Surrounded, like a lamb preyed upon by a pack of coyotes. Only these coyotes were about to learn that this lamb had teeth sharper than theirs.

  The knights of House Butcherie would defend their land from any intruder. It was willed to be so by forces higher than Lord Palmgrease. A tenet core to their foundation. Bestowed upon them by the elusive King Sin. Values every member held dear. From the lowest of dregs to the heads of the house, like Sir Sever and Lady Flay. All that siblinghood and camaraderie—the belief to die fighting so your fellows could have an easier skirmish—was pinpointed directly on Arnzos.

  “For House Butcherie!!” A knight shouted. They crashed like an ocean’s wave upon him.

  Arnzos reminded himself of his sole objective. If he entertained any others, he would surely perish. ‘Steal the coat and leave.’ That is all. With that established, he met the ocean wave’s fury. Sprinting into its central understructure. Arnzos could feel the nip at his calf from Modra’s swipes. But it didn’t stop him. He pierced a knight with Roxbane; his ruptured guts bubbling from his belly as the saber dissected him. Intestines for all his comrades to gaze at. The knight mellowly whimpered. Nothing could save him from death.

  The crowd of combatants slithered away. It was as if the shantytown’s soldiers were a collective. A cumulative mass, unified in their feeling and disposition. Cowardice bred cowardice. And it was difficult to breed courage when watching your friend get obliterated. Though the ocean wave tactic failed, their sheer numbers prevailed. A squad of belligerents jumped behind Arnzos. Clubs and blades ready to rend away. There were too many defend against using simple swings. Arnzos got creative.

  Now, standing on the grainiest gravel, he pierced the land with Roxbane and swiveled. Spiraling like a pirouette. Pebbles and kernels of dust and rock sprayed across the battlefield. A crusty mist that shriveled vision and lungs alike. The belligerents behind him coughed and rubbed their faces. Arnzos—holding his breath and shutting eyes—charged forward. A bull would be proud of him—the way he was doing it.

  He bolted. Air tickled his scales. A crunchy whistle of the dust storm he created whooshed past him. He rammed into a white lyzanite bandit. Crumpling him like paper. In his charging frenzy, he crushed the lyzanite’s neck beneath his barbed foot. Eviscerated any chance at breathing again. The geckoman sputtered. Thoughts and ambitions faded away.

  The shantytown’s men would not let him escape. More appeared from behind shacks and out from trees. Spawned from the very darkness of moonlight. He approached the manor. Inching closer. But the men here and the guards there would be too overwhelming. Arnzos’ eyes flew open. He took a puff of oxygen. A campfire laid next to him. Where the men once told their tales. Oh, they would tell tales of this.

  A nasally knight commanded, “Crossbowmen! At the ready!”

  One line of rangers followed the nasally’s order. Bolts loading into their death machines. Bolts that salivated at the feeling of pierced enemies. They wouldn’t know the feeling, at least not from Arnzos. He dipped his saber into the spitting fire. He slashed at the warmed logs and the jumping coals. The embers that never knew they wanted to feel skin—until now. Roxbane let the embers fly from its slashes. They lit the olden shacks aflame. A blazing chaos that distracted the knights even more. Other coals met the skin. Sizzling cinders dug into a few of the rangers. Nasally’s rangers hopped around and blew on their wounds.

  It made their tissue bubble. Black, smoldering abscesses cropped up. As vile blisters ate at the line of rangers, the few unharmed fired at Arnzos. Wheezing bolts. Only at half capacity. Arnzos slid and rolled on his back to dodge the volley. They stuck in dirt and in the time withered boards of the shanty housing now ablaze. A couple landed way off path. Disturbing the image of Palmgrease’s home. They cracked at the roof, or in the hanging moss near his windows, or the tile surrounding his back entrance.

  None hit Arnzos. Good. If he had any chance of still getting this coat, he needed all the mobility he could get. He felt another sting from his leg as the Modra given wounds opened. Ignored it. Not vital. The shantytown was burning and in a dustbowl. The crossbowmen nursed their trauma, as the nasally knight barked at them to hurry up. Next in the line of challengers was a trio of lamp-wielding humans. The sentries for the lord’s backdoor. Arnzos kept on.

  The sentries unsheathed as Arnzos bellowed at them. Roxbane eager for more death. There was a clashing of blades. Thrusts and ripostes and counters and backswings. A bandit with plenty of rings abound his fingers took a swipe at him. Rings missed. A bald guard tried to crack Arnzos over the head with his lantern. Baldy missed too. Finally, a female one—hands adorned in a pair of copper-hued gauntlets—slugged him in the side. It connected. The brass verve of the gauntlets amplifying the pain.

