The sun brought a much-needed breath of warmth to the foggy mountainside, coating the thick snow in a glistening layer of sweat across the landscape before the two riders. Aft of the two was a young man who had never known such a cold before, yet there was still a fire burning hot inside him, melting away any sting the bitter winter would bring. He was sure, however, that Pike had never known such warmth.

    “It’s too damn cold, eh, Sir Pike? They say it snows here all year round, too.” Jason said, pulling his collar closed around his neck.

    The other rider tilted his head, but didn’t say anything.

    Still, Jason persisted. “Well, isn’t that something?”

    “It’s something, I suppose.” Pike answered, gruff and serious, as always.

    It had been a long ride. It always was a journey, traveling all the way from the Capital so far north into the Hinterlands. It had been nearly a month of riding, and they had further still to travel. The silence was worse than any snow or storm could bring, Jason had realized. Still, he wasn’t about to let a grumpy old man ruin his first mission as a Knight of the Sovereignty. Eighteen years of working towards this moment was about to pay off.

    “Say, Sir Pike, what do you think we’ll find when we get there?” He asked.

    Pike grunted, and tried to shrug off the question, but Jason persisted.

    “Do you think it was an assassin? Maybe the others are in danger as well.”

    “The others?” Pike asked.

    Jason grinned, finally reeling the old man into the conversation. “Of course. Alexander was one of the original wardens. It could be a grudge. Someone out for revenge.”

    Pike groaned. “That drunken fool had plenty of enemies. He was a deserter, after all. If anybody wanted to pick a fight with the wardens, they picked the worst one to make an impact.”

    “I wouldn’t be so sure. In fact, he would seem to be the best target, if you were trying to get all seven of them.”

    Pike didn’t say anything more, not even a grunt.

Where the snow began to form a trodden path, beaten down and packed in, the town arose just shortly after. The wooden archway around the entrance hung a rotting sign from rusted chains, ready to snap and fall at any moment, creaking in the wind to announce the arrival of the two strangers.

    Bundled people stepped warily from the doors of their homes to see the mysterious men in black who rode in to a small town so far north, where few men dared to tread.

    “They won’t leave their porches.” Jason noted.

    “Aye. They’re likely afearin’ all right about now.”

    They pulled their horses up to the large building in the center of town, where a stable boy helped tie them up in the barn, and proceeded inside.

The village elder explained to them that they had spent all the day looking for Rivy, the young waitress, only to happen upon the body of their local drunk. He tells them about the stranger who had just arrived, and vanished just the same. During the questioning, Pike has some witnesses brought in, and asks them much of the same questions, looking for details about the stranger. Anything he said or did before he left. What he looked like. What he was carrying with him. Eventually, they get to Thomas, who tells much of the same story.

    “It just seems strange to me.” Pike says, rubbing the bristles on his chin. “This stranger, a very large man, arrives in town. Sure, it’s clear enough he’s the villain in all this. To come to such a remote town, speak nothing of his intentions, and then to murder the local drunk and kidnap a barmaid, are acts of a wicked man.”

    Thomas sighs, and slowly shakes his head. His hair has grown ragged, his beard unshaven and unkempt. Shadows are beginning to show under his cheekbones, and his pale skin is reflected brightly in the dim fire’s glow, painting him near luminescent against the dark grain of the tavern’s wood. “What’s strange about that?” He asks.

    “Well, I try to get inside the villain’s head in a situation like this. That’s why they send me to deal with shit like this. I’m good at thinking the way an evil man thinks. Now, stop me if any of this is wrong.” With a deep breath, Pike rubs his hands together and holds them above the fire.

    “The stranger enters your town, too far north and too deep in the snow for there to be any real guard. He does this by design. With a dark heart, he crawls into your lives, finding the liveliest place around, the local tavern. Once inside, he’s waited on by a girl who is, as most of the town put it, quite popular among the men.”

    Thomas stands quickly, and slams his hands against the table. “You’re wrong, she wasn’t no damn courtesan. She was pure as the fucking snow.” He growls. Only after his outburst does he realize that Jason has his hand on his sword.

    Pike raises his hands and sighs. “I meant she was attractive. Would you say that’s true? Put your damn weapon down, Jason.”

    “She’s more than that. Rivy’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” Thomas says, taking his seat with a slump.

    Pike continues. “So, the stranger takes a liking to the barmaid, and decides to wait until later in the night, once all the other guests have gone home, to take her. I know it isn’t pleasant, boy, but stay with me. I’m here to find the bastard, and this is necessary. Please, sit back down. Thank you. The sooner I can get through this, the sooner we can all move on. Now, where were we. Yes, so, he waits. Now, the bartender testified to the drunk still being in the bar when he left, in which the barmaid promised to drag him out to the stables, as was the usual procedure. Now, the stranger would have taken this opportunity to strike. The girl, left alone and forgotten until sunrise, for him… I’ll spare the details, Thomas. But looked, does this sound right to you so far? Does any part of this sound unusual?

    He took a moment to think about the story before answering with a shake of his head. “No, not so much the story itself, I suppose. That bastard, I knew he was mean just from looking at him, but I had no idea how cruel he was going to be.”

    “Well, this is where we come to the part of the story that I do not understand, boy. You see, if the man was going to ambush Rivy in this perfect moment, and if he was going to kill the drunken Aldo, which might have been a consequence of his attack on the girl, would it not have happened in the barn?” Pike asked.

