There were drum beats in the darkness. Not the rattatatat of marching drums, but the slow war drums of the Orcs. But that had been years ago hadn’t it? His first campaign with the Old Duke, marching across the border to bloody the nose of some Tarian Count. Riot had stood in the ranks, pike in hand and soiled himself along with the others when they heard the drums.

  The band of Orc mercenaries were six foot tall, their corded muscles strapped with studded leather. Each carried cruel hooked axes and the Old Duke of Fallow retreated without giving battle.

  They heard later that the Tarian had refused to pay the Orcs as there hadn’t been a fight. The Orcs burned his lands and roasted the Count on a spit.

  But the drums were here and now, and their pounding shook Riot’s bones. Flashes of dirty gray light pulled him back to the waking world and he tried to resist. Why not stay here in the comfortable nothingness?

  Riots eyes snapped open, his vision filled with the surging trunk of infinite threads of color heaving across the dark sky.

  I’m still not dead.

  “He should be Leybound or dead by now.” Riley's words were followed by the squeaky unscrewing of a flask and the wash of raw spirits. “It might be time to abandon this, and if the sergeant could respond, he might well agree.”

  “The elixir should have made things easier, not harder,” Kerne said.

  “It’s the hedron burn, I'm sure of it. They draw leypower from their host and their surroundings, and the imprint is powerful enough to pull anything arcane directly toward it, so Sergeant Riot is being used rather like a fleshy conduit. But we are quite far from my understanding of these matters.” Riley prodded at the swollen wound. “I could cut it off?”

  Riot tried to protest, but only managed a strangled gurgle.

  “I don’t think we’ve quite reached that point yet, but if he doesn’t leave here leybound, he’ll be taken straight to the gallows,” Kerne said. “I must leave you, Riley, but I’m sure the sergeant would insist on continuing.”

  That was the exact opposite of what Riot was thinking. Even with his sluggish, pain-wracked thoughts, he knew that given the choice, he would likely choose the rope.

  “Very well, brace yourself, Sergeant, for we continue,” Riley declared.

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  Riot lost track of the attempts, just registering the pain, the suffocating pressure, and the relentless surge of the leypower invading his body.

  The four bells of half noon tolled in the city, telling him that he'd been lying there for three hours. He still couldn’t speak but had a vague control of his muscles again, and managed to lift his head to see Riley had large bags under his bloodshot eyes.

  The Arcanist caught him looking and gave him a weak smile. “Still with us, Riot? I sincerely wanted to help you, you know.” Riley mopped his brow with a large handkerchief. “The problem is that you used the hedron and it scraped any residual leypower right out of you. All I can assume is that your core has ruptured. But there’s no way to know, is there?” Riley paused for a moment, as if waiting for Riot to respond, then shook his head, pacing to and fro. “But a rupture would mean death, so one can only conclude that the leylines are too weak to fill your core. It’s like pouring a watering can into an empty volcano.” Riley appeared to be speaking to himself now, pacing faster. “Yes, well, that’s how Leybound work, isn’t it? They fill up, and you can’t be filled, can you?”

  Riley appeared in Riot's vision again, his bloodshot eyes wide with excitement. “I think I have it. It's only a theory, but I fear we are rather out of options. Kill or cure, as my father used to say. He was a horse doctor you know. Obviously you’re not sick, or a member of the equine family, but you understand the sentiment.”

  A leyline detached itself from the churning mass, and Riot felt his breath stick in his lungs. The others had whipped through the air like snakes, but this one fell from the sky without grace, a thick spar of arcane light as wide as a dinner plate.

  “Oh! Perhaps that's a tad too big–” Riley’s eyes rolled back in his head, and he dropped out of sight like a marionette with its strings cut, hitting the ground with a thump.

  The leyline surged into Riot's gut with a noise like the roots of a tree being ripped from the earth. The power crushed his lungs flat and his eyes bulged as he fought to draw breath, but it was like trying to hold back an ocean with his hands, and it surged over him, washing him away.

  The pressure grew, and he felt as if his skin were expanding. Then, when he doubted that he could hold any more of the power, it relented, and he drew a gasping breath that arched his back so far that his spine cracked.

  The nature of the pain changed. Becoming an acute personal invasion as the leyline infiltrated his body. Muscles were torn apart by searching tendrils that crept out from the burning mass behind his navel. The private and intimate pain grew worse, the further the leyline extended. It reached his shoulders and hips, and his eyes rolled back in their sockets. It forged a path through the joints in his elbows and knees, and his muscles convulsed, twisting his bones.

  Finally, it cut into his fingertips and toes, slicing through his nail beds, and Riot found his voice again and bellowed, the sound of his pain echoing up the walls of the circular chamber and into the night sky.

  Riley stirred and groaned, grasping the table and hauling himself up. The arcanist laid a hand on Riot's shoulder, and the burning ley power left his body like someone had unplugged a drain, leaving only the empty, raw pathways that had been carved into him.

  “I’m not dead,” Riot muttered.

  “For now. No sudden movements, or you’ll go up like a bonfire. Gods, I need a drink,” Riley breathed.

  His footsteps faded away, and Riot was alone.

  BETA readers. I really need some Beta readers, so I’ll let you know what’s involved: You’ll get to read lots of chapters ahead of Leybound in a Google doc and add comments for ways you think the story could be improved. If you’re interested please let me know on