The path north had given up being a road years ago, settling for a vague agreement between wheels and grass. Cricket song replaced the festival music, punctuated by the distant groan of the mill's waterwheel turning against the night. The air tasted of spring rain that hadn't fallen yet.

  Reyn walked with quick steps, Good Deeds across her back. Turnip sat alert, almost anticipating, on her shoulder. The rabbid's ears swiveled constantly, tracking sounds beyond human hearing: field mice arguments, owl wings cutting air, and something else that made his whiskers twitch.

  Then Turnip went rigid, claws digging through her shoulder padding.

  A figure stood in the path ahead, having appeared from nowhere. Or rather, from above, it seemed. The grass lay flattened in a perfect circle around him, still steaming slightly where something had hit with the force of a dropped cathedral. The earth itself seemed to be holding its breath.

  ?This is new," Reyn said without slowing, drawing Good Deeds in one smooth motion.

  Blue and gold armor caught what little moonlight filtered through clouds, each plate polished to mirror brightness despite the dust that should have risen from his landing. His helmet was shaped like a dragon’s head, covering the upper half of his face, with sharp wings toward the back of his head. A lance stood planted beside him, so perfectly vertical it made the uneven ground look fake by comparison. Everything about his posture said he expected the world to arrange itself around him, and that it usually did.

  "A Bormecian," he said in a voice like gravel being ground to dust. His mouth twisted as if the word tasted of spoiled milk.

  ?Good observation.? Reyn hefted Good Deeds, casually resting the blade on her shoulder. "I apologize, but I am in a hurry. You are?"

  "Investigating." Each word fell like a gavel strike. "You should turn back."

  "No."

  The simplicity of her refusal seemed to surprise him. His head tilted slightly, armor plates sliding against each other with a whisper of steel on steel. The lance remained motionless, but the air around it seemed to hum.

  "You're far from home, Bormecian."

  Reyn tilted her head, matching his gesture. "From the looks of it, so are you, stranger."

  "The mill is under investigation. By my authority."

  "Why? What authority is that?"

  He pulled the lance from the ground with disturbing ease. Clods of earth clung to its point before falling away. The weapon moved like water in his grip. "The only one that matters."

  Turnip chittered a warning, the sound a rabbit makes when it recognizes something higher on the food chain and significantly less cute. The rabbid's nose danced, taking in the smell of the stranger, and it didn't like it.

  "I'm looking for someone," Reyn said, remembering tales from her youth about an order of Western knights who'd been the chief obstacle during the Barbarian Raids. Stories to frighten children who wouldn't sleep. She was curious, but not all that impressed. "A friend who disappeared from the festival."

  "That is not my business. Many have disappeared. I will give them justice before I continue my mission." He paused, studying her from beneath a helmet shaped like a dragon's skull, all angles and implied teeth. "You're not with them?"

  "With who?"

  "The ones taking people."

  "If I was, would I be looking for someone who was taken?"

  The man's smirk looked like something sharp being unsheathed. "Bormecians aren't known for their intelligence."

  "We're known for other things." Reyn whirled Good Deeds around and planted the blade in the ground, leaning against its hilt with studied casualness. The gesture said I'm not threatened while keeping the weapon ready. "And you're not known at all. I don't even have your name."

  "Saren."

  "Saren." She rolled the name around, tasting its edges. Strong name. Direct. Back in Bormecia, names meant something. "I am Reyn Caleran. You mentioned a mission?"

  The sound of hurried footsteps and elaborate complaining announced Randulph's arrival before he rounded the bend, robes hitched up to reveal pale, knobbly knees.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  "This is entirely unreasonable! The pace you set would shame a runner, and I specifically chose wizardry to avoid exerting my heart! My legs are composing an epic poem about their suffering, and my lungs are considering early retirement—"

  He stopped mid-complaint, seeing the armored figure. The blood drained from his face so quickly Reyn could almost hear it rushing to his feet.

  "That's... it can't be." Randulph's eyes went wide enough to show white all around. "Is that... a… a Dragoon?"

  Saren didn't confirm or deny. His presence was confirmation enough, the way a sword doesn't need to announce its sharpness.

  "Oh, brilliant," Randulph mumbled, wringing his hands. "As if this night wasn't complicated enough, a walking myth decides to join the party. Do you know what Dragoons are?" he asked Reyn, his voice climbing octaves. ?Of course you don’t!?

  "I have heard tales from when my people raided the West. Warriors of some kind?"

  "Of some kind." Randulph's laugh had a hysterical edge. "Of some kind, she says! They're legends made flesh! Living impossibilities! I didn't even believe they existed until right this moment, and I'm still not entirely convinced I'm not having a mental breakdown after all that running!"

  He gestured vaguely upward with shaking hands. "They jump. Impossibly high. Gravity gave up trying to explain things to them centuries ago. And when they come down..."

  "Stories," Reyn said with a shrug that made Turnip chitter annoyed at her.

  "Truth," Saren said with the certainty of someone who'd long stopped caring whether people believed.

  "Why are you here?" Randulph asked, attempting to straighten his robes and regain some dignity. Dust puffed from the fabric. "I mean, no offense… Dragoons are supposed to hunt dragons and monsters, to intervene in threats against the realm itself, not... Unless you aren't a real Dragoon? These parts are full of peculiar people wearing peculiar outfits, after all."

