“How? How is this even possible?” I muttered to myself, pacing up and down the length of the meeting room aboard the Ashen Bride. With me were the rest of the Captain's crew of the expedition, and all the relevant officers. The mood around the map table was still especially grim, even hours after we had successfully repelled the sudden ambush from the masked Dwarves. “Olgar, of all people…?”

  Despite how bloodthirsty our counterattack against the attacking force had been, discipline had managed to win out. As a result, we hadn’t actually slaughtered them to the last standing man.

  Instead, only about two-thirds of them had died at our blades. In comparison, we had only lost a single digit number of people to the surprise attack, and that had mostly been in the initial barrage.

  I was still furious about that, of course, but things could have been far worse.

  In the aftermath, command had decided to keep the caravan halted while we deliberated on our next move and tallied the dead. Despite what I had thought, there hadn’t actually been hundreds of them surrounding us on all sides. The murk of battle had inflated their numbers, and in actuality, it had been over sixty skirmishers who had assaulted us. We had killed around forty of them in total, my own kills included.

  All of this made…little sense, when you thought about it. What had they been thinking was going to happen when they assaulted a force so superior to their own? There were well over a thousand Classers and Soldiers in the expedition, a force of a size that was meant to participate in sieges. The only possible way they would have been able to take us is if every single one of them had been more than double our level, and they really hadn’t been. Strong, yes.

  But not overwhelmingly so.

  Something fishy was going on. Nobody was stupid enough to outright assault such a well-protected procession like ours and expect total victory.

  Unfortunately, I had a small inkling of what might have driven the attack.

  I let out a heavy breath and turned to face a scowling Bleddyn across the table. “You weren’t able to stop him?”

  The leader of the Velancian slave revolt shook his head with a frustrated air. “Nay, the fucker was over the side o’ the ship afore I could do anything about it. Thought about wading into the bolt fire to catch him, but the stunties were covering his ass as he made a break for it. Last I saw, he was beelinin’ for the town in the distance.”

  Captain Giancarlo Bronzle was gone. In the attack, he had launched a sudden assault of his own against the two guards assigned to watch over him, who had been distracted by the fighting. Apparently, Bleddyn was one of the last people to see him before he vanished, vaulting over the railing and making a break for it.

  I shook my head and directed a gaze over to Marcel, who was leaning over the map with a distinct snarl on his furry face. “And his guards? Are they…?”

  The Gnoll flicked his fiery orange eyes up to look at me, so similar to those of his son, and shook his head. “One is dead, and the other is critically injured. As far as we can tell, as soon as the first bolt was launched and the shouts started, he took advantage of the chaos and made a break for it.” He paused for a moment and shifted his gaze to lock eyes with his son, standing off to the side with a troubled air about him. “I…want to thank you for your efforts in saving the guard who survived his initial attack. If you hadn’t healed him…”

  For once, Renauld didn’t outright scowl at his Father for speaking to him. Instead, my friend just looked a bit uncomfortable at the praise. “It’s…what I do,” He mumbled.

  I paid the family drama no mind, instead locking eyes with a troubled-looking Maria. “The entire point of this attack was to free him, wasn’t it?” I said, voicing my suspicions.

  The low murmur in the room died at my words, and those among the expedition who weren’t familiar with espionage stared at me with confused looks.

  But Maria just grimaced, while I saw Sylvia sigh at my words. “Possibly,” Maria said reluctantly. “It’s…hard to tell, of course. We were only able to get so much out of the single captive we tried to interrogate. I believe these people have extensive training on how to resist it, as well as…methods to prevent it. I pressed him and he didn’t last long, even when I was using more gentle methods. Not before he seemed to activate some manner of...dead man's switch, I'm sorry to say. That one is dead. I’m reluctant to attempt interrogation upon another of our prisoners, considering just how little we learned from the one we did.”

  “But it’s likely.”

  “…Yes.”

  I shook my head while Gustave leaned forward on the other side of the table. “And what did you learn, Lady Maria?”

