“Hey innkeep! Get us some fresh meat and some good bread!” Thorvald shouts after he is done torturing everyone around with his terrible singing.

  Suddenly, a man sits down at their table, pulling a chair and awkwardly facing the corner of the table. He is clearly not a local, his well-crafted clothes and fashionable chaperon being a dead give-away. He is a young and skinny man with brown eyes that seem both trustworthy and treacherous at once. His blonde moustache rises into a sly grin as he introduces himself:

  “I hear you’re looking for fresh meat? I-”

  “HAHAHA! BUT YOU AIN’T GOT NO MEAT ON YA BONES KID!” Thorvald might be a little too drunk.

  “...Anyway, I am Saul, a mage. Are you hiring?” He continues after Throvald and the rest are done with their laughing fit.

  “A mage? You? Do I look like a sucker to you, boy?” Thorvald leans in, growling in intimidation.

  Landyn pulls Thorvald back, seemingly interested in the proposal of the young man: “Alright then. Show us some magic right now.” His tone is steady and cold. His gaze pierces into the young man sending a clear message: ‘I will fuck you up if you are messing with me.’

  Saul then pulls out a small tablet from within his inner vest pocket and a small sharp blade with which he starts furiously scribbling into the tablet. After a short moment, he is done. He raises the tablet in front of himself and points it toward a mug of beer across the table.

  He starts to blow lightly into the tablet and a low hum starts to grow louder, eventually even emitting light. Just as his breath is about to run out he lets out the rest of it in a sharp fast gasp. From the middle of the symbol scratched into the tablet and arrow of light and dark shoots out, hitting the mug off the table and then disappearing.

  “For fuck’s sake! I’d just dried myself off!” Rabbit shouts, covered in his own beer again.

  “Hm. Interesting…” Landyn’s mean gaze turns neutral.

  “I know a few more spells, but using so much wax simply for demonstrations seems like a waste to me… Was that enough to convince you?”

  “Well, something like that might be useful… Your daily wage will be 20 crowns. Welcome aboard.”

  “Thank you. Tell me, where are we headed after we leave this dump?”

  “West.”

  “Ah, towards war. Makes sense…”

  “We ain’t going to war.” Kale interrupts. “We’re getting revenge. That’s all.”

  Before any sort of silence can fall, Thorvald wraps an arm around the new recruit and puts a mug of beer up to his mouth: “Drink! Drink and be merry! There’s no better band to run into battle with than The Knight Flayers!”

  “I-I don-” Before he can refuse, the beer is already going down his throat.

  “Ah, the meat’s coming!” Eagle Eye remarks.

  The innkeep brings over a large platter of sausages and a roast chicken. Thorvald immediately jumps to his feet and grabs a sausage off the platter before the innkeep can even set it down on the table. He then puts it against his groin and starts spinning it:

  “It needs more heft to be a proper sausage! Am I right, gents?”

  “Aye!” Rabbit shouts in response.

  “Fuck’s sake…” Viper sighs and then acts quickly. With one hand he covers Anna’s eyes and with the other he slaps Rabbit upside the head.

  Thorvald pulls out his own sausage: “This is a proper sausage!”

  Saul thinks: ‘Oh my fucking god! You are OUTSIDE! What the fuck did I just get myself into?’ He grabs a pitcher of wine from a passing maid and starts chugging.

  —

  The next morning is rough for some of them. Rabbit, Thorvald, Kale and Saul all wake up at the same table they sat at last night, their heads feeling like someone is pounding them with a hammer. The sun is already high in the sky.

  The morning had started a little earlier for the others. They had grabbed their chainmail from the barrel of vinegar and had started washing off the rust down at a small stream running through the village. After just a little scrubbing with a pumice stone the chainmail looks as good as new.

  It would be good for the chainmail to oil it now, but that’s too much trouble for them, and the oil seeps into their gambesons and it doesn’t feel nice. So they are bound to repeat this process in a week or two. Other men at arms would hold their gear in higher regard, but The Knight Flayers don’t. They just scavenge new gear at the first chance they get.

  Their preparations are all done before noon and the villagers are happy to see them go.

  The road stretches wide and long before them. Endless plains of fertile grass between rolling hills and clouds of pure white high above in a clear blue sky.

  “Ah, a paradise made by the gods just for us.” Thorvald exclaims, his back feeling lighter than ever now that he doesn’t have to drag the sled along, the donkey taking his place.

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  “Dude, you’re playing with fire. Don’t say stuff like that.” Kale tells him.

  “But he is right though. It is truly a paradise. Nothing could ruin this view.” Saul takes Thorvald’s side.

  “Oh my fuck…” Kale sighs.

  All of a sudden Eagle Eye shouts: “Cavalry ahead!”

  “Ahaha! I knew something would happen if I said shit like that!” Thorvald giggles with excitement.

  “There’s a carriage too!” Eagle Eye adds to his report.

  “Pull to the side of the road and ready polearms and spears! If they pass we let them go, if not then we slaughter them.”

  They pull the sled to the side of the road onto the green grass and kneel down, resting their polearms on the ground, making a semicircle that faces the approaching cavalry. It would make little sense for a traveling noble to stir trouble, but one can never be too prepared.

