The Mad Lancers: A Powder Mage Novella
Author: Brian McClellan
Date: 2000-01-01 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Fantasy; Novella; Epic Fantasy; Short Stories; Fiction; High Fantasy; Military Fiction; Adventure; Science Fiction Fantasy; War
Description: Young war hero Ben Styke commands a colonial garrison in a sleepy Fatrastan town. It’s a well-deserved quiet posting and Styke intends to keep the peace despite rumblings of discontent across the continent. But peace is difficult to maintain on the frontier. Taxes imposed by the far away Kez government, and their heavy-handed methods of enforcing them, have the people on edge. When the governor’s cruel brother stops for the night in Fernhollow, Styke is forced to protect the people of his town in a brutal escalation that threatens to destroy everything—and everyone—he has fought for. Occurs tw

All material contained within copyright © Brian McClellan, 2017.

All rights reserved.

This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places and scenarios are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. All resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Twelve years before the events of Sins of Empire…

A corpse hung from a dead tree on the outskirts of Fernhollow, bloated from the humid summer heat, feet swinging above the dusty road. It was a grim specter haunting an otherwise picturesque country lane, and Major Ben Styke took a few moments to imagine the scene—minus the corpse—as a painting in some posh nobleman’s collection.

Styke stared up at the body, quietly humming a lancer’s hymn to himself. He recognized the corpse, even with its crow-pecked eyes and torn clothes. It belonged to Daven je Kros, the local Kez tax collector. A beating had left Kros’s evening suit shredded to ribbons and the body beneath it a bloody pulp—and probably killed the poor bastard.

Styke’s warhorse, Deshnar, stamped impatiently beneath him, unimpressed by the smell of shit and rotting flesh. Styke patted his flank absently. They were alone here on the outskirts of town, accompanied only by the crows wheeling overhead, and he imagined that word of the tax man’s lynching had probably spread well ahead of his own discovery. None of the locals would use this road today.

So who was responsible? A handful of drunks on their way home from the pub? A posse organized by some of the less savory city elders? The family of someone Kros had recently turned out into the street?

To find a tax collector’s enemies, the old saying went, simply check the latest town census. But here in Fatrasta, a half-tamed frontier full of immigrants from a dozen countries and governed almost exclusively by the Kez, a tax collector’s death presented all sorts of complications. The Kez were an incompetent colonial power at best—a cruel one at worst—and people were getting angrier as taxes went up and public services declined.

Styke had an inkling that things were coming to a head—there were curfews up in Little Starland, heavy fines imposed on the wealthy malcontents in New Adro, and Kez soldiers arrived daily in every port city across the country. The Kez king’s crackdowns were fanning the flames of discontent. But that was big-picture politics. Styke had no place in that world, and he hoped that it would stay as far away from Fernhollow as possible.

“Far away…” he whispered to himself as distant movement caught his eye. Farther down the road, a group of riders had just come into view through the willows. There were four of them, and even at this distance he could make out the green and tan flag fluttering over the standard-bearer, and the matching uniforms.

Kez soldiers. He wondered, briefly, if they’d had anything to do with this, but dismissed the notion. They would be coming from the next town over, passing through Fernhollow to head toward the capital. Besides, they were Kez. They didn’t pay the same taxes as everyone else and therefore would have little interest in a tax collector.

He clicked his tongue. “Deshnar,” he said gently, directing his warhorse over to the body and standing up in the stirrups. He drew his big boz knife and tried to reach the rope looped around Kros’s neck.

No such luck.

Styke tied Deshnar to some nearby scrub and returned to the tree, wondering if its dead branches could hold his weight. As a child he’d loved to climb the big willows on the family estate, but that was before he’d grown to almost seven feet tall and twenty-two stone.

Deshnar snorted at him.

