Sachevia was the sibling he never expected to hear from again. She was, far and away, Brand's true problem child, and not a warm and fuzzy one when it came to kids running around. So Masef never really got to know her quite as well as the others. He was all of nine when she headed off into the world. But the information on Brand's body being transported? That was something else. It changed plans, demanded an immediate reaction. There would be no burial without the body and the body was on the move. Harold apparently cared a lot about the money and the body. What he would use the body for, Masef had no clue. The note had been scanty on any detailed plans, but he was imagining some sort of symbolic display on Harold's part. Brand of the Nightwood was one of the kingdom's heroes, at one time. 

The information was good. It took a few days of movement and tracking, moving through the wood and coming out along the Harthbym road as only rangers could. It was not a feat that could be accomplished by foot soldiers or cavalry. It was strange for Masef to be surrounded by the deep, lush ground foliage of the wood, so different from the desert lands he'd inhabited the last few years. There were no paths to navigate for the uninitiated, much less for a troop of soldiers, but he still knew the landmarks. It allowed them the chance to get there and intercept. The wagons were on the road, chests lashed to their beds. One of them held a much larger box. That was where the simplicity ended. There were something akin to thirty or so men, some riding on the three wagons, others on horseback. Liveried knights and men-at-arms to a man with the royal heraldry. Mail, halberds, swords, axes and lances. This would be no simple fight.

They had the luxury of time to plan things, because the movement of the wagon dictated the pace. The knights and the men at arms moved with the wagons. The road was hard-packed earth, sunken down by successive generations of traffic into the earth. It gave about two or three feet of elevation for those in the wooded areas, and it was clear that the men at arms were concerned for some sort of rebel holdouts, perhaps baron's men or bandits. Qazar, of course, gave his advice, but that was predictable. Qazar was always seeking more of a foothold. There was a core of fire and death that swirled in his consciousness, begging to be reached into, but there was another source of magic there that he could touch even before Qazar, though it was tentative, weaker. It didn't hold the strings attached, it was naturally a part of him rather than some old Warlock-King, looking for a release from his prison. More easy-going once, Masef forced himself to become more deliberate because he was Qazar's jailer. He feared the necessity of having to bring Qazar out and Qazar knew this. The old bastard was eager to interact with the world, to touch it once more.

Among the brush, his cloak breaking his shape up in the natural camouflage, he waited with a bow in hand and a bodkin arrow laying on it, nocked but not drawn. He was already regulating his breath, drawing on exercises he employed to clear his mind. Brand had taught those to him once, because he'd shown a spark or two of ability in the past. They'd spent more time on it than some of the others had with Brand. Always the calmness, always the center. He needed those skills more than ever as he used Brand's skills to dismantle Qazar's influence and stick the old tyrant back into his cage. It was a concentration exercise for archery, but Masef and Brand turned it into something more. [i]Control it or it controlled you[/i], Brand always said. The mysteries surrounding Masef's heritage drove him South, and Brand had bid him farewell. [i]Come back and see me when you have your answers. It will be a story to hear, I'm sure,[/i] the old ranger had said. 

Masef had stories now, but telling them, perhaps, to his siblings wouldn't be the same as sitting with Brand in his Nightwood cottage over some mulled cider, roasting a hunted deer and regaling the old man with tales of the sights he'd seen. That anticipated experience was forever denied him. Qazar cackled in his skull, Masef told the old Tyrant to shut up.

[i]I will,[/i] Masef told Brand. There was a physical compulsion to come back to the Nightwood, and it came back stronger as he saw Brand's casket. Others might have balked at the idea of such opposition, but Masef made a promise. And when Masef made promises, they were binding. He'd learned that the hard way.

He had his first target picked, a man that had gold glinting on his belt buckle and sword, mounted on horseback. He had the look of someone in charge, a knight or perhaps even a lordling. He had a squire alongside, probably the scion of another house. Varrick might know whom was whom, but Masef never paid too close attention to the intricacies of Vendland's nobility. He knew that they died like other men. And if you put an arrow in a man, he died.

But after the first arrow flew, the war would be truly on. 

[@Flagg][@Naril][@R31GN][@Gunther][@Airbender][@POOHEAD189][@NickTrano][@Noxious]