The knight unsheathed his great sword, grasping it firmly, angrily, in both hands. A whirl of shining metal gleamed against the dying flames of the fireplace, the wench’s hysterical scream broke the seething silence, and a high pitched ring of a second unsheathed blade sounded clear through the still mood of the tavern. The rogue dodged the heaving attack, narrowingly escaping the blade’s downward strike to his shoulder. A wooden stool was pulverized, its splinters rattling across the floor.

“By all that is fucking holy!” screamed the tavernkeep, his eyes wide and face drained of color. “By the fucking Gods stop this! Stop this!”

His screams were ignored. The rogue parried the second blow from the knight with his exotic-looking blade—black iron, an intimidating onyx. It sent painful vibrations into his forearms. The knight staggered. His performance was sloppy, thought the rogue, he was heaving his entire weight into each blow.

The wench released another hysterical scream.

“Look what you’ve done! Look at her!” shouted the tavernkeep. But the two men were too captivated by the dance of their blades to pay attention. Their eyes locked on each other—the knight stared on with rage, the rogue with calculated determination. Both of them knew this was going to end in slaughter.

The rogue knew he could take advantage of each misstep in the knight’s blade work. He watched the knight’s eyes, predicting the placement of each of his blows by the anxious darting of the knight’s pupils. And then, in one swift motion, the rogue parried a horizontal slash. A deafening ring of iron shot through the stale tavern air. The rogue reflexively countered the attack, fluidly transitioning from his parried stance into an agile strike—and in a terrifying flash of glimmering onyx, the knight fell to his knees, grasping his throat as a deep crimson welled up through his fingers, streaking down his hands and pattering onto the floor. His body collapsed forward with a clanging thud. A short moment passed and the rogue sheathed his blade, looking down at the body in disbelief at the sudden turn of events. He looked over the tavern, still, silent. Some patrons left in the chaos, others were crouched behind turned over tables or tucked away in corners behind barricades of chairs. The men in leather armor began standing to their feet.

“Fucking hell,” said the rogue. “Fucking knights, it’s always bloody fucking knights.” The rogue looked over to the counter for the tavernkeep—he was missing. He heard a whimpering. Looking behind the counter he saw the tavernkeep on the floor embracing the dark-haired wench. She was trembling. A horizontal slash from her forehead to her left cheek was set deep into her face. Her left eye was missing—there was only a deep red crater. It must have been a stray flourish of my blade, thought the rogue, a complete accident.

“Gods, I’m—”

“I told you to stop,” said the tavernkeep in a sharp yet quiet voice. “I told you to stop. I told you to stop!” The tavernkeep looked back down at his beloved wife, beginning to caress her face. Her lips trembled and she was aggressively blinking her one eyes—she looked dazed, in shock.

The rogue didn’t say anything. He knew the tavernkeep didn’t expect an excuse or any words of remorse for the collateral damage. He glanced back at the wench’s face, her beauty horribly marred, mutilated by the hideous laceration. Without a word he slowly walked towards the door of the tavern, his posture slightly hunched forward, feeling the communal gaze of the fearful patrons as their eyes followed his movement. As he reached for the door one of the men in leather armor broke from the group and ran up behind him. He firmly grasped the back of the rogue’s shoulder.

“You ain’t leavin’ alone stranger,” said the man in a thick country accent, his voice deep and raspy. “Uncouth souls like you can’t just do fuck all in this decent place and leave as you please.”

The rogue turned around. The man was short, stalky, and bald, several teeth missing, and one rotted black. His three other companions came up behind him, resting their hands on their short blades. That’s when he noticed they all bore a similar dark branding on their leather pauldrons—a ram with wheat woven between the circlets of its horns, Lord Osto’s sigil.

“Listen,” said the rogue, removing his hand from the door. “You saw the whole thing. The knight drew his blade first, he swung first. What would you have preferred I do, stand there as he hacked me to pieces? Wasn’t the first time he did this either—if you ask me, I’ve rid this place of one less danger.”

“Maybe you did, stranger, but that ain’t gonna change who you killed,” said the bald man with a smirk.

“Nuff toilin’ with this fuckin’ fool, Edum!” interrupted a scrawny, greasy red-haired companion “String em up on the end of a rope and let’s be done with it!”

