Kragen Ashscale counted the warlord's soldiers from a ridge and knew he would die if he fought them alone. Forty men. Maybe more. They wore the same gray banners the raiders had worn the night his clan burned. He had waited two years for this. His hands shook on the haft of his axe. Not from fear. From wanting it too much. He was one dragonborn. Red scales, black armor, a hood pulled low. Four daggers on his belt and an axe he could barely lift after a full day's march. He had planned the ambush a hundred times in his head. Cut the rear guard, drag the warlord off his horse, end it. But he saw the truth from the ridge. One arrow would drop him. Then the raiders would ride on, and his clan would stay unavenged. He needed swords beside his own. So he came down from the ridge and walked to the only place that might sell them. The tavern sat crooked under a battered shield sign. Inside, the air stank of smoke and spilled ale. Men filled the tables. Broken men. A woman with one eye. A soldier with a brand on his cheek that marked him a deserter. These were fighters no army wanted anymore. Kragen had heard exiles drank here and listened for work. He put a coin purse on the bar. It was everything he owned. "I hunt the warlord who flies gray banners," he said. His voice carried. Chairs stopped scraping. "He burned my clan. I mean to kill him. I'll pay whoever rides with me." The room laughed. A big man near the fire spat on the floor. "That warlord has an army," he said. "You have a coin purse and a death wish." "Then take the coin," Kragen said. "And watch me die. Or help me and take his war chest instead." The laughing stopped. Coin they understood. The branded deserter leaned forward. But a man at the back rose without a word. He wore no colors. He crossed the room, picked up Kragen's purse, and weighed it in his hand. "This buys nothing," he said. "But I know men who trade in blades, not coin. Killers who work from a warehouse near the docks. They sell their swords to any cause that pays in plunder." He tossed the purse back. "They won't like you. But they'll listen if I bring you." Kragen closed his fist around the purse. "Why help me?" The man's jaw tightened. "Gray banners took my brother's village too." Kragen nodded once. It was not an army. It was one man and a name. But it was a start, and a door to more. They left the tavern together. The warehouse waited across town, and the men inside it were not friends. Kragen had not built a team. He had bought a chance to try.