:: EPISODE 1 ::

An Old Flame And A Lich

Kicking his legs up on the table, the hooded man stretched his muscles. It felt so good to relax with a roof over his head, even if it would be for only one night.

The taproom of the inn was well packed with patrons. Noisy, but not so overly crowded that others were clamoring to sit with two strangers occupying a table meant for six in a darkened back corner. And the out of tune lute music by the two bards who were plucking away only added to the ambiance.

With a flick of a match on his striking pad, he lit the long-stemmed pipe once carved in-between battles won long ago during more gratifying times. But these days he rarely had any money to purchase the skullcap he liked to smoke for its calming effects on his mind. Today was a little different. Today, he had some.

There hadn't been enough of anything worth salvaging from that cursed Gnoll Horde, except the few pieces of silver found on the Commander. Those dog-men weren't known to care much for anything that normal folk, decent and indecent alike, valued as currency. Only for food to fill their bellies and implements of war. Even when it came to the later, those were usually nothing more than rusted pieces of crap. They let their claws and the gnashing teeth of their maws do much of the talking in battle. Weapons were often more of a formality. Although, gnoll archers were definitely a force to be reckoned with.

As expected, with one well-placed arrow through the back of the Gnoll Commander's skull and out between its eyes, the entire troop had quickly disintegrated into chaos, panicked, and ran. The way a horde worked was pretty easy to understand. The Commander was the absolute authority of everything and everyone within the horde. The consummate pack alpha.

No Gnoll Commander worth his salt ever let another gnoll live if it could even remotely be seen as a threat to his command. Thus, when you killed the leader, there was usually no other creature around to even think about taking control of the horde. Just thousands upon thousands of stupid grunts who, without the fear of the Commander killing them for insubordination, would scatter in every which direction.

The funniest part, the hooded man thought, was how so many of them were in such a panic that they completely forgot about their fear of the water. Droves of the creatures headed right into the River Masa, only to promptly drown either from their own deplorable swimming skill or from being pushed under by other panicked gnolls running them over. He'd estimated that at least a quarter of the troop was now dead and floating down river. Not bad for one well-placed arrow.

The prince, or more correctly former prince, grumpy as always, was busy sitting on the bench opposite him and picking stones out of the bottoms of his boots. The patchwork stubble on his chin and cheeks gave the true impression that he was still a year shy of twenty. "I'm getting real tired of this," he grumbled with that incessant whine that grated on the nerves. Sort of like the tines of a fork when they caught the bottom of a military issued metal pot just right. 

"Should I see if I can get our money back?" his companion joked. "We can go sleep under the stars again if you prefer."

As if on cue, a local woman arrived and placed a large platter of meats and cheeses between the two of them.  Immediately the former prince's eyes lit up. "Now, that's more like it!" he beamed.

"I thought you'd enjoy it," the man smoking the pipe said in-between puffs.  "So, dig in. It's the last of the money anyway."

And dig in the ex-prince did, picking pieces of the food apart and shoveling it into his mouth like a ravenous beast. After a few minutes of only him eating, he asked with a full mouth, "You're not going to have any?"

"First rule of General Drugard," the one-time prince's associate said, "savor the moment."

The once prince shook his head. Then he swallowed what was in his overstuffed mouth. "Damn it Savaran, you're not a general anymore." He took another bite, "And wasn't the first rule something about another opportunity the other day? And something about never trust a man shorter than five and a half feet tall the day before that?"

Savaran just sat there and puffed. "All my rules are first rules. All equal in importance."

"Too bad one of those rules isn't about doing something to get us out of this mess," his younger companion bemoaned. "We heading to Nalhaven now, or what?"

Smiling, Savaran added a pinch more herb to his pipe. "I was thinking Sherwind."

"Sherwind?!" the no longer a prince blurted out and then calmed his voice out of fear of being heard. "Sherwind?" he repeated. "You do realize who controls Sherwind, right?"

Savaran nodded. "Your sister."

"Yes," the discrowned prince confirmed. "My sister, Queen Jadalin Westspire. The person who actually did commission the assassination of my father and then pinned it on you and me."

"First rule," Savaran replied surly. "When you've got a problem to solve, go to where the problem is."

The ex-prince slammed his hands on the table and stood. "Enough with the damn first rules!" Then he sat down. "Damn it, we're going to be lucky if no one recognizes us here."

Savaran laughed at the insinuation. He raised his voice for the first time, trying to shout above the din, "Oh no!" he mocked his young companion. "Isn't that the disgraced Prince Traven Walavarus," he added, slightly lower in tone, "the third." Then raised his voice again, "And isn't that The Scourge of the High March with him? The nefarious Savaran Drugard? The villain who he hired to murder his father to help him ascend to the throne?" When no one even batted an eye at the announcement, he turned to Traven and said only, "See? Nobody here gives a flying gnoll's ass about us."

"Don't do that!" grunted Traven.

"I'm just proving a point," Savaran said. "We're in Shae. And in the middle of nowhere in Shae at that. You're lucky if these people even know who your father was."

"My father," the deposed prince reminded Savaran, "was the King of the High March." And then he resumed eating from the platter.

