he recognised the signs of accumulated trauma when he saw them. This wasn't a man who was reacting to combat for the first time. This was a man whose past trauma had been triggered by tonight's events. Penaton suspected that Mathew had fought the Iron Shield in the Copperwise Forest. According to Sir Gregory's report, he'd somehow single-handedly eliminated almost all of Revenant Company and, if the report was to be believed, had done so whilst unarmed. Thorpe couldn't believe it; it wasn't possible. But no matter how the Iron Shield Knights died, witnessing that kind of violence could carry a hefty price for a young man like Mathew. And whilst it seemed too much of a fantasy to believe, the trauma he was seeing now - that? That was real.

"What about Rio?" cried the mysterious White Blade. "How can I tell her? What do I tell her?"

Penaton looked towards a white sheet on the ground from which protruded a pair of boots, and his heart leapt into his throat as he walked towards the shape beneath it. Deep down, he knew what he was about to find, but couldn't accept it unless he saw it himself. Lifting the sheet, he swore softly as he saw Brendon's lifeless eyes and the dark, dried blood that almost blended into the man's jet-black skin. He pinched the bridge of his nose and wiped his face as the reality flooded him. It stirred more in him than the loss of other men. He tried to be professional. He told himself it was only because the man had been valuable: one of those rare soldiers who sharpened everyone around him, and that he was destined to be a fantastic leader. When Brendon was in a unit, the men worked better. Morale was better. They were focused.

He made them happy.

He made us happy.

But the truth of it was that Thorpe was devastated for no simpler reason than because he liked the man.

Brendon was loved like a brother throughout the company. And just like that; he was gone.

Penaton knew what this would mean for the men. He could see it even in the eyes of Mathew, who had barely known the soldier for a fortnight. The weary Commander dropped the sheet with a slow, deep breath.

Anger filled him; someone was going to pay for this, but he knew better than to let it out before he knew who was to blame. It had to be swallowed; now was not the time.

Watchman Aaron, having waited for exactly the right moment, approached him slowly and respectfully. Penaton silently praised the guard's intuition and remembered that the White Blade was due a promotion; Thorpe promised himself Aaron would get one.

"What happened?"

The answer came in hushed tones. "We don't quite rightly know, Sir. We didn't hear him until he was almost upon us, and we barely saw him at all until he was at the gate. He hardly had enough strength left to raise his voice. I sent Mason to get you and opened the gate. He'd dragged the Lieutenant's body from the River District... Sir, it's... it's over two miles of winding streets."

Thorpe glanced at Mathew, who was still thrashing against the medics, trying to stand now that his leg had been splinted. "On a broken leg? He dragged that man in full kit from the River District? On THAT leg?"

Aaron nodded. "I trained with him several times last week, Sir. He certainly gave the impression of a man who did what needed to be done when the demand came for it... but..."

"But what?"

"But it's impossible, isn't it?" Aaron whispered.

The Commander frowned. "I've seen many heroic things over the years. Maybe this is one of them." He looked around. "Where is Cort? I thought he was in the field tonight."

The White Blade shifted uncomfortably. "I haven't seen him, Sir." then added. "He did leave with them."

The Commander looked absentmindedly out the gate, wondering where the Blade Warden could be. "Did you send for Gleeson?"

"Yes, Sir. He left for the scene immediately after he pulled the location from Initiate Mathew."

Thorpe nodded, concerned. "Thank you, Watchman. You're up for promotion soon. You deserve it. I will be considering you favourably."

Aaron saluted solemnly and returned to his duties whilst Penaton turned and finally focused on Mathew.

"Report," he commanded in a clipped tone. He didn't want to be hard on the boy; it was clear he'd been through enough, but he needed to know what had happened. He needed details whilst they were fresh. He needed the soldier to focus.

Soldier? He's still just a boy. He's barely been with us for two weeks. He never should have been put on patrol. What was Cort thinking? And where was Cort? Was he dead too?

Mathew stopped his writhing and locked eyes with him. Initially, he saw sadness in the white blade's eyes. Then he realised there was also fierce determination there, alongside a seething anger that matched Penaton's own, but unrestrained and full of fury. Penaton watched as the young man ignored the medics' arguments, threw off the Commander's own hand and stood on his good leg, drawing himself up on his halberd as a crutch.

Penaton couldn't believe his eyes. The fortitude of the man was humbling. The man had hauled a fallen comrade in full kit for two miles, had his leg set without laudanum and then stood to attention. And this was after whatever had happened in the River District... the Commander softened.

