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Crows shrieked. Vultures circled overhead. A setting sun bled harsh, red light into the sky. Parched grassland stretched for hundreds of miles, broken only by the occasional copse of trees. An unseasonal heat afflicted the plains.

 

Titus and Lavonius travelled the Governor's Road, pack llama in tow. Titus wore a thin red cloak, the symbol of the Black Throne emblazoned upon his shoulder. His head was uncovered, and he walked tall. His heavy boots crunched along the dirt road, every step loud enough to be heard for twenty paces. He liked being loud. The strong don't need to be quiet. They need only be strong.

Titus's eyes lingered on his odd companion, who had insisted on wrapping himself in a full head-scarf (or, as Lavonius called it, a shemagh). Lavonius marched silently forward, his light feet not even disturbing the dust.

 

Long, flowing travel robes billowed about the bard's legs as he marched along. So all-encompassing was his garb that not a single inch of skin showed.

 

Lavonius insisted that he was the target of a dragon called Shadow-Claw, whose treasure-horde he had robbed several years past. As such, he tied his shamagh tighter than a miser's coinpurse and cast his eyes upon the road lest the dragon fly overhead and recognize him.

 

Titus almost believed him.

 

The boy was firmly convinced that Lavonius had been the son of a King's ranger stationed in the Fasach Desert. It really was the only explanation for so many of his odd behaviors. He never left tracks. What kind of man never left tracks?

 

But then, how had the loremaster become a loremaster? Where had he found a Royal Library to delve into if he had grown up on the frontier?

 

At times, Lavonius spoke like an old man, and would even change accents mid-sentence. One moment, Lavonius would maintain his stiff upper-lip nobleman's accent, as though he'd been born in a governor's palace. The next moment, the bard would pronounce his words with such a bizarre cadence and intonation that Titus suspected he wasn't even born in the Westlands.

 

And if Lavonius had had time to delve into libraries while also studying to move like a ranger, then how had he learned to tell stories such as he did? There is only so much time in the day, after all.

Even had the bard been the most baby-faced man imaginable, he couldn't have been older than thirty-five. He looked to be Titus's age, but nobody in their early twenties said things like 'my boy.'

 

Perhaps he was a prodigy. Perhaps he had studied in the King's Library as a child only for his father to drag him into the wilds as a teen, then he was apprenticed to a bard as a young man.

 

But that couldn't work, because how had Lavonius learned to leap and dive like an acrobat? The bard was a puzzle that Titus was dead-set on solving. It should have been obvious to him, my good librarian, just who the loremaster was. Titus knew the stories, after all. The Custos were lovers of the epics. But you know as well as I, my friend, the bamboozling effect a man such as he can have on an unprotected mind such as Titus's.

 

Pulkra gurgled discontentedly. The llama's fleece was damp with sweat. Her head drooped. She was entirely unused to the heat, mild though the locals had found it.

Titus patted her neck. His eyes spoke of worry. He looked over at the bard's hooded form,” you're sure there's water up ahead?”

 

Lavonius's head remained bent,” aye, the pond oughtn't be more than two more miles.

”

“You said that two miles ago.”

 

Lavonius's finger shot up, pointing to a thick stand of trees that obscured a bend in the road, perhaps a mile away. His eyes remained glued to the road. “That grove contains the only wild olive trees to be found for a hundred miles. The pond is there. I stand corrected.”

 

Titus sniffed. He had never met anyone quite so odd. They kept walking.

 

The boy's eyes lingered on the grove. A single massive tree stood taller than the rest, its leafy canopy seeming to spread over the treetops like a protective mother. Even from afar, its trunk looked to be as thick as a castle tower. Its branches stretched impossibly wide, its canopy easily as large as a dozen lesser trees combined. Titus had never seen its like before.

 

A hot breeze tickled Titus's face, carrying the scent of rotting flesh. He wrinkled his nose. “Tell me you smell that, too.”

 

“Course I do.”

 

“Any idea what it could be?”

 

“Death.”

 

“Well, that's specific.”

 

“Yep.”

 

By Calestros, he hadn't been able to get Lavonius to shut up for days at a time. If he'd known that all it would take was a bit of heat and walking to get the bard to turn quiet, Titus would have insisted they leave the day before.

