Esmeralda: An Oddlot Tale, part 2

They awoke the next day in each other’s arms, lingering in the dawn. When they finally dressed and descended the stair, Ander stopped briefly for a change of clothes from his quarters. He did not notice at that time that all of Sevrin’s things had been packed up and removed.

The new couple danced together through the spring and summer, adventuring now by day and in the open together, seeing the city as it had been intended to be seen. At night, they still explored, but usually it was with each other now that Ander shared a bunk with no one. Ander’s performances improved again, perhaps better than ever now that he could fully understand the love he sang about. Esmeralda never missed a show. That is, not until autumn dropped its long shadows on the city.

The difficulty of relationships was not limited to two young lovers. The Kingdom of Mahn found itself at odds with its neighbors. Most of the lovers and dreamers in the city paid it little attention, their youth and innocence lying to them that it would work itself out. But when one lover is the daughter of the General of the Army, certain truths couldn’t be ignored. War was coming to the kingdom, and it would need the sword arm of one of its best warriors in the campaign ahead. Esmeralda and Ander parted in the blue-black predawn air, tears in both their eyes as Esmeralda, in her shining plate armor, rode away on her charger at the side of her father Juan Carlos. Ander stood in the dust, watching the many ranks of the army snake away down the road and up into the mountains.

Though his heart ached for Esmeralda, Ander had no interest in joining the army. He was a fair hand with a rapier and had learned combat as part of the Society’s training, but he saw army life as drab and regimented; not something the free-spirited half-elf could accept. Esmeralda had never offered it to him, knowing then that it was a bad fit for him. She still loved him too much to subject him to that lifestyle, though secretly she yearned for the battle. It was what she had been born and raised for, at her own insistence. She proved herself adept, so much so, in fact that when officers ahead of her proved themselves foolish or ended up dead, she ascended the ranks as fast as she charged her horse into battle.

Ander traveled. Sometimes it was with the Society, sometimes on his own in search of his elven mother. He had wanted to learn the ways of that side of his heritage, and at eighteen, he was set to do so having made a contact amongst the elves who could very well bring him to his mother.

Sometimes, even, he searched for signs of what had happened to Sevrin. The two had not gotten along well in their last few years together, but he still felt a kinship towards him. He’d find a clue here or there, audiences describing a sad, haunted poet who had moved them to tears or enraged them with the injustices of love scorned, but Ander never found Sevrin in his travels.

And then, the war broke out in earnest for the Kingdom of Mahn. Ander found himself conscripted and stuffed into the marching ranks of fodder. The army had no need for entertainers, and his fledgling magical powers were no match for the great battle wizards on either side of the conflict. That the war was “In defense of their kingdom!” did nothing to mollify him. He knew that old story from the many plays he’d read. Not the ones performed for the palace, but the ones written by the foot soldiers who’d somehow survived and found a scribe to dramatize their stories. Those plays were not popular, for they were far truer than anyone wanted to believe. Ander only felt trapped, certain that doom awaited him on every battlefield. Yet, somehow he survived. His officers were competent and did not waste troops foolishly. He built kinships with the men and women he fought beside, but only after they’d shown they could survive a few battles. It was no use getting close to some fresh meat, just to lose him or her a day later on the battlefield. And with every loss, Ander felt his own doom creeping closer.

On the eve of big battle, a messenger came into the camp. Ander had been reassigned. To his delight, he found that Esmeralda had arranged for them to be together.

The joy did not last long. General Esmeralda Villa Lobos Garcia had been changed by the war. Now in command of a third of her father’s army, she wore a stern face and ashen skin. Her green eyes had grayed and sparkled with little of the mischief of youth. Ander wasn’t even sure it was really her when he saw her again, riding in full armor upon her horse. Esmeralda did soften in private later that night, when she called Ander to her tent. She embraced him and asked him question about how the city had changed since her departure. Ander returned the questions with his own about her battles and life since leaving. Esmeralda danced around the details, but convinced Ander that she needed a personal confidant, someone she could trust from the old days to check her motivations. She confessed to feeling pulled by the necessities of war into something dark and sinister, a warlord instead of the general in an army of the people and for the people. When she offered, Ander eagerly agreed to be her aide-de-camp.

The job was not as he’d imagined. To his horror, he realized the sinister aspects of being a warlord were slowly gaining purchase on Esmeralda, and that his counsel devolved every evening into pleasures of the flesh. A young man bedded by his beloved every night shouldn’t have had anything to complain about, but Ander couldn’t shake the feeling that he was more accurately her concubine than a confidant and lover. It wasn’t the worst duty to do in a war, but it never truly pleased the good-natured Ander.