"Two kingdoms over. And one kingdom down," Savaran pointed out. "These people don't give a dog-man's testicle about the High March either. They only care about whether or not their fields reaped enough crops to feed them through the winter so they don't starve. More than half of them couldn't read a wanted poster if there were one on the wall over there. One with my dashingly rugged mug and your pretty little face on it."

"And any one of them would turn us in in a heartbeat if they knew the bounty we carried on our heads," Traven grumbled.

Savaran patted his sword. "More than welcome to try with me. You? Now you wouldn't stand a chance. Even with that knife you carry and that you plot every night to stick in my back."

Traven immediately stopped eating. "Wait, you know about that?"

Savaran grinned. "Do you think I haven't faked being asleep and seen the way you stand over me? Knife in your grubby little princely paws, but too cowardly to use it? Yeah, I know. And besides," he reached out and took a piece of cheese from the tray, "you talk in your sleep."

"Damn it," Traven scowled.

"Now, tell me," the disgraced general asked, "who's this Andria?"

The former prince blushed, "Never you mind."

Savaran chuckled again.

"Look," the impeached prince said, "Karis is in Nalhaven. Karis is the one that my sister hired to kill my father. Then, she framed you for the murder and me for hiring you to do the murder. We get to Karis, and we can clear both our names."

"Karis isn't in Nalhaven," Savaran corrected.

"How do you know that?" questioned Traven.

"Because," Savaran spoke as though it were obvious, "that's not where I'd be if I was him."

"And you're not him," Traven reminded. "First of all, if you were, you'd be smarter. You'd never have gotten caught for a crime you didn't commit."

"The frame-up was really good," Savaran conceded. "A top-notch job. I'd believe it too if I hadn't known better."

"Talking to you is pointless," the once prince growled.

"I think I'm a pretty good conversationalist," Savaran retorted. "If I do say so myself. Karis isn't in Nalhaven. He'd be a fool to stick around anywhere near your father's kingdom."

"Wait a minute," the ex-prince scratched his head, "wasn't it about two months ago when you said General Drugard's first rule is when you have to hide, hide in plain sight?"

Savaran paused as he rewound his memory to think about what he said. "Come to think of it," he admitted, "I did say that. Didn't I?"

"Yes," Traven nodded. "You did."

"Hmm." Savaran waved his hand, "Karis still isn't in Nalhaven."

"But the letter!" complained the royal-no-more.

"It's a fake," proclaimed Savaran. "It's a setup. Your sister's trying to draw us to Nalhaven because she has influence there now that your brother is King instead of you. We go to Nalhaven, we're dead."

"Excuse me," a new voice intruded onto their conversation. It was melodic and higher pitched than Savaran was used to, pulling his attention immediately to the woman standing there. A woman who Savaran recognized as a sensual shadow from his former life. That caused his hand to go quickly onto the hilt of his sword.

"Please, Savaran," the woman begged, "no need for that."

"Prove it, Daria." Reluctant to let his guard down, Savaran kept his hand where it was.

Daria drew open her own cloak to show that she was carrying no weapons, not unless you counted those deadly curves as weapons. "May I sit?"

"Remaining standing," he said, "would be preferential."

The erstwhile prince stopped his consumption and promptly reached for his own dagger. "This woman knows you?"

"Yeah," Savaran admitted. "We go way back."

"All the way to Ghastal," she reminded.

Savaran shook his head. "Ghastal was a huge mess."

"Not as big a mess as the one I hear you're in now," Daria correctly observed. "And if it hadn't been for Ghastal, Corporal Drugard would never have been promoted to Sergeant Drugard."

"And then Sergeant Major during that shit show of a disaster at Weslan," Savaran reminded.

"And then Captain during that fiasco at Bessal," Daria continued.

"Then Major during the debacle that was Jur, then Lieutenant when Versani went to pot." Savaran smiled remembering those times.

"And Colonel after the entire command was wiped out at Bhel," Daria carried on the timeline.

"Never would have made General if it wasn't for Hal Brettin's incompetence at Yuvehwen," Savaran concluded the recounting of his rise through the ranks of the King's Army – the sloppy mess that it was.

"Always were in the right place at the right time." Daria made a gesture to Savaran's hand, still on his weapon, "Can you at least remove your hand from the hilt?"

"If I remember correctly," Savaran mused, "you always carried a shiv in the heal of your left boot."

Rolling her eyes, Daria reached down. Balancing on one leg with the grace of a flamingo, she removed her left boot and threw it on the table. Savaran could see the slot made for the shiv and how empty it now was.

"Satisfied?" Daria asked.

"Roll up your sleeves," he ordered. "And show me the front and back of your hands."

She did as he instructed.

With that, Savaran nodded, finally removing his hand from his hilt. "You can now sit."

This ghost from his past took up a seat at the far end of the bench and glowered at the prince still holding his dagger. "Can you tell the boy to put that thing away before he hurts himself?"

Savaran laughed a full-throated chuckle as he reached across the bench and slapped Daria on the shoulder. "She's right, boy. Put that thing away."

"I'd prefer to keep it ready," Traven rebuked.

"And I said put it away."