Hans Draiger. 5 September 1582 AAA. Foothold.

“The Fair Folk are the most dangerous of the Demi-Humans. Every member of this cruel and loathsome race, said to have been created by the conjunction of humans and fallen angels, is a witch. It is not known when they conquered and subjugated the humans of the First Coming, but they come from far away and another world that is neither this world nor the Old. Today they have all left for their homeland, except for one city, the sunken city, that lies half buried and is a most dangerous place to assail, and is said to contain the fountain of youth.”

Ciornio of Atrartra, A Discourse on Humanity and the Divine.

“Long journey?” Eidre asked, standing in the open door of her manor house.

“Yeah” Hans said. Their clothes were thankfully not as sweatstained and dirty as they could have been, and they weren’t loaded down with supplies, tools and weapons, but Hans knew they still looked dirty and haggard.

Explaining the deal with Glaive is going to be interesting.

“Well, it’s certainly good to see you again” Eidre said. “And you, Uln” she continued.

“You too” Hans said. “Journey wasn’t as bad as we were expecting. There were kraken, hundreds of them, all washed up along the shoreline. Dragons too, bluebellies and harpies”

“One of these days, I’ll have to see the wilds for myself”

“If you people got any good at travelling out there, we’d be out of a job” Uln said.

Eidre smiled. “I suppose you would be”

She turned and walked into the house’s drawing room, pulling out a chair for herself. A servant offered a seat for them. Hans sat down, but Uln leaned against one of the walls.

Hans explained the presence of commonwealth troops at west point and Captain’s decision to not attack. He decided not to mention the deal with Glaive. Revealing that was something he’d only do if he had to.

“That’s not good at all. I don’t want there to be a war, but if there’s going to be one, I want Carfane to win. And the West Point clan supporting the Commonwealth is not good for that at all. Without any wyverns on our side, they’ll have complete air superiority. I’ve seen how much damage an air fleet can cause even without that.” Eidre explained.

Hans nodded. If it came to war, he didn’t know who he’d fight for. Probably the Republicans, if they went with that multi-species republic plan that was floating around, but otherwise….

Keep your head down and survive.

“In any case, what we found was that the killers were most likely Patriot’s Brigade led. A whole lot of horsemen from Trackford set up a little way south of here, the day before the attack. Apparently, a bunch of locals were absent too. Now, they were all present the afternoon you found the bodies, but they might very well have killed them in the morning.”

“The souls were pretty recent. Less than a day old.”

“You were lucky you didn’t run into them out there.” Eidre said.

Hans gulped.

Sheer dumb luck there weren’t six bodies out there.

We’d make it more than that.

“You have any names?” Hans asked.

“Connor Ferrene, for starters. A fair few other militia NCOs. The people who take militia duty seriously, basically.”

“Any of the patriot’s brigade people stand out?” Uln asked.

Lorne shrugged. “Most of them were just militia fighters. There were a few who, well, they weren’t from around here. Long moustaches, baggy trousers instead of breeches. Sabres and rifled carbines instead of straight swords and muskets. One of them had a hornbow and arrows, as well.”

“The killers.” Hans said. It was obvious enough.

“Yes. We think they might be Arluks. Traharn Hast brought a few of them with him when he returned from up north.”

We have a name.

“We should tell the Commonwealth army. Just do it quietly. They’ll deal with him.”

“Why not a local Carfani court? It would show the wyverns that at least some of us are on their side.”

“Black Creek.” Uln said.

He shuddered. They’d only narrowly escaped being killed in a similar massacre, at around the same time.

“What of it?” Eidre asked.

“You know the story, yeah? Twenty three Woose murdered by out of work miners, some of them after being raped or tortured?”

“Yes, I know what happened.” Eidre said.

The trial was all that anyone had talked about back then, and was universally agreed to be some variety or another of a miscarriage of justice.

“Well, imagine that happened again. The Commonwealth reads out the relevant laws, the ones saying I’ve got the same rights as you people as far as murder goes. Then the jury ignores it and fucking decides I can be killed just fine, no punishment. Then the Commonwealth demands a retrial for torture and rape, forces it to be in a Genian court. That gets them, and two thirds of the killers hang. That happens again, Carfane will explode like someone dropped a match in a barrel of powder. The Commonwealth, though, Trackford’s under martial law. They’ll deal with it quick and quiet.”(1)

After the first verdict had come in, Uln had been reduced to tears. They’d been on the road, taking odd jobs after escaping from that silver riot, and just how vulnerable they were to being murdered had become starkly apparent.

Things had calmed down since then, but it was still disquieting, and he could tell the way people sometimes looked at him and Uln.

Pervert. Monster.

“That would set off a war.”

Uln shrugged. “We’re already at war. Our people are bleeding each other dry out west. Trackford’s under army occupation.”

“You haven’t seen war.” Lorne said, simply. “I’ve seen it. I’ve seen bodies lying so thick they were like a carpet. I’ve seen people driven so mad by demons and mindbreakers they attacked their own side. I’ve seen my own brother die in front of me and there was nothing I could do.”

His voice was as flat as possible. Hans knew that as soon as he let any emotion out, the dam would break.

“There’s a third option” Eidre finally said.

“What is it?”

“Carfani Diet. I’m going to be going. We present a case for the “republic of three species” concept, use this as an example of where Carfane is going if we don’t put a stop to the violence. I’m a Halidon’s Hill veteran. The wyvern’s won that battle for us, and I’ll tell the Diet that we owe them for it. It’s better than setting off a war or getting nothing useful done, anyhow.”