  He fell back a step. Caught his breath. Rings, Baldy, and Gauntlets stationed their lamps beside the postern. Their new focus was battle. No longer a simple patrol.

  Arnzos looked to the environment. Windows around ten feet away. Perhaps break the glass—use the shards? Inconclusive of the efficiency. Hack away moss as a diversion tool? No. Too flimsy. Could easily bypass with adrenaline pumping. Maybe dislodging a tile. Kicking it up. Immobilizing them. A hunk of stone to the legs always does well in slowing a mortal down. He didn’t have long to ponder. Hunk of stone it was.

  “Hyyyah!” Rings cried. Roxbane fell into the land once more. It unearthed a loose tile—a crude weapon in making. With the sole of his foot, Arnzos propelled the hunk into Rings’ shin. It crunched under weight. Under a sickly suffering. If not a bone broken—at least a bone fractured. That second of delay was all it took. Arnzos rose Roxbane from the earth and chopped Rings’ neck open. He splashed red across the dilapidation. Rings… fallen.

  Baldy and Gauntlets formed up. Side to side. Personally, they never faced anyone like Arnzos. The normal footpeople had naught much to do. Besides usual tasks given to lower stations. Patrol this area. Guard this site. Escort these figures. Sure, they had weapons and knew how to use them. But a situation like this… with life or death but a mistake away? This tested them in a way previously unthinkable.

  The rangers prepared another arrowy batch behind Arnzos. Too much idling. Time spent attempting to intimidate. Action called. And he answered. He lifted a fist to strike at Baldy’s stomach. The man dodged, and met swords with his foe. Arnzos snapped on his toes with his foot talons. He yelped and was quickly taken from the world. Roxbane lunged into Baldy’s liver. An explosion of bile followed. Every living liquid stirred into stew within his body. All he could do was grunt, and then vanish.

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  She was finished. Gauntlets wasn’t going to die for this shit. She abandoned her blade. Arnzos had no reason to hunt her down. But another brigade of bolts was to land shortly. They were ready and they were unbridled. The second volley—greedier than the last. Arnzos acted recklessly. Time was not generously given.

  He leapt through an antiquated window. Glass exploded around him, as he heard the screaming arrows lay down their heads into anything they could. Moss again, and manor walls and cracked windowsills. As Gauntlets ran to escape, she was struck by two bolts. One in her back and one in the left side of her neck. She lurched, only for a moment, then collapsed after her legs shut down.

  Three human sentries. Dead.

  Nevertheless, he was deep in the nest now. His target—the fleece jacket—a floor above him. Flashed in his head were thoughts of doubt and regret. ‘Is it worth it?’ ‘Can I really pull this off?’ Of course he couldn’t act on these doubts, as throwing oneself through a window meant one had to be somewhat confident in his goal. Bits of glassy regret ached in his body. Pinching. Slicing. Pain kept his thoughts negative.

  “A window! Broken in the postern. Go, go!” A thumping parade of steps got closer. Arnzos needed to hide.

  He urged his tired scales to respond. Muscle aches and nerve stinging and a general sense of sluggishness hit him all at once. He couldn’t let it be the end of him. He glanced to his left. A table with a long blue cloth hanging to the floor. That could be useful. Arnzos crawled to the table. ‘Get under it.’ ‘Under…’

  His fatigued talons ripped through Palmgrease’s carpet. They pulled him to where he desired. Inch by inch. He heard the barreling bodies of those who wished to kill him—so seeped in delusions of faith for a leader who would sacrifice dozens of them just to feel powerful. The only action Arnzos could take was to keep moving.

  Keep shuffling forward. Keep ripping holes in the Lord’s gaudy floor. ‘Survive.’ Since he could do nothing else, that was what he continued with. Srkt. Tsshk. Nails through rugged mats. The footsteps on all sides of him were deafening. Yet, he arrived at the table. Like a child hiding from an abusive father, he slunk under the tablecloth. Panting. Hurting. He dreamt of times long past.

  The knights of House Butcherie descended on the window. They were bloodhounds. Aspired to be like them. Inspecting glass and claw marks. The knights remarked about finding their prey and pulling him apart and dicing up his limbs into meaty cubes. Meanwhile, their prey skulked underneath furniture meant to be used for anything other than a hiding spot. That didn’t stop Arnzos from turning it into his personal cave.