“You don’t know nothin’, do you Kal,” Edum bit back. “He killed the Merrimont knight.”

“Jackmere? That’s who he was?” another companion questioned.

“Sure was, he rode into Etka the day past yesterday.”

“Jackmere, Merrimont?” asked the rogue. “It means nothing to me. I killed a charlatan knight who threatened to kill me first—that’s all I know.”

“This ‘ere,” Edum unsheathed his short blade and pointed to the corpse, its skin was paling into a sickening blue, a dark puddle emanating beneath him from his neck, “This was to be Lord Osto’s new bodyguard, his personal knight.”

The rogue remained silent, slowly realizing what he had done. Even though it was in self-defense he knew any notion of civilized justice was seldom-known in these parts. The rogue thought back to those two poor crucified peasants on the main path.

“What do you want from me then? Gold, my life?” said the rogue in a monotone voice.

“Nah, we can’t just kill you like we did to those two mutts on the roadside—as fun as that may be,” said Edum, briefly smiling back to his other companions and now pointing his blade at the rogue. “You’re gonna have to make a special confession to Osto himself—you better learn how to beg like a filthy street whore, ‘cause Osto likes to play cruelly with those that specially dishonor him.”

“Nuff talkin’, bind the fucker!” shouted one of the companions. A couple of the men abruptly grabbed the rogue by his arms, grasping him aggressively and painfully. Edum shackled the rogue’s hands, the skin of his wrists pinched as he snapped the metal clasps together. He took his blade from him and shoved him through the door. The rogue looked down at his prayer chain. He could still reach it—technically he had a chance to escape, but he hesitated. It wasn’t worth slaughtering more men over. Plus, he had come to Etka to speak with Lord Osto, he needed a favor from him. Though slitting the throat of his personal knight wasn’t the ideal way to get Osto’s attention, it was now his only way.

The men began to escort him out into the cold night air. They approached a cart pulled by two horses stationed behind the tavern. They forced the rogue into the back, sliding the corpse of Sir Jackmere of Merrimont next to him. Two of the men sat in the cart with him, while the other two took the reins of the horses. The rogue didn’t say anything.

A banter of vulgarities among the four men commenced while the cart rolled along the main path towards Etka. Accompanying the views of starlit valleys filled with swaying wheat, vast columns of ancient dark oak, and heavenly vistas of distant mountain ranges, was a menagerie of conversation topics: the farmgirl Gelma’s breasts, the odorous sores on Edum’s back, how Osto’s ravenous dog copulated with a stray hen before eating it.

As the banter died, Edum, sitting across from the rogue in the cart, began sharpening his blade with a worn whetstone, eyeing the rogue as he did.

“If it wasn’t for your idiotic schpeel about how the mangey sores on your back smell like ‘dog shit, and look like it too,’ the rogue said expressionlessly, “then I might find that dramatic blade sharpening intimidating—then again I was never one for the theater, especially stage shows with shit actors.” The rogue looked off into the darkness of the nearby woods, avoiding eye contact with the men in the cart.

“Brooding, so damn brooding,” replied Edum. “You know you come off as a wee bit of a prick.”

“How?”

“I don’t know how, you just fuckin’ do,” Edum quickly answered. “I’ve known men like you. You think you’re fearless, cold, stoic warriors—wayfaring from town to town, thinkin’ they can—”

“You don’t know men like me,” interrupted the rogue. “Trust me, few do.”

“There he is again men!” shouted Edum, gesturing his arms wide as if presenting some strange creature. “Without fuckin’ fail! Brooding, serious, cold, stoic. I told you, stranger, I know men like you—I’ve killed a dozen myself, a couple with this ‘ere blade, a few with my hands, others I can’t much recall, being piss drunk and all.”

“A mange hound and a drunkard. Any other qualities you share with your beloved Lord Osto?”

“Lissen, stranger, none of us ‘ere give a shit about you—we could nail you to a tree, throw you to the bottom of Black Pond, hold your legs under a grindstone. But you’re ‘ere on this cart with us now. It’s almost a fuckin’ favor. Maybe Osto will be drunk enough to pardon your crime. Maybe our lord will only throw you in the dungeon for a decade instead of two. At least you have some moments to think to yourself, stranger, say some prayers, get right with the Gods, remember the tits of some whore back home. Just this cart ride alone—it’s more than most get.”