Hans nodded, reluctantly. He’d rather be out trapping and trading than dealing with bloody politics, but if was what had to be done…

*

“I’ll have just the one loaf.” Hans said, trying to avoid eye contact with Bran. The baker turned back to yell into the kitchen. “One loaf for Draiger!”

He turned back, glaring at him. “Long time you’ve been gone. Heard you were out at West Point. Got bored of Woose and decided to go for wyverns instead?”

Hans resisted the urge to tell him that he was interested in one particular woose, not in woose in general, or simply to go fuck himself with a rusty foreign object.

“Diplomacy. Explained what happened.”

Hurry up and bring that bread so I can get out of here.

Bran snorted. “Give them an inch and they’ll demand the whole bloody peninsula. Don’t see the point.”

“My loaves?” Hans asked.

“Here.” Bran said. He passed them to Hans, and Hans tossed them into the basket and got out as quickly as possible.

He kept his head down as he walked through the market place. His mind tried to pick out a dozen or more conversations or more at once, and the hundreds of souls registered by his unconscious mind only made things worse.

“Hey, Hans?” a voice called out.

“Yes?” Hans answered. He turned to face Connor Ferrene. The red haired militia sergeant looked to be in a less than ideal mood.

“I need to talk to you, in private.”

“I’m just getting my bread. I can talk to you la-“

“Now.” Connor said. He patted the hilt of the Valadian longknife on his belt, in a way that made Hans think of Uln.

Hans saw his wife, Aldra, and a couple of other militia fighters were standing behind him. All of them were wearing swords, and one of them had a pair of pistols tucked through his belt.

He tensed.

“About what?”

“Wyverns. Follow me.”

Connor turned away and walked towards an alleyway, and from the way Aldra looked at him, he had no choice but to follow.

They ended up face to face in the alleyway, with Connor on one side and the others blocking the entrance. Trapping him in. His heartbeat increased, and he glanced behind himself. Aldra was watching him intently. She was a wiry, black haired woman, a Halidon’s Hill veteran like her husband. Eidre and Lorne weren’t the only couple made in the aftermath of that battle.

“Where were you for the last month?” Connor asked.

“Travelling out to West Point. Explaining to the wyverns what happened.”

“And what did you tell them?”

“That we don’t know who did it, so please don’t do anything rash.”

“That it? Seems like a long journey to just say that.”

“You fought at Halidon’s Hill. You know what wyverns with their blood up can do.”

“We won that battle, not the wyverns. Tell me the truth.”

“I’ll tell you the truth, if you tell me if you murdered those wyverns.”

That was the dumbest fucking thing I could have said.

Connor lunged forwards and grabbed him by the collar, shoving him up against the wall.

“What did you tell the wyverns? There war skeins coming for us? You tell the fucking Commonwealth?”

“That we don’t know who did it. Also, that I’d found an arrow at the massacre site…”

Connor threw him to the ground. He landed roughly, yelping in pain.

“I didn’t kill the scalies. Those nutters out of Trackford did. I wish I had.” Connor said, looming over him.

He saw that Connor was now between him and the other militiamen, with no one at the other end of the alleyway.

“Connor!” Aldra stepped forwards, drawing her falchion.

“Yeah?” Connor asked, turning towards her.

“You told him tha-“

Hans shut his eyes and slammed a tendril into Connor’s soul.

Connor jerked sideways, twitching and drooling, even as Hans scrambled to his feet and ran.

He didn’t look back, though he could hear screaming and swearing and someone yelling “Shoot the cunt!” over and over. A single gunshot rang out, the whistle of it flicking past his ear barely audible over the noise of the shot, and then he was around the corner, out onto another street and kept moving. People started yelling; “What the hell are the you going?” and “What was that? Are you alright?”

He needed to find Uln and get out before Connor could form a proper posse.

He ignored them, sprinting across the street diagonally till he reached a fence surrounding one of the farmyards on the outskirts of Foothold and vaulted over it. Pigs squealed in alarm. A second gunshot slammed into the fence, showering him with wooden splinters.

Hans glanced back and saw that the militiaman with the pistols was reloading, while Connor and Aldra were jogging forwards with their blades drawn, Aldra having to hike up her skirts with one hand.

He kept running, dodging past pigs, taking a hard left when he reached the other end of the pen, then running further up that street before crossing the street and leaving off the half-empty street. A few people looked at him with obvious concern, but there were no yells of “Stop! Thief!” or “Kill the witch!”.

Something stung his feet, and he realized that he’d lost one of his shoes in the mud. He kicked his other shoe away, and kept running. Better to get his foot cut up than risk tripping. A glance back over his shoulder showed that he’d lost them. That wouldn’t help. They knew where his house was.

He slowed down to a walk as he left Foothold proper. Their house was out on the borders of Eidre’s Manor holdings, about twenty minutes walk away.

His mind was racing and his heart pumping as he jogged out, as fast as possible. They couldn’t fight off the Foothold militia on their own. They’d need to either run, or go to Eidre for protection. Her tenants, or at least her household retainers, would have the numbers and authority to fight back against a mob. He glanced back over his shoulder, anxious to see if he was about to be chased down by rioters. He was in luck; the only things on the road were a couple of wagons.

He was even more in luck when he saw that his house was not currently surrounded by a mob, and that Uln was standing at the door, a bucket of water in her hand and obviously concerned.

“We need to get our guns loaded. Now.” Hans said.

1: This is based on the real Myall Creek massacre, which was actually even worse.