“Yeah,” Styke said. “I’m gonna look like a real asshole if I fall out of that tree and break my neck.” He glanced back toward town, where he could order any of his lancers to come out here and take care of the job for him. But that meant leaving the body hanging there while a squad of Kez soldiers rode by. They’d already seen it by now, of course, but leaving it hanging there was just an invitation to ask questions. Styke removed his cavalry jacket, the sunflower yellow of the colonial army, and began to climb.

“Ride, lancers, ride,” he sang softly to himself as he reached the second branch of the dead tree. “Through the meadows, against the tide. Let your hooves ring, steel ring; break your lances, break their bones, break their spirit against the stones.”

He finished his work and let the body drop with a thud, returning to ground and managing to cover Kros’s corpse with some canvas from his saddlebags as the Kez soldiers came within shouting distance.

Two of them rode ahead of the others, approaching him until they were just a few feet away from Deshnar. They wore steel breastplates polished to blinding shine in the morning sun, their backs stiff and formal with heavy cavalry swords and carbines hanging from their saddles. In Styke’s experience, cuirassiers preferred the glory of a single charge against isolated skirmishers. They didn’t like to do the real work of war.

He dusted off his palms and eyed their lapels. The man, narrow-faced and young, no more than nineteen or twenty with muttonchops grown out to make him appear older, bore the stars of a captain. The woman, a sergeant, was in her midtwenties and had dirty blonde hair cut severely at the shoulders. She looked down on him with the kind of irritated disregard that most people reserved for pigs lying in the street.

“By Kresimir, you’re a huge son of a bitch,” the sergeant said, looking from Styke’s boots to the top of his head. Styke stared back, unimpressed. She had some heft to her, but she had too small of a frame to be a proper cuirassier. Heavy cavalry needed strength to swing those swords and weight to back it up. And that polished cuirass had never seen combat. She went on, “I’ve seen ’em big, Captain, but I’ve never seen anyone that size.” She looked truly puzzled, as if she’d just seen a swamp dragon for the first time and couldn’t quite comprehend what creation had put in front of her.

“Can I help you?” Styke asked.

The sergeant started, as if surprised that he could speak. She covered it with a scowl and barked, “You can help me by saluting, soldier. You’re in the presence of a captain of his majesty’s finest.” She glanced over her shoulder at her captain, who’d remained back several feet. “By Kresimir, sir, I can’t imagine the commanding officer of this outfit allowing discipline to falter so. I tell you, if I had the command, things would be different around here. Damned colonials are all the same.”

Styke couldn’t help but snort a laugh.

“What’s that, soldier? Something you want to share with me? You will salute and you will salute now, or Kresimir help me, I will take you to whoever is in charge of this place and I will see you whipped five stripes every morning for a week.”

Styke opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, the captain flipped his reins and directed his horse up beside that of his sergeant. “Sergeant Gracely,” he said, “stand down.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but I won’t see a common colonial mock his majesty’s finest.”

“Sergeant, that colonial is seven feet tall.”

“My apologies, sir, but I don’t care how big he is, he—”

“Sergeant!”

“Sir?”

“Do you see his jacket hanging from that saddle? Do you see his lapels? He’s a lancer.”

“What does that matter, sir?”

“Can you think of a colonial lancer that size? Perhaps one that’s well known for having broken a company of elite Starlish grenadiers during the Battle of Fort Kurlin, by himself?”

The sergeant’s mouth hung open for a few moments, and Styke could see from her face that she was doing a desperate bit of mental math. She closed her mouth, scowled, and then seemed to reevaluate Styke.

Styke fetched his jacket from Deshnar’s saddle horn and swung it over his shoulders, taking care to adjust the lapel where a single silver lance designated him as a major. Technically, he outranked the both of them. But Kez of any rank were always more important than a colonial.

Gracely bit her lip, then blurted out, “You’re Ben Styke?”

“Major Ben Styke,” the captain corrected gently. “He may be a colonial, sergeant, but this man has killed more enemy combatants than you can count. He’s broken grenadiers, infantry lines, and even Privileged sorcerers. Fort Kurlin, and much of the northeast of Fatrasta, belongs to the crown because of his heroics.”

