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It’s quiet in the wilderness.
There’s hardly a sound beyond the night; the susurrus of leaves as the wind whispers softly to the trees, laughing as she glides; songsters singing to the sky as the sun sets; an hour left of light as the tops of the trees are set aflame in golden light and the walls of the stronghold shimmer where afternoon rain hasn’t run off completely leaving the stone damp and the ground wet, but not enough for the soil to become muddy.
It's still not pleasant for the guards that have outdoor-duty, having retreated to their canopy shelters with tables, chairs and a deck of cards to pass the time. They don’t have to look presentable because they’re not expecting anyone—no guests for the shows, no buyers for the products or sponsors simply coming to collect their dues—so the men have meads in their tankards and an aggression born from boredom as they gamble and swear and tease one another mercilessly.
They’re lazy and careless; drunk on wine as much as their assumed power; unsuspecting of an attack when the stronghold lays out in the middle of nowhere.
Unaware of the knights in the treeline.
Karl has his bow drawn, alongside Punz and Antfrost, his eyes not looking to his target, but a little to his right, where Sapnap holds a hand steady, watching the remainder of the knights get as close as they can with altering the more-aware watched on the wall on the south side.
They’ve killed the other sentries already; the ones stationed in the woods and the patrol that meanders between them like a Sun’s Day stroll through the gardens. It was Ant who had taken them out; scouting ahead of the group and running through the trees with unmatched agility and flexibility; slitting throats and lowering them to the ground instead of letting them topple; so accurate, so precise with his blade that there’s hardly more blood than a piercing arrowhead, having returned to his friends with a cheery smile that didn’t meet his eyes.
Now he stands beside his friends, bow drawn and waiting.
They’re not in their heavy armour—no point trying to sneak an ambush when rattling with iron-plated armour so instead they’re all dressed in leather and chainmail—which allows them to sneak right up to the shadow of the wall; Dream at point, Sam at his right and Skeppy bringing up the rear.
Dream breathes out a steady breath, his eyes falling closed for a few seconds to ground himself before they open again, hand reaching to lower his mask for the sake of comfort as much as added protection. Even with his face covered, Sam and Skeppy can see the change in him; reflecting his expression of determination, neither of them able to completely conceal their charged hostility.
Punz and his group lose sight of them as they circle the wall, but he’s still got sights on their between; Sapnap’s fingers twitching where his hand is still raised, ready to give the order once the knights are in position—
A shout of panic signals they’ve been spotted and suddenly there’s pandemonium.
Karl, Punz and Antfrost let their arrows fly at once, not waiting for Sapnap’s order, slinging their bows on their shoulders before their targets have hit the ground—dead. Quackity is with them, behind, two daggers in either hand in symmetry to Ant while Karl and Punz shift sword and shield into position as they rush the eastern wall; Sapnap joining Dream on the west side with his sword out and his anger burning like a fire beneath his skin.
They’ve been hunting these bastards for weeks, meticulously turning over each and every stone, chasing dead ends and whispers in the dark while these bastards have kept exploiting, kept stealing, kept hunting and spreading their malice.
The fighting pits were abolished years ago by George’s hand, even before he was crowned, but poison had festered in the dark and there were still circles that profited from old prejudices.
This stronghold was the last nest to burn.
Inside, the walls are worn with age—the strong hold once abandoned by the crown and the knights that served it where it was only a relic of wartime, now turned into a fortress that scum and vermin operate out of.
There are few guards inside prepared for a battle—fewer in total than any of the knights would’ve expected for a stronghold such as this—and while only eight storm forwards, they are more than a match for the filth that crawl forward with surprise and anger and adrenaline-sparked desperation to turn a sword, a knife, or a blade that sticks them like pigs.
It’s an ambush, which sees many of them unarmed or unarmoured and they fall before they’ve truly been given a chance to rise.
Those that Dream doesn’t kill are caught by Sam, or Skeppy, or Sapnap’s anger that sends too many flying where he shoulder-barges them through doors of down through the patch-worked floors where the stronghold is beginning to collapse in on itself. Even with his rage sparking beneath the soles of his feet, Sapnap is precise as always; striking his enemy down with blows to their chests and neat cuts across their flesh that leaves more than a few moments of regret as they bleed out.
From deeper within, they can hear yelling; mercenaries calling one another to arms; masters that bought them with coin screaming for defence and blood while others scream in fear of Punz’s sword.
