“No matter what anyone says, do not answer.” Loki eyed his new protégé with suspicion. “Do you
understand? Whatever anyone says to
you, you will say nothing, you will
do nothing. You will follow me. You
will wear your badge in plain sight, and follow me.”
Sythius didn’t respond, but the set of his face changed. He
adjusted his furs so that the Hawk badge was in plain view. He seemed to take
some measure of pride in that badge, even though it was unlikely that he had
any idea what it meant. The larger, broader constructs of social discourse
weren’t just lost on this behemoth from the north.
To Sythius Sil’nathin, they simply didn’t exist.
Together, the two most unlikely compatriots in all of
Moonguard stalked the roads of the Outer Ring.
As Loki had expected, there was derision. The poor district
of any prosperous city had more reason than any to despise the forces in
charge. In Moonguard, those forces were the Ten Guards. The vassals of Saint
Vilaya herself.
There were any number of factions who would view the
induction of a stranger, a prisoner, into the ranks of the army as proof of further
infection.
“Can’t walk on your own, big guy?” someone jeered at the
giant. “Need a babysitter to tell you when to step, when to bow, when to shit?
Pathetic!”
Even when someone spat in Sythius’s face, he made no
reaction at all.
But then something else happened.
“Well, well. The mystic’s cripple found himself a pet! Or
maybe your mistress thought her precious widdle baby needed someone to wipe his
ass?”
Sythius moved so fast that, at first, it looked like he
disappeared.
A mammoth fist wrapped around a young man’s entire face, and
slammed him up against the great
white wall that Loki swore so many moons ago to protect with his life.
Sythius’s eyes narrowed, seemed to glow with some foreign
power.
“... Did you talk?”
* * *
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