They've All Forgotten You

Out of Character:

Closed to Christina Bredith. All bunnying approved.

An hour's travel as the dire wolf runs due north of Sulgoran's Axe, a rounded monstrosity was carved out of the walls of the Gorum Mountains. The labyrinth of tunnels and tainted chambers that made up the maximum security prison were gouged from the living rock and barred with raw damascus gates. In winter months when strong winds lashed the mountains, the halls mingled their moans with the prisoners who were tortured by guards, each other, or their own minds.

The prison had no official name, and no official benefactor, although gold flowed into its vaults from conduits that ran throughout the Northlands. The warden lived in Knife's Edge, and hid his identity behind those conduits, who stayed loyal out of both fear and respect for the warden's wealth. The prison housed only those prisoners whose crimes or secrets deemed them unfit for national jails, yet who had managed to avoid the death penalty. A sub-race of orc-drow hybrids who called themselves the Gorum'Fael served as the prison's guards. They spoke only in the coarse grunts of a little-known orcish dialect, and were forbidden from communicating with the prisoners lest it be using their truncheons. Outcast by the wild of the north and civilisation to the south, they found their calling in that pit of the damned. The Gorum'Fael liked to think the place got its unofficial name specifically from the shape their gnarled and pointed ears; both the prisoners and the public called it Devil's Keep.

In its bowels the prisoners toiled twelve hours a day, mining and refining ore from deep beneath the crust of Althanas. When their bodies could no longer lift a shovel or carry a bucket they were tossed into cramped chambers, locked in with meager rations and the imprinted stench of former occupants.

Dangling into Berevar, the largest chambers of the prison were blocked from freedom by a thick glacier which hugged the cliff face. Rumors of escaped convicts who managed to squeeze through crevices in the ice often circulated, but the deadly tundra at the other end of such tunnels intimidated most prisoners more than the prison.

The prisoners were a mixture of drow and dwarves, men and orcs, and a small population of demons. What few elves got sent there seldom lasted long. They were worn down by overwork and undernourishment, beaten down by the clubs and heavy leather boots of the Gorum'Fael. But in the eyes of many the spark of rebellion still burned. And in the well-oiled mind of one century old drow, a plan of escape and revenge had morphed and molded to perfection over thirty long years.

Salvar was no place for a woman like Christina Bredith.

As she traversed the snowy wastes in search of the sleepy hamlet of Keepswatch, supposedly the northernmost town in all of Salvar, she often forgot why she had come here, and when she could remember, wondered whether it was worth it. It was an unfortunate and necessary evil: the Corone Empire had long fingers and right now her priority was shaking off its tireless grasp. The Scarlet Brigade itself was after her, she had discovered, and though Salvar was no friend of Corone’s—Empire or Republic—she could not take any chances where those red spectres were involved. Borders and allegiances meant nothing to them.

The plan was simple enough: in Knife’s Edge, the first place any sensible bounty hunter or spy would go for information, she had quietly spread rumours of her own demise after allying with a minor noble somewhere in the south of the country along the Testhan River, whose estates were in a state of chaos as a result of unrest among the peasants and whose soldiers were frequently assaulted and killed with increasing efficiency. It wasn’t the most bulletproof of ploys—there would, of course, be no body to find, and questioning of the actual peasants would yield little—but she had high hopes for its effectiveness because the truth would be so hard to verify when the nobility and their hired swords died every day and received little more than a river burial, piles of their corpses washing swiftly into the Beris Sea. It was a dark time for Salvar, but darkness has always been a friend to those who need to become invisible.

Christina herself made for the furthest point she could find from those river estates, and that point was Keepswatch. Even wrapped in a cloak of thick brown wool trimmed with ermine fur, the bitter cold this far north—and in the dead of winter, besides—was starting to bite at her extremities. Settlements were much farther between this far north than they were in the midlands. If she didn’t find Keepswatch soon, she would have to set up camp and hope for the best. She had a tent and supplies in her pack, but setting up a fire amidst these howling winds and torrents of snow would be impossible. Still, it was less foolish than trying to travel the wastes at night.

It so happened that as the sun was setting beyond the jagged peaks of the highlands to the west, the lights of a village began sparkling to life somewhere to Christina’s right. Not quite east, she judged, but certainly not north, either, which was where she had been heading. Another hour of daylight and she would have passed the village right by! She should have known better than to trust a “cartographer” dressed in a wolfhide loincloth and little else, however much he claimed to have “first-hand knowledge” of the terrain.

But less than an hour later, Christina was past the city limits of sleepy Keepswatch, which was actually not so sleepy after all once you came out of the cold. The only inn in town was called the Last Stop, a two-storied structure of thick brick partly buried underground to conserve heat, and it was bustling with such life that she wondered how they found the energy for it out here on the edge of nowhere. A large, quaintly-decorated fireplace roared against the far wall, surrounded by a bard and his audience; its mantelpiece bore several pairs of reindeer antlers and the mounted head of a particularly unfriendly-looking dire wolf. Music filled the impressive building from wall to wall, and people diced and played cards at every table that wasn’t being danced on.

“Another round, Lady Rosalyn?” one of her dice mates called out across the table some uncounted hours later, for that was what she was going by in these parts. The alias was probably unnecessary—her identity could not possibly be known this far north, and rumours of her passing would take months to reach Knife’s Edge through this bitter winter even if she did anything noteworthy—but there was no point in being careless.

“Of dice, Bernhard,” she called back, eyeing the piles of gold on the table in front of each player, “or drinks?” Well, she had just about broken even so far this evening, about as much as could be hoped for from a game of dice. Nobody ever really won or lost at dice if you played long enough. “Either way, the answer’s no. I’ve had my fill of the first and it’s your turn for the second!”

The middle-aged man grumbled good-naturedly and called out orders to a serving girl passing by, but Christina’s attention was being stolen by a man stumbling into the Last Stop as if he had just been running for his life. Someone near the door blurted something in Salvic with what sounded to be incredulity; all she caught was the man’s name, Algoth. Keepswatch was a small town, and everyone knew everyone, a fact that would take some getting used to. In Radasanth, someone stumbling into an inn like this wouldn’t even attract a mouse’s share of attention.

She did not quite understand Algoth’s response, but it had something to do with devils being unhappy, and prisoners. Quite aside from her limited understanding of the local language, the man was desperate for breath. A strapping man like that must have run a long distance to be so winded. He had very fine arms...

“What about the prisoners, Algoth?” someone at her table asked in a slow, sharp tone, speaking Tradespeak either for her benefit or without realizing. He was not the only one in the room to have half-risen from his chair. The air had suddenly become tense, until Christina thought she would have trouble breathing it in a moment. Maybe it was thicker after all: she had been gathering her winnings when this Algoth burst in, and she had frozen in place at about the same time silence had gripped the room.

“They’re escaping!” Algoth let loose at last, gulping down the bitter-cold air he had admitted into the room. That was some Salvic she understood quite plainly. “The prisoners are escaping!”

Sulphur and rotting life hung on the dank air in the cells of Devil's Keep. Thick as puss on a rotting corpse it oozed down fractured halls and seeped through barred doors, into Phyr's gut through his nose. The one-armed drow sat cross legged facing the vertical slats between him and the corridor. The first barrier to freedom. His gnarled ears rustled matted grey hair as two pairs of footfalls at the end of the hall rang over the muted moaning which haunted the prison. The shuffling trudge of the Gorum'Fael guard and the rusty clatter of leg irons on his orcish prisoner grew louder. Phyr inhaled, filling his shrunken lungs with as much of the stench as they could stand.

Before long this toxic stench will fade from even my faintest memories.

As soon as the sentry's whiskered snout and the inmate's yellowed tusks came into sight through the damascus bars, Phyr initiated a plan that had danced in the recesses of his compartmentalised mind for nearly twenty years. He nurtured it with constant improvements, always optimising its capacity for success. Like it was one of the devices he'd helped create as an engineer in Alerar, or the children he'd raised so distantly during his time in the military. It expanded until it filled his every waking thought, and visited his sparse dreams. Finally all possible preparation was completed, a flawlessly designed clock which he wound and triggered.

"Hoi there patch-face, didn't your mother ever teach yeh' to clip the fuzz off yer' face?" Phyr called out crassly in the bastardised dialect of the Gorum'Fael. Even with a history in languages, it had taken him years of careful study to pick up snippets of the little-known tongue. The guard turned partially towards him, one hand still on the shackles that bound his orcish prisoner's thick wrists behind its back. The other scarred paw pointed a thick truncheon directly at Phyr's narrow chest.

"What did'jer say?" the twisted creature growled. Any anger it might have felt was clearly surpassed by its confusion at how one of the inmates could possibly be communicating, and having the gall to insult the much mightier guard.

Phyr's sigh was barely audible over the rustle of rags as he stood up. He empathised with the Gorum'Fael more than most of the prisoners. Like him they were not actually criminals, but imprisoned by circumstances far outside their control. The countless hardships they had visited upon him took away any measure of regret he felt, but even so the impoliteness of his next few sentences curdled his stomach as much as the prison's smell.

"Your mother?" he said, etching the crude words with as much loathing as he could muster. "Classy lady. I don't know how you ended up being born though, my son, because I always took her from behind."

At first the guard's eyes seemed to grow three sizes as his tiny brain digest what was possibly the most complex sentence it ever heard. Then rage rolled through the entire girth of its muscular structure as it jammed its face up close to the bars. Howls of pain to come tore from its mouth as it found the key to Phyr's lock on a heavy ring and inserted it in the door.

The sound of tenderised meat echoed down the corridor as the Gorum'Fael's facial bones crumpled against sturdy damascus bars. The shackled prisoner had bulled forwards, driving hundreds of pounds of weight into the distracted mutant's back. Phyr watched the dim light go out in its eyes then scrambled forwards, hissing commands in the most revered orcish dialect he knew. The nordic creature hastened to comply, tossing the unconscious guard away and scraping the cell door open.

Phyr wanted to fall on his knees and weep, but the plan had only sparked. It still needed his constant care, his breath, and lots of fuel. He took the key ring and raced the length of the halls, unlocking doors left and right. The orc in irons stood dumbly, waiting. It had taken years of assuaging fears and de-escalating feuds to get a large enough portion of the inmates working together. He hoped the other races could be trusted.

A dozen or so sleek drow in rags similar to his exited their cells and moved like one body to the downed guard where they crouched, taking everything of value and distributing it to the most capable hands. They were Phyr's cadre within the jail, his most trusted and highly trained companions. Completing the task instantaneously, they swallowed the orc into their midst and hurried him around the corner. Only one purple-skinned elf moved to Phyr, single eye shining with adulation.

"It is begun Sa'resh. With your leadership we cannot fail. Take this and be safe until we meet again." He handed Phyr the Gorum'Fael's sidearm then sprinted after his comrades.

Phyr cradled the ugly gun as lovingly as his wife's hand the last time he saw her. It was a brutish old model which had been out-of-date even thirty years prior when he was a gunsmith in the Aleraran military. Dual-barreled, wheel locked, and ordinarily loaded with buck-and ball, it had replaced the original Aleraran blunderbuss as a skirmishing weapon. And had subsequently been replaced by a number of much better firearms.

