Business, Pleasure, and Pugilism

[Leopold]

“You look like a yak’s arse Leroy,” Wilfred heckled.

Leopold stopped dead in his tracks, widened his eyes, and bit his lip. After three hundred leagues over tundra, it was the last thing he wanted to hear.

“Manners, Mr Jackson…,” he reminded. He added a sigh for good measure in case his disappointment was not obvious.

The rectangular office of the Salvar branch of The Winchester Rose fell silent. For an awkward moment, the occupants shuffled uncomfortably. Nobody knew what to do, say, or think. It had been a long day. It would be a longer night.

“It is alright Mr Winchester. Me and Mr Jackson have a history spanning,” he mock counted, “a decade or so.”

“I am sure that would make for a grand tale,” Leopold complimented. He had heard snippets of that history over the years but had no desire to dig deeper. Some things did wonders if left buried. “How are things?” The change of subject was a natural swerve from awkwardness.

“…Now then.”

Mr Tilmouth recounted the last three weeks operations. Leopold and Wilfred walked to the central desk and sat in two chairs opposite. Tilmouth sat in a chair Leopold had carved, with raven wing rests, and began to rifle through document wallets. Each was an account in honour of clients in the ruins of Knife’s Edge.

“Most of all,” he concluded. He finally got to the point. “Most of all we have been contending with the Vorgruk-Stokes Trading Company.”

“Oh joy,” Wilfred clucked. He pushed himself boisterously from his chair. Every step towards the drink’s cabinet on the eastern wall was dutiful. Leopold had no need to call for ‘business fortification’ any more. The mere mention of Vorgruk required bourbon, and lots of it.

The rattle of glasses broke the silence.

“I am sorry, only, I thought you said ‘contending’ and ‘Vorgruk-Stokes’ in the same sentence.” Leopold furrowed his brow. He folded his left leg over his right. He began to feel clammy as the cold night air changed to a stuffy, coal-scented atmosphere.

Mr Tilmouth nodded. His troubled expression revealed conflict in his mind and that, to Leopold, was truly cause for concern. Finally locating the file he required to demonstrate, Leroy turned it about and held it forwards. Leopold rose, took it, and sat down again. He scanned it with feigned disinterest. Somehow, he knew exactly what the Vorgruk-Stokes were up to.

“What am I looking for?” he questioned.

Mr Tilmouth puckered his lips. Although he was a model employee, Mr Winchester intimidated Leroy immensely. Without thinking, he gave away far too much about his mistakes in the last week with that simple expression. Leopold took one look at him, and resigned himself to disappointment.

“The Vorgruk-Stokes company agreed not to involve themselves with your business.” Leroy tapped the table nervously. He pointed to the stained and curling map on the eastern wall.

“But…?” Leopold cajoled. He was growing impatient.

Leroy looked at Wilfred nervously.

“They have raised an orcish army.”

[Leopold]

Business, Pleasure, and Pugilism

Sequel to Dread Sovereign.

[Leopold]

It took a few moments for the facts to seep into Leopold’s tired mind. When they did, his eyes widened and his heart raced. He made no show of it to the others, lest they begun to feel superior. He was, though a friend, also their employer.

“I am sorry. There is an orcish army here in Salvar?” The scepticism did not need more forcing or explaining than that.

“Not in Salvar Mr Winchester. The Vorgruk-Stokes have seen fit to undermine your ‘slow reparations’ here by inciting an invasion. The invasion would send Knife’s Edge…well, over the edge. Rumours point to them then sweeping in, picking up all the duchy’s contracts-”

“…and profiting heinously from death and destruction,” Leopold concluded.

With ever the perfect timing Wilfred arrived at the desk with a tray. They were not Leopold’s finest silverware, but the decanter and three crystal glasses were worth fortunes. They were imported from Raiaera, gifts from the Blade singer council of old. Wilfred knew this all too well, and set them very carefully onto the battered veneer.

“Bourbon, sir?” he ventured. His bristly moustache bobbed on parched lips. He undid the stopper, presuming, and began to pour.

