With acute purpose, Cromwell strode into the room. “Hello, lovelies,” he said. “We’re doing something rather different this evening.”

Two women lay before him in chains. One barely took sense of the goings on, choosing instead to hide behind her matted red hair. The other glowered at him through black bangs. He gave a smile to the latter. “No need for that,” he beamed. “I lost my twenty minutes in a card game.” The look wasn’t abated, though it did pan down to the jug he was holding. “That being said, the bloke I lost them to is dead, so what can you do.” With a flourish, he uncorked it and started pouring the contents over the women.

“What are you doing?” said the feisty one. The other didn’t seem to care.

“Don’t worry; it’s not the worst stuff you’ve been covered in,” he sneered.

She started to say something, but choked on the pungent liquid.

He shook the last drops. “It’s kerosene,” he said, reading her thoughts. With that he took a safe step back and lit a torch. “Now, do us a favor - a crazy blonde’s about to wander in here. Tell her exactly what you’re soaked in, eh?” He removed the chains from the stone wall and held them like leashes.

As promised, a young elf entered. A disturbing amount of blood was dripping from her sword.

“He poured kerosene on us!”

Cromwell let a smirk creep across his face. “Alice, was it?” he said. “You made quite an entrance there. ‘All slavers will die.’ And what happened to your shield?”

Alice rotated her wrist a bit. “It broke on your friends’ heads, Cromwell.” Her voice was calm. Detached. Deathly. She let her eyes pass to the girls, then back to him.

“I won’t insult your intelligence with ‘if/then’s. We’re leaving.” He kicked the girls. “On your feet!” he barked.

“I’m not letting you go,” said Alice, with the slightest hint of condescending chuckle.

His eyes narrowed. “Oh, dear, I’ve overestimated you. Let’s try again.” He waved the torch. “Fire. Girls. Poof.” He changed a nervous laugh into a maniacal one hoping she wouldn’t notice. “This flame gets close to even the fumes and… well, four seconds later these lovelies won’t have lives worth living.” He affixed his most calmly superior expression onto his face and stared her down. Or tried to. Her intensity was frighteningly unblinking.

He looked away first. “You know, with those eyes and those locks, you’d run a good price. And you already have that dead-to-the-world look - people like that.” He kicked the girls again. “These sows were cheap.” They were young - probably younger than Alice. They were dirty, emaciated, and the tattered burlap that was their clothes clung to them with the flammable liquid. Their hands and feet were chained. Another chain led from a steel collar to Cromwell’s hand. The brunette watched the conversation, mouth agape with horrified interest. The other simply laid there, making just enough effort to breathe. “They’ve been through a lot. Do you really want them to burn to death after all they’ve endured?” He brought his eyes back to Alice, only to see her face hadn’t shifted a twitch.

“Come on, now,” his voice had a slight break in it. “Better to all live and let live, yeah?” He tried to will the torch to stop shaking in his hand. He was used to the wheeling and dealing of other shysters, people who would let their guard down to counter his words so he could slip a knife in, either conversationally or physically. He started to believe the only match for this lady’s resolve was a rock.

“…Are you done yet?” Alice finally spoke again.

“You’ve got something to say? I’m all ears, dear.” He gave her a slight slithery bow.

“I want three things,” she said. “I want the girls released. I want to know who sold them to you. I want you dead.”

Cromwell clicked his teeth. “Well, the way I see it, you could try to kill me, but they’ll be embers before you blink, and I’d either get away or die, so I couldn’t answer any questions. Since I’m generous, I’ll make you a couple offers: You can have one of the girls, and I’ll go off with the other and tell you nothing, or I’ll tell you who you’re looking for and I’ll walk away free with the girls.” He straightened up. “Which sounds best?”

She made no indication as to what she was thinking. “You’re asking which matters most to me?”

