Oak felt a little cheeky, so he knocked on the door. Manners above all, right? "Hello there! We are looking for the captain of this fine company of cut-throats! May we come in?"

A cranky female voice replied curtly, dripping with venom. "If you fuckers must. "

"I am afraid we do," Oak said. He pushed the door open and stepped inside Captain Lelise's quarters.

A straight-backed and dark-skinned woman somewhere in her fifties sat in a chair next to a modest but comfortable-looking bed. A single candle burned on the bedside table, casting deep shadows on the walls, but thanks to his Boon of Darkvision, Oak had no need for a light source.

Nowadays, no natural darkness could arrest his gaze.

Since the bed had been made, Lelise had either never gone to sleep, but still dressed for bed, which Oak didn't buy for an instant, or she had woken up in the middle of an assault and made her chamber presentable. A weird lady, either way. She kept her dark hair in a bun and wore a strange sleeveless silk skirt that extended to the middle of her thighs.

The strange shirt was dark-green and decorated with pictures of blooming white flowers.

Lelise's hands were in her lap, and she was unarmed. Her sharp green eyes stared at Oak without a hint of fear. Words like 'comely', 'dignified', and 'vulnerable' came to his mind. Despite her slightly crooked nose, the captain had certainly turned some heads in her youth.

In a few short years, the bastard could have been some unfortunate soul's strict grandmother.

Satisfied with the woman for now, Oak let his eyes roam around the square bedchamber. It was neat and meticulously organized. Right angles, straight lines and polished wood. Soft yellow rugs hid the ugly and cold stone floor beneath them, and the paneling did the same to the walls. Framed works of beautiful embroidery gave the room some personal flair. Most of them depicted different animals at rest.

Neat lines and pretty things. Sitting here, one could almost forget the cells under their feet. Sitting here, one could pretend to be somewhere else, be someone else.

A single window by the bed gazed onto the prison's yard. The shutters were open, and Oak could hear growling and the sound of tortured wood groaning under intense strain. Okoro Acheampong. Has to be. He is still trying to smash through the gate. I have to give him his flowers. That moronic werewolf doesn't have an ounce of give in him.

Finished with his inspection, and reasonably certain there were no armed killers hiding behind Captain Lelise's curtains, Oak stepped aside and let Yakubu into the bedchamber. The others — meaning Sadia, Itoro, and Geezer — had to settle for peeking through the doorway, since there wasn't enough space inside the chamber itself.

"Hello, Lelise. My son, Itoro, has told me much about you," Yakubu said, fingering the pommel of his sword.

Lelise lifted one elegant eyebrow. "All good, I hope. We try to treat all of our stock fairly."

What little warmth remained in Yakubu's gaze vanished in an instant. "When you are a slave, it matters not if your owner is fair, whatever that even means. It doesn't matter whether they treat you well or poorly." He pulled out his blade. "You could be the finest fleshtrader in all of Creation and I would not let you live out your days. Once you decide that owning people is fine, there is no going back."

Despite sitting down while Yakubu stood over her, Lelise looked down her slightly crooked nose at the man and scoffed. "A foolish sentiment. You have eyes, but you see little, Koromite. Thirty years. For thirty years I have served the interests of my clan, filled our coffers and built the foundation of what we are today. Thanks to me, the Tafari have risen above their meager stature and expanded beyond the borders of Lagash. My clan will know no hunger, and my children will live lives of abundance behind tall walls. What could be more important than that?"

Of course. What manner of sin can we not do in the name of a higher cause? Oak laughed, and Lelise's indignant gaze snapped to him. "What humors you so, ugly giant?" the woman asked, wearing her contempt on her nonexistent sleeve. "Do you imagine yourself above the needs of family and clan?"

"Oh no, not at all. You have the wrong idea about me, rest assured," Oak replied, shaking his head, a ghost of a smile on his face. "For me, hypocrisy is a well-trodden path. I stand above nothing, slaver."

"At least one of you is honest, then."

"Don't be so sure of your own honesty, Lelise." Oak let his gaze wander through the furnishings of this neat and cute little space, so different in style from the rest of the prison. So different you could forget you were in a prison. "The lies we tell ourselves about ourselves are the most devious." He tapped his temple. "They cut to the bone."

The muscle under Lelise's right eye twitched, but the woman said nothing in reply, choosing to stare haughtily at Yakubu.

"Son." Yakubu drew a deep breath and let it out slowly, watching Lelise like a hawk watches a fat hare.

"Yes, Father?" Itoro replied shyly from the doorway.

"Promise me now. Never become a creature like her, trading virtue for plunder. A life without honor is no life at all."

"I promise, father."

A howl sounded from the open window, followed by a crash. Okoro must be intensifying his efforts. "We need to go, Yakubu."

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"Yes, we do, but I need to finish things here first. Please, leave us and close the door behind you," Yakubu replied. "I don't want Itoro to see this."

"Might be for the best." Oak ducked out of the room and shooed Sadia, Itoro and Geezer away before he closed the door on the life of Lelise Tafari. It clicked shut harshly, the sound echoing down the hallway in the foreboding silence.

Yakubu wanted his pound of flesh, and the captain would provide.

***

"Officium et familia. It is done." Yakubu stepped out of the prison keep and into the yard. Blood covered his hands up to the elbows. "Where is my son?"

