Keeping watch by the door while his cohorts searched through the ruined library, Myrus caught himself in the middle of tugging at the latches of his mask. Quietly letting his hand down from the dented brass, he withheld a sigh. The poor construct had weathered years of torment, the same as he; though the bandages about his sores came and went, the mask that shielded his scarred visage was as constant through life's anguish as he.

At present, Myrus was standing guard in case any of the ruin's horrors dared to approach the library while the others searched it for anything of value. Dismas had said that there may be some deeds or other heirlooms of worth to their benefactor; while they held less appeal than gold, they would fulfill far greater purposes. He was a natural leader, Dismas, despite being a highwayman like the brigands, if only because he was the most comfortable among them saying what needed to be done.

Dismas was quiet aside from his orders, but Myrus was quieter still. Badu had earlier tried to question him about his ailment – the doctor was more fascinated than terrified, which Myrus found unnerved him even more – but he knew far less than she. Noticing his prayer beads, Junia had also attempted conversation before their last battle, this time about the scriptures of the Light, but Myrus did not think the young nun deserved to hear his morbid interpretations of the holy texts.

"I think this is all we can really carry," Dismas said. "Any sign of trouble?" Myrus turned toward him and shook his head.

"Good," Dismas said with a sharp nod. "Hopefully we don't run into too many more of those skeleton creeps."

It had been a quiet journey thus far, Myrus noted to himself, but the other three continuously listened at doors before entering, and they seemed to relight their torches compulsively. When he pointed out twisted stone altars, Dismas thrust himself ahead to investigate before anyone else. Junia constantly had one eye on the wounds of others and spoke her prayers of healing at every opportunity, even when he reassured her he knew prayers of his own.

The next morning, Myrus finished his breakfast early and packed his things before standing beside Junia, who was still tying her sleeping roll. "Who is Reynauld?" he asked.

"What?" The battle nun fumbled in the middle of her knot, and the sleeping roll came undone again. Sighing tiredly, she returned to the task, now halfhearted. "Why are you asking?" she questioned back.

"Dismas mentioned him in his sleep," Myrus answered. Junia continued tying the roll until the process was finished. Behind them, Myrus could hear Dismas kicking the ruins' dust over the ashes of their dead fire. The click of a pistol accompanied the proceedings as the man also reloaded his principal weapon.

Finally, as she stood, Junia said, "Reynauld was our warrior before you. Another holy man – a crusader." Her voice was flat, but Myrus detected a slight tremor in it, and he raised his head slightly. For a moment he considered his words. But there were none to find.

"Summer before the fall," he said.

Junia paused, her eyebrows creased, but before she could ask or he could elaborate, Dismas announced that they were moving on.

"I am sorry for your loss." Myrus said.

"Pardon?" The mistress seemed to be at a loss for words more than anything.

As soon as he had returned to the hamlet with the other three, Myrus had gone to search for their benefactor. He found her in the midst of conversation with the barkeep of the tavern and waited until they had finished.

"Reynauld," Myrus said. "The others say little, but it is clear he mattered greatly."

"Oh." The mistress slumped slightly, and the lines in her forehead seemed suddenly more prominent, the gown more suffocating. "Yes. Thank you for your thoughts, Myrus."

"Is there any process by which to pay respects?" he asked.

"I have interred Reynauld in the graveyard until such time as his family can retrieve the coffin. You may visit his headstone in the meantime."

The curse upon this land must have been stronger even than Myrus had imagined for a man once a prophet to be twisted into a monster. The stockades like manacles on his hands, and the blades and spears like spines out of his back made the Prophet a terrifying sight to behold. Myrus had not seen worse, but he took strange comfort in how fitting it was: a broken foe for he, a broken king.

He was a challenging foe for Myrus, however, being too nimble for his strikes, and many a time Myrus merely found himself shattering wooden pews as Dismas rained lead upon the madman.

"C'mon, iron-face, can't you actually hit the guy?" Dismas shouted at him in between shots as the deranged prophet narrowly missed Junia with a fearsome swing. Myrus thought it was likely a poor time to mention his armor was brass and stoically swung at the prophet once more, overhead as if using the executioner's sword for its original purpose. The scarred weapon crashed through the stockade on the corrupted man's arms, shattering both wood and bone into splinters.

