It didn’t take long for Morlo to get what he wanted, as you might imagine. I was certainly surprised by the fact, seeing all I thought I’d learned about the hierarchy between Thaumaturges and nobility defied right before my eyes. I didn’t get chance to dwell on this reeducation, either, before the deal was done.

  What that deal was, exactly, I was not made privy to. Morlo took the officer aside and arranged it beyond earshot, with his face obscured from my line of sight and, of course, the man he was speaking with having his own lips covered by that fucking helmet. I had no clue what had just been decided about my life.

  A common trend, that. It seemed lately lots of things were happening to me without my say so. But then that had always been the case, it’s just that now those things tended to throw me into danger and make me miserable.

  Speaking of things that did that, Morlo was probably the person more directly responsible for everything I’d experienced in the last few months than any other in the whole world. I felt a natural pulse of anger, looking at him with that in mind, but had to do my best to keep it from overrunning my better sense.

  Eventually the deal was completed, and I watched Morlo the Great and Terrible as he started walking over to me with a broad enough grin that I could see the yellowing of his molars right in the backs of the gums. The nasty fuck had grinned like that to me a few times before, and never when he was doing something good.

  “Good news,” he began, “I’ve gotten you out of this idiot army, you’re a free man.”

  I didn’t smile, didn’t even want to. By now I knew better than to expect any kindness from anyone, and least of all a Thaumaturge. This attitude didn’t even take a second to be vindicated by the rest of his words.

  “Which leaves you free to come with me!” he added at last.

  That finally detonated the rumbling powder-keg of fury that even I hadn’t felt mounting in my gut, erupting from me with fury enough that I found myself suddenly forgetting that Morlo was a Thaumaturge, that I was wounded, that I had a life I cared about preserving—forgetting about everything besides my anger.

  “To do what?!” I spat, “what am I doing that you’re so desperate to snatch me away? What do you want from me? Why can’t you leave me the fuck alone!?”

  Morlo smiled wider, glancing over at the soldiers, then back to me.

  “Let’s talk somewhere more private,” he said happily, as if I’d not replied at all.

  It was only the knowledge that attacking him would instantly cause my death that kept me from doing so, and even that was a near thing. I reluctantly followed the Thaumaturge as he gestured me away from the larger group, trudging after him. Now that I was out of the fighting, I started to feel the throbs and aches from it rack my body. Mid-combat frenzy had a way of numbing you to that, and I was starting to miss it whenever it wasn’t in play.

  “You want to know what I have planned for you,” Morlo said once we were a good twenty paces away, “since you’ve finally got the backbone to actually think about things and ask questions, I’ll give you a few answers. That one’s first. I want you to become a hero.”

  I just stared at him, waited for more. Didn’t get it.

  “A hero,” I said at last, barely hearing my own voice, barely feeling my own lips and tongue. Every word seemed to fall out of me like a slab of lead. A hero. It was…what? Silly? Impossible?

  “That’s stupid,” I told him at last, “that’s…a hero?!”

  Morlo just grinned wider.

  “You seem to have grasped the basics, at least,” he happily retorted.

  “Why do you want that of all things?!” I snapped, overcoming my sheer shock, now, and feeling the stabilising touch of anger boiling back into my mind as I affixed the Thaumaturge with a skewering glare. It bounced off him of course, he had nothing to fear from me and we both knew it.

  So it was essentially charity when he gave me my answer, but charity I was pleased to receive after so long spent being miserable on the road.

  “I want you to be a hero, because something’s coming that we need a hero to take care of,” he replied.

  “I’m not though!” I snapped, “what do you expect me to—”

  —”nothing,” he cut in, “I expect you to do nothing, because I don’t need the powers of a true Hero. I just need someone with a reputation that makes people move.”

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  I stared at him more, mind whirring as I tried to make sense of this all.

  “That’s…it? You just…you want a figurehead?”

  “That’s it,” Morlo nodded cheerfully, “and I’d have enjoyed a far easier time of using you as one if you hadn’t fucked off so early.”

  Exhausted as I was, it was hard for me to make sense of anything he said. I gave it a go, tried to work through his words but my mind felt like it was rebelling, grinding to a halt. It was like the great gears of my cognition had suddenly spawned rust.

  “But you could use anyone for that! Why me!?”

  Morlo snorted even louder at that, which was a habit I was starting to hate. Everything, it seemed, was amusing for Morlo. Especially if it was a serious question asked about the course of my life.

  “Because you’re a natural,” he grinned, “you lie reflexively, you look like something from the cover of an exploration fantasy novel, you’re not a half-bad fencer, though we’ll have to work on that more, and you’re taller than all but a few men in every thousand! I couldn’t ask for a better actor.”

