“We have been over this, Cedric.” Merzhin smiled politely, though there was irritation in his eyes. “I might be small, but please don’t think of me as a child who forgets your words so quickly. I have been committing Uldar’s scriptures to memory since I was knee-high to my parish priest.”

“Aye, I don’t doubt ya, but this is a dire thing that we’re about to do,” Cedric said, planting the end of his staff into the ground, then leaning on it. “Fae’re no triflin’ thing, Merzhin. You might not’ve ever had much to do with ‘em, but my clan’s got a long saga of tanglin’ with the fair folk. Both in good ways an’ in the worst o’ ways. An’ this is no wee brownyie or wicked kelpie. This is one o’ their lords. Think of it like foreigners goin’ to meet the high priest o’ Uldar. They’d need to make sure they were goin’ about doing things proper-like.”

“…fair enough.” Merzhin looked at the cottage a short ways away, touching the holy symbol of Uldar hanging from his neck. “So, first we must remember to bring an offering-”

He glanced at the basket Drestra carried over one shoulder.

“-then be polite, nod our heads when we greet the fae lord, but do not bow. Nodding is polite, but bowing means you are deferring to the fae, which we shouldn’t do. What else…let me see…oh, and probably most importantly, don’t anger the lord-”

“Or any fae, if you can help it,” Cedric added.

“Right, or any fae.”

“An’ if you do anger ‘em, apologise—quick an’ sincere—but don’t you dare grovel or they’ll think you got no spine in ya. An’ whatever you do, don’t insult ‘em. Honour’s a matter o’ life an’ death to the fae, and givin’ insult’s pretty much askin’ for a curse to be lain on your line for generations.” Cedric glanced at The Sage. “I miss anything there, Drestra? I know the witches’ve had a dealin’ or two with the fair folk.”

“We have. You covered everything except the issue of challenges.”

“Oh, that’s a new one,” Merzhin said.

“Oh, shite, right. S’not likely goin’ to come up, but it’s somethin’ to keep in mind all the same: if you’re unlucky enough to be challenged to a contest by one of them, for the love of Uldar say ‘no’ unless you absolutely can’t find a way out.”

“Uldar did not bless me with his glory so that I may go around challenging fae like a common hotspur. I’m not Hart, Cedric.”

“Aye, but one might go an’ challenge you,” Cedric said. “It ain’t below ‘em. Let’s say you own a pretty shiny they’d be admirin’ an’ get the idea in their heads to try an win it off ya in a contest. Or they start thinkin’ you got a real pretty voice or face and want to bring you to their home so you could sing for ‘em for a year. The ol’ stories talk about challenges between mortal and fae for many o’ reason, so you best be prepared.”

“But I could just say no, couldn’t I?” Merzhin asked.

“There is an issue in how you say no. You can…refuse, but it must be done with grace,” Drestra said, eyeing the cottage as though it were a coiled viper. “Refuse too harshly or too arrogantly—in their opinion—and it’ll be seen as an insult. But if you do accept…contests with fae can go badly. Very badly. If you lose, then you might have to give up something precious. If you win, then you might embarrass them…and they don’t take humiliation too well at all.”

“I see. I will remember. I have no desire to insult those that also share lands with the children of Uldar: not when we could face The Enemy together.” There was a note in his high-pitched voice. “Oh…I heard that you should not lie to fae. Ever. Is that true?”

“That is not quite true. Never be caught in a lie,” Drestra corrected. “Getting caught in a lie means that not only are you trying to trick them, but you are also insulting them by telling them a lie they can see through: telling a fae a poorly thought out lie is akin to saying that they’re too thick to see through it.”

“But does that mean that the fae don’t lie then?”

“Oh yes, of course they do. Too many mortals have gone to their death thinking that the fae can’t lie. Fae lie to us and to each other, but they don’t do it often. They far more respect a trap of truth: clever words and tricky phrasing instead of an outright lie. Now, the one thing you must never do is break an oath or a pact you’ve made with a fae. Never lie while giving your word to them either: they have magic that does nasty things to you if you do.”

“Then may Uldar strike me down if I break my word to them.” Merzhin gripped his holy symbol. “Let’s get on with it.”

