A muffled explosion chased after Nicholas as he fled, weaving between the wagons and tents of other Lords of The Hold as he tried to put some distance between himself and the fire he had set. It didn’t quite knock him off of his feet, but it did send him staggering forward into the side of the next tent over. The impact was more impressive than one might have expected from running into a tent as he collided with some sort of furnishing within. It fell with a noisy crash as cloth tore and tent stakes burst from the muck as the side of the tent collapsed under his weight.

  Nicholas rolled back up quickly, his ears ringing, but he could still hear the tumult he had caused. Even with one of the great tents between him and the flames, he saw them searing their way up into the night sky, roaring and crackling as they spread. There were men running around, screaming in panic or calling out to each other. A massive beast of a man surged out of the tent that had just been set alight, naked and slick, his dark body covered in piercings as a pair of screaming girls pursued him, naked and frightened too.

  Nicholas stood where he was, completely indifferent to the results of his own handiwork. His attention was focused strictly on his objective and the men who guarded it. His Lord’s plan had worked: nearly all of them had abandoned their posts and run for the blazing tents. Only one man was left at the front door, and the Lord suddenly struck him with yet more inspiration. Nicholas grabbed a nearby torch and rushed towards the guard. He hadn’t much time. Even now, he could hear angry voices calling out for buckets and a line to be formed near the not-so-dry moat at the edge of the perimeter. The Lord had provided an opportunity for him, but the window would be closing quickly. Nicholas trusted this meant there might be further opportunities for sowing chaos in his Master's enemies and not that his plan would fail.

  “We have to hurry!” he screamed, waving the torch around in front of the young man he found at the front of the building. “We need to evacuate everyone inside! The fire could spread to it!”

  “What?” the man demanded, his attention turning from the fire and efforts to fight it to the torch-swinging madman before him. Nicholas had startled him. He was young and looked to be having trouble growing the moustaches men of his race prided so. “I can’t wake him! My uncle will have my scalp!”

  Nicholas nodded, as if he understood. So, there were people inside. Important ones, if this boy’s fear and reluctance to either leave his post to fight the fire, or evacuate the people inside was anything to go by. His uncle must be out there. If whoever was in charge was inside, then there were probably plans and documents. It would need to be dry, otherwise everything might be lost. Nicholas understood his mission implicitly, then. Whoever was inside was going to have to die, and everything around them would have to be destroyed. It was why God had laid the weapons he now wielded before him. It was why he had been compelled to grab this torch before his approach.

  “I’ll wake him,” Nicholas growled, hoping his accent did not slip, nor the contempt he put in his voice sound forced. “You can stand behind me and watch how real men act!”

  It stung the boy, as it was meant to. His eyes filled with impotent hate. Unwilling to be outdone for courage by this hairy old man, he turned quickly and pushed opened the doors, striding in with quiet purpose.

  Nicholas drew one of his daggers as he followed. He struck after a quick glance inside revealed that no one was standing in the darkened hall, smashing the boy on the back of his shaved head with the pommel of the blade. The boy grunted and fell with the grace of a sack of grain. Nicholas quickly shut the doors behind him and looked around.

  The contrast of the world outside and the one within these wooden walls was stark, even if there was little light to go by other than the torch in his hand. Signs of culture and civilisation were everywhere. Pictures with bright frames lined walls, though they were too far away for Nicholas to get any kind of good look at them. A wide staircase led up to the next floor, while pairs of doors were spread out evenly on each of the three walls of the ground floor before him. If it were not for the chaos outside, and the groaning savage at his feet, Nicholas might have thought he had stumbled into a stately home. He took a few steps deeper in, trying his best to drown out the sounds from outside as he sought for any sign of movement within. He heard nothing and saw nothing, so he allowed himself a moment to look around again. Whoever lived here was no savage. Indeed, whoever it was seemed to live a very well ordered and civilised life. Civilised men kept their sleeping quarters and their offices separate. Perhaps what he sought was on the ground floor?