"Easy, man. You don't need to push yourself."

But the boy pulled himself up regardless, and Penaton watched Mathew carefully as he calmed down from the frantic panic he had been engaged in earlier. The boy was putting iron back into his spine before he tried to speak. The breathing slowed. Mathew's eyes remained fixed on his own and the boy's jaw set in place. The anger remained in those focused eyes, and Thorpe felt a momentary wash of relief that it was not meant for him. Or was it? Something was off about it. Then there was a pause. Even now, the young man was choosing his words deliberately, thinking before he spoke, and the Commander let him take his time. Whatever he was told, Penaton somehow believed Mathew would not lie to him. Omit, possibly. But not lie.

"The Lord's Guard... were trying to rape a girl in the River District. The Lieutenant and I intervened. The Knights let the girl go, but drew their swords against us. We tried to de-escalate the situation, but they wouldn't back down. We fought. Brendon was killed. I brought him back here."

Mathew swayed in front of the Commander and the medics held him upright.

Penaton wished they could have done the same for him.

Nothing could have prepared the officer for the news he'd just received. He knew immediately how politically dangerous the situation was, whilst simultaneously suspecting the more he thought about it, the more he would realise he had woefully underestimated how dangerous it was. Penaton did not speak for a long time as he absorbed the information and the implications it carried.

"What did Cort do? Why didn't he come back with you?"

He regretted his words instantly. In all his years, Commander Thorpe had never felt intimidated by a soldier under his command. He was a monster of a man and had been since his mid-teens. His height and sheer bulk had always given him a quiet confidence: not arrogance, exactly, but a settled certainty that few men could truly threaten him.

That certainty abandoned him at the mention of Cort's name.

The boy, no... not a boy anymore... a man. This man had an aura pouring out of his skin so thick that Penaton believed he could almost see it radiating from the body. It was not rage, not merely. This was colder than that. Cleaner. It had weight. It pressed against him like... inevitability. Thorpe's pulse kicked hard against his ribs. His vision narrowed. The muscles in his legs tightened before he had given them permission, preparing him to move, to retreat, to put distance between himself and the thing standing in front of him.

He wanted to hide.

Not from the physical threat, though his body was screaming at him to flee, but from the gaze that promised to expose every sin he'd ever committed, every compromise he had swallowed, every act of cruelty he had mistaken for discipline, and every decision he had made that had led to this point. He was being judged.

But Mathew just stood there. Invisible power rippling through him, revealed only by Commander Thorpe's own, previously unnecessary, survival instincts.

There was a long silence as Mathew stared into Thorpe's eyes, holding him in place. Not with threat. Not even with command. Thorpe simply could not look away. And, in the silence, he was being forced to reflect. Forced to understand his sins.

It was unbearable.

Then, finally, the pressure relented.

It vanished so quickly that Thorpe could have sworn his ears popped from the change in pressure. Mathew's face softened, the wrath draining into sorrow, and he lowered his eyes to the blanket covering Brendon on the ground nearby.

"Cort wasn't there. He went into an establishment to meet an 'informant'. He told us to continue the beat until he was done."

Penaton was trying to piece the situation together. Nothing about this made sense. He knew Cort was tough on his recruits, but to leave them alone on Night Watch? It was insane. Cort knew better than that. And Mathew wasn't lying to him. He'd bet his life on that. He needed to find the man and figure out what the hell he was thinking.

Thorpe wanted to press. Wanted to push for more information, but Mathew's strength was fading and the Commander knew it would have to wait. Whatever anger had been triggered at the mention of Cort's name had drained the last reserves the man had left.

One more thing.

"You're sure it was the Athnian Knights? The Lord's personal guard?" he eventually asked. "Absolutely positive?"

Mathew nodded and spoke sadly. "They showed their colours and invoked his name. They wore his coat of arms on their sleeves. They moved and fought like a unit trained together."

The Commander swore. Mathew nodded, as if he shared the Commander's understanding of the political nightmare, then gasping as he shifted his weight and seemed to shrink back to the boy he had originally seemed. The power, the pressure... it was completely gone now.

"Sir, I know this will put you in a difficult position." The boy grimaced. "I understand the political weight this situation has, with greater comprehension than you might have expected."

Penaton Thorpe shook his head. "You're not at fault here, son," he tried to assure the young White Blade, all the while wondering whether he could ever discipline this man, even if he wanted to.

"With due respect, Sir..." The boy closed his eyes and the older man could see the effort this was taking him. "... you misunderstand me. I'm not asking for forgiveness... I'm trying to provide context..."

