Seven years ago

  Deep inside the snowbank where Aelfredd had hidden himself he was warm and sheltered despite the raging storm outside. Even here in Fjaarlgard it was unusual for the weather to take a turn like this and snow so heavily this late in the year. There must be nearly three feet of fresh powder that had fallen overnight.

  Yesterday’s raid had been an absolute disaster. Up until now, the Count’s guerilla tactics had been mostly successful, catching Y’gurth’s forces off guard and undermining their ability to move men and materiel from fortification to fortification. The rebels had managed to avoid getting caught in a pitched battle, striking supply trains and lightly fortified outposts at night when they were most vulnerable. Losses had been minimal for the rebels, and heavy for the Duke’s forces.

  Until last night. The raid had been one of their most ambitious yet, an assault on a small outpost with simple wooden fortifications far from Y’gurth’s stronghold in Fjaarlton. The plan had seemed solid: Aelfredd and his band of warriors approached the outpost in full dark from opposite the gatehouse. They brought grappling hooks and quickly scaled the unguarded wall, gathering silently on the other side behind the fort’s longhall where there shouldn’t have been anyone that late at night.

  That part was a bit dependent on luck, but these raids always required no small amount of luck to ensure the rebel’s success. Setting fire to the longhall’s thatched roof to create a distraction, the small band had begun to move deeper into the fort, preparing to slaughter the unsuspecting soldiers at ease for the evening.

  Which was when it all went wrong. Somehow, the Duke’s soldiers had known they were coming. Aelfredd would have to look into that when he made it back to the caves, they must have a traitor in their midst who had shared their plans with the enemy.

  He’d led his men into an ambush. As soon as they came around both sides of the longhall into the fort’s main square squadron upon squadron of fully alert soldiers rushed out of every building in the fort. The rebels were outnumbered easily ten to one. It was a slaughter all right, but not the one they had planned for. Aelfredd had lost many good men.

  As far as he was aware, he was the only one who had made it out alive. He just hoped none of them had been captured. With the Duke’s soldiers, that was a fate worse than death and his men knew it. They would’ve fought to the death.

  He’d only managed to survive because he’d dipped into his powder supply and used magic to escape, amplifying his speed and strength so he could run away and jump over the wall like a coward. Someone had to bring news of the failure – and the fact that they had a traitor among them – back to the Count. That didn’t make him feel any better about abandoning his friends though.

  Now he was stuck hiding in this snowbank to wait out the storm and hopefully avoid any patrols sent out from the outpost to find him. He thought he had managed to get away clean, moving quickly while the Duke’s soldiers were distracted so that nobody saw him, but he wasn’t going to assume that and throw caution to the wind. He hadn’t survived in this rebellion as long as he had by being imprudent at times like this.

  So he slept, and waited, buried alive in the snow and biding his time until he felt – hoped really – that it was safe to move out and return to the rebellion’s headquarters in the deep caves of the Fjaarleach mountains.

  *****

  Aelfredd’s journey back to the rebellion headquarters was mostly uneventful. It took days longer than it should have due to the heavy late snowfall which presented multiple challenges. Most obviously, it slowed his progress by making every step an effort. But the greater challenge was that it made it impossible for him to hide his tracks from the Duke’s patrols. His band never wore obvious markings or carried anything that would connect them to the Count or the rebellion, so he chose to assume the cover of a hunter simply caught out by the unexpected storm. The two patrols he did see passed by at a distance and apparently thought nothing of a lone wanderer if they did spot him because they didn’t bother to approach and attempt to interdict him.

  Upon arrival, he exchanged the proper passcodes with the guards at the main cave entrance and demanded to be taken to the Count to debrief immediately. A guard was dispatched to lead him deeper into the cave complex to the Count’s quarters.

