“I declare that if die, Nathaniel Riot get’s all my gear. Even m’good pipe,” Ruddle dictated.

  Riot didn’t have a use for the pipe, but he scrawled the words down anyway. If the old man was struck down he would at least go to his grave happy.

  Ruddle carefully folded and pocketed the paper. “What about you, Sarge?”

  “If I die, just make sure you bury me with a knife or two,” Riot murmured, peering through a battered telescope.

  The Faelen convoy entered the far end of the ravine. One loaded wagon, heavy on its axle and a half hundred long eared guards. They needed to move now, because once the convoy passed, it would be too late and their numbers would count for nothing.

  “Where’s Mercer, damn him,” Riot muttered.

  “Funny, he seemed dead happy with your plan.” Ruddle squinted down at the ravine and expertly spat a lump of chewed yellow weed onto the floor.

  Riot uttered a curse to all the stuck-up, aristocratic, pompous bastards that called themselves officers. Mercer had supported him in front of Colonel Williams and now abandoned him so that he would go back like an empty-handed fool.

  He turned to the men. “Mercer’s not coming, so it’s us against fifty long ears. What do you say?”

  Grins shone from grubby faces. Forty men living and fighting dirty; their uniforms ripped and tattered, but their blades sharp.

  The regiments were where bad men put worse lives behind them. A fresh start that stank like unwashed bodies and blood, but still better than the gutters most of them came from.

  Nathaniel Riot had joined up at sixteen, so hungry he could have rattled a stick along his ribs. The Duke of Fallow had paid him a black guilder just for pulling on the uniform, promising him riches and spoils to be won. There’d be plunder, they’d said, enough loot to make rich men of them all. Plunder, just like whatever was in the heavy wagon rumbling along in the ravine below.

  “See him now, the last man, first into the fight,” Ruddle said, his wrinkled face creasing around a sly grin.

  There were a few chuckles as some of the men repeated the words in mock solemnity, while others murmured it like their last rites.

  “We want the wagon,” Riot said. “So if they want to run, let them run all the way back to the Echo for all I care. We don’t have enough to feed prisoners.”

  He drew his sword and stood on the edge of the ravine. Gods, it was further down than he’d thought. At twenty, he would have flung himself down without thinking, but at thirty-six, his thoughts went to his clicking knees, the twinge in his back that had been bothering him lately, and his sore feet that had marched all day in broken shoes.

  Still, men waited behind him, and he faced the only choice that war ever gave anyone: die here or die somewhere else. Riot silently apologized to his aching body and jumped, skidding down the rocky slope, his wordless cry mingling with that of the men that followed him.

  Shouts of alarm rose up from the Faelen guards and they thrust out their long-fingered hands, a dark red glow sprouting from their palms.

  “Charge!” Riot bellowed, his feet pounding on the rocky ground as he counted down the twenty long seconds in his head. A hundred yards to cover in twenty seconds. Was he still fast enough? As the years went by, each desperate charge seemed much more hopeless than the one before.

  At thirty yards out, the closest Faelen had fully formed a two inch barbed dart of burning red light. The long ears pulled back as he grinned, aiming directly at Riot's chest.

  The creeping fear that he wasn’t going to make it crawled up Riot's spine like a poisonous spider, and he pumped his legs harder, terror escaping his mouth in a guttural snarl.

  The Faelen dart shrieked like a banshee as it split the air, leaving a searing red trail in Riot's vision, but somehow his luck held and the dart ripped past his face.

  Riot closed the final few yards and fell on the Faelen with the desperate savagery that comes from being a hair's breadth from death. His sword slashed across face and body, dashing the yellow uniform with a spattered line of blood.

  The air was filled with the shrieking of more Faelen darts, but they were formed by panicked hands and were either too weak or poorly aimed. Crossbows thrummed and men of the company stormed forward, setting to work with sword and spear.

  The ambush was over as fast as it had begun. Some of the Faelen cast their weapons to the ground and raised their hands in surrender, but at least a dozen of them ran after their captain, who put his spurs to his horse, pounding back down the ravine. There was no threat. By the time the Faelen brought reinforcements, Riot and the men would be halfway back to the city with their prize.

  “Let them go,” Riot called to the handful who had given chase. “Strip the wagon, it's what we came for!”

