His hands shook and his head spun and his blood was cold in his veins. Something like a headache pounded nails into his skull, but anything like physical pain was absent from his body. He felt torn in two. The strain of holding everything back had almost broken him. It might have, at that. A finger twitched, its movement unwanted. It moved toward his belt. He clutched at the offending hand with his other, digging his nails into the skin of his wrist, seeing the blood well up in the raw grooves, feeling no pain.

The moment passed, as the others had. This sensation came upon Sarros about every fifteen minutes since the incident with Brinner. His body experienced an odd alternation: Numb defeat, and a dullness of the soul that nonetheless coursed psychological agony through his being. In the former moments, Sarros did not trust himself. He could not give in when the muscles and tendons of the flesh he wore like a cloak moved of their own volition. In the latter moments… Well.

Sarros unbuckled the blade at his side and tried to tug it free. The sun had cemented steel to blood to leather, and it would not come undone. He took the knife from his boot and simply cut away the sheath, revealing the black-crusted metal beneath. No one interfered as Sarros almost limped his way to the stream a half mile away, knelt, and slowly washed the demon blade clean. When he had finished, Sarros could see his own face in the metal, distorted by the droplets of water which still remained on the steel. His was a harrowed visage. “This should be a victory,” he whispered to his twin. “Why does it hurt so much? Do I take on all the pain I would have prevented when I do this thing?” If that were the case, would it not be worth it? Could he allow some affected martyrdom to drive him forward? Could he think of himself as a kind of hero, simply because he hadn’t slaughtered the innocent as he had been ordered?

The reflection began to waver, and Sarros forced his hand open as the shaking overtook him again, his sword splashing into the stream and lying there like a sleeping carp. Sarros fell back, clutching his hand to his chest, looking up at the sky through the tree branches, grinding his teeth and resisting the urge to scream.

When it was over, Sarros spat blood onto the grass beside the stream. He had bitten his tongue. It hadn’t hurt. He reached carefully into the stream and retrieved his weapon, swinging it to shake free the water which still clung to it. “You’re still more broken than me,” Sarros said to the blade. “I am still who I am.” For the moment. Sarros wondered if it would be worth it to simply leave behind the Mask Mochon had stolen from him. Let the past catch up to the bandit who would be king. Allow Sarros to be done with it, allow him to live in the blue temple as a terrible but content monk.

That could never happen. Sarros clenched his fist again, this time welcoming the pain of his own inflicted wounds. “Fucking Masks. Fucking demons.” He began the slow walk back to camp. “And fuck me, while I’m at it.”

***

Everyone was packing up when Sarros returned to camp. Tents were being taken down, fires being stomped out, people running this way and that. The wagons with their supplies had been appropriated, and the still-shocked passengers stood in the middle of the camp, huddled together and looking about themselves in fear.

“What is going on?” Sarros asked one of the bandits closest to him.

“Captain’s havin’ us move out!” he said. “Imperials’ll be back soon, he said, and we need to be long gone.”

“I see.” Mochon had to have known what would happen when he took the caravan under Imperial protection. Why hadn’t he ordered the camp to begin packing up even as he took Sarros and the others on the raid? He thought he could make me slaughter them all. That was the answer, of course. Had Sarros taken the Mask back and murdered the Imperials where they stood, the encampment would be in no immediate danger. Now, however, the whole of Mochon’s Crew stood to be roughly executed for the crimes of banditry and murder. Mochon had wagered the lives of all his men against the possibility of gaining Sarros as a human weapon. Ruthless, yes, and it might have worked under different circumstances. Sarros wondered how effective of a captain Mochon had been in the Army.

The trembling numbness came again, and Sarros gasped as the demon blade fell from his hands. Nearby bandits gave the Actor odd looks, but no one stopped to help him. Eventually it passed, and Sarros reclaimed his blade, breathing heavily and sweating. The fits were getting worse. Might they eventually overcome him? How long would it take? Was this whole mission all for naught, in the end?

Well, he thought, no sense dwelling on what I cannot change. Sarros had fallen to his knees, but he picked himself back up and wiped a grass-stain off his blade. He began a painful walk to the weapons overseer’s roundhouse, needing a new sheath to replace the one mangled by blood and knife.

