I didn’t have to turn to know that Hector was behind me and so were my people. I could hear Hector give a double order to his own soldiers not to follow him and then we were all running down the hill towards the now considerably larger Tirnaog force.

If we could destroy them here, particularly if we did it with just us, Tirnaog would have no choice other than to enter peace negotiations and call for a ceasefire.

We just had to do it before Tirnaog realized it was happening.

The battle met again, but this time it wasn’t evenly matched, it wasn’t crowded with friendlies.

That was my favorite kind of fight. I slipped back into the dance again, but with more speed, more grace; the footwork mattered more now, so did form. It was a dance, and I had been doing it for longer than any of them.

I was only dimly aware of my surroundings beyond the enemies in front of me and to my sides. None of them could get behind me; that would cause problems. But none of them did.

Occasionally a particularly loud blast from Hector’s shotgun would go off and tell me that he was still on the field. Sometimes Jehu or Tola would let out a cry of rage.

Will was using her skiff itself as a weapon now, combined with her short blades that crackled with embedded rift slivers giving them energy.

Ehud and Jair were basically invisible, but people would simply drop down and die, marking their presence on the battlefield.

I couldn’t focus on them though, not for long. I had run into the thick of it, the middle of the troops, and my companions had given me the wide berth that I needed. They were smart, talented. They could take care of themselves.

I slipped back into the dance, my awareness focusing only on those in front of me. Slowly even the conscious knowledge of the raven lethargically circling above me went away.

Until there were no more enemies.

I stopped, breathing heavily, blades and gloves soaked in blood but the rest of me surprisingly not terribly stained. I looked up and found a few scattered soldiers fleeing back to their sides, horrified looks of fear on their faces and that of their commanding officers to whom they were returning. Old instincts kicked in, and I moved as though to chase them; no one was allowed to escape alive–

Hector’s hand landed on my shoulder. “We should probably let them report back so they know to start talks.” He said it casually, but his grip was solid.

I resisted the urge to throw him to the ground or put a blade to his throat, barely, and slowly straightened up. Obviously, he was right. I shook my head slightly, as though I could physically rid it of the haze of adrenaline and bloodlust. “Yeah. Good call.”

Hector dropped his hand, and we shared a brief look before I turned to my team, all of them still alive, looking extremely pleased with themselves.

Jair let out a loud whoop and jumped to high-five Jehu, making me smile.

My gaze wandered past them and back to our side. The soldiers there were a combination of horrified and impressed, but as we painted smiles on our faces and turned back to meet them, a cheer started to rise up from them as they celebrated what would almost certainly be the end of one of the shortest Skirmishes in history. Many of these soldiers were draftees, more than happy to return home.

The Generals, on the other hand, didn’t look so pleased.

Chirone looked furious, while Anders just seemed disapproving.

I didn’t care so much about them, though. The soldiers were happy. We’d saved lives.

I looked down at the corpses through which I was still walking to get back to the other side, my smile briefly slipping from my face. Saved some lives.

I caught myself and then put the smile back. There was a particular way a hero was supposed to behave, a particular front– a particular mask, maybe even more literal than the ceramic plate covering the top half of my face, ending at the tip of my nose– and I had to make sure I kept it up.

Be better.

We rejoined with the troops, all of them clapping us on the back and saying words of approval and pride, and each time I had to fight not to react violently to the contact until, finally, Garret’s voice rang out over the noise.

“We need to head back. Load up,” he ordered.

Slowly, the soldiers dissipated, until it was just the seven of us facing the red-faced Chirone and ever-stoic Garret.

“You too,” I told my team.

“You sure, boss?” Jehu asked me, glancing between myself and Chirone.

I knew Jehu would have murdered him for me in a heartbeat, had I asked. Sometimes it was tempting.

“Yeah. Go ahead.”

Slowly, my five team members headed off to our skiff, Will steering it up remotely with the gloves.

“You–” Chirone started.

“We’re not doing this here,” Garret said sharply. “He is a hero to your men. Do you want them to hate you more?”

Chirone snapped his mouth shut with an audible smack, looking like Garret had struck him physically.

Garret turned that cold gaze of his back on me, briefly flickering to Hector, and then returning to me. “The Highlord is going to be very displeased with you. Both of you.”

Hector started to speak, but I stepped out in front of him. “Hector wasn’t involved. It was me, and my team, but only on my orders. They had to obey or be insubordinate.”

“Leon,” Hector hissed, upset.

“You’re a Knight, Hector,” I silenced him relatively easily. “He wasn’t involved,” I repeated to the Generals.

The very faintest of smiles crossed General Anders’ lips before he nodded. “Then, Leon, the Highlord is going to be very displeased with you.”

I shrugged. “Isn’t he always?” I clapped Hector on the back. “I’ll see you back home.”