  The wagon had been abandoned a hundred yards away and men surged toward it, crowing their victory and ripping off the canvas covers. There were chests, hopefully stuffed with valuable goods, sacks of clothing, food, and barrels of what Riot hoped was ale but was probably the sweet, sickly Faelen wine.

  Ruddle emerged wearing a long embroidered Faelen coat that dwarfed his skinny frame. “Look at me, I’m a bleedin’ High Faelen!” He cackled and gave a little jig, kicking his heels.

  The fight was over, and the last of the hot blood that had carried him through seeped out of his veins and left a chill in his bones. Riot sheathed his sword and grasped his right hand to stop it from trembling. “Still not dead,” he muttered.

  The thrill of victory faded faster when you were in charge. Riot had seen grim-faced officers aplenty at the end of a fight: the men got the victory, but someone had to settle the butcher's bill.

  Two men in the blue uniforms of the regiment had gone down to join the Father in the abyss, their friends already gathered around them, dividing up their belongings.

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  Stokes, a lighthearted jester for the most part, had fallen to the thrust of a sword and still wore a confused look on his face, as if he hadn't quite understood the joke.

  A Faelen dart had killed Argus. If you were lucky they only burned the skin and blistered, leaving weeping wounds that brought agony. For the unlucky, they burrowed inside, eating through uniform, flesh, and bone. He should be used to the stench of it by now, but it stung his nose all the same.

  Five Faelen had gone to whatever hell awaited them, and another one with a sword wound to the gut wouldn’t last the day.

  Eight prisoners sat forlornly to one side, trying their best to melt into the dusty floor. The red of their threadbare uniforms had faded to pink and each wore a tattered grey wig. Pale powder on their faces was streaked with sweat and crusty lines marred their cheeks. .

  Riot pulled open one of their canvas packs and rifled through it. A stringy strip of dried meat he hoped was beef, a heel of bread covered in a soft web of mould. Poor bastards, they were worse off than him.

  Riot felt the rumble of horses on the hard ground a moment before the shrill note of a Faelen cavalry horn bounced off the canyon walls. But that wasn’t possible, there were no cavalry within ten miles of here.

  “Back! Back!” Riot yelled, his blood turning to ice in his veins. Damn Mercer; without him and his horsemen, they were no match for cavalry.

  The shouts of triumph from the wagon fell silent and men looked at each other in horror before they scattered, each of them running for their lives, desperate to regain the safety of the ridge.

  Riot scrambled back up the slope he had thrown himself down only moments before, slipping and sliding and cutting his hands on the loose stones. He flopped down at the top gulping in cold air, his chest feeling like it had an anvil resting on it.

  “Sarge, they’re ours!” Ruddle shouted.

  Captain Jack Mercer led the cavalry that thundered down the ravine. He wore the dark blue uniform of the Duke of Fallow regiment and sat tall in the saddle, enough blue plumage swaying on his cocked hat to make a strutting peacock jealous.

  The mounted officers jeered at the dirty men on the ridge and one of them hopped from his horse onto the wooden bench of the stolen wagon.

  “Bastards!” a man close to Riot yelled, leveling a crossbow.

  Riot took two strides, yanked the crossbow out of his hands, and fired the bolt into the dirt next to his foot. “You send a bolt down there, I’ll hang you from the nearest tree,” he snarled.

  At a little over six feet and broad-shouldered, Riot towered over the man, who shrank back from him.

  “They’re leaving,” Ruddle reported.

  Mercer swept off his hat and gave them a genteel wave before putting a Faelen cavalry horn to his lips, the sound bouncing off the rocky slopes. Laughing and jeering, he and the other dozen riders set off with the precious wagon bouncing along behind him.

  Riot gripped the crossbow, wishing it were still loaded. Mercer had tricked him. After four damn days of careful patrolling they would return with nothing.

  “Rider!” someone announced.

  The Faelen captain, who had escaped their ambush was returning, walking his horse slowly toward them with one white-gloved hand raised high. Riot gave instructions for five shallow graves to be dug and slid down to meet him.

  The Faelen swept off his plumed helmet and bowed from his silver trimmed saddle, the dozen or so gold rings in his long ears clinking together lightly. Sweat seeped out from under his thick, gray wig making rivulets through the white powder on his face.