  Those quarters consisted of a single sizable cave with only one entrance deep in the tunnels. The chamber was dry, but spartan, with minimal furnishings as would be expected from a rebel leader hiding in a cave in wartime. A simple wooden bed, a desk with a few chairs around it covered in maps and other documents, and a trunk failed to fill the capacious chamber. Conversations in the space tended to echo, bouncing back down from the unseen ceiling high above them.

  At first, the Count was pleased to see him.

  “Aelfredd! You’re back – we began to worry when you didn’t return days ago. This unexpected storm has ground everything to a halt…” he trailed off when he looked up from his desk and saw the expression on Aelfredd’s face.

  “You don’t look happy to be back.”

  Aelfredd said nothing, only looking pointedly at the guard that had escorted him here.

  The Count took his meaning, “Solider, you are dismissed. Return to your post.”

  With a salute, fist to chest, the guard left them alone in the room and closed the awkwardly fit door across the tunnel behind him.

  “What’s wrong, Aelf? You look upset.”

  “It was an ambush, Engar. I’m the only one who made it out.”

  The news rocked the Count. He sat back down in the chair behind his desk heavily and put his head in his hands.

  “How… how could they have known?”

  “Two options there.” Aelfredd had spent much of the days since his failure considering this very question.

  “The first is that Duke deduced that an attack on an outpost fort would be the next logical escalation for us, and was able to ascertain that particular outpost was one of our most likely targets. It’s possible they had all of the other possibilities as well defended too, there are only really three others that we would have considered.”

  The Count nodded his understanding and agreement. “The second option?” he prodded.

  “Far worse. A traitor in our midst.”

  “I was afraid you were going to say that. It certainly is possible, however unlikely. Most of the men here – you being one of the few exceptions – have been with my House for years. For many of them, service to my family goes back generations. I find it hard to believe one of my soldiers would be a traitor.”

  “I agree, but the other option seems just as unlikely. The Duke has a large army, yes, but barely enough soldiers to have garrisons the size of what we faced at all of the outposts that were on our list. He would’ve had to denude Fjaarlgard itself for that, leaving a skeleton force to guard the city. Hard to believe Y’gurth would take a risk like that based on a hunch.”

  Pushing back from the desk and sighing heavily, Engar considered Aelfredd’s words.

  “If there is a traitor, how do we smoke them out? This rebellion is on the edge of failure already Aelfredd, if only you and I know it. A spy feeding our plans to the Duke could end us quickly. What if the Duke knows our location? It would only be a matter of time before he besieged us and starved us out.”

  “We both know it would be nearly impossible to fully besiege these caverns. We have entrances and exits aplenty, including those that lead into Klaav. We can bring supplies in for as long as we need to, and the Duke won’t risk sending forces into Klaav and provoking a broader conflict.”

  “You didn’t answer my question, Aelfredd.”

  Which was something else he had considered at length on his journey back to the caves. How could they reveal a traitor?

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  “First, we have to identify our suspects. Who knew of our attack on the outpost? How many knew which outpost we would strike.”

  “Only a few.” The Count’s face was ashen, as he considered the implications.

  It was as Aelfredd expected though, knowledge of his squad’s operations had not been information that was shared with the rank and file soldiers in the rebel army. Only the senior leadership would’ve known.

  “Shergarth.” The commander of the Count’s forces. “Luerten.” The quartermaster. “B’yinth.” Shergarth’s right hand, a key lieutenant in the army.

  The list was what Aelfredd had expected. In some ways, it was a good thing it was so short. That would make his plan easier to execute. The names on it would be a problem though, losing any one of them would be a serious blow to the rebellion.

  “Ok, so here’s what we’re going to do…”

  *****

  This time Aelfredd was hiding high up in a tree and he had to admit to himself the snowbank had been a better place to take shelter. Up here he was exposed to the wind, which was biting today. It was early spring, but up here in the Fjaarlgard mountains there was still snow on the ground and temperatures remained frigid. In Falkaria City it was probably nice and warm, and he would be planting his small field by this time.

