Koran Dane hated everyone and everything. When he learned about a cult whose goal was to destroy the world he decided he’d found a home at last. For thirty years he kept a safe house for members to use when they needed a place to hide. He settled in a little village close enough to the capital that he could keep a general eye on the goings on and report to his superiors. No one bothered Koran more than once. He lived alone and liked it that way.

When the sorcerer showed up with a small army looking for the current occupant of his bolthole Koran figured his days of ease were at an end. The lid to the secret compartment fit perfectly with the floor, but it wouldn’t stop a sorcerer from finding it. When the golden energy leaked from the sorcerer’s fingers Koran eased his way closer to the door. Maybe he could escape while they were busy with the over-muscled idiot in the hole.

The floor exploded. Koran leapt out the door and rolled as far from the hut as he could, as fast as possible for a man his age. The lads in red surrounding his farm ran toward the black lightning shredding the thatch of his roof. A remarkably brave and beyond stupid thing to do. Koran’s theory was proven a moment later when the hut exploded. Lightning and shattered rock went everywhere, including three or four chips that bounced off his head.

In the center of the chaos stood his idiot boarder, waving a black jug around, screaming his lungs out and generally raising a horrible ruckus. Koran’s neighbors had never thought much of him and this certainly wasn’t going to put him in their good books.

The idiot waved his jug at three young men in red sneaking up behind him and the lightning blasted them off their feet.

They didn’t get back up.

The one-sided battle lasted for less than a minute. When it ended the only person in the vicinity still conscious was Koran. He got slowly to his feet, knees creaking and complaining, and hobbled over to the nearest man in red, a young fellow with a shaved head maybe twenty years old. He touched the kid’s wrist and found a strong pulse. A quick slash of Koran’s belt knife put an end to that.

Five minutes later twenty corpses decorated Koran’s yard. It served them right for destroying his home. Just inside the door the sorcerer in charge lay in a crumpled heap, wheezing in ragged gasps. Koran put him out of his misery and added one more to the body count. Sorcerers were much easier to kill when they were unconscious.

The fool with the black jug lay in a heap in the center of what was left of Koran’s house. The item in question sat a little ways away, looking just as innocent as you please.

Koran crouched beside his unwelcome guest, his knife dripping blood, and debated whether to kill him or not. They were technically on the same side, but the fool had ruined a cover that had lasted decades. For that indignity alone Koran wanted to kill him.

Hell, Koran wanted to kill him on general principle, but he had a lifetime of practice forcing that impulse down. At the very least he’d keep his unwelcome guest alive long enough to tell him what that black bauble was worth. Koran guessed the answer was a lot.

Koran poked his guest in the ribs with his knife. After that little display he figured they needed to move things along. Two more pokes brought the idiot around. He sat up and groaned. “What happened?”

“You flattened my house and killed a bunch of kingdom men. You need to tell me what the hell is going on before some people we really don’t want to meet get here. Let’s start with who the hell you really are.”

“Jonny Linn. I’m a castle guard stationed outside the throne room. We have to get the urn to the master. We won’t be safe until he has it.”

“Looks like those kingdom boys wanted it pretty bad too.”

Jonny nodded. It looked like he used the last of his strength to do it. “They’ve been hunting me for days. I need to send a message. Tell them to come get me.”

“How you going to do that?” Koran asked.

Jonny dug through his belt pouch and pulled out a black crystal bird. “Write a message and put it in the bird’s beak. It will fly to the master. Tell him where we are.”

Koran eyed the little black bird and spat. Didn’t look like he had any other way out of this mess. He dug through Jonny’s pouch and pulled out a scrap of paper and a stubby pencil. He couldn’t tell them to come here. His hunting shack would do. It was secluded and no one else knew about it.

Before he could start writing the half-dead idiot tugged on his pant leg. “What?”

“The urn. Where?”

“On the floor where you dropped it. Now shut up and let me write.”

“Put it in the satchel. Sorcerers can sense it otherwise.”

Koran raised an eyebrow. “I’m not touching that thing. It was a damn wonder I survived the first time you switched it on.”

Jonny gave a feeble shake of his head. “Only works when sorcerers are around. Safe now.”

Koran eyed the urn sitting there on his floor like a giant black turd. He found Jonny’s satchel and held it open while he poked the urn with his toe. After a bit of prodding he worked it inside and cinched down the ties. “Happy?”

Jonny collapsed back on the floor. Koran took that as a yes. He wrote a brief note giving directions to the shack then stuck it in the bird’s mouth. Crystal wings fluttered and it took off, going north and a bit east.

Koran turned his attention back to Jonny. What should he do with the idiot? He sure as hell wasn’t carrying him two miles through the woods. He fingered his knife. What was one more body amidst all this?