A final scream, a thrashing form, and then a corpse at Myrus's feet. With two tugs he freed the broken sword from the Prophet's corpse, hefting it to his shoulder.

"Nice swing, there," Dismas said, appearing beside him with a hand on his shoulder. "You alright?"

Myrus nodded and tilted his head toward the dead Prophet. "Petals must fall."

"Crazy old man," Dismas said. With another clap on Myrus's shoulder, he turned away. "Junia? Badu? You two good?"

"I am well," Junia said as she wrapped a linen bandage over her arm, where some rubble had left her scraped and bruised.

"Good." Dismas nodded, and he helped Junia finish the binding. Myrus took a moment to search the ruined church – there were trinkets and baubles to spare.

He paused in the midst of grasping a few coins. He turned his gaze up, over the benches. "Badu?"

Now Dismas and Junia looked up and about as well. In the chaos of the fight, Badu had fallen quiet, but they hadn't had time to think about it then.

"Badu?" Dismas suddenly drew his pistol again and began to march the rows. "Answer me! Are you alright?" His voice and steps echoed against the fractured stonework. Myrus and Junia joined him. It did not take long.

"A tragic end to a heroic friend," the mistress said, standing before the newest grave. With a sad smile she added, "She must be rolling in there, being unable to tell us exactly which wounds caused what."

Junia had found Badu, her corpse buried underneath fallen rubble, her spells and meager medicines useless to help the fallen doctor. Between the three of them, they managed to bring her out of that forsaken chapel for a proper burial.

Myrus placed a gloved hand on Junia's shoulder as she cried after the service. He supposed that she was too distraught to care that it was his hand.

"That's a strange weapon you've got there, leper." Myrus blinked and looked up from his sword; he must've been staring at it again. Sitting beside him was that little hellion, the barbarian Boudica, leaning on her halberd as if it were no more than a walking stick. They were camping for the night, Dismas cooking some of their rations. Junia had plead illness and was back in the hamlet, so the two of them were joined by Boudica and Alharzred, a magician from afar east. Myrus had not heard of his homeland, but he was unfamiliar with most geographies.

"Hey, did you hear me, iron-face?" Boudcia snapped her fingers in front of Myrus, and he could feel the snap echo across his mask.
"Brass," he said.

"What?"

"The mask is made of brass." He rapped it once. "Not iron."

"Oh, whatever," Boudica said, rolling her eyes. "I'm asking about the sword. What's up with it?"

"What do you mean?" he asked

"Come on, man!" She sighed, noisy, throwing her head backward. "You know! The stupid thing is broken, and it looks way too heavy! How can you seriously use it?"

Myrus looked back to hiss sword. His dented, chipped, marred, cracked, split sword. In the firelight's glow, he imagined he could see his own wounded and diseased reflection. Impossible, of course, for the mask. And yet.

"It is fitting," he finally said, not looking away from the blade. "A broken sword for a broken man."

"Hm." Boudcia sounded unsatisfied, but Myrus did not break from his contemplation. "But why this big, clumsy thing. I'm betting there's a reason you miss half the time we fight!"

"There is some sentimentality, I will admit," Myrus answered. "It is my trusted ally, unphased by my aspect." He set it down, satisfied with the time he had spent with it that evening. "And I have had it a long time."

"An executioner's blade?" Boudcia asked, sounding unconvinced.

"Fitting, as I said," Myrus said. When Boudica did not fill in the silence, he said, "Once a judge of men, now brought low."

They sat by the crackling fire for a few moments longer. Dismas began to hand out the now charred goods they had brought.

"The thief's right," Boudica said. "You are a crazy old man."

All around them was the stench of death and filth. Carcasses and skeletons alike lined the halls, along with the waste and refuse of an unending parade of swinefolk. Yet even here was treasure, hoarded by the monstrous pigmen they fought, threats too great to ignore.

Myrus's swings were still heavy, but thanks to the guildmaster's tutelage he had a bit more finesse. The porcine warrior's skull collapsed beneath his blade, his corpse falling to the ground.