    Thomas thought for a moment, and then looked up suddenly. “That makes sense, but-”

    Interrupting, Pike continued. “However, the trail that was made from the barmaid dragging the drunk in the snow didn’t lead to the barn at all. It led away from it, into the woods behind the tavern.”

    He wanted to say more, to stop the officer from saying more, but Thomas was catching up to what the man was saying. The discrepancy in the story was becoming clear. That was one detail that wasn’t making sense. “Then, the man just dragged the drunk out to the woods himself.”

    Jason walked over and dropped a small object on the table between the officer and the young man. Thomas’ eyes never left it. He recognized it. “This was… Rivy’s…” He muttered.

    “Yes, the bartender and the other barmaid both confirmed it. She had it before arriving in town. Lucy said that once she had mentioned it was a gift from her late-father, and she’d been carrying it around ever since. Now, this knife tells us a lot about the situation. You see, it was found in the snow, next to the decapitated corpse of the drunk, who you know as Aldo.” Pike waited and watched for Thomas’ reaction, and seemed satisfied by the silence. “Obviously, this little knife wasn’t what killed him. The stranger likely did that. He was said to have been carrying a massive sword, that was more likely what caused the decapitation. So, here’s how you can help us now, boy. How well did you know Rivy?”

A few more logs were placed on the fire for the two men still sitting at the table near it, still discussing the event.

    “How can you still say this has nothing to do with the wardens, after everything you’ve heard? If anything, this has reaffirmed my earlier statement.” Jason grumbled. He sounded annoyed, but he was actually quite pleased to finally get the old man talking.

    “We don’t have any proof of that. The way I see it, the girl is the key to all of this.” Pike retorted.

    “Well, I don’t doubt that she has a part in all this, but she could have some kind of grudge against the wardens. Maybe she’s Caliburn’s daughter or something.” Jason grumbled.

    Something hit the floor, clattering against the wood and murmuring as it spun for a few seconds, jittering to a halt. Pike’s half-eaten dinner splashed around his feet, jelly coating the tips of his boots a dark red. He was standing, his fists clenched and digging into the table. There was no color left in his face, all of it draining away, leaving him as pale as the falling snow outside, but there was plenty of fire in his eyes, his stoic face twisted into an incomprehensible guise of pain, anger, grief, fear, or anything in between.

    “What the fuck did you just say?” He growled.

    Jason felt his stomach flip. “W-what? I just said… Look, you know, Caliburn, the old-”
    “Just what the fuck do you think you know about Caliburn?” There was a flurry of emotions spilling over through the cracks in his voice, but Pike slowly settled down, taking a deep breath and sitting back in his chair. “It couldn’t be Caliburn. It couldn’t be. We killed him. I was there.”

    Jason had to clear his throat before he could speak again. “Well, I didn’t say it had to be him. Like I said, it could be his-”

    “No.” Pike said flatly. “It’s not his daughter. The way the townsfolk describe her, Rivy must be in her late teens, early twenties. She’s much too old to be his daughter. Though, I know to a certainty that it isn’t her either.”

    Jason started rubbing a cloth against his leg, where his drink had been spilled. “Well, she could be lying about her age. You know women, it’s hard to tell sometimes. How could you know for sure? I mean, he did have a kid, right?”

    “Yes. We killed her too.”

    Jason stopped and looked up at his fellow soldier, whose gaze was lost in the fire, all of the passion in the previous moment slipping away as he fell back into the body of an old man, losing himself in his own memories. He knew then he wasn’t going to get anymore out of him for the night, and part of him wasn’t at all burdened by that. He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear anymore.

    All the officers are taught about the wardens when they attend the academy. The learn about Knight-Commander Halton, who founded the enigmatic order, intending to create a mobile, easily-dispatched elite force to aid in subversive warfare and enforcement. It was a nice way of describing what was essentially a military-funded gang of assassins, the way Jason saw it. He never liked the idea of them from the moment he heard about it.

    Well, as useful as they ended up being in the war, they were mysteriously disbanded after the death of one of their leading members, Caliburn, in his own home. His entire family was slaughtered, with all six of the other wardens there at the time. An investigation would claim that they were found to be traitors, and upon arrest, Caliburn lashed out, killing his wife and child, before being cut down by Sir Morien. The entire incident was infamously strange, and the conclusion was an obvious lie that everyone was comfortable believing.

    It was a truth Jason had intended to discover from the beginning, but somewhere along the way, between the training and education, had just about forgotten. It had been years since he had joined the army, after all.

    To be here, this close to a truth he used to want, was sickening. He wanted nothing more to do with it. Jason didn’t want to hear it, he wanted to go back to believing that somehow, Caliburn had killed his own family in a violent rage, and was slain for it by his fellow men.

    Jason had decided to inquire further. He wanted to get all of the story now, while he could. It would be a break in the chain that would bring down a gang of criminals responsible for a heinous act. It was the moment that would solidify Jason in history as a man true to morals and justice, as he had always dreamed he would become. He could see it already, the glory of it all. His heart would be abound with life, knowing that when it came to it, he waded through the mud and came out of it clean, having done the right thing. His father would finally be proud of him. Jason was justified.

    Without a word, he stood up, left the cloth on the table, and headed upstairs towards the darkness of his own room, where he slipped under a sheet and lay there all through the night, unable to fall asleep.