He didn't respond to Andros' assertions that he had attacked Ajax without cause out of deference to their friendship. As a Magus, he was perfectly within his rights to apprehend a criminal, and it was only respect for Andros that kept him from pushing that issue now. The fact is, though, that he did respect Andros, and he didn't want the man to be mad at him. That outweighed the fact that he was acting as though he were in charge. Hakon assumed this was habitual from when he had been the Teosian equivalent to the Alderman of his village.
The request was no great hardship, though. Hakon remembered each assignment he'd been sent out on. He remembered a lot of things, actually, with a keenness that people seemed to appreciate when it didn't unnerve them. He just had to take hold of the string in his mind and pull himself back to those days and it was all laid out for him, just as it had been the first time.
"My Warden requested that I search for a missing person. A nobleman in Jorikford with whom Ajax was staying noticed that the musician -- he was a musician, then, he said -- left his lute behind and sent a fast horse to give it to him, only to find a site on the road where there had been some commotion. A large scrap of Ajax's cloak was found at the scene, so the Lord feared that he had been kidnapped, perhaps for a ransom, and he leaned on Vesterhal to investigate. I was told to verify if the kidnapping had occurred, and if it had, to quell the captors. Returning with the target alive was appreciated but not necessary. I was ordered to return with a sunderscrap, however -- that was mandatory." He narrated all of this dispassionately. Just facts.
"There had been other disappearances in the area, but someone else had investigated and found nothing. I did not expect to fare better. I thought if I found anything, it would be bandits. That turned out to be not entirely wrong, but a rather incomplete version of the truth."
"There were three people who had Ajax captured: the ringleader was a small woman with bat wings. She was a necromancer and an Engraver, like me, and she had used necromancy to surgically modify herself and the other two men in the group. One of them was huge, bigger than me, and much stronger. Fortunately, also very slow and one of the stupidest men I've ever faced off against. The other was more your boy's size, but with an armored hide stitched into him, like he was wearing boiled leather all over, and teeth sharp enough to rend my flesh."
"From the start, I knew I had to get Ajax away from them. The woman was an Engraver. If I didn't, she'd drain him dry and use his life force against me, either to bring dead things to life or to heal her allies. So I prioritized getting him behind me, because to do otherwise would be to let him die. I then protected him from his would-be captors, and killed all three of them."
"The fight was..." Hakon trailed off. He didn't want to sound like he was bragging. "It was a difficult fight. I was outnumbered and at a disadvantage because I was protecting someone with no combat skills to speak of. The woman brought a dead bear back to life, also, which made the odds four on one. Nevertheless, I killed all four of them, albeit not before taking numerous wounds. The little one got on my back and ate through my armor, and started eating me. The bear scratched me all over my arms and legs. The big wound, though, came from the big guy. I underestimated how fast he could move toward the end of the battle, and he grabbed an iron poker from the fire and impaled my leg with it. He was so strong it went clean through the floor of the cabin. It broke my leg and pinned me. I was lucky to finish him off before he had a chance to punch my head from my shoulders."
"After the fight, Ajax... he helped me. He pulled the poker out, which allowed me to heal myself. Later, I injured myself while I was cleaning up the cabin, and my leg couldn't bear weight. I had nothing left in my torch by then, and he stayed with me. It was very kind of him. I thought I'd met someone who...." Hakon didn't finish the sentence.
He flushed, and moved on. It didn't matter. He'd thought wrong.
"He came back to the tower with me. He said a lot of things about me, while we were together. I believed him. Shortly thereafter, I woke up and he was gone, along with all my money. The sunderscrap, I made from Alecto. He must have stolen it while I was injured, because I had thought I lost it in the cabin. So presumably, it was all a con from the start. He played me for a fool and left me when I had nothing left to offer."