Gracely paled, then snapped a salute. “Major Styke, sir. My apologies.”

Styke rolled his eyes and bent over, wrapping the canvas around the body at his feet and then hefting the package, single-handed, and tossing it over Deshnar’s hindquarters. He began tying the body in place, pausing occasionally to wave the flies away. “No apologies needed, Sergeant,” he said. “You can’t help being an asshole. You’ve the double curse of being both a sergeant and a Kez.” He gave her a toothy grin.

The captain responded with a disapproving, if wry, smile. “Major Styke, my name is Cardin. I’m a great admirer of yours.” He bent from his horse and offered his hand.

It wasn’t a salute, but Styke rarely managed to wring a salute out of Kez officers. A handshake, he decided, would have to do.

“Good to meet you, Cardin.” He wiped some body fluid from the rotting corpse off on his pants and shook Cardin’s hand, then swung up into the saddle, urging Deshnar back up to the road. Cardin and Gracely followed him, rejoining their companions, and the five made their way toward Fernhollow at a walk.

Styke gave Cardin a sidelong glance as the Kez captain fell in beside him. “Major Styke,” Cardin said in the slow, thoughtful manner of a man with something on his mind, “you’re the commander of the Fernhollow Garrison, are you not?”

“I am,” Styke said.

“Could I trust you to tell me, soldier to soldier, whether there is any trouble in Fernhollow?”

Styke let his next sidelong glance linger. Cardin’s own eyes were on the wrapped corpse draped over Deshnar’s hindquarters, and he looked uneasy. Styke didn’t have to ask him what he meant. Trouble was word of the year across the whole of Fatrasta. There were riots over taxes and grain, bubbling conflict along the frontier, and a general undercurrent of discontent from the humblest salons to the biggest city newspapers.

He wondered after the reasoning for Cardin’s line of questioning. Was he here to raise taxes? Inspect the town? Institute some kind of conscription? Styke tried to think of a positive reason that a Kez officer would be asking after such an out-of-the-way town and couldn’t come up with one.

“Fernhollow’s not a big town,” Styke said, rubbing his chin. “Just a thousand people, if you include the Palo. I know most of ’em by name, and there aren’t more than a handful of troublemakers in the lot. Most of them just want to keep their heads down.”

Cardin nodded thoughtfully. “I’m glad to hear that. Major, I’m with the Eighth Cuirassiers. My squadron has spent the last year out on assignment in the Ironstead Territory and is on our way back to Landfall. If it’s not too much trouble, I’d like a place to billet the men for the night. They need real food and beds, and they haven’t had much chance at either for quite some time.”

“I see,” Styke said. He almost felt relief at the idea. Putting up a few hundred Kez cuirassiers would be a pain in the ass—Kez soldiers rarely paid their bills, and they tended to drink too much—but as long as it wasn’t taxes or a new conscription, this sounded like something Styke could deal with. “Fernhollow is a bit out of the way for coming back from the Ironstead Territory, isn’t it?”

“It is,” Cardin agreed. He glanced over his shoulder at his companions, then said in a low voice, “My commanding officer has a mistress in Beggar’s Wood.”

Beggar’s Wood was about fifty miles south of Fernhollow. A long way out of the way. Styke snorted. “How long do you plan on staying here?”

“Just tonight. We’ll have the men moving again early tomorrow morning.”

Styke gave it a moment’s consideration. “Right. I’ll send word around. We have two inns and seven pubs. Between them and a couple dozen of the families in town, none of your men should have to sleep on the ground.” Styke didn’t like Kez soldiers, but he wasn’t an asshole. A year on the frontier, with all the rumors of violence that must have reached them, was hard on any group of soldiers—even if, by the look of their cuirasses, they hadn’t actually seen combat.

Cardin seemed relieved. “Thank you, Major Styke. I am in your debt.” He snapped his fingers, and Gracely brought her horse up next to his. “Sergeant, report back to the squadron and let them know we’ll be staying in Fernhollow tonight. Everyone is to be on their best behavior. Tell Major Prost that I’ll reserve the best room in the city for him tonight. That should please him.”

