Young Sif
Before an army of mercenaries flooded the city in search of her, Keno Sif had been ambling down the street and eating a stolen plum, with nothing on her mind but a night of smoke, wine, and mostly innocent violence. Not even enough violence to earn a night in jail. If it wasn’t for her bruised knuckles and the lingering taste of blood, she’d barely remember the brawl at all. It’s only on her way back to the inn that the gentle calm of the morning is broken by frantic hoofbeats, and the sound of men shouting orders. Far too much noise over a barfight and some stolen fruit, which means the bounty hunters she came here to lose have already caught up with her.
The rattle of armor and crashing of horses through the capital is a scandal that outshines anything else happening in the small kingdom. Those already awake stand in slack-jawed awe at the military force being allowed to trample through their streets and interrupt the hustle of early morning commerce. Gossip about the army shoots between households like an arrow under the blush of dawn. Those who have been woken up throw open their windows in shock, wondering why Prince Hiyam would allow this.
On the second story of a wood and sandstone inn, Keno Sif crashes into her room and comes face to face with her fellow bandits, Buri the Giant and Ivon of Heron-Muse. She locks the door behind her and flashes a sly grin. The room is dark and cramped, but its location is perfect for keeping watch on the street below.
Ivon is not amused. “By the deities, Keno. This is why I told you to stay here last night. Sassinia is flooded with these bastards. You know I hate prison. Ugh. The beds are so uncomfortable.” Ivon shifts in their seat, as though the mention of it conjures a memory of their last stay behind bars.
“Relax, I made it back. Nobody saw me.” Sif wipes the sweat from her brow and takes a seat at the window, not accidentally near a bottle of wine. She peers out the window conspiratorially. Warm wind brushes her sweaty face. Down the street, a group of workers are nearly trampled trying to cross into the nearby market, and a mercenary yells at them to watch where they walk.
“You should’ve come with me, Uncle,” Sif says. “Lot of cute older men. You would’ve had fun.”
Buri smirks but does not respond. He sits in the corner of the room, sewing a tear in a pair of pants. He squints at the needle and thread with his one remaining eye. Although his nickname is an exaggeration, the seat he sits on is too small to be comfortable under his large frame. His tan, almost leathery skin is covered in simple tattoos honoring Aneir, the god of courage.
“Do you think they’ll go door to door?” Ivon asks, running a hand nervously through their thick blonde hair. Silver and gold bangles, all stolen, jingle musically on their thin, beautiful wrists. Their clothes would have been considered stylish once, but months of travel have left them in desperate need of cleaning and repair.
“Won’t need to,” Buri grunts. He stops sewing for long enough to motion downstairs with one massive hand.
“Do you think the innkeeper would turn us in?” Ivon asks. “Our bounties must be pretty high. That last caravan barely even had anything worth stealing, too. . .”
“Who cares?” Sif groans, swishing her cup. Even when cornered by a small army, an easy smile comes to her face. She sits with one muscular, brown arm slung around the back of her chair, and her legs splayed out in front of her. “This is exactly like when Lady Erah-Dune tried to have us executed at Heron-Muse. Actually, that was worse. At least there’s no plague in Sassinia. Just a bunch of mercenaries coin-addled enough to get killed over whatever scraps the aristocracy is willing to pay. Foolish thing to die for, if you ask me.”
Buri’s single eye lands on Sif with something approaching discontent. She puts her hands up in mock surrender. Despite all of her bluster and bravado, she’s still reluctant to disappoint her mentor, even if he insists she never could.
“Even a weak enemy can strike a killing blow.” Buri is decades older than her, and fond of phrases like that.
“I know, Uncle. I won’t do anything reckless. I’m only saying. No need to panic yet,” she responds, even though the mercenaries have been on their trail for weeks now and the move to hide in Sassinia was meant to throw them off for good.
Ivon is the one to broach the subject they’re all thinking about. “Well, darlings, if you ask me, we have two options. We can hide here, or we can sneak out. Frankly, they’re both fucking terrible.”
Before they can come to a decision, their conversation is shattered by banging at the door. Buri slowly puts down his needle and thread. The three of them exchange a glance, then Ivon answers, “Uhm. . . yes, hello?”
“Open the door!” The voice shouting is full of stone and steel, ready to draw the latter and put the three of them underneath the former.
“Of course,” Ivon calls out, gently lifting a thin dagger. “Give me one moment.” Ivon stands up and motions to Sif. The door shakes as the man on the other side continues to bang his fist against it.
“Open it up! We know who you are, and you’re all under arrest!”
With precision that can only be the result of experience and practice, Ivon opens the door, and Sif kicks the mercenary straight in the chest. The man’s armor clangs loudly as he tumbles backwards down the stairs, sliding to a painful stop at the innkeeper’s feet. Another mercenary, a woman in leather armor, charges in through the door and tackles Sif. The floorboards shake with the impact of their fall.
“I got her!” The mercenary leans on Sif with all of her weight. Hot breath pushes through her tightened jaw and bared teeth.
“Good for you!” Sif growls. She swings both fists into the crook of her opponent’s arm, bringing their bodies closer together, then headbutts the woman as hard as she can. A spray of blood trickles down into Sif’s eye as the mercenary rolls off her, roaring in pain.
Ivon gets to their feet and begins grabbing their things. A lockpick set, a bundle of throwing knives, and a coin pouch with very little coin. “Just once, I’d like to go somewhere with the two of you where we don’t have to fight our way out.”