“How did you find this out?” Leopold nodded to Wilfred. He did not look set eyes away from Mr Tilmouth.

Leroy shuffled uncomfortably. In his defence, he produced another dossier, which Leopold recognised as a reconnaissance report from a Chronicle operative. He took it with a lightning snatch, and confirmed his suspicions.

“We have to do something.”

Leroy nodded, seeing an opportunity to divert aggression to someone, something, somewhere other than him.

“I took the liberty of calling on a few old friends who might be helpful in preventing this chaos before it happens.”

Mr Winchester, Mr Tilmouth, and Mr Jackson each partook in a deep inhalation of their bourbon. They waited an appropriate amount of time before they proceeded to neck it, smash their laps in a choral misogyny, and slam the glasses down. Wilfred went about fixing them another.

“I dread to think who you have deemed suitable for such a task,” Leopold said in jest.

The office, a rundown branch of the Winchester Rose began to look a little cheerier. The fireplace, run down to its embers, seemed brighter. The run down tiles ceased to let in thawing snow, and the run down picture frames stopped stealing the thunder of the maps and expensive oil paintings from far off lands.

“You will need a translator, for one.” The dossier flew through the air and landed on Leopold’s lap, much to his surprise. “Recognise that puggish face?”

Leopold looked inside, chuckled, and closed it again.

“Yes, how could I forget?”

“I’ll be accompanying you too I expect sir?” Wilfred enquired. He loosened up the moment he sat down. Leopold was never sure if the growing friendliness at the end of the day was through drink or respect.

“The army is amassing on the Plains of Adelman, what about that giant fellow?”

[Leopold]

Leopold wanted very much to shoot down the idea. The more he thought about it, and threw room into silence, the less ammunition he found. It made sense. Awkward.

“I guess the giants could make an appearance,” he hesitated.

“Well either they do, or the army right above their heads topples the gate tower to the city.”

It took the merchant an embarrassing length of time to piece the various, half-veiled clues together. When he did a bourbon was required, a cough, and a sitting up straight.

“You mean the army is literally outside Adelman?” On the plains. Why of course it was. How could he have been so slapdash?

“The valley where the eagles oft land is now an encampment some ten thousand strong. The city gates have not opened since winter’s fall, and likely won’t till the thaw revives eastern Berevar in spring.” Mr Tilmouth spoke with authority on the matter but a little too much condescension.

“I get the picture,” Leopold sniped. “I can send word to the Bursar but I would not factor them into our little dalliance with resistance.” He glared cautiously, to tell Tilmouth to back off without actually having to say so, and then turned to Wilfred. “Thoughts?”

“I have them occasionally, sir,” the butler glibly replied. The narrowed glare did away with the need for further humour. “What of the scribe, sir?”

Luned Bleddyn. Undoing worlds and warriors with a flick of her quill. Leopold had considered her as an ally, perhaps one too many times, but this seemed inappropriate for her expertise.

“I’m not sure she’d be able to…,” he fell silent. Remembering. Smiling. “Actually…”

The office returned to a steady status quo, lingering souls of wood smoke danced overhead, and nervous quivers of excitement faded away. As the men finally found their place, and marked their boundaries, things began to flow naturally and with accordance to that age-old courteous pursuit – bullshit.

“Send her a telegram Wilfred, and let’s see what she says. Play the Gurdon angle,” he added, beseeching himself for a telling-off-at-a-later-date, “and then steer absolutely one hundred percent clear of that other fellow.”

Mr Tilmouth caught Leopold’s glare, and frowned.

“Am I missing something?” he asked.

Leopold lifted himself from the chair and approached the ageing map with slow, undaunted charisma. Every step he took ensnared Mr Tilmouth. Every breath hushed the crowd of one. Capsulated.

“Whatever you do Mr Tilmouth avoid any contact with an associate,” he stopped ten feet from the tapestry, “an unfortunate necessity of the job.” He sighed. “Called Aurelianus.” A flash of black skin, an augmented vision of quills, quivers, and qualms. Leopold had begun to hate the man as much as Luned, but still had quite the way to go to match her enmity.

