An hour later I found myself reflecting that this, finally, must be what it truly meant to be the Dark Lord.

All this time I’d been mostly working with my own two hands, facing my enemies head-on, and when I had to involve others, leading from the front. Now that I thought of it, that was mostly Hero stuff, right? Boots on the ground, spilling my own blood and sweat to smite the wicked and defend the innocent—and I suspected my motivations weren’t any more selfish than a lot of past Heroes, if Sanora tended to choose shut-in otaku for the role. I knew what those people were like.

But now? I had finally started to lead from the back, filling the more organizational role which was how the Dark Lord had been described to me. Issuing commands from his dark throne and leaving his minions to do the actual dirty work. Now that I’d tried it, this was extremely stressful; I itched to burst out of here and deal with things myself again. Instead, I had to trust that events would unfold more or less as I had foreseen, and that if they didn’t, the people I was counting on would be able to adapt on the fly. Trusting other people to do anything right did not come easily to me. Even worse, I had at least one good friend out there facing that danger in my stead, and I couldn’t be there to Heal her if things went wrong.

This Dark Lord business was nerve-wracking.

It really didn’t help that I was having this epiphany while folded up in a box, being hauled through the streets on what must’ve been the bumpiest cart Auldmaer could find.

After playing through the entirety of Ravel’s Bolero in my head twice there was nothing to do but mull on how my evil plan was unfolding outside my reach. Well, okay, half of it was Auldmaer’s evil plan, but I’d helped. At least he got to fret from the comfort of his office, and he was used to this anyway. It must be something like this, to send out your caravans and wait weeks to learn whether you’d turned a profit or some disaster had befallen them. Though I imagined I had a bit more on the line than he did.

It was going so well so far, which just made the anticipation worse; between how my plans tended to go and the presence of Lady Gray in the background, disaster was like a spider in my bedroom which had vanished during the second I’d taken my eyes off it. Little bastard was lurking somewhere, I just knew it.

For once, I hadn’t even needed to bribe Captain Norovena. I’d just dropped off the goon who’d accosted me and dismissed the two guards who’d “arrested” me (because I was in too big a hurry to politely pretend I hadn’t usurped his control) and explained my plan. For that, I got the most sincere smile I’d ever seen out of the man. At least, I was pretty confident it was sincere, since it was also the most openly sinister expression he’d ever shown me.

Auldmaer’s initial plan was to send out every wagon he could simultaneously so as to smuggle out myself and Aster, plus Cwynnar and whoever else we could rescue from the list, on the theory that Lady Gray didn’t have the manpower to hit every single one, and even sending her forces to hit as many as she could simultaneously would make enough of a spectacle to draw ire she couldn’t afford from Clan Aelthwyn. That way, at least some of us could likely slip out.

A good plan, but I wasn’t going to settle for escaping when I saw an opportunity to really ruin Lady Gray’s evening. Now, Auldmaer’s wagons were all going out with a Kingsguard escort. Specifically, Norovena had assigned his most openly corrupt men to them, one to a wagon. Soon enough, probably before they were outside the city, each crooked guard would find himself alone with a cart full of cargo and no witnesses save an underpaid driver, all of whom had been loudly told in said guards’ hearing to prioritize their own safety and not resist any theft attempts.

What happened next would be pitifully inevitable.

And sure, in actuality it would be the result of Auldmaer, Norovena, and myself maneuvering these hapless goons into indulging their greed under circumstances wherein the boss lady couldn’t possibly reach even most of them in time to stop them. To an outside observer, though, it would sure look like Lady Gray had just launched a massive, coordinated attack on a middle ring trading company and the Kingsguard itself.

Add to that the man we’d already apprehended and the ones Aster would be rounding up right now—which would look like either a kidnapping or blackmail operation in the middle ring, depending on how Gray had decided to go about getting leverage on me—and by dawn Norovena would have a report to give Archlord Caludon of Clan Aelthwyn of an unprecedented provocation by Lady Gray. Come noon, she’d be the personal target of every Clan on Dount that could muster forces to Gwyllthean.

If, of course, everything went according to plan.

By this point I was taking it as given that Lady Gray would pull off one of those last-minute bullshit maneuvers she was so good at to at least mitigate the damage, but I was confident she wasn’t coming out of this unscathed. At the moment, I was more concerned about Aster. The last I’d seen her she’d just given me the signal that her own operation was go: with Biribo’s help, she’d identified the watcher keeping tabs on my own confrontation with Gray’s stooge, and would track him back to whatever field command he was set up in to take that down. Since Biribo hadn’t already come back, I had to assume it was an actual secondary unit and not overseen by Lady Gray herself; I’d given Aster strict instructions not to tackle Gray alone. But at best, she was still left to deal with a bunch of armed enemies.