Cedric nodded, leading his two companions to the leaf green door of the cottage. “Alright then, let’s keep our heads about us. We follow the rules an’ if things turn out well, we’ll gain a mighty ally. That alone’s worth the risks. If things go bad, then hopefully the worst that’ll come is we all go home empty handed.”

He took a look at the forest, quickly becoming aware that the trees were shifting. The game trail they had taken through the woods had vanished and a pair of old oaks were settling into the earth where the trail had been mere moments before.

His grip tightened on his staff. “I pity the poor bastard who’d have to fight his way out of here. We’d make it, the three of us, but it wouldn’t be pretty.”

The three Heroes passed through the front garden path—surrounded by hungry looking plants with buds that were hinged open like gaping jaws—and stopped in front of the cottage’s bright green door.

Thmp. Thmp. Thmp.

He knocked three times, then waited.

Silence.

He shifted back and forth from one foot to the other before looking at Drestra. “The offerin’ still there?”

The reptilian-eyed woman glanced down, lifting a piece of silk cloth wrapping the contents of the basket. “It is. Don’t worry. I’ve been watching it.”

After several long drawn out breaths, something stirred inside the cottage.

“You may come in,” a deep voice said.

Click.

The latch turned and the door silently began to open.

Cedric took a breath. “Right, best behaviour now. I’m trustin’ both o’ you, don’ make me regret bringin’ either one o’ you instead o’ Hart.”

He watched the door as it finished swinging inward…and gasped.

The interior of the cottage was not a cottage at all.

A massive ale hall with a towering ceiling spread before The Heroes. Its walls were fashioned of smoothed timbers with hunting trophies hanging from them. Cedric recognized it well: it was the very same hall that stood in the midst of his clan’s lands.

It even smelled the same, like flame and dried pine.

But as he looked more closely, he could see clear differences.

There was only one table in the room, rather than the seven long rectangular ones that stood in his clan’s hall. The tabletop was round, stained a deep, rich colour, and carved into its surface, was a design of moons in various phases circling the world.

“I…that’s my foster mother’s,” Drestra murmured. “It’s her witching table!”

“And that hangs from a wall in my home’s chapel!” Merzhin pointed at a titanic bronze disk forged in the image of Uldar’s raised hand, mounted on the back wall.

There were other unfamiliar objects in the room…some of the banners representing families in Cedric’s clan had been replaced by banners belonging to The Ash Ravens: Hart’s company of mercenaries.

“We’ve endeavoured to make you all feel at home…at least in some ways. We have even prepared gifts, though I see some of your number have chosen not to attend.”

Cedric blinked.

A man stood beside the table where there had been only air a heartbeat earlier. He was tall—nearly as tall as Hart—but as lean as a young willow branch. His face was touched by an unearthly beauty and a laurel of ivy crowned his brow, laying just above his pointed ears. His eyes were pools of silver light, seeming both ancient and shrewd.

“Why have the others refused my hospitality?” the fae lord asked, calmly.

Cedric glanced at Drestra and Merzhin—indicating that they should follow his lead—then slowly nodded his head. “Hart sends apologies, Lord Aenflynn. There was an important bit o’ business needing his attention, y’see. Lives at stake, an’ all.”

Of course, that was not the whole truth. The whole truth was that Hart’s casual disregard for danger, authority and decorum might’ve started a fight before the greetings had even finished. So he’d stayed behind to chase down monsters that had been striking some of the coastal villages.

Lord Aenflynn sighed. “Regrettable. I had hoped to meet you as a group. …and does The Fool tend to this matter as well?”

Cedric paused.

He hadn’t expected to be asked about The Fool. “I have no idea where The Fool is, Lord Aenflynn. No one does. It’s a shame, but it seems they might’ve died early in this cycle. We never even met ‘em.”

A pause.

The fae lord raised an eyebrow. “Truly? You believe The Fool to be dead?”

There was another pause. Merzhin leaned in with interest.

“Why…do y’know otherwise?” Cedric asked.

