It's Pinky!

"By my orders."

Oh, Morcant doubts that. The knight has been too comfortable all his silver-spooned life to have need for such creativity. No, what happened at Belsbury took a kind of imagination fuelled by blood-knuckled desperation.

Morcant doesn't really care much for the petty wars of humanity, but he has to admit: it brings so much potential to the surface.

"Are you refusing to grant me an audience with the man?" Morcant asks, perfectly pleasantly.

"No, your lordship. But he's only a peasant."

"And you are but human," Morcant says. The new religion spreading through the kingdom has made such jokes a secret amusement to him. "None of us are without flaw. Now, where is this foot soldier?"

The tent to which he is brought is the knight's own temporary abode, and Morcant is shown into a space of hearthfire and comfort. There is the remains of a generous meal on the oaken table, and hides laid to preserve the warmth from the frostbitten earth.

The only thing truly out of place is the soldier.

"This is the Belsbury poisoner," the officer says. "As you requested. Soldier, show your superior the proper respect."

The commoner drops a bow, moving with a woodenness that belies exhaustion. There is dirt and blood beneath his fingernails, calluses on his palms, and fatigue bruising beneath his eyes. He is young, but there is already something of the wolf in the man; in his eyes is a brightness born from prologued violence.

"Your lordship," he defers.

"Rise," Morcant says. He sits upon a many-furred seat – he may not tire, but he is not immune to comforts – and offers a genial closed-mouthed smile. "I hear we have you to thank for the taking of Belsbury."

The soldier straightens, and common indeed he is. His armour is battered, disjointed and ill-fitting. His right boot is newer than his left, his helm cracked along the jaw, and the leather vambraces too tight about the forearms. There is still blood on the latter from its previous owner.

He is a far cry from the polished and perfect knight whose tent he is littering.

But a polished and perfect knight was not the one to demolish a town.

"I didn't work alone," the soldier says. "There were several of us who took to the town's well that night."

"But the concoction was yours."

"I... Yes."

"Tell me how you did it."

The soldier's gaze flickers to his immediate superior, but the knight, in a rare display of tact, remains silent. "We picked berries from a local tree, ground them into a compound, and waited until the cover of night–"

"You misunderstand me," Morcant says. "That is the what. I want to know how you came to your decision."

"Your lordship," the knight interjects. "I fear you expect too much of the man. These peasants are simple souls, built for war and field work. You do not ask an ox why it plows."

Morcant does not growl because your lordships do not snarl. The sudden wave of ire finds its outlet in other ways, as he tilts his head – not enough to look to the knight directly, but marking him as a bear marks a rustling bush – and his voice mellows with dangerous affability. "A simple soul who did what you could not. Continue, soldier."

The soldier hesitates. And then his mind registers the order, as softly-spoken as it was, for what it is and he straightens. "We lay a similar recipe for the rats in my village, your lordship. But it is known to kill children and barn cats who eat it without warning. I had hoped a large enough dose would weaken the town."

"And the well?"

"Everyone has to drink, your lordship."

Morcant nods. "Even the fields must be watered."

There is a different pause in the soldier now. "I didn't realise the poison would take to the land too. I thought..." He swallows. "I just thought it might end the fighting quicker."

"Death does that."

"I didn't think that they would... that the hunger would..."

"They were savages," the knight says, and Morcant dislikes the interruption, but does not wholly begrudge it. "Brutes. No civilised man would sink to such depths. You only brought out their true faces."

The words seem to give some consolation to the soldier, but not dismiss the unease entirely. Morcant will not blame the man for that – after all, the kill of battle is a breed of immediate bloodshed, so different compared to the tooth and claw hunger which has ravaged Belsbury. More than one man had heaved at the stench and sight in taking the town. The weakness is only human.

He observes the soldier.

So many of Morcant’s contemporaries liken humanity to sheep: livestock to be herded and kept, too stupid to be left unattended, but Morcant knows better. Sheep, after all, do not build their own enclosures, or the houses in which their keepers sleep. Shepherds are not raised from the flock.

No, humanity is creative, and to that measure dangerous. Already, the tools of war are changing, and this soldier – this commoner with nothing more than a will to live and a curiosity despite the limits of his birth – proves that. Give them time, and humanity will outstrip Morcant’s kind through sheer violence between their kin. Give them time, and a vampire’s speed and claws will become as primative as the spears the mortals once wielded.

Give them time, and immortals will find that title comes with a caveat.

No, humanity is worth watching.

This human is worth watching.

He rises back to his feet, and the air shifts as both mortals brace for his verdict, but Morcant has found all he was looking for. "I believe we are done here. Good work, soldier."

The soldier exhales – relief and pride mingling in the sound – but some tension still remains. It is only as Morcant is reaching the tent curtain, that he breaks his reserve. "Your lordship," he calls out. "Were there any survivors?"

"None that couldn't be dispatched easily," Morcant says. "Your method was remarkably efficient, soldier."

"There were children there."

"Even children need to drink."

Morcant will not begrudge the mortal his compassion. Even in war – perhaps, especially in war – humans are a social species, forging bonds which can only ever end in a severing. The clear-eyed ruthlessness which guided his hand to the well's edge is a young thing, a potential which naturally unsettles its mortal owner. The soldier, with all its inherent foibles, is only human, after all.