Hector nodded, and I went and pulled myself into the skiff with my team.

They were very celebratory on the way home, pulling alcohol out of a hidden compartment to toast to the victory.

I arched an eyebrow when Jehu retrieved it. “That doesn’t seem regulation.”

“We all have some secrets up our sleeves, don’t we, Captain?” Jehu echoed back, smirking at me.

I chuckled and inclined my head.

My team weren’t soldiers. They were the best team I’d ever had, loyal to me in a way I had hardly dared to expect. They followed me into danger in a reckless way that I really hadn’t anticipated when I’d put them together. But they weren’t soldiers. They were criminals, all of them. Brawlers, cheaters, thieves, murderers, people with severe crimes or maybe just those who had been in the jails too often for Ildanach’s tastes. I’d pulled them off of death row and bargained for their freedom, their pardons, in exchange for work. Potentially deadly work, of course, but that was why I had gone for those with nothing left to live for anyway.

They weren’t the only ones I had tried to entice with the offer, but they were the ones who took it. I wouldn’t have had it any other way. They were loyal to me, and Highlord Rufais Ildanach hated it, just as he hated how the people chanted my name when we would come back from battle, how the soldiers looked at me.

I wasn’t doing it intentionally. While it was fun to rile the man up, I didn’t want to steal anything from him. I just wanted to win the battles, have fun, come home. I liked this city in a way I hadn’t liked many places.

As we pulled through the gates, ahead of the main forces instead of behind it this time, I told Will to drop me off just inside the walls.

“You have anything else for us, Captain?” she asked as I hopped off the skiff.

“Not a thing. You did fantastic today, and I expect to hear of a ceasefire any time now. Enjoy your freedom, as temporary as it may be.”

“So formal,” Jehu scoffed, throwing the cork of a bottle at me.

I shrugged and then smiled at them. “I’ll see you at the tavern later?”

“You’d better!” Tola said, suddenly animated. “I’ll beat you at cards yet!”

I laughed and waved as Will drove the skiff away before heading over towards the Ennis House Manor. I hesitated, looking at my appearance; the blood was no longer dripping from my gloves but it still stained them, splattering my long black coat and boots. My weapons were cleaned and sheathed now, but this was not the kind of look a decent person normally had when knocking on the door of a Guildmaster.

Oh well.

I knocked on the door.

The butler opened it and did a solid double-take at my appearance. And then did it again when he got to my mask. “I….”

“I’ll save you the trouble of trying to figure out what to say to me,” I began, speaking rather quickly. “My name is Captain Elyon Kazere; if you call me Leon, Lord Ennis will still know who I am, and I don’t need to come inside, but I spoke to your lord earlier today and wanted to deliver him a response to the question he asked of me– news of the ceasefire should be in by tomorrow morning.”

“You’re the Lion of Ildanach!” the man said, finding his voice, and it was my turn to do a double-take.

“I’m the what now?”

“The Lion of Ildanach! The Hero! You’ve single-handedly won Ildanach the last three Skirmishes, and, thanks to you, the Morrigan House stopped looking at us like easy prey!”

I listened to this with growing levels of disbelief. “I– it was not single hand– the Lion of–? I’m not blond!” Why that was the most important thing I felt the need to convey in my stammering to the man who was looking at me and could clearly see that my hair was as black as a crow’s feathers, I did not know.

He nodded. “Of course not, my lord. Oh, forgive me, you can come in if you like! We have a washroom, and I will tell Lord Ennis that you are here.”

“I’m not a lord,” I said, still floored by the revelation that I had apparently been turned into a folk hero behind my back. “Why is it the Lion of Ildanach?”

“Likely due to your name, my lord.”

That made sense. Unfortunately. “I’m not a– listen I don’t need to come inside, if you could just tell–”

“Who’s at the door, Forin?”

“Captain Elion Kahzira,” the man said, and, well, he tried.

“Leon?” Lord Ennis said, walking over and arching an eyebrow when he saw my appearance. “Directly back from the Skirmish, I see.”

I sighed heavily. “Yes. I was just trying to leave a message for you, but then you… arrived.”

“You seem a bit flustered,” he looked deeply bemused to note this. “Would you like to come inside?”

“I’m good, but I do appreciate it. I just wanted to let you know that we were able to bait out their reinforcements, and news of the ceasefire should arrive by dawn.”

Lord Ennis blinked at me. “My, don’t you work efficiently? You have my thanks, Captain.”

I nodded once and turned to leave.

“They also call you the Hand of Cyren on occasion,” he said casually, still sounding terribly bemused, and I realized that he must have overheard some of the conversation.

I grew a bit red, grateful my back was to him so that he couldn’t see it. “That one’s less bad,” I conceded.