Sif sits up, coughing hard. “Hey, we didn’t have to fight our way out of Ograna.”
Ivon sighs dramatically, then bends over and slits the throat of the woman Sif had thrown off herself. “We fought our way into it, though. It’s close enough, love.”
At the door, the mercenary who fell down the stairs returns to finish his portion of the brawl. Buri stands to his full height, stooping to avoid the ceiling, and grips his axe in one giant hand.
Sif rises to her feet, wiping the blood from her eye. “You don’t want any help, Uncle?”
“I do not need it,” Buri grunts back. His face tenses imperceptibly as he and the remaining mercenary lock eyes.
The mercenary laughs. “Big words for a heathen sava—”
In one smooth stride, Buri steps forward and, with a swing of his axe, takes off most of the man’s arm. The mercenary shrieks and stumbles backwards. With a second blow, Buri crushes in the man’s helmet. The mercenary hits the floor, gurgling indecipherably from his ruined mouth. He holds up his remaining hand, begging for mercy. Buri’s eye is wide and furious, dreaming of past violence and the violence of the mercenary’s death simultaneously. Then, slowly, he lowers his axe. Sif rolls her eyes but says nothing. She kicks the man’s severed arm, still holding its sword, to the corner of the room.
“Oh no,” Ivon groans.
“It’s fine,” Sif says, nudging the armless mercenary with her foot. “He won’t get back up.”
“No, Keno. The innkeeper is gone.”
Downstairs, the innkeeper shouts for more mercenaries. The sound of hoofbeats immediately becomes much louder.
“Fuck. What do we do now?”
A self-satisfied smile spreads across Ivon’s face. “You act like I don’t always have a plan for getting us out of these situations.” They produce a black iron key from a hidden pocket in their shirt. “This, my friend, is the key to the roof. Follow me.”
Sif grins in astonishment and quickly follows behind, “Where did you get it?”
“I stole it from the innkeeper, of course.”
Down the second story hallway is a short wooden ladder, leading up to a closed hatch. Ivon climbs the rungs quickly, but fumbles the key at the top. Right as it clinks harmlessly on the ground, a dozen pairs of boots—or more—storm into the ground floor of the inn. Something ceramic shatters, and the innkeeper begins shouting about repayment for the damage. Sif snatches the key back up and throws it to Ivon, who catches it deftly in the air.
“Any time now is good, Ivon!”
The lock clicks. “Already done.”
As the hatch opens, it reveals a beautiful azure sky and the faint promise of glorious, boundless freedom. Or, if not freedom, at least the promise of not bleeding to death on an unwashed floor in Sassinia. They scramble up through the hatch, just in time for Ivon to close it as the mercenaries reach the second floor. Ivon locks the hatch from the outside.
“Now look,” they whisper, gathering the others close. “We don’t have long, but we can jump across the next few roofs eastward. Behind the last building—”
Ivon’s words fade into the background like the noise of a single leaf falling in the forest. Sif’s eyes glaze over and her gaze settles past Ivon’s pointed finger, into the desert beyond Sassinia, where a large shard of obsidian juts out of the ground like shrapnel from a great eruption. A piece of a lost kingdom from the old world, from before history and culture were wiped away a dozen or so generations back. Her vision blurs and muscles relax as her focus sinks into the dark, glossy stone. Though she doesn’t have the words for it herself, a distant voice whispers to her that the morning of the world has passed and what lies ahead is terrible and uncertain.
“Sif!” Ivon hisses, grabbing her by the shoulder.
“Fuck!” Sif shouts, startled back into reality. She blinks hard, as if fighting back sleep, the pinprick of that distant voice rapidly fading from her memory.
Below them, muffled voices relay the sound of Sif’s voice to each other.
“Great, we need to go now.” Ivon sighs. “You should know better than to stare at the ruins. The last thing we need now is for that magic to worm its way inside you. Even this far off, a strong spell could find an opening, and. . . oh, perfect. Is that a sandstorm?”
Buri grunts affirmatively. They all know it would be mad to continue east now. But there is no other option. They’re low on coin, sleep, and time. This chase has lasted weeks. The city is overrun.
“No choice,” Sif says, still shaking off the oddness lodged in her mind.
“No,” Ivon agrees glumly. “We’ll have to head deeper into the desert, then cut south to throw them off and make for whatever trading town is nearest. Ponda, maybe? Honestly, at this point, I’ll go anywhere. Hopefully we can do it all without getting caught up in the storm.”
When they turn back to face Sif and Buri, it’s with a dashing grin and a gleam in their blue eyes. The hatch leading to the roof trembles, as someone beneath tries to force it open.
“So, what do you think?”
Buri hums agreeably. His thick gray and black beard twitches as he stands up and prepares to leave. After years of traveling with Sif, he knows her opinion before she says it.
“That’s mad,” Sif says, affirming Buri’s guess. “Absolutely insane. Let’s do it.”
She looks toward the desert, blooming from the center of the continent like the mark of a massive fist’s impact. The three of them leap to the next rooftop, racing above the chaos below as dozens upon dozens of mercenaries search the surrounding streets for them. It’s almost funny. For generations, ever since the old kingdoms disappeared, regents in countless lands have tried to gather every scrap of property and power for themselves, fighting against a world far more suited to the lack of people than the presence of them. And after all that, they can’t even catch a few bandits.
Ivon sighs. “Glad to know we won’t be dying today. Probably.”
Sif laughs, one hand mounted on her hips. “I’m never fucking dying, and you can count on that.”