***

Tommo looked up in surprise to see the Actor approaching again. Sarros seemed far older than he had just the previous day. His face was gouged with lines and rough with stubble, his hair hung in thin, greasy strands about his face, and his back seemed hunched to accompany the half limp he had developed. “Two and twenty,” Tommo said. “Sir, what happened?”

“I need a new sheath,” Sarros said in a voice like gravel. “Was a bastard and sheathed my blade without cleaning it.”

“Yessir. Where’s your man? Did he fare well in his first mission? He didn’t seem like much of a fighter, I’ll be honest.”

“Gone.”

“Oh.” Tommo paused. “Let me fetch you a new sheath. Dad still has the leather patterns. I can’t rivet them quickly, but—”

“Gut-thread’s good enough, just do it quickly.”

“Yessir.” Tommo rose and entered the roundhouse. There was murmuring inside, and the old man who was Tommo’s adopted father took the boy’s place outside.

“Actor, what is wrong? What did Captain do?”

Sarros leaned against the roundhouse, watching men scurry in the distance. “He laid a twofold trap for me. Offered the Mask he stole in exchange for being his bloodhound. Wanted me to kill an entire Imperial troop to prove my loyalty.”

“And you wouldn’t.”

“No. I know not why Mochon deserted the Army, but I had no ill-will when I did so. I am proud of the Empire, and were it possible I would return even as a lowly recruit after all this is over.” He looked away. “Though I deserve the death that awaits deserters, in the end. I would not sully my spirit further by slaughtering men who serve in the same way my heart longs to.”

“I see,” said the old man. “Yes, Captain must hate you thoroughly. I do not know either his reasons for desertion, but that oily Turis who sneaks in the shadows served under him, and talks occasionally of a great injustice done to his Captain while in the army.” He turned as Tommo walked out of the roundhouse with a new leather sheath in his hands. “Feh, not your best work, boy. These stitches are uneven, and cast me Tower and Page if there’s more than a gram of wax on here.”

“Sorry, Father, but he wanted it as quick as he could.”

The weapons overseer turned sharply. “Yes. I assume this plays into the second fold of the trap, Actor? One doesn’t ruin a good sheath by not killing.”

Sarros took the sheath gratefully and buried his blade in the safety of the dull leather. “Thank you, Tommo. It will suffice.” He turned back to the weapons overseer. “That… thing I brought earlier was a werwulf.”

The old man paled, carving knife almost slipping from his fingers. “Fuck,” he whispered. “I won’t insult Captain’s intelligence by wondering if he knew. He’s mad.”

“A desperate gambit,” said Sarros. “Had it… paid off it might even have been worth the cost.” He fingered the Devil effigy hanging around his neck. It had been splattered with the werwulf’s blood, but Sarros hadn’t thought to clean it off. “The things I might have done in his name… No matter, it will never happen now. Innocent lives were sacrificed to the altar of my potential.”

“You fault a murderous brigand for his ways, having joined him?”

“Ah, but we both know better than that,” said Sarros. “Even I could see in our first conversation he was a ruthless man, but not one who loved violence for its sake. You know this. The men know it. They call Mochon soft, but I might have served him for it. I knew not what he treasured above all else, though.” Sarros gritted his teeth. “He sought to drive me to desperation, to throw myself upon him and accept his offer if it would end the killing. He still claims Brinner’s status was unknown to him, that only a fool would stoop to such desperation.”

The trembles came, and he dropped the sheathed blade, and for a few moments the old man and his son watched uncomfortably as Sarros spasmed against the impulses of his own body. It passed. Sarros looked up again, still clutching a bloodied wrist in the other hand. “Aye, a fool,” he growled. “A desperate fool. You should go now, both of you. Whatever lives you have led under this man, break away while you can.”

“Perhaps we will,” the old man said wearily. “Here, now, with the settlements so close. Perhaps it was god-sent.”

“A god,” Sarros said, “or something else, perhaps. Goodbye, grandfather. Goodbye, Tommo. May you both find peace, and never meet a damned Actor so long as you both shall live.” He turned and stalked away.