  Ones above, it had been ages since he hid like this. There’s no need for stealthy endeavors in the halls of warfare. Not for a simple merc like him. The last time he really snuck around—to escape forces impossibly stronger than him—was during a heist on the Viscount Burgen Mhonto. The Viscount of the Hylverean city known as Jarzikoy. A good take of riches, but it ended in tragedy. So horrible that Arnzos’ entire journey with the Many Destitute up until that point was entirely moot. That damn man. Cyrille Belrose.

  He remembered the heist. Pulling it off—then running wildly. He’s never run like that since. Even now, or with Vaelar not long ago, that paled when compared with the fear he oozed fleeing from Jarzikoy’s local guard. The Watchdogs of Wealth. He shared that terror with Olexei and Cyrille and another dracokin. Red scaled with a permanent puffed out chest. Peirzton Razorjaw. Peirzton—another scumbag like Cyrille. A whole exhibition of issues with those two. Arnzos' sister, Frinzel, would know all of Pierzton's faults.

  Anyway, the spot was sort of similar to now. Back then, it was a shadowy confessional. In some chapel in an unfortunate side of Jarzikoy. He pictured it. Rough curtains and diamond shaped decoration. A smoothed wood. Greased in resin varnish. Maintained by volunteers of the Diamond Faith. Here, the table’s underside was much more rudimentary. Hardly taken care of. Showed no real love. Which was understandable—House Butcherie didn’t seem like it attracted the most imaginative sort.

  But in both spots, they shared a related trait; a looming blanket of darkness. The kind of darkness that eases one’s soul. That one feels revitalized by after too much meandering in the light. Arnzos wanted to drink it in. To be soaked in the black shadow and stay there for the night. Such a dream, that would be. It was a mix of regret and fatigue driving him to think so.

  To motivate him once more, he pictured a new sight. The shining glintons, sagging in his grasp after selling the Lord’s coat. He could nearly feel its heft, the delectable burden of a bag full of money. That dream inspired him. And it also cued him to climb out from under the tablecloth—as he heard the Butcherie knights stepping closer. It wouldn’t take a genius to know where he was. He recuperated there for but a moment. It was all he needed. So, he had to slip away somewhere else.

  Arnzos tumbled out from the spot and slithered underneath a new refuge. A lurid sofa. He was glad to be below it, so he didn’t need to look upon its ugly frame. The bandits swarmed the previously occupied table like starved scavengers. Arnzos skulked away from the couch. Crouch-walking to suppress himself next to a wall. The hallway beside it was surprisingly empty; all the Lord’s forces must have gone outside to inspect the shantytown and the outskirts.

  Works perfectly well in his favor. Next to him, a crooked case of stairs led up to the lounge where Palmgrease and Arnzos once talked about their exploits. He tiptoed up them. Silently as he could. His limbs tingled with anticipation. There had to be guards up here as well. Yet, with every cautious step he took, he found the stairs and the upper floor more and more empty. It unnerved him, but he had no reason to freeze in his tracks.

  Arnzos creeped around on fluffy rugs and by ostentatious murals and painted bricks. He did so for a tense number of minutes—until he finally came upon the coat. Wrapped around a basic rack for shirts or robes, Palmgrease’s coat was open to snatch. But, just like he creeped, a twinge of unease creeped into his heart. The exterior of the manor was a hell unlike anything he experienced. But then… the second floor. A relative heaven. Not by much, but compared to the outside—absolutely.

  He swiped the wool treasure and threw it around his neck. The rack swayed and bounced from the force he used to swindle. Only then did the reason why all the knights were vacated meet him. Lord Palmgrease, rapier in hand, clicked his tongue. He got Arnzos’ attention. They had a respite of silence—where one could hear the calling of his men and their storming boots. The crackle of fire outside that enlarged ever more. It was the Lord that relinquished his men’s duties. Just for a climactic showdown to occur in this lounge.

  Palmgrease did seem the type for theatrics. Family business and all.

  “I distinctly remember you telling me that you thanked me for killing those mad mancers.” Palmgrease said. “The Hylverean ones. Usually thanking a person means you respect them. You respect their property. Their livelihoods.”

  “‘Usually’ is the operative word there. I can thank you and still think you’re a piece of shit.”

  Palmgrease chuckled slightly. “A sellsword calls me shit? Look in the mirror, Arnzos. You’re no paragon of justice. You’re thieving my fucking coat!”

  “I know. But when I’m out of here with this, I’ll sleep like a baby knowing that I’ll never be like you. I don’t kill innocents to get off on it.”

  “I spent years of my life fighting for the innocent. In return, what did I get? Misery. Pure misery!”

  The dracokin with his saber, Roxbane, clashed with the minidrake’s cherished sword—the blade they called Godbrisk.