Useful for stopping a prisoner on the run. Phyr admitted grimly as he finished checking its barrels and mechanisms and stuffed the brute beneath his rags. Or a guard, if need be.

A one-armed ghost of a shadow, he crept through lamenting corridors towards the rear cliffs of Devil's Keep.

Within minutes of Algoth’s sudden revelation, alarms resounded from the town’s tall belltowers, and then it wasn’t just the inn that was in frenzy. Through the window, Christina could see that the town had become like a kicked anthill, people scurrying and shouting orders in every which direction. She gulped down the last of her ale—a surprisingly strong, bitter drink, not watered down like the ale in most inns; she suspected it was because liquid water was probably more difficult to get than the ale was in this kind of climate—scooped her winnings into her coin purse, and made for the door.

“Bernhard!” she called, trying to catch the man’s attention before he stepped out. It was difficult; the air was filled with so many sounds that she could barely hear herself. “Bernhard!” Finally he paused and turned, a hurried expression on his face. Not a man who wanted to be kept from his duties right now. Whatever those were. “What the hell is going on?”

He shook his head hastily. “Nothin’ fer a foine lady loike you to bother yerself about, Lady Rosalyn,” he responded gruffly. “This is our business. Ye’d best get upstairs an’ lock yer door toight.”

Christina pursed her lips at the dismissal, which he had doubtless not intended to be as offensive as it had sounded. It was only implied that this was “men’s business,” even if the implication was almost as loud as those alarm bells. But then, the men had not yet seen Rosebite, wrapped tightly in burlap as it had been to protect it from the cold and snow. “Yes,” she responded in exasperation, “but what is your business?”

Bernhard looked greatly as though he would much rather be outside scurrying about with the rest of them. Her keeping him here was like bottling an explosion: she could see him getting ready to burst. Still, it was obvious that she had stepped into the middle of something serious, and that was no time to continue on blindly. “Where do ye think this toown got its name, milady?” he responded at last, held by her suddenly too-firm stare. “We watch Devil’s Keep to make sure things loike this don’ happen.”

“And what the hell is Devil’s Kee—Bernhard!” But it was too late. He had been pulled away by another gruff-looking man—they all were, in this part of the country, bearded and rustic to the last—shouting something furiously in rapid-fire Salvic. Christina let out a hiss of frustration and descended on the traveling sack in which she had been carrying her supplies, including Rosebite. She pulled the sword from its wrappings and fastened its belt around her waist before enveloping herself in the thick woollen cloak and stepping out into the night with the satchel in tow.

The cold air hit her like a hammer, but the snowfall was blessedly light so that she could at least see what was going on around her. That sleepiness had all been just a show. People were now gathering into groups of four or five men each, and she saw that each one had a sword, cudgel, bow, or axe in hand. There was something almost military in their organization, and the vast majority of them were rushing through the snow to the north, where shouts could already be heard—and not all of them human.

It was clear that something dangerous was happening, but Christina wasn’t about to face it without knowing what. Bernhard was nowhere to be found, and neither were any of her dice-mates, or Algoth for that matter. It was just a sea of strangers, like golems seemingly sprouted up out of the snow itself in the town’s defense. Maybe I’ll head south, she thought, judging the sky. It was late and the night would be long yet, but she had passed a pleasant-looking copse of trees an hour or two before arriving in town which should shield her from the worst of the snow and wind. I need to lay low right now, not get dragged into some kind of war.

But cutting straight through the town wouldn’t do. Barricades had been set up blocking the single main street that ran through, with men driving javelins into the ground, their spears pointing up and out at an angle. A spear-barricade! In a sleepy little hamlet like this! Whatever was happening at this “Devil’s Keep,” it was clear that they were trying to keep someone or something from passing through the town on their way south. The main street would certainly be the quickest way to do it, tamped down by constant use as it was. This weather would slow down any sort of travel in the wastes; she knew that all too well first-hand.

That would be problematic for her, too. She had learned that this little trade road, if it could be properly called that, extended quite a ways south and was at least decently well-maintained when the snows weren’t too bad; she had simply missed it entirely on her trip here, which did not surprise her in the least. It would have been the quickest way south to safety, but that was out of the question now. Well, there was nothing else for it: she would cut through the alleyways of Keepswatch and try to find her way out to the city limits from there.

The alleys, as it happened, ran purely from east to west, ribbing off from the main street and not diverting one whisker. It was not something she would have noticed before now, but it seemed like the village was designed such that you had to pass along the main street if you wanted to pass through from the north or the south. It was either that or make the long trek around Keepswatch, which would cost a traveler no small amount of time even in decent weather. Some militia groups were pounding through the snow along these alleys too, presumably to stop anyone trying to do exactly that, but hopefully they wouldn’t think of stopping her.

She headed west, and after some time—less than an hour, she hoped, but it was difficult to keep track in the chaos—she emerged just outside the city limits. There were screams and howls to the north, close enough that she could see a struggle even through the darkness. The burly men of Keepswatch were fighting a group of raggedly-dressed men who blended in with the darkness itself. Drow, Christina figured. Well, these must be the “prisoners” Algoth mentioned earlier. The barricade made more sense now, as did the layout of the town. Poorly dressed as they would usually be, prisoners—wherever it was they were escaping from—would need to move quickly in order to avoid freezing to death in the northlands. These ones seemed to have stolen at least some meagre protection from the elements, so their escape must have been well-planned.

The two men fighting them succumbed quickly against the three escapees, long before Christina could even think to help them. Even if she had wanted to avoid the confrontation, she knew it would have been folly: Drow could see in the dark as easily as if the sun were at high noon, and even now she could feel their eyes on her.

“Look at this,” one of them muttered in his own language, a hissing, guttural thing that he likely thought Christina could not understand. These were not particularly eloquent Drow, and her time with Izzy had taught her at least this much of their language. “Freedom and a plaything all in one night. Sa’resh really did know what he was about!” The other two broke into laughter at this, and all three advanced casually toward her.

Instead of running as they no doubt expected, Christina turned to face them, and made sure to smile for their benefit. “A plaything, am I?” she responded coyly in Tradespeak. Her understanding gave them pause just briefly enough for Christina to throw back her cloak and draw Rosebite, whose runic gems were even now pulsing in their turn with faint multicoloured light. “Well, I am in the mood for a little fun.”

The Dark Elves bellowed a wordless howl and threw themselves to their deaths.

The sounds of skirmishing filled the vaulted hallways and winding staircases of Devil's Keep. Gunshots echoed along the harsh rock interior, amplified to the sound of cannonfire. Roars of anger and agony clashed with fevered warcries. The prisoners fought in small groups, using captured weaponry or chunks of rubble and rusted metal. Their frenzied urgency and soul-searing hatred matched their superior numbers as they pushed the Gorum'Fael back towards the prison's only exit. At the front of the mountain, the half-orcs could hold their own indefinitely, until sufficient resources arrived to suppress the prisoners. But Phyr's plan did not target the front of the Keep.

He moved slowly, ducking into empty cells to avoid the swarming battles and lying amongst the corpses to hide from roving squads of Gorum'Fael. In Phyr's mind his first few years in that hell pit had replaced the remainder of his military training as an officer, and his subsequent survival was more impressive than anything he could have done as a captain in the field. He had earned his stripes in that putrid air, and he knew the front lines were no place for a general. He had put in his time, in Ettermire against the Scarlet Brigade and later in the riots that scarred those rock walls until one claimed his arm. He took that lesson as a torch and used it to weld himself an armor of patience that could not be penetrated. It took nearly an hour, but Phyr reached the storage rooms that bordered on the glacier just as his cadre breached its protective iron bars.

They had assembled a piece of Aleraran equipment from the Keep's basement forges. Called a compression torch, it used large titanium canisters of natural gas to maintain a triangular blue flame.

The two orcs who stood guard wielded a cell door each ignored Phyr as he limped past. His cadre paused momentarily at his arrival, and then wordlessly went back to work, intent on the task. The canister emitted a soft whine as invisible gas spewed in a short stream from its spout. One of the drow flicked the flintlock beneath and with an infant's cough, a tiny blue triangle of freedom sprang into existence. They worked in teams of two, spelling each other so they could maneuver the awkward device as quickly as possible. Phyr waited stoically until they had melted a deep channel into the living glacier, then took out his wheel lock pistol and gestured to two of the drow.

"Take the orcs and bring the rest of the supplies," he said in their native tongue, "be quick, and tell any you see to regroup here. We'll need a force to break through their rear guard." Good soldiers, the drow collected their orcish allies and ran down the hall, footsteps fading rapidly.

Over the next twenty minutes the fissure in the glacier deepened and sloped downwards. Prisoners bearing weapons and wounds amassed in small cliques in the storage room and the halls outside, some chatting, others making up packs of edible supplies from the shelves. Phyr's fingers beat a light tattoo on the butt of his pistol until the foursome he had sent returned, the orcs carrying a heavy titanium chest between them.

Abandoning his thoughts on how to optimise the compression torch's fuel output, the leader of escaping convicts crossed to his lieutenants. They talked over one another in hushed tones. The tide of the rebellion had changed; reinforcements had arrived from the nearby village of Keepswatch to assist with containment. Phyr stowed his weapon and held up a gnarled palm to stop them.

"Run to the front lines and bring back all those who will come. I think some will want to stay... this battle is more important to them than freedom. But all those who wish to spawn new life from our uprising can escape with us."

They disappeared like wraiths in the night as Phyr turned to inspect the melted tunnel in the glacier, which was now longer than two elves and filling rapidly with water. Under his direction the others removed the compression torch from the tunnel and slid sacks of rice to the end to absorb and sit in the water. A thin smile creased the ancient drow's face as he lifted the lid of the iron chest and the familiar smell of black gunpowder leaked to his nose.

"Pack the powder in with a bit of that sack and face the opening away from us at the bottom of the tunnel. Then run a fuse to the corridor, pack as many rocks as you can find on top of that box, and pray to your Thaynes we don't bring the whole mountain down."

Red stained the crisp white snow, blood streaking out around Christina like a gruesome flower. The two Drow that had reached her first fell to the ground, bodies shredded, and glittering shards floated softly through the air to reform into Christina’s blade, now stained with Drow blood. They moved so lazily, like cherry blossoms floating on a spring breeze, that it was hard to believe they had just moments before been such efficient instruments of destruction.

The remaining Dark Elf had been fortunate enough to stop short of the carnage, and was now scrambling away on all fours, hands and feet struggling to find purchase in the thick snow. Christina flicked her blade to remove the worst of the blood and advanced slowly on him. She looked like death itself; gone were her pretty smile and friendly eyes, both replaced with an emotionless scowl. “Tell me,” she began, pointing Rosebite at the fleeing prisoner, “what’s going on here.”

The elf stammered for several seconds before finding the words to answer her. He found them in Tradespeak, which she found amusing, as if it were some desperate appeal for her to spare his life. She had no intention of killing him unless he gave her reason to, of course, but if his not knowing that would help this proceed more smoothly, she wasn’t going to break his ignorance.

