Hanna’s satisfaction with her mode of transportation died out after only a day spent bumping around inside of a stuffy carriage. The worst part of it was how mindlessly dull it was, just sitting there. Elsa and her four guards were interesting enough to chat with, but Elsa proved reluctant to open up in front of her subordinates and Hanna soon felt like she’d had enough. There was only so much you could talk about, and the only breaks they took where a short stop for lunch and then when they stopped for the night. Hanna was kind of hoping for someone to attack them just so they would have something to do, but nothing happened. Not surprising, since attacking a full unit of heavy armoured cavalry would be tantamount to suicide.

They spent their nights sleeping together in a large tent that was skilfully pitched for them each evening by a group of soldiers. Hanna was searching everywhere for something to amuse herself with during the trip and found inspiration during the second time they stopped for the night. Elsa spent about an hour writing every evening, and the paper she used was stiff and thick enough that it might as well be cardboard. It took quite a lot of insistent begging from Hanna, but eventually Elsa gave up and let her use some of it. It was the first time that Hanna used the feather and ink that Elsa wrote with, and the end result was far from pretty. Hanna was still satisfied with her work: a set of ugly, uneven but for all purposes fully usable deck of cards.

The dwellers she was traveling with must have been just as bored as she was, because they jumped at the chance of some stimuli the following day. It made the long hours in the carriage a lot more bearable, just not enough for Hanna to stop feeling like she could punch herself in the face to simply get some variation. On the third time that they stopped for the night, Hanna ventured out into the camp with a goal. Listening for the tell-tale sounds of metal striking metal, she soon found what she was looking for. A group of soldiers were standing in a ring, cheering on the two guys that where fighting in the middle. Hanna guessed that they were using dulled swords since they were striking at each other with abandon.

One of the fighters were a little taller than the other, while the shorter one was a bit faster. It was a rather even fight, and the sweat in their faces showed that they had been at it for a while. They fought with a different style than what Birgitta had taught her, not moving a lot and using short swings intermixed with thrusts. Hanna theorized that it was because they were used to fighting in tight formation, where there wasn’t a lot of room for movement. Eventually the shorter guy wasn’t as quick anymore, giving the taller one enough time to score a solid hit against his ribs. The looser raised his arm in the air, likely to signify that he admitted his defeat, causing a mixture of cheers and protests from the onlookers. Money changed hands, which piqued Hanna’s interest. She had originally only been looking for someone to spar with, but this was way better. It would totally suck to finally be in a proper city without any coin to spend in it.

“Mind if I join?” Hanna asked when the commotion after the fight had died down a little.

Everyone turned around in surprise, having been too occupied with the fight to notice her presence.

“Betting or fighting?” One of the onlookers asked. He didn’t have any symbols on him to signify that he was in charge. Hanna thought she recognized him as one of the guys that had come with the envoy. That probably gave him some sort of status.

“Fighting”, Hanna said with certainty, perhaps sounding a bit cocky.

The man regarded her for a second. “You can join”, he agreed. “The rules are simple, we fight until blood or solid hits, glancing strikes doesn’t count”. Hanna nodded and began limbering up.

“Who’s up taking her on?” The man asked to the crowd. A man of comparable height to the tall one that had fought earlier stepped forward, cheered on by the rest of the soldiers.

“My name is Gustav. What is yours?” He asked without much formality.

“Hanna”, Hanna responded and gave him a wave.

The man that had agreed to let her fight handed her a blunted sword and began taking notes of the bets. Hanna dropped her equipment, making a sizable pile by her feet. She debated for a moment if she should use her shield but decided against it. She kept entering fights without a shield anyway, it was probably time she began practicing a style that didn’t depend on it. She spent the rest of the downtime familiarizing herself with the sword, giving it a few swings. It was pretty similar to her own, the centre of balance might be a bit further out down the blade but that was it.

With the betting over with, they stepped into the ring and the guy organizing the fight gave them the go to start.

Hanna stood still at first, wanting to see what her opponent would do. He repositioned himself ever so slightly, and Hanna mirrored his move in the opposite direction, keeping the distance.

“Come on new girl, show him how it’s done!” Someone shouted, surprising Hanna. She had figured everyone would be betting on their friend but apparently not. Perhaps it was the potential winnings that had lured him over.