  Actor. Compared to everything else I’d been lately; mercenary, default leader, criminal, monster-hunter, soldier…actor was so simple, so safe.

  A grin sprouted up across my features almost the instant he finished saying it. Actor. Yes, I could be an actor. Actors didn’t need to risk death to get paid, right?

  This is a good case study on the effects of fear and greed, and how they can make a man miss even the most trivial details. I did not think to ask, for instance, why Morlo would go to such ridiculous trouble simply for what he thought was a good candidate to play this role. It did not occur to me how many tall, handsome young men might also be pathological liars on the great span of land between Sheppleberry and Eoryg, or what reasons the Thaumaturge might actually have for simply overlooking all of them as he chased down rumours of my activity to eventually catch up.

  I simply nodded and calmed down, accepting the carrot and not noticing the stick.

  You know. Because I was an idiot.

  Morlo wrapped the conversation up shortly after that, citing other things he had to do and then refusing to tell me what they were. He waved his hand and conjured a great cloud of dust to disappear through, an effect that was only slightly spoiled when I saw him sprinting out the other side and hurrying over to the officers.

  It did, in any case, leave me alone for the time being, and without much else to do I sought out Gruin.

  He was in a pretty normal condition, which was to say he looked about five punches shy of the grave. Covered in bruises, with one eye swollen shut and about a million smaller cuts littering his thick skin, I’d actually seen corpses that looked to be in better condition than him. He had enough cognisance to notice my approach, at least, so I knew it wasn’t too bad.

  “Lank,” he grunted by way of greeting.

  “I’m going to be heading off soon,” I told him at once. Gruin affixed me with one of his sharper glares, and the full story just came tumbling out. I wasn’t sure how much of it he’d needed telling of course, he’d known who Morlo was perhaps longer than I did, and I’d suspected for a while that he’d been protecting me on the Thaumaturge’s behalf.

  Apparently that wasn’t the case, because his expression soured when I finished speaking.

  “So that bastard caught up with you.” He said it as if it were itself a conclusion, but fortunately I wasn’t left lost in the conversation for long. “Morlo is a cunt, and things tend to get weird and dangerous around him. You know this already?”

  The idea that Gruin considered something dangerous was actually the most terrifying thing I’d heard in my entire life at that point, including the sounds monsters made when they lunged for me.

  “I…knew that, more or less, yes.” My mind was racing so much that it felt there was no blood left in me to go anywhere else. Legs weak, head light, arms numb. I was actually worried about collapse until Gruin spoke again.

  And gave me something new to worry about.

  “Whatever he wants from you, he’s probably told you less than half of it, that’s my advice. And—”

  The Grynkori was cut off by the very subject of our conversation making his way towards us, looking chirpy as ever. Morlo seemed to be feeding off of our misery, boasting a great spring in his step that belief his advanced years.

  “Good news,” he grinned, “I’ve managed to get you out of this army, too, Gruin,” he told the Grynkori.

  For his part, Gruin did not look remotely pleased at that. I realised why a few moments later.

  “And I suppose this is because I’ve been lent to you by my commanding officers,” he growled.

  “Quick today, aren’t we?” Morlo grinned wider. “Yes, so now we finally have a group assembled to do what needs doing.”

  Gruin glared harder at the Thaumaturge.

  “Will you be telling us what that is?” he asked.

  “No!” Morlo cheerfully replied, then turned and started making his way away. “Be ready to leave in twenty minutes though!”

  There wasn’t much for us to do, having been told that. I didn’t exactly have any friends among the soldiers and there wasn’t anything for me to tie up in a neat bow before I could whisk myself off somewhere else. That realisation left me somewhat depressed for a moment, a reminder of just how little I’d actually done.

  And then the twenty minutes were up, slipping by in an instant and snatching me off to Morlo with no excuses left between him and me. By this point the soldiers were starting to make their way back towards the fort, slowly and carefully. I silently wished them luck.

  They’d need a lot of it, as far as I was aware we hadn’t managed to kill that mysterious stranger among the undead. If he came back I didn’t see what difference fifty men would make, not even if the twenty or so who were wounded instead of dead managed to recover in time to help.

  My concern wasn’t with them any longer, though. Every step I took closer to Morlo was another yard more distant everything except him and his plans became for me. The last time we’d met he’d driven me right into a near-death experience, what would he do now?

  I was interrupted in concerning myself with that when I saw who he was with. Tall as ever, but near-unrecogniseable for the changes to her hair and clothes. Vara looked more like some noble lady than a peasant girl.

  Her face was unchanged, though, and the unhidden disgust with which she glared at me was just as intense as ever. It was actually rather nostalgic.

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