The feeling only grew worse when Sevrin reappeared. When Ander first saw him, Ander was on the other side of camp. Sevrin had just left Esmeralda’s tent. Ander tried to catch up to talk to him, but Sevrin disappeared into the ranks.

“Did my eyes deceive me, General?” Ander asked that night in the soft candlelight of Esmeralda’s tent. He still felt awkward calling her by her rank, but she’d insisted it was only proper when they were amongst others. A guard held open the tent flap as servants brought in the general’s dinner. “Did I see Sevrin here earlier?”

“Your eyes did not fool you, Andy,” Esmeralda said. Ander had once questioned her that, if it was only appropriate that he called her general, why wasn’t he called by his rank, lieutenant? She’d explained that in the army, respect rolled down hill. “Sevrin was here earlier. And much earlier, too. He joined this army of his own free will, you know. I have been seeing him ever since I learned of it.”

“Seeing him?” Ander felt the flush of anger on his face.

“Yes.”

“You didn’t think to tell me about that?”

“Did you keep chaste after I left, Little Singer?”

Ander’s mouth shut.

“I thought not.”

“Well, is it at least over between you two?”

“Over? Not exactly. Suspended would be a more accurate word. Sevrin serves me in important ways. He is often a liaison for me to the other generals.”

“If it’s not really over, what am I doing here?”

Esmeralda stood up from the pillows she’d been reclined on. With her armor off, Ander had an easy time seeing why he’d lusted after her. She sauntered over to him, stopped with her hips set, not so unlike that first day at the theater, and bent down to him.

The punch she laid on his jaw toppled Ander over and made him see stars.

“What are you doing here, indeed, Little Singer? If you would prefer to join the ranks of the pikemen, I know of a particularly deadly gambit I may run in the future. I could have you back there in an hour.”

Ander held his jaw, trying to clear his head about. It wasn’t just the after-effects of the punch that dizzied him.

“I don’t want…” Ander started to say.

“You don’t want what?” Esmeralda demanded. There was no heat, no passion about her, just the same coldness that lay on the steel she wielded in battle. Ander could not sort his feelings, though he felt a burning in his face. Later, in the dark after she’d used him for lovemaking, he placed the sensation. He was a damned coward.

During the days Ander’s talent for music and a magic flourished. He poured himself into his arts, both mundane and magical, as the only escape the damned war allowed him. The only escape Esmeralda allowed. Their love making had not normalized and Ander did not particularly care for the forced physical encounters. This was not the only distasteful duty foisted upon the young half-elf.

Esmeralda’s affection for Ander made her lazy in maintaining proper barriers between what happened in the tent and what happened in the war. Ander learned more than he ever wanted to know about how leadership functioned, often in the shadows and sometimes by the side of the general as she planned her strategy. Worse, he’d been called to play his drum when the general “interrogated” captured officers of enemy orc forces. He had no particular sympathy for orcs—they all were evil incarnate—but that didn’t mean he could stomach their torture. Especially not, when it was done by the woman he loved.

Once loved, he realized one day as he rode by her side. Esmeralda’s army marched to battle to the rhythm laid down by Ander’s drum. Long gone were the days of his lute playing. The army needed a sterner instrument. Ander chaffed at the irony. If he was stronger himself, he could have found a way out of his predicament.

His shot of iron came not on the battlefield, but in the town liberated by Esmeralda’s forces. The Army of Mahn wasn’t particularly kind to the towns, villages and small cities that it occupied. Ander, despite the changes he’d witnessed in Esmeralda, couldn’t believe that this was intentional. Surely, the general was just too busy to notice the appalling condition her troops left the townspeople in. He called her attention to the sorry state of affairs in a town the army was occupying:

The night had grown cold in the deep dark, despite the general’s elaborate tent and despite the heavy furs on top of their bare bodies. Esmeralda had been selfish in her lovemaking, drawing out the session painfully. Ander ached and shivered underneath her. He shook his own feelings from his mind. Men in the field had it worse, and the townsfolk, whom the army was supposed to be protecting, had it much worse.