“You would rather be referred to in regards to gods you do not worship than as a lion?” Now he was just amused.

“At least he’s one of the cool ones,” I said mildly, turning now that I had gotten my reactions under control to wave. “Have a good day, Lord Ennis.”

“You too, Captain. I’ll be sure to let the performers know that you like the other one better.”

I stopped dead in my tracks. “The– sorry, the what?” I spun back around, just a few steps from the door.

“The performers. Have you not seen the plays? Some are even performed by the Turyn.”

I took a short beat to process that. “You are enjoying this far too much.”

He chuckled. “Ah, but I can find amusement in so few places these days.” Lord Ennis grinned at me. “I will send you some tickets.”

“I really don’t–”

“Bring a date sometime,” he practically ordered me. “Good day, Elyon.”

And then he shut the door.

I glared at it for a moment before starting to march back to the inn, grumbling under my breath. What Turyn were performing plays about me?

“Probably laughing about it the whoooole time,” I muttered.

I headed back to my inn, which wasn’t terribly far from Lord Ennis’ Manor, actually. Despite having a reasonable amount of funds, I lived in the outermost ring, dealing with the noise of the factories almost constantly for the sake of being closer to the exits and having trees nearby that grew taller than the wall next to them.

Getting cleaned up wasn’t terribly difficult, fortunately, and I was grateful not for the first time that the gold designs on the white of my ceramic mask were not indented. As nice as the texture might have been, it wouldn’t have been worth it to try and scrape blood out of the grooves. I was washing my face with my mask set aside to dry when a knock came at my door, causing me to sigh. I made sure I still had some knives on me before fitting the mask back to my face and walking over to the door, yanking it open without even looking.

“Can I help you?”

“You’ve been summoned to the Court of Highlord Rufais Ildanach, immediately.”

“Great. I’ll be there in a bit.”

“Uh, Captain, it’s an immediate sum–”

I closed the door in the messenger’s face. It wasn’t his fault, but I wasn’t running out the door because I had been “summoned”, and I sure wasn’t letting that kid escort me. I went to go through the somewhat arduous task of putting my boots back on– they went up to my knees and were fastened with a great many laces– before leaving my room via the window. Every city should have had trees.

Soon, I was back on the main road that I had taken out of the city earlier that day, heading in the opposite direction. I passed the Peacekeepers Station and walked under the small archway onto the forest trail that separated the middle ring of the city from the inner ones. Once I was through, there were massive manors on both sides of me, here where most minor nobles, Lord Ennis as the only exception to my knowledge, had at least one home.

Finally, I reached the Central Court of Ildanach. Here, and only here, the ground was not dirt, but rather made of white cobblestone. A beautiful fountain sat in the center of the circular court, the edges of it sculpted to tell a beautiful story about the Six Fates worshiped by the Chantry. The statue in the center of the fountain, from which water sprung, was that of the three “Good” Fates– Palados, Fate of Righteousness and Light in the center, with the goddesses Ayra and Taeril on either side of him.

To the left of the fountain was the Grand Cathedral of the Chantry, with huge stone steps leading up to equally great double doors. Statues of the Ascendants, the servants of the Fates, topped the railings at certain intervals, and were also etched on the doors themselves. It was the only building permitted to stand in the court with the Highlord’s Manor. There was one of those giant tank wagons from Ennis’ House stationed outside of it, as something inside, probably the library based on the amount of lumber, was currently undergoing renovations. 

Across from the Cathedral, on the right, was the Manor itself, similarly grand and massive, but with barely more resemblance to a house than the castle-like structure that the Cathedral was. The Cathedral was bigger, though, as somehow Cardinal of the Chantry was even more flamboyant than the Highlords of Ildanach, an impressive feat.

I headed up the front steps and through the open door of the Manor. It was open to the public during certain hours of the day, and this happened to be one of them. A couple of guards inclined their heads to me as I entered and headed for the spiraling stone staircase that would take me up to the Judgment Hall, also called the Throne Room, where the Highlord sat in his soft plushy chair embroidered with gold at the top of a set of three steps resting at the end of a very long hallway. As far as intimidation tactics went, they were pretty standard.

When I reached the door to the Judgment Hall, the pair of guards outside looked at me somewhat oddly.

“Do you not have an escort?”

“Nope.” And then, while they looked at each other, I simply walked right up between them and shoved the doors open dramatically, sauntering into the throne room.

The guards scrambled to try to stop me, but I was better at this than they were. By the time I was a few steps into the room, it was too late.

A couple Guildmasters were in the room, though unfortunately not the one who owed me a favor now, and they both turned to look at me with varying levels of either hidden amusement or outright disapproval.

