“Captain’s out,” said Cook. He looked at the newcomer warily, wishing Captain had just killed the monster and been done with it. Honest men like Mochon’s crew didn’t need to treat with any Actors. Next they’d be recruiting demons! Maybe the talk around the fires was true. Despite Captain himself killing the merchant’s boy three weeks back, the men whispered that Captain was getting soft. He hadn’t let them attack any of the platoons which had passed recently, despite Mochon’s crew outnumbering them all at least two to one.

Cook knew more than the average man about the prowess of even a low-ranking Imperial soldier, let alone a band of fifty or more seasoned campaigners, but that Captain hadn’t so much as considered an assault worried Cook. If nothing was raided, no one got paid. When no one got paid, no food was bought from the frontier settlements a few days’ travel away. When no food was brought in, Cook had to rely on his stock of oats and beans for every meal, and the men got to sulking.

When the men got to sulking, upstarts began to mutter that maybe they’d be better off as captain. That never ended well.

In short, the Ulritten-looking newcomer being still alive meant some drunken, hungry, penniless bandit might tonight lose his head in a poorly-conceived attempt at a coup. It might even be one of the few of Mochon’s crew that Cook didn’t actively despise, and that was a fast-dwindling group as it was.

“When will he return?” asked the newcomer.

Cook grunted as he dissected a handful of dandelions for their blossoms and roots. They had sprung from his carefully-cultivated collection of seeds, a secret which allowed him to grow the flowers for as long as snow stayed off the ground. “Don’t know. Before dark, unless they catch someone else.” Cook turned pointedly away, signaling an end to their conversation.

The young man sighed and wandered away, that ridiculous sword resting on his shoulder. Nothing good could come of all this treatment with Actors and demons, Cook decided. Nothing good at all.

***

Night fell, and Sarros couldn’t avoid interacting with the bandits any longer. He had wandered near the outskirts of the encampment for the few hours between his release and sunset, observing the general state of the crew. He didn’t miss the hunched soldier with the wart on his nose who followed him at a distance, doing his best to look casual as he kept an eye on the Actor. Sarros made no effort to lose his tail, but stayed close to the encampment so as not to raise alarm.

It seemed Mochon’s crew had occupied the valley for almost three months. Sarros was surprised the Empire hadn’t yet eradicated the band. To his knowledge, bandits and the darker sort of mercenary bands tended to find themselves swiftly crushed under the heel of the Empire’s peacekeeper forces if they stayed in one place too long. Perhaps the band was just particularly lucky, or maybe Mochon was as cunning a tactician as he seemed to believe himself.

Either way, Sarros hoped to be free of the band as soon as he could. He suspected the Mask stolen from him wasn’t kept in something as obvious as one of the log houses. Mochon seemed too clever for that. Until Sarros knew where his stolen property lay, he would suffer the presence of the bandits.

Sarros approached one of the campfires which had been started at sunset. Men seemed to be carrying bowls of a thick paste which they dumped into pots of water above the fire. Sarros knew this was a barbarian practice in war camps, where the cook would slow-cook a vat of protein and aromatics to be used as a starter for a thin soup. The barbarians would add their grain to the pot as well, but most of Mochon’s crew looked to be roasting their grain like proper denizens of Imperial lands.

A half-dozen glares greeted Sarros as he approached. It amazed the Actor that at least two hundred men all seemed to know who he was after less than a day. Of course, there weren’t likely many men with Ulritten blood in the crew. Ulritte was almost on the other side of the Empire, after all. In addition, if the old man’s story about the demon blade had been true, angry gossip had likely spread that the ex-prisoner had insulted all of their courage by taking up the blade they were too frightened to wield. Not, they would say hurriedly, that it was a matter of courage. No, they were simply too wise to deal with the property of demons.

