Fresh dire-horses could get them back to Deepwood before they needed to find lodging. But they were not headed that far out yet.

  “Still going to check out that lead, Hot Shot?” Jelena asked.

  From across the road, riding the other steed, Calaf nodded.

  “Lead the way.” Her partner slowed her dire-horse down to follow Calaf’s lead.

  Calaf looked out over the landscape. It was dark, with the moon a half-circle north and east. It would be another three hours’ ride before sharp granite outcroppings began to peek out of the idyllic, rolling hills.

  Though they rode at a steady clip, Calaf was hardly paying attention to their route. There’d be a clear fork in the road before Granite Pass, that much he knew. Visions of Charlotte danced in his head. She always put on a fierce scowl, but she’d looked positively enraged as they galloped off. The year since their ill-fated betrothal severing had not been kind to the deaconess. She’d filled it with trinkets – ornate and spiky rings on her hands, that circlet on her head. Still, Calaf was glad they were well and truly done.

  “That was a neat trick, other Hoss.”

  So deep in thought was Calaf that he didn’t notice the compliment from his passenger.

  Gorman was nowhere to be seen, oddly enough. A promotion from sewer guard duty would have seen him in the cathedral itself, yet he would have responded to the altercation at the front doors.

  Either way, it would be clear to all that Calaf was running with Jelena’s posse now. He could expect a wanted poster before long.

  “Other Hoss!” Zilara said. “About that lightning thing you did.”

  Calaf shook his head. “Right. That. Yes, I planned that all along.”

  The holy child chuckled. “Heh. You seem to have come across a new technique.”

  “We haven’t seen anything of the sort before either!” Jelena said from two horse-lengths behind.

  It made sense that deflecting lightning with a shield and weapon was a rare occurrence. Paladin-type classes seldom tanked spells while airborne, while nimbler classes like Scouts seldom took a blow. It could prove a useful skill if they came up against heavy lightning users. Perhaps there were ways to reflect fire attacks as well?

  Pity about the cathedral fa?ade, though.

  “Say, we haven’t checked out that dusty old tome we filched from the archives.”

  Ah, stealing from the Riverglen archives. Jelena and company would make a relic thief out of Calaf yet. Still holding on to the reigns, Calaf presented the Thirdhand Tome of Latecomer Aldia out of his Inventory.

  “We can always wait until camp to read it,” he said.

  “Nah, got just the utility spell for this.” Zilara summoned forth a mote of light with a snap. “Put her here. I wanna read.”

  “As you wish,” said the Squire.

  Zilara read the tome aloud as Calaf renewed his focus on the road.

  Thirdhand Tome of Latecomer Aldia

  Long did Cleric Mia walk through the southern welds with wide-open space overhead. Such a strange sight was this, but a canopy helped block the boundless sky.

  Three they were: grenritter (Zilara filled this in with ‘Paladin’, to another smirk from Calaf) Roland of the Fort Duran highland march; Gustavo, smuggler and cutpurse from the riverland ports, from which outlanders often hail; and of course Mia, cleric and gaol-born.

  Cleric Mia knew little of the outside world. Only that Demons ruled o’er the land. Indeed, for overhead, the group did sleuth squadrons of demons flying south towards the spiretop gaol.

  “The demon king’s rule is lax south of the highlands,” Roland said. “This spire is a rare outpost. Once we reach the plains we should be in the clear.”

  “We’re not going to be able to lay low with these Shackles.” The smuggler motioned at the brand on his dominant arm. “Physically hiding it will be easy enough for me. Maybe not for your cleric.”

  Mia shuffled closer to Roland as they walked. She blinked twice. The Shackles on her eyes would be nigh impossible to hide.

  “The Shackled are… used as slave labor by Demons and their loyalists both,” Roland said. “Worry not. There are entire Shackled neighborhoods in the Capital. People live normal lives despite these, these… well, these brands.”

  The trio each slept under an insulated, ghillie-type mesh that kept the chill at bay and kept any flying sentries from seeing them from above. Another of Gustavo’s many wares. For the first time since stepping out of the asylum’s prison spire, Mia felt like she was not about to float away into the wide-open sky.

  Even so, she did not sleep. In the prison all was regimented. Mia’s body instinctually cried out with a reminder to visit the beehive annex. For good or ill, she would never be seeing the beehives again.

  Judging by the squire tossing under his lean-to, Roland was not getting much sleep either. But while Mia had never known the world outside of the oubliette, the squire was from this world, unshackled until relatively recently. Whatever could he be thinking of now, being nominally free but Branded forevermore?

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Gustavo, meanwhile, slept soundly, facing up, head behind his hands. Not a care in the world.

  With another three hours of walking the trio happened upon the smallest of hamlets – a tiny abode built between the natural safety of a conjunction of rivers. No wall existed, only the paltriest of pontoon bridges offering passage across the river.

  “This is the only town in the valley,” Gustavo explained as they neared the bridge. “Ah, our clothes. They’re a little…”

  “And the Shackles themselves,” the smuggler continued, pointing at Roland’s neck. “You and I can hide them with the right garb. Your, ah, roommate, here, though. It’ll be hard to hide her eyes. Unless you want her to wear a blindfold and pretend she’s blind.”

  “We will manage,” Roland said.

  “Anyone who sees the brand will instantly know we’re Shackled. The Interface is invisible to the unshackled at least, but there’s no way back. Anyone, be they under the Demon King’s rule or not, is going to treat us as the lowest of castes. Lower than any serf.”

