The beastman that Daveth fought collected her spears, sheathed her knife and pushed her way into the foliage and seemingly vanished as the jungle swallowed her up. The sense that there were other silently watching witnesses faded as well, and gradually sound started returning to the jungle.

  “Shall we go after them, sir?” Audra asked.

  “Can you track them?” Daveth asked curiously.

  “I can try.” She offered. Daveth looked a question at Aldric who nodded and gestured his approval.

  Audra was able to track the catwoman about fifty feet, and then lost the trail completely. Daveth rubbed his chin, Aldric tamped tobacco into his pipe with a practiced thumb while Audra cast back and forth for sign.

  “What do you think that was about?” Aldric asked after he’d puffed his pipe several times.

  Daveth shrugged, grimaced in pain, and rubbed his shoulder. “A test, apparently.”

  “Obviously. Did we pass? Fail? Are we being tested now?” Aldric asked, but Daveth didn’t have any answers, and he said as much.

  Aldric nodded. “There are all sorts of tests. What’s important is the criteria.”

  “I’ve got no fucking clue what that is.” Daveth immediately replied.

  “Obviously.” Aldric replied simply enough. “We don’t have enough information.”

  Daveth shook his head. He hadn’t made himself clear.

  “What’s ‘criteria’?”

  Aldric snatched his pipe out of his mouth and stared at Daveth in shock at the question, but immediately switched tracks.

  “Doesn’t matter, I’ll explain it later, or you’ll figure it out for yourself. Right now I’m thinking we should head back to the capital.”

  Daveth called Audra back.

  “Thought we were going to push towards one of the abandoned cities.” Daveth offered, but Aldric shook his head and combed his fingertips with his beard.

  “No... no. I think we should head back to the capital.” Aldric decided. “We were told about cat-type beastmen. Now they’ve shown themselves.” He explained. “What matters is our primary objective, which is to protect the Brotherhood. The capital is currently undefended. We should fix that, even if it’s just with our recruits.”

  *****

  Upon their return to the city, Aldric, Daveth, and Audra sat around a copy of a map of Metzcal. They annotated the map with geographic features they’d discovered, from the crater of Nothulzoth the Interred and the tectonic fractures around it, rivers and streams they’d crossed.

  “I’m beginning to think we ought to hire a cartographer.” Aldric muttered as he contemplated the map that was largely featureless. Metzcal was a territory that’d been claimed by the Anglish Empire long before the War of Liberation and then apparently largely ignored.

  “How could they do something like that? Just ignore land they conquered?” Daveth asked with a puzzled frown.

  “Pretty fuckin’ easily, apparently.” Aldric remarked sourly. “But really it wasn’t like that at all. The Anglish started in the south and grew north, absorbing territories as they expanded. Mezcal was developed for a time. You heard the man when we arrived. There was that magical disaster on the Sarkomand Plateau in what was known as the Jeweled Cities. The Anglish pulled massive levies to contain it. Mezcal is a jungle, you can’t pull most of the population out when you’re subjugating it; it’ll just grow back.”

  “You seem to know a lot about it.” Daveth remarked, but Aldric waved his hand.

  “This is just basic history, man.” he replied indifferently. “There are plenty of lands that were developed for different reasons. Blackwall for example was a massive shipbuilding port in its time. Philippa, Ardeal, Lyonesse were all considered peaks of civilization in their times.”

  “So our objective here- the beastmen- we’re not expected to rid the entire land of them, are we?” Daveth asked.

  Aldric snorted. “Fuck no. We’re gonna fortify while Edwin reclaims what’s left of the original capital. Throw up some berms, palisades, clear some killzones, teach some of these pecker-stretchers to use a spear, and then we fuck off. If we’re lucky the beastmen will come to us. We’ll drive them back a few times and call it good. Moore can go crying to the Anglish after that.”

  “You think it’ll go that easy?” Daveth asked, lifting a skeptical brow.

  “‘Course it will.” Aldric replied.

  Audra traced her finger around the capital on the map. “That’s a big perimeter, boss. There’s not enough of us to secure it. There’ll be gaps everywhere.”