“The man you sent to-“

“Enough of that, Mr Tilmouth,” Leopold snapped. Wilfred, who by now halfway to the door, stopped to crane his neck. “You don’t know who is listening.”

The manservant departed, bereft of gossip.

[Leopold]

Day One - Ahyark Pass, Berevar

A wagon trailed north, through Ahyark, snow, and insanity. At its helm, Leopold Winchester peered through the bellowing drift. At its rear, Wilfred played cards, as ever he did, with men who could ill afford the luxury.

“I don’t know what I’d do without you, Mr Bastum,” the merchant said aloud. He had every intention of his voice penetrating the red and white strikes of the wagon’s canopy.

Even over the howl of the wind, the praise reached the ears of the intended recipient.

“You’re ever my saving grace!”

At the recollection, Leopold winced. The gunshot that ended a former life in the service of justice in Corone still gave him trouble. It was as though the shot pierced the fabric of the Tap itself, leaving a scar to heal in the ether.

“Otto…?” he questioned, after minutes of awkward silence.

Given neither man had spoken in over three hours; it came as small surprise to Leopold when Otto did not respond. He puckered his lips, half against cold and callous disregard for recognition. Though the orc had seemingly come to Berevar willingly, the further they went, the harder it became to reason with why. The offer Leopold had to make on the outcome today weighed heavily on him.

“I am sorry if I made it seem like you had no choice Otto!” he added, hoping to get through to the key to their kingdom. If Mr Bastum, of all people, could not parlay with the orc warlords…no one could.

[Otto]

It was dim inside the cart, and musty. A scant bit of sunlight penetrated the cloth cover, but it had better luck than the breeze, which had been almost entirely shut out. Otto had reckoned the winters in Corone could get pretty foul, but Berevar had a bite to it even in the milder months. It was the wind, he reckoned. If you didn't put a good inch of fur or hide between you and it, then it would flense you to the bone.

"I think he's talking to you again..." muttered Wilfred.

Otto ignored him. The orc held, between his pudgy fingers, a hand just one card short of a flush. He extracted the lone diamond from its kin of hearts, put it face-down on their impromptu table, and tapped at it meaningfully. Wilfred gave him an old-fashioned look in return, as well as another card from the deck, which he slid across the upturned crate. Otto picked it up, and squinted at it through the gloom.

Ace of spades. Bugger.

Otto stood up as far as the wagon's canopy allowed, while mumbling, "I should see what he wants." He crab-walked his way through the stacked supplies to the front of the wagon, followed by the sound of Wilfred and Jeren's sniggering, and wormed past the front roll of cloth.

There was Leopold, parked to one side on the driver's seat. Even after all this time, Otto wasn't quite used to the man's transformation; whenever he looked at him, it took just a fraction of a second before recognition kicked in. Otto clambered through the rest of the way and sat himself by his friend's side. Leopold took his eyes off the scenery to glance at the orc, and flashed him a wan smile.

"You must know this is important," he said.

Otto peered warily around the snow-blanketed pass. "It is?" he asked. It all looked very much the same to him; uniformly white, blue, and grey, but broken here and there as a struggling plant pushed its way up from the stony earth.

Leopold looked unimpressed. "I was referring to situation with the horde."

Ah, of course. A standing army of five thousand orcs had borne down upon the Ahyark Mountains, and Salvar's capital, Knife's Edge. Leopold had thought long and hard on a solution, and so here was Otto, his skin turning a deeper shade of blue the farther north they went. It was a very human idea, sending an orc to negotiate with his peers, although obviously not a true orc, as one of those would never sue for peace. Just one that looked and sounded like an orc. Otto approved; it was probably what he himself would have suggested.

Otto just hoped it wasn't Leopold's only plan. One good card didn't win the game.

"How much further to go?" he asked. As if it mattered... the distant peaks which barely moved, and the monotonous snow - they combined to do strange and boring things with one's sense of time. An hour felt just as long and dull here as a day.

[Leopold]

“Atop the pass we’ll be able to look down into the caldera, as the locals call it.” Leopold sounded far too impressed with his own knowledge.

