"Be happy, noble heart, be blessed for all the good thou hast done and wilt do hereafter, and let my gratitude remain in obscurity like your good deeds."

- Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Christo

"I hope you take my proposal seriously. Of course, my family and I will support you to the utmost, but I have a responsibility to my fief and dependants! Alas…" He looked to be seriously pained at his inability to help.

The man looked at Heloise, but he was really talking to Lieseleta.

Gripping the silken fabric of her gown with whitened knuckles, Lieseleta tried to calm down.

"We will consider your words, Margrave Compton. I hope to see you at the ball next week." Heloise's words were a clear dismissal, and the Margrave bowed, wearing a satisfied smile. He was a man in his late fifties, still fit-looking, with dark hair that had given way to silver and grey. He bowed deeply and then left the audience room.

Fighting to keep her calm, Lieseleta breathed deeply.

"You couldn't find it in yourself to consider him?" Heloise gazed at her questioningly, then sighed. "Thought not. But with the riots in the port towns and the burning of the manufactorium we have nobles, burgermeisters, and rich merchants clamoring for aid, satisfaction, and money. He could have helped a lot."

"He is fifty-six years old!"

"Mh, I know I cannot complain unmarried as I am, but you should put some thought to allying through matrimony."

The queen-to-be lowered her head in frustration how she wished that Carl or Thomas could've born this burden, but then she would have probably been married off even swifter.

"What can I do to delay that? There is no suitable- or unsuitable for that matter- person that I fancy at the moment, and I don't think having a spouse trying to enrich their family at the kingdom's expense is that much of an advantage!"

"If Margrinar was more stable, we could take several delaying actions, but as it stands, even your supporters wish for you to choose someone."

"I...will think about it."

"You could do something else...but I don't recommend it." Heloise looked highly uncomfortable, a seldom-seen sight that did not ease Lieseleta's apprehension. "You read the book I gave you? The one that only those in authority may know of?"

The girl's face paled, "It isn't time yet! We still have three years."

"You know that the lands of Margrinar were not only conquered but bought, and the lease is about to come due. If we paid a bit more and early at that, it might be possible to gain an adviser from the underdeep."

"Are they that powerful?"

"Our ancestors sure thought so."

To the west

The-Leaf-that-fell overlooked the flat plain before him. Formerly green lands made up of rolling meadows, and small groves were grey and dead. Trees that looked rotted or burned stretched their empty branches at a sky roiling with dark clouds that formed a vortex above a large ruined city. Even here, the air smelled of decay. In between the city, still about a day's march from here, and the army he commanded were rows upon rows of the dead, some were already snowed in, and snowdrifts had accumulated at the legs of the undead giants.

"What a hateful sight. The circle of life is broken, and we will have to mend it with force. The speaking tree wills, and we obey." The cyclops mused to himself as he inspected the tableau.

Tomorrow they would sacrifice the beasts they had caught and gain the blessing of the earth, and with the weight of nature's anger, they would destroy the sickness that plagued the land.

He raised his single eye, shading it with a gigantic hand, and looked up into the endless sky.

For the speaking tree and all of life!

The Nordmark lands

"What do you want to know." The older girl, still some summers shy of her sixteenth year, rubbed her arms and looked at him cautiously. She had shoulder-length black hair tangled and knotted from lack of care, her chin sported a dark bruise, and she wore an ill-fitting sack-cloth tunic bound with some rope. Her feet were wrapped in rags. Underneath all the dirt and grime were two blue eyes that looked hard as pebbles.

The other girl was smaller but looked healthier with blonde hair and sturdy stature. There were old bruises slowly turning green and yellow on her face and arms. She wore a filthy linen skirt that had been crudely cut to size.

They were sitting under an overhang as the sky darkened to dusk. The horse had fortunately been caught relatively quickly and was chomping on a bit of hay. Now with a fire crackling before them and three hares impaled on sticks slowly gaining a bit of color, Calvin could finally relax and began to question his two captives.

"What do you know about the fort on the other side of the Sleepy Green?"

