Trian stared at Lord Fasbed’s hands, tied behind his back, she walked along behind him with the rest of the group, still having trouble understanding what had just happened.

“So which territory did you grow up in?”

A bright voice brought her out of her musings, and she looked at the beautiful young woman with shimmering silver scales walking next to her.

“Are you alright? Heller healed you, didn’t he?”

The shining beauty again prompted her, causing Trian to stumble as she walked, her momentary lack of attention allowing a stray root to trip her up. She nodded her thanks to the young woman – one of the companions of the target they were supposed to kidnap – as she reached out with astonishing speed to help Trian regain her balance.

“My name is Tetra, and I just love your hair!”

Trian realized with a start that she still hadn’t replied.

“Oh! I’m sorry… Tetra, right? I was just thinking about…” Her words trailed off as she tried to recall what she had been thinking… oh, right… the failed ambush… and she was going to be sent to the Shieldwall…

“Yep, just call me Tetra, and don’t look so upset, we aren’t the bad guys.”

Tetra gave her another shining smile, reflected patterns and muted glimpses of the forest around them showing up randomly across her scales.

Trying her best to return the smile, Trian couldn’t help but sigh. In her experience, there wasn’t really a good or bad side when it came to conflicts between nobles (which this obviously was), but this time she had gotten involved in something worse – Deathwind was notorious for sending warriors to the Shieldwall, instead of letting them them return to The City like most other factions did.

***

The group trudging along through the forest was still less than a day’s journey back to The City, but for many of them it must have felt much further away. I felt somewhat bad for the warriors who had ambushed us, as it was very unlikely that any of them were directly involved in the plot; they were simply hired muscle, bound by the laws of our society to follow the orders of the nobles who employed them.

As far as I knew, our society hadn’t had a war the entire time that the Merrik had been around – partly because there was plenty of room; partly because there were plenty of other external threats; and I think partly because nobody wanted to risk pissing the Merrik off…

Therefore, in a lot of ways, the current internal conflict was the largest we had seen in something like a thousand years, which was a crazy long time if you thought about it. Things might get pretty nasty in the future, but for now the threat of the Merrik getting old and dying was more like the threat of climate change and rising sea levels that I remembered from my old world: Something really nasty that might arrive in the future, but with a decent chance it wouldn’t affect those currently in power.

I looked over at the huge form of Wulfric, who had a thoughtful frown on his face as he surveyed both our captives, and the warriors who had apparently infiltrated the ‘enemy’ squad that had been sent after us.

“What are you thinking about, Wulfric?” I asked him.

“What we should do with them.” He looked over at me, “Is it right that we take them prisoner, or should we set them free? But if we set them free, will Lady Jesvae Spiritwind’s warriors just silence them once they are out of our sight?”

I could help but let out a small sigh, almost wishing that I hadn’t asked, but knowing that it was better to deal with this now. Not that Wulfric didn’t have some very good points, but he was worried about things which were (in my opinion) out of our control.

“They will be in trouble if we send them back to The City without the noble, right? That is who they were supposed to be guarding on whatever bullshit fake mission they used as cover to come after us. And it’s not like we forced anyone to come out and ambush us – we got permission from Lord Kodan Flameward himself, for beasts’ sake! We are doing absolutely nothing illegal.”

I looked over at Tetra, who was speaking with one of our captives that she had taken a fancy to. I could see why as well; the green haired warrior was both fierce and skilled, and had been one of the last we were able to hunt down. In fact, she hadn’t been captured so much as mortally wounded. I was able to get to her in time to use my healing powers to save her, but it had been a close call.

“That is the other problem, Heller… what right do we have to keep Lord Fasbed captive? He out-ranks any of us… I don’t know if this is a good idea…”

I looked over at Wulfric, not entirely sure how to respond. The fact that he was willing to go along with this spoke volumes to the progress he had made regarding his fear and awe of the ruling class. I’m sure Tetra’s influence helped, since she still though of the nobility as a cancer growing on top of society, but we had long since put that topic in the ‘agree-to-disagree’ pile.

“Ok, I see what you are saying, but we are not really keeping him captive, are we? The warriors Jesvae sent were clear that they had strict orders to bring any captives – especially the nobles – with them when they were escorting us. She outranks Fasbed, so in a court of law I think we are all good.”

Wulfric shook his head slowly from side to side, reminding me somewhat of a horse as his gentle-yet-massive head loomed over me.

“I know, Heller, and technically our orders to leave The City come from an even higher authority, so I’m sure in court there is a strong case in our favor… but in the field, it is always the highest ranking person who takes charge, and Lady Jesvae Spiritwind isn’t here in person. Neither is High Lord Kodan Flameward, or Lord Firebrand… just… him.”

Wulfric finished off by nodding his head in Fasbed’s direction.

“I hear you, but I’m going to make the call and say we carry on as is, nobody is going free. Alright?”

At a certain point it was just better to put my foot down, as we could talk about it in circles forever without reaching a satisfactory answer.

Wulfric looked at me and gave me an attempt at a smile.

“Of course, Heller, you know I would follow you anywhere. And… thank you for listening to my concerns. I know that we all have bigger matters to worry about. I just want to make sure we don’t become the bad guys, you know?”

I nodded and reached up to pat him on the back before turning my attention back to the rest of the group again.

I understood Wulfric’s concerns all too well, although I was less concerned about it than he was. Sometimes you have to be the villain to become the hero; a common theme among Chinese legends back on my home world, and an important one.

“Helping opponents is harming friends.” I muttered to myself.

Wulfric looked at me, his eyebrows raised. “What was that, Heller?”

“Ah, nothing important, just something from a long time ago… in a galaxy far, far away.”

Wulfric gave me a suspicious look, and then simply shrugged. My friends and family were long used to me saying weird crap now and then, and I had a sudden longing to speak with Wolfram again. It had been a while since we had been able to meet up.