Otto frowned. There were no volcanoes in the frozen heartland. He pointed to the rise ahead, gestured east then west, taking in the horizon, and then turned to the merchant.

“Caldera?”

Leopold smiled; hook line and sinker with his fish of knowledge.

“It’s called the caldera because it’s a natural ‘bowl’ surrounded by mountains. The lava’s metaphorical, something church-witty about Knife’s Edge being the bowels of hell or some such.” His sipping from a hip flask whilst whipping reigns did not bring comfort to the orc.

“Should you really be drinking Leopold?”

Always. There was never not a time to partake. Though Wilfred and largely Ruby had tried, and failed…it still amused him that people asked. He put the flask into his inner pocket and took the reins firmly.

“Of course I should. We’ll be in Knife’s Edge by nightfall, and from there, a day’s ride to Adelman’s gates.” If they were lucky, it would be two. Then he could enjoy Salvar ice wine on the open ride, all the while travelling into utter uncertainty resting on one highly recommended member of Corone’s armed forces.

“Right.” Otto sniffled. Though hardy, the cold out front was beginning to get to him. The cards and the cover of the caravan suddenly seemed overbearingly welcoming. He rose on his haunches, and looked to the merchant.

“Continue your game, if you want. We’ve time,” he said, reading his companion’s mind without taking his mind off the thickening drift cupped by landslides and Liviol branches broken and decrepit. The wilds here were truly wild, lost to time and reason.

“Thank you,” Otto found himself saying for no reason.

Ducking back inside, Wilfred’s sour face greeted the orc with a nervous, sheepish expression. Otto saw the card disappear up the man’s sleeve in a flash, and when he sat down, shaking the wagon back and forth, he coughed loudly. It was a suggestive and forceful blow to Wilfred’s ‘winning streak’.

“Can you blame me?” was all the manservant could muster. He pulled out a pipe and began to empty it of yesterday’s debauchery.

Otto coughed loudly a second time. He rested his titanic fists on his knees, and stared. Wilfred sighed, put the pipe away, and dealt them both a fresh hand of legitimate, courteous cards. He began to see exactly why Otto Bastum selected for what Wilfred Jackson believed entirely to be a suicide mission.

“He has no idea what he’s doing, does he…” Otto grumbled.

Wilfred chuckled, loud enough to be annoying, but not loud enough to alert Leopold to the fact somebody other than he was having a good time. He shuffled the cards one last time, and dealt four to each. The game was changing, but the rules; win at all costs, were still very much the same.

“Did your little ‘adventure’ in Corone not spell that out abundantly clear like your name written in piss in the snow?” Toothy grin aside, Wilfred seemed genuinely amazed at the concept. The ignorance, he meant, but he kept that to himself.

Otto ground his trunk-like teeth and admired his hand.

“There were too many bodies to be paying attention,” he recollected. He still smelt the carnal house of the priest’s dark secret. “But let’s play.”

“Let’s indeed,” Wilfred agreed. He set a four of hearts down onto the floor, drank a dram of whisky from his own, less grandiose flask, and waited patiently.

“I’ve only got till nightfall to win back a week’s pay,” the orc added, half in jest, half in deadly seriousness. He added a five of spades to the pile with a broad, cantankerous smile that practically slapped Wilfred across the face with a gauntlet.

"'Try to'," the manservant corrected glibly. He took a deep breath of the stale air, admired his bodily craftiwork, and added a seven to the tower. "I think you should be asking questions, good for the soul and all that shit...," he paused to watch Otto set an eight, and frowned. "But the question I want asking...is why the fuck did you say yes?"

His king finished the round, and with a curse of his own, Otto picked up the pile and dealt them both four more cards.

"Well..."

[Otto]

Night came quickly to Berevar. Otto had never seen anything like it.