Gracely snapped a salute and peeled off from the group, riding back the way they came, and Cardin gave Styke a grateful smile. “With all the trouble going around, I was worried about bringing the men so far out of the way on our return from assignment. But,” he sighed, “Major Prost insisted. At least he’s given me leave to choose our camps with care. The last thing I need to do is get the men involved in any of the violence.”

Styke nodded along, but his mind was already far away. He was thinking about the corpse tied to his saddle, and wondering who was going to hang for the tax collector’s death. He was thinking about the logistics of a few hundred extra soldiers in town.

And he was thinking about the name Major Prost. It sounded vaguely familiar, a tickle at the back of his memory, and he didn’t like it.

He showed Cardin to The Rumbling Sow, the bigger of the two inns in town, then pointed him toward the mayor’s house before dropping the tax collector’s body off at the undertaker’s. The name Prost bothered him the whole way to the small stone fort on the edge of town, and the much larger barracks and stable that housed his garrison of colonial lancers.

He left Deshnar with one of the stable boys and found his second-in-command, Captain Blye, smoking his pipe down in the reeds by the river. Blye was stout and heavyset, with square shoulders and a pencil-thin, carefully-groomed beard that he claimed was all the style in Gurla right now. It made him look like an idiot, and Styke liked to remind him about that at any opportunity.

“Blye,” Styke said by way of greeting.

“Major. Where have you been all morning? Rezi was looking all over the place for you. Said you left without eating breakfast and it had her worried.”

Mention of Rezi brought a half smile to Styke’s face, but he forced it away. “Somebody killed Kros,” Styke replied.

Blye took his pipe out of his mouth and stood up. “Shit,” he said. “You’re joking.”

“Nope. Brend Hillness found the body when he went to check on his cows this morning. Kros was strung up on the old ironwood west of town. He was kicked to death and left for the crows.”

Blye made a disgusted sound in the back of his throat. “Poor bastard. Any idea who did it?”

“I’m gonna spend the rest of the week trying to find out.”

“Need any help?”

“No, I’ve got more important shit for you to deal with. There’s a company of Kez cuirassiers on their way into town and looking for a place to sleep tonight. I told ’em we’d put ’em up.”

“Of course you did,” Blye grumbled. “I take it you want me to make arrangements.”

“I do.” Styke waved his finger under Blye’s nose. “I also want you to make sure our boys are on alert tonight—but don’t let them look like they’re on alert. I want those Kez to head out of town and forget about us by tomorrow night. No incidents. Understand?”

Blye put away his pipe and snapped a salute. “Right, sir.” He began heading up toward the fort. Styke stared at the river, wishing he could spend the rest of the day down here. Just him and Rezi, a sheepskin, and a couple bottles of wine.

Maybe next week.

“Blye!” he called

“Sir?”

“Does the name Prost mean anything to you?”

Blye tapped his chin with one finger a couple times before pointing it at the sky. “Major Nons je Prost?”

“That’s right.”

“Major Prost is the governor’s bastard brother. Right son of a bitch, rumor has it.”

Styke felt his stomach clench. That’s where he’d heard the name. Prost was a pariah, even among Kez officers—a sadist and a coward who preferred burning Palo villages to actual combat. Supposedly his company was made up of thieves, cutthroats, and a few unfortunate souls who’d managed to piss off the wrong officer.

And Styke had just invited them to spend the night in Fernhollow.

The last thing Styke needed was a run-in with someone like Prost. Styke knew his own temper well enough to keep his distance, and he stayed busy on the outskirts of town while a handful of trusted men kept a close eye on the Kez. He checked in with his men three times that evening, and then twice again in the middle of the night, waking every few hours from a restless sleep to walk the rounds and speak with members of the town watch.

Kez soldiers could be heard singing inside The Rumbling Sow well into the early hours of the morning, but the town watch reported the streets quiet and everything peaceful. The visit was, Styke decided as he crawled back in bed for the final time that night, a success.

