Roughly forty or so guards stood in their path between the streets and the inn, staked blockades at every visible entry and exit point. The stoned building before them was like the others beside, pointed maroon tiled roofs over windows that were not mere openings with wooden shutters but of small black iron framed panes of glass.

“How many Cadres?” Verena murmured to Thael, pulling her cowl forward, face hidden within its depths.

“Eight or so that I’ve seen,” he grunted, hefting one solid oak chest to Ircham standing below the wagon. Shercagh lifted another such chest overhead, his round shouldered arms threatening to rip his stretching sleeves. Nireih, despite her willow frame, lugged a burdening crate to pass to the next.

Shen spoke in Haolo, calm and casual, “We will have one chance upon reaching the kitchens. There are less soldiers in the inn itself. You must decide how we shall deal with the staff, I can only stall us inside for a few moments at most.”

Thael nodded, “Verena, when we opened the gates of Rheindt.”

“I remember,” she said.

“Whatever your plan is,” Shen said low in Cadish, supporting Verena as she stepped down the wagon. “One mistake and over half a century will surround us, not counting any reinforcements nearby.”

The door opened where the wagon had parked at the inn’s backend, a short balding man with a curt step towards them garbed in the black vestments of a Minister’s Steward. He snapped his fingers to Verena, “Let me see her. Take off your cloak.”

Verena unclasped her evergreen cloak, handing it to Thael. She wore a form fitting dress vaunting her curved figure, soft verdigris hued silk that half revealed her accentuated chestline. Bared arms and neck down smooth olive skinned legs. Matching green slippers covered her feet. She lowered her gaze, to which the Steward said, “Look at me.” He sighed. “A bit old for the Minister’s tastes, but she will do. Your cut.”

Shen swiped the proffered coin purse into one pocket and bowed, the man not taking another glance and bustled back into the inn, Verena shadowing him. Shen kept the door ajar, gesturing for them to bring the burdening chests inside.

The kitchen was a house in itself. Numerous hearths spewed smoke into the many chimneys overhead bubbling pots and cauldrons. Bricked ovens stored bread raising from the hazed heat. A cupboard lined wooden island stood in the middle of it all. Half a dozen or so men and women chopped onion and garlic with stubbed knives, picked garlands of herbs, or grinded clouding spices in small bowls over the large countertop.

A red bearded bear of a man waved at Shen, “Leave the crates here and go.”

Shen chattered in Haolo, the man frowning and pointing at the closed door. Shen held out his own hands and continued speaking in his foreign tongue, the man roaring, “Just go you cracked Haolo monkey- Hey! What are you doing?”

Shen nodded to one such Haolan man in the kitchen, who had laid a long cooled pie large enough to feed two men and was now smashing it over with a rolling pin. The other chefs did not so much as glance as Thael and the others each stood beside a chef.

“Need any help?” Thael asked a man churning a barrel of butter, knotted forearms straining with his work. The man shook his head and caught something in Thael’s eyes, pausing with horrid fascination.

The bearish head chef blustered behind, “Get out of my inn, before I hand you over to the Minister’s men.”

Each of them then struck, tripped and in the end strangled each chef. Thael rushed at the man, who raised his churn stick out to bat at Thael’s head.

“Help!” he hollered. Thael ducked low and swept one leg while he was off balance, tripping him. He dove down and wrapped his arms around the man’s thick neck, legs holding down his bucking resistance.

Shen was choking the bearish chef with a chain necklace he had hidden beneath his neck, the man’s eyes rolling wild as he struggled for breath. Shen’s steeled chain bit into his throat, blood trickling out and pooling over the stoned floor. The bearish man gagged, wild dark eyes staring across at Thael. Thael’s man lay limp, and he held the stranglehold a few seconds longer before he released the man’s neck, his face ashen pale. They hoisted their corpses over one another in a pile.

The Haolan man was the only chef to remain standing. He leafed out the crust of the smashed pie. Underneath was no filling, but a circled arrangement of daggers pointing inward at its center. Thael and the others each took a still warm dagger.

