“Is this a dream?” Enri asked when she held up a suit of armor in both hands. Though it was leather by the touch, it was like no leather she had ever felt. It reminded her very much of the touch of the skin of lizards.

“No... Unless I miss my guess, that’s dragon leather.” Nfirea said, running his hand over the back of the black leather. Though his voice was calm, his mind was racing, “Lesser dragon, but still… impossibly expensive stuff.”

Nfirea reached into the wagon and took out a small wand carved of twined wood the likes of which he’d never seen. The various cords of wood spiralled around a solid core and ended at an unfamiliar looking green gem. [Appraise Magic Item] He cast his spell, and froze.

“This is… Master Gown is just… letting us have these?” Nfirea asked, aghast.

Enri shook her head, “No, even if he offered, I couldn’t accept that. We’re ‘buying them’ from him in installments.” She stared long and hard at the leather armor in her hands, even with no magical skill, she felt sure there was an enchantment of some type on it. “He’s telling us to fight, that it’s our turn to protect our homes. And he’s right.” Around the wagons, a crowd had gathered, there were eight large wagons lined up end to end. Enri raised her head and lowered the armor down so that she could see everyone.

“When Master Gown visited us, we needed saving! When Sir Momon came to us, we needed saving again! Now we have to save ourselves! We’ve worked hard, trained hard, done things we’d never done before! Now Master Gown has given us the chance to prove we are worth his time! We know someone is coming for us to avenge the death of a worthless lord! We didn’t do anything… and still we’re going to die for it! I’m done with that! Done with all of that!” Enri’s fury boiled over and gave voice to the outrage of a lifetime.

“I reject the Kingdom! Sir Momon’s request must have been refused! Why else would they be alright with coming this way and killing us all! If we can’t have lords worth following from the Kingdom, then we’ll make our own! Damn them! Take up armor, take up swords! And let’s get ready to fight! This is our home! This is our land! And they’ll never take from us ever again!” Enri bellowed like an outraged banshee, and the call began to rise up.

“Carne! Carne! Carne!”

Only to begin to transform, little by little.

“Emmott! Emmott! Emmott!”

And from some unknown throat another call began that took hold and would not let go.

“Hail to Queen Enri Emmott of the Kingdom of Carne!”

Enri blinked in dismay when the call went up, her heart raced like it was trying to outpace her pulse, the scale of what just happened was far beyond her expectation, but caught in the moment and unable to think of what else to do, she gave her orders.

“Arm yourselves! Everyone! Arm yourselves! We have to prepare and we haven’t a moment to spare!” Enri shouted, and hundreds of hands began to scramble for hilts, shields, boots, and armor pieces as if these were holiday gifts being given out, and they were the children receiving them.

Enri turned her eye toward Nfirea. “What just happened here?” She asked as peasants began to put on armor and equip themselves like proper warriors.

Nfirea chuckled and put a hand on the shoulder of the woman he loved. “You became a Queen, I think. And if you’ll have me, I’d love to be the King.” He winked at her dismayed, shocked expression, and then the understanding of the meaning behind his words began to sink in.

“That’s… that’s not how proposals work, Enfi!” She blushed a deep crimson, but Nfirea’s loving expression, his broad smile and resolve did not waver.

“I’ve loved you for years, more than I could ever say. I don’t know what’ll happen next, but it’ll be dangerous, and if I do have to leave this world, I want to do so married to the woman of my dreams. I’ll love you for my whole life, you, only you, and no other.”

“That- That is how you propose.” Enri’s blush didn’t fade, but her surprise melted into happiness, before she dropped the armor into the dirt, then melted into his embrace in a passionate kiss that went on until the carts were entirely empty and the first ‘Army of Carne’ began to form up.

“Still no sign of her?” Imina asked, her long purple hair bounced in its braids as she peeled off the rest of her clothing.

“No, nothing.” Hekkeran replied when he sat down on the stool. He didn’t need to ask whom Imina meant, it was the same question for both women.

The blonde beauty that beat him into ruin and then sent his friends out to heal him before he died, for one. And on the other hand, Arche’s body. “Roberdyck and I sorted through the ashes again last night. Nothing. We did find her father’s body, but not her mother’s, nor her sisters’, nor Arche’s bodies.” Hekkeran sighed.

“It’s a big house, a lot to sift through.” Imina pointed out while she undid the hair ties and let the long purple strands come tumbling down.

“Yeah, I know, I know.” Hekkeran said when he tossed a boot aside. “But still, the fire happened some time late in the evening, if there was a fire threatening the place, where would Arche go?”

“Straight to her sisters’ room.” Imina answered immediately when she threw her shirt over a chair.

“Right, so that was where we started. Arche was… is… a magic caster. Even in a dangerous blaze, she has a flight spell and should have been able to get them to safety. If she hadn’t, then her sisters’ bodies should have been in the area where her room was, or not far away. Arche, I would have expected to be found close by.” Hekkeran pointed out while he undid his pants.

“So you think they weren’t there at all? That the brutal bitch that beat you half to death was telling the truth?” Imina asked, however she didn’t sound as skeptical as he thought she would.

“No, I don’t. I think… I think Arche took her sisters and ran. I think that blonde woman knew more than she said about where Arche was… am I crazy?” Hekkeran turned around to ask the slender half elf.

“No, definitely not.” Imina answered, “Because while looking for ‘that’ one, guess what I heard?”

Hekkeran didn’t ask, instead he simply waited, he knew Iminad say, and he was right.