He woke with the sunrise, rolling out of bed and leaning on the thick timbers of Rezi’s four-poster as he pissed into a chamber pot. He heard Rezi stir behind him, and turned to find her sitting halfway up in bed, naked beneath the thin sheet, head cocked, her short, black hair framing a raised eyebrow. She had the hazelnut skin of a half Deliv, with strong, well-defined arms and long legs on a six-and-a-half foot tall frame. She, he decided, could have been a cuirassier, and no one would have argued.

In her midtwenties, she was ten years his junior but already the head constable of Fernhollow, and could back up her position with a truncheon better than most provosts. Another decade, and she’d be a proper police captain in Landfall.

She did not look pleased to see him leaving so early. “Stop worrying,” she told him.

“I’m not.” Styke found his pants and began to dress.

“It’s just a bunch of soldiers. Between my deputies and Blye, they’re under control. They’ll be gone by lunch.”

“Hopefully they’re already on their way out of town. I just want to make sure everything goes smoothly. Where’s my jacket?”

“You left it downstairs,” Rezi said. “Come back to bed.”

Styke grunted. “I’ll be back in an hour. Don’t move, and don’t get dressed.”

“I’ll damn well get dressed if I want. You walk out that door and you’ll miss your chance.”

Styke eyed her for a long moment, wavering in the doorway.

“Why are you so worried about these Kez anyway?” Rezi asked. “You’ve been skulking since you got back from cutting down poor Kros. I’ve never known Ben Styke to be afraid of anything.”

Styke snorted. “I’m not skulking.”

“You are too. Why?”

He finally stepped away from the door, rounding the side of the bed and kneeling down next to her. He playfully bit her thigh, and Rezi gave a full-throated laugh. “You ever hear of Major Prost?” he asked her.

“Doesn’t ring a bell.”

“He’s a Kez cuirassier. Bastard brother of the governor.”

“Ohhhh,” Rezi said, elongating the word. “Yeah, I have heard of him. He’s the one who butchered Blind Rock, isn’t he?”

“He burns villages and kills kids and gets away with it,” Styke confirmed.

Remi eyed him sideways, obviously worried. She knew his temper, too. She knew what set him off. “Stay in bed,” she said quietly.

Styke tapped his fingers on the bed frame. She was right, of course. He didn’t need to go out there. He began to unbutton his shirt, ready to climb under the covers, when there was a sudden pounding on the door.

“Styke!” a voice called. Styke answered. It was Fenrial, one of his colonial lancers. The boy’s face was white. “Sir, you have to come with me right now.”

Styke shared a glance with Remi. She scowled at him, but rolled out of bed and began putting on her own clothes while Styke nodded to Fenrial, then followed him at a run.

They left Rezi’s small house on the outskirts of town and headed down the hard-packed dirt streets. It was a nice day, as far as Fatrastan spring went, and it hadn’t rained for almost a week. The morning was hot without being unbearable, a light cloud cover dotting blue skies. They passed a few farmers out and about in the early hours, who tipped their hats to Styke as they headed out toward their fields.

Styke barely noticed. He began to hear voices from the town square, and he soon spotted the Kez lined up in the street, two hundred or so cuirassiers at attention on horseback, clearly waiting and eager to be gone. He ran along the line, looking for Captain Cardin. He passed an unhappy-looking Sergeant Gracely, who shouted something that was lost to him.

Styke rounded the corner that led to the town square and almost plowed into the back of a crowd of several hundred people. He paused just long enough to take in the scene: the crowd was gathered just outside The Rumbling Sow. They formed a circle around a cordon of men in Kez uniforms, and even as Styke looked on, he heard a few angry shouts.

Townspeople shouting at Kez soldiers was not going to end well.

Behind the cordon of Kez cuirassiers—stone-faced men with carbines at the ready—were three Kez officers. Two of them were obviously drunk, with jackets unbuttoned and shirts soiled, swaying on their feet. They stood over a small man with the red hair and ashen freckles of a Palo, his face and beard streaked with blood, his hands clasped as the two drunks kicked and spat at him.