"It's where the soldiers of the lord gather." The older girls said, taking care to speak clearly.

"That is what everyone knows. What do you know?"

"Will you let us go if we tell you?" The younger girl asked, and the older winced, giving her an angry look.

"So you know something more. We can talk about where and how I will let you go after you have told me everything." Calvin tried to look stern, but the pitiful appearance of the two did not make it easy for him. Seeing the bruises on the girl's skin alleviated some of the guilt he felt for throwing a fireball at the bandits.

"The fort wasn't always in use. Father said it was perhaps four years ago that he slept there when he was out hunting as it stood empty back then." The younger girl looked at her older companion, gauging if she had said something wrong.

"Now, there is a black mage there." The older girl sighed. "A few years ago, the soldiers began to repair the fort and recruit in the nearby villages. At first, that went well with the bad harvests, the taxes and all, but then there was them rumors."

The younger girl listened intently, seemingly not knowing that part.

"And what were those rumors?" Calvin patiently asked.

"There were a lot. That those that signed had to make a pact with a devil, that they had to drink blood and became like monsters." She shivered a bit. "And those that died did not remain in the earth. They came back and went about them business as if they were not- well- dead. The mage was it that did it. Some fled and told the rumors, but they were often caught and then never seen again. So it got less and less that folks wanted to enlist, but then they were pressed and taken instead of paid. Now it's the old, the weak, and the very young with few exceptions that try to make do in the villages, and you can guess how well that goes."

"And the graves, tell him about the graves." The younger girl had been caught up in the telling. The fire popped, and sparks drifted with the smoke toward the overhang.

"What about those?" Calvin prompted.

"People are going around digging up the graves. It's recent, and not many can or want to stop that. A priest of Charys went and protested, and he was later found half-eaten in the woods."

"They say they want to protect us from the dead walking again. I think they are the ones that do it, that make 'em walk." The younger girl looked angry.

"And what's with those bandits then?"

"They were from outside- came because t'was said we were easy pickings."

"Hillsbridge, the fat Tom said it was called."

"Gina here is from the family of a smallholder growing apples some aways west of here. The soldiers burned him and his house and took the people with them; she escaped. I, the names Kira, by the way, was from over there," she pointed to the north, "my father was a hunter, and he never did come back last winter. The bandits took us in." Her eyes shifted.

"I don't judge, but I don't like bandits preying on honest folks, or me for that matter, and I was surprised, which made me angry." Calvin "I might have overdone things a bit."

The older girl looked at him in surprise before lowering her head and hiding her face behind her tangled locks.

"What do you want to do now? I can give you some money I found on the bandits, and you can try your luck further south. I don't recommend going back to live with the bandits."

"No, I don't want that either." The younger girl spoke decisively. "There was not much of a choice before. The villagers don't do charity and have even less work for girls like us." She looked suspicious, "You will give us money? What for?"

"Perhaps it's my paying back Melloris for helping me in the past."

"Yes, and now you are religious. Pfft." The younger and more energetic girl laughed.

"Here, grab one each." He took one of the hares, pointing at the other two. Life-sight in conjunction with an ice-bolt was a godsend for a would-be hunter.

Grabbing a stick each, both girls cursed and juggled the hot wood wrapping bits of cloth around their hands helped, and the dirt did nothing much to the stained fabric.

Grimacing as she burned her tongue, Gina huffed to cool herself.

"We have time; no need to rush." Calvin admonished while grinning and promptly burned his lips when he tried a piece he had deemed cool enough already. "Dammit!"

Even the black-haired girl gave a short laugh at that.

"So. I will carve a protective circle around me, and I only want to say this- If you try to kill me in my sleep and I survive, you will not. Understood?"

Both girls nodded hastily.

"If you are still around tomorrow, we will talk about what you want to do and if there is anything you forgot to tell me. Might be something in it for you if it's interesting. Just saying."

Sighing, he rubbed his tired eyes and then carved a protective circle with some warning glyphs. Searching his saddlebag, he grabbed a vial with mana dust and infused some key runes before clapping the dirt from his hands.

