The masked man stared long at the one across the table from him, some years ago. He slowly lifted his head off of the high back of his chair. The horrible voice he owned, damn nearing cacophonous and venomous as it always was, questioned, “Have you lost faith…my eldest of advocates? Do you question my sanity…or have you forgotten the need to see this chaos rise aflame?”
The man across the table is tall, but not towering, and broad and big boned. He had a stern avail jaw, covered in a scruffy short beard and long brown hair that only made just past his shoulders, mostly straight like straw. He shook his head and spoke with a clear accent, “No, Kodwell, I haven’t lost faith in us. And I understand why sometimes you have to take it too far but…but this one just isn’t worth the resources you're burning. We’re burning. You gotta let’em go.”
The masked man settled back, “And Roarkke?” He questioned.
The other man leaned over the table and shook his head, “No. He doesn’t agree…Don’t mean he’s right.”
“You always say-”
“I know. I stand by it. He is. Smartest of all of us. Even smart folks is wrong sometimes…” He paused and bit the inside of his cheek, “You ain’t so dumb yerself neither, Kodwell. Some part of you has to know that you’re sinking more into this than any of us are gonna get out. There’s a time for things you do…a place for it. And it’s just as smart, in my opinion. Now these people don’t have nothin’ anymore, they spent what we didn’t take on mercenaries, and not the yellow kind we’re used to. They had armor, they have weapons, horses…we can win but we will lose more than-”
“Enough…enough.” The masked man stopped him with a raised hand, “Ever since this got bigger you’ve been so boring.”
The mask is taken off, and the man across the table is treated to a sight that few if any living had seen. The unmasked man continued, “Remember when it was just the four of us, Aethum? What happened to those days?”
The man across the table, identified as Aethum, looked down and murmured, “Ambrose got killed. We all saw what happened to Yamrae, the fool…”
The unmasked man chuckled across the table, “Out with the old guard, eh? Still suppose I’ll outlive all of you.”
A silence followed. Aethum looked up at his leader, and coughed slightly, behind closed lips, as if the words said only a moment before were somehow an affirmation. He surely may have. The unmasked figurehead spoke again and sighed, “Go on then…tell Sethwin to stop it before it's too late. Leave the trying to the footpads.”
Aethum nodded respectfully and quickly darted out of the tent flap into a larger interior of a much larger tent. Not five feet outside of that one, a gruff, sort of stunted voice barks at him, “Any big news, tosser?
Aethum turned around to spot the massive scum of the earth, Borwith. Towering, fierce auburn hair, sun scarred skin and a crooked grin with crooked yellow teeth. He squinted, staring down at Aethum, as he always had in so many ways. Aethum sneered at him, “Nothin’ that concern ya. Keep on walkin’ anywhere but ‘ere.”
Borwith caught up easily and yanked Aethum’s shoulder backwards, and stepped in front of him, “Surely, yous can tell lil’ ol’ me what we gonna do ‘bout them merchants.”
Aethum gritted his teeth and put a strong hand on Borwith’s chest, and pushed him away from him as he hissed, “You are a backwards witted fool with not a thought in that shell you call a head!”
Borwith just seemed amused and laughed, “Awwwe c’mon now, brother! Brothers in arms, ain’t we? All of us lieutenants-”
“If I had a say in Kodwell’s machinations you wouldn’t even be a captain…you’d be lucky if you were chow for hounds.” Aethum spat on the ground beside his boot disrespectfully.
Borwith’s crooked face soured and he glared right back, “Alright, ‘mon then, let’s here this great reason y’got for hating me. ‘Mon, let’s here it.”
Aethum got close to Borwith, and those around camp to witness all grew silent as tension split the air. Aethum’s face was scrunched horribly into a distinct glare, “You can’t be so daft as not to remember what you did to that poor girl. What you did to every other sorry fool you been in the same air as! You sicken me to m'core. You are worse than rot.” He whispered angrily, but those nearby would have heard.
Borwith grinned again, “Which girl would that be?”
Aethum was of course referring to what had happened some years back, with a young scholar woman named Cecilia Burnhart, a Bree town local who mysteriously disappeared after being assaulted, twice. Aethum didn’t dignify Borwith’s mockery with an answer.
Borwith scoffed, “Y’know somethin’ Aethum, you’ll look a lot friendlier with less teeth.”
Borwith was bigger than Aethum by a bit, and in a hand to hand, Borwith would win. But Aethum only had to put his lips together, part them, and let out a long, one noted hiss. Several surrounding members of the camp joined in. What Aethum did not have in raw strength he had in respect, and Borwith looked around, realizing exactly how brute forcing his way out of a situation would have ended for him. Aethum spoke no further to the man, and when Borwith backed down, Aethum continued towards the road, with intent to intercept Sethwin’s ambush on the merchant's caravan.
The merchants arrived in Bree some time later, unharassed.