Dream leads his team through the maze-like rooms, sparing no one and no time for anything but a healing potion, courtesy of Bad, where a sword broke through their defence, or a knife slashed in a last ditch attempt to take one of the knights down with him.
The fighters that follow are more wary, more prepared, but they swing their swords with mindless strength rather than any skill and Dream doesn’t have to parry his way past a defence when there is none—using his sword to pierce through flesh before moving on to the next one.
Beside him Sam fights with matching strength, but he has years of training and sparring behind him that is more than hacking at a wooden post or buying a flashier sword and naming himself a warrior.
Dream can tell that, on some level, Sam detests this, watching him wince as a soldier lopes towards him, only dressed in half armour, his sword held in such a way that Sam could get past unarmed, but he’s unrelenting regardless, swinging his sword, charging with a raised shield to knock others off balance—toppling men that are gathered too close to one another and raising his sword to pierce their stomachs and swallow their screams.
Skeppy looks like he’s having fun as he dances with twin blades; flourishing with spins and jumps and a wild laugh that bounced off the blood-stained walls; leaving a trail of bloody footsteps behind him, but there’s a grim determination in his eyes and his display is as much a mask as the wooden smile that Dream wears; an intimidation tactic as much as a distraction as he darts in and out again, spilling blood, toppling bodies, taking revenge for those they’ve already rescued and those that wait below.
The four fight their way through the resistance until the numbers dwindle and they break out into a wide chamber in the heart of the stronghold, and Dream’s stomach did a funny twist when he recognised the circular carved stone to be that of an arena. Penned in on all sides by sheer walls, some with metal rings hammered into them, two with grates to give access to fighters, or whatever beasts that had been captured for the entertainment of being slain.
It wasn’t as large or grand as the arena outside the city wall that Dream had fought in for celebration, but it was spacious considering it was in the middle of a stronghold and, by the sight of the wooden furniture that stretched across a gape in the wall, and the tumbled stone in the centre, had once been a circular staircase, repurposed.
The room they found themselves in looked down into the pit, lined with benches and chairs, having given host to previous fights before, and by the brown, blood-stained pit floor, many. Sapnap snarled when he recognised the room for what it was and, in anger, launched a kick at one of the nearest tables, sending it skidding backwards into chairs and another table, but doing little damage.
“Calm,” Dream ordered without turning his head, but it was clear from his own voice that he and Sapnap shared their rage. They’d spent months looking for this place. How many halflings had been forced to fight for their lives in that time? How many animals had been speared and bled all in the name of entertainment.
They weren’t questions Dream wanted to consider and he shook his head, riding himself of them, looking instead to the grate and wondering how to get down there. They’d have to backtrack, through the maze-like rooms and corridors, but before Dream can give the order, a door on the other side of the room opens and Punz’s team burst through.
Or more accurately, the door bursts open by a bloody body falling through it and Punz and his team push past, clearly expecting a continuation of the fight and not their comrades.
“Are you all alright?” Sam asks where they’ve earned themselves a moment to regain their footing; no more guards rushing at them, only the sounds of their voices rising up from down in the tunnels; some frightened, others boastful where they haven’t seen the destruction already laid upon their numbers by a handful. But they are not mercenaries or a slighted lord that felt himself cheated by the fighting pit; they are King George’s knights, skilled and trained and more than capable of flushing out the rat’s nest.
“We’ve got Bad’s potions,” Quackity says, lifting his arm to show a gash in his armour and blood on his clothes, but the skin that can be seen has already begun to stitch itself back together and there’s only the pink slug of a scar that will fade within a day or two. Sapnap’s eyes flash with worry, but Quackity is fine.
Dream turns his eyes to Punz in question to the rest of their team, but none of them look any more injured than they do that their energy has been chipped at—still more than capable of taking on whatever else will fight its way out of the deeper tunnels.
It's Punz who leads the way this time, mentioning stairs but not wanting to explore further when he wasn’t certain of how many mercs were in the stronghold—not wanting to have split his team, or get too far ahead—and he leads them to it just as the last of the hired thugs burst from the belly of the beast.
These at least put up far more of a challenge than their predecessors but even they fall to the sweeping tide of the king’s knights.
Shouts echo throughout the stone corridors. Somewhere to Dream’s left, Karl drives his sword through the back of a man’s leg and they give out beneath him.
Blood spills. Men scream. Sapnap throws his body at one when he aims his sword for Quackity’s head and instead, gets knocked into the corner of a table, neck colliding, snapping. Dead.