  Trusting to his Divine Master's inspiration, Nicholas tried the door nearest to him. It led into a finely decorated reception room. Another spark of inspiration came to him, and he set his torch to the silk couch and the matching chairs. Then he opened a window and returned to the entry hall, closing the door to the blazing reception room behind him. The boy he'd ambushed was still on the floor, groaning. Nicholas rolled him back out onto the veranda he'd been guarding before closing the doors and bolting them shut from within. The fire would consume this place, and everything in it. It would consume him too, if God deemed it necessary.

  The next room he found was not an office, but it was exactly what he wanted. A long, wide table covered in maps and letters dominated its centre. The walls were lined with oil paintings and bookcases whose shelves creaked under the weight of the volumes and maps they bore. Nicholas searched over the maps and letters. His faith had been rewarded once more. He stuffed as many of them as he could into his overly large, loose-fitting armour. He folded up the big map on the table and secreted it away on his person with more care than the other documents he'd stuffed haphazardly behind his ill-fitting breastplate. He gave everything else to the flames.

  Nicholas strode out into the hall again, the sounds of crackling flames following after him. Despite his precautions, smoke was clearly billowing out from under the door of the reception room. The doors leading had not been smashed in yet, nor did they tremble or muffle the sounds of a party on the other side trying to force their way inside. That was good. No one had noticed, yet. That wouldn’t last much longer, though. Nicholas doubted anything else important would be on the ground floor. It was time to go upstairs and begin searching.

  He paused as he approached the stairs, his purposeful stride faltering somewhat as the light from his torch illuminated the steps. At first, he was not sure why such a thing would stop him at all. It took a few moments of quiet observation to notice what his Lord was trying to show him. These steps were not the typical height used by humans, or by any other race of near-human stature. They were noticeably shorter, and there were a great many more of them.

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  “A dwarf?” Nicholas wondered aloud.

  He chastised himself for being surprised, but this was really something he had not expected. The Hold was a human realm. They were suspicious of foreign men, but when it came to the other races, they were genocidal. That a dwarf could survive out here, let alone thrive, was unheard of. Nicholas was all the more determined to meet his unlikely host, and slay whoever it was. There was no way the men of The Hold would permit someone they thought of as the spawn of devils to live here, unless that person was of immense value to them.

  He ascended the stairs, lighting a few of the lamps that flanked the rails as a precaution in the event he needed to flee, and forgot the stairs were meant for someone of far smaller stature. Heavy oil paintings depicting dwarven riverboats and coastal towns aflame lined the walls up here, along with busts of important-looking men. Nicholas could do little about the stone heads, but the paintings practically erupted into flame as he held his torch under each as he searched. Nicholas was about to pick a closed door at random to fling open and inspect, when he heard a crashing from further down the hall, followed by muffled curses in a male voice. He drew his sword, and approached quickly.

  “Sir!” he cried out in the language of The Hold. “Little Lord! We must get you out! A fire’s started in the camp and has spread to the building!”

  “Who is that?” The voice cried out.

  Nicholas paused and gauged the direction. It was coming from the end of the hall he found himself in. The walls were panelled and ebony. More oil paintings burst into flame while Nicholas slowly passed them by, hounded by quiet smoke and roaring flame.

  “I’m one of your guard, little Lord!” the priest called out. He approached the door, and pondered kicking it in, or knocking. Coughing from the smoke which was chasing after him, Nicholas banged the door, slamming the hilt of his sword against it for extra effect. “We must go, little Lord! Open the door!”

  “What’s your name?” asked the voice on the other side. Despite surely being able to hear the tumult outside, and perhaps even seeing the smoke billowing under the door, the speaker was displaying a remarkable self-control at such danger. At any rate, the question caught Nicholas off guard. Part of him wanted to say ‘Greig’, but he stopped himself. There was always the chance that God might not allow him success in his mission, and therefore by speaking the name of his ally he could be inadvertently placing him in danger. Nicholas tried to recall the names of men most common to The Hold, but it took seconds he did not have, and even as he did try to think over the rising heat and smoke, he realised that whoever was beyond the door might be smart enough by now to see through his ruse. The time for subtlety was at an end.

