Fletcher scurried back into the cover of the trees with a swaying shamble like he was on the deck of a ship. Of all of them, the old boatman seemed the least troubled by the heavy rain. “There’s about twenty of them down there; I’d swear it’s the same bastards that attacked us on the road,” he said.

  “We’re better off fighting than dying out here in the cold. At least there’s a fire down there. I say we take 'em out,” Rimmer mumbled.

  “You’ll keep your mouth shut, Rimmer, or I’ll shut it for you,” Riot growled.

  He pulled out Riley’s map and tried to keep the rain off of it as he traced the goat track that they were on with a finger. The only route south took them past the village that squatted in the stretch of open land between the hills.

  “I think that you have the wrong ways of that map, Sarge.” Lehan said, leaning over and pushing his glasses up his long nose. “The coast is actually over to the south and you’ve got it fair placed ahead of us,”

  “Keep your four-eyes on that bloody village,” Riot snapped.

  Lehan shrunk back, and Riot rotated the map, reorienting himself and cursing his foul luck. If Lehan hadn’t spoken up, he would have taken them full west and right back into the enemy.

  Crease, the skinny cutthroat, appeared on the treeline. “Movement,” he hissed.

  Riot folded the map and limped forward, hissing at the pain in his knee. Something was grating in there and he cursed the northman again.

  Down in the village, the yellow-uniformed Faelen were flowing out of the largest, tavern-like building. An angry muttering rose up among the Leybound as a hooded figure was led out behind them. His hands were clearly bound, and a huge hulking Faelen pulled him along with a rope tied around his neck.

  “See, we should have gone down there. We could have got him back, for Riley,” Rimmer said.

  The men prided themselves on loyalty, but it was a mean little imitation. Loyalty was a rich man's code the poor couldn’t afford. It was also the first value of the regiments, but it shouldn’t be. What you ended up with was a crooked system where men like Rimmer were willing to give their lives for men like Riley who didn’t even know their names or care if they lived or died.

  “Go on then, whoever wants to join Rimmer and take that bastard out has my permission, I’ll be up here when you get back,” Riot said.

  A part of him hoped Rimmer would take him up on it, but the spineless man contented himself with folding his arms and muttering.

  “We wait till they’re gone, then we go down,” Riot said.

  Twilight came, and the picked their way down to the road and slunk into the village.

  They hadn’t seen the villagers from their vantage point because their bodies had been dragged behind the priory.

  The pile of corpses looked just like the ones a young Nathanial Riot had seen all that time ago under Ivansrook—pale skin and bloodied wounds that looked almost black in the failing light. The sight sent a tremble through the barrier that held back the leyline and Riot took several steady breaths. It wasn't as bad as Ivansrook, those he’d known, fought alongside.

  Behind him, Norton doubled over and retched noisily.

  “Why would they do this?” Fletcher asked, his voice hollow.

  Riot recalled the old sailor’s awkward salute. “You never serve, Fletcher?”

  “Not me, never rank and file. I was caught smuggling on the coast.”

  Riot’s gaze swept over the rest of the Leybound who were scattered around the village, carefully searching the houses. They’d lost just under forty in the attack on the road, and now he knew why.

  “How many of them have been in the regiments?” Riot asked.

  Fletcher swept off his cap and scratched his head. “Hard to say. Loic has, Crease too, and Rimmer, perhaps a couple of others. But most are like me, heading for the gallows and offered leybound.”

  Not soldiers, but perhaps they could be. “Spread the word. We’ll need packs if we can get them and blankets. Any food they find they can pile up in the tavern.”

  “Something to drink perhaps?” the old sailor said.

  “Half a pint of whatever they like per man, if any of them are too drunk to march I'll leave them behind. Tell them there’s no point trying to keep anything back for themselves cause I’ll search them all anyway,” Riot replied.

  There was a shout from the priory behind them, Lehan hurried over, ashen-faced. “I just wanted to pay my respects, I wasn’t stealing anything. I found him like that,” he said.

  Riot followed Lehan to the priory. The bookish man had likely been looking for communion wine, but instead he found only weak sunlight lancing through a large window onto the body of a dead man in a cassock. A hole a finger width wide went right through his heart. Riot would have said it was made by a Faelen dart, except for the black residue around the burned edges. The same black soot that covered the Leybounds’ hands and leaked out of Riot’s skin.

  “He was killed by a Leybound,” Lehan offered, hovering behind Riot.

  “How do you know?”

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  “The arcanists call it ‘fouling’,” Lehan said, pushing his glasses up his nose and peering at the wound. “It's what happens when you’re bound to a leyline.”

  The question had been in the back of Riot's mind for some time now. “Why don’t the arcanists have this fouling then?” he asked.

  Lehan adopted a scholarly tone. “Arcanists, like the wikkan and the Faelen, absorb ley power from their surroundings. It's clean, like an underground river, running through rock and such, being filtered and purified.”

  “So what do we get?”

  Lehans fouled hands glowed faintly in the half-light. There were only a handful of runes, lumpen misshapen scars. “Raw, unfiltered power. There are several schools of thought on the subject, it’s highly debated.”

  “What do you think?”

  Dirty gray light dripped from Lehan's hand, vanishing before it hit the floor. “I think the power they use is lifeless, cast off from the leylines. Ours is living power.”

  The arcane light was reflected in Lehan's glasses, and his fixed smile was unnerving.

  Riot looked at his own blackened skin. “Is it poisonous or something?”