That Impregnable Chainmail not only protected against almost any impact, it redirected incoming attacks to land on it rather than the wearer’s vulnerable head or limbs in a more powerful version of what my Amulet of Final Luck did. Between that and her Greatsword of Mastery, Aster was basically a human wrecking ball. In addition, she had the help of Biribo, which was most of the basic Blessing of Wisdom’s benefit, minus universal language comprehension and various unlockable perks. I had also given her a healing slime stuffed into a wineskin Auldmaer had donated in case of emergencies. All told, Aster was right now one of the deadliest people in this city. Probably only Rhydion, Lady Gray, and myself could even hope to take her on.

And yet, the last person to own those two artifacts had died with both equipped, falling into a pit trap dug by some shifty bandit.

I was worried.

It came as a great relief when I got the signal to move, especially since there’d been a real chance of no such signal occurring. My chosen cart had been assigned the single most disreputable guard available, handpicked by Captain Norovena for being corrupt, stupid, and mean even by the standards of the Gwyllthean Kingsguard, and routed through one of the most disreputable patches of the Gutters Auldmaer could nominate. We had wanted this cart to be hit, at the very least by its own guard, and hopefully by worse, and stacked the deck as best we could to make that happen. Still, the guard might have opted not to get sticky fingers for once—and even more likely, we might not have been intercepted.

But sometimes, things worked out.

“Stop the cart!”

I perked up as much as I could, having been stuffed in this box for most of the last hour. Showtime.

“Who the fuck are you?” demanded the driver. A thump followed; I didn’t think it sounded like a person being struck, but it definitely shut him up.

“Hey, the hell do you think you’re doing?” demanded our assigned guard. “You blind or just stupid?”

“Don’t start with me, Aefyrd,” snapped the first voice. “Your dumb ass is lucky I got to you before you decided to jack this load yourself. Get rid of this guy.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll deal with this,” said the guard. Aefyrd, apparently; it hadn’t occurred to me previously that his name was important. “You haul ass back to your boss, tell him to send more men to retrieve what’s left of this. I’ll get rid of this guy and stand watch till then.”

“What’s left of it, huh,” the driver drawled. “If you’re gonna stand watch, why’s any of it gonna go missing?”

There came a similar thump, and this time I noticed the tremor from underneath me. Ah, they were emphasizing their instructions by hitting the cart with weapons. Classy.

“You heard Master Aulder—”

“Auldmaer.”

“I don’t fucking care. Get outta here!”

Despite my muffling surroundings, I could hear the man’s exasperated sigh, followed by the shifting of the cart as he got down from the driver’s seat. “At least leave the dhawls alone, will ya?” he said as he stomped away back up the street.

Now, there was a fellow I could respect. No fear at all in the face of rampant thuggery. I guess hauling cargo in a place like Dount made you hard to ruffle.

“Real fuckin’ subtle, Aefyrd,” snorted the new arrival.

“Yeah, yeah, have your fun. It’s…Lamm, right? Well, you had to butt in and I don’t feel like tussling, so step on up. Let’s see what we got.”

“Keep your fucking hands off that cargo, dumbass. That’s what I’m here to tell you, and I don’t have time to play slapahand so you listen good. Orders from Lady Gray herself. All these Auldmaer Company wagons leaving the city right now are hands off.”

There was a momentary pause, and honestly, I could’ve made my move at that point, but I was almost compelled to wait for the right moment. Not tactically; as soon as the driver was gone everything was set up the way I needed it to be, but I craved a suitable verbal cue.

Presentation matters, damn it.

“Bullshit,” Aefyrd decided after thinking it over for a second, a process which I suspected took real effort. “You’re just lookin’ to shoo me off and get first pick. You think I was born yesterday?”

“Listen to me very carefully, you stupid sack of goosepellets. I am not going to have first pick or any pick of the cargo, and neither are you. I am just here to give the message, and now I gotta go stop as many of these fucking things as I can manage before the rest of your asshole shellcap friends crack theirs open. I’ve seen your face here, Aefyrd. I know it was you, and I know where this cart was stopped. If so much as a black disc is missing from it, I’m gonna make sure Lady Gray knows, too. Then you’ll only get to live long enough to see your family gutted and strung up in your own doorway. Understand?”

“That was the wrong fucking thing to say, corebait,” Aefyrd retorted, accompanied by the rough whisper of a sword leaving a scabbard. “I don’t take well to threats. Especially not from a graydisc alley pounder who just told me himself I’m only gonna have problems if he leaves here alive to squeal on me.”

“You’ve been wearing that shellcap too long, Aefyrd,” Lamm retorted. Unlike his excitable counterpart, he actually lowered his voice when promising violence. Personally, I found that more theatrically effective. “It’s cutting off bloodflow to your brain. There’s only one law in the Gutters, and you’re one more stupid move from pissing her off.”