***

“Mochon!” Sarros roared, sheathed blade in hand. Men milled in a loose knot around the nerve center of the camp that was Mochon’s table. He commanded men this way and that, and Turis stood beside him.

“Captain!” Mochon spat. “You call me Captain, boy.” He glared at the Actor, and stood to his feet. “You will respect your place. I am not yet cooled against your earlier insolence. I would advise you to busy yourself assisting in the move, seeing as how you are the one who got us into this predicament.”

Sarros glanced around the clearing. About forty men moved crates and loaded pack animals, but were now watching the confrontation unfold. Mochon stood at a table of oak erected in the clearing, sheafs of parchment held down by stones on its surface. Turis stood close beside his Captain. Mochon was about fifty feet away, and the closest knot of bandits about forty to the right. Sarros edged closer to this group, and specifically the youngest and lankiest bandit of the bunch. “You call upon me to slaughter good, fighting men for your amusement, and when I refuse to dishonor them with a sorcerous death you blame me?”

A dozen or so of the men in the clearing began to mutter. Good. Sarros’ twisting of the even was sure to appeal to the warrior spirit of anyone with ties to the far South, and there seemed to be more of these in the crowd than Sarros had hoped for.

Mochon seemed to recognize what was happening. “I asked no such thing!” He shouted, silencing the murmurs. “I called for him to attack the Imperial scum, the same as I’d command any of you! The coward refused to turn on his brothers and we had no choice but to hang back.” His eyes narrowed. “Mayhap we could have taken them, were I not afraid of the prospect of a dagger in the side.”

“Horseshit,” said Sarros, and edged even closer to the young bandit who didn’t seem sure if he should be holding his blade with one hand or two. “If there were truly so few, we wouldn’t be running like dogs. You wanted me to take the Mask and slaughter them like lambs before a wolf.” Sarros smiled. “You did tell them about the werfwulf, did you not?”

“How was I supposed to know—”

“Your Captain turned a werwulf upon honest men! He knew what he did! He would use such tools as demons and werwulfs if he thinks it will serve him! When he has enough, will he not use you all as food rather than soldiers? When he commands an army that is paid in blood rather than gold, why would he keep you all around?”

Shouting and curses rang out in the crowd. Not at Mochon, of course. No one would believe a stranger’s wild accusations over the reputation of their leader. They wouldn’t necessarily disbelieve him, but the important thing was that tempers were stirred, and that Mochon’s reputation was called into question.

The bandit leader clenched his fist and slammed on the table before him. “Silence! I will have silence.” The majority of the commotion died down, but the spark was still there. It would remain for a good while. “Sarros, what is the meaning of all this? Help your fellows to pack, and we will forget all this happened. Later, you and I can discuss this like civilized—”

“Imperials?” Sarros interjected, finishing his path of movement. He was very close to the young bandit now. “Like we both were? Do your men know it? Do they question your hatred for them? A hatred I do not share, as it happens. I left the Army to hunt the demon who killed my sister.” His voice was cold now, and more quiet. The murmurs had died down, and his voice carried well across the clearing. “Imperials are good men, most of them. I’d fight alongside my brothers any day than deserting scum like you.”

A shout of righteous anger from the young bandit. He swung his naked, half-rusted blade, but Sarros was ready. His still-sheathed demon blade moved to block, and then Sarros smashed the boy’s jaw with the heavy pommel of his sword. The bandit fell to the ground as Sarros screamed a war-shout, swinging wide at the alarmed bandits, most of whom were carrying supplies rather than weapons, clearing around himself an area as large as the one around Mochon. Now they stood almost mirrored, almost equals in the eyes of a crowd. “My Captain,” said Sarros, slowly drawing his demon blade, allowing the unnaturally glossy metal to gleam in the midday light. “You are unfit to command these good men. I will throw you down here, and take your place, and lead them as they deserve.” He would have continued in this manner, but Mochon kicked over the table and rushed at Sarros with long axe in hand.

***

Mochon’s heart pounded as Sarros manipulated the crowd, drawing just enough doubt into their minds that most of the bandits didn’t immediately jump the Actor as soon as he insulted their Captain, and then clearing space for the newcomer to dodge and block as needed. He could see the inevitably-approaching carnage, and felt powerless to stop it. He should get up, should kill that brat before he could do any more damage—

“You are unfit to command these good men. I will throw you down here, and take your place, and lead them as they deserve.”

