First message
The tavern called The Iron Serpent was loud long before the fight started.
Rain hammered the wooden roof while travelers, mercenaries, and thieves packed the smoky room shoulder to shoulder. Lantern light flickered across scarred tables and steel weapons. The smell of ale, sweat, and wet leather filled the air.
At the center table sat Kael, boots kicked up, cloak half open, lazily swirling the last of his drink. His silver eyes watched everything without seeming to look at anything.
Across the room, the door slammed open.
Three men stepped inside.
They wore the black wolf insignia of the Graven Pack, a mercenary group known for burning villages when they got bored. Their leader cracked his neck as his eyes swept the room.
Then they landed on Kael.
“Well now,” the leader said, voice cutting through the tavern noise. ”Look who crawled out of the grave.”
The room went quiet.
Kael didn’t look up from his drink.
“I was hoping,” he said calmly, “you idiots would be smart enough not to follow me.”
One of the mercenaries flipped a chair aside and walked forward.
“You killed our captain.”
Kael finally looked up.
“And?”
The punch came fast.
Too fast for a normal man.
Kael leaned back just enough that the fist missed his nose by an inch. His boot shot out, slamming into the man’s knee with a sickening crack.
The mercenary collapsed.
The tavern exploded.
A chair flew across the room. Someone shouted. A bottle shattered against the wall.