  Said ‘Lady’ shot the young officer a sharp look. “Captain Maria, thank you,” She said pointedly. To his credit, Gustave did look abashed at the rebuke and held up his hands in apology. “But we confirmed that our missing scouts and culling teams are the fault of these people, apparently led by one Olag of House Florens. Which is why I have no wish to press our captives any further than I have. It’s my hope that we can, possibly, engage with a form of prisoner exchange with these people. We can't do that if all of them are dead from interrogation.”

  The name of our apparent foe caused another stir in the room, because everyone knew who the Florens were.

  Sitting in a chair at one end of the table, Bella took a long draw from her pipe before she spoke. “Oi, wolf-man,” She said to Bleddyn, who blinked rapidly in response. When he pointed at himself, the pirate Captain just rolled her eyes. “Aye, you. I don’t see any other Thunderhearts in here, do ye? Aren’t the Florens supposed to be yer allies? Why the hells are they jumpin’ us in the middle of the woods?”

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  I exchanged a troubled look with Bleddyn, then, because…

  “I don’t know,” Bleddyn said, in a troubled tone. “I ain’t ever worked with no ‘Olag’, so I couldn’t tell ye. I always dealt with the Prince herself. I didn’t even know the woman had living relations beyond Az-” He broke off suddenly, eyes briefly flickering my way.

  I almost wanted to roll my eyes at the man.

  Look. I wasn’t that fragile. Yes, I was worried about Azarus, and yes, we hadn’t seen a single trace of the missing Dwarven Envoy in all of our travels. But I wasn’t going to break down into histrionics at the mere mention of his name.

  Instead, I chose to answer Bleddyn’s implied question.

  “I’ve…met him before,” I started cautiously, immediately catching the attention of the rest of the room. I held up a hand to stop questions and continued. “Not in a very friendly manner, of course. The two of us had a brief moment where we were at odds, in the throneroom of the Florens. I…never got the impression that it was personal, though, nor that he took it that way. It was that I was in his way, as he was maneuvering politically within his House. He wasn’t satisfied with how Prince Elysael was ruling their House, and wanted to supplant her. And that’s the problem,” I said, letting out a heavy breath. “The Dwarf was a die-hard Florens loyalist, who, from what I understood, operated an independent mercenary company. Not…quite an Order, but a band of soldiers who were loyal to him first. I have a hard time seeing him ever turning his back on the Florens, so I don’t know why…this all happened.”

  Because that was the implication, wasn’t it? If Olag was assaulting us, at the apparent command of Bronzle, then the assumption was that he had betrayed the Florens and had joined up with broader Principality forces. I just…I had such a hard time believing that, though. From what I had seen, and what Azarus and Ely had quietly told me, Olag was deeply devoted to Rhoscara and its principles, to an almost toxic degree. That was why he had been such a pain in the side of Ely, all those months ago. He had truly believed that the current Prince was steering the House and its ancestral city in the wrong direction. Would a man like that truly be willing to swear loyalty to the broader Principality, just so he could slay and supplant his own blood?

  I’m not sure.

  Low conversation broke out in the room once more, as speculation broke out among the officers. But…I had one more thing I wanted to say in regards to Olag specifically, and I wanted to say it semi privately. Something that had been bothering me in particular, since I’d learned about Olag’s presence.

  I approached a quiet, focused Maria, and motioned her closer. When she curiously did so, and we had turned our backs to the rest of the room, I hesitated for a moment with what I wanted to say. This was a touchy subject for the former members of the Nocturne Division.

  Oh, screw it.

  “Olag is also…the grandson of Hook,” I said quietly, causing Maria to immediately stiffen. I grimace under her shocked stare for many reasons.

  “…are you sure?” Maria breathed. At my nod, her mouth fell open. “How do you know?”

  I didn’t blame the woman for her dismay. Hook had been notoriously close-lipped about who he was and his past.

  “I heard it from him directly, not long before his death.”

