Champion of a Lost Cause

Effruin stands free in the prison corridor, the military dispatch folded beneath his clothing and the shadow sphere secured in his remaining hand. Dead guards lie where his escape left them, while Harvess waits beyond the open cell.

From somewhere above the buried corridor, distant horns sound across Tahu. Their measured calls announce preparations beyond the walls, and Harvess turns toward the stair with the impatience of someone already spending his borrowed time.

Harvess points through the stairwell toward a service passage beneath the gatehouse. The route avoids the forum, but its narrow stones offer little room for a fight, and the horns sound again, closer now.

Harvess remains behind in the prison corridor, leaving no escort and no companion at Effruin’s side. Ahead, the service stair climbs toward the waking city, while dawn and Grahamin’s departure draw nearer.

Effruin strips the fallen guards of their cloaks, belts, and helmets. Working with one arm turns each fastening into deliberate labor, and his left shoulder strains beneath the weight, but nothing slips from his grasp.

He pulls the imperial coat over his monk’s robes, hiding the drow cloth and most of the scars that mark him as an escaped slave. The helmet’s shadow conceals his features well enough for a hurried glance.

Effruin arranges the remaining guard’s belt across his body rather than forcing a second arm through it. The awkward fit resembles haste after an alarm, not a disguise assembled beside corpses.

Evades Pursuit guides his movement into the service stair’s blind angles. He climbs when the distant horns cover his steps, keeping his head lowered and his pace measured like a soldier obeying orders.

The Monk’s robes remain hidden beneath imperial colors as he reaches the upper landing. No alarm follows; Effruin emerges into Tahu’s waking service passage disguised and free to continue toward the northern road.

Effruin leaves Tahu waking service passage behind and arrives at abandoned hunting lodge.

The concealed estate road delivers Effruin to an abandoned hunting lodge beneath dripping alder branches. Its shuttered windows gape at the gray dawn, and cold ash clings to the courtyard stones.

A lone swordsman waits beneath the sagging porch, dry beneath the overhang. One gloved hand rests near his weapon while the other holds a folded map bearing Grahamin’s northern route.

Syr Veyr studies, a lean middle-aged man with weathered olive skin, close-cropped black hair, a scar across one eyebrow, and a dark wool cloak over worn leather armor, studies the helmet’s shadow, the mismatched belt, and the single arm beneath the borrowed cloak. His gaze settles on Effruin’s face without surprise.

Beyond the lodge, fresh hoofprints descend toward the northern road, and a thin plume of cookfire smoke rises through the trees. The route to Grahamin lies open, with Syr Veyr and his map now between Effruin and the coming column.

Effruin keeps the imperial helmet low and the borrowed coat closed, letting uniform and rank speak before his scars can betray him. Vengeance's Mark narrows his attention to Syr Veyr's sword hand and throat.

The threat lands against the old escaped-slave contempt written in his face, but the helmet's shadow denies Syr a clean look. Effruin's quiet certainty makes the stolen authority feel briefly genuine.

Syr Veyr steps aside from the lodge path and lowers his hand from the sword. The way to the northern road opens, but his expression hardens with a costly understanding: he now knows exactly who wears the coat.