Ross had never walked into an enemy’s office so peacefully before. He had figured that raising the white flag of diplomacy was only a fairytale — something that happened in stories, but when he cursed his men to shit and demanded that they go back to the town after looting to hell to apologize while flying the white flag, nobody shot at them. It was strange, almost.

He looked out a conveniently-placed window which sat over a small end table next to the door with various trinkets scattered about it. There were a few horse-drawn carriages that dominated the small town square, filled with all kinds of things; paintings, cookery, furniture. When he had seen it he lost his temper and almost mortally wounded one of his men with his claymore, which he still saw as completely justified, but Laine apparently did not. Now the soldiers who had just busted down the doors of these homes were coming back, hands full of goods that were never theirs. Ross found it honorable to order such a thing, even if it wasted Corey MacDonald’s limited time regarding the Northern Expedition, and also scared the citizens of Boath, who were already fearful of Ross’ regiment due to the small skirmish that had occurred only hours earlier, and had resulted in the untimely deaths of plenty of hardworking Christian men. Ross saw an additional punishment for these looters who made up his ranks; they would have to confront the widows and orphaned children.

He inched closer to the window to get a better view. Dozens of tartan-covered men begrudgingly hauled pieces of furniture out of one open-backed carriage while Laine administered carefully that nothing was damaged during the moving process. Laine was a good man, Ross thought, but he still needed a little extra push to go against MacDonald doctrine willfully. Without Ross, Laine would just be another one of Corey’s goons.

Ross wasn’t about to let Laine be another one of Corey’s goons.

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