He fell forward in pain again and, after the man was lowered onto a stretcher that the medics had taken the opportunity to put behind him, Thorpe leaned down and Mathew spoke again, barely more than a whisper, but with all the same cold fury of before.

"There are no witnesses."

***

Thorpe sat behind his mahogany desk in his office as the first light of dawn crept over the horizon. A faint glow, nothing more, in the inky black sky. It was only an hour after Mathew had returned. This strange, strange man. He thought about the last words that Mathew had spoken to him before they took him off to the infirmary.

There are no witnesses.

He swallowed hard. It almost felt like a threat. A warning of some sort... but...

How?

How were there no witnesses? Logically, the boy couldn't kill one of the Athnian Knights himself. Thorpe didn't like the Lord's Guard, but he had to admit that they were chosen on merit and were exceptional swordsmen. He'd seen the reports of his new recruits; the boy wasn't anything special with the halberd. Gleeson had reported that the boy wasn't useless but "had potential". Cort had said that the boy was insubordinate and a borderline liability.

Then why did you put him in the field, man?

But the way Mathew had looked at him, the penetrating gaze that had set lime fire to his sin...

He shuddered.

Thorpe looked over the last week's training reports again. Usually, this was a job for Gleeson, but the dwarf had left to investigate the scene of the skirmish before the Commander had even reached the gatehouse. Gleeson knew how important the scene would be and he hadn't even waited for the order. Thorpe hadn't even thought to give it.

Mondarin's beard, he's still showing me how to do this job properly. That dwarf will end up saving this company again.

The reports the Commander found showed what he'd expected: a perfectly average recruit learning to adjust to a military lifestyle. Cort had initially found fault with the boy's temper, but there hadn't been an altercation since.

It didn't make sense.

How does a 19-year-old white blade defeat any number of Knights?

Commander Thorpe thought it through. If there had been one knight, then Brendon and Cort together should have had no problem holding him at bay.

The boy said "knights", plural. There was more than one. And Cort wasn't there.

It didn't make sense. If Brendon and Mathew had engaged any number of Athnian Knights, then the person he would have least expected to survive was the least experienced. But after debriefing the White Blade and experiencing that...

That aura...

He shuddered. Logic and instinct were fighting a battle within him.

Unless Brendon sacrificed himself for Mathew?

That, he could believe. It fit the personality of the fallen soldier perfectly. But what happened to the Athnian Knights? "No witnesses." That's what Mathew had said. Which implied that the Knights were dead. He certainly didn't believe that they would have let Mathew live. That backed up the implication that the bastards were dead. And if that were the case, Mathew would have had to kill at least one of them. Penaton didn't have enough information.

"Where the fuck is Cort?" he exclaimed in frustration.

The Commander turned to see Gleeson enter the room. The dwarf shook his head in disbelief of the whole situation as he sat down heavily in one of the chairs opposite Thorpe's desk.

As Gleeson sat in thought, staring into the distance, Penaton watched his second carefully and knew immediately that his old friend was still trying to process what he had seen. He should give the dwarf some time. He would be patient. He could be patient.

"Well...?" His lips betrayed him.

So much for being patient.

Gleeson looked up from his reverie and nodded slightly, as if considering where to begin, but Penaton needed answers and he needed them an hour ago. Any moment, he expected a contingent of the Lord's Guard to turn up and try to force their way into the Arena. That would lead to a siege. Then a bloodbath.

"Gleeson. Cort? Was he there?"

The dwarf shook his head with a sneer. "No. No sign he was ever there."

Penaton furrowed his brow. "Then where could he be?"

"I don't know yet, but I have some informants looking for him. No-one witnessed the altercation. At least, no-one admits to witnessing it. There was a commotion after midnight, but none of the windows in that area faced the incident."

Thorpe took the information in, processing what it meant. "What did you find?"

Gleeson stood and moved to the table where Penaton kept his liquor. He poured a finger of whisky and shot it back with a snapping motion. "It's a pity you gave that messenger the Aquinan Rum."

Penaton pinched his nose. He knew that Gleeson was buying time to find the right words, but he was imagining worse and worse situations in his head; he needed information to work with. Even if it spelled disaster, the worst part was not knowing.

At last, Gleeson put him out of his misery. "I found five of Arnias' men..."

FIVE? Otieno and Mathew killed... FIVE knights. Together?

"... one clearly killed in combat and three executed with a single dagger wound through the heart. Two of them had been incapacitated first and killed later, the third looked like he just let someone stab him without contest."