Three soldiers approach Dream at once, but Antfrost is by his side in an instant, ancestral blood awakening in this pit of destitute and despair; black sclera sharpening his anger; snarling teeth sharp in the flickering of the lantern light as he abandons sword and blade for claws fashioned from a shift that grows fur across his face and a tail from beneath his armour: a cry of fury, outrage and disgust rising from the ranks of those that think halflings are less instead of more.
Dream and Ant teach them better with barely contained bloodlust; hardly quenching their wrath on the three that thought they could take them on, but satisfied for a moment at least that their prejudice can no longer taint the world.
“Mob-blooded scum,” one of the men hisses where he’s prompted up against the wall. He’s already dead; nothing can save him from the wound in his stomach, but he speaks his own anger in his final moments; crimson blood on his lips and crimson rage in dying-light eyes that watches Dream takes a step closer, bending down on one knee to listen to his rattle-hiss-choking breath.
“You’re no better than him,” he coughs, think his hill is high and might and blessed by the sun, but it’s nothing more than a mound of earth next to grave.
“You’re right,” Dream purrs, leaning in, a hand pushing back his carved mask to reveal too-sharp irises and too-sharp teeth. “I’m much worse.”
He takes the man across the throat with his knife before he can say anymore, resettling his mask before the others can see. He’s not ashamed of his own heritage—not as thinned as Sapnap’s, not as potent as Ant’s—but he hates how he looks when he’s angry; when his emotions become too much as his true nature peeks out from beneath the veil.
The rest of the hirelings are dealt with swiftly and mercilessly.
Dream watches as Quackity puts his blade through one man’s throat; Skeppy beside him, ducking another man’s swing and bringing up his steel into the soft give of flesh. Someone comes up behind Karl, but Sapnap is there, already moving, driving his sword into the man’s abdomen as Sam and Punz kill their last opponents and leave their bodies to fall to the floor of the damp underground tunnel.
The last of their number is not their a part of their number at all, but the one who enticed them into the darkness with a heavy gold purse and the promise of power.
She’s frothing at the mouth when they burst through the locked door, not simply because she’s terrified, but because she’s a coward and she drank poison the moment the cries rung out that it was the king’s knights that had come to wash clean the plague that festered in the dark.
She’s draped in finery, fallen from a chair that sits at the head of the table, gold-lined goblet drained of poison-tainted wine; the same that dripples from her open mouth and down her chin, wide eyes watching Punz’s sword levelled towards her. She doesn’t have the strength to move back more than it takes to topple the chair she once thought a throne; no more the strength to plead for mercy than she has to speak and it is hardly longer the time taken for the eight knights to push their way into the room than it is for her heart to stop.
Sam, kind and gentle as stern and loyal as he may be, reaches to the dresser beside him and the table runner, pulling it out from beneath piled books, journals and other oddities before draping it over her body. She doesn’t deserve as such, but no one questions Sam’s actions and no one comments on them.
The stronghold is empty; their enemy defeated.
There is little more to do now than to sort through what remains; to sort through the paper trail should there be another name, another pit or a list of buyers that have purchased the goods harvested from those that didn’t survive to the next round, or a buyer he purchased the winner themselves, to be collared and chained and baited like a dog.
It will be Bad’s focus for the next few months; much more familiar with halflings and the history revolved around the branches between them, their mob ancestors and regular-ass humans. It helps that he’s not human himself, but like Antfrost, he can hide it, like a glamor.
(Dream’s fairly certain only he—by accident—George—because he’s the king—and Skeppy—entirely by choice and because Bad trusts him—are the only ones that have seen what he truly looks like; black skin that is neither scales nor pigmentation, horns that curl back to add to his height that can already reach the rooves when he’s angry and hollow eyes that see far more than they should.
But Dream—George, Skeppy, everyone—also know how sweet Bad is; how kind, compassionate and caring he is; that he doesn’t even swear even when Skeppy frustrates him and the cruelty of the world in the shadows.)
They make a start on organising themselves; Skeppy and Antfrost returning outside and to the horses that they hitched in a clearing a fair walk away, where they’ll ride to the stronghold to leave the others their mounts before returning to the nearest stronghold manned by George’s soldiers where they’ll send word for Bad and for more men to come help with the clean up—and possible subsequent manhunt should they find any names among the books and ledgers.