“I’m forever grateful for such charity,” replied the rogue with heavily inflected sarcasm.

Edum gave a terse laugh.

“Oh, stranger,” Edum said with a sigh, while giving the back of the rogue’s shoulder an aggressive pat. “You’re amusing, amusing than most men before they die—not sayin’ you will, but you probably will. It’s fuckin’ Osto after all. He hanged a tailor a few springs back for accidentally spilling wine on his lordship’s jacket while he worked to sew shut the rips in the fabric.”

“That man din’t hang!” interrupted the greasy, red-haired man. “He had his hands cut off.”

“Wait, Old Stumps, that sorry lookin’ thing pandering at the market is the tailor?” Edum asked.

“Yeah, the old fucker has a full beard now, no teeth, no home. Not even recognizable from his old self. He’s a poor bastard, a street dweller now,” replied the red-haired man.

The talking slowly fell back into silence, with the gentle whistling breeze and the distant howls in the woods filling the quietness. The red-haired man stared at the rogue.

“So, why you here?”

The rogue paused, considering whether or not it was worth reintroducing the ambiance of conversation to the cart. But remaining silent would only elicit the nagging and protests of the others.

“Because I heard rumors. I came to investigate.”

“Many rumors ‘round here. We got the vampire lady in the southern woods, the peasant who claims his hen shits gold marks, and the—

“No,” replied the rogue, cutting him off. “None of those. It’s something personal to Osto, something he might need help with.”

“You mean the one ‘bout his cock rotting away?”

“What? No—I wouldn’t travel forty miles deep into the Far Country to see whether or not your lord has cock rot.”

“Wait,” said Edum. “Are you talkin’ ‘bout the rumor?”

“That’s a terribly vague question,” answered the rogue.

“The one about,” Edum looked anxious, his eyes nervously jittering back-and-forth between the rogue and the red-haired man, “about, the, the...boy?”

“Yes,” answered the rogue, his eyebrows slightly raised in intrigue. “You’ve gone pale, something bothering you about this rumor?”

“Well, you see, I may be, well I’m—”

“The fuck you driveling ‘bout?” the red-haired man exclaimed.

“It’s not just a rumor is what I can say,” Edum looked out at the woods—it was still, silent. “I know of its truth, stranger. I’ve heard the boy, seen em too.”

“Really?” the rogue questioned.

“Yes, stranger, nothin' but truth to that rumor. Heard his wheezing throat by the river docks right b’fore dawn. Seen em staggerin’ through the old barley fields.”

“Sounds about right.”

“And you came ‘ere to see if it’s true.”

“No, I knew it was true when I first heard the descriptions of the boy, the killings, everything. It was too on-the-nose to be merely folk gossip or wives’ tales. This is something I’m familiar with. I’ve dealt with other little boys and girls—if that’s what we’re calling them—just like this one.”

“Who the fuck are you?”

“You have my blade,” said the rogue, gesturing with his head to Edum to pick it up. Edum unsheathed the bladed, a smooth mirror-like onyx reflected the moonlight. Its edges were sharp, its metal light, and its surface flawless, barely any scratches or nicks.

“Black iron? You one of em witch hunters?”

“No.”

“Edum!” exclaimed the red-haired man. “I know what he is, I do—He’s an exorcist, one of the bladed ones.”

Edum’s gaze became immediately fixated on the rogue. The men up front with the horses looked back into the cart. They all stared at the rogue anew, realizing that the man they hauled into their dingy and splintering cart next to a bleeding corpse was not some weary roadside wayfarer—he was something much more dangerous, much more exotic, a strange and almost sinister being.

“You’re a bladed one?!” asked Edum, his eyes wide.

“Yes.”

“I heard they can kill a dozen men without breakin' a sweat!” shouted the red-haired man with enthusiasm.

“Horse shit,” said one of the men at the reins. “We’d be dead by now if that were the truth.”

“Well we got em in fuckin’ shackles do we not?” retorted the red-haired man.