The Commander shook his head in disbelief, exactly like Gleeson had done when he first entered the room. The dwarf continued.

"I found where Brendon had fallen. Recreating the battle wasn't easy because it was on stone, with very few footmarks. But there was enough blood. It... it seems it was five on two. Mathew seems to have fought two and Brendon three. It seems that they managed to catch two of the knights early, I expect that the three remaining were more cautious after that. Brendon died before the knights were executed. I believe that Brendon killed one in the battle, and Mathew stabbed three in the heart."

Penaton had always admired his friend's attention to detail. Gleeson had been a Blade for almost two and a half centuries and, in that highly distinguished career, the dwarf had learned to read the scene of a battle and recreate its events. He knew how men fought, how they retreated, how they advanced. It was almost magical and many times he'd sworn black and blue that his friend had some sort of psychic ability. But even after all that... even trusting the dwarf implicitly, he couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"You're telling me that they just let him stab them?"

The dwarf's moustache twitched. "Two of them were likely incapacitated already. One had a shattered clavicle, possibly a broken neck and his ankle was practically folded in half; the other had lost his lower leg. It would have been easy for any White Blade to execute them. But yes, one knight, and likely the one who killed Brendon based on the positioning of the body, died without any other injuries. It looks like he just stood there and let himself be stabbed in the heart."

Commander Thorpe was getting more questions than answers.

"Your own reports said the new recruit displayed potential."

"They do," acknowledged the dwarf.

"And you've fought him? You sparred?"

"I did."

"And how well did he do?" the Commander pressed.

"About as well as you did the first time you picked up a sword against me."

The Commander shook his head and pounded his fist against the table. "Then how in Darask did he kill four Athnian Knights? If he wasn't that good, then how did he survive? And if he was that good then why couldn't he stand against you?"

"Because I was free of sin."

The Commander stared at the dwarf with a frown. "We are many things, Gleeson. Free of sin is not one of them."

The dwarf swallowed, and Thorpe could see him reliving a recent memory. Gleeson's body tensed, Penaton watched his pupils dilate. "If that young man decided I was a threat to the innocent, I would meet my ancestors before I'd drawn my sword." The old dwarf admitted.

The Commander sympathised immediately. He'd felt the same visceral reaction earlier that night. Remembering the wrath he had been subjected to without a word from the boy, he knew that, despite all evidence to the contrary, if Mathew wanted it, he would die.

"What did you bring upon me, Gleeson?"

"Justice," the dwarf said quietly. "I didn't know what he would be, at first. But it's clear now. He is going to be justice. And it started tonight."

This was quickly becoming a nightmare. Lord Arnias was going to be furious; there would be repercussions for this. And, if he wasn't careful, the remaining Athnian chapter could be crusading towards the Arena gates before noon. What would happen then? He was halfway through trying to fabricate a cover story to sell to Lord Arnias before he stopped, snapping his gaze towards Gleeson, realising the numbers came up short.

"Wait, you only mentioned four... what about the fifth man? What happened to the fifth knight?"

Gleeson poured another finger of whisky and held it out to him, drawing in a long, slow breath.

"You might want to drink this first... and sit down."

Chapter 35 - Johanne

General Johanne de Mascione strode past the entrance to the Great Hall of the Westfall Castle and further down the gallery. Lord Arnias was holding court with the wealthy sycophants who supported his economic bleeding of the lower classes, and the General would normally be in attendance to keep abreast of the consequences of Arnias' greed, but he would need to miss this one. He had been summoned, like a peasant, to a different room, for a different reason.

The message had come for him early in the morning, just after first light. His extremely well-trained squire had served it to him, along with the relevant intelligence reports which had been collated by his many informants from around the city. Yet, it had not been much.

But what it was... deeply concerned him.

He pushed open a door, still reading the papers in hand, and entered an extravagantly decorated chamber, adorned with gilded ceilings and walls painted with murals. The overwhelming opulence of the velvet cushions on hand-carved oak furniture, the imported spider-silk tapestry and the solid-silver dinnerware was, frankly, offensive to his militaristic, minimalist tastes, but he had long since learned to hide his disdain for the Lord's interior design. As he looked up he could tell, or more accurately he knew, that his opinion was shared by two of the most intimidating men in Westfall, who were both currently dominating the disgustingly ornate room and both of whom he wished were somewhere else. It was not because he feared them; he was confident that their combined sense of honour would prevent any unpleasantness. Together, however, Watch Captain Danel Bralli and Commander Penaton Thorpe constituted the largest hindrance to his long-term plans for Westfall.

