How long had Regis been walking? Days? Weeks? Months? Down there in the underground tunnels, time was an illusion, an afterthought, chased away by creeping darkness and endless caves, the scraping of boots on stone his only solace against the howling silence in his head.

He'd given up talking to Fenris. The man was inconsolable, his fear of the dark no longer hidden behind the usual grizzled mask. His face had solidified into an eternal scowl, beady eyes twitching this way and that whenever the torch threw shadows across the slick, stone walls. Every now and then his hand would jump to the grip of his sword, only to fall away slowly.

Alone, always they were alone, and yet Regis couldn't chase away the feeling they were still being watched somehow, somewhere, deep within the bowels of the earth. Were the glass infested undead still following them, or something worse he wondered.

"Can't be," Regis muttered to himself. "We destroyed that vile vein. I saw it with my own eyes."

"What?" Fenris snarled, hackles raised. "What is it?"

"Nothing, just...talking to myself. A man like me doesn't do well with quiet these days."

"What? You fancy the sound of your own voice then? Or is the silence finally getting to you, old man?"

The old Regis would have considered the lad's words as obstinate, but after who knows how long down there in the dark together, he started to realize it was something else entirely. It was nothing more than a wall, built up brick by brick with sneering remarks and harsh comebacks to ward off anyone who might notice the scared little boy inside.

Regis knew better now, and wouldn't take the bait so easily. "Talking helps clear my head. Sometimes things get so jumbled up inside, that it's nice to just...let it all out."

Fenris looked away, lips pressed in a hard line. "Makes sense, I guess."

"Back in my day I used to have brothers who were willing to hear me out. They used to listen to me unravel all those pent up feelings inside whenever things got...bad. It helped, in a way."

"Your...brothers?"

"My guardsmen," Regis said. "My Vangen, or at the very least they were My Vangen until I deserted them." He braced for Fenris' comeback. Some snarling words about him being a coward, or a traitor, or some such, but the lad said nothing, his gaze fixed on the torchlight, flames dancing in his eyes.

"I had a friend like that once," he said.

Regis felt his eyebrows perk up. Been a long time since the boy had opened up about anything, and here he was treading on sacred ground. He stared intently over one shoulder, silently waiting for Fenris to continue.

"Her name's Skuld. She and I met each other when we entered into the High King's service. We were both recruits at the time, training to become different things, and yet somehow became friends, despite everything."

"What drew you two together? Was she..." Regis trailed off.

Fenris shook his head. "No, she wasn't like that. I think, deep down, it was because we were both flawed in the same way."

"Flawed?"

"She and I...desired the love of others in similar ways. Not together...but...well...let's just say we were never competing for the same people."

"Ah, I think I understand your meaning." Regis didn't smile, didn't laugh, didn't give Fenris any emotion on the matter. Nothing the boy could take away as mockery or pity.

Fenris looked away, clearly uncomfortable, jaw muscles squirming, as if he were expecting a harsh word or lecture. As if loving someone was a crime against the Goddess herself.

Regis swallowed, opened his mouth, and felt the words tumbling out of him before he could stop himself. "You know, you remind me a lot of my son."

Fenris balked, his mask of feigned indifference returning behind a cruel sneer. "You had children? Willingly?"

"I had two actually. Bjarni and Freya. My pride and joy. My twin stars." Regis coughed, his voice going all hoarse for some reason. The corners of his eyes started to ache and he turned away, rubbing at the damp.

Fenris snorted, trying to keep up the act, but the acid was gone from his voice. "Bjarni. What a terrible name. I'd sooner be crowned the High King himself then have a name like farking Bjarni."

"Weren't my idea, I can tell you that. My sweet, little wife Gully chose the name and wouldn't have it any other way. Said I could name the next one if we ever tried for more. Clever thing, she was. Tricked me into giving her another child just so I could have naming rights." Regis shook his head, the ache in his eyes spreading into the rest of his body, making his vision blurry. His lower lip started to tremble. "Ah, damn it all."

"You...you all right," Fenris asked waywardly. He took a cautious step back, as if Regis' sorrow were a disease.

