The candle's flames danced along the edges of the scarred oak table, their flickering light struggling against the dark.
The warmth of the long-awaited reunion was slowly being shoved aside, replaced by the cold iron business of a war they hadn't started, but were damn well going to finish.
The invaders had been promised a princedom and a prince's bent neck ; instead, they had found a graveyard. The only leave they would be granted now was the silence of the earth, a bill Yarzat intended to collect in full, coin by bloody coin.
As the wine circulated, the men who had spent three months staring at the same four grey walls were finally fed the truth of the world outside. They were told of the Pig Prince and the capture of his favorite bastard; they heard of the night-stalkers who left ears and scalps as "gifts" at the edge of the League's camps whenever the moon went dark.