“We... we break free!” the Drow said in his broken attempt at the so-called common tongue. “Kill guards... run, freedom!”

Well, it was passable enough to understand what he was getting at. “How many? Are all the prisoners escaping?” She didn’t know exactly how many that would mean, but any number made for a sobering thought. “Will more prisoners be coming this way?”

The Dark Elf seemed to struggle to understand her, but she didn’t think she could phrase it any more clearly in his own language; she understood it better than she spoke it, which was not saying much. Eventually, though, his eyes stopped searching the air and he shook his head. “Yes, all! But, only little number escape from front. Too many devils.”

“Then what about the rest of them?” she demanded, taking another step forward.

“Don’t know!” he cried instantly, tears beginning to stream. “Find another way. Sa’resh have plan? Arrim not know!” He devolved quickly into bawling then, and though Christina wanted to ask who Sa’resh was, she doubted she’d get anything more coherent out of him. His Tradespeak was broken enough without having to sift through gibbering tears.

“Snare, Rosebite.” A green gem flickered to life along the flat of Rosebite’s blade and, inexplicably, lush green vines sprouted from the snow around the prisoner, binding him tightly to the ground. He hardly seemed to notice through his tears. That would hold him at least until someone from Keepswatch could look after him properly, something Christina had no intention of doing.

A four-man cell of villagers came running out of the village, two of them moving with surprise to the surviving prisoner, and the other two descending on Christina. They picked their way carefully around the bodies, apparently trying very hard not to look at them. “What happened here?” one of them asked gruffly. Neither looked familiar to Christina. “We’re supposed to recapture them, not kill them!”

Christina scoffed and gave them the most incredulous look she could muster. “You can do whatever you damn well please. I prefer not to let myself be outnumbered, raped and killed if I can avoid it, thank you.”

“Leave off, Edvard,” the other man put in. “The penalty for trying to escape from Devil’s Keep is the loss of a leg; I can only imagine the penalty for actually escaping would be death anyway. Not that anyone’s ever managed it before. Not and been foolish enough to get caught.”

“Well, I’d rather leave that to the devils, Ivar, and let them leave us be, too.”

They bantered back and forth for a short while and communicated with the other two men who were picking up the neatly-packaged Arrim before Christina realized she would not exactly have a polite exit from the conversation. She thus interjected with, “Yes, well, I’ll be on my way then.”

“Not so fast,” Edvard responded instantly. “Nobody’s going anywhere tonight, not until all these are rounded up. You’d be mad to try wandering the wastes on a good day, never mind with dangerous convicts on the loose. They’d slit your throat sooner for the clothes on your back than the gold in your purse in this climate, milady. Anyway, Captain Bernhard has been asking after you to make sure you’re all right. Though I see his worry was... unnecessary.”

Christina sighed and rolled her eyes. The man did have a point, though: while she was sure she could handle any of the convicts that she happened across, doing so alone in the dusk-blinded wilderness was not the best way to go about it, especially if they were travelling in groups and she by herself. Plus, she would need to sleep sooner or later, and doing that seemed especially foolish given the circumstances.

“Fine,” she relented. “I’ll head back into town.” Sheathing Rosebite, Christina moved back down the alley through which she had exited Keepswatch, moving briskly toward the main avenue where men were setting up even more barricades. A command post of some kind was now set up a short way down the street from the inn, men stopping in only briefly on their way north, which was longer than they stopped anywhere else. “Captain” Bernhard was busy giving orders, but not enough to miss Christina as she attempted to sneak into the Last Stop.

“Lady Rosalyn!” he called, jogging over to her. Where had that pudgy little mouse-haired man gotten that suit of chainmail and broad sword? This was as peculiar a town as she had ever seen! “Me men said they saw ye headin’ out o’ the town! It’s much too dangerous to be out alone right now. I’m afraid I can’ spare any men to see ye down to Fort Frosthold, but perhaps in the morning—”

“Don’t worry about me, captain,” she responded with a well-meant smirk. “I can look after myself.”

Just then, Edvard and Ivan’s two companions caught up with the prisoner in tow, vines still draped over his sobbing form. “Updated numbers, captain,” Edvard said with a salute. “Two prisoners dead, one captured.”

Bernhard hissed at that, shaking his head. “Dead? Tch... well, I suppose what’s done do be done. Still, ye know that our orders were—”

“That was my fault, Bernhard,” Christina interjected. She could have been talking about painting her nails. The captain whipped around to look at her in sudden shock, but she didn’t bother to elaborate. “Since I’m apparently not going anywhere tonight, maybe you wouldn’t mind telling me what exactly is going on here. What is this Devil’s Keep everyone’s in such an uproar about?”

It took a moment before the man could think clearly enough to respond. He had been staring at her as if seeing her for the first time. “Ah, right. Well, it’s a prison. Maximum security.” His voice faltered understandably at that one. This was not exactly a mark in favour of the prison’s reputation. “It’s fer prisoners who’ve committed serious crimes but, fer one reason or another, ain’t sentenced ta death. They get sent here, and then they’re the devils’ responsibility.”

The “devils,” then, must have been the keepers, not the kept, but that was little more than a point of mild trivia for Christina right now. “So you’re saying these are all dangerous men.”

“Oh, very much, milady. I don’ mean to frighten ye—uh, er, beggin’ yer pardon.” There was that look again, as if he’d never seen thorns on a rose before, but he cleared his throat and pressed on. “Thieves, murderers, rapists... the devils look after the worst of ‘em, and more besides.”

“And now they’re loose,” Christina finished, prompting nods from each of the men gathered nearby. “Surely you have some kind of plan? You organized this quickly enough.” She swept a hand in general across the militarized town.

“‘Course, milady. This whole town is designed to slow anyone down what wants to get south from the keep. You either ‘ave to go straight through, which is impossible when we don’ want ye to, or around, which takes a deadly-long time in this snow.”

“What if they try to bypass the town entirely?” It seemed an obvious enough plan: if one were to stay out of sight of the town itself, one might escape the attention of whatever patrols were being sent out to guard the border.

“We send patrols out to cover the wastes, o’ course, with dire wolves to track their scents. What we don’ catch, Salvar itself takes to their graves.”

Christina nodded, remembering all of her father’s tactics lessons (which had not been meant for her, but on which she had listened in anyway). It seemed as solid as could be managed given the amount of ground such a small population had to cover surrounding the town, but such a wide net would still leave holes easy enough for small groups to slip through, especially at night. The best way to contain this breakout was to stem the flow of escapees straight from the source. “What about the keep itself?” she asked.

“The devils hold it. The front face o’ Devil’s Keep is heavily fortified; they can hold it against large numbers of prisoners almost indefinitely, and it's the only way in or out. Only the odd straggler or two will manage to get past.”

“One straggler too many if you ask me,” she said. “Are there reinforcements?”

“All the time. We’ve sent several dozen parties north to reinforce the devils and tighten the net on any escapees. With a little luck, we’ll be able to break through and start rounding them up inside the prison itself. Then we’ll cork up the bottle, as it were.”

Christina nodded. “Then I think I’ll go join them.”

Bernhard sputtered at that. “You, Lady Rosalyn? Beggin’ yer pardon, but I don’ think—”

“Captain!” someone shouted, rushing down the street from the north. He waved his hand to get Bernhard’s attention and spoke quickly in Salvic. Christina thought she heard the word for “retreat,” which was either a bad thing, or just a perplexing one. Bernhard answered which by looking perplexed himself.

“Apparently the prisoners are starting to retreat,” he explained for her benefit. “We... have no idea why, to be honest.” She couldn’t blame him for that. It didn’t make any sense. Where would they retreat to? The only place would be the prison, and surely they couldn’t have completely taken it in such a short time.

“Ever heard of someone named Sa'resh? Neither have I, but I have a feeling he may be able to answer that question. Yes, captain, I think I will join them,” she said in response to his earlier question, already making her way north. “After all, this just got interesting.”

Freedom.

The frigid air tasted like a platter of rich food served to a starving drow. The wind that lashed his body with such force he nearly fell was reminiscent of adulation from his brothers after a successful mission.

He was no longer the unwanted remainder of a prisoner, wasting away and plotting impotent revenge. A single ice-shattering explosion had transformed him into Phyr Sa'resh, General of an independent army of escaped convicts. And they trusted him with their very lives.

The gargantuan glacier that hugged the wall of the Keep gaped at the dreary sky in astonishment, a section of it blown open as if a giant had fired a massive musket through it. Escapees still poured out of the opening like waves of sewage at the base of a city. Phyr limped back and forth from one group to the next, checking their armaments and adjusting their positioning. Frostbite gnashed at his withered feet through thin rawhide boots, threatening to freeze his flesh like the thin layer of snow he trod upon. Phyr had a special place in his mind for all thoughts that did not relate to the overall success of his plan; a tiny darkened compartment where they would not bother him, even if his legs broke off at the knees.

A haunting howl rounded the curvature of the mountain prison, rolling and growing as several similar sounds supported it.

"Dire wolves!" A Salvic human cried, causing a stir amongst the troops. He skipped to Phyr's side, shivering in his leader's presence as much as the cold. "Sa'resh, the Gorum'Fael keep dozens of them stabled as mounts. They will be here in seconds!" Phyr nodded and forced himself to relinquish his death grip on the firearm beneath his rags. Revealing his single hand, he clapped it heartily onto the Salvic man's shoulder and spoke to him in hushed tones. Nervous but responsive, the human repeated Phyr's orders in a loud tenor that cut the wind and reached every ear.

"Form two double columns facing north and south at the base of the mountain! Long guns standing in back column, sidearms crouched in front! Polearms form groups of six on high ground, be ready to charge on my command! Everyone else, guard the flanks and prepare to kill!"

The rag-tag company of perhaps sixty beings snapped to with surprising alacrity, those who understood Tradespeak assisting those who did not. Although it seemed many of the former prisoners had chosen to die in the Keep or flee as soon as they got free, Phyr felt confident with his army. The Gorum'Fael were a host of guards, not a militia. So numbers and tactics should be on our side.

As a fresh wave of howling encircled the mountain, the coarse warcries of the Gorum'Fael joined the voices of their mounts, and then the devils poured around either side of the mountain in a crescent pincer. Perhaps fifty of them, perhaps less. They carried long lances or short muskets or massive crossbows and fired intermittently as they rode. Phyr threw back his head and cackled to the sky as the enemy wasted their ammunition, for every single shot went high or wide. He sobered rapidly when some of his contingent returned fire with equal inaccuracy. Cursing in Aleraran, Phyr belted the nearest perpetrator on the back of the head then grabbed the Salvarian by the collar and shouted another string of orders to be repeated in his ear.

"Hold your fire you... ah, hold until my command!" The human censored Phyr's profanity but communicated the important parts. The volume of the wolves' howls increased until they were within forty yards of Phyr's crew. At that point he could spot individual flecks of saliva flying from fanged muzzles. He clapped his surrogate set of lungs on the back.

"Musketeers fire!"

