“Asle, if we don’t go along with this, will it… you know, offend them?” Summers looked at the girl questioningly. Her eyes widened for a moment before she began to slowly nod.

“…Fantastic…” Nowak groaned.

Asle had more or less walked Summers through accepting the elves’ vows, not that he fully understood just what was happening. That was something they were still trying to sort out.

Summers took a breath.

“So, what does this debt… uh, involve?”

“…First, they follow you until death.”

Cortez raised a hand.

“…Hold up. You know you don’t have to do that, right?” Cortez looked at Asle worriedly.

Given what she’d explained, Pat and the others had more or less done exactly what she had. That is, vowed a life-debt to each of them.

“I know.” Asle nodded.

Summers let out a breath. Last thing he needed was knowing they’d dragged Asle through all of this because of an imaginary promise she’d made.

Cortez leaned back in her seat. “I’m gonna be honest with y’all, this sort of sounds like slavery.”

“No.” Asle responded with a little more emphasis than Summers would have expected. “You take care of their families, and they can break a vow.”

“…So, it’s a give and take type deal?” Nowak had his head in his hands, clearly still trying to process things.

Asle nodded.

“Ah shit, I think I get it.” Cortez groaned. “Most of them are refugees, remember?”

“Christ, right…” Summers rubbed at his temple. “Without Rhodes, whatever deals they made are probably dead in the water.”

Summers realized there was a good chance most of them were just trying their damndest not to starve. With the war over so soon, there was no guarantee the city would hold on to them.

“All right, fine.” Summers sighed. “Asle, a lot of these people saved my ass too. If we were to give them some similar vow, would that cancel the other one out?”

“No. It would be stronger.”

“Fucking how?” Cortez looked at Asle, confused.

“You would be brothers… sisters?” Asle stumbled on her words for a moment. “Blood.” She said before nodding to Summers. “Like us.”

Both Nowak and Cortez looked at Summers questioningly.

Summers just looked back at the girl.

“You wanna run that one by me again, Asle?”

“Ugh.” Asle spoke with a tinge of anger in her voice. “You saved me. I saved you. I said thank you.” She gestured to herself, then Summers. “You said thank you.”

Summers blinked. He realized when he’d first recovered from the fog, and the girl had given him this same “vow” they’d been discussing, he might have done the same. If by accident. And so, he may have made a blood pact with a twelve-year-old girl.

He really needed to stop talking to elves.

“…Not even going to begin to unpack that, either way, doesn’t mean they have to follow us.” Nowak rested his head on his hand. “Comes down to it, I think you can have Pat set them up as permanent guards. Serving the city under an oath would still leave their ‘honor’ intact, right?”

Asle thought for a moment before she nodded again.

At least they had a plan.

The next day they’d been confined to their quarters, mostly because they couldn’t get a minute to themselves.

“I know that you always planned to leave, but please, reconsider.”

The man in front of them was the same councilman Summers had seen kissing Rhodes’ ass back when they’d first arrived in the city. His name was Sigurd, and he’d spent the last hour trying to convince them to take Rhodes’ title, something Summers couldn’t even pronounce.

“Again, while we’re, uh, honored…” Summers looked back to Nowak and Cortez. “We can’t accept something like that right now.”

The man looked down, thinking before he responded.

“…I understand, you’re still in mourning.” Sigurd agreed. “Forgive my rudeness.”

He bowed.

While they were still recovering, physically and mentally, that wasn’t why they were turning him down. In truth, they had no idea what the position entailed, but it seemed like Rhodes was struggling to hold things together in the end. Else, he wouldn’t have brought them on board.

And if there was one thing Summers was certain of, it was that people would usually do what was in their best interest. Someone like the councilman was no exception. Knowing that, they’d be morons to blindly agree.

“It’s fine.” Summers heard Asle clear her throat, bowing to the councilman in turn. They each took the hint and bowed.

Etiquette was a tricky thing.

Pat, Orvar, and the twins stood flanking them with spears. They’d more or less barged into their rooms the next morning to report for duty. Summers had tried to dismiss them, but the men were annoyingly adamant.

“I’m in your debt as well.” The councilman glanced at his son, then back to Summers. “I hope you understand that I intend to repay it.”

Summers glanced to Asle who bowed her head once again. Summers followed the motion.

“We’re honored.”

Asle had explained to him that tacking the word “honor” to anything you said would go over well in almost any situation. So far, that had proven true.

The councilman excused himself a few moments later, bowing to his son as he left.

Summers stifled a groan. The entire day had been spent in meetings of one kind or another, mostly important officials wanting to extend their thanks. That was fine, even appreciated. Especially when a few had brought some absolutely ridiculous gifts. Liquor, weapons, and in one case a marriage proposal that Nowak couldn’t turn down fast enough. That was only the bulk of their meetings, the rest was spent talking to the men that had given them their vows.