  Maria breathed out heavily through her nose, shaking her head. “Why…why did you tell me?”

  I looked away from her for only a second before I forced myself to meet my fellow former Agent’s gaze. “I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I…just thought you deserved it. There aren’t…many of us left, to carry the torch.”

  My only response was a tiny nod before the woman retreated into the corner. There, she leaned against the wall and affected an almost brooding air.

  She had a lot to think about, and frankly, I wanted to join her and do the same.

  Unfortunately, the realities of leadership didn’t leave me with that option. I wished I could do something about the concerned look Sylvia was shooting me, but I couldn’t wallow in my old regrets forever. Instead, I regained my composure and cleared my throat, cutting through the low chatter in the meeting room. “That’s not all,” I said brusquely. “We’ve learned that not only are our comrades being held by Olag’s forces within the town, but that they have occupied it in general. This was the last thing we could get out of the soldier we interrogated before he passed. The town and its people were forcibly seized for the purposes of…some operation. Something we appear to have stumbled into, and something that Olag apparently doesn’t want us to interfere with. So, naturally, we’re going to do just that.”

  The air in the meeting room became charged, then, with an air of anticipation.

  I smiled grimly, meeting the eyes of many people in the room. “We need to get our people back. We will not leave them to the mercy of a Dwarven mercenary of unknown motive, and we have to move quickly. We’re going to have to take that town by force if necessary. It’ll be good practice for when we reach Smaragd.”

  My announcement rang in the air, and to my satisfaction, I saw that most people seemed to respond well to my declaration. Some people looked downright eager.

  I hadn’t exactly brought along battle-shy people on the expedition.

  However, when I next opened my mouth to start issuing orders, I was brought up short by a firm voice cutting through the anticipation.

  “Wait,” They said firmly. “There is another way.”

  All eyes in the room, mine included, shifted to the speaker. To my shock, it was Sylvia.

  My lover had stood from her chair, seated next to Nyx, and had crossed her arms over her chest. She remained calm under the curious looks around the room because she had never spoken up in a manner like this during a meeting. Especially not to gainsay me. “We should attempt to negotiate with this Olag first,” She said firmly, to immediate outcry from the room. She just ignored it and raised her voice to be heard over the protestations. “There is still too much unknown about this attack to immediately jump to an assault of our own. It’s entirely possible that we are making assumptions. We cannot know that Bronzle directed them to attack us. The Dwarf could have simply seen his chance to escape, and seeing a Dwarf fleeing the caravan, the attackers covered his retreat. It’s also possible we weren’t even their original target and were merely mistaken for them. As Captain Maria said,” The Mithril Sculpted woman nodded at the troubled form of said woman. “They’re clearly here in the area for a reason. This is besides the fact that they still hold our comrades in bondage. Assaulting the fortified position of this Olag could place them in danger.”

  The protests in the room died down, and more than one person started to look uncomfortable. I…was one of them.

  “Are you suggesting that this entire debacle could just be a misunderstanding?” Gustave said in disbelief.

  “…stranger things have happened,” Nyx finally spoke up, grimacing. “My second…has a point. Perhaps we should attempt a dialogue first, before we immediately jump to battle.”

  It was hard to look into Sylvia’s sapphire blue eyes and see the disappointment in them.

  I looked away from her and took a deep breath. “Yes, perhaps. My desire for…” I paused in the middle of my quiet words, searching for the right one. “Justice got the better of me. It’s…worth a try. Captains, prepare a guard and then meet me at the fore of the caravan. We’ll ride out ahead of it and plant our flag beyond their wards. We should still be in the working range of the APDs there. Once there, we will attempt a...negotiation with Olag.”

  With that, the meeting gradually broke up, with more than one person leaving with visible disappointment on their faces that open battle wouldn’t be met. I felt a renewed sense of shame roll over me, then, at how close I had come to sharing their bloodthirst.

  Surely I was better than this?

  I…surely.

  Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to swim in my own regrets.

  I had a negotiation to lead.