Shen was smocked in blood, his grey clothing stained with dark crimson. He held the chained necklace, blood dripping down to the floor, a dagger in his other hand.

“We must move quickly,” Shen said, opening another door by a sliver, peering through. He motioned for them to follow, and one by one they padded through the hall into a room that was the inn’s front entrance. A black iron chandelier ringed with tallow candles hung from the ceiling overhead a twinned velvet covered staircase leading up to either side. Two guards faced their plated backs to them, caught in low conversation, armor dull in the casting light.

“You see the newest girl? I’d say she’s the best one yet.”

“He’s a lucky old goat,” grumbled the other guardsman. “I’d make her squeal like her first twice over.”

“Mayhaps we get the chance.”

“Aye, but I’m first this time.”

Shen strode towards them, pointing to one guard, Thael headed in his direction.

Thael stifled his mouth with one hand while burying his blade in his unarmored neck, Shen silencing the other man. The others carried them deeper into the hallway before they moved up the black velvet covered stairways.

There were four soldiers at either wing. Thael walked with self assurance, a manner that spoke he was where he belonged, enough to close the distance between the first man before he noticed his bloodied blade. He stabbed the knife up his chin, mouth gaping with surprise, Thael catching the man’s arm before drawing out his sword and parrying another guard’s sword swipe.

The hall was so narrow that Thael could duel each guard one by one. After the second man fell the third charged at him, a sword thrust that Thael batted away and lifted one knee to snap a boot heel to his chin, the man falling, followed by his own sword thrust down his neck.

The last guard fled to the end of the hall, banging over the door and howling, “Assassins! Open the fucking door! Open the-”

Thael ducked low, stabbing the unarmored backside of the man’s knee, leaving it jutting out, and as he collapsed to one bent leg screaming Thael plunged his sword down the man’s exposed nape of his neck, drawing the blade out with a wet squelch.

Rearing back, he kicked the door before him free, others crashing open as the rest did the same behind him. Inside, Verena sat atop a massive bed, her dress still worn and whole.

“So much for subtlety,” she murmured, standing up and flicking a hand to the bed. “He’s unconscious. Do we have a way out?”

Thael waved past the bed curtains to find the Minister sprawled over the dark brown sheets. He wore an unbound black nightgown, paunched belly over bird thin legs and thinner arms splayed out in innocent slumber. A silver beard lended a magnanimous nature to his lined face. Thael pressed a finger to his neck before lifting his ragdolled body over one shoulder, “His ebb is low. You were to render him asleep, not permanently.”

“He’ll live. What’s our exit point?”

“We follow Shen,” Thael grunted with the man’s dead weight. “And find out soon enough.”

All the doors had been battered open, corpses nowhere to be found save for the brushed trails of blood that led to the other rooms. Ircham held the whimpering Steward with one hand against the white stuccoed wall, feet hanging above the floor, bent nose leaking blood and clear snot.

Ircham nodded to Verena, “What should we do with him?”

“Please!” the Steward burbled. “I’ll tell you what you need to know, I’ll tell you everything!”

Verena gestured for Ircham’s dagger.

The man’s eyes bulged with heightened panic. “Please, I have a family—”

Verena slit the man’s throat, the man blubbering as blood spilled down his words.

“Fucking leech,” she hissed. “Your family is better off now.”

“Could have warned me,” Ircham said, dropping the Steward as a heavy laid sack with a muted thud.

“We must hurry,” Shen interrupted, striding down the hall.

“Ircham, get the Minister,” Verena ordered, nodding to Thael. They followed after Shen’s brisk step, back to the kitchens. Shen had already scoured his gore stained hands in a wash basin, the rest following suit until the water bloomed crimson.

Thael opened a chest, uniforms not yet stained with blood inside.

“What of the Minister?” Ircham asked.

Thael motioned for his limp body and with Ircham’s aid lowered him into the wooden barrel partly filled with halfway churned butter, closing it.

Shen offered his dagger to the Haolan man who nodded, thrusting it into his heart and twisting the blade, falling face first to the floor to join the rest in death.

