A hundred good men marched to the village of Isola in the southern barony of Scara Brae, determined to put an end to whatever menace assailed their homeland. They approached from the south along a wide, snaking dust road flanked by lemon grass mottled ditches and a sense that many a well-worn traveller had taken the same path. The sun was soon to reach its zenith, marking the sixth hour since the Knights of Brae had departed the capital. At the head of the column strode a man with red hair and a black heart, trying to make sense of his world through good deeds and pledging his blade to good causes. A plucky merchant followed, his jacket slung onto the wagon that accompanied them and sweat visible in each armpit.

“This is all so pedestrian,” he grumbled to no-one.

“Rich, coming from a man who made and lost a fortune on the open roads.”

“That was old me, this new me doesn’t take too kindly to forty leagues in now ruined boots.”

“I didn’t force you to come.” Arden smirked.

“You didn’t give me any option to stay, either.”

“It’s okay to be nervous,” said the knight captain who strode alongside Arden with one hand on the hilt of his longsword and the other gently rubbing a fetish of swan feathers and golden icons. “It happens to us all.”

“All well and good, Jacov, but I am not new to the art of war.”

Arden turned to the captain, careful to hide his face from his brother. He mouthed ‘He likes to read about it’, and they exchanged smug smiles. As they slowly began to climb up the last of far too many rolling hills toward the village, the men redoubled their efforts and the silence was broken only by birdsong and the clank of the wagon’s wheels over rocks and ruin.

Reports of corpses left to rot in the sun amidst the ashes of homesteads had done little to temper the growing sense of unease amongst the Knights Brae. Leopold did his best to investigate the sites for clues, but nothing had produced so much as a vague lead since the attacks began weeks prior. All they knew was that the atrocities were not committed by the Innari, the enemy for which they had formed their ragtag alliance of common swordsman and haughty militician. It gave Arden a sense of ill-ease he had not experienced in decades.

“What are your orders Maester?” Jacov put the prayer beads around his neck and tucked them beneath his tabard.

“They are your men, Captain. I am merely here to ply my own particular trade.”

“That’s not what the Knight Commander said in his minutes.” The captain shook his head. “You are to lead this expedition, and that implies command.”

Arden considered this gravely. Half a male behind them the remainder of the Knights Brae followed in loose formation, establishing a camp and moving it as the expeditionary force continued their procession across Scara Brae in search of the culprit. He could not see himself taking the helm of such a large force, even one so easily outnumbered by even the most lacklustre of armies standing around the world. He sighed and made to measure himself with the trust of just a hundred.

“Stay close and enter the village in a spear head. If we encounter an ambush close into the vase and have the good gentlemen here at it’s centre. He can do his thing, and we can bring justice in the Scara Brae manner.”

“Yes sir.”

“Call me Arden, Maester if you much.” The swordsman bit his lip. “I am nobody’s sir.”

They marched on silently, the heat getting even to the glistening torso of the Maester of the Scourge. Soon, the dark outline of Isolde turned into wooden palisades and half burnt houses atop a crested hill. He took in every detail he could pick out, his umbral eyes piercing the halcyon for signs of archers on rooftops or enchantments waiting to be triggered. Nothing. Silence. Birds circling overhead, and a swollen sense of a summer wasted.