Most of them had good reasons for handing over their “lives”. As they had suspected, many had no prospects to feed their families with their villages most likely pillaged and their homes gone. Pat had, thankfully, promised that the city would take care of their families for both their service, and as thanks to their group. He’d half suspected Pat had arranged things this way for just that reason.

They’d learned that Pat may have lost his birthright if he didn’t thank them formally. He was only third in line for whatever constituted nobility here, but something about the ruling classes’ honor dictated a reward of some kind. Given what Summers had learned from Synel and a few of the other merchants, that could have been done with lands. Pat was basically going above and beyond.

And that was why his father was so dead set on keeping them in the city.

As for Orvar and the twins, they had nobody. Summers assumed this was the closest thing to purpose they’d found. It was a sentiment that wasn’t uncommon in the army.

Summers glanced at the men behind him. They stood at attention, or probably what they thought was attention. More likely they were imitating the same stoic posture of the castle’s guards.

“…You want to sit down?” Summers gestured to the plush seats surrounding them.

They each glanced at him, confused.

“…Please.”

They hesitated, before Pat and the twins took a seat beside Summers and Nowak. Cortez looked askance at Orvar who went out of his way to sit beside her. She was cleaning the same m4 that she’d taken off a dead guard in the fight, and Summers worried for one brief second that they’d have to hide a body.

But he made no move to talk to Cortez, or interrupt her, so she left the kid alone.

“…Fucking privates.” Cortez muttered.

Summers did not expect it would stay that way.

“…Well, let’s see who else we got.” Summers stood, heading for the door.

As he got there, he saw some of Cortez’ squad, each had a heavy wooden box on their shoulders. One of them had their old duffel bag full of grenades, even as he stood, he continued to shift the bag on his shoulder, trying to keep it steady.

Summers watched the man for a long, awkward moment.

“…I have good news and bad news.”

As it turned out, the city had been more than generous in returning their guns. Nearly forty m4’s were arranged in boxes around them, along with an equal amount of sidearms, and a few shotguns. They had no explosives left except for the small cache of grenades. It was little more than half of what they’d set out with. Even so, Summers suspected the councilman pulled some strings. He might have been thankful, or he wanted to ensure his son’s safety as only a small armory could.

Either way, they were back in business. As for ammo, that was more of a problem. Like they’d expected, the city was hurting after their only means of making ammunition literally went up in smoke. They’d still supplied around ten thousand rounds. That would have been great if it was only the three of them, but for their undersized platoon, it wasn’t nearly enough for the trip south.

“Think you could make a reload station, like Rhodes was doing?” Nowak looked to Cortez.

“Maybe. I mean, the elves know how to make black powder, apparently. Not as good as what we use nowadays, but it’ll get the job done.” Cortez worked the action on her rifle, locking it back. “Real problem is, I don’t expect they’re going to be so keen on it after what we did, and if we decide to leave, I don’t know that we want to bring that on a boat. Not with locals who might not know what it is.”

“…That’s a good point.” Nowak consented. “Honestly though, this is more than I was expecting.”

Cortez sighed before looking around the room, their “guards” had left them to talk after the last of the day’s meetings had ended. Now, they were alone.

“…I know you two wanted to wait and see, but we need to decide if we’re going to head to Nevada or not.” Cortez looked at Nowak. “Going to guess you haven’t changed your mind?”

Nowak nodded. “…I got a family, and…”

“I get it.” Cortez looked at Summers.

He thought for a long moment before speaking.

“…Look, even if I can’t remember anyone, I still want to see them. Or get the chance to. Pretty sure I’ll just end up as a guinee pig for the army, but I’ve been changing without even trying.” Summers gestured to his ears. “This isn’t going to stop if I ignore it. That leaves two options, find the army, or…” Summers trailed off.

He'd spent the better part of the last week cleaning up the carnage of the “adversary” or “hamr”, whatever the hell it was called. He’d come to a single conclusion. Somehow, his body was hosting a parasite not unlike what they’d killed. And drinking the fog had only made it stronger, along with the urges that came with it. For the past few days, he drank nothing but water and eaten only bread with the most common fish he could find. Every day he checked in the mirror for gills, just in case.

And he remembered what Logan had said about a parasites's life cycle. It ended with reproduction.

If what they’d seen the hamr do was anything to go on, that wasn’t far off the mark. Maybe he’d need to be dead, maybe it would happen while he was alive. Either way, if he thought for a second that thing would take over, like it somehow did with Rhodes, he’d find a nice volcano to throw himself in. That was option two. But he wasn’t going to say that.

“…Cortez, look, we have guns now. And people. If you wanted to stay here –“ Summers started.

