“This is…. All of them?” A short, stout man stood wide-eyed at a group of men and women sitting behind bars.

  The one in the center of the cell, whom the others either shielded or kept their distance from, glared at Mouse from where she sat. Mouse stared back through bored eyes, smiling slightly at her broken nose, ballooning face, ruined eye and shattered teeth.

  She deserved it for threatening Taiga.

  “Our information says you have a friend holed up in the guildhall, is that right, Little Mouse? Oh, how easy it would be to bring him beneath my feet.”

  He made sure she never entertained such idiocy again. He’d have killed her, if she weren’t a warning to the others; I did this to your leader. What do you think I’ll do to you?

  Eh, and the guildmaster told him not to go any further with her. He supposed though, that being told to stop in and of itself, was a warning, too. Think of what I’ll do when she’s not looking?

  So, he smiled at Ravenguild’s leader. And her smashed face trembled in agony and hatred. Which, of course, made him smile all the more.

  “The entirety of Ravenguild,” the guildmaster replied, nodding and crossing her arms over her chest beside Mouse. “Captured on our raid.”

  “Aud, this is more than I hoped!” The stout man, who Mouse learned was the governor of Winolin, exclaimed in laughter.

  Aud, hmm? Mouse found out during the raid that the guildmaster’s name was Audie. Perhaps the two were close?

  “Oh?” The tall woman’s mouth curled into a smile, sending shivers over Mouse. “And you’ll repay us for this, right?”

  The governor’s eyes lit, rubbing roughed, clubby hands together. “Of course, of course! You solved a massive headache. Come on, I had the payment prepared.”

  Mouse and Audie watched the governor walk down the stone jail. Audie followed after him. “That better include dinner, Buus.”

  The governor whipped around, jaw slack, a quickening blush spreading above his braided beard. “In front of others! Aud!”

  The guildmaster’s head rocked back in boisterous laughter, leaving Mouse and two other mercenaries awkwardly standing behind her. Mouse groaned, hoping the cooks had soup ready by the time they returned.

  “Hey, you!” The snappy voice from the jail cell caught Mouse’s attention as he began to follow. He stopped, turning towards Ravenguild’s leader.

  “What?”

  She spat blood out, a dozen pairs of eyes glaring at him from within the cell. “You’d better watch your back. Because the moment you let your guard down—”

  “You’ll what, stab it?” He grinned, squatting down in front of the bars. “Please do. Because that’ll be the only reason I need to kill you. Defense, right? A perfect excuse. In fact,” he let out a quiet giggle, only for those in the cell to hear, “why don’t you try right now?”

  He pulled his sleeve up, sliding his arm into the cage. “Go ahead. Do something.”

  But none of them did. Every pair of eyes staring at his arm flickered with fear. Because they knew what he’d done at their hideout. How many of them he’d taken out alone. How he easily overpowered even several of them. And if one of them tried to harm his arm, he’d likely break whatever came within grasp’s reach. Then he’d never let go.

  “No? Well, then.” Mouse stood, sighing with a twinge of disappointment. “Hope I never cross paths with you. And if you ever cross my friend’s, well, blame your gods for whatever happens then, alright?”

  None of the prisoners spoke another word as he walked out, trailing behind the others already halfway up the stone stairs at the end of the hall. From the governor’s manor, it took them close to an hour to walk back to the guildhall. Mouse lagged behind as the other few mercenaries chatted.

  “You,” Audie turned back towards him when he broke away from the group when they reached the large archway. “You do good work. Despite all the…” she paused, “insanity.”

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  He said nothing, peaking towards the kitchen to see if either of his favorite cooks were on duty. Unfortunately, they weren’t. But from the smell, they did, in fact, make soup.

  The guildmaster sighed, shifting her weight to one side. “The west, right?” She mumbled under breath, shaking her head and walking away from him. “Must make people crazy out there.”

  Once she finally left, he hurried to the kitchen and asked for two bowls of the daily free meal. Some newcomer looked him over, scoffing at the ask before one of the veteran cooks told him he had a partner he picked up for.

  “Well, I’ve never seen one!” The brat said as he slid two bowls messily across the counter to Mouse. The other cook smacked him and apologized to Mouse. He tuned them out as they argued, heading up the stairs to the third floor.