"Up there on the wall, with the freed slaves. Sadia, Geezer and the Sakyi siblings are looking after them," Oak replied and pointed towards the long line of people huddling on top of the wall circling the prison, wincing every time Okoro smashed against the prison's gate.

Getting such a large group of men, women, and children, many of them suffering from illness or malnourishment, to the other side of the prison and down from the wall with nothing but ropes and elbow grease took some doing, but Baako and Onyeka made it work, somehow. Doing it without the werewolf at the gate growing wise of the people escaping from its jaws was a minor miracle.

Oak would have struggled without a few select threats of violence, so he was happy to leave them to it.

Let softer hands handle the work. Tonight, I am not fit to be gentle.

Dealing with lots of new and strange people after an exciting night of bloodletting was always difficult. Even now, Oak could hear the call of the former slaves' heartbeats, yearning for the stillness his blood-soaked hands could provide.

Yakubu nodded in thanks and walked off. Oak let him and went to collect the final member of their small retinue.

Ur-Namma stood on the edge of the corpse-pit next to the gatehouse, singing a lament for the dead.

"How lonely lies the heart, once so close to many!

There is no comfort for kin lost, no salve for friends perished.

Many a transgression was brought upon you, under affliction and lash,

But now your masters lay broken, torn asunder by wrath.

Shame is the fate of your foes.

I have tasted their flesh, sated my thirst with their blood.

They walk the lands of the dead, heartless and hopeless,

Souls twisted with rot.

Praise be upon the marchers, who walk on from sorrow,

I say to them; Do not weep. The righteous are not dead, but sleeping."

Like crows in flight, the last echoes of Ur-Namma's lament faded into the night. The morose elf threw the last piece of the slaver's heart he had been eating on top of the corpse pile and sighed. "Hello, Oak."

"Hello, Ur-Namma. That was beautiful, as always."

"Thank you, Northerner." Ur-Namma nodded, misty eyes still roaming the corpse pile. He stopped to stare at the body of the young Koromite boy, whom the slavers had disposed of right before Oak and his companions had launched their attack.

The boy's lifeless eyes stared accusingly at the lands of the living, questioning the current order of things. Why me, they seemed to ask? What did I ever do to deserve this? Nothing, Oak answered. Deservings got nothing to do with it.

"I don't think I ever told you, but I had children once."

"No, you didn't." Oak was taken aback, but in truth he shouldn't have been. Ur-Namma was ancient royalty. It would have been considered lunacy if he had never sired any children of his own. "I'm sorry, Ur-Namma."

"Two boys, cute as buttons. I loved them in my own way, but I was a distant father, too consumed by the demands of my position." Ur-Namma grimaced and turned away from the corpse-pit, gazing at the pale moon and the stars above. The night was waning. Soon, morning would arrive, and the rising sun would chase away the lingering darkness with its harsh rays. "Why is it we can never appreciate what we have while we have it?"

"Beats me. It would be a better world if we could." Oak said, feeling out of sorts. He didn't know what to do with his hands, so he grabbed hold of the pommels of his blades. Those were a familiar comfort. "What happened?"

Ur-Namma didn't answer. The elf walked away from the corpse-pit, towards the stairs leading to the top of the wall. He paused on the first step, sagged and spoke harshly, voice hoarse with grief:

"Dragonfire."

Oak grew quiet. He listened to the silence Ur-Namma had left in his wake and stared at the prison's wall, trying to imagine two little elf princelings frolicking about. Like two miniature Ur-Nammas. That thought just gave the little elves his imagination had summoned some wrinkles and made them go bald. The result was cursed, never fit to see the light of day.

I would bet everything I own that those two ruffians would have driven me insane in a fortnight.

A loud crash shook Oak from his thoughts. The two halves of the prison's gate fell from their broken hinges and smashed down into the yard, sending a thick cloud of dust into the air. A werewolf the size of a warhorse stalked through the sundered gate, licking his chops.

Okoro Acheampong had triumphed over nails and timber.

"Run! I will hold him!"

Belatedly, Oak realized the voice had been his. How quickly he had grasped the chance to finally let loose? To throw caution and reason to the wind, and test his mettle against a worthy foe? In an instant, the Butcher whispered. We seek the purity of bloodshed, and once more, Creation delivers. It always does.

The werewolf spun around and locked eyes with Oak. Its snout twisted into a growl, and drool spilled from its jaws as it pawed at the dry earth under its paws. The need to rip and tear was writ large in its bloodshot eyes. Okoro was no smart man, but not even a speck of his meager wisdom remained in the beast's mad gaze.

Oak threw a glance at the top of the wall and saw Sadia and Ur-Namma staring down on him. Former slaves fled past them in a rush, fleeing from the werewolf's jaws. The pair looked at each other, strange expressions on their faces. There was a shared understanding there, and Oak spied a hint of fear, even a touch of pity, in Sadia's eyes. This, more than anything else, puzzled him, but right now was not a good time to demand answers from his friends.

Such demands would have to wait until a later date.

"Go already! I will deal with this!" Oak roared and pulled out his falchion.

"NO, FATHER." Geezer emerged from the panicking crowd atop the wall, hackles raised. The hellhound's shadow flared, growing hooks and feelers, which latched onto the wall, and he crawled down it like an eldritch spider. "WE WILL DEAL WITH THIS."

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