“No.” Cortez interrupted. “If I can’t convince you we have it good, I’m not staying behind. I’d end up killing an elf before you were on the boat.”

That took Summers off guard, but he didn’t complain.

“What I wanted to talk about -” Cortez continued. “Was what to do with Asle.”

“…What?” Asle just stared back at them.

“…Summers can speak Nos pretty well now…” Cortez ventured.

“I speak better.” Asle insisted.

“I know that. Christ, all right, we can’t take you into danger, not if we can see it coming. And to be clear, I’m still against going.” Cortez gestured at Asle. “But, if we do decide to walk into this, we can’t take you.”

“…That’s another good point.” Summers agreed.

Nowak considered that a moment, looking at the girl. “I mean, we can always set you up here. You know that, right?”

“I’m going.” Asle insisted with a little more conviction than Summers would have suspected.

“…Asle she’s right, we can’t –“ Summers stopped as he saw Asle look at him, tears in her eyes. She turned and began to walk. “Asle –“

“If you want me to leave, I’ll leave!”

She looked back at them, face red.

Before Summers could say another word, she was out the door.

“…shit.” Summers looked at Nowak and Cortez, both looked just as lost as he was.

“We can’t take a kid with us, not if we can help it this time.” Cortez pressed.

“I know.” Summers sighed. “Look, Logan was the closest thing to family she had. I think we’re all she has now.”

“She’s only known us for a couple months…” Cortez looked out to the open hall. “She’ll get over it.”

Asle eventually found a small corner of the castle that was empty. It wasn’t hard, the servants rarely moved around on their own now. What she didn’t expect was the hand on her shoulder that followed soon after.

“You are a very fast walker.” Synel exclaimed.

Asle looked up, having to repress a look of surprise as she saw Synel standing above her.

“I was to deliver news to your friends when I saw you leaving your quarters in a hurry.” Synel glanced down at Asle. “I suspected you weren’t in the mood for company.”

“…Then why are you here?”

“Because that is precisely when someone needs company.”

Asle blinked in response.

“Go away.”

“Can you make me?” Synel looked down at her, eyes smiling even if her face wasn’t.

“…no.”

“Suppose I’ll stay then.”

Asle sat there, wiping her face. They were silent for a few minutes before Synel spoke again.

“…Since we’ve established I’m not going anywhere, may I ask why you left?”

Asle looked up at the woman before she snorted.

“…I don’t know.”

“I see.” Synel looked at her thoughtfully.

Asle glanced around the room, trying to find some excuse to get her to leave. She only saw a small scratch in the wall, probably from a spear.

Or the hamr.

That scratch could be all that’s left of someone that died because she was so stupid as to think that she could help.

“…Were you okay?” Asle looked up to the woman. “When that… thing attacked.”

“Yes.” She tilted her head. “And what about you?... I understand you lost someone close.”

Asle stayed silent.

“…Would you like to talk about that?” Synel prompted.

“Have you ever made a mistake?”

“Of course.”

“I mean, a real mistake.”

Synel regarded her for a moment.

“I have lost friends because of decisions I’ve made. I’ve lost loved ones when my actions could have saved them. Yes, girl, I’ve made mistakes. We all do.”

Synel stood, putting a hand on Asle’s head. “Mistakes are a fact of life. The world is a horrible, beautiful place that would end your life as it gives you breath. That is, unfortunately, how things are.” She began to dust herself off. “Now then, if its your friends who believe you’ve made a mistake, I may be able to set them right.”

“…I’m not sure.” Asle fidgeted. “Maybe. They want to leave without me.”

“Ah I see. Well, I’m afraid I agree with them.” Synel finished cleaning the hem of her skirt.

Asle just stared up at her, trying to mask the hurt on her face.

“Oh, don’t give me that.” Synel waved a hand dismissively. “The road is no place for a someone your age, even if I think an exceptional girl like you would do well. But something about your friends – despite what I said I can’t imagine anywhere they’d think is dangerous would be safe for you.” She held her hand out to Asle. “Now come on, I think you’ll want to hear the news I have.”

“…No.” Asle turned away from the woman.

“Now you’re just being a brat. Fine.” Synel began to turn, walking away. “But you should know the ship I’ve chartered is due to leave in a week. And my previous offer still stands, despite any misgivings your friends may have. I of course, would expect a service in exchange.”

Asle considered that for a moment before she realized what the woman was saying. She’d briefly considered sneaking on to the ship, if the others still tried to abandon her. But if she was with the traders, she’d get time. Time to prove herself. To atone for her mistakes. They’d do great things, she knew. If she could help them –

No, she had to believe she could help them, to do something.

Because that was the only way she could live with herself.

“…What kind of service?”

The corner of Synel’s mouth twitched.

“I find myself in want of an apprentice.”