Hanna and Gustav continued circling each other. Hanna studied him carefully. She would prefer if she could win this without showing neither her strength nor her healing. Eventually Gustav seemed to have grown tired of waiting for her to make the first move, quickly closing the distance between them with the short steps of a boxer, finishing the motion with a thrust towards her stomach. Hanna was ready for him and stepped to the side, batting his sword away for good measure.

He tried catching her off-balance by quickly following up with a bash from his shield. Hanna let him hit her, following along with the force from the blow to spin around and strike him in the back with her sword. The collision gave a meaty sound and sent him stumbling a few steps. Hanna grimaced, that was a bit more force than she had been planning to use. Keeping her strength in check was easier said than done when she was so much stronger that the average bloke.

Once Gustav had regained his footing he admitted his defeat without any fuss, causing a bunch of groans from the onlookers except for that one guy that had betted on her and now was whooping happily, collecting his winnings.

“That was a risky move, something I would advice against in an actual battle”, Gustav told her, stretching his back a bit to fight the stiffness from her blow.

Hanna just shrugged, unsure how to explain to him that it wasn’t a problem for her without telling him about her healing.

“This is your cut”, The man who had organized the fight said and handed her a few coins. Then he turned towards the rest of the soldiers. “Who’s up next?”

Hanna stayed until there was no more time for further fights. She didn’t risk her money in any bets since she didn’t know who to bet on, but she competed in two more fights and won one of them. Her opponents had been a lot more careful after her first fight, and after the second time she had won, there hadn’t been anyone who was eager to fight her. When it became apparent that no one wanted to challenge her, the guy organizing the fights had stepped forward, causing great excitement among the onlookers. Hanna guessed that he was the most skilled among them and that he didn’t normally participate. The fact that he had her on the ground in just a few moves gave credit to this and Hanna had no choice but to accept defeat. He wasn’t too smug about it and even offered a hand to help her up.

Hanna kept joining the fighters every night and eventually she found that she was quite content with the routine of the journey. Between chitchatting over games of card and sparring with the soldiers, it really wasn’t too bad. By the end of the eleventh day, small settlements began popping up along the road that they travelled, surrounded by fields of what looked like wheat and barley. The number of buildings grew over the day and by evening the carriers came to a halt outside of a tall wall, signifying that the trip was finally over.

Hanna leaned out of the glassless window on their carriage to get a better look. Aside from the envoy and a single soldier following his every step, none other had dismounted. Hanna smiled as she saw the envoy gesticulate wildly, apparently infuriated by something at the gate. Elsa had told her that his name was Count Edwin Altman. It was a name that made Hanna assume that the person was both stuck-up and pampered, suiting him just fine. Hanna had promised herself to mispronounce his title as often as she could get away with.

The handwaving went on for a couple of minutes before the envoy mounted his horse with a flushed face and the carriage began moving again. The streets inside of the walls were busy and they inched their way forward at a snail’s pace. It was weird seeing streets full of traffic without a single car in sight. The total lack of order was probably the biggest cause of it, with people crossing the streets as they pleased and plenty of entrepreneurial minds that saw no problem at all with setting up shop in the middle of the road. The road that they travelled on cut through the city without a single bend, in stark contrast to the haphazard layout of the smaller streets that connected to it. The buildings that they passed looked well maintained. None was particularly tall, the biggest she saw was what appeared to be a three-storied inn.

For all the negativity she had heard about the kingdom, Hanna thought that its inhabitants looked healthy enough. Apart from the occasional beggar, most were dressed in colourful clothing and navigated the busy streets without any apparent sorrow. It all looked a bit too good to be true, making Hanna suspect that what she was seeing was members of the middle class or higher. There was no way this kind of prosperity came without someone suffering for it.

Something worrying that she noticed was that practically no one was gawking at their military progression, telling her that this was something too common to be worth looking at. Given that the warriors on the horses around her alone was enough to reduce the village to rubble, the military forces of the kingdom must be something quite formidable.

After the better part of an hour they came upon another wall. The guards at this gate was probably informed of their arrival since they waved them through without much hassle. The streets were practically empty on the other side of the wall and the myriad of houses were swapped for open spaces and a few posher buildings nestled among patches of greenery. Not far ahead of them stood a proper castle. It didn’t have a moat, but it sported an artificial lake surrounding half of the castle. It had a portcullis that opened as they approached it and then closed behind them as the progression came to a halt on a courtyard. The soldiers dismounted as one and began unloading the carriages, kids running out from nowhere to tend to the horses.

Edwin was waiting for them as Hanna, Elsa and her guards disembarked.