Still, at least he could respect their professionalism, he conceded, which was more than he could say for the third figure in the room.

"What do you mean, CUT IN HALF?" Chamberlain Harrold Reginald exclaimed in rage as the General joined the conference, bringing the number to four.

Captain Bralli dropped a report on the polished hardwood table, similar to the one that Johanne had in his hand.

"Sir, I mean what I said: three men executed with precision strikes to the heart. Two men killed by extreme injuries. One of those was cut cleanly in half from shoulder to hip. His sword was found in two pieces."

General Mascione tossed his dossier on the table with Bralli's. "I have a similar report. We had a man look at the bodies. This was handed to me as I entered the castle. The cutting implement passed through the bone without resistance. The bone didn't even crack. The metal of the sword was similarly rent in two. Stranger still, there was a corresponding cut in the stone where whatever blade carried through had left a deep mark." He looked to the towering men as he stood between them. "Good morning, gentlemen."

The Chamberlain, however, he ignored. The snivelling man had the audacity to summon him as if he were a subordinate? He could go straight to Darask.

"Where's Sir Drao?" he asked, eyebrow raised. "It's his men, after all."

"Dead," replied Sir Reginald bitterly. "He was with his men when they were brutally slaughtered."

This stopped the General short. The Knights' leader, Sir Drao, was a fierce combatant, with exceptional skill in the sword. But the astonishment that he was killed in this attack quickly gave way to a grim satisfaction. The Knight was a competent piece who had been removed from the board without any effort on his part. This was good luck.

"What about you, Commander?" snapped the Chamberlain with an accusatory tone. "Bralli has informed me that your men were supposed to be patrolling that route?"

The General saw that Sir Reginald had his back to Danel Bralli, and the Watch Captain took advantage of this to roll his eyes in frustration. In contrast, the Commander of the Mondarin company dropped his eyes to the floor. There was real sadness there, and the General frowned in recognition; it was well known to Johanne that Commander Thorpe led from the front. He valued each of his men highly, and the General had seen this same sadness every time the Commander lost a man in battle; the news was not good.

"I lost a man as well."

Captain Bralli snapped his attention to the Commander. "Who?" he asked, worried.

"Copper Blade, Brendon Otieno."

The man's eyes widened in shock and he immediately sighed sympathetically. "Shit. I'm sorry, Penaton. Fuck!" The man turned from them and swore again, taking a moment to process the news.

General Mascione, too, furrowed his brow in concentration. He knew the name. "Otieno, Otieno..." He thought through the recent operations in which they had worked with the Blades.

"Night-skinned? Happy man? Smile that boosts morale? Has a sister in the unit as well?"

He noted that Bralli nodded sadly in sympathy with the Commander. "Yeah."

General Mascione drew himself up with gravitas, stepped forward and placed a hand on the Commander's shoulder. "I'm sorry, Penaton. Otieno was a good man. I saw him work during the gate checks. I would have been proud to have a soldier like him in my command."

The Commander gave him a quick nod of gratitude.

Johanne was sincere. He had seen Otieno's work, on multiple occasions. The man had a bright career, now cut short, and paying his respects to the Commander was a matter of honour. But the Lord's Chamberlain was staring at him like he had lost his mind. He knew Sir Reginald had no love for the Blades of Mondarin, that they stood in the way of both their plans. The Chamberlain was probably wondering why he'd show sympathy for the loss of a mere mercenary. But this wasn't about that.

He's never commanded men in the field. He doesn't have any honour.

Johanne knew that one day he might even have to draw swords against this hulking man he'd just commiserated with. He knew that Thorpe would almost certainly oppose the designs he had for Westfall and Grixoninia, but that didn't matter at the moment because, men like Bralli, Thorpe and himself lived by a different code; one that honoured a man who fell valiantly in battle, regardless of which side he was on.

Johanne brought out a hip flask and borrowed three ridiculously ornate liquor glasses from a nearby occasional table. Quickly pouring, he raised the toast.

"They fell so we can stand. Their example guides us forward."

The three men toasted and drank silently, and Johanne was surprised to observe that Sir Reginald had the self-control to wait until they were finished before he exploded.

"This is very touching, but what about the other men you had on the street? Surely you didn't field one pathetic Copper Blade on his own?"

You really are a foolish, petty man. he thought.