"Blood in the mud." With a quick wrench he freed his weapon, returning to cover as Dismas fired a grapeshot against the strange drummers that remained. The hallway thundered with battle rhythms as the swinefolk struck their beat, and Myrus winced with the sound from behind the pile of rubble (blood and bones, Myrus knew, but he didn't say to the others) that guarded them. It was nearly impossible to think in this din, and he could almost swear he felt more and more lightheaded as the marching tune carried on.

"Just wait 'em out," Dismas said, though his face was wrenched in equal pain. "No point in trying to fight with 'em when they've got no weapons anyway." They had tried to ignore these drummers all day, and while Myrus agreed with Dismas, it was taxing. Already he flinched at the slightest sound of a drumbeat in these filth-ridden warrens.

"Wait?!" Junia cried, and Myrus saw that her expression had a deeper anguish, the lines in her skin deeper than he remembered when they first met. "What's the point of waiting? They'll just bring back their warriors, and they'll still beat their drums, their DRUMS!"

"Junia, calm down –" Dismas started, but Junia suddenly stood and walked out from behind the rubble.

"There is no higher purpose here," she said. Her mace and scriptures clattered against the mossy floor. "There is no hope in this hell!"

"Junia!" In Dismas's eyes Myrus saw a flash of horror, an ocean of despair. Greater than concern for a colleague, great enough to paralyze the man. He fired again upon the drummers, but seemed frozen stiff, unable to move forward. On, Junia marched, and now a drummer abandoned its rhythm, stepping toward her, reaching, grabbing.

"What are you boys staring for?!" Suddenly Myrus felt a pull, physical and mental, out of his reverie, out from cover, and he saw Dismas was being dragged too. Boudica had grabbed each of them, shoving him out in front. "MOVE before they EAT her! HRRAAAAAA!" In a blur of movement, their little hellion leaped forward, swinging her halberd wildly, smashing the swines' drums of war. Feeling suddenly unclouded, Myrus ran forward as well, and with a single strike hewed a swinefolk in two. One, two shots punctuated the air, and another swine collapsed to the floor.

"JUST DIE!" Boudica screamed, and with a final swing she cut deep into the last swine's torso. Blood spurted, bubbled, slowed.

The tunnel fell silent. Junia fell with it.

Dismas knelt beside the vestal, pulling her to a sitting position, and he looked at them all, at the swines' corpses around them. "What the hell is this?"

Myrus attempted to wipe his blade, but it remained stubbornly stained. He glanced around. "Blood in the mud."

"You're no help," Boudica said. Junia remained quiet, quivering.

Dismas snapped in front of her face, but she didn't move. "Junia?" There was no answer. Myrus collected her mace and book from the floor, but both were already marred by the mud and waste. "That settles it," Dismas announced. "We set up camp right now."

"I'm not even sleepy –" Boudica began.

"No questions," Dismas insisted.

Junia was better in the morning, though she refused to sleep until Myrus had moved his roll away from the others. Dismas refused her request at first, but Myrus assured it was fine. He decided not to mention the over-sized maggot he had to contend with in the morning, but it was a small price to pay for his companion's rest.

They managed to map out a majority of the warrens successfully. They made sure to target the dummers and bring them low. Dismas suddenly decided that fighting was easier with the tunnels silent. Quietly, Myrus suspected Dismas was only trying to spare Junia the trouble and embarrassment of expressing her fear. The decision seemed to make them all feel better, though; Myrus found the din to fray his nerves as much as he thought they seemed to fray Junia's. Boudica vaguely said something of cowardice and fearing music once, but said no further for the rest of the journey.

"Have the vows become more flexible since my youth, sister?" Myrus could see Junia's shoulders fall as she paused on the stairs inside the tavern. Behind them, cheering as Alhazred won his first pot in weeks.

"They have not," Junia answered, now turning toward him. She had shed her habit and temple garments for a jerkin and trousers, but Myrus could not mistake her young and tired face. He stood as he often did; masked and bandaged, torn but tall.

"Ah," Myrus said. Junia fidgeted before him, and she backed up a few steps.