Callian Ildanach, Rufais’ son, was also in the room, standing near his father, and he wasn’t quite managing to hide his smile. Callian was a Knight of the House, and I respected him for that. Unlike his father, he was willing to put his own life on the line to protect his home. We’d fought together once or twice in passing, so I winked at him when I noticed him trying not to smile. He was only 22, mere months older than me, which was, in my opinion, too young to be so serious.

Finally, there was Rufais himself, sitting on his throne and glaring at me from before I was even in the room proper, it seemed. The man was middle aged, with very white hair, a cynical and drawn face, wrinkled from worry and constantly looking disapproving. His eyes were very light blue. If he hadn’t been such an absolute prick, I might’ve felt bad for him– people said his moods had been much better before the unfortunate death of his wife.

“Captain Chazeer.” We both knew he was doing it on purpose.

“It’s Kazere,” I snapped, “as you are well aware.” I took a breath. “Now, how can I help you? I heard you wanted to see me?” My voice was so sweet it was physically painful.

Out of the corner of my eyes, I could see the Lady of House Faolain, head of the Forestry Guild, no longer bothering to hide her smile. She was a very smart women, very calculating, and while I would never be so foolish as to think she liked me enough for it to impact her actions without considering a million other factors, she did like me, as a person.

“You disobeyed orders from your Generals and led both a retreat and then a counterattack on the enemy–”

“Winning you the Skirmish in record time, yes. It’s called a feint, Highlord, but, of course, I wouldn’t expect someone of your station to understand the complexities of military strategy. Or really, strategy in general.”

“It is not your responsibility to call out such orders! You led a small revolution among the soldiers today!” Rufais growled.

“I won you another war today. If you would like to say that I did it despite the incompetence of your appointed generals, then you can feel free to do so.”

We continued to glare at one another.

“Perhaps there is a compromise to be reached here,” Lady Faolain said, smiling that cunning smile of hers that reminded me a bit of a snake.

“The compromise is that he says, ‘thanks for winning me a war, again’, and then I go back to work,” I said, a hint mulishly.

Rufais said nothing, but there was real hatred in his eyes.

Sometimes I wondered if I had done something to this man besides steal his fame.

“Now, now, Captain, be reasonable. If you had the rank of General, then perhaps such calls would be yours, but you did not wish to accept such a rank.”

It was true; I’d turned it down a year ago, when Rufais and I had actually been on slightly better terms. He’d thought I was going to keep playing by the rules then. I had a theory that it was actually my refusal to play his game and do things his way that had originally set him so against me, though it had spun far out of proportion since then.

But yes, I had turned it down– because the Generals did not stay active during peacetime in Ildanach. Captains, on the other hand, were given over to the Keeper’s control during peace time to manage the Peacekeepers in maintaining law within the city. I’d remained a Captain so that I could stay employed.

But, regardless of my reasons, she was right, so I held my peace.

“The ceasefire announcement will come this evening; until then, the populace only knows that you fought again. Rumors of treason and revolt will only lead to problems for you both,” Lady Toiresa Faolain continued. “Captain, you don’t want to lose your position in the army, nor have your reputation tarnished in the presence of the soldiers. You value them.” I ground my teeth but held my peace. “Highlord, you do not want to lose his effectiveness in the battlefield, nor deal with the murmurs of dissent such an act would cause. He is very popular.”

The Highlord similarly ground his teeth. “What would you suggest?” he bit out.

“Cite him for something else, something minor. Have him flogged. Mistakes happen to everyone, and whatever your reputation is damaged, Captain, it will be immediately restored when the news of the ceasefire arrives. But, punishment will have been dealt. A compromise.”

“I didn’t do anything wrong. I won the war.”

“So fast,” the other, so far silent, Guildmaster in the room spoke up, tone musing. Lord Durnin looked me directly in the eye with a faint smile that did not touch his eyes, “I would have thought, with the pleasure you obtain from fighting, that you wouldn’t want to end it quite so quickly, Captain. You wouldn’t happen to have been… currying favor with someone?”

“I wanted to return the soldiers to their families,” I said sharply. “Surely if you had such a chance, you would have done the same.” Not a lie, but I was not keen on him apparently knowing of a private conversation that was held between myself and Lord Ennis just that morning.

“A noble desire indeed,” Lady Faolain resumed her negotiations. Even with her cunning, she was far less slimy than Lord Durnin. “However, you did do something wrong, by the letter of the law. Is not a punishment just?”

There wasn’t a single part of me that didn’t want to fight this, but what was a flogging, really? It was politics. Just play along.

It rankled me in every conceivable way, reminded me of other things that I had put behind me, but it was the best way out of this. “Fine,” I nearly spat, glaring at the Highlord, daring him to refuse the offer.

But, unfortunately, all Rufais wanted was to make me suffer for showing him up, and I had been far too transparent about my displeasure. He smiled a cold smile and said, “Deal.”