“That’s the short of it,” he grinned. “We can’t get all of what we want, can—”

“Please save me!” screamed the brunette. “I want to go home!” She stopped the conversation dead. Seconds of silence were only broken by the quiet sobs of the redhead. “I’m sorry, Linn, but I’m not going to die here, and I don’t want to be a… a toy, a thing for scum anymore!” Her crying intensified, bleeding tears into the floor. The brunette ignored her. “I can’t do it—you’ve got to save me!”

“You heard her, dear,” said Cromwell. “Although, I’m the one who decides which of you she gets, so don’t get ahead of yourself, lovely.” The brunette went wide eyed at the thought, and started crying, as well. “Now, the life and freedom of even one of these girls is vastly important, as would be the information you’re looking for; far more important than making sure a rapscallion like me never charms again, right?”

Aside from a flick of the wrist, nothing about Alice changed as she said, “Wrong.”

Cromwell found himself stumbling back, a blade stuck up to the hilt in his chest. Alice was already crossing the room.

“I swear to end you,” she Vowed.

With brief malice aforethought, he dropped the torch onto the girls. Their screams harmonized with his as Alice sunk her rapier around his kneecap.

Cromwell removed the dagger from his chest and thrust it towards Alice’s neck. In one motion, she disarmed him and sent her sword into his other knee. He struggled, but eventually fell to the floor.

The smell of burnt flesh and hair matched the odor of kerosene. Alice looked to the girls, only to see the brunette had stopped moving. The other was limply flailing about the floor, screaming more from a loss of sanity than from pain. Alice stamped her foot onto the redhead's burning chest and lined up her sword. In seconds, the screaming stopped.

She knelt down to Cromwell. His eyes lolled up at hers as she grabbed him by the side of the head. “Who sold you these women?” she asked.

“G…” He had to cough blood out of his throat to speak. “Go to Hell.”

Alice shoved the side of his face against the still-burning flesh. He screamed in agony, and was pulled away before his nerve-endings were destroyed. “Who sold you these women?” she asked again.

This was it. He knew he was dead no matter what he said. Enduring the pain just to piss off his killer seemed like the best use of his remaining life. “Fuck you.”

Alice grabbed him by the hair and slammed the back of his skull against the stone repeatedly. His vision fell away into nothing.

Deep within Cromwell were the final flickerings of his life. They grew duller and duller as death crept up on him.

But they didn’t go out.

Energy poured into the flame, and before long it was sustaining itself. Breath flowed into Cromwell’s lungs as though it were the first time. Immediately after, he coughed up more blood.

Alice’s face was there to greet him. “I asked you a question,” she stated. A dull yellow glow subsided from her hands as she removed them from his chest.

He tried to move, but didn’t have the energy. His head throbbed. “I’m… not going to—“

She beat his head against the stone several more times. Blood seeped along the cracks in the floor. Again, moments before he passed away, she brought him back.

“Who sold the girls to you?” she asked, just as deadpan as before.

“You’re crazy. You’re a Goddamn—“

She struck her gloved fist across the burned side of his face, then followed through with the other hand. This repeated several times. His head waggled back and forth with each blow, nose breaking and teeth falling out.

Again, she brought him back. “It’s a simple question,” she said.

“Please… just let me die….”

“I’m not going to let it be that easy.” She jabbed her fingers into the knife wound in his chest, separating the ribs. She held his mouth and nose closed with the other hand as blood filled his throat. Again, he was brought back.

He swallowed blood the first moment and hacked up the rest. “You don’t understand… he’s crazy… crazier than you…. I could be dead and he might still….”

“I think you have more immediate problems to worry about.”

“But I…”

She pulled a dagger and thrust it into his stomach. Again, he wasn’t allowed to die.

“Fleethand!” he screamed. “The Fleethand Circus. The ringmaster runs it… Mercario.”

“Well done,” she said, showing no sign of satisfaction. “So where is this circus heading?”

“North… to Colme.”

She grabbed him by the hair and stood up. “Let me die…” he moaned. “Let me die….”

She dragged him onto the fire. “Done,” she said.

His screams echoed through the Guilder hideout. Blood speckled, Alice walked past the half-dozen corpses she’d made to get to him, then out the door she had kicked in.

Next stop, Colme.