He remembered the pain in a small elven boy’s face and his distended belly from earlier. The mess chef had caught him stealing a bowl of rice and had threatened to flay the lad. Ander had intervened and saved him, impressed at the boy’s stealthy arrival in camp as much as he was moved to save a child whose only crime was starving to death. The kinship he’d felt stirred him, despite his own distressed situation. Ander had fed him and then saw him back to the makeshift orphanage he’d come from. Ander had been shocked by the number of elven children amongst the underfed waifs. Most elves had pulled out of the city before the army had arrived, retreating to ancestral forest homes. They wouldn’t have left their young behind.

Esmeralda had a war to fight, and that occupied much of her mind. The situation with the townsfolk must have flown under her notice. It was the same excuse Ander gave Esmeralda for her lack of consideration as a lover. She just had too much on her mind to notice the small things. That had to be it. Ander had to try to help the townspeople. Hadn’t he gone to the general’s bed with a fully belly? If the worst thing that happened to the half-elf that day was Esmeralda’s wicked version of ecstasy, he was still leagues better than the hungry boy.

“General, these people, the townspeople, are starving. They’re not just hungry, they’re on the verge of death. I’ve seen the records of our intake. We’re taking far more than we need. I know you’re busy, but we must alter our intake.” The bard’s voice was strong, despite the weight of Esmeralda’s body pinning him down. The general was a warrior and had built muscle underneath her beautiful skin, so she was not like the city maidens Ander had cavorted with before his conscription.

Esmeralda’s lifted her head. She’d been laying directly on top of Ander, careless to the fact her hair was on his face or that the pressing of her breast into his sternum made it hard for him to breath. She placed her hands on his shoulders and leveraged herself up on him, causing him to grit his teeth as her nails scratched his skin. The lone surviving candle in the tent danced light off her green eyes.

“Yes, Andy, I know,” the general said, curling up a naked thigh so that her kneecap brushed his nether region. “You see, these people did not initially support the Queen during the initial days of the war. Now, not only do I punish them for this, but I supply my army.”

“General, Esmeralda, I beg you. Their children had no say in this, and the townspeople flew flags and banners as we arrived. They’ve learned their lesson. Surely you can—”

“I can what, my little plaything? Have you forgotten your place?” Esmeralda’s knee pushed painfully up and into Anders groin. “Have you forgotten to give me your unconditional support?”

“No, General. I only—”

“That’s good, Andy. I’d hate to have to punish you again,” Esmeralda said. A cold shiver ran down Ander’s spine, despite the painful fire from his groin. The general’s words said she’d hate it, but the sadistic gleam in her eye told another tale.

The lie that Ander believed cracked that night, a fragile vial of hope that could not contend with the rapid change from hot to cold. The next night, it would shatter.

Ander was brought into the black tent, carrying his drum and sticks. The guard had told him to come and had not said why, only tapping the handle to his rapier when Ander had asked. Ander nodded, his face darkening. Though skilled at many instruments, Ander played his drum with pride when he rode next to the general and laid down the rhythm for the army to march and fight. Though he was ashamed to not be fighting himself, he felt he could at least do his duty in a small way by playing the drum. The other use for the drum, to lay down a painful rhythm during the general’s “interrogation sessions”, nauseated him. He hoped the poor orc she’d torture tonight would not show too much stubborn pride.

“I never cared much for the drum,” Sevrin said as Ander entered the tent. Ander recoiled, not having expected to see his former mentor in music. Sevrin had greeted Ander with joviality when they’d finally met again. When neither was needed by the general, Sevrin had helped Ander’s magic and music by sharing his own bardic power. He has also offered advice on dealing with Esmeralda’s appetites. That relationship had soured, though, when the general had favored Ander with her physical “affections.” Though it was a gift Ander desperately wished to exchange, Sevrin had apparently enjoyed his time with the general and hadn’t much liked being replaced. Esmeralda had granted Sevrin’s request to work primarily in another part of the camp, the one where the camp followers could be found, and left Ander to absorb the totality of Esmeralda’s unkind passion.

“Sevrin, what are you doing here?”

“I mean, I can play it better than you,” Sevrin continued, ignoring Ander’s question. “But it’s just so… common. Any lout with half of a sense of rhythm can bang sticks off it. That’s why I recommended you when the general called for a drummer boy.”

“Who’s the poor sap tonight?”

“Behold,” Sevrin said, raising a toned arm to point at a curtain in front of them. The curtain fell away. Esmeralda held the cord that released it. In a chair, bound and gagged, was the boy Ander had saved from the mess chef’s wrath yesterday.

“Ander,” she began, “you’re such a joy to me in many ways. But you’re no soldier. Mainly, you lack discipline.”

