Chapter 21: The Interrogation

The sun had long since overtaken the moon in the sky by the time Vito and the others rode to Orinis with three carriages. The guards took custody of the unconscious mercenaries while Greye explained the situation to Reinfar. The elder looked grim as he sentenced the mercenaries to prison. He permitted Greye and Parsifal to interrogate them with his guards.

“I’d imagine you want to take a nap first. You look exhausted,” Reinfar joked.

Greye briefly chuckled. “A hot meal and warm bed wouldn’t go amiss. Before that,” he nodded to Iris, who handed Reinfar a satchel. “Please accept this. It’s a treasure bag full of the elder dragon materials. They’re perfectly preserved, so you can set your own price for everything. You can also take the reward for the mercenaries. Please use it all to help your village.”

Reinfar looked at the satchel in his hand in surprise. Tears welled up in his eyes as he looked at Greye. “Thank you…”

“With your permission,” Iris began. “I can use my high-level water purification magic to restore the fields around your village. You’ll be able to grow more crops and tend to more animals.”

The elder looked to her and nodded. “You are truly a follower of Ivalis. She must have sent all of you to us.”

Iris warmly smiled. “I believe she did.”

Vito rolled his eyes and helped the guards transport the mercenaries to the prison. “Can we keep their gear as the spoils of war, or is it evidence?”

“I say we keep it all!” Delwyn cheered. “They won’t be needing it anymore.”

Vito set up an interrogation room in a guard’s basement. A darkened room lit only by a torch hanging from the ceiling, two chairs, and a table between them. He chose a lower-level grunt and left the warrior and mage to Greye and Parsifal in separate basement interrogation rooms across the village.

A firm, open-palmed slap awoke the bound mercenary. “Wake up!” Vito barked.

The mercenary was startled awake. He took deep breaths and looked around the room. “Where am I?!”

“That depends on you,” Vito began. He sat down and folded his hands in front of him. “If you behave yourself and come clean, this is just a pitstop on your way to a nice beach with some fine maidens delivering drinks,” his voice darkened. “If you waste my time, it’s a pitstop on your way to the gallows, and one of your more cooperative friends gets a trip to that beach.”

The mercenary scoffed. “That’s your plan? Separate us and get us to talk using threats like that?”

“What threat? The royal guards are waiting outside that door. They need one or two of you to talk to aid their military intelligence. Whoever talks first gets rewarded, and the rest get executed.” Vito saw his father and other relatives interrogate people for information. They always make their targets confess their sins. Unfortunately for him, he couldn’t intimidate people the way his father or brother could.

“The royal guards? I knew this job was-” he cut himself off before he could finish.

Vito grinned and raised an eyebrow. “You were misled about your job? Your employer didn’t tell you the whole story, did he?” He could only make assumptions based on the gravity of the situation that someone working in the castle would be informed about a group of mercenaries luring dragons to attack border villages.

The mercenary grit his teeth. “What do you want to know?”

Vito shrugged and took a sip of water. “You tried to turn the King’s village and his people to ash. Why? Was it to cause conflict with the Aitraethen Empire?”

“I don’t know about the ‘why’ of what we were doing. We accidentally killed one of the dragons. That probably cost us some coin.”

“It’s going to cost you your lives if you don’t get to the point.”

“We were paid to wrangle a couple of elder dragons and bring them here, that’s it.”

Vito took another sip of water. “Why you? Who are you to get this job? Guilds typically wear their crests, and we haven’t found one.”

The mercenary scoffed. “Not all of our quests are permitted by the Adventurers’ Association.”

“You work for a dark guild.”

“Naturally. We’re the A-Rank guild, the Grevious Hunters. No target escapes our sight. We collect beasts for tamers, hunters, even the odd noblemen who want an exotic pet.”

“I’m afraid your reputation doesn’t precede you here, but I was surprised that ours did. Not too many people outside our friends or associates can pick Greye or Delwyn out of a lineup.”

“A messenger told us you’d be coming along at some point. I don’t know who sent him,” the mercenary replied. “We thought he was a thief or something, but he stayed outside and shouted the message at us. The horse was well cared for, definitely not something a farmer would have.”

He was useless beyond that point, so Vito moved on. “You must have been paid incredibly well for this job. Enough to buy a mansion in the capital, no doubt.”

The mercenary chuckled in response. “Enough to retire, not that we’d ever want to.”

“Who paid you so well?”

The mercenary smirked. “I don’t know. He paid us enough not to ask questions. That’s how a lot of our jobs go. We didn’t even meet him directly; he sent a servant in a mask to negotiate with us.”

“You already received payment, and you must have some plan to get out of any trouble you might get into,” Vito accused him. The mercenary continued to smirk. He was so forthcoming because he was confident he could get away with it all. Vito sighed and rose from the table. “I’ll let the guards know how cooperative you were.”

Fog gently rolled into the room and surrounded the mercenary. His panicked eyes closed as he fell forward. Vito charitably caught his head before it slammed into the table. “Nice work. I’ll call you if I ever get insomnia.”

Iris opened the door with a playful smile. “I’m here to heal all weary souls.”

“Good, because I could use a nap.”

Iris lightly giggled. “I don’t think you need my help for that.”