  Aldric nodded. “I expect so. We’re going to be overextending our reach here a bit. Do your best.”

  Daveth got up and strolled out of the tent, and after getting Aldric’s nod, Audra dashed after him.

  “What do you think?” Audra asked.

  “I think we’re pooch-screwed is what I think. We can’t protect the city with two hundred troops.” Daveth replied.

  “We’ve got more than two hundred-” She began, but Daveth waved her off. “They’re too green. I don’t trust ‘em yet.”

  “So how do we turn this around?” She asked, obviously frustrated.

  Daveth eyed her. “That’s a good question. I suppose we’d need a change in the situation. There’s too much of out there and not enough in here.” He paused, seemed like he was going to say something else, but shook his head. “I’m not much of a trick with a bow, but I’ll do a turn at watch. Come holler for me in ... four hours.” He offered to Audra with a wave.

  Daveth paused outside the small cube-shaped house he’d been given and frowned, pulling a short sword from his pouch. He opened the door and called in an exasperated voice, “You’d be surprised at what I can do with this knife.”

  He strode into the room, and the cat-type beast woman he’d fought earlier chuckled in her throat.

  “You’d be surprised to see what I could do with mine.” she replied.

  “You think you’d get a chance to use it?” He offered, and she laughed.

  After a moment where they eyed each other warily, Daveth adjusted his footing. “Come and get your throat cut.”

  “I bring a message from the Tal.” She offered instead.

  “All sorts of messages right here.” Daveth gestured with the blade, a gaudy thing with a brilliantly polished steel blade mounted in a gold grip.

  “We’re willing to speak with you.” She declared. “You’ll be given safe passage to and from our territory.”

  “Just me, or can I bring a friend?” Daveth offered, and the cat laughed again, a throaty chuckle.

  “You demonstrated your strength.” She replied.

  Daveth thought it over, and dropped the blade he held onto the floor. “Fine. What’s the Tal?”

  “The Tal is our King. We’ve been watching you -and this settlement- for some time.”

  “You’ve no idea how excited I am to hear that.” Daveth replied sourly.

  “It’s not hard to enter or leave the city without being seen.” She replied, her tone noncommittal.

  *****

  It was morning, but strangely, Daveth hadn’t shown up for duty. Aldric sent Audra and Morden to his room with a bucket. It had been a while since Daveth missed first call, though he was an infrequent offender.

  Aldric was pacing in his tent when Audra returned.

  “He’s gone.” She reported and handed over the sword that Daveth dropped.

  “What do you mean, gone?” Aldric asked acidly. “He’s a fucking giant. He can’t sneak around. Talk to those on watch; find out where he went. I’m going to put his ass in a sling.”

  Audra wanted to object, remind Aldric that anyone or anything could wander in or out of their paper-thin defense cordon around the jungle-side of the capital city, but decided to let it go because she knew it would be futile.

  Instead, she returned to his room. If she was lucky, she might be able to pick up his tracks and follow his backtrail.

  *****

  As far as Daveth was concerned, the Tal was a monster. Fully nine feet tall, with the head of a lion and the upright posture of a man. He had a thick, proud mane of tawny brown with streaks of gold and wore a simple robe of blue with thread and gold.

  He sat on a throne carved from stone and draped with dusty, disintegrating cloth, slouched in seeming boredom, idly scratching his claws on the stone arm of the throne.

  Daveth had plenty of time to examine the buildings since arriving in this particular city since arriving. He was pretty certain it wasn’t on any of the maps they’d used, either.

  The central building was a six-lobed structure with a steeple at each point and a spire at the heart; the architecture reminded Daveth of the old Anglish temple he’d seen in the deserts of Bel-Arib. Aldric had told him such buildings predated the War of Liberation, but something seemed to indicate that this particular building was much, much older than that. Tattered and disintegrating banners hung from the walls, their sigils obliterated by decay and time.

  The city itself was simpler in construction than the temple; a scattering of cube-shaped buildings surrounded by small farms. Scattered through the slipshod city were a number of training yards where cat-type beastmen trained in formation.

