Benn sat within the darkness of his house on the outskirts of Talen Village, two storeys of grey brick surrounded by a small garden of trampled daisies. The warmth that usually welcomed him at the end of each night was nowhere to be found, the sweet scent of flowers idling in the air like the ghost of a favourite smell. Florinda, his wife, spent most of her days tending to the gardens that surrounded their home, in addition to the comely hedges that she had planted around the houses of each of her seven brothers.

Even the worst of cowards is more a man than me.

His body shook with subtle quivers as a fresh stream of tears spilled from his swollen eyes, a light sting to his sadness as he stared down at the small carving that he held within his cupped hands. The wooden figurine depicted a young girl in a long dress, smiling brightly beneath the crown of daisies that sat upon her fluffy bush of curly hair.

Benn stood up and walked across his lightless bedroom, through the broken doorway where only fractured wood remained and down the damaged staircase. Holes had been smashed into the floors and walls in all areas of the house, which had remained quiet since his wife and daughter were taken by the count’s soldiers.

This is my fault. He shed silent tears as he recalled the events that had taken place early that evening. He’d heard the rumours about their new ruler, had known full well what had been happening to people from the other villages and towns, and yet he’d turned a blind eye to the growing blight. They all had. As the strongest resident of Talen Village and the acting village head, he’d thought that his family enjoyed some sort of immunity from the nightly horrors that had haunted the residents of Malben Valley in recent weeks—of Cutthroat County, as many had come to call it.

If only that bastard had never come here!

A little over two months had passed since Count Algrave had appeared at the central city of Scane with his band of brutish thugs and deposed of the previous lord. He was quick to proclaim Malben Valley as a county under his master’s ruling and established himself as their new leader. At the third level of the Integration stage Algrave was now the most powerful person within the valley, only after his four protectors. At first their new lord had appeared a just and wise ruler, making sure to maintain the valley’s productivity while also assuring that his men protected the locals from any dangerous beasts that happened to wander into the area. To the horror of the people, however, this man had been quick to show his true colours.

There had been over a dozen others at the Integration stage within the valley, but each of these individuals had been summoned to different areas of the surrounding forests by Algrave himself at different points of the same day. When all of them had seemingly disappeared without a trace, it had become clear to everyone that the strongest people within their society had been systematically purged from their positions of power, and that the sovereignty of their free state had been compromised.

It wasn’t long before people suddenly began to disappear in large numbers. The first of the kidnappings had taken place not two days after the most powerful members of the surrounding communities had been killed, two girls walking home from their father’s residence in the neighbouring village of Wane.

Just how many girls and women had been whisked off to Algrave’s palace, which had been filled with occupants from outside of the valley? At first it was just one or two people, and always from different settlements in the area. A sister that failed to return home from a day at work in the fields, an aunt not showing up to supper for several days in a row. Then word of missing persons began to grow more frequent, to the point that each village and town had lost several of their citizens. The situation in the countryside was far worse, as hundreds of others seemingly vanished from the surrounding hamlets.

Benn’s eyes idled atop the broken table and fractured chairs that littered his living room. I should have listened to Jasper. Early on into this crisis his closest friend had called a meeting between all of the strongest members of Talen Village and begged that they try to organize a march on the lord’s palace with the help of other citizens of Malben. He’d spoken the words that had been tickling at every tongue within the room. Jasper had brought up the fact that of the hundreds of people that had disappeared in recent weeks, not a single one was a man. Everyone, including Benn, had been too reluctant to commit to such a desperate act, not when their families had yet been left alone. For the safety of the two most important people in his life, he had refused to do anything that might provoke Count Algrave into unleashing his wrath upon his home.

Where did that get me? He fell to his knees and remained there until his drooping eyes ran dry, his brow hidden behind a shock of thick black hair that was curly like his daughter’s, though shorter by a hand’s length. He’d paid every tax on time, gifted meats and grains to the central city in abundance, sent two dozen of the stronger villagers out each month to patrol the surrounding fields in contribution to the valley’s overall safety. Even so, his wife and daughter had been taken and he’d done nothing to stop it. He had stood off to the side with a soulless gaze as he succumbed to the reality that all three of them would likely have been killed had he made a move to prevent their abduction.

As opposed to what? He found his way over to the front window of the house that he had all but destroyed, which overlooked the surrounding countryside from atop the tiny hill that it was built upon. His eyes settled upon the distant shadow of Scane, which covered a significant segment of the horizon with disorganized sprawl. I’ve got to do something. Anything.

Benn fell asleep atop the cold hardwood floor that he and Jasper had installed two years prior, his nose clogged and his eyes sore, with a heart suffering from the deepest of hurts as he imagined what sort of fates awaited his wife and child.