  His plan was taking shape though, and they should soon know who was the traitor. Each possibility had been fed a different location for the next raid, none of which were real. Aelfredd and two other trusted scouts were watching each of the locations, trying to determine if the Duke had sent additional forces as he had last time to prevent the rebels’ supposed attack from succeeding.

  When the appointed time came and went with no sign of the Duke’s soldiers, Aelfredd knew it wasn’t his man. He and Engar had thought Luerten, the Quartermaster, to be the most likely candidate. At least a bit of that was hope, it would be much worse for the rebellion if their commander was the traitor.

  Hours passed, and Aelfredd still waited, on the off chance that the enemy might arrive late to the engagement. He waited through the night, and in the next morning finally conceded it wasn’t his man. He hoped for Justice’s sake that it was the lieutenant.

  Later that day, around mid afternoon, a few days' journey yet from the rebel stronghold, he saw a large plume of smoke in the near distance, just around the nearest rise and probably only a few hours walk off course.

  As he neared the village he heard shouting, and an occasional scream. He approached with caution, creeping up on the outlying houses and taking cover in their shadows. A small hamlet, it consisted of around forty homes, a few small shops and a mid-sized longhall. Aelfredd estimated a village this size would be home to around a few hundred souls.

  The screams were coming from a large open plaza in front of the long hall where a throng of people were collected. Making his way stealthily through the village, employing all of his magics to stay concealed and move quickly, Aelfred approached the gathering. What he saw disgusted him almost to the point of sicking up and giving himself away.

  On one side of the square was a mound of fresh corpses. Villagers of all ages were piled high in a grisly monument. Blood seeped from open wounds and had made a giant puddle that was slowly spreading across the square. Survivors, around fifty of them, were gathered on the other side of the square, contained against the longhouse by a small squad of five armed men. Most were sobbing quietly, and those that weren’t were staring into space dully. Another dozen men milled around the square idly, eating and talking.

  Most shocking was that the perpetrators of this crime weren’t wearing the uniforms of the Duke’s soldiers. At first glance, the men appeared to be houseless brigands on a raid. With his powder heightened vision though, Aelfredd was able to make out seals on the men’s breasts. Seals of the Count of Jarlheim. These men weren’t regulars in the Count’s army, but they were invested in his name.

  Disgust turning to self loathing and anger at the man he had thought to be a friend, Aelfredd’s vision turned red. What followed was a blur, and he operated without conscious thought. He turned his mind over to his body and the will of Justice as he executed the murderers. They were likely rapists too he knew, though he had not witnessed that crime himself. It was the way of men like these in a time like this.

  Made invisible by smoke magic, and with the heightened speed provided by the powder he was a ghost of death as he swept through the men cutting throats and severing spines. Not a whisper escaped his own lips, and little more those of the condemned. It was over in moments.

  After cleaning the blood from his blades, he tore the Count’s seal off of the jerkin of the last man to die. Before the remaining villagers could even process what had happened, he was gone into the falling dusk.

  *****

  Three days later he once again approached the caves of the rebel stronghold and asked to be escorted immediately to the Count.

  He wanted to scream at the Count as soon as he saw the man’s face. He wanted to throw the seal at him and demand an explanation.

  He held his tongue though, whatever happened next he had to know the outcome of their operation. He needed to know who the traitor was.

  “Have the other scouts returned?” He knew they would have, they were both powder mages like him and their locations had been closer than his by half a day.

  “Yes.” The Count replied simply.

  “And? Care to elaborate?”

  “No soldiers at any of the locations. If there is a traitor, it is none of the men we suspected.”

  “I suppose someone else could’ve gotten ahold of the information, known our last target. I don’t see how though.”

  “I don’t think that is what happened, Aelfredd. We have received an intelligence report from the Capital. Maebric has sent the Duke reinforcements, apparently he thinks Y’gurth can’t win this war on his own. It’s a grave insult, but it seems Y’gurth was actually hard up enough to accept. We were doing better than we thought in our little rebellion.”