As he saw the girls shivering beside the fire, he grabbed another blanket and threw it to the two of them. The last thing he did was spell some wood that he then put inside the fire where it began to burn- very slowly.

"' night" He yawned widely and then settled down to sleep, shifting a few times on the hard ground his brimmed had pulled into his face.

The light from the rising sun woke him just after dawn. Remembering the happenings from yesterday, he looked around alertly and even found his horse. He was glad it was not necessary to chase some girlish horse thieves if they had somehow managed to get it away from him.

The two girls slept huddled under the blanket beside the fire that was still burning. Mentally he patted himself on the shoulder for his glyph-work.

"Whatsoever shall I do with you." He rubbed his chin and sighed. He could simply go with his first thought and give them some money from the dead bandits. They did not have much, but it would be enough for a month or two of frugal living. But then? Two girls with no family and no skills or perhaps no chance to display them...it would be bad.

He went over to the saddlebag and grabbed some flour and eggs. Then he set to forming some trail bread that he heated on a flat stone beside the fire, getting some cheese to go with it.

When it was well along, he cleaned himself with a water spell and shook the girls awake. "Hey, it's morning already. Rise and shine!" He winced internally at his choice of words.

The black-haired girl quickly scrambled backward, a knife in her hand, while the blonde just withdrew deeper into the blanket and blinked at him owlishly.

"No need to panic, breakfast should be ready in a few minutes, and then we need to talk, or at least I would recommend we do."

"Good morning." The blonde, Gina was her name he remembered, rolled out of the blankets and then sat down opposite him behind the fire.

He stabbed one flatbread with a sharpened stick and gave it to Gina.

Kira, the black-haired girl, then came over warily and sat beside her friend.

"I have another one for you if you don't stab me? Or you could get it yourself." He motioned at another flattened piece of dough, slowly browning into some bread-like substance. Seeing her careful expression, he grabbed one himself and, after blowing on it, bit of a piece chewing while swallowing some water to prevent another burn. "See? Edible, I would say."

"Sorry. Could I have one?" Her blue eyes still showed suspicion and reluctance.

"Here you go." He stabbed another bread and put it into her hand.

After that, they ate silently, with the girls hungrily devouring every scrap he had cooked up.

"So, with that out of the way. Are there any living relatives? It's not important if they are in Andria or Pareus. I only want to know if there is the possibility of someone taking you in."

Now Kira looked really puzzled, "Why do you want to know? They couldn't well pay any sort of ransom if there were any."

Gina looked between the two and, still chewing, interjected, "There is an aunt. She married a smith in Grunewald. But I don't remember her name." She looked ashamed. "The other relatives were from Sweetmeadow, the village next to our stead. But when I was fleeing from the soldiers and finally reached it, there were just a handful of people left! My older brother's house was burned down, and when I asked, they said that my family was all gone." She sobbed before getting ahold of herself.

"That does not sound promising," Calvin murmured.

Kira swallowed nervously. "I don't have any relatives that I know. There was talk of an uncle in the army, a certain Bernd, but I don't have anything more to go with that, and when I asked a guardsman, he simply beat me for being a vagabond."

"I'm going to regret this deeply." Calvin rubbed his temples.

Two sets of eyes looked at him intently.

"I will cut my stay here short and take you back to Kronenburg. But I still have to have a look at the fort. It could well have the clues I need anyway." He continued in his thoughts, 'And when we are in Kronenburg, I will get scolded by Illimen to Sur-Kesh and back.'

"We can help!" Gina excitedly interrupted his meandering.

"Mh. We well could. I have been a hunters apprentice with my father since I was old enough to string a bow."

Remembering their accuracy as they shot at him, he nodded thoughtfully.

"I would rather not put you in more danger, but without me, it would be even worse, I presume."

"If you don't do anything to us, I have to agree." Kira seemed still very cautious and looked at Gina protectively.

"Then there is nothing more to say. Get ready to leave."