That would do.

I couldn’t help being somewhat miffed at having to undercut my own dramatic reveal, but the fact was I was stiff as the planks around me from being folded up in this damn box for so long; any sudden movements were out of the question unless I applied a little magic first. Given that my box was far from airtight, the pink flash of Heal must have made quite a spectacle in the darkening street. I consoled myself that, if nothing else, it would make sure both members of my audience had turned to stare at it directly, just in time for me to fling the lid off and burst upright.

“KONO SEIJI DA!”

Windburst!

My first clear sight of my two new acquaintances thus involved them being blown over—Lamm against the front of a building, Aefyrd clattering boots over eyeballs up the street in his colorful armor. Akornin was lighter than steel; he tumbled a respectable distance.

“Oh shit,” Lamm wheezed, apparently not too winded by the impact. He’d dropped his sword, though, and now fell to hands and knees in the street, groping for it while gasping to himself. “Oh, fuck, not him…”

“And it is a pleasure to meet you, too,” I declaimed, sweeping an elegant bow from atop the cart. Behind me, one of the dhawls snorted and stomped a foot, but that was it. They were far more placid in temperament than most Earth creatures put to similar use, which was helpful in situations like this.

“Oh, you are fuckin’ dead, corebait!” Aefyrd snarled, getting to his feet and grabbing his own sword.

“Yeah, go for it, Aefyrd,” Lamm suggested, shooting me a sharp sidelong look. “I think you can take him.”

While I could see where the brains were distributed between this pair, suspicion of Lamm accomplished what basic common sense apparently could not, and at this advice Aefyrd paused, reconsidering.

“Boo, did you have to go and spoil my fun?” I pouted at the thug. He looked kind of…miscellaneous, among all the street toughs I’d seen, apart from the fact that he had a sense of style. His coat was of the cut that noblemen wore and seemed to have actual gold trim, though it was frayed, threadbare and patched in multiple places. Some highborn’s castoff, no doubt, but it made a serviceable affectation for a guy like this.

“Look,” he said, getting slowly to his feet with his sword held out to the side. “I don’t want any trouble with you, Lord Healer.”

“Yeah, I’ll just bet you don’t. Stand right there, I’ll deal with you in a moment.”

Slimeshot, Slimeshot.

Lamm twitched violently as the slimes whipped past his head to either side, splattering against the wall behind him. One left a visible dent. I winked at him.

“And I’ll deal with you much less gently if you do anything…unwise. Now, then!” Whipping out my rapier, I flourished it dramatically and pointed it at Aefyrd, who was standing in the street in a semi-crouched pose as if he couldn’t decide whether to attack or run. “You, sir, are a disgrace to your uniform! For shame. I hereby place you under citizen’s arrest for blatant corruption!”

“Citizen’s arrest?” Aefyrd repeated incredulously. “What the fuck are you on about? Have you been hitting the dust?”

“Oh, is that not a thing here? Figures. All right, let me rephrase that.” I stepped down off the stack of boxes to the rear lip of the cart and leaned forward to give him my best, coldest smile, holding out an open hand and conjuring a Firelight to make sure my face was properly illuminated for spooky effect. “I have paid your Captain more in the last week than he’s paid you in the last year, and I can kill you with my brain. So, Aefyrd, provided that you have the sense to stay out of my face and do as I say, you’ve got better than even odds of still being alive and not in prison by this time tomorrow. Should you decide to do otherwise, I can make no promises. Therefore…”

I flicked the tip of the rapier down at his boots.

“Sit, boy.”

He stared at me, glanced at Lamm, swallowed heavily, and then sat down in the street.

“Good boy. Now, Lamm, I know you’re not doing something so unwise as trying to sneak away,” I said, turning back around to find that he’d sidled almost a meter away down the street.

At finding himself once again the focus of my full attention, Lamm froze. He remained frozen while I hopped down from the cart and stepped within rapier range—which exceeded the reach of his scimitar. That was important in case he went and got twitchy on me.

His eyes tracked the tip of the sword as I raised it to point at his throat.

“Where. Is. She.”

Lamm’s response wasn’t what I expected. “That’s Tinod’s sword.”

“Correction: it’s my sword. I assure you he doesn’t need it anymore.”

“Yeah, no shit.” He actually barked a rough laugh. “Way I hear it, you blew his head clean off.”

“Off, yes. It wasn’t exactly clean, though.”

“Mm. You do know that’s an artifact, right? Complete waste, bein’ carried around by the wrong kinda Blessed.”

“Well I was gonna pawn it but I just fell in love with the swishy sound it makes.” I whipped the rapier’s tip back and forth in front of his eyes, making him twitch, and then eased forward, pressing it against his shoulder. “None of which is providing me an answer to the important question I just asked you. Do I seem like a patient person, Lamm?”