“What the flying fuck?” Ircham exclaimed.

“Xiao’s debt has been settled,” Shen spoke, calm as ever. “No one must know my father had a hand in this. We must dress.”

Once all of them had replaced their blood stained clothing save for Verena, she said, “Ircham, Shercagh, bring the barrel out first. Before you do, wait.”

Verena slapped herself across one side of her face, again and again until her cheek was swollen red, while everyone watched in silence. “Open the door,” she nodded to Shen.

Ircham grunted with more effort than Shercagh, his face flushed as they lifted the barrel. Thael and the others carried their own crates back to the wagon, Verena behind, now weeping with hushed sobs.

Once they all sat upon the wagon the driver whipped the horses forward. The soldiers paid them no heed, some playing cards on small tables. Verena ceased her weeping as they turned round a bend. They veered past a corner, another down the sloping street.

***

A pail of water splashed over the Minister, his eyes now agape, blinking to the smoking light of Ircham’s lamp held overhead behind him.

“Where— what is this?” he croaked, struggling to move, head bent down to see his limbs tied with thick rope to the chair he sat upon.

Rats chittered and scurried past dark puddled corners. Curdled butter still clung to the Minister’s bared legs and feet, one brave rat gnawing over a buttered foot. Everywhere was a damp sickening mustiness.

The lantern’s glow cast against the cloaked shadows of Verena and Thael, eyes glinting beneath their cowls.

“Before we begin,” Verena spoke, her voice soft. “I want you to understand your situation. Thael, hold his hand.”

The wizened man looked up at Thael, wide eyed, stammering, “What are you doing? I am a Minister of Dres Lanieth! I can grant you-” he broke into a shrill scream as Verena dug a knife’s point into one fingernail, welling out blood.

“Don’t squirm, or the blade will go deeper,” Verena warned.

Once the nail was scraped out, blackish red dripping down the arm of the chair, the old man wracked with gasped weeping, nose leaking as his now dead Steward, did Verena smile. “I once feared men like you, Theobald. Men able to command other men to hold you down and submit to their bidding, among other things. I believed that men like you were destined to have and keep such power.” Verena studied her bloodied blade in the lantern’s soft light. “What I failed to understand was that nobody gave you such a thing. You simply took it, and killed anyone who questioned your right.”

“Please,” Theobald wheezed, his voice hoarse. “What do you want?”

“The Prince. Where have you taken him?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know!” he wailed as Verena moved to point her dagger to his next finger. Spittled words sprayed out from his mouth, “I know Ambrose has him. We were moved to different parts of the city, no Minister knowing another’s location. Last I saw Ambrose was in the Hold's gardens, that’s all I know- that’s all!”

Verena nodded, “Nireih?”

The sylvan stepped into the lantern’s glow behind them, sharpened golden eyes with other sharper senses.

“He tells the truth,” Nireih said.

Theobald grimaced, “I’ve done what you asked. You can leave me here then? I promi-” Verena thrust her dagger through his neck. He gurgled, eyes confounded as they all did, panicked, always a frantic lapse between life ending in blank gazed death. His neck jerked as Verena drew the blade out, a wet tearing of skin and sinew.

“You have a few moments before you bleed out,” Verena said, wiping her dagger to the Minister’s dark nightgown, open to reveal his paunch, blood trickling down to his grey haired shriveled cock. “Think on your sins until then.”

“Hmmph. You grübs all have one thing in common,” Shercagh gruffed. “And that is you like to play with your food.”

Verena turned to his squat shadow, “Are you calling all humans food then, dwarf?”

“Not at all. You are a she-wolf, geilgrüb. Lesser grübs are your prey, and I have seen you lot shake enough necks with your teeth to see the gleam of enjoyment in your eyes. So. Where to on this merry adventure?”

“We bring Shen back to his father, to the Midden. From there we plan for the final night before the Prophecy.”

“I must tell you, all passages from the Ring to the Midden are closed,” Shen spoke behind the still choking Minister. “Except for the blockade we passed through.”

Verena donned back her hood. “Let’s be off then.”