“Everybody! Could you please quiet down?” Benn took a deep breath as he stared at nearly two hundred familiar faces, people that he had known all his life.

He’d only managed to sleep for a few hours before he shot up from the floor of his house and ran out the door to rouse his sleeping neighbours, who were none too pleased to be disturbed at such an early hour. By early afternoon he had gathered the most prominent members of Talen Village within a large tavern called the Barley Brew, a right of summoning that he held as the head of this village.

“Why have you called us here, Benn?”

“I’m sure most of you can guess.”

Most people quieted down.

“I take it you lost someone,” said the same old voice, which belonged to a wealthy farmer named Pete. “Which one you lose, Florinda or Gwen?”

“Both. I… Both of them.”

A couple of good friends came up and bowed their heads.

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Sorry Benny.”

“What’s this now?” said a rough voice, a bit more angry than usual. “Jasper already gathered us here and you didn’t want any part in it. Now that your gals are gone, it’s suddenly an urgent issue? Well what about my girls? You didn’t do nothin’ for me when I came to you on the night they were taken.”

“Gram’s right!” said a young man with dark hair and a pointed nose. “My wife was taken too, and you didn’t give two shits. Now that yours is gone, we have to go risk our lives to help you save ‘em? That’s what this is, right, you trying to stir us up like Jasper did to march on Scane?”

A wave of murmurs swept throughout the large room, which was warm from all of the people that had been crammed inside. Benn climbed up onto the bar and turned to address the people present. “That’s exactly what I hope to do! Gram and Marke, your wives are still at the palace. Don’t you want to get them back?”

The two men grew quiet and downcast.

“We’ve got at least two hundred people in the Profound Entry stage on our side, and that’s just in this village. If we reach out to the other villages and towns, I’m sure they’ll join our cause! They’ve lost people too, more than us, even.”

“What about the soldiers at the count’s palace?” a young woman called out. “They’re trained fighters, Benn, and there are hundreds of them. What good can a bunch of farmers and tradesmen do against people like that?”

“We can kill them.” Marke, the young man that had supported Gram’s argument, was glaring down his pointed nose as he stared at the floor between his feet. Looking up, he said, “So what if there are hundreds of trained soldiers? There’re thousands of angry parents and siblings in the other villages, not to mention a whole lot of scared folk. If we send word to—”

Most people present were able to sense the three life signals that had suddenly appeared outside of the entrance to the tavern. The majority had kept quiet all throughout the meeting, so the place shed any lingering sounds within a handful of seconds, everyone listening intently as the knob suddenly twisted and failed to budge.

Benn signalled for silence. Even if the individuals outside were aware that this small building was full of people, once they saw that the door was locked they would understand that it would be fruitless to try and enter. Judging by the cultivation levels that he sensed, it would only take a minute to shoo these new arrivals away.

As the knob continued to turn, a man’s voice drifted in from the other side. “It’s locked. Of course, God forbid we get an ounce of good luck in these goddamn mountains.”

“Whoa, chill man. Move over, let me see.” The second speaker was a boy in the earliest years of manhood, his voice a bit muffled but perfectly audible to most within the room. The knob twisted once again only this time the entire doorframe shook as the metal bolt was shoved directly through the wooden wall with a small shower of splinters. “Well would you look at that.”

“Seriously, kid? There’re like a hundred people in there, and you go ahead and damage their property?”

“You know, Sean, it’s times like these when you really sound your own age.” The heavy door swung open and almost collided with a nearby attendee, a young man strolling in and observing the gathered crowd with studious eyes the shade of roasted walnuts.

An older boy then walked into the room, this one with a startling gaze of vivid gold and a matching head of short sunshine hair. This youth was quickly followed by a tired-faced man with a slight slant to his dark and knowing eyes, a light shading of stubble atop his clean and angled face which sat beneath a short supply of frayed black hair. Alongside the exasperated adult was a young boy with pale skin and lightly freckled cheeks, his wide and honest eyes betraying evident uncertainty and wariness as he tugged at the man’s outer robe with a tiny hand.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing, breaking in here like that?” Marke stomped over to the sudden intruders, venom in his voice as he jabbed a pointed finger in their direction. “The tavern is closed, so leave a golden card for the damage and then be on your way.”

“Ah, sorry about that.” The first youth stepped forth, his intelligent gaze and smartly styled hair giving him an odd air of intrigue. “I’ll pay for the door, I promise. We’re just passing through the valley and are trying to feast. Every place we stopped by was closed with nobody inside, but then we sensed all of you guys in here and thought we’d try our luck.”