Well, all the better for Sarros, then. He walked past the fires and deeper into the encampment. Thin torches bound to poles illuminated the main path, and Sarros followed their light back to the weapons roundhouse. The old man wasn’t there, but a boy perhaps sixteen years old sat in his chair, smoking a reed pipe. Its bowl glowed cherry red when he inhaled, illuminating a face covered in a patchy precursor to a man’s beard.

The boy scrambled to his feet as Sarros approached. “Oh, it’s you.” He seemed surprised. “Dad said you’d come back, but I thought you’d run away.” The sullen look of someone who’s lost a bet crossed the boy’s face. “Dad’s getting our dinner. He said to give these to you if you came back.”

Sarros waited while the boy entered the weapons roundhouse and returned with a sword belt, leather sheath, and an oilskin bundle about the size of two fists. “Thank you,” he said. “Your father, you said?”

“He took me in,” said the boy. “I was left behind in my village when everyone ran away, when I was little.”

“I see.”

The boy looked away. “Dad’s a good man,” he said quietly. “He was the older brother of the captain we had two… Uh, captains ago. He stays because this is how he’s lived for most of his life. I stay because of him.”

Sarros opened the bundle. The Devil effigy sat on top of a standard array of sword care supplies. Its surface had been smoothed and waxed, and a thin leather cord looped through a notch cut into the effigy’s back. Sarros sighed and tucked the bundle underneath his arm, freeing his hands to knot the talisman around his neck. “So when he dies, will you leave?”

A sharp breath accompanied the boy’s flinch. “I don’t like to think about it, but yeah. He’s all I’ve got here.”

“Happens to everyone, sooner or later.”

“Yeah.” The boy kicked at one of the logs half-buried in the ground. “Look, he’s real sick. Probably going to die in the next month.”

“Oh?” Sarros raised an eyebrow. “He looked pretty healthy earlier. Seemed energetic enough.”

“There’s… Blood in his piss, and his teeth have been falling out.”

Sarros winced. That gap-toothed smile hadn’t just been the fruits of a long life gnawing on tough bones and gritty bread after all. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“No one does.” The boy shrugged. “Like you say, though, happens to everyone.”

“Yup.” Sarros looked down at the Devil effigy. “He wants me to take you when I go. That’s why he did all this for me.”

“Was it that obvious?” The boy laughed nervously, breaking away from Sarros’ gaze again. He seemed to have a hard time maintaining eye contact. “He thought… With you being an Actor and all—”

Sarros’ temper flared. He wanted to yell that the old man was an idiot if he believed the stories about Actors being the harbingers of the old ways returning, that those beliefs were just as ignorant as the superstitious beliefs that Actors sell their souls to demons. Sarros wanted to say these things, but he bit his tongue. This wasn’t about him. “I don’t know when I’ll be leaving,” he said instead. “Your Captain took my mask. I’m not leaving without it. Do you have any idea where it might be?”

The boy shook his head. “The Turis might know, but I don’t.” He pointed past Sarros to the edge of the firelight, where the wart-nosed bandit who had stalked Sarros all day squawked and scampered into the dark.

“Ha,” said Sarros. “I doubt that sniveling weasel will let me close enough to ask. He’s Mochon’s spy?”

“Yeah. Dad says Captain came from the army, and Turis was one of his men.”

“So he’ll go back to Mochon and tell him about our conversation.”

“I guess. I don’t think Captain cares, though. Anyone can guard the weapons. Dad just does it because his knees are too bad for anything else.”

“Hmm.” Sarros sighed and fastened his new belt and sheath onto his waist. The demon blade slid into its sheath smoothly, and the familiar weight of steel on his hip brought back memories to Sarros’ mind he wished he could forget. Still, it was good to be armed again. “Thank you again,” said the Actor. “And tell your father I thank him, as well.” He touched the horned effigy hung around his neck. “What’s your name, by the by?”

“Tommo.”

“And I’m Sarros. Tell your father I’ll visit again, Tommo.” Sarros turned and set off for the cook fires. Every man around them might hate him, but he needed to get some food in his stomach before he died of starvation.