The big double doors were flanked by a pair of bug-armored mercenaries.

Hirrus ignored them even as they stared.

He didn’t have time to acknowledge them. Without knowing the details of Alric’s Arcana - and with the man unable to answer questions while it was active - he didn’t know how much time his friend had bought him.

The last thing Hirrus wanted to do was waste his sacrifice.

Hirrus put all of his weight on the doors. They were identical to the ones below. He let them dramatically swing open to reveal what was behind them.

His quarry.

They were waiting for him.

In truth, Hirrus hadn’t expected another sparring room like Clive’s. The buildings were similar but not direct duplicates. But he’d expected the same sort of welcome Juri had given him. She had moved her furniture out of the way and been prepared to fight him.

Instead, he was greeted with a room that appeared as if they weren’t prepared for him at all. In contrast with that, though, there were people in here, calmly sitting and obviously waiting for his entrance.

The room itself was classy without being opulent. The style of decoration appeared similar to Clive’s home, with leafy green plants along the side walls, and artfully arranged paintings on the walls. He even recognized two of them as duplicates of the ones that had been in Clive’s home. That same sketchy ethereal watercolor artist’s work, one of a young woman in red and white, and another of a muscular man in yellow. In the middle of the room was a long wooden table, deep mahogany in color, surrounded by matching chairs. At the head of the table, the final chair was larger and padded with purple velvet. The floor beneath the table was a single huge rug in warm brown and red colors, with a latticework pattern that was similar in style to the pattern on the iron fence that circled the grounds.

The chairs around the table were half occupied, with the empty seats scattered around. Hirrus got the impression that the vacant chairs were vacant for a reason - they likely belonged to people he had already killed. But the chair at the head of the table was vacant as well, and Hirrus suspected that it belonged to Fidelis, whom he hadn’t yet encountered.

“Welcome,” said the man seated to the immediate right of the head of the table. He had chiseled features and just a little stubble, with short dark hair and piercing grey eyes. The man was dressed in a manner reminiscent of nobility, fancy dark clothing with gold jewelry. “We’ve been expecting you.”

“Please, have a seat.” The woman across from the man gestured at the chair at the near end of the table. She was a strikingly beautiful woman, with blond hair, dark blue eyes that looked almost purple, and obvious laugh lines along her cheeks. The hand she gestured with was free of callus and scar. Near perfect. She was wearing white leather armor, with a thick fur collar around her neck and shoulders.

No one else moved. They barely even blinked.

Hirrus considered his situation for a moment. These people were obviously the backbone of Last of the Strong’s leadership, and he would not allow them to leave this room alive. The six of them would likely push him to his limits if he fought them all together.

But he could - and would - kill them all.

His instinct was to attack. To strike now and take one of them out of the fight before they could rise to meet him in fair combat.

But he found himself moving to the chair the woman indicated. If they were going to try and reason with him, he wanted to give them the chance. He had to make them understand that there was no reasoning with him.

No concession could atone for what they’d done to him.

He wanted them to try to negotiate. Wanted their words to be as useless as his revenge.

Hirrus wanted to make it clear that the only thing they could do to save their own skins was to give him back his wife. And only time would do that.

“There now,” the man said as Hirrus sat. His tone was jovial, almost casual. He gestured around the table. “These ones thought you couldn’t be civil, but I told them. I told them that a man of integrity and honor would be willing to listen.”

“Speak, then,” Hirrus growled. His aggressive tone made the man - and the others at the table - flinch. “The sooner you’ve said your piece, the sooner we can get to my part of this.”

The man cleared his throat, clearly uncomfortable with Hirrus' indirect threat. “Right then. I believe we should start by introducing ourselves. I’m Andrew, Fidelis' right hand.” He gestured across the table at the woman in white. “This is Mel, she could be said to be Fidelis' left hand.”

He laughed to himself as if he’d made a joke.

Hirrus raised an eyebrow at the ill-placed humor. “I suppose you’d like to thank me for your promotion then?” He glared across the table at Andrew, allowing the faintest hint of a smile to touch his lips. It did not go any further. “I doubt you would be allowed to consider yourself in such a position had I not killed Orlina.”

Andrew curled his upper lip into a sneer, but a woman seated far down the table along the left side - almost all the way down next to Hirrus - stifled a snort of laughter.

“I’m Nathan,” the man sitting nearest to Mel’s side said, “though given how familiar we’re all being, you can call me Nate.” He wore pale green and brown cloth that would blend into the forest. His ruddy skin looked sun-damaged and scarred as Hirrus' own. Obviously an outdoorsman.

“Helen,” the next woman said. She was seated on the other side of the table, three seats closer to Hirrus from Andrew. Hirrus expected more, but she declined to elaborate further. She wore heavy armor, plated in brass that was polished to the same shade as her long blonde hair.

Across from her, a man cleared his throat. “Ash. Short for Asher.” He had dark hair and dark features. He was dressed in a very fine black and white brigandine, the front fastened closed with black wooden toggles.

The final woman gave a shockingly friendly wave considering the tension already building in the room. “You can call me Maggie,” the final woman said from her seat nearest to Hirrus. “Don’t worry about remembering it. None of these assholes do.” She wore a white long-sleeved shirt under a tan sweater vest, putting her appearance at odds with the rest of the room. Her face was plain and young looking, but she had a prominent chin and nose and short white hair.

Hirrus felt all eyes on him. “I’m-”

“Bup bup bup,” Andrew said with a wave of his hand. “We know who you are. And what you are, at that. Don’t bother.”

“Hm.” Hirrus glared across the table at him. Slowly, deliberately, he lifted his axe and laid it down on the table before him. “If I’m not to bother, perhaps we should cut to the end of this discussion.”