Ander’s eyes, wide with concern, moved from the general to the boy. Tears left muddy trails on the boy’s face as they cut through the grime caked there.

“Yes, General. I’m sorry,” Ander said. He tried to keep his voice level, realizing sympathy hardly mattered to Esmeralda these days. “Please grant me your discipline. But spare this boy. I humbly submit myself in his place.”

“Oh, Andy, there’s more than one kind of discipline,” Esmeralda said. “And more than one kind of way to teach it. Sevrin.”

The older concubine pulled a knife from his boot. Ander himself had been forbidden weapons in the presence of the general, but Sevrin had long gloated over the fact that he was trusted enough to be armed.

“What are you doing with that?” Ander said, the fear rising in his voice.

“I’m going to start cutting on that boy. How much is up to you,” Sevrin said. His tone was matter-of-fact, as if he was stating that the pending clouds would likely lead to rain. They boy screamed against the gag in his mouth.

“None at all!” Ander shouted.

“Andy, he has to lose at least some fingers,” Esmeralda said. “It’s how we discipline thieves.”

“I was a thief once,” Ander said.

“And look how well I’ve disciplined you,” she said. Her smile revealed that she had been well-aware of her abusive lovemaking. She hadn’t just been stressed or distracted or simply selfish.

“Fine! Punish me more, then. This boy’s seven if he’s a day. Don’t hurt him for being hungry! Not when we made him that way!”

“That’s the weak elf-side of him talking, General,” Sevrin said.

“The general’s half-elf, too!” Ander shouted. A faint hope for that day on the steps of the theater bubbled up, the day Esmeralda had revealed her own heritage.

“Aye. To my great shame,” Esmeralda said, her voice dripping with false sorrow. “Sevrin worked hard to show me that it was no blessing, only weakness.”

“Weakness? The elves are responsible for many of the wonders of the world.”

The general spat on the floor of the tent. “The elves hide away in their trees, unable to bloody themselves fighting the orcs. They can’t be bothered to dirty themselves. They call on the Army of Mahn like we’re servants. They’ll see the truth, eventually.”

“What are you saying?” Ander gasped. She couldn’t possibly mean to bring the elves into the conflict, and surely not as enemies.

“I told you he was soft as he was pretty,” Sevrin said. “We need to cut that softness out of him, Esmeralda.”

“Sevrin, you can’t surely be fine with this?” Ander said.

“Pretty half-elf, keep talking,” Sevrin said. “Each word is more cutting for me to do.”

“General! Esmeralda! Have mercy on this boy!”

“Ander, you’ve been passing this war in the warmth and ecstasy of my tents. It’s time you faced the bloody side of what we do,” Esmeralda said. She walked over to him and yanked his head backward by his long hair then grabbed his throat in the other hand. She pulled him by the throat, fingers digging into his Adam’s apple, over to in front of the boy. She kicked her boot into the back of Ander’s knee, forcing him down.

“Play!” the general demanded of the young bard. “Beat time to this torture session!” She twisted and yanked Ander’s hair. Still, the half-elf would have resisted had not another idea come to him. He tapped his drumsticks against the stretched skin of the drum, starting a soft beat.

“You may proceed, Sevrin,” Esmeralda said.

“My pleasure, General.”

Ander saw the blade lift into the air, lantern light bouncing off its polished face. A fraction of a second later, it would begin its downward arch and cut into the boy’s fingers. Ander wanted to scream, to shatter the moment.

Instead, the words that left his mouth were soft, the first notes of a lullaby. The drumming changed to a soft roll. Magic infused the rhythm.

Sevrin, always weak-minded despite his similar training, felt the effects right away. The blade tumbled from his hand and he fell face first to the dirt floor of the tent. The guard that had led Ander to the tent, sensing something amiss, managed to draw his rapier before he collapsed.

Esmeralda, powerful in her will, loosened her grip anyway. She fell from Ander sideways to slump against the tent’s wall. The boy, too, snored lightly in his bonds. Only Ander remained awake. He snatched up the knife and cut the boy free of his ropes. Using the curtain that Esmeralda had dropped, he wrapped the boy up so that he could flee the camp without the elfling being seen. Ander couldn’t retrieve his drum, too, and carry the boy. He paused for only a moment before realizing that he no longer wanted it. The drum had become the instrument of a war he’d never wanted anything to do with. It forever would be connected to the torture session he’d adverted. The drum, like Sevrin’s saccharine poetry, only sickened him now. Still, he’d need a weapon. He paused a moment longer to take the belt, sheath and rapier from the guard, then buckled it around his own waist. He hoisted the boy on one shoulder and fled from the tent and into the night air.