"Yeah, just smoke in my eyes is all." Regis wiped his face, but the tears wouldn't stop flowing for some reason. "Here, take the torch for a bit. I need to rest." He thrust the burning stick in Fenris's hands, pressed his back against the cavern wall, and tried to keep himself together.

All in all, he was doing a rather piss poor job at it.

Damn it all, but he hated crying, especially in front of other people. He buried his head in his hands, pain squirming viciously in his head, nailing him to the ground. Memories of his family flashed past his vision, their smiling faces, their final words, their skulls sitting atop the highest tree on the tallest mountain. His final offering to Aurora before he left the lands of Danic forever.

A promise he'd broken for mere vengeance. What a fool he was. What he fool he'd been. In the end nothing had changed. And it was all his fault.

Heat and light pressed against Regis as Fenris drew close, leaning in as he watched on in silent regard.

"Well?" Regis demanded, the tiniest knot of anger twisting in his chest. "Got nothing to say for a crying old fool? Don't hold back now. It's not like I don't deserve it. Go on. I can take it."

Fenris frowned, opened his mouth, then snapped it shut. It was a long time before he spoke up again. "What happened to them? Your children? Your wife?"

Regis stared at him for a moment, realized he was actually being sincere, and puffed his cheeks in a heavy sigh. "They've passed on from this world. I gave their souls to Aurora a long, long time ago. After...after..."

He gasped as he realized he'd been squeezing his hands together into fists. He let go, feeling the pain of it course through his aching fingers. "After my brother took them from me."

"That's why you want revenge? Because of them."

"For many reasons, but for my family most of all."

Fenris nodded, "I suppose we have one thing in common then." He looked at Regis, blue eyes shimmering in the torchlight, a single golden curl twinkling beneath the dirt and grime in his hair. "The High King took something very important from both of us."

Regis snorted. "Funny, isn't it?"

"What is?"

"That one man can hurt us in the same way, and yet we both end up on different sides of the battle line. It makes no sense, and yet here it is."

Fenris frowned, unable or unwilling to look Regis in the eye anymore. "Come on. We should keep going. All this talk is making my head hurt." He shambled past, torch light spilling down the narrow tunnel.

"Aye," Regis muttered as he wiped the last of his tears away. "I suppose you're right. Talk will only get you so far. Eventually, you have to stand up and do something about it."

*

It was another hour before Regis felt it. The tiniest shift in temperature, the warmth of the stone walls slowly being replaced by a nipping chill, the stale smell of earth pushed back by a gentle breeze. He felt his heart race, igniting the little ember of hope he'd kept buried deep in his chest.

"You feel that?"

Fenris was practically trembling beside him. "I do. Think we're close?"

"Only one way to find out." The two of them nodded, bounding off together in a panicked run. The torch flickered and quivered in the lad's grasp, throwing light and shadow all around them, figures dancing, waving, cheering to their imaginary race.

The ground leveled out, chilly kisses of air biting Regis on the nose, burning in his lungs, fire boiling in his veins as the tiniest pinprick of light flickered into view.

"There it is!" Fenris cried, the excitement in his voice pushing Regis to run harder, run faster, towards freedom, towards the all beckoning light.

"We did it, lad!" Regis cheered. "We actually did it!"

Clouds of billowing vapor puffed from their mouths, boots crunched into fresh, powdery snow, the sound of howling wind like music to his ears.

The light was growing brighter, more defined, shifting from pale white into flickering oranges and reds, the color of fire, the color of warmth, far more brilliant than the simple torch in Fenris' hand.

With a cry of triumph, Regis emerged from the mouth of the cave, and came to a dead stop. The vaulting sky above swirled with miasmic clouds, heavy and pregnant with the promise of snow, gnarled ironwood trees towering over them like silent, judgmental giants. A river babbled nearby, gentle currents frothing over slimy stones and dark shingle, the wind singing a soft, intangible lullaby.

But it was not these things that stopped Regis in his tracks. It was the camp fire burning a few feet away, four men crouched beside it. They looked up at him, cold, hard eyes studying him quietly, and slowly stood up.

All of them wore armor. All of them were armed.

