“Hate takes on all forms, and out of these, I find the hatred between family members the saddest to see, where people who should have loved and cared for one another instead turn on each other, often with blades bared.

Then again, there are just far too many instances of parents who should have never been allowed to have children, or ungrateful children who allowed their ambitions or greed to cloud their reasoning in this world, that it was not strange to see such familial hatred play out from time to time.” - Aideen deVreys, the Silver Maiden, Circa 482 VA.

“There’s just two of them left,” said Elfriede as she wiped the blood off her blades on a dead knight’s coat of arms. “They’ve noticed the fighting long ago, too craven to come out and help out their own loyal knights, though.”

“Want to do it yourself?” Reinhardt asked, well aware by now of the connection between his wife and the two nobles trapped inside the room. Even if there were two of them, he’d place his bet on his wife taking them on with ease any day. “Do keep in mind that the Prince wants them breathing if possible, though.”

“I know,” said Elfriede with a nod of her head. The bounty they were given had not called for a live capture, but the Crown Prince did mention to get the nobles alive if it was possible to do. He also quietly mentioned to the mercenaries that he wouldn’t be averse to paying a little extra from his own pockets for them. “He didn’t say they have to be in one piece, though. Just living.”

“Just don’t overdo it since I think he’ll want to parade them in the city or something, so they should probably be able to stay alive that long,” he said in turn with a nod of his own. “All yours, then. Want me to break the door? It’s a pretty hefty one.”

“Sure thing… dear,” she replied with a - for once - gentle smile on her face. Reinhardt returned her smile with a fang-baring one of his own, which he knew she would sense through the wind even though he was facing away from her.

He picked up his polemace with both of his large, paw-like hands, and gripped the long handle tightly. The door towards the room where the nobles were cooped up was locked, and the door itself a sturdy one, one too tough to simply shoulder aside even for some of their larger members.

So instead, he stood to the side of the door, as the other mercenaries gave him some room, and readied his mace, his arms stretched well behind him. He nodded and gave Grünhildr the signal, at which point the burly woman swung her axes at both sides of the door, as they sliced through the hinges and the lock that held it closed.

Then she stepped aside and Reinhardt swung his polemace with all his prodigious strength. The blow landed right on the center of the door and sent the whole thing flying off its frame despite its considerable weight, as there was nothing that held in its place anymore.

He heard a panicked shout from inside, a sound like one made when ice shattered against wood, then male voice that grunted with surprise and some pain as the door fell directly on him with a loud crash.

Elfriede calmly stepped into the doorway, one of her blades moving to swat aside a lance of ice that flew her way with contemptuous ease as she did so. Apparently the count’s eldest son was a mage of the ice affinity, though not a strong one judging from the size of his projectiles.

Reinhardt peeked in from the doorway and noticed the young man immediately, who drew out his longsword - a slim example meant more for finesse and duels than for the battlefield - and a dagger from the opposite side after his attempts at magic failed him, as Elfriede drew closer, her face set as an emotionless mask.

The young noble looked nervous, and glanced from time to time as his father, who still struggled under the heavy door that kept him pinned underneath its weight. His looks bore some unvoiced questions in them, as the similarity between Elfriede’s looks and his own - or his brothers - was all too obvious to ignore.

He didn’t get to voice his questions however, as the next moment Elfriede’s twin blades came for him. They were aimed at less lethal spots like the shoulder because she wanted to catch him alive, sure, but it was still a threat he could not ignore.

His blades clashed with hers, the office they had hid in was more than spacious enough for the two to fight freely, yet he fell to the backfoot almost immediately. His training under various tutors, the few duels and spars he had with other nobles, none of those proved a match for her blades, ones honed by the blood and souls of the hundred of lives she had reaped in her life, both on and off the battlefields.

Before too long, he made a mistake she exploited, as she struck his sword aside, then jammed the blade on her weapon’s pommel into the back of his palm, the pain and injury enough to make him lose his grip on his sword, which clattered to the floor noisily.

Reinhardt winced as he saw how the poor man failed to react at all before Elfriede severed the tendons of his other arm at the elbow, and kicked in one of his knees in the same move, sending the young noble to the ground in a screaming heap.

Elfriede then asked for Gudrun and Atman to help her out. The door that kept the Count pinned turned out to be too heavy for her to move herself. The couple walked in without preamble, while a couple other mercenaries kept the young, now crippled noble, tied up and gagged as their prisoner.

The first thing Count Jan Brequod of Norouz saw after the heavy door was lifted off him was not a sight that brought him relief, as it was the stout, bearded visage of a dwarf and an ape-like demi-human that loomed over him threateningly.

What he saw next made him almost cry out in despair though, as a young human woman stepped over, with a blade pointed at his throat. The woman had the all-too-familiar flaxen shade of hair all his children had, even mostly the same general facial features, if she was a good bit more tanned than they were. Moreover, her face reminded him a lot of a certain maid he dallied with in his youth, prior to his marriage, a woman he had taken care of so as not to leave any loose ends.

He had heard that the woman had a child, but dismissed the chance of a four or five year old blind orphan surviving on their own in the slums of the city as nonexistent back then. Only then, when the woman opened her mouth and spoke the words he dreaded, did he realize the mistake he had made.

“Long time no see, father.” said the woman with obvious venom in her voice.