  Eventually, the black and roomy carriage stops, only twenty paces in front of them. A single hand, white as snow and moving with womanly grace, juts out from the window to motion one of the horseback knights to come over. He leans in and removes his helmet to listen for a whisper, then he shouts at the sellswords huddled up by the side of the road:

  “Have your leader step closer!”

  Landyn leans towards Thorvald on his right and whispers: “You think it’s a trap?”

  “Hell, it could be an angler’s illusion for all I know.”

  “I sure hope it’s just an angler. If all four of those horsemen are knights then we’re fucked if they decide to attack.”

  Landyn thinks a little longer before shouting back: “We are simple mercenaries! We are already on contract to deliver a merchant to the lands west of here and cannot take on any other contract! Please, be on your way so we may be on our way as well!”

  The knight is called back to the window where more whispers pour into his ear and flow out of his mouth as shouts mere moments later: “This is an order from the Duchess of Koravia! Your leader must come speak with her! No matter your nationality, orders from a noble are not to be taken lightly in these lands, sellswords!”

  Thorvald leans in and whispers to Landyn: “Well, since he knows more than one sentence, it’s not an angler at least…” He shrugs, clueless as to what the right call would be.

  Landyn sighs deep and mutters curses under his breath. “Alright. I’m going. Viper, lean Rabbit against the sled and give him a clear shot of the carriage. New kid, …Saul, prepare one of your spells. At least distract the knight if you can’t kill him. If it turns to shit Anna will run away on the ass. Remember, if I go down, then they’re not sparing you either.”

  “Wait! What about me?” The merchant asks, brow coated in cold sweat.

  “What about you?” Kale shuts him up in Landyn’s place.

  With a simple nod and a smile, Landyn puts down his polearm and gets up off the grass. He has run into battle many times before, and he is no stranger to young love, but his heart beats faster now than ever. His throat is convinced there is some lump he needs to swallow. His armpits turned to fountains. His legs shake, making his armor clatter like a kitchen in an earthquake.

  After a felt eternity, he reaches the carriage. The door swings open before him, revealing a beautiful woman. Skin pale like the moon and hair dark like the night. Flowing red robes that shine of satin and lips that are redder still, yet the deepest crimson is on her right hand. Now he knows why she had only shown her left hand when motioning outside the carriage.

  Blood drips from her right hand, staining satin robes and felt upholstery. Directly in front of said hand: a child, barely whimpering for air. The little boy had been hit so many times that his skin simply broke.

  “Duchess… May I know what you need with me?” Landyn barely keeps his composure.

  “Nothing.” No weight in her voice. No glee either. No cruelty. Not a single hint of emotion. “Just wanted to show you.”

  “Th-Thank you… I must go, your highness.” He does not wait for permission.

  He calmly walks back to his formation. The knights wait for him to rejoin his men before they start moving again.

  “Landyn? What’s wrong? What’d she say?” Thorvald asks in confusion.

  He does not answer. He waits.

  “Are you alright?” Viper asks.

  He waits.

  Nobody dares break the silence anymore, except the horses tapping their hooves on the gravel.

  “KILL HER!” Landyn roars a primal roar, ripping his vocal chords like blades of grass.

  Immediately he picks up his glaive and throws it like a spear, rupturing muscles in his arm in the process, but killing the horse pulling the carriage in the process.

  “Oh fuck! He’s gone mad!” Rabbit exclaims, loosing an arrow. He misses, of course. Kind of hard to aim when the muscles in your back won’t listen to you.

  Saul however, does not have the same difficulties as Rabbit. The spell he prepared strikes true, hitting a knight’s helmet off his head and knocking him to the ground. The fall finishes the job, ending his life not with a bang, but with a crack and a squish as brains spill from his skull.

  Their surprise attack managed to kill one of four knights, so all in all not a bad start. A great start would’ve been killing all four, but we can’t have everything in life, right?

  The knights will now surely charge in and kill them all with absurd magic… but they don’t.

  “Holy shit! They’re not actual knights! They’re just fucking nobodies in suits of armor!” Kale shouts, exasperated laugh escaping his lips as all tension in his body fades away.

  “Fuck them up!” Rabbit orders, holding the crossbow he is unable to reload and pointing his finger at them.

  The men roar a warcry and charge in, quickly cutting down all but one ‘knight’ who gallops away on his horse before a single blade can come close.

  “Fuck! …That looked like fun.” Rabbit says, dejected and lonely while the rest celebrate.

  The celebration is cut short though. Landyn stomps his way between his men who all grow silent at his expression. Now, it is truly silent. Not even the wind dares blow.

  As the men hear their own hearts beating the door clicks and opens. The young duchess steps out from the carriage with calculated graceful steps. Her body seems weightless. Her face does not betray a single internal struggle, nor even simple regret or lament. When her steps stop shaking up the gravel, the child’s weak breath can be heard.

  ‘Is she even human? I should kill her where she stands… or better. I can make her kneel.’ Landyn thinks.

  His sword swings up and cuts the woman’s arm off at the shoulder.

  Blood spurts.

  No emotion.

  After a few seconds Thorvald is the first to regain his senses. He raises his flax to the sky and swings down on her head. It is split down the middle all the way down to her collar bones. She falls. The corners of her mouth finally turn upwards on her way down.

  “She liked it… I had to end it…”