  Once, when Riot had been recovering from a pike wound, he’d been put on guard duty in the Duke’s palace in Fallow. Dusty old portraits covered every wall. Men and women with ridiculous ruffs around their necks, towering wigs, and painted faces. That’s just what the Faelen looked like—a people from another age of the world.

  “Pray where might your officer be presently located?” The Faelen’s tone was clipped, his accent as formal and stiff as his expression.

  “You can speak to me,” Riot said.

  A flicker of doubt crossed the Faelen’s face, but seeing no other choice, he pressed on. “I am Captain Alar-dal of the Mazral army. Whom do I have the… honor of addressing?”

  “Sergeant Riot, Duke of Fallow Regiment.”

  “A sergeant. It is no wonder you fought so dishonorably.”

  Riot blinked in disbelief. “It wouldn’t be a very good ambush if I told you we were coming, would it?”

  Alar-dal raised his chin, his sneer giving his mouth a bitter twist. “You will allow me to recover my dead and wounded.”

  Riot ground his teeth. It didn’t matter what army you fought for, all officers spoke to rank and file like they were dogs that had rolled in fox shit. “You can come back when we’re gone. If I see a single set of pointy ears before that; I’ll turn you into a pin cushion.”

  “You will release my prisoners,” Alar-dal snapped.

  Prisoners had to be fed, watered, and dragged around. But the stuck-up-his-own-arse Faelen officer had annoyed him.

  “Cox!”

  Aidan Cox, a hulking southerner with a face like a piece of slashed leather gave a lazy salute. “Sarge?”

  “Disarm the prisoners.”

  Cox lumbered off and seized one of the prisoners by the wrist. The Faelen struggled for a moment, before Cox grasped two of his fingers and wrenched them backwards.

  The crisp snap of breaking bones and the cries of the prisoner produced a growl from Alar-dal who drew his sword and kicked his mount forward.

  Riot stepped in front of him, half drawing his own blade to check the Faelen officer. “Broken fingers heal. You're lucky I didn't have him cut them off.”

  Hacking off the fingers of captured Faelen made sure they would never cast another dart again, but it never sat well with Riot. Wars end, and those lucky few that survived would already carry enough scars without him adding more.

  Alar-dal’s mouth pulled into a thin line of displeasure and he rammed his sword into the scabbard and pulled out a curved cavalry horn, tossing it to Riot. It was a fine craftsmanship, engraved with a salmon under a bridge, the symbol of the house of young Captain Mercer, the man who had just stolen Riot's wagon.

  “You were fooled by your own officer,” Alar-dal drawled, looking down his hooked nose and allowing a faint smile to crease his lips. “He waited in the pass and offered to trade his own horn for mine. I believe that he wished to embarrass you.”

  Riot fought the urge to pull the Faelen out of the saddle and give him a beating. But you just couldn’t do that to officers, not even the enemy. Kill them in battle, and you’d be rewarded; you could even loot the body. But if he so much as touched him now, it would be Riot who got the noose.

  “You are a foreigner, an Erudoran; perhaps this is why he does not respect you. What do they call you? ‘Stone eyes’, yes?” The Faelen continued, glancing at Riot's copper hair and light gray eyes. “Or perhaps he dislikes you because you do not know your place? We have the same problem in our own forces: low-born upstarts who challenge their betters.”

  The comment was so true, it stung. Riot had managed to lead the company for the last three weeks, but that was only because Lieutenant Clarke had died from fever during the retreat. Soon enough, they would find a replacement, sooner now after the humiliation of today. Two dead, and nothing to show for it.

  “You may be interested to know the wagon belonged to Tarir-dal.”

  “Tarir-what?”

  The officer smiled indulgently. “Tarir-dal is a High Faelen, second in command to the esteemed Mazral General, Bimil-pal.”

  Riot’s mood began to improve slightly at the thought of a High Faelen starting a crusade of vengeance against Jack Mercer. Long-ears were famous for their obsession with revenge, not surprising if you believed the stories of betrayal that led to them being locked away for a thousand years.

  "Well, you can tell Tarir-whatever that Captain Mercer of the Duke of Fallow regiment stole his wagon.”

  "Oh, I don’t think so, Sergeant. You killed my men and made prisoners of others. I shall be sure to inform Tarir-dal of your name. You may keep the horn.”

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