“That doesn’t have to be how this ends,” Andrew said with an exaggerated roll of his eyes. He gestured at the people around the table. “We’ve all had a good chat about it, and we’re willing to get out of your way. We stand aside, and you march up the big dramatic stairwell to Fidelis' office and give him the ol’ bing bong, and boom! You’re happy, and we all go on with our lives.”

Hirrus didn’t know what “the ol’ bing bong” meant, but he could gather from context clues.

“You’re all traitors then,” he said, rolling the words around his mouth. “You’re selling out your leader to save your own skins.” Hirrus laughed, a short bark of laughter that dried up the moment it left his throat. “You think I could trust such an offer? That I’d believe your sincerity when you turn your back on your own when faced with your just desserts?”

Andrew shrugged. “I thought that might be an enticing offer,” he said, drawing out the words. His eyes cut to Mel twice as he spoke. “Between all of us, you will have a struggle. I think maybe we might not kill you, but if you have to fight us, Fidelis could slip through your hands. If he doesn’t kill you outright.”

Hirrus ignored whatever was going on. It wasn’t important. Instead, Hirrus looked first at Andrew, then Mel, then the others. Holding each one’s gaze for just a moment. When he’d looked them each in the eye, he asked just one thing: “were you there?”

There was a moment of silence. As Hirrus looked around the room again, he saw that none of them were looking away. None of them averted their gaze from his glare.

“Were you there?” he asked again, raising his voice to a tone just shy of yelling. “Were you there, in Yenon? Were you there when your selfish actions killed everyone? Were you there when my wife died right in front of me?”

His anger was simmering, ready to boil, but he kept it in check. If the hopes of this trap were to enrage him, he wanted to keep himself on a tight leash.

This time two of them looked down.

Maggie visibly flinched at the mention of his wife, and Ash blinked and stared down at the table.

The others were mostly unaffected by the demand.

“This was Fidelis' idea,” Maggie said quietly. All eyes at the table turned to her and Andrew hissed as if to silence her. “He wants to save the guild, so he agreed to sacrifice himself.”

“Shut up,” Andrew snapped. His eyes flicked between her and Hirrus. “He’s going to kill us. Including you!”

“Did it ever occur to you,” Hirrus said, standing up as he took up his axe again, “that you deserve to die?”

Andrew shook his head, either in answer or to brush away the comment. “Listen.” Andrew stood up as well, raising his hands before himself as if to ward Hirrus off from across the room. “We can sweeten the deal. You can kill us, too. A few of us. Just a couple. Even me!”

“If you think I’m-” Ash began, pushing away from the table to stand.

“Ash!” Mel barked. She was the only one who seemed entirely calm and unaffected. “Sit down. Andrew, you as well. We are civilized folk here. There’s no reason we should stoop to rudeness.”

Ash hadn’t stood completely, but carefully scooted himself back towards the table, subdued by Mel’s quick words.

Andrew took a moment more, purposefully adjusting his hair before returning to his own seat. He seemed to do so with the dramatic flair of someone who was rebelling against the inevitable. One leg was draped across the arm of the chair.

Mel glared back and forth between her guildmates for a long moment before settling her attention on Hirrus. He declined to find his seat, instead opting to adjust his grip on his icy greataxe.

“The game is up,” Mel said. Her eyes flicked to Maggie with a displeased grimace. “He knows our goal. All that remains is to find out if he’s amenable to it.” She carefully adjusted her fur collar, taking a breath as if her authoritative command of the others represented a significant effort on her part. “Maggie spoke true. We seek to save our guild, not our lives. That demands the survival of an officer. So long as one of the people in this room - or Fidelis - lives, the guild will stand.” She gestured around the room at each person in turn. “You’ve made it clear that none of us can be safe. We can’t run. We can’t hide. And so we will lay down and accept our deaths, if you will choose one of us to live, so that when we return next week, our home is still here.”

She paused, and when she spoke again, some of that authoritative command was gone. It was replaced with almost a touching vulnerability. “We’re not asking you for forgiveness. We’re only asking that you don’t unmake our family in avenging your own.”

Hirrus looked around the room, confused. They thought they had a chance?

Did they think he could possibly agree to such terms?

They’d killed everyone in Yenon without for a second offering to spare anyone. Hirrus and Dahlia had only survived through miraculous luck. Why did they think they deserved a kindness they hadn’t been prepared to offer?

“Come on, then,” Andrew said through gritted teeth, mistaking Hirrus' confusion for uncertainty. “The past tense of regret is indecision. Pick which of us will survive, and this nightmare can be over.”

“You think-” Hirrus started, and then stopped.

He realized his heart rate was climbing. His anger was building past a simmer and towards a boil.

Hirrus collected himself with a single breath.

“You think I would take this deal? That you’ve made me an offer I would accept?” He let out a laugh. Just one single bark of it, without an ounce of mirth in the sound. “I will ask you one question, and let the answer to it be the last words we exchange. What are you calling me here, behind closed doors? What did you call me before I arrived in this room? What did your minion call me when he saw me on the grounds?”

There was a pause.

Watching the color drain from Andrew’s face was satisfying. Hirrus hoped it would be half so satisfying the second time it happened a few moments from now.

“Merciless,” Maggie said quietly. She was staring down at her hands. “We call you Merciless.”

Hirrus bellowed wordlessly. He leaped onto the table, and with an effort of will, his nerve endings lit up like fire as 4d657263790d0a Transform activated, overtaking his body and giving him the power to make his fury in the physical world as potent as it felt in his heart.

“Then let me show you the meaning!”