Quackity heads back to the front of the tunnel to one of the rooms that looked like it served as a library or a tome records, not necessarily needing to read through and organise the books inside but to begin to pack it away where it will eventually all be taken back to the capital for Bad to spend the luxury of hours going through all the records without the worry of any loose ends wanting to reclaim what was taken from them.
Punz and Sam make a start on clearing the bodies and cutting the long grass outside to make space for a pyre; emptying the kindling baskets and cutting down a few or the nearby-growing saplings to build it up.
Karl, Sapnap and Dream stay in the Mistress’s room, giving more than a cursory glance to the journals and, more often than not, wishing they didn’t. Karl finds a ledger of those that fought in the pit—halflings and mobs alike, recorded the same, like they’re all mindless beasts—of bets and gambles and unpaid dues.
By the records and winnings expected, it’s clear for Karl to see which victim—because there was no doubt that they were all victims—made it out of the pit and those that were made to fight on, some dying in the next round. Sapnap finds a corresponding book of parts harvested and has to stop himself from tearing the book apart there and then, slamming it down on the book and wandering off to get himself air.
Dream picks the book up to see what hurt him, wishes he hadn’t, and promptly deposits it on a pile of books that have already given them similar reactions.
There’s a yell.
A not-quite scream but something angry, frightened and desperate; Karl and Dream barely sparing one another a glance as they shove themselves out of the Mistress’s room and back down the tunnels, Quackity running up and they meet at a crossroads, being dragged along by the sound of Sapnap yelling and the terrifying sound of steel striking stone.
They find the youngest knight against a stowaway—an unbloodied coward that had been hiding in the dark, swinging a sword far too big for him in a room the houses the doors that lead to the individual cells that once would’ve housed halflings and creatures to fight in the pit, but Dream can’t focus on that as he watches Sapnap duck backwards out the way of his attacker as the sword swings for him; slipping on the stone, nothing to defend himself when they were stupid enough to assume they were safe instead of checking—
“SAPNAP!”
Karl and Quackity scream together as the coward’s sword is driven into his gut. He barely has a moment to enjoy his victory before Dream’s sword is being driven into his open mouth, through his throat and out through the back of his neck; his charge and the weight of sudden speed giving enough force behind his blade for such violence, but he doesn’t care to give the man any more consideration than hearing his body fall to the ground, already dropping to his knees as Karl presses his hands down on the wound.
It's not that deep, but it hovers on the edge of dangerous. Even more so when Punz and Sam come rushing into the tunnels and they only have one healing potion between them, the rest having been consumed when they stupidly thought that the battle was won.
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” Sapnap says, waving them all off, but Dream is used to masks and he can see the shadow of a grimace on his face that tells more of discomfort than dying. “There has to be something around here. These people deal in selling mob ingredients, they must having a brewery room or potions supply. Everybody search,” he orders, the words barely out of his mouth before the knights are up—Quackity and Karl caught between running from the room and wanting to stay; only doing so when Dream says that he’ll stay with Sapnap; that he’ll carry him back to the Mistress’s room where he can sit in a chair and whine about being babied—all of them searching with renewed vigour even if it would take hours for Sapnap to sluggishly bleed out; his wound congealing on its own long before then.
Dream and Sapnap let them go before they both drop their masks—close friends not needing to pretend around one another; Sapnap having held a guise more for his lovers’ sakes than his own—Dream struggling to keep his anger in check as he twists on the ball of his foot and slams his fist into the stone wall with a brutal snarl.
Sapnap might not be in any immediate danger, but he could’ve been, and that in itself is unforgivable.
In the quiet, something whimpers.
Sapnap hears it too, because he raises his head, and eyebrows, sending a questioning glance to Dream as he steps over to the dead body and slides his sword out from the sheath of human bone, not bothering to wipe the blood off as he stalks further into the room.
Feet stalling outside the last cell in the row as his eyes fall upon a small figure through the grate of the door.
There’s just enough light to see that it is a child; limbs folded around himself only barely where his wrists around bound in weathered chains; another pair on his ankles and they’re restraining but not in a way that hinders him when he’s already pressed low to the ground, in the corner of the room, face turned away from the light of the door and as still as the stone that traps him.
There’s no mistaking the boy was the source of the noise; no mistaking him anything more than a child when Dream presses a hand against the door and the metal creaks; the boy’s head snapping up and wide fearful eyes meet his.
For a heartbeat and a stutter, Dream stares at this small blonde child in the corner of his cell.