“We might…” Lord Aenflynn said with an odd smile. He waved his hand over the table. Cups of fresh milk appeared beside loaves of buttered bread that smelled like they had just come out of an oven. “…and we might not. It is one of the things we are eager to discuss.”

Aenflynn’s lips parted, revealing teeth like a wolf’s.

“One of the many things.”

Hart’s massive sword split the Chitterer from side to side.

The hive-queen-claw that formed its blade sliced through both the creature’s scavenged armour, and the rubbery flesh beneath. With a gurgling, clicking sound, the Ravener-spawned humanoid fell to the earth in a pair of twitching heaps.

The rest of the horde didn’t even pause, surging toward The Champion with high pitched shrieks and clicking cries. They were hideous creatures: humanoid in form but with grey, rubbery flesh like a dead squid. Their bodies looked soft even as they charged, and their skin appeared wet and clammy.

There were no eyes or ears anywhere on their heads: all was simply blank, rubbery flesh save for wide mouths filled with odd, round teeth like acorns.

“Come on!” Hart Redflecther roared. “Come and die, you ugly bastards!”

The Hero dove in, smashing his massive armoured body into them and swinging his giant blade through their numbers. Monstrous flesh pulped at the force of his contact while his blade tore a path of death through the press of creatures.

Behind him, a squad of mounted knights surged ahead, riding the monsters down, leaving a ruin in their wake.

“Wish you all just had the decency to die once we kill off your dungeon cores!” Hart stove in a monster’s chest with the pommel of his blade and smashed another’s face with his large, gauntleted fist. “Still, can’t fault your single minded drive!”

No matter how many he killed, the monsters kept swarming The Champion even as their numbers dropped by the minute. It was different from fighting people: most folk tended to lose their nerve once enough of their fellows had gotten themselves split in half.

But these things didn’t even flinch, no matter how many went down. It suited him just fine, though. Enemies that got to retreat one day, would be trying to kill him a few days later. At least these monsters had the decency to keep coming to get themselves killed off all at once.

As he and the knights slayed their way through the fields, the Chitterers fell by the dozen until finally, only The Champion and surviving knights remained.

“Yaaaaargh!” Hart stuck his blade in the air, giving his customary roar of victory.

“Raaaaaargh!” the knights roared behind him, much to his amusement.

Just over a year ago, these same nobles’ sons wouldn’t have even bothered acknowledging a mercenary like him after a battle. Now that he had The Champion’s Mark glowing beneath his armour, they were roaring along with him like they’d been brothers in battle forever.

“Right, then,” he said when they’d finished their roar. “Let’s loot the bodies, take anything of use, and see if we can find out what the hell these bastards were chasing.”

“Chasing, Champion?” A knight asked. “You think they were in pursuit of something?”

“Aye.” Hart stalked through the bodies—wiping the massive blade that had been crafted from the hive-queen’s claw—and eyed the grass around the battlefield. “Look how long it took for us to catch ‘em. They were chasing something, alright.”

“Do you think so, Champion?” the knight asked.

Hart’s sardonic smile grew behind his visor. The knight’s tone had been filled with respect…maybe even awe for a lowly mercenary.

“Yeah, look at how they came at us: they didn’t even care if we pulled their guts out or stuck four feet of steel through their bellies. They weren’t afraid of us, so why did we have to chase ‘em for so long? I’d bet you ten silvers that they weren’t running from us, they were chasing something else. Let’s get some rangers up here to check for tracks.”

“Right, Champion.” The knight bowed.

Hart let himself have a low, grinding laugh as he watched the knight scurry off. This Mark was the best thing that had ever happened to him, without a doubt. His mind swirled with the possibilities and opportunities ahead of him once The Ravener was put down.

What a life he could have…or maybe he’d die like a dog, speared by some monster before The Ravener was dead.

He shrugged, heading toward the nearest body. That was just the way of things. He’d made peace with death long ago. Busying himself with the looting and not finding much of value, he was heading to the next body when a cry rang out from the grass ahead.

“Champion!” one of the rangers shouted. “You were right! There’s a trail here! I think these things were following it!”

Hart grinned. “Well, they’re too dead to follow shit, now. So let’s do them a favour and chase down whatever it was they were looking for, why don’t we?”