Chapter 1 - Part I

Here she is, gazing at the clouds. How fast they go. Short, brown
hair bundled in two, her hands clasped conveniently behind her head in
the grass. Short breeches, bare smooth legs fold down the grass in
waves. A loose tunic easily billows in the gentle breeze. Life is
smooth. Life is complete.

But this life is misleading and Onion awakens to reality.

Right.

The smell of the dungeon cell, somehow masked in her peaceful dreams assaults Onion's nose with renewed force. And with the smell, memories of how she got here, so far away from anything human. Guards who eyed her luridly shared more blood with the dragons of myth than they did with humans like herself or the brothers of the clan, or so she felt.

They are all dead now, corpses melting into the soil, serving as dinner for the carrion. They sleep as soundly as she does in this prison.


With this, the Clan of the Fir was no more. Its last mission was far more than the small mercenary band could handle, and it placed Onion and her brothers at the spear tips of two opposing factions of a private war of power and lust. Now, the House of Archne and Lot had found a peace, and Onion's brothers were the silent price of that truce. Her own imprisonment too was the payment for the crimes of the powerful.

One week ago, the Clan of the Fir was approached by Lady Archne with a simple, yet lucrative task - guard and deliver a young chef in her employ to Castle Reinfeld, the gateway post to Lithen Province. The road was sure to be dangerous, but nothing the band of 32 mercenaries couldn't handle.

The job seemed simple enough. Rejnev, her elder brother and leader of the mercenary band eagerly accepted the proposal and saw it as means to keep his struggling business afloat in relatively peaceful times. A blade does not fetch a high price when patricians trade words and wit rather than victory and defeat on the battlefield. There had not been a war amongst the provinces in over five centuries. And three years ago Heilth and the northern Outer Crest tribes had finally come together and signed a treaty that would end the War of the Brazen.

But there will always be highway men to pester merchants and travelers. However, in hindsight, that Lady Archne had paid them so much for the service should have caused suspicion among the ranks of the clan. For the 32 foreign mercenaries, 31 of whom knew little to nothing of the language and the culture of their new home, this seemed a normal, straightforward job.