As they crossed deeper into the hidden camp, Ludger’s eyes kept moving.
He did not turn his head too much or slow his pace like some amateur trying to look observant. He simply let his gaze pass over things as they walked, taking in details the same way he always did, quietly, quickly, and with the sort of precision that made people uncomfortable when they realized afterward how much he had noticed.
The condition of the camp was worse up close.
He had already seen the broad outline of it from the entrance. The wounded. The exhaustion. The brittle posture of people who had kept moving long after their bodies started falling apart.
Now he saw the rest. No active treatment. No healer working through the injured.
No restoration magic being applied in controlled intervals. No glow of recovery spells. No smell of fresh alchemical salves prepared by someone who actually knew what they were doing. No dedicated medical corner with people managing pain, fever, blood loss, or infection.
Nothing. They were healing the old-fashioned way. Bandages. Boiled cloth. Time. Pain. Endurance.
A few crude poultices sat near one bedroll. One man had his side wrapped tightly enough that breathing probably felt like punishment. Another woman had a splinted arm and the look of someone pretending she could still fight if needed, despite the fact that her body clearly disagreed. There were bruises left untreated, cuts that had been cleaned but not properly closed, and the general atmosphere of a group doing its best to survive injuries that should have had trained hands on them days ago.
For a family as famous as the Dalmorens, that stood out. A lot. One would expect a house like theirs to have at least one healer. Probably two.
Someone skilled enough to keep nobles functional, retainers loyal, and important people alive through exactly this sort of crisis. Even stripped down by flight, betrayal, and imprisonment, they should have had more than this.
But they didn’t. Which meant one of several unpleasant things. Their healers were dead. Captured. Gone by choice.
Or never with them to begin with because the escape had been too desperate and too incomplete to gather everyone who mattered.
None of those options improved the Dalmorens’ position. Ludger said nothing. He just kept walking behind Rufas while the camp watched them pass. After a few more steps, he noticed Rufas glance back over his shoulder.
Not fully. Just enough. A brief look. Measured. Controlled. Easy to miss if Ludger had been the sort of person who only noticed direct requests when they were spoken out loud. But he wasn’t. That look said plenty.
Rufas had seen Ludger notice the wounded. And some part of him, whether as a noble, a survivor, or simply a man running out of ways to keep his people together, had checked to see whether Ludger would do something about it.
Whether he would offer a hand. Whether the rumors about his healing ability, his support magic, or the strange breadth of his skills were true enough to matter tonight.
Ludger understood that immediately. He ignored it. Not because he couldn’t help. Not because he didn’t want to. But because that would have to wait.
He had not come here to play the generous visitor before understanding what he was actually stepping into. Healing people first would change the tone of the meeting. It would create a kind of debt, soften a kind of tension, and possibly hand Rufas control of the conversation before the real questions were even asked.
That was inefficient. More importantly, it was premature. If Ludger was going to spend mana, time, and leverage on this camp, then he wanted answers first. Real ones. The kind that justified effort.
So he kept his expression flat and his pace even, offering nothing as they moved through the battered remains of House Dalmoren’s hidden refuge.
If Rufas noticed the choice, and he almost certainly did, he gave no sign beyond facing forward again and continuing to lead them deeper into the camp.
Soon, they reached the middle of the hidden camp.
The arrangement there was slightly more deliberate than the rest, as if the people sheltering inside the field had unconsciously built the camp around a single point without wanting to admit that was what they were doing. A few larger bedrolls had been laid out nearby. Supplies had been stacked within easy reach. Two lanterns hung low, their light dimmed and partly covered, giving the area just enough visibility to function without turning it into a beacon.
That was where Ludger saw the improvised wooden wheelchair. It was rough work. Functional, but rough.
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The frame had clearly been thrown together in a hurry from scavenged timber, cut boards, and the sort of practical desperation that mattered more than craftsmanship. The wheels were uneven. One handle had been reinforced with wrapped cloth where the wood had started to split. It looked like something made by people who needed a solution immediately and lacked the luxury to care how ugly it turned out.
A man sat in it. He looked bad.
Not the ordinary kind of wounded that still left room for pride and posture. Not the kind of injury a decent healer could fix with enough mana and patience. This was worse. His body had the worn, partially broken look of someone who had stayed alive through force of will and very little else. He was thinner than he should have been. One leg was positioned badly enough that even at a glance it was obvious the damage there ran deep. His shoulders carried the dull heaviness of someone who had spent too long in pain and too little time recovering from it.
