“It’s such a great story,” said Merrin. She capsized the boat with a long sip. “Six heroes, thought to be criminals, return from exile to save the kingdom and slay the overlord of an undead army. And the liche and one hero are father and son? That’s the sort of twist that makes for the best epics.”

“Ah, yes,” said Heraldin. “And I look forward to writing it, once I get the⁠—”

“I mean, who else is going to get the rights, with you being one of the heroes?” Merrin said, peering at Heraldin through her thick glasses. “You’ve got first swing on the biggest ballad of the age!”

Beads of sweat bloomed on Heraldin’s brow. “Ah, well, it should make getting them easier⁠—”

“You don’t have them yet? No problem. It’ll be easy.” The Scribkin waved the concern away with a fork. “They say most of your partners are back working with the guild by now. That means they’ll have agents, and agents love money. Trust me on that one, I know.” She gave a barking laugh. “Just go to their agents to sort out the rights. Everyone will want a cut, but that’s the business.”

The bard cleared his throat. “Actually, some of my companions are unrepresented⁠—”

“What? Oh, good thing you’re all friends, then. Call in a personal favor. You need to get those rights. Oh, the food!” The shriveled Scribkin smiled as a waiter placed a plate of lettuce and tentacles before her. “Ah, Salvatore’s always has the best mentalopod. It’s dangerous if it’s too fresh, but if you wait too long the brain squid isn’t even wriggling anymore. The chef here always gets it right.”

She pointed to one of the faintly purple, severed appendages pulling itself across her plate toward freedom.

“Never was one for Arakian food,” Heraldin said, then quickly changed the subject. “Anyway, did you read the draft I sent you?”

“Hang on. I want to enjoy this.” Merrin held up one hand to pause the conversation while another maneuvered a fork to strike.

The bard averted his eyes as the old woman wrestled a struggling tentacle into her mouth. He could stare at his own plate of roast griffin shank and parsnips, but he couldn’t ignore the sounds of laborious chewing and the faint echo of an inhuman shriek at the back of his mind.

“Mm. Perfect,” said the Gnome, dabbing her lips with a napkin. “Anyway, yes. I read your ballad.”

Heraldin’s face lit up. “And?”

“It’s done.”

“Of course. I wouldn’t send an incomplete song.”

“No, I mean, it’s been done. A lot. A thousand times last summer.” She pointed a fork at Heraldin. “It’s like every other story I’ve forgotten this year.”

“Right. It’s a timeless tale,” Heraldin attempted.

“Only in the sense that it’s never going to have its day,” said Merrin. “Listen, kid, I know ballad writing looks easy, but there’s a lot to a good story. It’s not enough to just give any old Jack Cowfarmer a magic sword, send him off to fight some scargs, and… and… and… and… and… and…”

Heraldin startled. Merrin’s eyes had gone wide and so dilated that they were almost black. She picked up her fork and began jabbing it mechanically into her own arm.

“Merrin? Merrin, are you feeling well?” Heraldin asked, snatching the fork from her hand.

“Whoo!” said Merrin a moment later, shaking off the spell. “All right. All right. I’m better now.”

“What was⁠—”

The Scribkin brushed his concern aside. “Some of the livelier mentalopod put up a fight on the way down. Tickles your skull from the inside.” She saw the prong-marks in the leathery skin of her forearm and laughed. “This one’s got spirit.”

“Ha… ha.” It took a great effort for Heraldin to keep his face from screwing up into a grimace. “You were saying?”

“Right. Ballads,” said Merrin. “Listen, you can’t just write down a random story, call it a ballad, and get a contract. You need a story behind the song. Something extra. A little il’ne se la. Not the old farm-boy-saves-the-world routine.”

Heraldin winced and shook his head. “I think if the right audience heard it⁠—”

Merrin cut the bard off. “Think so? Go busking and see if you find that audience. You can sing whatever you want to the street urchins. But if you want to play to big audiences and have other bards license your ballads, you need something more.”

“Ah.” Heraldin’s face fell.

“Like the rights to the greatest story of the age. That would fill an auditorium, right? Kid, when you get those rights, you call me. I’ll buy you dinner.” Merrin smiled at him, but her eyes were cold iron.

“I see,” said Heraldin.

“Good. Now then, how’s the griffin tonight? I usually… usualleee… alleee… leeeeee…” Merrin’s words trailed into a high-pitched whine. Her face went blank again, her eyes dilated to black voids.

“Is it the squid?” Heraldin asked, then leapt back as the Scribkin grabbed a knife and held it aloft.

“Alleee….” slurred the Gnome.

“A little help!” Heraldin called, fending off Merrin’s clumsy stab with his fork.

The agent lurched from her chair and started marching toward the kitchen with the plodding determination of a giant golem. A couple of patrons gasped, and much of the restaurant’s table staff rushed over.

“The brain squid’s too fresh, Janisss!” The head waiter shouted to the Naga in the kitchen while trying to dodge wooden swings from the spellbound Gnome. “Too fresh!”

Heraldin grimaced as a busboy tackled Merrin to the floor. By rights, a plate of botched mentalapod and the ensuing fracas should have been the biggest disaster of the evening, but it paled in comparison with the agent’s implicit ultimatum. His musical career and financial comeback were on hold until he could convince his former companions to let him write a ballad about them.

There were a lot of reasons to think that they’d be reluctant to grant such a request.

For starters, they’d heard Heraldin sing.

“That’s a dealbreaker.” Burt stared into the deep blue of a cold twilight before dawn from the safety of Gorm’s rucksack. “Lady Asherzu would never agree to it.”

“Ye could talk her into it.” Gorm rubbed his hands together and stepped closer to the dying cookfire to ward off the creeping chill. Winter had come to the Plains of Bahn, though the snows had held off for now. Instead, a deep cold whipped across the scrubland and fields on northern winds, nipping at exposed skin and burrowing through the thickest cloaks. “Ye know as well as I do that if she revealed what she knows about Johan and Bloodroot⁠—”

“I know that it’d be her word against a hero-king that every other Lightling considers almost as holy as Tandos’ divine rump.” The Kobold rummaged around in Gorm’s things. “And we both know she’d lose that fight.”

“It’d be an excuse to investigate Johan,” Gorm pointed out.

“It’d be an excuse to investigate our corporation as well, and the bannermen are really good at finding bad things Shadowkin have done. Especially the things Shadowkin haven’t actually done.” The Kobold held up Gorm’s flint and steel, tail wagging. “We’d be lucky to come out of it only losing the company, and the lady ain’t doing anything that puts the business in danger.”

“I’d say havin’ a king who hates Shadowkin is a pretty big threat to all of ye, not just that new company of yours.”

“Yeah, but that’s nothin’ new, is it?” Amber light flared in Gorm’s backpack as the Kobold lit a cigarette. “King Oven introduced noncombatant papers just so he could make it legal to kill us for not having ’em. King Felik spent years makin’ it easier and easier to take those papers away. You know what King Handor did to the Orcs at Bloodroot. Every Lightling king would rather see us dead than prosper, and Johan’s just the latest one. And despite that, the lady’s found a way to make money on the right side of the law.”

Gorm eyed him sideways. “This is about more than gold,” he said.

“That’s something that you only hear people with lots of gold say.” The red eye of Burt’s cigarette flared with sudden intensity as he took a slow drag.

Over the cookfire’s dying light, the sky heralded dawn’s imminent arrival with a faint blue glow on the horizon. Gorm rubbed his arms and willed the sun to come faster and end third watch; he hoped to be on the road before long. “We were supposed to strike back. We were supposed to change the way things work.”