Penaton Thorpe slowly set his empty glass on the table next to the dossiers and turned his massive frame towards Sir Reginald with a slow, deliberate motion. The Chamberlain recoiled, and Johanne would have given even odds that Sir Reginald was about to die. Then again, if the Chamberlain ever made such a comment about one of his fallen men, Johanne wouldn't hesitate to liberate the man's head from his shoulders. After a statement like that, he wasn't even sure that the loyal Watch Captain would intervene... and it was quite possible that any effort to do so would be in vain. Indeed, Captain Bralli's disgust for the Chamberlain, usually hidden behind the professional facade of duty, had slipped into view, and Bralli could have been reprimanded for the way he was now staring at Sir Reginald.

The older officer didn't move. It occurred to him that it would be advantageous if the Commander killed the parasitic worm of a man here and now. The Commander would be arrested, and the Chamberlain would be out of the way. It would be tidy... efficient. But he couldn't move a muscle to show his support either way. To speak in support of the Commander would be seditious. To speak in support of the Chamberlain might stop the giant from ripping the Lord's adviser into visceral confetti.

As it was, Johanne ended up disappointed. The Commander took a step back and turned to face a window as he swallowed his rage, took a breath and answered the Chamberlain.

"I lost Otieno. His body was carried back to the Arena by a White Blade Initiate who was knocked unconscious during the slaughter. I have another Silver Blade who is still unaccounted for. From the report of the Initiate, which I will admit is brief at this stage, my men were talking with off-duty Athnian Knights, introducing the new recruit to the men so that he was able to recognise them in the future. The White Blade described being knocked off his feet by a blast of bright light. He remembers a pain in his head and nothing thereafter. He woke up later, underneath the lifeless body of my man Otieno, and found the scene as described by your informants. He believes Otieno must have protected him whilst he was unconscious, and died in the process."

This was more information than Johanne had received. An eyewitness account was exactly what they needed! He eagerly looked over the page that Thorpe had added to the others on the table, and when he lifted his eyes from the parchment, the Blade Commander had turned back from the window and was staring at him.

"You were right. There is a wild mage in the city. And he killed one of my men."

The Chamberlain blustered and shook with barely contained rage. Johanne smirked. The Commander's assessment beautifully undermined the Chamberlain's disdain for the Iron Shield's mandate in Westfall. Arnias hated mages, and the Chamberlain was jealous of the power the Iron Shield wielded. So far, Sir Reginald had been able to convince Lord Arnias that the Iron Shield had all the authority they needed to hunt wild mages. Now, Thorpe had just handed him a gift. He should be overjoyed. An attack on the Lord's personal knights by a wild mage, corroborated by the Blades of Mondarin, no less, was guaranteed to give him unprecedented jurisdiction to hunt down the offender. Any interference by the Chamberlain would be political suicide. And he could manipulate that power into taking over law and order in Westfall once and for all. Commander Thorpe was so enraged by the loss of his man that he was willing to hand a profound political victory to the Iron Shield. It was almost perfect.

Almost.

But something didn't sit right.

As much as he wanted it to be true...

It wasn't.

The Commander's words were convincing, delivered with conviction and cold rage, but something in his tone made the line just a little too good to be true.

He was lost in thought. Bralli was asking, tactfully, about the accuracy of the Initiate's report, but Johanne didn't care about that. The initiate was probably scared out of his mind. Yes, the Blades had one of the longest training periods before sending men into the field, but even then, this Blade wouldn't have been more than three or four months into the job. The kid's report, naturally, would be wildly unreliable. It wasn't his fault, of course; he was just green.

No, something else was wrong. One man had his chest opened by a vicious cut, but it wasn't supernatural. Perfectly normal for someone armed with an axe...

... or a halberd. All Blades field them on patrols.

Another man had his leg removed. Again, a halberd would do that with ease. The only supernatural element in this fight was the way one man had been cut in two. The only other unanswered question, of course, was why an uninjured knight would allow himself to be stabbed through the heart. It was completely possible, though, for a wild mage to paralyse a man with magic, or make himself invisible... or any number of vile options.

He rose from his thoughts as Bralli finished asking another delicate question, catching only the Commander's reply.

"He suffered a penetrating injury to his chest in between the plates, but that's not what killed him. His throat had been slashed open with multiple cuts, which I believe were intended to cause extreme and rapid blood loss."

Why? he thought. Why open up a Copper Blade's throat like an animal but use precise strikes on the Knights? Why leave a White Blade alive? Where is the Silver Blade? Was he captured? Taken somewhere? That wouldn't make sense.