  This terrified Daveth more than anything. Beastmen were primal, savage, sometimes crafty, but they didn’t train. They formed ragged warbands, but they didn’t fight in formation. It was a known fact that beastmen were overwhelmingly ruled by their emotions, their instincts. That was why it was nearly impossible for them to integrate into society. Things like rules, reason, laws, were often completely forgotten in the heat of the moment.

  Well, Aurene had told him that the Order of the Wolf had beast blood in their veins, but it had been diluted over seven hundred years, so it made sense that they were an exception.

  “What do you think of my city, pink-skin?” The Tal offered by way of greeting as Daveth entered the throne room.

  “It’s ...something. Impressive is one word I’d use to describe it.” Terrifying is another word. “How many live here?”

  “As many as can be fed.” The Tal replied. “Which is why I’ve brought you here.”

  There were several beastmen nearby as well as the Tal himself. Daveth was reasonably certain he could kill at least a couple before he was overwhelmed.

  “I am no easy meat.” Daveth replied, adjusting his feet and preparing to draw a sword. The Tal lifted his head off his meaty fist and barked a rumbling laugh.

  “I did not bring you here to eat you, hairless ape.” The Tal admonished him. “I did promise you safe passage, after all.”

  “Beastmen aren’t known for their willingness to stick to their word.” Daveth replied, and the Tal rose up in immediate fury and roared, the air trembling with the fury of it.

  “We are not beastmen. We are perfection itself! Do not mistake us for that filth!” The beastman roared, and Daveth hastily drew a sword.

  The beastman’s eyes fell on Daveth. “You come before me armed?”

  Daveth shrugged uneasily, hearing several more beastmen arrive on the run. A hasty glance revealed they carried spears and slings and a few of them swung bolas.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  “Well... shit.” Daveth muttered.

  “Drop your weapon man-thing, and we can talk. Else I will have to break my word and send your body back to your city.”

  Daveth adjusted his stance. “You did say you brought me here to eat me.” Daveth barked, trying to visualize a situation where he was able to best so many opponents.

  “I brought you here to discuss food, not to eat you, fool. You need to learn to pay attention.”

  Daveth barked a laugh. “You sound like my old teacher when you say that.” He slowly lowered his sword, and since there were no signs of immediate reprisal, he sheathed the sword he’d drawn in his belt, rather than his pouch. Let them try to figure out how he’d drawn it in the first place.

  As soon as his weapon was sheathed, the Tal waved his hand and sat down once again in his stone seat, and most of the warriors that rushed in filed out of the room.

  “Who was your master?” The Tal asked curiously.

  “An asshole of a monk. Liked to call himself Darius Trakker, like the-”

  “Darius! Your master was Darius himself?!” The Tal rocked back in his seat in shock. “It’s no surprise at all then, that you were able to defeat Kiri.” He muttered, thumbing his furry chin, nodding approvingly.

  Daveth opened and closed his mouth several times. He wanted to explain the mistake, that his master was not the Darius Trakker of legend, but someone that called himself Darius Trakker.

  Everyone knew of Darius Trakker, the Wandering Monk. Everyone. Books of his adventures were scattered across every continent discovered. Seemingly immortal, or something akin to it, his stories ranged from the impossibly ancient, thousands of years, all the way through the War of Liberation. The most recent of his books found was Darius Trakker and Atlach-Nacha, a thrilling adventure where he’d forced the Queen of Spiders from the realms of men and into the algid wastes beyond Nauders.

  No one had ever met him, of course. His books referenced events current at the time of writing, but no one had actually met the man.

  “If you were a student of Darius Trakker, you’d pay attention.” The Tal muttered, eyeing Daveth skeptically.

  “I’m not so great at paying attention, and even less at holding my temper.” Daveth replied. “My master beat me quite a bit for both.” He stressed the words carefully, and the Tal roared with laughter.

  “Indeed! It has been said that I, too, have quite the temper. Let us, each of us, work to overcome our weaknesses.” The Tal replied. “But I brought you here to talk to you about food.”

  “I’m listening.” Daveth replied, and folded his arms across his chest and settled his feet in a relaxed posture.

  “Good. The human’s city doesn’t interest me for the moment, except that they’re cutting into the jungle.”