Radasanth was a sprawling city, a strangely textured stain across the land. The buildings formed artificial crevasses, ensuring a fractured mosaic of shadows and light, patterned here and there with yellow lamp flames and colourful decorations. Berevar's wilderness was not like that at all. Everything was a single monotonous shade of white, from the expansive incline around them to the distant peaks in the distance. And yet, perhaps monotonous wasn't quite the right word. Even though the moon was far from full, it reflected dully on the snow from horizon to horizon, just the faintest shade brighter than the night sky. And the sky... without the presence of the street lamps and torches which marred one's night vision, he could see it all clearly - the ghost landscape, the hard stars glimmering above, even the twisting clouds of nebulae.

It was enchanting.

His breath came out in frigid little clouds, and he could see that too. As Otto stood there, propped against his shovel and staring out across the landscape, a sound emerged from the silence behind him and approached; snow crunching beneath light steps. Leopold soon drew up beside him, and the two of them shared the vista.

"We're a bit too far south," Leopold murmured, "but if conditions are right once we get further in, we will see the aurora. It's supposed to be magnificent."

The man's voice was hushed and respectful - a church house whisper. A shiver wracked Otto's shoulders, and he drew his cloak in tighter. He had grabbed some cold-weather furs from Leopold's supplies since his own Coronian wardrobe measured up woefully short to Berevar's climate, but his oilskin cloak at least did a good job of keeping out the wind. Said breeze hummed lazily around them, the constant background rumble of a great beast at sleep.

"I've heard about it," said Otto. "I should like to see that."

He wasn't the only one, either. Anvil seemed keen to reach the northern lights as well, fervently so. Otto did not know exactly why, but apparently the spectacle was the result of an unimaginably vast and deep deposit of iron. Anvil had tried to explain it to him - how the liquid iron reacted with the sun - but most of it was lost on the orc. Not that it stopped the spirit trying, though. Otto had noticed that the closer they got to the north pole, the more animated Anvil became. It even seemed less malicious, as though it had other things to keep it interested, and so did not need its vicious little games to stay entertained. Yes, Otto very much wanted to see the lights. Whatever it was that could affect the creature so must surely be incredible.

"Come on," said Leopold, after a short while. "We will want to be leaving by daybreak. Berevar is not the kind of place where you let sunlight go to waste."

Otto nodded, and followed him back to the snow shelter they had carved into the slope. Doing the same for the horses had been trickier, but giving an angry orc a shovel had been a good way to solve that problem. He and the others had dug down a few metres until they struck the frozen soil, just deep enough to put a roof over the head of the animals. Though the horses complied, they obviously didn't like their tight quarters, and Otto was learning why Salvarians often opted for sleds and husky teams.

They crawled in through the meagre opening to their own little space, navigating the sudden dark by touch and memory. Otto could hear the gentle breaths of the rest of their team, as well as the soft whisper of the wind outside. He reached his bedroll after a little bit of trial and error, slipped off his boots, crawled under the thick blankets, and closed his eyes.

[Otto]

The evening air had a chill to it, though nothing too bad. Radasanth's sturdy buildings sheltered the streets from the worst of it, and even that which did worm through came from the sea, and was thus tempered by the water's slow release of heat built up during daylight hours. Resolve and Otto walked arm in arm over lamp-lit flagstones, he protected by a stout woolen coat, she bare-armed and apparently indifferent to the cold. They slowly left one of Radasanth's restaurants behind them, where they had each enjoyed a rather nice meal and some palatable wines which, even now, lightly fogged their heads.

"Aren't you cold?" Otto asked. Though his dense hair and thick body let him laugh off some of Corone's more frigid weather, he was also used to the heat of the forge, and nor was he ignorant of the cold's effect on his slimmer human counterparts.

Resolve, however, made a dismissive sort of noise. "After all that wine we had? I think not."

Otto had to admit, he could feel the heat radiating off of her. Even through the fabric of his sleeve, he could feel the softness of her arm - a softness that belied their strength. He glanced down at her, and the cogs turned slowly in his mind.

Resolve looked up when she felt the mock shiver run through his limbs. Then she smiled, and pulled herself in closer. "You poor thing," the girl said, as she shared her warmth with him.

"Oh, it's not so bad," he replied nonchalantly. "Actually, I was wondering if you were up for a little stroll."

"Where to?"

"Somewhere special."