  That was small consolation if the King had truly sent reinforcements to their enemy. Aelfredd took a seat at the desk across from the Count.

  “Who?” Was all he could muster to ask. The news had knocked the fight straight out of him.

  “Ko. With the Duchy’s full complement.”

  This was very bad news for their cause. The Duchy of Ko had been the center of conflict between Summor and Falkaria for generations. Ko’s soldiers were trained better than any other house guard in Falkaria, and battle hardened to a man.

  “So that’s how Y’gurth was able to garrison all of his outposts so heavily.” His men had always been walking into a death trap. This supposed intelligence the Count had received would’ve been far more useful had it arrived sooner. Aelfredd felt his trust in the man before him slipping through his fingers, and his faith in the rebellion as his best chance at Justice going with it.

  “There’s something else we need to discuss.” He didn’t throw the seal at the Count, exactly. He threw it on the desk in front of him, which happened to be between them and in the direction of the Count. It wasn’t his fault he threw it a bit too hard and it bounced off of the desk and landed in Engar’s lap instead.

  “I can explain, Aelfredd.”

  “They were innocent villagers! I saw the bodies, they were slaughtered like animals.”

  “Dammit man, can’t you see we’re losing this war!” Leaning in, the Count slammed his fists on the desk for emphasis.

  “They were citizens of Jarlheim, your county! They were on our side!”

  “No, they weren’t. They were collaborators. They were harboring the Duke’s soldiers. They were traitors.” A venom Aelfredd had never heard before dripped from the Count’s words.

  “This has to stop. No more villagers, no more of brigand-soldiers acting in the name of the rebellion.”

  “We’re in a corner, Aelfredd. What were we just discussing? Ko has arrived. I will do whatever it takes to win this war, Aelfredd. Whatever it takes.”

  “Then you’ll do it alone, I’m done.” Aelfredd stood to leave.

  “We’ll catch you Aelfredd, and hang you as a deserter. You’re one of us now.”

  “Try.”

  Aelfredd turned his back on the count and walked directly out of the caves, not acknowledging anyone he passed on his way out.

  *****

  Engar was true to his word, sending the rebellion’s best scouts after him. They weren’t good enough though, and they stood no chance of catching him. They may be powder mages, but none of the army’s scouting corp had use of the smoke magic as well. Aelfredd used his edge to easily elude his pursuers and made his way out of the mountains and into the Duke’s territory without incident.

  A few days later, passing as near to Fjaarlgard as he dared, he nearly ran straight into a patrol when he crested a ridgeline and emerged unexpectedly from the tree cover he’d been traveling within whenever possible. He took cover in time and observed the patrol as it passed, realizing from the banners flown by the lead riders that it was led by Duke Ko himself. The Duke was an imposing man, even when he wasn’t astride a warhorse and leading over thirty heavily armed and armored mounted knights at a full gallop.

  A small part of him felt sorry for the rebels, and what they now faced. Count Engar had been right, he was in a bad spot. It didn’t justify the tactics he’d chosen to employ though.

  ****

  Weeks later Aelfredd was relieved to walk through the gatehouse and into Falkaria City. He made his way directly to the Sage’s Rest to see Turgeon, whom he had missed dearly on what he now saw as a pointless mission. Aelfredd generally tried not to hold onto regrets, but this one would be a hard one to let go. He would regret the time he had lost with his brother for some time yet.

  Markus, as always and despite the burden he had laid upon him these past months, greeted him with open arms when he arrived late one night. The boy was already abed.

  “I’m sorry, Mark. You were right, I should never have gone. The rebel’s cause is fated to disaster and they have turned to unsavory methods to forestall their fate.”

  “I know, Aelfredd. Such is always the way of these things. I’m just happy to see you alive.”

  Turgeon didn’t seem as happy to see him back, oddly the boy seemed sad at first when he came down the stairs the next morning. He warmed quickly though, rushing over to hug and greet Aelfredd warmly. It was good to be home.