“Come with me.” He ordered with dead eyes. His tone made it clear that there wasn’t much choice in the matter.

They began walking but was immediately stopped by Edwin who thrusted his palm towards them. “What do you think you are doing?”

“Coming with you?” Hanna replied.

“Of course, you can’t bring your guards to a private meeting with the queen.” Edwin said to Elsa, ignoring Hanna despite the fact she was standing right in front of him. Hanna didn’t know what it was that was so fucking ‘of course’ about it, but Elsa behaved as if she knew and had just not thought about it.

“What about us?” Hanna asked.

“Talk to my quartermaster, he will get you some lodging”, Edwin answered with a sour face, walking away with Elsa in tow.

Hanna knew the quartermaster. It was the guy that had arranged the fights that first night and then subsequently had beaten her to the ground. Hanna had fought him a couple of time since her loss but still hadn’t managed to even the score. She had spent some time with him when she wasn’t fighting and she liked him well enough. His name was Kurt, and as far as she could tell, he was an honest man that had mastered the balancing act of staying kind and human despite working in a machinery tasked with killing people. She took the lead and sought him out.

They had to wait in line just to talk to him. As the quartermaster, Kurt was the one in charge of making sure everything was taken care of after the journey. He had a steady stream of soldiers to bark orders at until he was finally free to meet them.

“Hey Kurt!” Hanna said as the last soldier departed.

“Sorry about the wait. What can I help you with Hanna?” Kurt asked, pulling a hand through his short hair.

“Accommodations. Edwin said that you could get us some”

“Count Edwin”, he corrected her.

“My bad.” Hanna held her hands up, palms front. “Cunt Edwin said that you could help us”, she continued with a mischievous smile.

Kurt narrowed his eyes at her. “I would advice you against saying that again, in case the wrong person hear you.”

Hanna held up her palms towards him, still smiling. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

“Look, Hanna”, Kurt said with a tired voice. “You might just be kidding around, but believe me, the count does not take well to insults. Neither does the queen, and an insult to her count is in effect an insult to her”, he added as an afterthought.

“Whatever man. Can you help us or not?”

Kurt sighed. “I can help you. I have a room for you, but you’ll have to share it with your friends.”

The room they got was normally used for soldiers in transfer. It was by no means fancy, just the bare necessities and a thin mattress each. Hanna called dibs on a bed and stashed her backpack under it. The soldier in her worried about whether it would pass inspection, but that might not even be a thing here, and even if it was, they weren’t even subjects of the kingdom to begin with. The others made themselves comfortable and began a game of cards. Hanna was amazed that they would do that rather than head out into the city but whatever. They might feel like they had a duty to stick around if Elsa needed them or something. She wasn’t exactly keen on them following with her anyway, eleven days stuck together in that small carriage was about as much as Hanna could stomach.

She waved them goodbye and headed out, feeling a bit naked without her crossbow and her spear. She had considered bringing all her stuff with her but figured that it might look a bit provocative. She would just have to make do with her two knives and her sword.

A problem that Hanna hadn’t considered was how she would get in and out of the castle. The guy manning the portcullis refused to open it without a writ of passage, forcing Hanna to get one first. Figuring Kurt might help her, she went back to the carriages that were still being unloaded in the courtyard.

“Back again?” Kurt asked her, not lifting his eyes from a scroll he was reading.

“Yep. Turns out I need a ‘writ of passage’. You don’t happen to have one laying around?”

Kurt studied her for a second. “Reason for leaving?” He asked with a business-like voice.

“I was hoping to find some nice piece of ass”, Hanna answered and winked at him. His cheeks flushed.

“I’ll uh, write that as ‘rest and recreation.’” He said, clearing his throat.

“Sure”.

“That’ll be ten crowns”, he said after finishing scribbling something on a piece of paper.

Hanna glared at him. “Ten crowns for a piece of paper?” She asked with feigned indignation. She didn’t even know if that was expensive or not. “I don’t have a lot of coin, you know?”

“Bullocks. You’ve earned that amount in just one of your fights. Cough it up, everyone pays if they want the writ.”

Hanna grumbled a bit just for the show of it while she counted out the coins. It wasn’t hard figuring out their worth since they were clearly labelled with numbers. She hadn’t counted how much coins she had. Going by weight alone she probably had around eight times the amount left.