Then there was the knowledge that there were actually two threats in the city, and that, ironically, the wild mage was the lesser of the two. A teenage girl with arcane potential who had probably never cast a spell in her life was nothing compared to the Imperial Divine Knight who he knew was probably responsible for this massacre.

Another possibility occurred to him, and for a moment it seemed almost too obvious: the missing Silver Blade was the answer. The Blades of Mondarin fielded halberds on patrol. A trained man with a halberd could account for most of the wounds. If that man had also been concealing wild magic, or divine magic, then the impossible cut through bone and stone might be explained as well. Could the boy from Copperwise be hiding amongst the Blades? He knew how morally bankrupt Lord Arnias' knights were. He could see a group of drunken Athnian Knights trying to throw their weight around and the Blades of Mondarin then trying to protect whoever was the victim. Probably some poor girl. The General could easily envision the Lord's personal guard being arrogant enough to assume they could fight a trio of Penaton's men, especially when one of them was a White Blade.

The fight begins. Otieno gets stabbed and then the Knight finishes him off on the ground. The 'Silver Blade', aka Mathew, loses his cool and starts using his divine magic. The fight goes exactly the way that it did for Revenant Company. They were arrogant, unprepared and overwhelmed. Thorpe invents a story around the White Blade being knocked unconscious and the young soldier will follow orders and repeat it because of course he will. And that would beautifully explain why Thorpe is willing to sacrifice this point to me. If it came out that his men killed a unit of Athnian Knights, Lord Arnias would call for his head.

But that theory collapsed under its own weight almost as soon as he formed it.

Thorpe would never knowingly field a wild mage, divine knight or otherwise. The Commander was honourable to a fault, naïve in certain political matters, but he was not an idiot. And if he had discovered such a thing within his company, he would have hidden the man in a cellar before even considering allowing him onto a city patrol. The man would never see actual service if the Commander had known. But, would he have known?

Yes. The Commander lived and breathed for his men. He would know.

No. The supernatural actor was not one of Thorpe's Blades.

Which brought him back to the boy named Mathew.

The one from Copperwise. The one Gregory had described. The one that slaughtered Revenant Company. The report from James Brook. An outsider. Not a Blade of Mondarin. Not Watch. Not one of Arnias' thugs. Something else entirely.

He had to concede that Thorpe's report fit the evidence. Worse, it fit evidence Thorpe should not have been able to account for. Not completely. Not unless he knew more than he had said.

That was the part Johanne could not ignore.

What if Commander Thorpe was responsible for hiding the man who butchered his men in Copperwise Forest? What if, after the battle, the missing Silver Blade wasn't missing at all, but now helping Mathew escape the city? The thought made his blood boil.

"What about this Silver Blade of yours, Thorpe?" he suddenly asked. "Who is he?"

The Commander looked at him as if he wanted to avoid the question, and Johanne scowled inwardly as he saw the discomfort.

Yes... you ARE protecting him.

But the General wasn't prepared for the answer and, to his knowledge, there was no lie in the Commander's eyes.

"Blade Warden Cort."

"Cort?"

It was their drill instructor. General Mascione had, more than once, credited the local Mondarin Company's success on the battlefield to Cort's unit tactics. The man knew how formations operated at a subconscious level. He was a master tactician, exceptional as a swordsman and, like the General himself, didn't accept weakness in his unit.

But... but he's no friend of mages.

That was well established. It was tried and tested. Cort even shared some of the First Shield's more practical 'philosophies'.

"Yes," the Commander continued, "... the man is presumed dead. We don't see why he would be taken alive."

Bralli spoke carefully. "He could have made a deal in exchange for his life. Perhaps he convinced the wild mage he was on their side. He could be planning to make an escape later with information on their whereabouts."

The General thought that this was certainly within Cort's capacity, but the Commander looked unconvinced.

"I don't have anything to support that theory." The Commander looked to the pair of military leaders in front of him, and Johanne noted that, like Bralli and himself, the Commander was only acknowledging the Chamberlain when the weasel-faced man spoke to him. Other than that, all strategic discussion had ignored him completely.

Then the weasel spoke again. "He probably ran away in fear..."

The mood of all three men darkened.

Really? No sense of self-preservation?

Bralli recovered first and subtly shifted his position to place himself in front of the Chamberlain. He looked as if his honour had to physically pull him between the two men. But the Commander apparently had decided that the Chamberlain could live, for now.

The General smiled to himself as Thorpe continued.