Beside him stood another man. Older. Sharper-eyed than most of the people around him despite his exhaustion. And familiar.
Ludger’s gaze paused on him for half a second. That was the man who had taught him his Guildmaster class.
Rufas’s uncle.
Ludger knew that much immediately. What he did not know, because it had been a while and he had met far too many irritatingly important people since then, was the man’s name.
He forgot it.
That was mildly embarrassing. Not enough to matter. In any case, Ludger had not come here for the uncle. He had come for Gustav.
Rufas slowed and stopped near the improvised chair. The tension in the air shifted again, more concentrated now. The people nearest this part of the camp were listening without pretending otherwise. Even Eclaire, Rowan, and Jennifer drew just a little tighter in focus, because they all understood that the conversation was finally reaching the point it had been circling from the start.
Ludger stepped forward.
The floating swords around him slowed slightly, still moving, still present, but with less show than before. Just enough to remind everyone nearby that he had not somehow become harmless by choosing to speak first.
He looked at the man in the chair.
“Ludger from Lionfang,” he said. Then, after the briefest pause: “Are you Gustav?”
The wounded man looked off to the side and let out a tired sigh before answering, like the question itself had arrived exactly when he expected it and still managed to annoy him anyway.
“Yes,” he said.
His voice was rougher than Rufas’s. More worn. Less controlled.
Then he turned his eyes back toward Ludger and studied him with the kind of look reserved for people who had already lived through too much manipulation to pretend optimism for free.
“Are you another one,” Gustav asked, “who wants to use me or claim my head?”
Straight to the point. Good. Ludger preferred that.
“That,” Ludger said evenly, “depends on how much you speak.”
Silence settled around them. Not empty silence. The sharp kind. The kind that made nearby people hold their breath without realizing it. Ludger did not look away from Gustav.
“If you tell me what I want to know,” he continued, “I might give you a hand surviving this.”
That drew reactions immediately. Small ones, but there.
Rufas’s uncle went still beside the chair, his expression tightening just enough to show that he understood the shape of the offer. Rufas himself remained composed, though his eyes sharpened. Eclaire said nothing, but the line of her mouth shifted faintly. Jennifer looked like she approved of the directness. Rowan, as usual, gave away almost nothing beyond attention.
Gustav stared at Ludger for a few seconds. He did not answer right away. Probably because there was a lot packed into that statement.
Not I’ll save you. Not I’ll protect your family. Not even help us and I’ll help you.
Just this: Speak. Be useful. And maybe survival becomes possible. Crude, perhaps. But honest.
And after everything Gustav had likely endured recently, honesty probably sounded a lot less insulting than pretty lies.
The wounded man leaned back as much as his condition allowed, grimaced slightly at the movement, and let out a breath through his nose.
“You really are Arslan’s son,” he muttered.
There was fatigue in the words. And the faintest trace of bitter amusement. Ludger did not bother responding to that. He just waited. Because they were well past the part of the night where anyone still had the luxury of pretending this conversation was optional.
Gustav looked too defeated to give much of a reaction.
Not calm. Not composed. Just worn down past the point where outrage still came easily.
The question, the threat tucked inside the offer, the quiet pressure of Ludger’s presence standing in front of him with those floating swords and that flat unreadable stare, none of it pulled much from the man beyond a tired shift of the eyes and the faint tightening of his mouth.
Viola had never given Ludger the full details of Gustav’s condition.
At the time, she had spoken around it more than through it, angry enough about what had been done to the prisoners that exact descriptions had probably felt unnecessary. Looking at him now, though, Ludger could make a few guesses without much trouble.
This was not just ordinary prison damage. Some part of this looked permanent. Or close enough to it that the distinction barely mattered.
There was a wrongness in the way Gustav held himself, in the deadened drag of certain movements, in the subtle imbalance of a body that no longer trusted its own structure. Even with healing magic, the sort of damage done to nerves, joints, channels, or deeper internal systems could be difficult to repair properly once it had been allowed to settle in.
Unfortunate. But not relevant enough to soften Ludger. He was not here to console broken men who had worked for his enemies. And he certainly was not here to waste sympathy before learning whether Gustav was useful. So Ludger let the silence rest for one more second, then cut straight through it.
“Do you know anything,” he asked, “about the people Armandis and General Orleandul wanted dead over the years?”
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