"Brother, you don't even go to the mass," she said, whispering. "If you're thinking of lecturing me on what is and isn't –"

"Perish the thought," Myrus interrupted. "Do what you must."

"What..." The anger faded into confusion, and Myrus began to ascend with her.

"I have my bandages," he said. On the final steps, he gestured for her to go on. "You have yours."

Junia nodded, quiet, but hesitated to leave the threshold of the steps. "I was surprised by the abbot's words at Dismas's service today."

"Surprised?"

"In – a good way," Junia added, and Myrus nodded. He understood.

"On the old road," Myrus recited. "He found redemption." Junia looked to the floor, but Myrus caught a tiny gleam of tears.

"Perhaps we all have," she said.

She shuddered and walked on. "I hope we all have."

Myrus returned downstairs, retiring to the abbey after a few more drinks.

The cove was damp and left his bandages soggy, aggravating the wounds underneath. Myrus could not complain, however. Their leader did not need the burden.

Their benefactor had called Katharine a professor. A scholar. She wielded naught but a flimsy dagger and an unsettling incense burner that soothed both body and mind, though never by much. Yet Myrus could see she had a keen eye for their surroundings, and she directed himself and the others in battle with a practiced – if panicked – ease.

With them also were the magician Alhazred and Barristan, a swarthy, older soldier, clad in plate and armed with shield. Barristan was finishing applying herbs to a nasty slice on Alhazred's shoulder while Katharine chiseled at a rusted and barnacled chest they'd stumbled across. If nothing else, she knew better than any of them where and how to find the relics and gold of the fallen estate.

"Aha!" With a click and a creak, Katherine finally pulled the chest's lid up, revealing precious stones and glittering gold. "Amazing how there's so much wealth in this desolation."

"Are we finished?" Barristan said, lifting his mace. "I'm tired of this obsession with all of these 'baubles.'"

"You have your job," Katherine said as she slowly packed the coins and finery, being cautious so as to carry as much as possible. "I have mine. You know our benefactor needs the money."

"Feh." Barristan set his weapon down again and looked away. "I suppose fighting evil doesn't pay on its own."

"Exactly," Katherine said as she placed the last shard of onyx into her pack, clasping it gently. "I am ready."

"At last!" Alhazred added, lighting another torch.

"The tide rises," Myrus said to accompany his swing. The heavy sword shattered the pelagic siren's scaly side as bile, black and bloody, gushed from the wound. She screamed, and for a moment Myrus saw a vision of a woman, young and beautiful, before it was replaced with the breathless corpse of a monster.

He wiped his blade clean. "And the tide falls," he said. The blood never really faded.

While the professor and magician began to investigate the waterlogged den for those treasures the mistress promised they might find, Myrus knelt beside the staggered and sitting Junia. He offered her a bandage, dabbed in holy water, and a wrapped biscuit.

"What..." Her words were slurred, stammered, as she cradled her forehead. "What happened?" She took the bandage and touched it to her head. "I feel like I was dropped off a cliff head first. I remember... I felt like I was looking in a mirror, and everything was reflected backwards. My mace felt wrong, and the prayers sounded strange, and... love?" She shook her head, wincing at the memories. She did not seem to clearly remember her time with the siren.

"You were her queen," he said. "And her slave."

Junia blinked at the words, and her gaze fixed upon the siren's broken body. "She looked... different."

"Beautiful," Myrus said. Junia nodded. She swallowed.

"I have gone astray from the vows," she said. Myrus only offered her a hand up. She stood stiffly, like her body was still not yet her own.

As they walked, catching up to Alhazred and Katherine, Myrus said, "Iron is cast into sword and shield alike."

"We aren't working with iron," Junia said, her tone sharper than he remembered.

Alhazred and Katherine nodded to them, and Katherine lit another torch. "Brass is much the same," Myrus said.

Perhaps he imagined it on account of the stress, but it seemed to him Junia laughed.

She stayed away from the tavern, keeping to the meditation cells instead that week, but by the next week Myrus saw her ascend the stairs once more. Now, however, she went masked, a scarf hiding most of her face.

Myrus took comfort that the mistress did express regret for asking a scholar to undergo such trials.