He drew in a deep breath, his shoulders shifting, and let it out slowly, then raised his chin and stared me in the eye, having clearly steeled himself for what he knew was next.

“Look, it’s not like I don’t know what you can do. The fact is, though, I’ve worked for Lady Gray since before my balls dropped. You’re all flash, Healer. It’s scary flash, yeah, but she gets shit done. I’m more scared of her than I’ll ever be of you.”

I met his stare evenly. The silence stretched out for a beat. Then two.

Then I lowered the sword.

“Thank you, Lamm. Sincerely, from the bottom of my heart, you have my gratitude. There are few things in life I appreciate more than people who feed me a perfect setup line.”

His eyes widened. “Wait—”

Immolate.

I look a judicious step back from the burning and screaming which ensued, finally letting the Firelight wink out. It was sort of superfluous anyway, now. Aside from the spectacle poor Lamm was making at the moment, all was quiet up and down the street—as still and silent as on my first visit to the Gutters, when I’d interrupted Lord Arider delivering a bunch of cash to Lady Gray. People around here had a very good sense of when it was important to draw the curtains and pretend they weren’t at home.

Turning my back on Lamm’s suffering, I faced Aefryd—perfectly framing myself to be backlit from his angle by the column of fire with the screaming man in it, because I’m just that good.

“All right, get up,” I ordered. “Honestly, man, have some dignity. Who sits in the middle of a street? Show respect for the uniform, for fuck’s sake. It’s Aefryd, right?”

“Y-yes, m-my…Lord?” he ventured as he straightened up, valiantly struggling to maintain eye contact but compulsively peeking behind me at the spectacle every other second.

“Tell me, Aefryd, you wouldn’t happen to be a week from retirement, would you?”

“I…what?” He blinked stupidly from behind his helmet. “Me? I’m… Uh, that is, even if I stick with the soldier thing and don’t get drummed out, I’m ten years from even qualifying for a pension.”

“I see, I see. And what about your love life? Any plans to propose to your sweetheart in the near future? Got a baby on the way, perhaps?”

“Uh… I’m…how to put this. Let’s just say I’m the kinda guy whose love life got put a stop to when all the whores ran off. Hang on.” He squinted at me. “He called you Healer. Was that you?”

I stepped forward, giving him my most ghoulish grin, half-lit by the fires of Lamm’s torture behind me. “Why? Got a complaint to register, Aefryd?”

The soldier swallowed so heavily I could hear it. “No, sir. My Lord. No complaints of any kind, sir.”

“Good man!” I reached out to clap him on the shoulder, pretending I didn’t see him flinch. Rather than removing my hand, I gave him a jovial, full-body shake. “And good news, Aefryd. Since you are free of obvious doom flags and, let’s face it, not doing anything worthwhile with your life, I have decided to deputize you. Stick with me and I’ll make sure you get what’s coming to you, have no fear of that. We’re gonna go on an adventure.”

Aefryd wasn’t stupid enough to miss the threat lurking unsubtly beneath the promise. He gulped again—hard enough that it looked painful—and tried to say something, managing to produce only a hoarse squeak. Having failed at that, he contented himself with a rapid, jerky nod.

Obviously, I saw no reason to explain that “deputize” was an overly charitable term. I wouldn’t have trusted this guy to accomplish anything useful even if I’d had the luxury of a week to train him first. Given the remainder of my plans for the evening, though, I could think of several potential uses for a disposable meat shield. If he lasted through the night, I promised myself I would bribe Captain Norovena to let him off the hook for his attempted shakedown.

The fires of Immolation were beginning to recede, finally. I gave Aefryd another pat on the shoulder before releasing him, then turned to watch Lamm gradually flickering out. By that point he was curled up into a sobbing ball.

They all curled up. What is it about pain that turns humans into pillbugs? It wasn’t like that ever helped. They burned just as merrily in any configuration of limbs.

I waited until the spell had fully subsided before igniting another Firelight over my palm, noting the way Lamm twitched at the burst of illumination. Then I waited three more seconds before walking back toward him.

Slowly. One deliberate step at a time, putting my feet down just hard enough to make my artifact boots clack ominously against the pavement. From Aefryd’s position behind the wagon, it was seven steps till I was standing over him.

There, I stopped and did nothing. It took him almost a full minute to gather enough courage to peek out from between his own arms, whereupon he beheld me looming over him, the orb of Firelight positioned just to cast my face in flickering orange semi-shadow, painfully reminiscent of what he had just gone through.

I met the thug’s wide gaze and held it in dispassionate silence for two more seconds, then smiled. A gentle, kind smile.

He flinched.

“So, Lamm,” I said in my most pleasant tone. “How scared of me are you now?”