"Release them," the man said.
His voice did not shake.
That was the first thing Ludwig noticed.
The man had every reason to be afraid. His people were surrounded by monsters wearing polite shapes. A vampire woman held one of their girls. A beast of a man had one boy pinned beneath a hand. A mighty warrior held another by the collar. Ludwig stood in the center with Durandal drawn, poison still wet on the broken dart he had spat into the mud. Thomas glowed faintly on his shoulder like a small ember with eyes, and the forest itself had already warned Ludwig that the place was hostile.
And yet the man was careful, not afraid. You could sense it in him, that he was careful, ready to die but willing to draw blood for it.
The same was true for the others.