* * *

"It... looks a bit seedy," said Resolve, uncertainly.

Otto stopped fiddling with the heavy padlock on the worn door, and looked up at the towering wall, bathed in moonlight. Rough, mismatched stones rose high above them, and the entire edifice was void of much in the way of decoration or variety. When the builders had erected the battlements around the city, the sheer immensity of the task had probably driven such time-consuming features from their mind.

"Please," he replied, returning to the lock. "I know what I'm about."

There came a sullen click, and Otto let the padlock fall to the ground. He creaked the door open and stepped inside. A few more bumps and bangs signified his blind business in the small room beyond, but he found a tinderbox soon enough, which he used to light a wall-mounted lamp. Resolve could see him now, bathed in a dim glow. He gestured her to follow, then turned around and began to ascend a ladder at the far end of the room. She stepped inside and climbed up after him.

"I had a friend lend me the key earlier today," Otto whispered back down. "We're in one of the old eastern watch towers."

They passed through a couple of other storeys, each as empty as the first. They came to the top of the ladder, where Otto paused just long enough to push open the trapdoor above, and then he was up and out. After a couple of seconds, his long arms stretched back down the hole. Resolve grabbed onto them, and then she was floating up into the open air, the orc's strength making light of her relatively small mass.

When she raised her eyes, all of Radasanthia lay before her.

"I always enjoyed having wall duty," Otto said. He walked over to the parapet and leaned on the weather-worn stones. "Never got assigned to it after they moved me to the investigative squad, though."

Resolve stepped up beside him and looked out over the rolling landscape. The bright moon lit up the endless fields in burnished silver, and twinkled clear upon the sluggish Nieme. Here and there, faint spots of yellow light signified a distant farmstead, or perhaps a coaching inn, each one made more obvious whenever a tumbling cloud cast them into perfect darkness. And yet, it all seemed to go on endlessly, a gentle, ghostly down which spanned from horizon to horizon.

"Good view, isn't it? If the wind is right, and coming from the east, you can even smell the rest of the barony," Otto added.

Resolve turned on him. "Oh, come on," she said teasingly. "All of it?"

"Of course."

"I don't believe you."

"It's true! Here - face east," he told her. She dutifully turned around again. "Now close your eyes. It helps you focus."

Laughing faintly, she did as she was commanded once again. Otto stepped in close, so that he was just behind her shoulder.

"Now," he continued, "take a short breath and hold it. Don't flood your sinuses with air. The first thing you should be able to smell are the orchards in the east. Can you pick out the apple blossom?"

Resolve frowned with concentration. Then, after a few seconds, it receded, and she smiled. "Yes! That's incredible... they're so far away. Wait - how can I smell them at night...?"

"It takes time for the wind to carry their scent this far," Otto replied calmly. "You can smell the flowers well after dusk, and by the same token, won't be able to smell them until an hour or two into the day. Keep your eyes closed."

Otto returned the small white flowers to his pocket, and in the same movement, drew out a small jar.

"The wind's changed to a westerly now." He opened the jar, disguising the sound beneath a showy sniff of his own, and brought the container fairly close to Resolve's nose. "There was a Falleni ship in just this evening. Can you-"

"-nutmeg, star anise... cardamom?" Resolve guessed. "A spice merchant, then? Actually, I'm running a bit short on camphor at home."

"Good," said Otto. Now he was smiling. "There's more as well, but I don't know if you'll be able to pick them..."

He had judged her just right, it turned out. "Try me," said Resolve, determinedly.

"Well... on a really clear night, when enough cold air drops down from the northern mountains, it passes through the conifer forests on the lower slopes."

Otto watched her take a few tentative sniffs of the air, but to no apparent avail. "Here," he said, and stepped up closer, right behind her. A large, grey arm curved around her side to cradle her jaw, a side effect of which meant it ended up hugging her, almost as if by happenstance. He gently guided her head. "Face north, and tilt your head up a bit." His other arm pressed into the small of her back. "Move a bit closer to the edge, so you can catch the upwell where the wind hits the wall."

"You're making this up, surely," said Resolve, accusingly.