Imina went right on without him asking, saying to him that, “There was an agent coming about from Earl Flemmel, asking for people interested in a job. Raiding a newly discovered ruin, and didn’t she say something about that?”

Hekkeran rubbed his forehead, “It’s… a little fuzzy, but this is far too convenient to be coincidence. If Arche is in trouble, there’s only one place we need to be.”

“So when do we leave?” Imina pressed, her entire body felt like it was on pins and needles. Hekkeran’s lean form was built for combat, and in moments like this, making a bold pronouncement of action for the sake of their team, he was the best of himself. She licked her lips and unconsciously parted her thighs as he approached.

“About three days, we’ll do what they ask, encourage all kinds of teams to go along, and we’ll get Arche out of there.” Hekkeran leaned forward and captured Imina’s soft lips in a warm kiss, pressing her backwards onto the mattress of animal furs, she sighed when the taste of his lips left her own. Her arms wrapped around his neck, her legs around his waist.

“Taking your love into danger… is that heroism now?” She teased him verbally while undulating her hips to tease his manhood.

“All for one, one for all. And no, I’m not asking for a fourway.” They laughed at the joke and sighed together as they became one flesh joined at the hips. Their desire for one another was a fire fueled by the greatest of dangers, carrying them both, and their whole team, up to the ranks of mithril class adventurers. Clinging to his treasured Imina, the fiery pain of her nails digging into his back demanded urgency.

Her cries filled the room and spilled beyond their confining walls, into the rooms of others, it was shameless, and so they felt no shame. What was there to be ashamed of? ‘We are alive! We are warm! We are happy!’ That was all their cries meant in a language older than the spoken word.

But that time passed away, Imina fell into the sheets and accepted his quieting kiss before she fell asleep again. Hekkeran, though, did not sleep. He sat up and looked over to the window where moonlight streamed into the room. Outside in the city beyond, he could see tiny lights from other rooms where other people were caught in moments like the one that had just passed for himself. ‘I doubt many of them have my worries though. This may… may very well be the end of us… but we can’t leave her to die, even if I have to face that monster of a woman again.’

He felt the lump in his throat and turned his body halfway around to watch Imina sleep. She slept on her side, curled away from the window and moved only a little in the sheets. He could see half a smile still on her face, and all he could do was watch her breath. ‘Wake her up, ask her to stay behind… let Roberdyk and I go, we’ll get her out, you buy the drinks for us…’

He had the thought and hated himself for it. ‘She’d slap me for the very idea.’ He knew that thought was the truth as soon as he had it, and so he didn’t give it voice. He reached down to the bottle at his feet, took a long hard swig, then set it down, and slid into bed. He spooned against her, and she, long accustomed to his warmth, nestled herself more closely into his arms. He breathed in the scent of her hair, and only then, and very slowly, did Hekkerango to sleep.

Prince Zanac swallowed hard, very, very hard, and very often. His thighs hurt, his ass hurt, his back hurt. He did everything he could not to wince at every bounce of the horse beneath him.

At his back, seven thousand soldiers marched, enough to convince his brother not to make a fight of things and to come back to the capital before he started something he couldn’t finish. ‘My stupid brother thinks he’s just teaching some lords a lesson, but my sister was right, his line of march will take him straight to Carne, if he butchers the place Master Gown and Sir Momon rescued, right after we honored them both? I can’t even begin to imagine the falling out that will happen between the Royal Family, the nobles, the newly honored, the mage we want us to save, and even the Guild!’

Prince Zanac’s grim pondering was the only thing that kept him distracted from the pain in his body as he tried and failed to get used to life as a field commander. ‘At least I could get more people together, faster, than my damn fool of a brother.’ An advantage that wouldn’t go unnoticed by the nobles when it came time to select the next heir.

Prince Zanac was only two days on the road when he came across the first ruined village. Having never seen death so close, let alone the ruined aftermath he found… he felt his stomach lurch. A woman who ‘might’ have been pregnant before, and thus too slow to flee, had been killed somehow. She lay on her side, her arms still lay over her belly, but maggots and blowflies now made her body their home. A foul, putrid odor came off her corpse and her eyes were gone, turned into empty sockets that stared up accusingly at the Prince, as if to blame him for her lot. Her clothing was mere tatters, ripped open where beasts had sought access to the flesh modesty once had concealed.

Bones lay exposed everywhere, and the odor grew so strong that Prince Zanac had to clutch to the reins when he leaned over and openly vomited into the dust.

“First time, My Lord?” A soldier at his back asked, and handed over a small white cloth.

Prince Zanac wiped his mouth of the acidic fluid that clung around his lips and then spat into the dust to clear the raw taste from his tongue. “Yes… yes it is. I’ve seen dead men before, but nothing like this, not so close at least.”

“You get used to it, My Prince.” The soldier said with a grim face that denied any desire of Zanac’s that he was making a joke.

The Prince offered back the cloth, but the young swarthy soldier who offered it, shook his head. “Keep it, My Prince, this is the first time I didn’t need it myself. I guess I’m past the vomiting stage.”

“The war?” Prince Zanac asked.

The young dark haired soldier gave a regretful nod, “Yes, My Prince. I command a company during those… I’ve seen this every year for the last five years, though not quite like this, and usually we don’t stick around to see what the rot looks like. Could we… unless there is a reason, perhaps we should move on.”

Prince Zanac cleared his throat and tucked the cloth into his saddle bag for future use. “Yes, yes we should.”

He raised his hand, and drew it down ahead of him, the flags waved, a horn blew, and the sound of seven thousand marching feet and clinking sets of armor began to drown out the chirping of birds again.