 

They approached the grove. Many hundreds of beech and olive trees formed a miniature forest beneath the gargantuan sentinel that spread its branches above them.

 

They were the only trees to be found for nearly fifteen miles of walking. Since leaving the village behind, there had been nothing but grass, dust, and the occasional ground-squirrel.

 

The pair rounded the bend. The smell of death grew stronger. The reason was quickly made obvious.

 

Broken ox-drawn carts sat uselessly in the middle of the road, wheels torn away from their axles. Several dead oxen lay rotting on the ground. Chests and sacks were torn to pieces, their contents strewn across the road. Titus's eyes, however, were drawn to a bizarre sight - from afar, there looked to be dozens of pieces of furniture neatly arrayed on the side of the road.

 

They walked closer. The furniture gained clarity. It seemed to be covered in grisly decorations. Bits of bone stuck out of chair legs, skinless faces with lips stretched wide adorned the foot-stools, and intestines seemed to be stitched into the cushions of couches.

 

The scent of rotting flesh assaulted the nose. Flies buzzed about the place, and crows hopped between the pieces of furniture.

 

“Brace yourself, my boy.”

 

Titus wondered what precisely he ought to be bracing himself for when it struck him. They weren't decorations. It wasn't furniture. They were people.

 

He slowly approached the grotesquely arranged furniture. Every step brought him closer to vomiting.

 

The duo first approached what looked to be a man sitting on a narrow tree stump. With each passing moment, however, the truth became clearer. Spikes had been driven through each of his thighs, holding his knees bent to a perfect right angle. The man's torso had also been impaled on a long spike, its pointed tip peaking out of his grotesquely wide mouth. Planks of wood were nailed to his rotting arms, pinning them in place as arm-rests.

 

Titus stopped three feet away from the grotesque chair. His eyes watered at the smell. The poor man's face had been meticulously sliced away from his head, leaving the tendons and muscles exposed to the air. It looked like a drawing in a doctor's notes.

 

Bile rose. The young man choked it down. Flies buzzed all around.

 

The youth tore his eyes away from the chair that had been a man. His gaze fell on what looked to be a couch. Three people were impaled on spikes, just as the man had been. Two more people lay facedown across their laps, nailed in place. The two facedown corpses had their knees shattered and legs bent upward into armrests. Spikes and stakes had been driven through various limbs and joints. Bones had been broken to bend limbs in ways they were never meant to bend. Intestines had been torn from torsos and wrapped around bodies in odd patterns. Through it all, the skinless grinning faces of the dead.

 

Acid burned Titus's throat. It was a purely physical reaction. He tried to hold it back. He failed.

 

Chunky bile clawed its way from Titus's throat. He fell to his knees and retched on the grass. It felt like everything he had ever eaten came pouring out of his mouth. Soon, the day's food had all left his body. The stomach acid kept coming, though. Tears leaked from his eyes. Vomit dribbled from his nostrils. He screwed his eyes shut.

 

He retching slowed down. It came in spurts now, a bit here, then a bit there. Every time the boy thought was done vomiting, more acid scorched his throat. After several minutes, it finally ended. The young man shivered. His throat burned. His eyes stung. His nose was on fire.

 

With a force of will, Titus stood back up and wiped his mouth. He couldn't pull his eyes from the horrors in front of him.

 

He saw children fashioned into stools. Men and women stitched into tables, blood still leaking from the spikes driven through their flesh to hold them in place. Groups of people had been fashioned into long benches, their bones broken, their limbs contorted in ways they were never meant to bend.

 

Worst of all, every single corpse had had the skin sliced cleanly from the face, leaving not a single damaged artery beneath. There had to have been a dozen and a half bodies here. Titus could not comprehend the cruelty of it.

 

The Guardian had seen men eaten alive while he watched. He had charged into battle, and seen his brother cut down by Faceless Men before he could be saved. The young man had slain monsters, both alone and in good company. He had walked through the ashes of his home, and looked at the severed heads of his friends and family. He had seen his father impaled on a stake in front of his childhood home. In spite of it all, he had never been as horrified as he was in that moment - the moment he looked into the eyes of a child's corpse with the skin peeled from its face, its tiny body fashioned into a foot-stool.