During the days they fled, Ander learned that the elfling, Jan, was an orphan now, his fathered killed in battle and his mother fallen to an illness that her starved body could not fight. Jan did not know why his parents had stayed around. He, too, had expected to flee to the forest. He had no siblings and had no idea where his other relations lived, if they lived at all. Not knowing what else to do with the boy, Ander made their way back toward the city of Khord. He fixed up a damaged lute he found in the rubble of a burned out house and played for their dinner in the towns outside of the army’s narrow march. When he couldn’t earn their supper with his music, he stole food, or the coin for it, as he could. Tyr would forgive him, he hoped, for Ander stole only to set right the injustice that had been done to Jan in the first place.

When the walls of Khord loomed before him, Ander waited until nightfall before he and Jan entered. Tyr was with him, he thought, for his father was at the Magic Lantern Society. Zane cried when he saw his son Ander for the first time in years, and then again when Ander relayed his war stories and Esmeralda’s descent into darkness.

“I can’t stay, Dad,” Ander said over the warm mug of tea. “Just tonight. Es will know to look for me here.”

“She’ll look for this one, too,” Khord said, motioning his own mug toward Jan who slept for the first time in months on a bed with clean linen. Ander had done well by the lad in the food department, and now that he had been bathed and placed in bed with warmth and laughter around him, Jan looked healthy and at peace. “He can’t stay in the city.”

“Surely Esmeralda won’t remember what one orphan elfling looks like. He looks completely different, now that he’s not starving.”

“If the general is as wicked as you say, she’ll send wizards with her bounty hunters and track Jan to the door of this theater.”

Ander swallowed, suddenly realizing he may have brought trouble to the last place he’d want it. “Of course. I’ll gather supplies and be gone from here with Jan by sunset tomorrow. We’ll keep moving at night, keep the shad—”

“No,” his father said, holding up a hand. “Esmeralda will be aiming for me, too. I’ll tell the other troupers to be wary, be ready to flee if it looks like the general’s wrath will be brought down on them, but I’ll be gone. I’ll take Jan with me. I know of a woman who should have a second shot at motherhood.”

Ander’s eyes widened as he realized who Zane meant. “My mother? You know where she is?”

“I believe so, or at least how to make myself known to her.”

“Take me,” Ander said, but choked off the words as he said them. The sadness in Zane’s eyes told him that would not be possible. “Why not?” Ander’s voice was a tight croak.

“I know you’ve wanted to see her again, that you’ve looked for her. I can’t bring you to her.” Zane stood and went to a cupboard. He pulled out a glass bottle filled with brown liquor. “This is going to require something stronger than tea, I fear.” He uncorked the bottle and poured a shot into his mug. Ander hesitated, then nodded for his own snort.

Taking a pull on the spiked tea steadied Ander’s nerves. “Why can’t you bring me to Mother?”

“Do you know why your mother left you?” Zane continued.

“You’ve always told me that she was a princess of her people. She needed to return to take her father’s place and rule there.”

Zane nodded, his sad eyes cast down into his mug.

Ander continued: “I kept waiting for that to happen. I knew that once she had the throne, she could change the rules about banning humans from the forest.”

Zane took a shot of liquor from his mug. He set it down carefully, studying it before looking into Ander’s eyes.

“There’s no rule against humans in the forest,” he said at last, the sorrow of his soul in his voice. He looked away from Ander then, pouring himself a new shot of liquor.

Ander eventually closed his slackened jaw. He couldn’t find the words.

“She loved us, son,” Zane said. “Don’t doubt that. But she couldn’t stay. She was 200 years old when we met, and had maybe thrice that left in her life. An elf’s lifespan might as well be infinite to us humans.”

“I’m half elf,” Ander protested.

“You know it doesn’t work that way. You might get a few more years than my half would give you, but nowhere near your mother’s lifespan. She’d have to watch you grow old and die. No parent should have to do that. I—” Zane’s voice choked off. He cleared his throat “I kept waiting for the messenger to come tell me you were dead in the war. It’s been so long, Son.”

“Esmeralda wasn’t big on correspondence, Dad. I suppose she didn’t want me to tell the world about the truth of the Grand Army of Mahn. Seems like everyone has their secrets to keep.” Ander couldn’t keep the bitterness from his voice.