  Daveth stroked his beard thoughtfully and nodded, hoping that Audra had been crafty enough to follow the trail he’d left behind, that she was smart enough to bring the Seventh Seal with her. The elf girl was a bundle of energetic unpredictability packed into a petite body.

  “Tell me about your food.” Daveth encouraged.

  “Your kind call them pig-men.” The Tal mentioned dismissively. “They’re more akin to beasts that have learned to walk upright than men. They travel in packs between sixty and two hundred and roam around the land, eating whatever pleases them. They’re a delight to hunt and an even better delight to feast upon.” The Tal explained. “Your city keeps making incursions into the jungle. Cutting down trees, digging up the ground, destroying what should be left alone. This in turn upsets the buta, who attack your city.”

  Daveth raised an eyebrow. “Buta? Those pig-men, I’m guessing.” Daveth offered, and the Tal nodded.

  “You kill the buta, which disrupts our primary source of food, which upsets my warriors.” The Tal finished his explanation.

  “So what do you want, specifically?” Daveth asked.

  “It should be easy enough for you to understand. Stop cutting into the jungle. Stay in your city.” The Tal explained, spreading his arms wide. “I’m a generous sort. Leave my food alone and I won’t slaughter all of you humans in your beds.”

  “That’ll be... problematic.” Daveth muttered, scratching the back of his head awkwardly. “The Anglish want to reclaim the original capital entirely. Their long-term plans involve reclaiming the six major cities they built before the War of Liberation.”

  The Tal gave Daveth a baffled look. “What do you mean, ‘The War of Liberation’?”

  Daveth gave him an equally baffled look for a moment, and then realized, How could he know- and tried to explain it the best he could.

  “Hrm.” The Tal muttered in thought as he scratched the side of his face idly in contemplation. “This would explain why we never received orders.”

  Now it was time for Daveth to offer a baffled look in exchange.

  “We were originally birthed as an experiment to create ideal soldiers. Fearless, powerful, disciplined. The Anglish told us to stand by and train ourselves and departed, never to return.”

  Daveth rubbed his face with his hands to mask his confusion. The Anglish had bred beastmen as soldiers while simultaneously decrying beastmen as subhuman perversions of the human form. Utterly contradictory, utterly nonsensical.

  “Would you be interested in a job? I imagine we could use your soldiers in our campaigns.” Daveth gave an accounting of the Seventh Seal’s activities since he’d been brought on board.

  “Tempting, tempting. But this land is our home, and likely there will be a great many misunderstandings. A weak arm cannot wield a strong sword.”

  The Tal seemed to fall into thought, eyeing Daveth speculatively.

  “You. How much can you carry?”

  Daveth raised an eyebrow. “Quite a bit. I’d be able to carry quite a bit more if I’d’ve been allowed to ride my horse here, but-”

  “Come with me.” The Tal got up and stepped behind the throne with an impatient wave of his arm for Daveth to follow.

  Daveth was brought to a large room filled with steel ingots, stacks of silver and gold, massive curling tusks of ivory, piles of gems, and chests filled with ancient coins from an age no one remembered.

  “A trade, Student of Darius: As much treasure as a man of your strength can carry for you and your army to fuck off. We will have an accounting with the Anglish and determine if they are strong enough.”

  Daveth wasn’t sure how Aldric would react to this offer. There were a whole lot of variables to consider.

  Daveth rubbed his chin in thought. There might be a way to make it work.

  “Do I get sacks to carry it in?” He asked, and the giant beastman snorted roughly.

  *****

  Daveth had been missing for several days. Nobody had seen him leave, nobody knew when or what time it was that he’d left.

  Audra had at first found a set of tracks leading out of the city and into the jungle, but they seemed much too impressed and intentional, as if someone had deliberately laid a trail for someone to follow, that she dismissed it as a deception, likely leading to an ambush or a trap. She directed the scout squads to ignore the false trail and scour the forest.

  Aldric was more pragmatic, he ordered a search of the taverns and whore’s cribs in the city. Thus, no one was where they should have been when Daveth staggered into camp, six massive sacks nearly as tall as he was stretched taut across his shoulders.