 

“Step away, my boy. You don't need to keep looking.”

 

With a start, Titus remembered he wasn't alone. He turned toward the grove, stumbling away from the grotesque field.

 

“I don't - I can't... It - it just....”

 

Lavonius grabbed the boy by the shoulders and led him around to the other side of the carts. Several dead oxen were tethered to the carts. Their corpses were somehow undefiled. A large cart stood between the living and the dead.

 

Titus took several deep breathes. He willed his stomach to be still. He didn't understand his body's reaction - he'd seen death before. Was this really so much worse?

 

What was even more confusing was how still he felt his mind to be. His chest hurt and his stomach roiled and his throat burned, but he didn't feel anything. He wasn't afraid. He wasn't sad. He wondered if his body was weaker than his heart. He resolved to be angry.

 

After steadying himself, Titus met his companion's worried gaze. “Look, I've heard of the Faceless before. Hell, I even fought them.” Eyes closed. Two deep breathes. Eyes open. “A band of Faceless Men had been spotted near Sweet Iron. A Guardian led us out there, and we ambushed a band of them. Didn't leave survivors.”

 

Lavonius placed a comforting hand on Titus's shoulder. His violet eyes were stained with worry.

 

“I've just never seen the aftermath before. I never had to see the bodies. Scypio told me”- eyes closed -” he told me they cut the faces off their victims. That was how we knew they were near Sweet Iron. I never tried to picture it.” Eyes open. Deep breath. “No one ever told me they did that with the bodies.” Titus's hand gestured viciously to the corpses, as though to backhand an invisible attacker.

 

Lavonius nodded. He understood. He'd reacted a good deal worse the first time he'd witnessed the aftermath. “Aye, my boy. We often shield the hearts of the young from horrors such as these.”

 

“I wasn't supposed to be shielded!” Titus shouted. His eyes were wide and angry, fire all but leaping from them. His voice fell to a murmur,” I was meant to be the shield.”

 

“Some things are too horrible to speak of.”

 

“I just can't - it - it's just - they...” Hot tears leaked from the boy's eyes.

 

Lavonius wrapped his arm around the boy's shoulder, squeezing him tightly. They sat in silence. They stayed there, leaning against a broken ox-cart, one man holding the other. The sun sank beneath the horizon. Dusk crept over the world. The shadows grew long.

 

The silence was broken by Pulkra's gurgling llama voice. She walked over and pushed her long face into Titus's own. She hummed, her voice somehow sad in spite of itself.

 

As though the llama had broken a spell, Lavonius shook himself and pulled his arm away from the boy. “It would have taken a substantial band for them to raid a caravan such as this. I've only ever heard of them picking off lone travelers this close to the Royal Road. It would take a large group indeed for them to wander so close to the King's Land.”

 

“This is the King's Land.”

 

“Land belongs to those that kill for it, you don't own land because of lines on a map. You know as well as I that we won't find a patrol for another twenty miles. This is as much wild country as the mountains you call home.”

 

“I don't care!” Titus smashed a bare fist into the nearest cart. His knuckles bled. He felt nothing. His body felt angry, but his heart was as empty as ever. “We hunt them down and we grind them into dust.”

 

“Judging from the sheer quantity of tracks I've seen around this hellyard, there must be at least fifty of them. You might have your fancy armor, Titus, but even you would drown beneath so many bodies. Fire magic will do you no good against these things.”

 

“I don't care.”

 

“The grove I spoke of is right here” Lavonius gestured to the tiny forest,” we need water. Let us make camp and discuss our next move over supper.” The bard's hand squeezed Titus's shoulder,” your llama is going to keel over if she doesn't get water soon.”

 

The boy cast a worried eye at Pulkra. Her eyes met his, and he thought he saw concern in them. He grabbed fistfuls of her wool and buried his head in her neck. She hummed warmly. She had been with him for as long as he had been a man. Through long mountain treks and short hunts, quick excursions and arduous rites of passage, she had been there with him. She was as much his home as all the dead friends he'd left behind. He had lost everything, but he still had her. He still had her.

 

With a steadying breath, Titus looked over at the tall, shrouded man. “Lead the way.”