He’s begun to pant, to panic; mouth wide, eyes impossibly wider and a bone-chilling, heart-breaking sound that can barely be heard above the silence.
“Dream?” Sapnap breathes, so faint that Dream struggles to hear him, but the child, so used to the quiet, to the empty air and lightless, pitch-black of the dungeon hears Sapnap clearly. A sound, somewhere between a sob and a breathless scream twists his mouth and he ducks down behind his arms.
The door to his cell isn’t locked, the bastards having thought there was no use when it’s occupant is chained to the far wall and a child—but is he more? Is he a halfling too, or an unwilling human fallen victim to be the bait to a mob in the pits—and it swings open with a harrowing scream; the boy flinching imperceptibly, shoving himself back against the stone even if he refuses to lift his eyes and watch what he fears will be his death.
Behind his mask, Dream’s face is drawn in pain. He softens his voice, wrapping it up in warmth and calm and a thousand other things that don’t belong down here in the dark, sinking down onto his knees outside the cell.
“Hi,” he breathes, hand lifting to remove his mask, hand raised in silent order to Sapnap to keep quiet and stay where he was, wound or no. Any anger towards the situation is temporarily dismissed in favour of calming the boy, smiling at him as he settles on his knees, prepared to wait. “My name is Dream. I’m a knight of King George’s. We’ve come to help you.”
That’s not necessarily a lie, although when Dream and the others had scouted this place over the past few days, they were under the assumption that any remaining pit fighters had been slaughtered, dissected and sold on, word of hunters late on replacing their lost mobs the only interesting talk that Antfrost had overheard as he snuck above their heads and stole behind their patrols when the night was deep.
Either way, Dream and the others will protect this boy. He need no longer suffer at the hands of those that had been in charge. Those that are all dead now.
The boy stares at him, but he’s not hiding behind his arms anymore; no longer shielding himself or making the chains rattle as he moves them, like he’s used to sitting still, not fidgeting; not doing anything to draw attention to himself.
But the bruises that Dream can see in the dim light, he knows that the boy’s efforts have been fruitless. He’s thin, his skin is dotted in sweat even though it’s cold down in the dark. All he’s doing is staring, like he can’t believe what Dream’s saying, or he’s trying to decide if Dream’s actually real.
Prime’s mercy.
When Karl and the others return with a healing potion for Sapnap (healed too much, too soon but Dream wouldn’t remember to question it until later) they’re hushed, quietened and told to search for a key, or someway to break the boy’s chains. Sam finds the keys in the Mistress’s room. He gives them to Dream, throws a pitying, worried glance towards the boy who he can barely see in the dim light, then marches outside with heavy feet to make sure the pyre burned every last remnant of those that had dwelled here.
By the time Skeppy and Antfrost return from gathering the horses, Dream still hasn’t made any progress into the room; every time before having seen the boy’s breathing quicken and eyes widen in unimaginable fear every time he tried to, so Dream stopped, simply making himself more comfortable on the ground, and instead offering the boy anything he might want as well as time to build his trust.
When the soldiers from the nearest town return with Skeppy and Antfrost the second time, they’re told to keep silent as they work and not to go down into the lower levels, where Dream has spent hours on the cold stone; whispering, humming talking soft.
He’s on his knees, in front of the boy now, voice gentle and quiet as the boy watches him warily, but having given Dream permission to get this close—close enough to reach out and touch if he should so wish, but Dream doesn’t, he won’t break the fragile trust with this child; refuses to hurt him anymore than he’s been hurt—and with a steady hand, he turns the key in the shackle lock and pulls the metal from blistered wrists.
“I want to help,” Dream whispers, his voice quiet to accommodate the space between them; as light as a butterfly’s wing in ode to the thread of trust between them. “I want to take you from here. I have a friend that would like to talk to you,” because George would, if not Bad and Sam as they try and figure out just what this child has been involved in and if there’s another fighting ring to dig up, even though they had been sure this was the last; but they didn’t think the bastards were taking children—young children—so what else could they have missed?
“We want to give you a place to stay that’s safe. We can help you find your family,” he says, but the boy shakes his head, a lost, hopelessness beneath the mountain of weariness, like such a thing is impossible, but not even he can deny the faintest glimmer of hope, like he’s not entirely certain, but almost unwilling to hope regardless.
“Will you let us help?” Dream asks, offering a hand. A new hope. A way out of this darkness.
Slowly, hesitatingly, the boy reaches back.
“What’s your name?”
“Tommy.”