The hamlet had changed since Myrus had arrived. Few faces were familiar. The tavern's owner had died in the winter, and his daughter now stood vigil at the bar, fending off unruly men with a glare. She seemed to regret the greater success she enjoyed over her father. The blacksmith had handed his post down to a son-in-law. Many of his comrades were no more. Not the little hellion, not the magician, not even Barristan, the soldier. The warriors seemed to come and go far more quickly. Minstrels and lawmen, hunters and mages, holy men and monsters. Each came and went in their time. He only recognized Junia, and Junia, only he.

Their benefactor even was a stranger. Rarely heard from, even more rarely seen. Once a familiar face at the graveyard, Myrus now only saw the caretaker and the abbot present at each service. Her face was drawn, her eyes cast down, the gown as much a part of her as the mask was part of him.

The treks felt longer. More painful. Myrus felt sometimes that he did not know himself in the darkness, and he chilled at his own memory. Seizing bandages from the bleeding, refusing aid from the compassionate. But all others seemed the same. Just last week, he had followed a young noblewoman into the rain-choked weald to hunt a shambling monster. The picture of refinement cracked into a mess of confusion, and he walked out of that forest alone.

At times the abbey felt pointless and cold, yet his sword still accompanied him there. A broken sword for a broken king. Yet still, he forged it stronger and stronger. He liked to imagine he was the same.

He was not the same.

For the first time in weeks his benefactor had stood before him and Junia, along with a holy knight and a quiet houndmaster. The mission was simple on paper: the estate was mostly clear, and she felt it time now to confront the fount of this place's evil. The knight would lead them. Her ancestor's notes suggested it could be killed like anything else. They needed only have the courage to face it.

Deep beneath the estate, beyond reason, Myrus thought, stood a catacomb. A cathedral, it seemed. Torches lit the way, likely struck by whatever evil lurked here.

The enemy fought fiercely. Awful blades sliced through his bandages, robes hid the true tentacled forms of monsters, and horrifying corruptions of people chewed their own flesh to gain and grant strength. The entire site was an abomination. Yet still Myrus hewed through these foes, as he had countless, endless, times before.

The hall was narrow, constricting. There were no choices, no paths. Only the darkening, deepening chapel of the evil they fought. At the end of it, a monster that was more than any of them could bear.

Gums and teeth fit into something resembling a maw, but no face could be seen. Eyes would indicate a head, yet they were scattered across the form. Pustules and tentacles lined its surfaces, and no means of locomotion could be seen. Yet it was a monster, as was any other, and it bled as he swung his blade.

But if the thing bled, he and his bled more greatly. Its tentacles struck, denting plate and shattering bone. Its scream echoed, breaking mind and soul. Before Myrus knew it, he and the others were on the defensive, and no amount of prayer seemed enough to staunch the flow.

"We cannot withstand this!" the crusader shouted, raising his banner, desperately praying for relief. Myrus did not answer as he tried vainly to parry another powerful blow.

Junia shouted back, "Yet we are so close!"

It was in that moment that the shuffling horror dashed her head upon the stonework, painting it red. Myrus did not have the fortune of witnessing it. He only knew when he asked for a prayer and no answer came.

He was not the same.

"JUNIA!" For once, he screamed. The sword nearly fell from his side. The mask suffocated him. He could not breathe.

"We can't carry on!" the knight shouted. "We must fall back!"

"There is nowhere to fall back to!" the houndmaster shouted, trying to shield his pet, now crumpled on the chapel floor.

"Leper!" The knight ignored his comrade. "Step back, we must retreat!"

He could not breathe. "I've been sold a river." He needed to breathe. "And yet I still go THIRSTY!" He ripped the brass from his visage, throwing it to the horror, swinging the sword wildly, missing every strike. "Leave me to my fate! It is mine alone!" The air against his exposed face was intoxicating, and he breathed it deeply, fueling his charge.

"Get a hold of yourself, man!" He felt gauntlets, hands grabbing him, pulling him back, the sword scraping against the stone.

"You prune the ivy, yet it is already February!" He spat the words past rotted lips and gnarled tongue.

"Just run!" Another voice screamed. As he was yanked, Myrus spun about. Before him he could see the hound, clutched in her master's grip. Something jarred in his mind. His feet began to move.