The sequence of explosions sounded like a Sky-Lights spectacle. Several orcs fell from each side of the pincer, while others ignored their wounds and pushed their mounts for greater speed. A half dozen of the musketeers went down as well; the orcs were close enough for their weapons to be minutely effective, even while riding. Phyr signaled his unofficial lieutenant once more.

"Small arms, fire!"

The sound of the pistols going off was more like the sizzling pop of fine meat on the grill. But lead ball-shot swarmed through the air like angry hornets, causing devastation in the ranks of the Gorum'Fael to the extent that their charge actually halted fifteen yards away from the columns.

Phyr did not have to give the last order. His skirmishers, primed and ready, hit the Gorum'Fael from high ground like an avalanche of pikes and sharpened poles. The battle ended faster than he could have possibly imagined. A cowed whimpering replaced the howls of the wolves in the space of a second.

The Salvarian, it seemed, had also learned to act on his own.

"Grab everything you can and let's make our way south! We'll take the town of Keepswatch and make it our own!" A chorus of cheers greeted the tenor's suggestion. Phyr slunk away from the center of attention, choosing instead to inspect the saddles of the dire wolves that hadn't been killed in the crossfire.

The army was no more; a rioting mob had replaced his carefully crafted militia. Without the looming threat of the Gorum'Fael or continued imprisonment, they had no reason to listen to him. And that suited Phyr just fine. Better than just fine. I couldn't have made a more perfect plan.

As the mob gathered weapons and seethed towards the south to make war on Keepswatch, Phyr shrouded himself in a heavy cloak and climbed into the saddle atop the largest dire wolf. When he rested his face and torso in the beast's shaggy fur, a casual observer might miss him entirely, for the cloak camouflaged well against the wolf and the dark grey backdrop of the wastes.

With one last glance at the criminals who had been the tools of his escape, Phyr turned his steed towards the north-east and coaxed it into a a smooth, prowling run.

There wasn’t a great distance between Keepswatch and Sulgoran’s Axe, where Devil’s Keep was located. In fact, those massive mountains already seemed to loom over the town even from within. The going was slow due to the weather, though, and the citizens moved with an almost military precision that served intimidation more than speed. They moved in groups of four or five and these arranged themselves like a fan as they swept north, an arrangement that would serve well to catch any prisoners trying to make their way south from Devil’s Keep.

Christina was a member of one of those groups, led by a walking tree of aman named Esben, and she encountered far fewer of those escaped prisoners than she had expected. Then again, perhaps that was what she should have expected: by now even the prisoners would be realizing that simply forging south was a poor idea. Those few that had tried had been captured or killed. Maybe that explained why the rest had retreated. Maybe.

She estimated that the trek to Sulgoran’s Axe would take them about an hour from the border of Keepswatch, assuming the size of those mountains wasn’t throwing off her estimate too greatly, but less than a half hour in the company began to hear shouts in the distance, and the clatter of metal on metal. Perhaps she had underestimated the distance after all. No, she assured herself, those mountains are still too far away.

The answer came before she could puzzle it out herself: a small swarm of bedraggled men and women were pouring south like ants, brandishing weapons both makeshift and proper. Obviously they had overpowered their wardens and were now planning to take the fight south en masse, which they figured was the best chance of freedom. Christina couldn’t blame them. Sneaking around Keepswatch would take too long, and with the way the mountains curved around this little basin, there wasn’t a lot of room to avoid mobile sentries anyway. Fighting would be quicker, and adrenaline would keep the prisoners warm besides. If they could well and truly take the town, they’d have a safe-haven full of provisions and warmth before pressing on southward. Of course, if word got to the King’s army in Knife’s Edge, their breakaway would get no further south than Sularik Lake, but they could hardly be blamed for choosing to ignore that.

While Christina would have enjoyed boasting about how she would never allow them to get half so far, there simply wasn’t time: the prisoners fell on them like a tidal wave crashing onto the shore, and Christina’s battlecry was lost between her companions and the howling mountain wind.

She instantly fell on a Drow wielding a spiked club, slipping around his sloppy blow and using the form-obscuring cloak to its best advantage. Rosebite struck out like a viper’s tongue and pierced the Dark Elf through the side, sending him sprawling on the crisp white snow. Not a killing blow, but in this bitter cold, even slight wounds would be crippling in such a state of undress. She spun reflexively, ducking under a jagged blade and taking another Drow’s legs out from under him. A powerful thrust allowed her to push to the side to avoid his falling body, just in time to run a burly human through the stomach. The militia may have had orders to avoid killing, but all bets were off now. This had gone from a simple prison break to an outright bloodbath, and if someone had to die, then they had better be the ones that deserved it.

A heavy club swung from above prompted Christina to unleash Rosebite’s Sonic Sable, throwing the aggressor backwards to bowl through a whole host of combatants, prisoner and militia alike. The counter-force of her attack propelled her back, too, and she found herself soon pressed up against a brick wall. But that was impossible, and indeed it was no wall: arms like tree trunks encircled her throat and she was surprised at how easily she felt about to snap like a twig. “Shatter, Rosebite,” she rasped, thinking quickly, and white cracks glowing with light began to crisscross along her sword’s blade. Instantly it broke into thousands of jagged pieces, swirling about her like a cloud, each a spinning whirligig of death. There was a throaty gurgle of pain behind her; viscous blood trickled down her back and over her shoulders; the arms loosened, and the brick wall fell away. She looked back to see something that still made her blood run irrationally cold:

An orc. A dead orc, but an orc nonetheless.

Orcs had taken everything away from her all those years ago. Her home, her family—everything. In a way they had given her what she had now—her freedom, her strength, even Rosebite—but the price she had paid for it was not one she would have chosen to pay now or ever. Her rage was irrational and she knew it: this orc was not responsible for what had happened in Laricia, nor was most of his species. But the very sight of one still brought feelings bubbling to the surface that she found extremely difficult to control.

The failure to do so threw her into a rage. It was a controlled rage, sharp and precisely-applied, dangerous like an assassin’s dagger is dangerous, deadly like a Ranger’s arrow is deadly. She would not allow orcs to ravage another city like they had ravaged Laricia. Nature showed its fury through the barren snow: glittering red petals of death, swirling through the air and leaving blood in their wake; vines sprouting out of the ground to strangle Dark Elven necks; spires of thorned vines, impaling prisoners with indiscriminate and very bloody abandon. Christina forged her way ever northward, taking more than her share of prisoners to their deaths. There were times when, as the citizens of Keepswatch would later tell in their stories, she seemed to be moving so quickly that a shadow passed behind her, a blur, as if she were really two people. Only briefly. A mirage brought on by the snow and the cold, surely.

As her fatigue grew and her focus waned, her attacks became increasingly poorly-aimed and thereafter most of them crippled rather than killed, but the effect was the same. The Keepswatch militia pressed slowly forward. The wave had broken.

Was it an hour of fighting, or had she been out here for a year? When it seemed the last prisoner had fallen, either to death or exhaustion from his wounds, when it seemed the last sounds of ringing metal had died down, Christina could no longer tell how much time had progressed. She thought she could see the moon sometimes, during brief breaks in the cloud cover, but she hadn’t thought to check its position when the fighting had started. Dawn approached, the sky burning red like a mirror of the bloody wastes below. Exhaustion burned, too, in seemingly every muscle in her body.

“Units one through twenty survey the wounded!” a voice shouted from somewhere far behind. It seemed far behind, anyway, but voices did not travel well compared with the howling wind, so Christina knew it was a message that had been relayed several times by messengers from the back of the militia to its head. She was not one of the aforementioned units. “The rest, make for Devil’s Keep! See what remains of it!”

She placed Rosebite back in its scabbard and pressed forward, ignoring the aches of her muscles and the gnawing of fatigue at her bones. The bitter cold was only a tertiary concern; the adrenaline had taken care of that. She was so tired, but she had to press on. If Devil’s Keep could be retaken, they could take shelter there for a while, and assist the guards in performing a head count. They just had to reach the keep. That was it.

It was truly a horrible structure. The thing was carved out of the dark stone of the surrounding mountains and pressed up against an ancient glacier. Just the look of it was impregnable, but the evidence was all around them that it was not. The “devils”—she assumed that must have been what they were—littered the ground all around. Devils was right: how else could they be described? The hulking physique of orcs, and their tusks, set in faces entirely too humanoid to fit the body. Skin a sickly hue of greenish-black, or blackish-green, made her think of a swamp. And they were all dead. All of these—whatever they were—they were all dead. Maybe the only whatever-they-were that had ever existed. Maybe the last that would ever exist. Suddenly it did not seem so bad that so many of the prisoners were dead; who would look after them now?

The morning sun was finally beginning to creep into the valley. Christina lifted her sword to the heavens. “Nourish, Rosebite!” A lime green runestone on the blade’s face began to glow, and she felt light coursing into her as if it were food, warmth, energy. The fatigue began slowly melting away in a process that would take much of the next hour, but would be a decent substitute for a night’s sleep when there was no time for one.

The worst was over, but there was still much to be done here in the mouth of hell.

Swathed by heavy fabric and curled against the dire wolf's broad back, Phyr felt warm as babe in the womb.

For years he had deprived himself of fantasies about living a normal life again. They seemed futile for so long, and only distracted him from more pressing matters. But as the muscular beast bearing him trotted up a long slight slope, Phyr found his thoughts flying to the future.

Images of Salvar, both recollections of cities he had visited and details from maps memorised long ago, melded and mingled in his reverie. A short trek through Berevar would shake anyone hunting a bounty. For most civilised beings the unmapped tundra of the far Northlands represented horror and death. For Phyr it was a calculated risk greatly reduced by his steed. The wolf would find a path through the mountains, and from there if he steered himself watchfully and followed the waterways, he could reach Knife's Edge in less than a month. Ships sailed from the Knife's port every day, sturdy vessels that would take him anywhere he wished to go. If he took good care of the wolf it would bring a fair price in the city, more than enough to pay his passage. And the railroad through the Ahyark Mountains called to him. It could bear him back to Alerar, the homeland he knew like the lines on his single palm. He knew the name of the drow officer who had betrayed him. There was always a chance, if he was willing to fight...

With a start, Phyr woke up and realised the wolf was not moving. Like a being possessed the drow staggered to his feet, tearing the heavy hood away from his face. His eyes took a moment to adjust to the gloom, and then found the doorway.

He was in a barn. One of the small outbuildings near the Keep's front entrance. Two other dire wolves slept nearby, apparently having followed the same habit as Phyr's mount.

With a low moan the ancient drow stumbled and fell, smashing his skull against a hardwood stick on the floor. Color exploded amidst spinning images in his mind as the full effects of the adrenaline-soaked night and years of malnutrition sapped his strength. Cowering against the saddled wolf, the drow closed his eyes and willed himself to get his bearings.

I am still free. They will not take that away.