Fenris came to a bumbling stop beside Regis, breathing hard, staring at the entourage waiting for them.

"Well, well," one of the men said. "Looks like you made it out after all. Guess that means I win the pot, boys."

"Farking shite," another said, kicking a loose stone into the fire, making it hiss in protest.

"What is this? Who the fark are you people?" Fenris snarled. He reached for his sword, and the other men followed suit.

"Guess there's no reason to lie." The man apparently in charge stepped forward, red eyes flashing in the firelight as he pulled his axe free. "We're here to kill you. All of you."

"You with the rebellion?" Fenris demanded.

"No."

Regis frowned. "So you're with the royalists then?"

The lead man shook his head. "That would be a no as well."

"So you're nothing more than bandit scum, is that it?" Fenris took a step forward, only to back away as he noticed the weapons they were carrying. All Black Glass. Nothing that any normal riff raff would carry.

"I would describe us more as independent men-at-arms serving a higher power."

"Wait a minute." Fenris glared at him, eyes flickering with recognition. "I've seen your kind before. One of your lot tried to kill me."

"How very astute of you," the lead man smiled, revealing two rows of shiny, sharp teeth. "All right boys, time to clean up the lady's mess. You can have the old man. I'm going to have fun with this—,"

A shadow dropped from the sky, faster than Regis had ever seen, and crashed into the man-at-arms. His axe flew out from his outstretched hand, body crumpling into a heap of shattered glass and broken bones, his cry cut off in a single gut churning moment.

One of the men raised his sword, started to scream, his roar cut off as an ice blue lance burst out from his chest, red, vibrant blood pouring down his breastplate. He was flung aside, a woman pale as snow standing behind him, teeth gritted as she turned her weapon on the next man.

The shadow twitched, soaring over Regis as it landed on its next victim, razor like claws tearing out the man's throat, sending him spiraling to the ground, leaving bloody streaks in the snow.

The last of the attackers tried to run, only to drop a second later as the woman spun the glaive in her hands in a sharp arc, slicing his head clean off the shoulders and sending them both tumbling.

It was over as soon as it had begun. One moment there were four men ready to tear Regis limb from limb, and now they were all dead. The shadow stood up from one of the corpses, the sound of crunching bones and dribbling blood oozing from its maw. It stepped closer to the fire, darkness unraveling off its body like a wet cloak, slowly revealing itself.

"By the farking dead," Regis muttered. The thing before him looked as if it had died a long time ago, left outside to preserve in the unrelenting cold. Its face was a shriveled mask of puckered flesh, blood dribbling down a sharpened chin, its eyes little more than pale, hollow pinpricks in the sockets of its skull. Its sinewy body was wrapped up tight in a glove of Black Glass, plates shifting and crackling like snake scales, each subtle movement almost dizzying to behold the longer he stared.

"It is good to see you in good health, Fenris," the creature hissed, its voice a hoarse, gurgling whisper. Regis realized with sickening clarity that its throat had been torn out long ago, the sound coming not from its mouth, but from the hole in its chest. Fresh blood dripped and pattered onto the snow as it wiped its faces clean.

"About time we finally found you," the woman wielding the glaive said. "And here I thought I'd be lugging back a corpse." She pulled her hood down, fully revealing her face.

Fenris balked. "Skuld! What the fark are you doing here?"

"Looking for you, you farking idiot." She paused to eye the creature beside her. "Under the High King's orders, of course."

"I...I see. And you decided to bring her along as backup?"

"My Lady Of the Mountain demanded I accompany the dear Captain here in her little search and rescue," the monster said. "As you can see, without my aid I doubt you two would have come out so cleanly from that little fight." It stepped in closer on two nimble, chitinous legs, reaching a talon out towards Fenris, only to stop short as Regis stepped in the way.

"Might I know the name of my rescuer?" He asked, forcing out a smile despite the waves of adrenaline coursing through his veins. "So that I might properly thank them for such a courageous effort?"

The creature smiled, revealing a slash of rotten, black teeth. "But of course. I am known as the Left Hand, the quiet, cutting blade of High King Erik, and Her Majesty's greatest creation."

*

End of Act II