"Not at all. Now, focus..."

Fortunately for him, pine resin was cheap and plentiful, so it wasn't long before Resolve was laughing with victory. "There it is!" she exclaimed, then opened her eyes - though not soon enough to see Otto tuck the small shard of amber away. Her head drooped back against his chest, and Otto dropped his hand away from her jaw. Before he could take it away completely, though, he felt Resolve's delicate fingers entwine amidst his own, and clasp his arm across her collar. He hesitated, and then his other arm slid about her waist and held her snug, while he nuzzled her richly-scented hair. He felt her body relax against his, and there they stayed, a little hutch of shared warmth looking out upon the softly sleeping countryside.

[Leopold]

Day Two - Ahyark Pass, Berevar

First light, soft touch of promise. Leopold was up first, as ever he was. He set about mustering the beasts of burden promptly. Otto remained stationary for quite some time. His nostrils pug-like whistled their content and told observers of sweet dreams made for two. The merchant tried to reason with his own misgivings about orcs. Mr Bastum had proven each one quite incorrect, and yet here they were headlong into a foray with the worst their kind had to offer.

After a few horses, Leopold’s boots were sodden. The snow clung to leather like shit to a shovel and left brackish moisture dribbling through his haggard toes. Fortunately, for him, immortality did away with frostbite’s constant worry and left him merely tired, uncomfortable, and in desperate need of a drink.

“Wilfred!” he roared. His breath a cloud of vapour, his heart a ventricle of stone and oil, he stood steady and waited. The manservant materialised from behind a horse’s ass symbolic, and smiled through a broken fence of teeth and mischief.

The ice villas tumbled one by one. Shelter swift shorn from the world and replaced with sludge and dark snow from rock face’s throng. By Wilfred’s hand, the caravan had mustered itself ready in under an hour. That efficiency kept the Winchester Rose abreast of the competition, and the expertise it kept closely guarded made light work of Berevar’s uneasy roads.

“Could you kindly wake Otto with some of our best travel cobs, a slab of the Rosie cheese, and some salted ham?” Rosie cheese was a Scara Brae highlight, and salted ham every caravan worker’s staple food. “Then get yourself the same and a draught of the good stuff from my wagon.” This offer was Wilfred’s benefit, well, the better of so-called ‘perks’ for the man who very much ran the business as much as Leopold did.

With a smile, broadly beamed and melting snow with pleasure, the manservant vanished as quickly as he appeared. Leopold tightened the last buckles on his wagon’s tack, and patted the mane of Beastie and Bonnet; naming animals not his best skill, and clambered up to the front porch of his makeshift home. His hobbled boots, still wet, dripped icicles down the framework and his bony backside and aching limbs draped over the course wood in a brief moment’s respite from a busy morning.

“Ride out in ten minutes!” The order carried right down the pass with a thunderous certainty to it. Quality like that came only with godly power, and perhaps a promise of more coin the quicker they fended off near-certain-death from Knife’s Edge beleaguered, broken back. He took out a book; a battered leather bound manuscript of his own, and turned to a folded page. Gingerly, he licked his finger, set back the pleat, and read on.

Out of sight, but not mind, Wilfred crept up to the hulk of Otto Bastum with a wooden plate in right hand, and flagon in left. Fortunately, for the orc, he was not on duty and not bound to the decorum and rules of employment with the Winchester Rose. He was free to drink, and drink he did, as often as he liked on the way to the giant’s home. Wilfred, knowing the potential for a missing eye if he grew too close, whispered the guest’s name meekly.

“Otto…”

Silence. A snort. Silence again.

“Otto!” he said a little louder, his bark hushed by nerves and the imminence of their departure. Defeated, he scuffed his boot angrily in the snow. “Sod it…”

“Hrummpgpgpg.” Grumbled the sleeping giant.

“Mr Bastum! Wake the pikin’ ‘ell up!” Wilfred shouted. Though not godly, his voice possessed all the thunderous, certain qualities of the elder Thayne. Just in case, he stepped away into the portal and grit teeth teasingly against the tired old tirade of trying to tease men out of tired retreats.