The wind howled through the open barn and banged the door against the wall. Phyr gripped a handful of wolf fur and forced himself to stand. Be the automaton they always wanted. Move your feet. Find what's useful. Unconsciously checking and re-checking the double barreled pistol beneath his cloak, the ancient drow stumbled from one wall of the barn to the next. He picked up the stick which had nearly split his scalp, a long straight polished piece of blackwood about the right size, and used it as a cane. His legs both felt full of sand and a knotted cramp was growing at the back of his left calf. Poking about in the shadowy corners he found a heavy iron bayonet that was dull as a midnight horizon but otherwise in good condition. Some orc's idiocy equals my gain, he thought as he wedged the weapon in the padded cuff of one boot.

With the barn's resources exhausted Phyr re-wrapped himself in the heavy cloak and led his steed out into the morning.

Sweat sprung from his pores. Beneath the unfiltered sun snow and ice were already creating tiny streams on the ground, and the dark gray of the cloak caught enough light to turn it into a steam-engine's furnace. Treading carefully so as not to slip, Phyr guided his mount towards Sulgoran's Axe. He felt naked, striding in plain site of the victorious force from Keepswatch. But he was far from undisguised. Swaddled from head to toe in thick clothing, he looked similar to the humans who were collecting dozens of strayed dire wolves. The reigns were up his right sleeve and slip-knotted to the stump of his right arm, giving the appearance of a man with no gloves keeping his hand warm. His one blue hand was similarly disguised, and from the left sleeve protruded the black hardwood stick. Every so often he stopped, cursed under his breath in common and struck the wolf with the stick. Just in case anyone notices we are moving away from the Keep. A bone weary or wounded soldier glancing at the scene might have construed it as a tall thin man trying and failing to drag a stubborn wolf back to the barn.

I once commanded a platoon. Now I arrange theatrics for mud-brained humans.

He kept up a steady charade until he had crossed from the open plain into the snaking mountain pass known as the Axe. There was still a risk of running in to stragglers, but he doubted anyone would question him if he hurried. Grunting as his left leg spasmed, he heaved himself into the saddle and set the wolf to a sprint.

"I'll call you Annelle," he said into the slipstream, not knowing or caring if the wolf was female. Annelle had been his wife's name, and if any memory could get him through what was to come, it was hers. "When we get to this town we'll get us both something to eat, Annelle." In a moment of external awareness he realized he was speaking in Aleraran to a beast brought up and trained by humans. Annelle, forgive me, and guide me. Keep me sane. If my mind goes... give me the grace to end it. Phyr licked his lips. They were dry and tasted of salt, either from perspiration or blood.

"But first my lovely beast... we must find me a proper drink."

Almost immediately, Christina knew that Devil’s Keep was done for. The innards of the mountain were in even worse shape than its entrance, with clear evidence abounding that the prisoners had gotten their hands on explosives and used them with utter reckless abandon. Perhaps unsurprisingly, most of the damage was to the cells themselves, a number of which had been blown outward to facilitate escape, and others which seemed to have simply been caught in explosions intended for other purposes (to cause as much damage to the wardens as possible, she supposed).

At any rate, though there were a few usable cells left in the building, it would be many years before Devil’s Keep could be used as a maximum security prison again, at least to its previous capacity. The cleanup alone could take months, and getting the supplies to rebuild this far north would only extend their difficulties. She wasn’t sure how that boded for Keepswatch: could the city now exist in peace without the headman’s axe of safeguarding Devil’s Keep hovering overhead, or would the lack of its founding purpose doom it to obscurity?

Not your concern, she told herself. She didn’t want to be unfeeling toward them, but she had her own problems to deal with before worrying about theirs.

As it happened, there was very little to find in the keep itself. Bodies of both the prisoners and their monstrous wardens, the Gorum’Fael as she had been told they were called, littered the hallways and were even now being carted out into the snow by the men of Keepswatch. The damage was worse the deeper they went: in the bowels of the mountain, where the riot has presumably started, the Gorum’Fael had begun at an advantage and the deaths of the prisoners had been widespread and gruesome. She would have called it a slaughter if she wasn’t so sure it had been necessary.

She made her way through the poorly-lit tunnels to what one of the few surviving Gorum’Fael told her group was the back of the mountain, and there they saw something that made her blood run cold. The rock here bore the scars of a very large explosion, and what had originally been a fairly small, square storage room now had only the vague appearance of a room—boxy on three sides with a huge opening blown into the fourth. It had the look of an escape tunnel, if imprecisely-made, and the warden was apparently explaining to the group (through a translator, of which there were quite a few in the town) that this was the purpose they suspected of it. The ice of the glacier had been melted or chipped away somehow, and the tunnel descended into darkness.

“Gods know how many of them have escaped through here!” she exclaimed in frustration. One of the men translated for the warden—their language did not sound at all right on a human tongue—but the thing made no response. They all knew there was little to be done for catching the prisoners if they had escaped into Berevar. In other words, their entire attempt to contain this break had been a wash.

Back outside, groups of men from Keepswatch were herding the tamed dire wolves into the mostly-undamaged stables where they had been kept. It was a strange sight; by and large, the creatures were larger than their herders, and it was frightening to think of them being used as mounts by the even more frightening Gorum’Fael. Horses would make for poor riding in this terrain, though.

A little further south, a thin man draped in a thick cloak seemed to be having trouble getting his wolf back to the stable. Despite lashing himself to it firmly and making every effort to move it toward the barn, he seemed to be moving more steadily south, presumably because of the animal’s size. Slight as he was, he shouldn’t have been trying to handle such a massive animal. It wouldn’t do for one of them to escape into the populated south unchecked. The beasts here seemed docile enough, but dire wolves were extremely dangerous and if it went hungry, then all bets were off.

Christina drew her cloak tightly around herself and pushed through the snow to go help the man before he lost control of the beast. Before she could take more than a few steps, however, she saw the man climb into the wolf’s saddle and take off into the mountains at a sprint. Christina let out a curse. She should have known he was too scrawny to be Salvic!

“There’s a prisoner escaping into the mountains!” she called, waving to catch the attention of nearby men with one hand and pointing with the other. “If any of you know how to ride these things, you’d better get after him!”

For her part, she had no idea where to begin—she knew it couldn’t be anything like riding a horse—and neither did most of the men from Keepswatch, but a few of them did run back toward the stables. Within minutes, two dire wolves sprinted past her, mounted by two men each. She turned to head back into the keep when a third wolf leapt in front of her, this one being controlled by one of the Gorum’Fael. It grunted something unintelligible at her, but from the way it extended its hand, she supposed it was offering her a ride.

“I usually get to know someone better before going for a ride with them.” The orc/drow hybrid merely stared at her, eyes blank and pale, with no semblance of understanding evident. She drifted off uncomfortably and shook her head. “Oh, right. I forgot. Well, what the hell.”

She had no sooner reached for the devil’s hand than been swung into the saddle with such force as to nearly pull her arm out of its socket. Rubbing her shoulder, she grumbled, “You could learn a thing or two about treating a lady.” The Gorum’Fael responded only by kicking the wolf’s sides and grunting, and it bounded forward so very unlike a horse that Christina had to clutch the rider’s waist to avoid being thrown off.

It was surprising how quickly such a large animal could move: they were into the mountain pass in less time than it had taken the wolves to gather in the first place. The escapee had a head start, but at this pace, he wouldn’t keep it for long. Christina, for her part, was determined to make sure one part of this night went as planned.

From an arctic tern’s lofty perspective the dire wolves racing along Sulgoran’s Axe were grains of sand in an upturned hourglass. The pattern in which they fell made little difference.

With the west ice wall of the pass towering overhead and driven snowflakes stinging his eyes, Phyr clung to the saddle’s low pommel like a tree in a landslide. The baritone throb of fatigue ran a chromatic scale the length of his arm. His stump, with the reigns still strangling it, played an erratic pain, sharp and twanging. His back ached and his eyes watered but still he forced himself to watch over the wolf’s steaming muzzle, searching the horizon and glacial walls for an escape route.

They cannot be far behind, I heard the baying when they sounded the alarm. He lost focus at the last moment before escape and as a result he was pursued. But his mount had the benefit of a short rest in the barn, and a much lighter rider than it was used to. The beast almost seemed to enjoy itself as it powered up inclines and churned down slopes. Phyr found his attention pulled to the arctic animal’s clawed feet, fascinated at how they found traction on the hardest ice and in the deepest snow drifts. There is something to be said for a beast’s natural ability to survive.

There!

Through wave after wave of icy flakes Phyr’s old eyes spotted the signature of a village on the horizon. And on his left, boring a hole in the Axe’s smooth east wall, a river ran too fast to freeze. White porous ice lined its banks and massive drifts of snow eddied just beyond reach of the water, gathered against sheer cliffs. The opportunity Phyr needed presented itself, and he reacted as fast as his old bones allowed.

Gripping the saddle with his knees the drow unsheathed the heavy bayonet he’d found. Dull as it was, a single slash from the long blade opened a shallow gash on the dire wolf’s flank. Trained for combat, the beast barely reacted.

I’m sorry my love, I thought we’d be together forever...

Phyr jerked on the reigns mightily, forcing the stolen steed to turn and prowl along the rebellious river’s bank. Wrapping the reigns around the pommel and freeing his half-arm, the drow inhaled deeply and leaned backwards until he fell out of the saddle.

Seconds later he sat up, buried to the chest in snow and gasping, winded from the impact. His hip felt badly bruised but otherwise the drift had caught him softly, and more importantly the dire wolf had kept on running. Besides plowing a clear path through the thick powder it also left a telltale crimson spatter every couple steps.

No hunter can resist a trail with fresh blood on it. At least he hoped the Salvarians could not. The image of wounded prey might just be enough to stop them from considering it a false trail. Walking sideways so his footprints would seem at home amongst the trampling of the small army which had used the pass hours earlier, Phyr limped back to the west wall. There the whining wind had blasted the ice almost clean of powder. With a concerted sigh Phyr threw himself forwards into a sitting position and slid, gaining speed on the gradual grade towards Keepswatch.

His heart dropped into an acidic stomach when he failed to stand at first. His hip locked up tighter than the Keep had ever been, refusing to co-operate with overtaxed leg muscles. By the time he had wedged a hand into a crevice in the glacial wall and levered himself upright, he could hear his pursuers riding along the Axe in his wake. In minutes they would see him.

Removing the hardwood stick from the folds of his cloak where it remained miraculously unbroken, the old elf leaned heavily on it and moved. It felt more like propelling himself with willpower than walking, but he made it to the first line of buildings.

It seemed the night’s chaos had taxed the villagers of their normal bustling energy. No one but his complaining body challenged Phyr’s slow invasion of Keepswatch. In that small community where the only perceived threat came from the far North, few of the dwellings even had locks on their doors. The old drow’s system for staying hidden was simple; he limped to the first house without smoke billowing from the chimney, ducked inside, and slammed the door behind him.

The interior of the one-room domicile still hugged its heat, welcoming the invader as he deposited his walking stick beside the doorway. The hearth yawned darkly but a small brazier in the middle of the room held leftover coals from the last fire. They glowed invitingly and emitted a fresh scent Phyr could not place. The resident had sprinkled some sort of incense into the metal pot to make their home more pleasant. The smell coupled with the hard pallet bed in the back corner threatened to seduce his tired bones, but he forced himself to traipse to the opposite front corner instead, leaving a snowy trail on thickly layered animal hides which composed the shack's floor.