  "Patterns." Saren's grip on his lance shifted, leather creaking against metal. "I hunt a sorcerer, whose trail led me here. Thought the sorcerer was involved in the disappearances. Alas, that was not the case. Still, what's happening in Falun must be corrected. The Crimson Hand cannot be allowed to continue."

  "The Crimson Hand is involved?" Reyn stepped forward, gravel crunching under her boots.

  Saren's lance moved. Not threatening, but warning, the way a snake coils before striking. "Stay where you are, Bormecian. I know they have connections to your people."

  "Apparently, a Bormecian leads them." Reyn's grip tightened around Good Deeds' hilt until the leather wrapping creaked. The night seemed to pause, even the waterwheel's groaning stopped. "He is not, as you say, one of my people."

  "So you say." The distaste was back, thick as tar. "Another Barbarian who thinks strength gives him the right to take what he wants. I've battled his kind before. They always lose. Eventually."

  Reyn felt Rage stir in her chest, hot and eager, but pushed it down like swallowing coals. How old was Saren? The last raids were a hundred years past, and even those had been pale shadows of the true Barbarian era. After all, there was no reason to fight a Barbarian on Pilgrimage.

  "You didn't fight me," she said, then noticed how white her knuckles had gone around Good Deeds. She inhaled slowly, tasting night air and distant smoke. "I'm not Kael."

  "No. You're just another Bormecian far from home, heading toward trouble in the dark." His helmet tilted, catching moonlight. "Why should I believe you're different?"

  "Because I'm trying to stop the Hand. But first, I'm saving someone, not taking them."

  "Who?"

  "A healer. Young woman named Venn. She disappeared from the festival last night."

  "Last night?" Saren's posture shifted. "The festival started today."

  "It starts every day," Randulph said, still pale but warming to his subject. "The whole town's under Suggestion magic. They repeat the same day, forget the night, lose anyone who asks questions. It's brilliant and horrible in equal measure."

  For the first time, Saren showed something other than cold authority. His weight shifted forward, just slightly. Interest, perhaps. Or his leg had fallen asleep and he was hiding the pins and needles.

  "Mass Suggestion? That explains the rumors." His voice dropped lower, gravel becoming sand. "I should have known it wasn't my sorcerer's work... but Suggestion on this scale..."

  "Would be enormous, yes." Randulph straightened his robes with wounded dignity, brushing away grass seeds. "I am from Skyrise Tower by Valemark, one of the highest-ranked wizards within the School of Suggestion, and even I cannot comprehend this scale. It would take a dozen of me, and we'd all need a week's rest after, if we even managed all of this."

  "Quite the wizard then." Saren's attention sharpened like a blade finding its edge. "Magic that shouldn't be possible for any human. Not the sorcerer I hunt, but someone who should stand for judgment all the same."

  Reyn looked at the Dragoon, measuring time against urgency. "Look, I'd like to know more about this sorcerer you're hunting, and discuss what we're facing here, and who has the biggest weapon, but I am in a hurry. Every moment we stand here talking, Venn could be—"

  "Bormecians," Saren interrupted. "Always so impatient." He looked between them, lance shifting in his grip. "You're hunting this wizard?"

  "The wizard, the Crimson Hand, the Barbarian leading them," Reyn said. "Half the West, it seems. But first, I'm finding my friend."

  "And I'm investigating the disappearances," Saren said. "Which leads to the mill."

  They stood there in the darkness, three people with converging purposes and conflicting methods. The waterwheel creaked in the distance, patient as rust. An owl called, received no answer, and called again with less enthusiasm.

  "We could fight," Reyn said and shrugged when Saren glanced at her. "You could try to stop me. I could try to go through you. We'd make noise, alert whoever's at the mill, probably bleed on this nice grass, and definitely fail at our purposes."

  "We could." Saren said.

  "Or we both investigate. You find your missing merchants. I find Venn. We stay out of each other's way until we can't."

  "Bormecians aren't known for cooperation."

  "Neither are Dragoons, from what I hear."

  That got something that might have been amusement, a slight exhale through the nose that could have been a snort or just dust.

  "If you interfere with my investigation—" Saren began.

  "You'll stop me."

  "If your friend is criminal—"

  "She's not."

  "If she is, I won't show mercy because she's your friend."

  "I wouldn't expect you to."

  They stared at each other across ten feet of packed earth and a century of bad history, two warriors measuring whether trust was possible or just elaborate suicide.

  "The mill then," Saren said finally. "Don't get in my way, Bormecian."

  "Don't get in mine, Dragoon." Reyn lifted Good Deeds and rested the blade on her shoulder. ?Let’s go save Venn, merchants and possibly a entire town. Good day for good deeds!?

  Randulph sighed so deeply it seemed to start from his toes. "This is going to end badly. I can feel it in every joint I possess, and I have more joints than any reasonable person should need. They're all scream disaster."

  They moved toward the mill, three unlikely allies bound by necessity and mutual suspicion. The waterwheel's sound grew louder, wet wood protesting against ancient gears. The air grew thick with the smell of stagnant water and something that made Turnip press flat against Reyn's neck.

  The waterwheel groaned on, supremely unconcerned about the drama approaching it. It had been turning for fifty years. It planned to turn for fifty more. What three people with sharp objects thought about that was their own business.