  Mia shuffled closer to the squire.

  Their smuggler guide’s eyes lit up, having arrived at a point he was working his way towards. “Which is to say, wait right here, yeah?”

  Gustavo ran off along the pontoon bridge. Roland and Mia waited off the path, just out of sight of any other travelers that could be seen. But none came from the south-western path. Indeed, the road seemed to be in ill repair.

  “The outside,” Mia said. “Most are Unshackled?”

  “Indeed.” Roland nodded. “It’s used as punishment. Particularly loyal human lords to the king can be… assigned Shackled to toil under them in fields or mines. A bit like our former prison, but with human guards.”

  The squire went on to explain how the brands and Shackles were introduced some centuries ago. Just a few generations past – but a time of myth accessible only to literate scholars at this point.

  At first, there was much rejoicing, for Shackled criminals and similarly condemned persons would be used to take over the most grueling of tasks that had once been the purview of land-bound serfs and peasants. The previous underclass was, all at once, freed to pursue more self-actualizing jobs and tasks.

  “No doubt that’s where the burghers of this riverside glen came from.” Roland beckoned across the river.

  It was a celebration to be short-lived, as with each passing decade the ranks of Shackled grew through Branding and natural birth. While the population of freeborn, either in fealty to the Demon’s regime or those still resisting, remained relatively steady, the ratio of freeborn to Shackled grew ever closer to 1:1. And with the Brand-marked spread via bloodline, even if no further humans were Shackled from this day on, there was no humane way to stop the spread of the mark.

  Within an hour, Gustavo returned, wielding clothes. To noble Roland he traded:

  And to the cleric Mia he traded:

  With a hood over her head, it would be easier to hide her Branded eyes, at least so long as she averted eye contact. Mia equipped it at once.

  When asked where the garments were acquired, Gustavo responded only that they were ‘acquired’.

  Onward the party walked, crossing over into the hamlet of Riverglen. There was no temple or cathedral, not even to the Demon King. Instead, the structures surrounding the modest market square were large manses sourced from local timber.

  Supplies were needed for the long trek north. A traveling merchant proved willing to trade Roland’s unwieldy Rebar Club for a rusty sword and simple wooden shield. But with naught for coin they could only barter, and what stores were present in this minor abode proved unwelcoming.

  “No Shackled,” said a sign on the lone traveler’s general store.

  It was in this unwelcome environment that the group discovered a cart stuck in the mud on the outbound road out of the village. The cart was half-stuck in a ditch with the offending wheel nowhere to be found.

  “Good day,” said a man in a pointed, feathered hat. “Shackled, are you? And not from the Tower. Curious.”

  “Fair day, m’lord,” Mia said. “You are like us?”

  The stranger nodded. “Well, I’m Shackled, though the circumstances are different. Doubtless the good people of this village have no experience with Battlemagery. Come, I am…”

  The wandering mage summoned forth a shimmering Interface window. It remained a constant cyan blue just like the Menu windows appeared in the deep dark of the gaol.

  “It is rare to see free-roaming Shackled around these parts,” said Aldia. “Be you Brand-slaves to the alderman? Or perhaps under thrall of a wandering demontroop?”

  “We are just travelers,” Roland said. “Freeborn.”

  “Many Shackled are Freeborn,” Aldia answered. ”But seldom free any longer. Unless you have a pass from the Tower, you may wish to indenture yourself to some higher power with liberty to take responsibility for Shackle-bound charges.”

  A foul smell wafted from behind a wall. It was a haphazard thing, put up less to keep something out than to shield prying eyes from unseemly chaff. A set of ill-balanced wooden stairs descended into the murk.

  “What is that place?” Mia asked.

  Despite the open ceiling, it reminded the cleric much of the gaol. A foul smell like festering wounds wafted from over the fence.

  “Charnel pit,” said Aldia. “Dire-rat infestation. Two of my predecessors have already gone missing. This is their cart.”

  “All that from a bunch of rats?” Gustavo guffawed.

  “Do you need help, good sir?” Roland asked.

  Mia shuffled closer to the Paladin.

  “We could use the experience,” he said.

  The wayfarer Aldia perked up. “Well, it’s expensive to deploy even one mage from the tower. This contract is already a loss. We can split the fee four ways, if you’d like. All the better to ensure the contract is complete.”

  It was decided. The new group of four descended, with Roland in the lead, down the charnel pit.

  The parchment ended abruptly.

  “So there he is,” Zilara said. “The team battlemage.”

  Calaf nodded.

  It was clearly a reproduction of the tale many years after the testament was first written. The diction was more modern than the aged scrolls. Still, it was old. If this thirdhand testament had been delivered to the ecumenical council in a timely fashion, perhaps the church’s canon story would be closer to the actual truth.

  “Reading the metadata, it sounds like this was discovered in a false wall buried during the construction of the Riverglen cathedral,” Zilara explained. “Hope your next treasure trove hasn’t been raided already.”

  “Doubtful.” Calaf looked ahead, where a fork in the road beckoned in the low light.

  “Good thing we found this one by happenstance,” Zilara concluded. “Imagine if we did find the next testament and it started off with a big battle out of context.”

  “There’s not going to be a big battle,” Calaf said with confidence. “It was just a bunch of rats. The first station of the pilgrim’s path was pest control. Everyone knows that.”

  The pair of dire-horses turned along a leftmost path, to the west, a fair ways south of Granite Pass.