  Rivers of sweat cut tracks through the grime on his face. His shirt was ripped in several places, there was a scratch across his forehead, and a number of bruises here and there told tale of his efforts to return to camp carrying his burden.

  Alysia caught sight of him while she was sitting astride her horse and in her haste to dismount, she ended up falling flat on her face embarrassingly. When she pulled herself upright, Daveth was staggering past her, face red, veins bulging.

  “...” For a moment she wanted to say something, but because she was so overwhelmed with indecision nothing immediately came. She felt it necessary to explain to him that she was diligently practicing her horseback riding, she wondered why it was necessary to explain that to him, she wanted to confront him and make him deny that he’d seen her fall from her horse in such an undignified way, she wanted to know where he had been and more importantly, why he hadn’t felt it necessary to take her along with him.

  “...Lord Commander, do you need help?” She finally asked. His eyes, staring blankly at nothing in particular, focused on her.

  “Ah. Lynnabel.” He acknowledged. She frowned at him; it was immediately obvious to the casual observer who was who in the Order of the Wolf. Lynnabel and her had shared the same mother, but they weren’t twins. Also, across the pauldrons of her brushed steel armor there was a series of scrawling marks that easily identified her name to those that knew how to look. Admittedly she wasn’t sure if Aurene had explained the lines and marks enameled on their armor, though she imagined it likely had come up in conversation at some point.

  “No, Lord Commander, it’s Alysia.” She replied crossly.

  “Right, right, my mistake.” He panted, still moving. “Need to get these to Aldric’s tent before I collapse.”

  “Shall I take one or two of them from you?” She offered, and he shook his head. “If I stop moving I’mma collapse.” He panted.

  Alysia frowned, still pacing him, and then began calling for help. Daveth managed to make it to Aldric’s tent, but forbade anyone save Aldric himself entrance, or for touching the sacks he carried.

  *****

  Aldric himself eyed Daveth’s stretched out form on the floor of the command tent, and the massive duffels that bulged in strange ways, straining the seams.

  “Where the fuck were you?” Aldric began after dragging a stool near Daveth’s head and seating himself carefully.

  “Out there in the green.” Daveth began. “Doesn’t matter. I didn’t come back empty-handed, though.”

  “I can see that.” Aldric remarked dryly. He pulled his pipe out of his pouch and packed it full of tobacco and lit a wooden splint from a candle on the table.

  He puffed his pipe alight. “I’m kinda pissed at you, you know. You went off-mission.”

  Daveth rolled over onto his back with a groan, met Aldric’s eyes, and shook his head. “Nope. I was on mission the entire time.” He weakly reached over and tapped one of the duffles with his hand.

  “I tried opening one of them up, you know.” Aldric prodded, tapping one of the sacks with his feet. “It was bound so tightly that I probably will have to cut the thing open to find out what’s in it.”

  Daveth barked a laugh. “It’s a business deal. Tell me Aldric, how much of you is crusader, and how much of you is mercenary?”

  Aldric immediately glared at Daveth. “That ain’t fuckin’ funny, son. You’re marching in where heroes and saints fear to tread.”

  “In the sacks you’ll find steel, gold, and silver. Diamonds, emeralds, rubies, sapphires, all the colors of the rainbow. Couldn’t tell you how much, though that last mile surely felt like I was carrying at least a hundred tons. Also the war banner of the Claw of the Tal.”

  “What the fuck did you do?” Aldric asked in a whisper. Daveth barked a weak laugh in response.

  “Ahhh, I could sleep for a lifetime right here in the dirt.” He muttered, his body stiff and sore.

  “I’m sure I could arrange something.” Aldric remarked with a trace of irony in his voice. Eventually all the important questions were answered in the most unsatisfying way- a shovelful of dirt to the face when you died.

  “I was offered this great bribe to get the Seventh Seal out of Metzcal. I dunno if it’s enough to get the Brotherhood to come along. Maybe. Maybe not. But the cats were willing to pay me off to leave so that they could hunt the pigs as food as much as they liked. Seemed reasonable.”

  “And the people living here?” Aldric asked curiously.