An uneven oaken table stood wedged against thick sod-and-clay walls, bearing a plate full of stale biscuits and a sturdy iron hip flask. Like a child discovering a long lost toy Phyr snatched the flask and thumbed off the cap. The slosh of liquid as he brought it to his lips and sipped carried all the comfort of a mother's lullaby. The nameless spirit tasted little better than prison grog brewed in the forges of Devil's Keep, but it's alcoholic content kicked Phyr's liver liked a spooked mare. The resulting ache in his guts felt right, and the warm rush of thinned blood through his brain may as well have transported him home.

Stowing the foul moonshine in the folds of his cloak, Phyr selected a biscuit and brought it to his mouth. The first bite crumbled the rest of the hardtack - it turned to powder and cascaded to the floor like snowfall. Phyr grunted in frustration, steeled himself against the sawdust flavor and chose a second biscuit.

The snow had quieted somewhat over the past hour, but from the high back of a fast-moving dire wolf, it felt more intense than ever. As quick as they were peeling across the landscape, the softly-falling snowflakes pelted her face like bullets. She would have pressed closer to the wolf’s rider to take advantage of the protection afforded by his girth, but the Gorum’Fael had a rather... unique odour, like fish and manure and wet dog, that burned the nose even from a pace away. So bad was it that she had to hold herself as far away from the thing as she could without throwing herself out of the dire wolf’s saddle.

But that was unimportant next to the task ahead of them: to capture this escapee before he reached an unsuspecting settlement and started doing real damage. Well, that was the thought she comforted herself with, anyway; in the long run, one escapee would hardly be a significant threat, even with a dire wolf. But there was a principle behind all this: they had fought to keep those prisoners from getting away—she had even let herself get dragged into a conflict that didn’t concern her for that end—and it had come to nothing. But this prisoner was still in their sights. If they could stop him, then at least they had stopped someone. Without killing them, anyway.

Time ceased to be relevant. It was cold, and the snow battered her mercilessly. Her entire body was sore from the wolf’s awkward leaps, much less comfortable than a good horse. She recoiled into herself, focusing all her energy on keeping warm and alert, when suddenly something changed ahead. There was a commotion from the other wolf-riders, and the wolves themselves were baying. Had they finally caught sight of the prisoner? That meant they were gaining on him, which could only mean—

“Blood!” her own wolf’s rider grumbled. Well, at least they spoke some Tradespeak! She glanced down at the snow blurring past beneath them and saw a trail of ruby-red droplets staining the unblemished white. Either the wolf or the prisoner was leaving them a trail right to him! But something seemed off about this. Something... it was so cold, too cold to think! There was blood... which meant the prisoner or his wolf was wounded... and yet...

Suddenly, it came to her. “No, don’t follow it!” No good—the rider didn’t understand her, and the others were too far ahead to listen. She pounded on the Gorum’Fael’s back as if that would somehow breach their language gap, but the dire wolves had the scent of blood and nothing but their riders could deter them from its pursuit. “Listen!” she screamed, voice hoarse from breathing the frigid air. “He’s trying to misle—!”

The wolves suddenly lurched, bounding into a turn that would take them east along the riverbank and right after the blood trail. Pounding in her message as she was, Christina was not nearly holding on tight enough to her escort, and she was thrown from the wolf’s back; she landed with a painful thud and rolled almost right into the river. There she lay for several exhausted moments before clawing to her feet. The devil hadn’t even noticed that she had fallen off, or if he had, he hadn’t bothered to stop and pick her up. It was just as well. They wouldn’t find anything that way: this pass was completely uninhabited, so there was nothing that could have wounded the rider or his wolf but the rider himself. She would have bet Rosebite against a wooden dagger that the trail was a false one.

“Well, he’s a clever bastard, I’ll give him that.” Christina pressed her hands to her hips and struggled to get breath back into her lungs which felt both winded and frozen solid. She began to pace, head down, toward the river, and made her way for the small snowy bridge that was its only crossing. There wasn’t much hope of her catching the man now. He was on foot now, if her guess was right, which put them on even ground, but one person trying to find another in a snowy wasteland like this might as well have been searching for a fish in the ocean. And not just any fish.

There was nothing more for it but to head back to Keepswatch. She continued to move in that direction, sucking in deep sharp breaths whenever she could manage it. There were footprints in the snow beneath, most of them now beginning to fill in with fresh snowfall. She sighed; Ranger or no, she wasn’t a good enough tracker to trace the prisoner’s path by his footprints in this scramble. Dozens of villagers had thrown the entire trail into chaos just hours before. There was no hope of it. She would just put it out of her mind.

But wait. There was something odd about that set of footprints. The direction was right in line with the hundreds of others, but they were deeper, as if the snow had not yet had time to fill them in. That was strange enough to pique Christina’s interest, but if she did not entirely miss her guess, there was something else unusual about the tracks: they belonged to a simple pair of cloth shoes rather than the sturdy boots that no citizen of Keepswatch would be caught without. The shape was different and the step a bit lighter, but he had obviously walked backwards or sideways in order to make it look like his footprints fit the scene. “Clever, clever bastard.”

She moved with renewed vigor now. There was some hope of catching this convict after all! She lumbered across the snowy plains, clutching her thick cloak around herself, willing herself to ignore the bitter chill that seeped further into her bones with each step. If she could just bring this convict to justice, she could spend the rest of the night in front of a warm fire drinking ale until her bladder burst. How far she had fallen that that was her idea of heaven right now!

Before long, Keepswatch appeared in the distance. It must not have been far now, if she was able to see it through the snow. The town was like a tensed spring: the action had long since left, and now the people who remained were simply waiting to react to anything that came their way. The footprints she was following, therefore, became fresher and fresher, and less obscured by other tracks. They led to a small, dark shack on the outskirts of the town, clearly abandoned in the chaos; its occupants had likely moved toward the core of the city where it would be safer. That had, evidently, been a wise choice. Within her cloak, she gripped Rosebite’s handle—her own muscles felt tense, as well—and kicked open the door.

It was dark inside, but Christina’s eyes adjusted quickly; between the clouds and the falling snow, there had not been much sunlight outside to begin with. She saw a rake-thing Drow helping himself to whatever provisions the house’s owners had left behind. Rounding on him, Christina pointed Rosebite in his direction, eyes sharp. “Freeze!” she said and, perhaps because of the extreme cold and her own fatigue, forgot to laugh at her own joke.

The door burst open and bounced off the earthen wall, a dull note of warning. The valkyrie who followed it inside leveled a longsword at the escaped convict as she swooped around the swinging portal, a command for obedience her battle cry. Golden hair flew wildly about her head and shoulders, lapping at the armor and bloodstained cloak which marked her as a professional - a warrior - a bounty hunter.

Phyr crumbled the biscuit in his palm and flung the powder at her eyes, forcing her focus aside for an instant. He attacked the opening like a crazed prospector spotting gold through solid rock.

The space between them shrank and vanished as Phyr charged the smaller fighter, bulling her into the door so it slammed shut once more. His forehead buffeted her jaw as she tried to shout again, silencing any incantation or cry for help. She skipped sideways with the speed and grace of a Raiaeran Bladesinger, unfazed by the desperate assault. But he crowded her against the wall and stomped at her knee as the hardwood stick tangled her legs, and in their fevered momentum both tumbled to the ground.

Never stop.

Phyr scrambled on top of the woman warrior and straddled her chest. One bony knee pinned her sword arm like a fallen oak crushing a neighboring yew. A wounded wildcat, her claws quested for his face and ivory teeth gnashed at his throat. Phyr managed to maintain position and lifted his superior weight, then dropped it forcefully on her sternum. This angered the wildcat further, but she quieted as if tranquilized when he produced the double-barreled flintlock and jammed it cruelly in the hollow of her collarbone. She was fully trapped by three facets - his weight, the matted pelts around them, and the lethal firearm pressed against her throat. Her heels scuffed the carpets incessantly, failing to find the traction to move him.

“I suppose you know,” he gasped from the effort required to hold her down, “that a single pound of pressure is enough to trip this trigger and end your life?” She nodded marginally, her eyes a boiling geyser of rage. He could see an internal struggle beneath the anger, and waited wisely. Seconds later her mental dam burst.

“Bastard!” She spat the word like a mouthful of sawdust biscuit. “You're dead once the others get here, you know that? Go on. You better shoot me and run like the coward you are, while you've got the chance.” Phyr displayed stained teeth in an unfamiliar expression of glee which seeped into his eyes so they sparkled like ocean waves. Although he'd won the swift exchange, her steady breathing and blood-drenched cloak suggested she'd have bested him in any other arena. A few dirty tricks are better than a master swordsman, nine times out of ten. He'd heard that phrase in the military and lived by it after his arm rotted off in hell. It seemed no one had ever taught the girl that lesson, and he suspected the learning process was what made her so mad.

“Those oafs followed my false trail then? They’ll not return for some time my lady. An orc is nothing more than a hound when he catches a waft of blood.” Phyr found it difficult to inflect words in the coarse common language, but poured a double measure of egotism into the barb. Her reaction rewarded the effort.

“You don't have a chance,” she growled around grinding molars, “They know who you are Sa’resh, and they know you’re the one who--” her mouth snapped shut as she realised his intentions. The resolute line her lips formed told Phyr no amount of cleverness or even torture could earn more information. The concept of questioning her melted like snow in spring, draining through the crags of his mind as the closeness of their bodies and the warmth of hers affected him. How long since I encountered a female of any kind? I know not... The woman’s face glowed scarlet as the scented embers, her cheeks turned to rose petals by the Salvic chill and urgent struggle. The nearby pallet bed called to him again, in a wholly different carnal context.

A plague on my name! Can so much time alone make a noble elf a scoundrel?

Tears softened ancient azure eyes as Phyr identified the scent rising from the brazier.

Flowers.

What purpose is there in existing when one forgets the smell of life? Suddenly he felt trapped again, and more disgusted with himself than the grog brewed in the Keep. Shame strangled him. He needed to escape once more, to flee the confines of that unfortunate shack and never look on Sulgoran’s Axe again. Stowing the pistol beneath his cloak, he gathered the collars of hers and clenched them in a stone fist, then slowly shifted his hips forward and drove his knuckles to the ground. The tough fabric of the woman’s cloak closed around her neck, constricting the arteries feeding her brain without cutting off her airway.

As blood flow dwindled her eyes lost their wrath and stared passively through him, lips slightly parted as if looking on a fond memory. Those lips still had a mauve hue left over from hours of arctic chill. They looked pert and full, soft yet strong, youthful and human but with the same coloring as any Aleraran beauty. The caress of Annelle's purple lips always sent him to a castle on a cloud where nothing could go wrong. Such a charm could deliver me from this wasteland...

“My lady, would you withhold your favour from the hero who broke the walls of hell?” Did his hand vibrate from strain, or did she shake her head no? Impossible to tell the difference, and a shake was as good as a word for the silver-tongued Phyr Sa’resh. He leaned down gently and, just as Christina Bredith slipped into unconsciousness, claimed his first kiss in thirty years.

