I dunno, Bandit, Byron seems to be doing a lot of distracting all by himself. But I guess he’s no longer a predictable factor.

Now this page, Phil was pretty much on board with, except maybe for the lingering intensity of Byron’s reaction in panels 1 and 2. The serious side of Sundar is that the dude is fully aware of his sins and desperate for some kind of redemption. I think he knows, on some level, that he’s never going to get an unforced version of that cheer he’s trying to start in panel 1. But still, he has gotten a nation to follow him, if a bit reluctantly, and of course he’s gonna get angry and scared if Byron jeopardizes that. And his fears may not be unfounded: Rabbit at least seems on the verge of turning on him in panels 3 and 4, and Tamara is hard to read.

Also, we just kinda casually slip in there that Byron knows about Brunhilde. Her deeds left an impression, even in a community of adventurers. But as we’ll see, he doesn’t know her full story.