The westlands weather was shit. Misted rains came in waves throughout the mornings. And every other bloody time of day a man could imagine. Other times it would rain in earnest, and those storms were a tempest of wind, water, and misery. How anyone could live in this damp, dark swamp was beyond the understanding of Montayne. The westlands people seemed to hardly notice the incessant wetness of their kingdom. That made him hate the lousy land and its people all the more. Yet despite his resentment, he seemed to have earned their forgotten sea god’s favor, as he had been downing pitchers of the westlands bitter and foul ale in the inn instead of on the road when one such storm struck the night previous. The drink in these lands tasted like a peasant’s chamber pot and spent grain, but in the end, it did its duty. He’d pay his sword's weight in gold to never taste its like or see another pregnant cloud of this pissing swamp in his life. He couldn't remember the last time he’d wet his lips with the warm mulled wine of the North or felt the crunch of its frozen earth under his boot.
His grip tightened around the tankard that was half-filled with westlands swill. Every time his mind brought him to the North, it made him sick with rage. He slammed the tankard on the wooden table and searched for the titless serving girl who was to have brought him his meal. There was the usual sort scattered through the tables and booths of the small inn that morning—higher status craftsmen of varying types who worked in the westlands capital, traveling bards, little lordlings from farther lands looking for a different shade of grey sky, and road merchants. Montayne’s eyes landed on a group he had not expected to see at the inn. And unfortunate for him, they also spotted him, and their leader thought to slink his way up to his table.
“Ah,” the man said. “We meet again, old friend.” The man’s auburn hair was cropped in tight coils atop his head, with a hawkish clean-shaven face and thin lips that were curved into a proud smirk. Without invitation, he took the seat across from Montayne. “Never thought to find you in the Emerald Cities, though I suppose you are so fond of heights that the cliffs would eventually lure you.”
“Piss off, little lordling,” Montayne said. “Not in the mood.”
“Now, now. That’s no way to treat a previous—and potential current—employer, Montayne.” A sudden clink of coins jingling in his pocket piqued Montayne’s interest, though his face gave no indication. “Gods know you haven’t the right to be stingy these days,” the man said.
“Out with it.”
“What’s the hurry? We have so much to catch up on, you and I. And your stew’s not even arrived yet.”
Montayne grunted. Let the loathsome prick talk to the air; he would suffer his presence to get the coin, but would not indulge the minge-haired lad’s chatter. The serving girl at last arrived with a bowl of stew in her arm and a wary look. She quickly placed the bowl on the farthest edge of the table and hastened away.
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“Stew’s arrived,” Montayne said. “Talk.”
The man tapped the backside of a gilded ring bearing a flaming arrow sigil on his middle finger in a pointed rhythm on the table as he glared at Montayne. He didn’t take well to people treating him with such open contempt and lack of courtesies—even by one with a repute such as the Torment of Grimstone Crag—but his smirk shortly returned.
“I forgot how charming you are.” He turned to either side of him to search for wandering eyes and ears. His paranoia likely bode well for Montayne’s purse. The lord turned back and spoke in a hushed tone, “I have a task for you.”
Montayne snorted. “No shit.”
“Mind yourself, black knight. You’d do well to remember who holds the gold in this conversation,” he scowled. “It’ll be a larger task than what I’ve given you before, and rather…unsavory. The time for my lord father and me to enact our plan is at hand.”
“I don’t give a damn what you're planning, Fitch. Loosen your tongue, or leave.”
“So testy today,” Fitch said. He shifted in his seat to cross his leg over the other, and picked at an imagined speck of lint on his cloak’s shoulder. “I would have you gather the Blackthorns, and with them, have you raid and pillage and scorch the prime villages of the westlands.”
That gave Montayne pause. There was no just reason an heir—albeit a slithering eel of one—of one of the oldest noble houses of the West would seek the destruction and ruin of his lands. Ileth had been at true peace for nigh on fifteen years since the Battle of Brothers, the last honest war was decades before that. What he proposed Montayne do was to perpetrate the first act of war the known lands had seen in that time, aside from the irritations the Blackthorns caused from time to time. The Blackthorn Brigade was a minor band of disgraced soldiers and desperate common men who sought the plunder of those traveling the red road or weaker, isolated villages far from a vassal or prominent lord’s protections. For the act that Fitch asked him to head, it could lead the lords of the westlands kingdom to assume it as an act of the North rather than simply an unnatural rise of the Blackthorn Brigade’s boldness. As he thought on it, the deed may work out in his favor. The opportunity to make good on the vow he had made to his miserable wretch of a father years ago may finally be within grasp.
“Aye,” he responded. “I’ll do it.”
Fitch raised his eyebrows. “That readily? My, your thirst for blood is as pure as the legends say, Montayne.” The man sat back in his chair, and the newly visible sun spilled through the inn’s window to alight the fire of his hair. His mouth twitched at the corner. “The price will be five-hundred—two-fifty now, the rest upon completion.”
“Eight. The Blackthorns will want their fair share.”
“Six, and you will obviously share in whatever plunder you obtain in the raids. That’s my final offer, black knight.”
“Deal, arseling.” Montayne allowed a cruel grin to curve his lips and stuck out his bear-sized hand to shake the comparable twig that was the lord's hand. In it was the first half of his payment, and the promise of a better pitcher of ale before he made the journey of locating the Blackthorn Brigade to aid him in the destruction of the West.