“It’s not easy to hear this, I know, Boy. It’s not easy to tell. It’s not like I stopped loving her. It’s not like I could…I could have forgiven her earlier if she had left just me. It would have hurt like hell either way, but I wouldn’t have wanted her to go through the pain of watching me wither and die.”

“You’re not ill, are you Dad?”

“Not hardly! You didn’t get all your grace and good looks from your mother, you know.”

“Sure, Dad. You were saying?”

“I was saying that I was mad at her, too. It’s a damn sin for a woman to leave her boy like that, least for a human woman. I…I was mad for a long time. But being mad at her wasn’t going to help you grow up right. I gave up my anger, Ander. I hope you can, too.”

Ander sat back from the table, eyes searching the long shadows of the candlelit room. “That might be a long time coming.”

“You’re a good soul, son. Don’t ever forget that. You’ve seen more than your share of ugliness in the world. The war, Esmeralda, and now this. Don’t let it consume you.”

Ander nodded, hearing the wisdom of the words, but not feeling them in his soul.

The next day, Ander spent his time with Zane as son and father gathered supplies. Zane would leave with Jan under the cover of the troupe heading east for an engagement in the desert city of Newsham. Ander would travel a way with them, before splitting off in his own direction. Sadness hung in the air around the family. Zane not only felt his son’s pain, but had some of his own. He’d never imagined that Ander would ever leave the troupe, the one family they’d both been able to count on. But the continent was vast and many kingdoms lay outside the reach of even the Army of Mahn’s grasp. If Ander would ever have a peaceful life, he’d have to do it far and away from his family.

Ander felt his father’s sadness and interpreted it as disappointment in the way Ander had let his life unravel. He felt ashamed to leave, but knew he’d only risk the well-being of the troupe if he stayed. In his heart he resolved to become a great bard, to achieve for his troupe secretly what he could not do with them. He’d make Zane proud one day.

On the road where they parted, Zane reminded Ander once again of who the young man really was.

“You’re not some sad-sack. That was Sevrin’s deal, what with that poetry of his. Surprised his audiences didn’t drink themselves dumb, listening to his tripe.”

“A lot did. I think that’s why he got a lot of tavern work.”

“Ha! And there’s the wit I know in my boy Ander. Hold on to that. Life isn’t always going to batter you. Reach out to others. Make new friends. Make a family, even.”

Ander nodded and hugged his father. “Who knows? One day, maybe I’ll be able to come home again.”

“I will pray to Tyr that the day is soon, Boy.”

Ander walked away, but stopped, a cold thought striking him. “What if my mother doesn’t, you know…with Jan?”

“Well, if I can’t convince that bitch to do the right thing this time, I guess I’ll just have to raise the little bugger myself. Didn’t do such a bad job with you, eh?”

Ander smiled as Zane ran to catch up to the caravan moving east. He watched them grower smaller in the distance, feeling his heart go with them. Then, steeling himself, he turned to walk his own road.



# # #



“I had some small adventures after this,” Ander said. The last notes of the lute faded and the magical imagery that enhanced the story left the companions in only the light of the campfire “Nothing compared to the way his life changed in Ellery the evening I met the Leffe and Dalvin, and Mordo.”

“You worry about Esmeralda and Sevrin?” Dalvin asked after some time passed. The companions had been struck silent during the story.

“Not much,” Ander said. “We’re not even on the same plane of existence with them now.”

“Right,” Enolo said. “I got questions swimming around my head, but I gotta know, how do I protect you should we run into them again?”

“I’ve got fake mustaches!” Nedwyn said. “We could disguise you!”

A tension-breaking chuckled rolled through the party.

“That will depend largely on how we meet again,” Ander said, looking the goliath paladin in the eyes. “I suspect, though, that one day I’ll have to deal with them myself.”

“Friends don’t let friends die alone, mate,” Enolo said.

“I wasn’t planning on doing the dying part,” Ander laughed.

“You don’t have to do the alone part, either,” the kobold wizard Snow said.

“Aye,” Tyrael said. “When you’re not hitting on every lass with a pulse, you’re not so bad.”

“I—thank you, friends. I hope you all don’t think less of me. I was afraid you might think of me as a coward.”

“Coward?” Nedwyn said. “No way!”

“You saved that boy,” Enolo said, placing a large hand on the bard’s shoulder. “How could you think you’re a coward?”

Ander thought that maybe he could have helped feed the people of the town, or really took a stand against Esmeralda.

He looked over the refugees. He’d see to it that they were fed, that they made it to safety. Esmeralda and Sevrin could stay shadows in his past.

For a time.


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