  “Oh no, the only problem is when it's built up too much the spellcraft fails. Crease and some of the others said they would piss on his hands in the middle of a battle to get it off.”

  “Just see that he’s buried,” Riot said.

  Pissing on their hands, so much for the glorious future of the Leybound in war.

  ***

  There were too many bodies, so they laid them all into a shallow grave and covered it with soil and stones. Riot took up a shovel and helped. Burying bodies was a job he was well suited to considering how many he’d sent down to greet the Father.

  As night fell, Riot set sentries at the main roads in and out of the village and found welcome relief from the constant drizzle of rain in the tavern. The walls were rough sawn wood that kept out most of the drafts and a small fire was coaxed into life in the grate. What food they had found was shared out and Fletcher took it upon himself to make a passable soup.

  The Leybound had left with nothing but rusted swords, rotten leather jerkins and dirty hands. They had food now, but they’d be hungry again before they made it back to Helgan’s rest.

  Riot had been hungry before, he’d joined the army for food, not fighting. But he’d found he was good at fighting, and that was lucky because the food was lousy.

  He sat apart from the others, too far away to hear their muted conversations. The leyline pulsed in his eardrums, and he felt a strain in each beat of his heart. The fouling covered his skin in fine black powder, but he couldn’t tell if it was leaving his body faster than it came in.

  Could he just rip the battered wall down? It would likely hurt, but perhaps he could rebuild it stronger. A voice in the back of his head that whispered in the judging tones of Natalia Quinn told him that taking down the barrier would be the last thing he did.

  Eventually he found a troubled sleep in the corner of the room before the older Leybound, Fletcher, nudged him awake.

  “Crease says those horsemen are back, Sarge,” Fletcher mumbled.

  Outside was total darkness under a heavily clouded sky. Crease waited outside the door.

  “Where are they?” Riot hissed.

  “North side of the village, they came down from the hills, same as we did, about two score of them by my eye.”

  Riot was amazed that the skinny Leybound could see anything in the darkness, but the bigger question was how the horsemen had left on the eastern road and come full circle so fast.

  “Fletcher, get them out here,” Riot said.

  He was sick of running, and his knee hurt like the blazes. The tavern was dry, and he wasn’t about to give it up. The square was a good place for an ambush; horses would be useless, and a dozen steps would bring the Leybound close enough for their gray charges to be deadly.

  The rest of the Leybound filed out of the tavern, and he saw that the surly looks that he had endured for the last day were gone. Instead they seemed uncertain, flinching at the shadows, unsteady.

  Back on the road, Fitz had lined them up to face the enemy cavalry head on, all glory and honorable conduct. While it was true that sometimes you had to face the enemy with your banners flapping for all to see, out here, with only the dead to bear witness, war was about survival, and that meant killing them before they had a chance to kill you.

  “You wanted a shot at these bastards, and now you’ve got one. Who here has served?”

  There were a handful of murmured confirmations.

  “Earl of Westmarsh regulars,” Crease offered.

  Riot was genuinely impressed. “A hard regiment. Anyone who's been in the regiments goes with Crease to the edge of the village. Let them come past you, then when they reach the square and the fighting starts, make sure none of the bastards get out of here alive.”

  Five Leybound loped off after Crease into the darkness, and Riot turned to the rest. They looked at him expectantly, just like the last group he’d taken into a fight, Ruddle, Cox, Swan and Emmerson. That wouldn’t happen again, this time he’d strike first and strike hard.

  “The rest of you, I want half in the priory and half in the tavern, when they’re in the middle of the square, we attack on my order.”

  They slinked off into the darkness, most of them were criminals after all and well suited to this kind of work.

  Loic made a muffled protest and Riot pulled the gag from his mouth.

  “What about me?” the northman asked.

  “Are you ready to tell me what happened when you and Riley disappeared?”

  “Eat a runny shit with a rusty spoon.”

  “I forgot how nice it was not to hear the sound of your voice.”

  Riot reached for the gag but Loic struggled.

  “Wait! Cut me free; I can help.”

  “So you can sell us out, like your friend Price?”

  The northman's face contorted with rage and he strained at the bonds on his wrists. “I’ll cut your lying tongue out of your head you stone-eyed bastard. I’m no traitor.”

  Riot smiled and forced the gag back onto his mouth. “Norton, take him into the tavern.”

  He made his way over to one of the houses that bordered the square and slipped inside the darkened doorway as the sun put a soft golden crown on the clouds to the north. The sound of hooves on the road grew louder, and he felt the creeping anticipation of a fight. Soon the first of them would round the corner and enter the square, and he drew his sword. The moments ticked by, but the sound of the horses stopped, and the only thing that entered the square was the silence of the grave.

  The sky brightened as the darkness retreated further, and with a hissed curse, Riot moved out into the square and began to creep cautiously to the rutted wagon trail that led north, every careful step feeling like he was walking into a trap. He heard scuffed footsteps behind him and knew that at least some of the Leybound had followed him.

  Riot reached the road out of the village and heard the sound of running feet. “Get ready,” Riot murmured, glancing behind him to see four Leybound, the glow of gray light glowing in their cupped hands.

  Crease rounded the corner at a jog, his eyes widening as he took in the small force ready to attack. “Bleeding hell, it’s me,” the skinny man shouted, his arms raised.

  “Bloody hell, Crease, what's going on?” Riot asked, slamming his sword back into its sheath.

  “Best you speak to Commander Moran, Sarge, he’s on his way.”