"That's it!"

"Come on!"

The horror screamed behind them, its echoes further and further away.

It was the first time Myrus refused his benefactor's call. He could not go back. The knight returned to that accursed chapel with others in tow. He heard later that they slew the beast, only to discover there was more to do. Of course there was.

He was not surprised when the mistress did not attend the service. He hoped that this time someone would come to retrieve Junia's body. She did not deserve this cursed land for her final rest.

The meditation was not enough. The drink was not enough. The pleasures and pastimes of this world were not enough. The beating was not even enough. Another week went by, and another. More came out dead than alive, gibbering of mad visions and templars serving the world's end.

He had since masked himself again; he would not torment the world further with his own misery. The smith had been glad to craft him a new mask. He had again refused his offer to repair the sword properly.

A broken sword for a broken king. He had been a fool to think he was stronger.

"Are you Myrus?"

He broke from his reverie. The tavern surrounded him, the dim light and strong noise of cards and dice. He had come to sit at the bar again... why, he knew not. The weeks had been a blur. He looked to his left, where the voice had come from.

"Are you?" She was young and delicate, hair cropped and jagged. Her eyes betrayed the weariness of the hamlet, the exhaustion of dead and dying generations. The women of the hamlet only ever sat at the bar for one reason, in Myrus's experience, no matter what he thought of it.

"I am he. But what of it?" he said.

"You were the only one whose name Junia remembered."

Myrus froze. Quiet.

"I assumed at first that she felt guilty again," the woman said. "Because of her vows, I mean. But then I heard what had happened. And you were the only person she seemed to know."

"I assume you knew her," Myrus said. The woman nodded. And then she shook her head. Myrus affixed his gaze on her more firmly.

"Honestly, neither of us did," the woman said. "She paid me to be with her. And she was paid to be with you."

Myrus considered this, and he nodded. "That is insightful of you," he said.

"But they can be lonely, the lives we lead," she said.

"So we get attached anyway," he finished.

"She was much the same."

Myrus opened his mouth to object. Then closed. Then sat back. Behind them, a stranger cheered, having won the pot for the first time in weeks.

The drink was quiet, but soothing. The sword was broken, but stronger.

The way had been opened, his benefactor said. The path was clear. Only one trial remained. The heart of darkness itself. She did not ask for volunteers, summoning those whom she would task with this battle without question or reservation. She selected a doctor, quiet and reserved. A hunter, cold from the horrors. A minstrel, his songs and laughter gone mad.

But when her gaze settled upon a young knight, a man who still was a boy, Myrus stepped forward.

"Spare the others.

"I am ready."

The battlefield made no sense. An endless field of stars engulfed them. A transcendental terror, a ghost of haunting aspect, spoke truths that would break the will of legends. Myrus said nothing.

The ghost shifted, specter turning to flesh, flesh becoming more flesh. A heart beat in agony before them, the pulse of an indifferent god.

The minstrel cracked, the hunter cried, the doctor broke, and in an instant, a flash of tentacles and body mass, the jester was gone. Screams trailed off in the starless night.

Myrus felt the book of scriptures on his belt, taken from her belongings, for no family ever came. Against the monster's endless form, his eyes blazed beneath the mask.

He was ready.

"The mountain defies the consuming sea." He swung, striking a critical wound that spat bile and pain. Beside him, the doctor straightened, and she aimed her concoctions. "The blackest night yields to brightest dawn." And now the hunter seemed to recover, and his hook sank deep into the monster's hide.

The tide of battle seemed to turn, and Myrus hewed again and again, the scripture still by his side.

And when the monstrous heartbeat quickened, and the god spoke COME UNTO YOUR MAKER, Myrus answered, ready.

"Fiend!" he shouted. "Behold me! I know that existence and suffering are one and the same. You have no power over me!" The horror was quick to prove otherwise, but Myrus did not care.

He grasped the scriptures at his side, holding them up to his gaze, and he gently pulled the mask away as darkness began to engulf him. The heart of darkness struck, seizing him, his vision blackened, but Myrus knew that all was well.

For he knew now.

"On the old road..."

"We found redemption."