“Who said I couldn’t do it in shackles?” interrupted the rogue with a smirk on his face.

“Well, why, why ain’t you done it yet then?” the red-haired man nervously asked.

“Maybe I’m waiting for something—maybe you’re bringing me somewhere I need to go.”

The red-haired man stared at the rogue, this time not in any pathetic attempt to intimidate, but rather in an uneasy curiosity of the stranger.

“My pa used to tell stories of your kind—eerie wanderers, slayers of the darker shite in this world. Would pass through towns, breaking hexes, exorcising demons, slaughtering unholy things, evil, fiendish creatures.”

“Darker shite, a charming way of putting it,” replied the rogue.

“You come ‘ere to rid our town of its demons too, bladed one?” asked the red-haired man.

“Yes, but not out of charity—I expect a reward, an exchange with lord Osto for something I need.”

“You best be a lucky man then,” Edum’s tone had noticeably changed from flippant to serious. “The man is bloody mad, a glib idiot, and you killed his fuckin’ knight. That was his property you know. He don’t take lightly to those tamperin' with his property.”

“Osto is a lyin’ bastard and a fool!” exclaimed the red-haired man.

“Not the zealous loyalists to the tyrant Osto I thought you were,” said the rogue.

“We’re survivors, that’s why we’re still ‘ere,” said one of the men at the horses’ reins.

“His father Ramaul II was a good man,” said Edum. “The man was damned brilliant—we never starved, we never killed each other, no executions. Damn, don’t we miss those days, boys? The days when castellans loved our fuckin’ town, sendin' us fine goods, capable soldiers, gold for spices. Food tasted fuckin’ better. Now it’s just old wheat, rotting crops, depressed townsmen, starvin' peasants. It’s a mess, a bloody fuckin’ mess.”

“You’re not sinless, you know,” retorted the rogue. “You’re all his dogs, following his commands, hunting his prey. It takes a rather cold man to ridicule one bastard for his wrongdoings and then turn around and carry out his sins.”

“Not sinless?” Edum gave a small laugh. “We fuckin’ know that. We fuckin’ knew that the first time Osto had us flay a farmer, or string up a child. We know we’re not sinless—but we are surviving. The first time he strung two young boys for stealin’ a cart of apples, we knew Etka had changed. He was a vengeful, vile man—not the stupid, childish drunk most of us took em for. But we learned to live with it—to join in, so to speak, to make do with the conditions. So we do his shit and we clean his ass for his Lordship too. We get paid, we don’t die, we don’t get tortured. We’re a strange lot, a fuckin’ degenerate assortment of men, aren’t we lads? But this is how it is in Etka. We’re no longer farming hands, we’re brutes, we’re on Osto’s side. Though he is a violent piece of foul-smelling shit, we’ve learned to hold our breath. And if you hold your breath long ‘nuff, your coin purses get heavy, your families don’t get killed, and you can live another day.”

The rogue paused for a moment before speaking.

“Crucified peasants, hanged children, flayed farmers—that’s some price to pay for heavy coin purses,” said the rogue, with an expression of disgust. “You’re right, your town is a fuckin’ mess, but compromising with evil does nothing but infect the wounds. Like it or not, you are his dogs, and as long as your only semblance of revolt against his Lordship is blathering behind his back, you’ll have to keep holding your breath—keep holding your breath until more children are hanged, until more farmers are flayed. And then what? His heart stops one day, he’s buried with feigned rituals of honor and you all pray that his heir doesn’t repeat the same vicious pattern of rule? And what if it does? Will you continue to just blather behind his back while spreading his tyranny? And while you carry out your new lord’s malicious commands you’ll think back to your coin purses, or some other justifying factors, maybe a perverse moral axiom. Compromise with evil, pretend it’s somehow a lighter shade of gray than the void black it is, you’ll end up being swallowed whole by it. I’ve seen it dozens of times before.”

The cart fell silent again. No one spoke for almost a minute. Edum sighed, and the red-haired man looked off into the distance. It remained silent until something was heard in a nearby valley. A wheezing sound that hissed into a slow gurgle. It repeated several times. Edum looked outside the cart.

“The boy! The fuckin’ boy! I told you the rumor was true!”