"I'm going to need another drink for that one," Caden said, motioning to the passing server to bring him another ale. The whiskey was hitting him, and he felt his body relaxing and loosening despite the subject matter of conversation.
"Sebastian got us a job to infiltrate and prepare for occupation a portion of a barony for a duke whose duchy the barony was part of. The duke claimed the baron--Olafsson--had expansive aspirations, and the land and town we were to reclaim had been taken from another baron." He scowled. "For some background, Sebastian and I had been off and on in conflict over the jobs we acquired for a few years at this point. We had been working together for nearly two decades and likely should have parted ways long before this particular job, but the money was good and inertia is what it is, so despite our growing differences, we stuck together.
"Anyway, we got our briefing and it all seemed simple enough. Go catch the baron's militia by surprise in their encampment, take them out, infiltrate the town and get to Olafsson." Caden scoffed.
"But of course it's never as simple as it sounds. The militia wasn't in an encampment like our intel said. They were in the town. I wasn't keen on fighting an open fight in the streets on their territory, outnumbered five to one. So I changed our plan. I figured we could get in and capture Olafsson and get out with minimal casualties. I went into the town with four of my best, leaving Sebastian and the others to prepare an escape for us. Two of my crew were particularly good at playing various roles, and they posed as representatives from an adjacent barony who wanted to join forces in the expansion. I'm a horrible liar, so myself and our fourth acted as guards for the fake representatives."
The server delivered his ale, and Caden drank several gulps before continuing. "So we got in, as Olafsson knew he had overextended against the duke and was desperate for help. We struck during a private meeting, killing his guards and taking him easily enough. What I didn't know, because no one bothered to tell us, was that the cruel bastard had taken his rival's family hostage and had apparently given orders to have them slaughtered if anything happened to him." Caden stopped and shook his head hard. He downed another portion of his ale.
"We found them when we were escaping. A vixen and three kits under ten years old, one infant. I wanted to kill Olafsson then and there, but we had our orders. We got out, delivered him to the duke, and got paid handsomely for our troubles. But 'Gates, I couldn't get the image of the dead family out of my head. I had nightmares about it, about how it was my call that had gotten them killed."
He finished his drink. He was drunk, he knew, but he didn't care. The looseness and distance from the feelings the story elicited felt better than the guilt that usually haunted him. "It was the rival baron's beasts who found me after Sebastian sold me out to him, probably to save his own skin. I had to torture the information out of them to determine how they had known who and where I was. I was beyond thinking at that point, given what they had done to Einar and Asta."
Caden went silent, claws tapping at the glass of his third empty mug as he gazed into the middle distance.