When Turis gasped quietly at his side, Mochon knew he needed to act. He reached to grip the lip of the heavy table with both hands, straining against it and flipping it, sending adrenaline surging through his body at the effort and forcing a break in Sarros’ pathetic speech. Mochon grabbed the long axe at his side and charged, not shouting, not screaming, not waving madly about with his weapon. He needed to end the fight quickly. He had seen Sarros execute the werwulf. He had seen Sarros beat down Yurhi. He had seen Sarros nearly escape that day on the road.

This time, the Actor fought Mochon, and Mochon was stronger and more cunning yet than the other three combined. The bandit leader shifted his grip on the long axe, allowing momentum to carry the axe head further, letting the haft slip through his fingers, increasing his reach by entire feet in a moment. It closed the gap between Sarros and himself as he passed close, but Mochon’s singular, brutal swing was met with a sword blade digging into the oak just below the iron head.

“Fool!” Mochon laughed, more for the benefit of the men watching than anything. “Your blade won’t cut this wood.” He sidestepped in the opposite direction of Sarros, and their weapons tugged free. Mochon had hoped the intense vibration caused by the impact would have loosened Sarros’ grip—it would have disarmed a lesser man—but the notch in his axe haft seemed the majority of the damage from the exchange.

“It doesn’t need to,” said Sarros. “I am a warrior, not a coward like you.” He darted in, jagged blade-tip pointed at Mochon’s heart. It was an obvious feint—Imperial sword techniques rarely employed thrusts from such a distance—and Mochon stepped away and countered with a short underhanded swing. They disengaged.

“Yet you ran when we first met.” He swung at hip-height but adjusted to a neck-level stroke at almost the last moment. The momentum would have carried Sarros’ block into his own flesh, so the Actor leaped away, and then stepped close for an overhand strike that Mochon blocked by holding his axe like a quarterstaff. It was a risky maneuver, but the haft held and Mochon kicked the wide-open Sarros savagely in the diaphragm.

***

Sarros fell to the ground, cursing himself. To maintain the overhead strike when it had become clear Mochon would block it was risky. He had trusted in the uncanny edge of the demon steel that was rumored to even cut through stone at opportune moments, but it had backfired, and now the Actor was completely at Mochon’s mercy. He tried to struggle to his feet and regulate his breathing, but wind hadn’t even begun to return to his body when Mochon stalked up and kicked the demon blade out of Sarros’ limp hand.

“Feel familiar?” Mochon growled, and stomped on Sarros’ sword wrist.

The Actor dry heaved from the combined pain, his vision blurring for a moment.

“Our first encounter ended with you lying on the ground, in my power, and so will this, our last.” Mochon raised a massive boot to stave in Sarros’ ribcage, but the Actor managed to roll out of the way with what felt like the last of his strength, and the bandit leader laughed bitterly. “Stop. This is pathetic. You were a wondrous swordsman, Sarros. You gave me a better fight than I have had in years. I only wish we could have remained allies.”

Sarros drew himself up with his one good arm, feeling sick in his stomach and head. He reached out instinctively to steady himself on the nearest bandit but the man drew back, almost making Sarros fall again. No, he could stand… He could breathe…

The pain began to fade, and Sarros’ blood ran cold. No. Not now. His fingers began to twitch. “We could never have been allies,” he said with a voice as shaken as that of a boy forced to give his dog a mercy killing. “You… committed… the unforgivable sin.” Each heartbeat should have been agony, but numbness overcame him like the sweetest drug mankind could distill. You brought this upon yourself, he thought, and did not stay his twitching hand.

“What?” laughed Mochon. “Stealing your Mask? I overestimated you, in the end. Fairy stories be damned. Without that toy you are nothing.”

The fallen figure drew himself up crookedly, hand passing gently before his face, caressing the skin like a mother lifting the caul from her newborn’s eyes. “You misunderstand me,” hissed the Leper King. “Your sin was stealing my sister’s Mask.”