  Their room was dark, and the dim candlelight of the hall brightened it as well as the sun could, had the days not been dreary of late. He stepped into the silence, shutting the door with his foot and slipped his boots off with ease. Then, Mouse carefully made his way across the room, setting a bowl of soup onto the nightstand.

  Taiga groaned from beneath the covers. Mouse paused, studying the trembling hair sticking out from the tops of the covers. The temperatures dipped severely over the past few days, and the cold sunk deep into every part of the guildhall. He set his warmed hand atop the pile of blankets and felt Taiga shivering beneath them.

  He set his own bowl of soup down on the table and shuffled through the covers for the heat stones. Cooled from his long absence while he wrangled the Ravenguild into submission. He quietly took them into his arms, slid his boots back on, and brought the rocks downstairs.

  Mouse placed them into a rack and set them over the firepit. He sat on the sofa, watching the embers flick around before retreating back to their warm hearth. A bang behind him made him turn. Four or five mercenaries pounded into the guildhall, shaking off gathered snow and stomping their feet from the cold.

  “Winter here is the worst!” One of them snapped, and Mouse recognized her voice. She was the tall mercenary that glared at him after fighting alongside him in Bearthatch. Telly, or something was her name. Probably.

  He flipped the rocks over.

  “Ah, Mouse!” The commissioner called him, waving him over. “I’ve got your payment ready.”

  He stood, making his way over to the counter while the stones warmed. “I thought it would take a couple days to get the money from the governor?”

  The commissioner nodded. “Yeah, but Master Audie said to pay y’all anyways, and she’ll make sure the governor pays without a problem.”

  Considering their apparent relationship, Mouse supposed ‘dinner’ was involved in that decision. Maybe their relationship allowed the guild to flourish with such prominence in Winolin. Not that it mattered to Mouse. As long as they got paid.

  The commissioner wrote something into his book and slid a bag of coins over. “Sixty-six hundred daud, the agreed amount.”

  Mouse split open the top of the sack, glancing over six gold coins with their signature hexagonal cut-out centers. He didn’t count the rest, and took the pouch in hand. The commissioner slid the book around for him and he signed on the line the commissioner pointed to.

  “You know,” the commissioner sighed. “I didn’t expect you all to finish this job so quickly. That amount of daud expected to pay for the course of several weeks to months of work, at least.”

  Mouse shrugged. “We got lucky?”

  The commissioner eyed him in a way to say, I know it wasn’t luck. And, well, the man would be right. Those Ravenguild fools were vengeful motherfuckers who thought they could get the better of him if they threw enough numbers at him. He’d been ambushed while walking around with the other guildies and dragged to their leader, of all things.

  The few underlings he’d let go previously did well for him, and the Ravenguild’s leader let pride be their downfall. The guildmaster tailed them to their hideout and the mercenaries took down the leader after a short fight.

  He smiled, remembering the crunch and crackles of bone as he slammed the Ravenguild leader’s face into the frozen stone floor. And not once or twice, either. After four bashings, Audie told him it was enough and, knowing Taiga’s comfort depended on not being kicked out of the guild, he relented.

  Okay, it definitely wasn’t luck.

  “Fine,” the commissioner raised his hands up, shooing him away, “keep your secrets! I’ll hear the fun details from someone else later.”

  Mouse took the stones from the fire pit, wrapping them into thick cloth, and started up the stairs.

  “Ah, Mouse.” He turned back towards the voice to find the older, grumpier mercenary from Bearthatch looking up at him from the bottom of the stairs. They hadn’t spoken to him since reporting the incident to Farren and Audie.

  “What?”

  The man, what was his name, rice? Grass? Something like that, glanced at him nervously, his stubby fingers brushing over his fur cloak, getting the last of the snow off it. “It’s Field. You remember me?”

  “I guess.”

  Silence. After giving Field plenty of time to say something, Mouse started back up the stairs, but Field called back out to him. “Hey, I heard, uhh, Taiga is sick?”

  So he was a well-wisher. Plenty of this type already tried getting in to see Taiga. Mouse rolled his eyes, tapping several fingers against the warm cloth in his hands to keep his annoyance at bay. “He’ll be fine when it warms up.”

  “I see, so he is ill…” Field mumbled, seeming to think Mouse couldn’t hear him. Then, he turned towards Mouse, locking eyes with him. “If you have some time, I’d like to talk to you about something. I figure you’re stronger than most of us here, and hoping you could help us with a problem.”