Writ in hand she went back to the portcullis, which was opened without protest once the guard saw the piece of paper. A nice stroll later on the empty and posh street, the whole process was repeated once again until she was finally out in the actual city. Hanna carefully folded the writ and stashed it in a pocket on her armour. Knowing herself, she would lose it in minutes otherwise. The cacophony that met her once she stepped through that second gate reminded her of a trip she had taken to India. Being on foot outside of that stuffy carriage, the smells and sounds of the packed streets was on a whole other level. As someone who had grown up on the countryside, it was mind-boggling that people could live in this chaos. Hanna stood there for a while, unsure where to go. A proper bar was probably a good bet. Preferably someplace on the seedier side, since that would make her coin last longer and usually was way more fun.

Looking around, she found a street vendor not far away. The people crowding the stall wore colourful clothing, but they were far less vibrant than what the royal cunt wore. Hanna stepped up to one of them, a balding man with a sizeable beer-gut that was munching on something that looked fat and salty.

“What’s up?” Hanna asked, knowing full well that he wouldn’t understand her.

The man looked up into the sky, then back towards her. He seemed confused. “What?” He asked after having forced down a mouthful of food.

“What’s a fun place to get a drink around here?”

The man wasn’t really keeping up, staring blankly at her for a good ten seconds. “Three barrels ‘s all right, if you can handle a bit of rowdiness”. He looked her over, his eyes lingering on her weapons. “You look as if you’ll fit right in tough”

“We’ll see. Where is it?”

Hanna thanked the man and set off, doing her best to not forget the instructions. Finding the place wasn’t too hard, a five-minute walk and a couple of turns among the narrow backstreets was all it took until she saw the worn-down sign she had been looking for, three barrels depicted with the paint flaying at its edges. The stench of urine and the passed-out man laying by the entrance told her everything she needed to know about the establishment.

The atmosphere inside wasn’t as lively as she had expected it to be. Someone was playing a stringed instrument and a lot of people were eating dinner while talking animatedly. It wasn’t dull or quiet, Hanna had just expected a constantly ongoing barfight and people swinging from chandeliers. Joining the crowd that surrounded the bartender, Hanna managed to get herself an ale in quick order. She spent an hour like that, sipping her ale and eavesdropping on the people around her. It was nice to be anonymous for once and just sit back and take it easy.

By the end of her third ale, Hanna noticed a discussion that was different from the rest of the gossiping that took place around her. A young kid looked scared and tried to get away from a man and a woman who made sure that he wasn’t getting anywhere. They seemed angry and looked as if they weren’t unaccustomed to acting on that anger. It really wasn’t any of Hanna’s business, but two against one seemed a bit unfair when the kid was barely enough for one of them. Plus that Hanna was honestly growing a bit tired of just sitting around. When the duo eventually dragged the kid outside, Hanna downed the last of her ale and followed.

“You brought this on yourself”, Hanna heard the man say. The woman had the kid pinned against the wall with a firm grip around his throat. The man was cracking his knuckles.

“I’ll get the money”, the kid squeezed out, struggling for air.

“Sure you will. After we have made it clear what happens when you don’t” The man threatened. The woman dropped the kid, who looked hopeful and relieved for a full second until he was hit in the stomach by the woman.

“Guys!!” Hanna called, making both of them turn around. “I think he got the message”

“Mind your own business”, the man growled.

Hanna shook her head. “Nah, this looks like fun”

The man exchanged a look with his comrade, who gave him a short nod in return.

“Looks like I’ll have to teach you who rules these street”, the man said, sounding cliché enough for Hanna to chuckle. He walked up to Hanna, throwing a punch in a wide swing that a blind person could have seen coming. Hanna stepped to the side and punched him hard in his ribcage.

Her punch took him of his feet and threw him into the wall. The woman only looked mildly intrigued by Hanna’s punch. She turned away from the kid, who took his chance and bolted.

“That was quite the punch”, the woman commented, with a voice that sounded as if she had been smoking a couple of packets a day since forever. “Normally I’d just whop your ass and be done with it, but you look like you might be of use…”

Hanna smiled cockily. “Whatever you have in mind, I think I’ll be content just beating you up”, she said and threw herself at the woman, intent on finishing this quickly. When the woman stepped out of the way, Hanna was just annoyed. But then she noticed herself toppling over, from what must have been a quick jab to the chin that she hadn’t seen coming at all. Hanna’s annoyance turned into fury when the woman promptly flipped her on her stomach and pinned her down, expertly tying her hands and feet with some rope that she produced from gods know where. When a bag was thrown over her head, Hanna was just stumped. This had not gone as she expected at all.