  “Ask Moore. Maybe he’ll hire us at a better rate. You think he can beat this, though?” Daveth rapped one of the heavy sacks with his hand.

  “Depends, I suppose, on what’s in it.” Aldric mused. “You remember though, I’m not just out to make some coin. I want to do the right thing. The people out there, they need someone to protect them.”

  “That’s Moore’s job. We were brought here by the Brotherhood.” Daveth replied, easing himself up gingerly.

  “Fuck, everything’s stiffening up.” He cursed and groaned as he pushed himself up to his feet stiffly. He fumbled around in his pouches until he found his own pipe and gestured at Aldric’s tobacco pouch. Wordlessly, Aldric slid it over. Daveth filled his bowl and lit it.

  “Open them up and let’s see what we got.” Daveth urged.

  *****

  “I’m in awe of your strength, Daveth. There’s enough high quality steel here to bribe the Queen of the Anglish Empire Herself. The gold and silver are of middling importance, but I imagine you could buy yourself a ship of the line with them- and enough to hire a crew, after. The gems...” He shook his head. ‘As much treasure as one man can carry’.” he remarked, and shook his head again.

  “Think it’d be enough to finance a full file of riflemen?” Daveth asked, and Aldric snorted. “Fuck you and your grandiose plans.”

  “Okay Mister ‘three fuckin’ cannon’ and a crank-gun.”

  Aldric sighed and toyed with the sheet of paper he’d used to tally Daveth’s bribe.

  “I could, theoretically, hire a magician to send a letter that’d literally drop itself right into the Queen’s hands that said, “Dear Queen of Angland. The last Anglish settlement in Metzcal will be wiped out to the last man, woman and child in the next two weeks unless you get off your ass and do something. Respectfully yours, Aldric Brightspire.”

  Daveth choked. “Your surname is Brightspire?” He sniggered, trying to hold back laughter.

  “Fuck you, farmboy. I at least have a surname. Some assholes don’t even deserve that.” He offered meaningfully.

  “I have a surname.” Daveth argued, “Though it’s not nearly as retarded-sounding as Brightspire.”

  “This about what you mentioned in Nauders?” Aldric asked, and Daveth nodded. “Fair’s fair; spit it out so I can mock your parentage.”

  Daveth told him, and Aldric closed his mouth with an audible snap.

  “Okay. Fuck it. You win. I can’t compete with that.” Aldric replied immediately. “Makes sense why you wouldn’t want to spread it around. Lots of attention with that name. My family did the smart thing; immediately following the War of Liberation we changed our surname.”

  “Why?” Daveth asked.

  “Well, we needed to stay relevant as Lords and Ladies of the Great Anglish Empire” he ladled a great deal of sarcasm on the country, “but we also wanted to put some distance between what we had been.”

  “Could have just dropped the surname, like me.” Daveth replied.

  “Ahhh, but then we wouldn’t be Nobility!” Aldric argued sarcastically. “Can’t be nobility without a surname!”

  “So what’d your family do that was so terrible?”

  “Don’t ask, it’s fucking stupid.”

  “Of course it’s fucking stupid.” Daveth replied. “The way you tell it, it’s all some form of fucking bullshit or another.”

  Aldric let out a sigh and nodded, prodding one of the steel ingots with a fingertip. “Pretty much, yeah. It’s all bullshit.”

  “So what’d you do?” Daveth prodded.

  “Fuck you, I’mma stick you in the stocks for going off mission.”

  “I didn’t go off-mission, I brought you a fuckstack of treasure that I can cram up your ass one by one, or you can tell me what your family did that was so bad.”

  Aldric rolled his eyes. “This shit never leaves the tent, right?” Daveth nodded.

  “My ancestor taught the Liberator’s grandmother how to be a Witch Hunter.”

  Daveth waited expectantly for the punchline to fall.

  “...and?”

  Aldric gave him a confused look that slowly changed to dawning comprehension and then to a certain sarcastic smugness. “You don’t know, do you? Well if you don’t know, I’m certainly not going to tell you. Figure it out for yourself.”

  Daveth gave Aldric a frustrated look. “Okay, fuck you. The question that’s still on the table though is do we stay, or do we go?”