  Nicholas took a step back and kicked at the door, striking it so hard that he smashed its lock and sent it swinging wildly open. A dark room, with only hints of shadow created by the flames at his back gave him any idea of what lay beyond. He was vaguely aware of the angular shape of a large bed deeper within the room. Cautiously, he took yet another step into the dark room.

  It ceased to be dark.

  It was as if, for a moment, the sun itself had come into this room. Light struck and washed over him, over everything in a vast, blinding wave. Nicholas cried out and staggered back. He shut his eyes but even through his eyelids everything blazed red. He tripped, toppled backwards and crashed into the door he had kicked aside.

  No sooner had he fallen though, than the light was gone, dying and leaving everything in darkness. Nicholas grit his teeth, and made not a sound for a moment as he waited for the pain and the shapes that danced before his closed eyes to vanish. What in the name of God had just happened?

  He heard stirring, then. The creaking of boards from within the room was followed by a low curse and an angry yell.

  “Is anyone else out there? What the hell’s going on?”

  Nicholas allowed himself to groan. It turned into an angry hiss as the air escaped from between his teeth. There was a gasp from deeper within the dark room. Nicholas coughed as he groggily pulled himself to his feet. He found his sword. His torch had rolled further into the room, and had ignited a nearby desk the rug beneath it. It brought a flickering light and more than a little smoke into the space. He caught the movement to his right, and turned to face it.

  He had been right. A dwarf, half clothed, stood not too far away from him, the only other occupant of this smoke filled room. He was clean shaven, his hair short cropped. He looked more surprised than afraid.

  “How are you still alive?” the dwarf asked him, an edge in his voice.

  “How did you do that?” Nicholas groaned, talking past the little fiend. He took a step towards the dwarf, coughing as smoke and fire began to fill the room. “Answer me, villain!”

  “It was a spell,” the dwarf snarled at him. His narrowed dangerously. “And you survived it.”

  Nicholas heard this time. He stopped, and stared in disbelief at the angry, unafraid thing before him. This certainly explained why the men of The Hold hadn't slaughtered this dwarf at first sight, though not why he was clearly so important to them. Despite the burning house and the time that was ardently against him, he could not help himself then put pause in his task.

  “If you can cast spells...” the priest coughed, feeling the cold weight of the stone he wore under his armour.

  “If you can survive them,” the dwarf said at the same time, as if speaking to himself.

  “Then that means, you’re a witch…”

  “…hunter.”

  Nicholas raised his sword and stepped forward, about to strike the devil down, but the dwarf acted first. The light blazed again, blinding him for a lifesaving second. Nicholas roared. He swung, but his blade only found the wall. There was a loud, shattering crash then as the dwarf smashed out a window somehow. He heard a body rolling on the roof outside, and heard the screams of men beyond.

  “Bastard!” Nicholas called after him.

  He had failed his Lord, but there would be other opportunities. There must be. His enemy was known to him now, but why he was here was yet to be discovered. As the smoke around him thickened with each passing moment, the priest staggered to the other side of the room, coughing and wheezing in the fire's created a billowing black cloud. He sheathed his sword and scooped up one of the chairs that was not yet aflame. Seeing the hint of windows ahead, he hurled the chair through them, and followed after.

  He found himself on the sloping roof of the ground floor. All about him was smoke and chaos. This was the side of the camp where the fire had yet to spread, though even here Nicholas could discern whole legions of men running about. Still wheezing from the smoke in his lungs, he rushed to the edge of the roof and dropped off. His knees objected to the impact as he landed and rolled in the wet grass, hissing in pain. The house behind him blazed. The fire had clearly spread across the ground floor. Smoke billowed from the windows he had left open to draw in more air to fuel the righteous fires he had set.

  Nicholas disappeared into the chaotic night in much the same way he had come out of it, walking with calm deliberation.