*

Phyr stole from shadow to lengthening shadow, navigating the alleys of Keepswatch like a shark in underwater canyons. The days ended early during the Northlands’ long winter. The seasonal lighting suited his needs. He had stuffed the rusted, unused keyhole of that shack with scraps from his cloak and powdered hardtack, enough to compact the mechanism on all sides. The golden haired valkyrie would have to destroy the door in order to follow him, and somehow Phyr knew that she would follow him. Despite the complications it created, the old drow welcomed her wrathful pursuit. It felt more like someone caring for him than anything he'd experienced in a long, long time.

The sun winked like a demon's eye as it fell behind icemold clouds. Those lancing rays had long since lost any hint of heat, but in dying the great star paid tribute to the slaughter in Sulgoran's Axe, washing the town of Keepswatch with its crimson gaze. Those dying rays were not enough to capture Phyr Sa'resh, though. The ancient drow limped as if caught in the snares of slow-time magic, barely distinguishable from the wooden slats which comprised the exterior of the building's straw bale walls. The odors finally reached his tortured sinuses - hay, sweat, manure - but the old elf had found the stables by the sounds of the animals. Even well trained wolves would howl to welcome the moon.

Phyr's guess that the villagers would not bother latching their doors, made in such haste originally, held true with the stables. The drow sniffed as if cheated - locks were simple mechanisms when compared to those he designed, and after the frustration of the heavy damascus bars in the Keep he'd anticipated a few easy victories.

I suppose if one is given a dire wolf, one shouldn't reach into its mouth...

He slipped into the stables and eased the door shut with his shoulder, glad for something to lean on. He was a whole lifetime away from lying down and quitting, but the bruise in his hip sawed at the bone relentlessly. Alone with the softly snuffling beasts, Phyr allowed himself a moment of soundless, fitful laughter. The memory of sailing out of that poor wolf's saddle set him off, and then his nerves betrayed him. A one-note animal cackle tore itself from his tired lungs. And in the moment of silence that followed the forcible entrance of his hand into his mouth, a heavily accented voice reached his shriveled ears.

"Dijja' hare that? Ah' tell yeh' Julaio, I cannae go wich'ya. One oh' mah wolves be sick."

Phyr left the door as if it had burned him to the bone. He scanned the dark rows of stalls within the stables and clambered over the first empty one he found, sprawling in the hay and submerging himself in its try musk as the stable door banged open.

The first pair of boots stomped heavily across filthy straw strewn floorboards. Phyr identified them as belonging to the man with the strong accent. He couldn't place the sound exactly, but associated the stress on vowel sounds with nomadic tribes who lived in Salvar, Berevar, and the mountains between. He had seldom heard those broken dialects spoken aloud, and listening to a Salvic nomad speak common entreated his ears. The man who made each step a statement gained Phyr's immediate approval, for he highlighted the outrageous nature of Tradespeak with each syllable.

"Ah've got yeh on both sides, auld man. Ah've only got thray oh' me beauties in-stable at tha' moment, an' Moondare is nawt fit tah' carry a man yore size, lettalone that great devil yer' takin' which'ya. Mark mah words Julaio, yeh're tauntin' death takin' a journey with'at one!" The nomad's boots stomped down the row of stalls and the distinct click of a gate unlatching preceded Julaio's entrance.

The second pair of boots Phyr saw through a small crack in the gate belonged to a rider, not a worker. Not a soldier either, unless he practiced walking pigeon-toed for fun. A messenger, then. The fellow's slim boots were shiny enough to reflect the light of the lantern he carried, and they shifted about like an impatient child's.

"But really, Feargus, I never expected to make the trip alone with -" The messenger's reedy voice dropped to a frightened whisper "with one of them. But I received word through his emergency conduit... explicit instructions Feargus, to the word! If I arrive in the Edge without one of the Gorum'Fael I could lose everything!" Julaio set the lantern down, which did not seem a wise choice in a building constructed entirely of combustibles, and his boots carried him out of Phyr's limited range of vision. The hay really was everywhere. Phyr covered his nose and breathed through his mouth, and listened so intently his shriveled ears quivered.

"Wale then mah auld man, yeh'd best make yer' choice; yeh' can have two mounts tonight or find yerse;f a new employer." The nomad chuckled darkly and the messenger ejaculated his lungful of air.

"Don't make such poor jokes Feargus. Saddle them with bags and full rations and bring them to the south pass. And hurry, I'd prefer if no one saw us, and even Keepswatch can't stay this quiet forever." The muffled clatter of a coinpurse exchanging hands filtered through Phyr's blanket of hay, and the Nomad chuckled with real humor.

"Did Ah aiver tale yeh' how much yeh worry Julaio? More'n is fit fer' a man wi'such fancy boots, ha!" Feargus' laughter echoed throughout the stables as Julaio retreated, slamming the door but leaving the lantern. It shuddered, and Phyr nearly jumped out of his cover, thinking it would fall.

His pulse slowed to a normal rate as he listened to the Nomadic Stableman crisply saddle first one wolf, then a second, and then strangely, the third. He held his breath as the familiar heavy boots trundled past, followed by eight clawed paws. Once the wolves had exited, the boots stomped back in and the door fell shut. The nomad stumped over to his last remaining steed, the one he had called Moondare, and scratched fondly at her fur. For an instant Phyr wondered if he had invaded a moment of affection between master and beast, but then Feargus' voice rang out, harsh even when cooing at his pet.

"Thare yeh' go, mah bonneh lass. Yeh're probably all a'wundrin why Ah tauld auld gold-fer-brains out thare yeh're ill when yeh're actually mah strawngest beast. Wale Ah couldn't abide tah' take yeh' all tha' way daown south, nawt in his company." The boots landed directly in Phyr's field of vision once more, stirring a cloud of dust. "Of caurse, naow yeh're askin' me anuther question with yer' big bay-ootiful eyes darlin, arren'cha? Yeh're askin why Ah've gone an' saddled yeh' with a day's worth of food an' drink in bag? Wale mah sweet..."

The tone of the Northerner's thick voice changed from friendly to something so soaked in bitterness, he could not have been talking to the wolf.

"Ah naiver did care much for those mountain-devils. Thay kelled mah brahthers fore walkin' on frae land, and they always sent mah beasts back wimperin' an' fearful. Just like yeh, Moonie, I was happy when Ah haird most oh'thay mutants got kelled. An Ah' just thought mah dearie, if'n some noble creature happened tah need a faithful steed tah help get 'im home, then yeh'd be just the beast tah get'im thar, and Ah'd be honored tae know Feargus Stonewolf could be of sairvice."

The door slammed shut, distinctive footsteps receding as the strident voice clucked to his two beasts. But Phyr could not move - a single thought echoed throughout his being like a paralyzing mantra.

I'll never take a blade to a beast again.

The wind on the open tundra slashed through Phyr's garments. Without the protection of the Gorum Mountains his thick cloak seemed woefully inadequate. If not for the waves of heat radiating from his steed's neck and the beast's confident, ceaseless strides, the drow felt certain he would have perished from cold or delirium.

Moondare kept a pace as steady as a drum sergeant, her misty breath torn away by the vicious wind. The wolf followed the ice road with her nose to the ground, inspecting the paw prints of her stable mates. The short conversation he'd overheard had given Phyr lots to think about, and he struggled to keep his mind on task to distract himself from the biting chill. He had long since given up on the reigns or the pommel, instead laying as flat as possible on Moondare's thick neck and keeping his one hand tight against the beast's throat, safe from frostbite.

The road stretched farther than the old elf could see, and the way the moon reflected off the never ending ice and snow threatened to blind him if he tried. He knew where it led, though. His journey east along the southern slopes of the mountains would end in the town of Sularik Lake, named after the great body of water it sprawled beside. Every military map of Salvar Phyr could recall had Sularik Lake circled thrice, marking it as having the highest population density north of Knife's Edge. More people meant exploitable resources, and enough anonymity he might just elude the skillful human bounty hunter. While she had demonstrated considerable prowess in tracking Phyr through the pass, a city - or even a large town - would put the drow in his preferred element.

The fact that Julaio and his Gorum'Fael escort were also headed to Sularik Lake was both convenient and predictable. The only other path to Knife's Edge led through the vast expanse of open tundra which was divided into fiercely defended Fiefdoms by small-scale militias. If they had braved the wastes Phyr might have followed out of curiosity, but the unseemly traveling pair chose the drow's favored route, and he followed their trail through the night.

As the next day dawned Phyr threw back his hood in spite of the wind which threatened to maim his old ears. The sun rose in front of him, over the East Mountains. Its golden rays kissed his cheeks, a welcome embrace from a long-lost friend.

Don't weep old elf, your tears will freeze.

As the town became visible Phyr urged Moondare off the road, cutting south so he could approach from a less obvious direction. Fatigue threatened to pull him out of the saddle but the wind, and the understanding of his great luck, kept him alert.

It seems that warrior maiden's kiss truly charmed my path.

“Rise and shine, soldier!”

Who was shouting like that at such an ungodly hour? Surely Christina had a few hours more to sleep. After all, who was this, expecting her to rise with the sun? Her father? No, that wasn’t the voice of her father... but it did sound familiar. Gruff but fair, commanding but caring. It seemed like something out of a dream—a warm, pleasant dream, the kind you wished to go back to after the unending horrors of battle. But who?

“That means now!”

Slowly, the girl opened her eyes, squinting against the morning light streaming between her open curtains. She didn’t recognize the room she was in, but attributed it to the haze of drowsiness that was steadily beginning to clear from before her. It was small and wood-paneled, plainly decorated, with a small wood stove in one corner. That was clearly not lit as the room was bitterly cold, and Christina shivered as a chilling breeze blew through the open window, drawing her woolen blankets more tightly around herself.

“Just a few more minutes,” she mumbled, and turned over.

Her eyes snapped open when the window slammed shut with behemoth strength, and Christina bolted upright, nearly throwing off her blankets. The morning drowse vanished completely, but she still did not recognize her surroundings in the slightest. A crystal vase filled with roses decorated one table beside her bed, and the other held a quaint little oil lamp, also unlit. She was dressed modestly in a silk shift, but still found herself reaching to draw the covers back up again. It was a feeble attempt to protect herself from the unfamiliar surroundings, but it was all she had.

Over by the window was a tall, graying man with a commanding presence. He stood proudly like the statue of an ancient warrior, arms folded behind his back, gazing out at the white-blinded scenery through the heavily-frosted glass. He looked familiar, and put together with his voice, recognition slowly dawned on her.

“M...Marshal!” she stuttered in complete shock. Gripping her head at the sudden onset of a dizzy headache, she squeezed her eyes shut and tried to remember. She had been somewhere cold—well, she still was, judging by the world outside—but… it was somewhere far away from home, and… “How did you get here…?”

Letho turned to look at her, fixing her with a strong gaze. He studied her for a moment through those deeply brown eyes before saying, “It looks like you took a harder beating than I thought.” He smirked.