"I'll let you know if we find Cort. I'm hoping to have an answer by the time I get back to the Arena, but it's a faint hope at best."

The Commander shook hands with them both, glared at the Chamberlain, and left the hideously ornate room; the loss of his huge frame made the room seem bigger somehow.

Johanne de Mascione tried to reconcile all the evidence around him. He knew there was a wild mage in the city, a girl, by his nephew's account. He knew that she would be accompanied by the boy named 'Mathew', who was almost certainly a divine warrior and a member of the Imperial Order of the Shroud from the Shadowspine Plains. What an Imperial Knight would be doing in Grixoninia, so far from the Mascian Empire, was a question that plagued him. How this boy could be using divine magic when the Gods were dead was something that had kept Johanne up at night. The General was well-educated and prided himself on being exceptionally well-read, but even he didn't know which of the Gods the Shroud Knights drew power from. And whilst the report from James Brook claimed that one of the elves spoke with the voice of Bambinae, who was relatively harmless, some of the dead Gods had reputations that were horrifying even by his standards.

He didn't have enough data. He was almost certain that the boy Mathew was responsible for the supernatural deaths of Arnias' men, and he suspected that Otieno was responsible for at least one of the others. Yet there was still something about the situation he was missing. Commander Thorpe was hiding something... Johanne just couldn't place what it was.

I need more information.

Johanne only realised he'd been deep in thought after Bralli turned to face him, pulling his attention back to the two remaining men. "Our longstanding disagreements about proceedure aside, I'll be liaising with your Knights to coordinate our efforts to find this mage. Otieno deserves justice."

At this, and probably because he had been ignored for most of the meeting, Reginald blustered, "The Athnian Knights deserve retribution! You seem to only care about the fucking Copper Blade. Your job is to serve your Lord, not some mercenary company with dreams above their station! Maybe if that Copper Blade had done his job properly, we wouldn't be in this situation!"

The General smiled secretly. The Chamberlain had broken. The cursing was well below his station and his lack of decorum was a sign of his loss of control. He had been physically threatened, emotionally belittled and politically ignored; he was ready to be given a solution and Johanne had one for him. But he wasn't quite finished putting the Chamberlain in his place yet so he smirked and spoke to Bralli in an officious tone.

"I imagine we'll need to make it clear to all Blades of Mondarin units that they are expected to protect any Athnian Knights they encounter whilst on patrol?"

The Captain nodded shrewdly, matching the General's smirk. "I'll follow up with Commander Thorpe and let him know that the Athnian Knights require protection when they are in the city. Sir Reginald, I assume Lord Arnias will be happy to finance an escort for any off-duty Knights when they leave the safety of the castle?"

The General had only meant his comment as a snipe at the Chamberlain, but Johanne was silently impressed at the quick wit of the frustrated Captain. In a single sentence, he had backed the General's snipe at Sir Reginald and trapped the Chamberlain within his own words. If Sir Reginald accepted, the Athnian Knights would be chaperoned and would have to rein in their behaviour. If he refused, he absolved the Watch and the Blades of any responsibility for their safety. It was a brilliant twist of the knife.

So, Bralli, you do have a spine after all.

Sir Reginald bristled with self-important outrage, but neither of the men had done anything but agree with the trussed-up noble, and so his anger was forced to simmer impotently.

Eventually, he spoke through gritted teeth. "No. That will not be necessary. I'm sure that we will find a resolution to this problem before long. Won't we, General?"

Johanne struck, the opportunity finally ripe for the plucking. "If that is your wish, I'll need Lord Arnias' permission to have my Knights act with the same authority as the City Watch. With no disrespect intended to the Captain here, he hasn't run a witch hunt like this before. We'll need joint juridiction until this crisis is over."

The Captain nodded at his assessment. "It's true. This is your area of expertise. And I'll support it. But..." He met Johanne's gaze with defiant eyes. "... your men can get overzealous, General. I need your assurance that we bring them in alive and that they stand trial. The man or woman who killed Otieno needs to die; just make sure that we get the right one."

The General mustered as much sincerity as he could bring to bear. "Of course." Then he finally looked to Sir Reginald, who had the air of a man who was trying to claw back some semblance of control.

"Well? Can my Knights act with the Lord's authority inside the Westfall walls to catch this wild mage?"

There was a tense moment when Johanne believed that Sir Reginald was almost going to counter or delay, but in the end, he needn't have worried.

"You have the Lord's blessing."

General Mascione inclined his head slightly in thanks, inwardly celebrating in triumph.

Magnificent.