“Yeah, I… I guess I must have.” She finally opened her eyes and removed her hand as the throbbing stopped. He came over to sit on the edge of the bed, and she looked over at him with a slight smile. Her eyes were still adjusting to the light; she must have been out for a very long time. He waited for a few moments before finally speaking.

“The doctors said you were attacked. Strangled, from the look of you when they found you.”

Her hands immediately found her neck, and then fell away: the skin was tender and bruised all around. She could remember… someone… throwing her to the ground. He was poised over her… it was a blur and any attempt at remembering was like grasping water with her bare hands. “I… I’m sorry to cause you so much trouble, Marshal. I’m not usually so careless.”

The older man laughed, shaking his head. “I’m just glad you’re all right, Christina. It was a nasty affair, that—”

He was cut off when Christina, barely taking in a word, suddenly threw her arms around him. “I’m so glad you’re here, Marshal! I don’t remember any of what happened, but in those last moments, I… I was sure I’d never see you again. I’d never felt so cold and hopeless in all my life.”

He seemed stunned, but patted her on the back for comfort. “Really, Christina,” he said at last, when he had found the words. “We’ve seen each other through worse scrapes than that. Didn’t we promise to always have each other’s backs?”

Christina smiled, feeling all the chill of the winter morning air melt away. Even here in the farthest reaches of—of wherever she was, it was good to know that she could still count on the Marshal to be there for her. There was no one else left in the world more important to her. “Sorry, Marshal,” she said with a laugh. “I just interrupted you. What were you saying?”

“Oh, well,” he continued, “just that I don’t hold it against you. That siege was a nasty business.”

Her brow furrowed in confusion, and the pulsing returned. “Siege…?” No, that didn’t sound right. There had certainly been a lot of fighting, though: her muscles were still aflame from it all. She remembered a sea of enemies, but… not a siege. It was more like…

“Yes, the siege,” Letho responded in surprise, dashing her concentration. “The siege of Radasanth, of course. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten that much!”

The siege of Radasanth! No, impossible: she was nowhere near Radasanth, or even Corone. The throbbing returned with more fury than ever. She couldn’t even hear her own thoughts for the blood pounding in her ears. Consciousness began slipping away from her, and she sank back onto her pillow, eyes rolling up into her head. Her last vague memories were of Letho calling her name and then for a doctor, but by then, she was already gone.

* * *

Christina’s eyes opened again to a room much different than the one she had just been in. It was dark and musty, and a haze of cold frost permeated the air. No quaint little woodstove sat in the corner, stoked or otherwise. The dirty window was indeed frosted but not open, and through it, she could see a dark sky outside brightening toward dawn. She had been asleep that long? She bolted upright from the ice-hard floor, looking around frantically.

“Where… but I was just…” And then, a sudden recollection took her: “Marshal!” She started, looking around the room from dark corner to dark corner, but saw nothing but shadow all around. “Marshal…” No one. She was alone. Letho was not here, and there was no sign that he ever had been. She was lying on the grubby floor of a wooden shack that appeared to have been abandoned for quite some time. It had all been a dream. Her body was perfused with cold, but she ignored it with the effort of trying to remember what had happened.

She was in the village of Keepswatch. She had come here to avoid the reach of the empire for a while, let them think she was dead and thus call off the bounty on her head. While she was here, there had been an outbreak in a high-security prison built into the glacial wall of Sulgoran’s Axe, and she had chased an escaped prisoner on dire wolf across the snowy plains back to the city. She had followed him into this house where she confronted him, and…

“Son of a goat’s mistress!” she growled, dragging herself to her feet using a nearby dining table. “I can’t believe I let myself get taken like that.” The prisoner—he was a Drow, now that she remembered—he had been as savage as a cornered animal, throwing himself at her with a strength that should have been impossible for someone so scrawny. Mercifully, he hadn’t used the gun he had turned on her. He had… done something. The details were fuzzy and hard to recall, but she could definitely feel his hands clawing at her throat, constricting, cutting off her breath…

No, wait. Not hands. His hand. He had only the one! He must have taken advantage of her surprise, knocked her out and run. The little bastard was as scrappy as he was clever, and after what he had done to her, she wouldn’t rest until he was locked up in a pillory on the highest peak in Salvar until he was frozen solid.

There was no more time to waste. She snatched up Rosebite from where it had fallen; the blade’s hilt was still warm despite having lain in the cold for so long. She wondered whether that prisoner bastard had tried to take it for himself; the thought of it searing through his palm at the attempt gave her great comfort. Moving toward the door, she tested the handle. Locked. She fussed with that until she nearly tore it off the door, but it wouldn’t turn, either. The little prick must have jammed it somehow! Feeling fury welling up inside her, she leveled a well-aimed kick at it. The door didn’t budge. Gods-damned Salvarans and their sturdy craftsmanship!

Pacing in a quick circle, rage boiling barely-contained beneath an outwardly calm exterior, Christina planted herself about a dozen feet from the door and pointed her sword at it. The blade quite literally crackled with anticipation. “Scream, Rosebite!” she howled, and the blade roared to life, firing off a blast of energy almost as fast as the deafening boom that came with it. The door exploded outward, shattering into several large pieces which clattered against the building on the opposite side of the alley.

As Christina stomped out into the snow, ignoring the way the wind blew her cloak about, she was soon surrounded by curious townspeople wondering what on earth had just happened, and staring at the hole where a door had once been. It was unfortunate that the door had been destroyed so thoroughly—there would be no way of living in the house now until it was replaced, not in this cold—but she consoled herself with the fact that she was not responsible for that. The door was completely useless thanks to Sa’resh’s tampering and would have needed replacing anyway.

Still, she tossed a small pouch containing two dozen gold pieces onto the kitchen table for the owners to collect. That should more than cover the cost of the repairs, and she would just make sure to take it out of the prisoner’s hide when she caught up with him.

“Someone bring me my things!” she barked, cutting across the confused crowd with a withering glare. “I’m going to string that bastard up if it’s the last thing I do!”

The story of Christina and Phyr continues in Another Day Colder.

I want to first start off saying that I truly enjoyed reading this thread. From start to end, the burgeoning tale of Phyr and Christina had me wrapped around its little finger, and even as I paused in between posts to get something to eat or drink I couldn't help but wonder just what would happen next. And as I came to the conclusion of the thread, I was left with that same feeling; which, in this case, twas quite the good thing.
So here it is; the judgment of They've All Forgotten You. If you have any questions or comments, you can reach me via private messages.

Story: 8
To start off, I wish to say that Les Mis, you wrote an excellent introductory post; as I read it, I could see the prison rise up in the visionary part of my mind, like some ominous portrait in a dramatic movie. With that vision came a sense of beginning, and was inflected with just enough mystery (the at-the-time unnamed drow, the solitude of the prison, the existence of the "devils") to catch my attention and draw me into the rising story of the escapee known as Phyr. As the thread moved into the second post, Christina's, I was pleasantly surprised as the perspective moved into the opposing end, and with it came a small, but carefully placed sense of rising action at the very end of your post; I found myself just as entrapped as the silent villagers by the Salvic man's almost incoherent outburst. The fact that Christina understood little Salvic made it that much more dramatic and enticing. Impressed as I was by the strong introduction, I was almost equally impressed with the gradual rising action that led up to Phyr and Christina's eventual meeting. You kept the pace steady but strong, easing up on the action when it culminated in someone's death or domination and flowing well into the next piece. However, I was a little disappointed in the actual climax of the story - the meeting of Phyr and Christina - as, compared to the almost overwhelmingly strong rising action and introductions, it felt weak and thin (mostly for reasons I will mention later). As the climax melded into the conclusion of the thread, however, I found myself once again eagerly wanting to read the next part of their story; what path would Phyr take in his quest for vengeance? How would Christina, the Javert of this story, take into account Phyr's past and her own as she chases him down? A cliffhanging conclusion, but one well written.

Strategy: 7
I honestly would have scored this higher had it not been for some confusion I had with some of Christina's actions early on in the thread. I didn't have to read her character sheet to understand her capabilities and profession, per se', but like Phyr that knowledge came with eventual reading, leaving me sometimes unpleasantly pondering several aspects about her. As I said, eventually I completely understood just both whom Phyr and Christina were (especially with the dream sequence with Letho), but in Christina's case it didn't come soon enough.

Setting: 10
One of the strongest aspects of this thread, from both of you, was the setting. I really could not find anything that I disliked, and at no time was I ever confused as to where (and when) the two characters were. Excellent job, the both of you.

Continuity: 9
Other than my pondering about Christina at times when I felt I shouldn't, this was another excellent score. While I didn't understand immediately just where & when Phyr and Christina were or why they were there, after the thread was finished I had no doubts in my mind whatsoever. The thread breathed Althanas, from the descriptions of the thick, Salvic accents to how Christina noticed that Phyr had naught the build of the the typical Salvic man, which I thought was a nice little touch. As I said before, excellent job.

Interaction: 7
Truth be told, at some points I found the interaction to be rather lackluster and not befitting of the characters that I had come to know at that point; for example, despite the fact that Christina was physically smaller, I would have thought she'd have managed to broken free of the former officer's lock somehow, or at least seen past the powder trick. Still, I know that some things are necessary for story's sake, and even despite the slightly lackluster interaction at times this was still better that quite some things I've read before.

Character: 9
I was in no doubts about the personalities, hopes, and dreams of the duo; they were so real, so vibrant to me that I could have imagined either as real beings. However, while Phyr's physical appearance and body when compared to others was never in doubt to me, I often found myself wondering Christina's physical identity, which to me was slightly odd. The closest I came to picturing her from an outside perspective was when Phyr pinned her down in their interaction in post 13. Still, you both did very well when it came to this; obviously you have a clear sense of whom your characters are.

Writing Style: 8
In all honesty, I don't have much to say here. I liked both of your styles; Phyr had a pseudo-first person perspective thing going on that would have easily made a wonderful true-first person writing style, and Christina, I lacked how you described even the simplest of movements and touches with extravagance. There were times where the word usage didn't make sense to me, but those were rare and far in between from both of you.

Mechanics: 9
You obviously put a lot of effort into this one, from all the edited posts I saw, and that effort was well spent. I found nearly no technical errors as I read through, save a couple words where the spacing had melded them together into one word and a run-on sentence or two. Still, a job well done.

Clarity: 7
While on the whole I understood everything and what was going on, there were a couple posts where I back-tracked through a few paragraphs just to make sure I was reading it correctly. For Phyr, the thick accent of the stable man, while respectably applicable, made it hard to understand just what the post was about in the first place, which docked some points. Also, while on the overall note the dream sequence with Letho was well written, there were a couple points where it threatened to interfere with my sense of continuity.

Wildcard: 10
As I stated in the beginning, I truly, truly enjoyed this thread. Well-written, with the beginnings of a beautiful plot line and decadent relationship... I hope that, once the next part of the story is done, that you request me to judge it, for I will do so with joy.

Final Score: 85/100
Les Misérables gains 2000 EXP and 250 Gold!
Christina Bredith gains 2500 EXP and 350 Gold!

GP-Exp Added.