The third officer—Cardin—stood off to one side, his expression fraught, desperately trying to calm the situation down.

The Palo’s name was Tel-islo, and he was the owner of The Rumbling Sow. Styke’s eyes narrowed, and he took two steps into the crowd. “Out of my way,” he growled, letting townspeople part in front of him as he strode toward the cordon of Kez cuirassiers.

The biggest cuirassier was almost a foot shorter than Styke. He swallowed visibly, eying Styke’s yellow colonial jacket and the silver lance at his lapel.

“Move,” Styke told him.

“Sorry, sir,” the cuirassier said. “I can’t do that. Orders.”

“I am a major,” Styke said impatiently, watching over the cuirassier’s head as an officer who Styke had now decided was Major Prost planted a kick in Tel-islo’s ribs. “Your major is obviously drunk, so I am the ranking officer here. Move, or I will make you move.”

The cuirassier licked his lips and glanced to his left and right, as if wondering if his fellow soldiers would back him up in the face of such a giant. Another blow landed on Tel-islo, and Styke reached forward, jerking the carbine out of the cuirassier’s hands.

“Hey!”

Styke gripped the carbine in both hands and brought it down over his knee, snapping the stock like a matchstick. He handed the pieces back and shoved past the cuirassier, striding toward Major Prost.

Cardin attempted to intercept him, sputtering an explanation, but Styke stiff-armed him to the ground. He had no interest in explanations. Someone under his protection was being attacked.

Styke set his sights on the other officer—the man who was not Prost, and bore the pins of a captain on his drink-stained lapels. Styke grabbed the captain by the back of the shirt, lifting him bodily so that his next kick went wide of Tel-islo. He panicked, his feet kicking the air as Styke held him aloft. Styke tossed him toward the nervous cordon of cuirassiers.

The street, he noticed, had gone deathly silent—until a voice broke out from the back of the crowd: “You show those Kez assholes, Major Styke!” Another voice joined the first, and then a round of jeers opened up. The cuirassiers tightened into a knot, clearly wondering whether they should run or open fire, and Styke was more than cognizant of their greater number of companions waiting just a few streets over.

A wrong word, and this would end in a bloodbath.

“Everyone shut up,” he bellowed. Silence returned, and he turned toward Major Prost and Tel-islo. Major Prost swayed on his feet, looking at Styke in cross-eyed confusion.

Styke lifted Tel-islo to his feet. “Can you walk?” he asked gently.

Tel-islo nodded, his eyes fixed fearfully on Prost.

“Go inside, lock your doors, and clean yourself up,” Styke ordered, giving Tel-islo a little shove to propel him toward his inn. He turned toward Prost, looking him in the eyes. Definitely still drunk. Prost lurched after Tel-islo, brandishing a riding crop.

“I’m not done with you, Palo!” He came to a quick stop, eyes focusing on Styke as if seeing him for the first time. “And you,” he said, pointing the riding crop at Styke’s chest, “have just made a very big mistake. I will deal with you as soon as I’ve finished with that foxhead whore’s son over there. You hear me, foxhead? Come back here this instant!”

Styke waved Tel-islo inside with one hand and snatched Prost by the lapels, lifting him into the air with both hands and pulling him so close their noses touched. “You will drop the riding crop and take your soldiers and leave this very instant, or I will break both of your arms.”

Prost let out a noxious burp in Styke’s face, his weak jaw twisting in a drunken sneer. “Unhand me, you colonial tit.”

“These people are under my protection,” Styke said calmly. He didn’t want this to escalate any further, but he would not allow the Kez to bully his people. “Set aside your pride and let Captain Cardin lead you out of the town before things go poorly.”

Prost stared at Styke, the sneer still fixed on his lips, his eyes gradually focusing. Slowly, deliberately, he closed his lips and sucked his cheeks in. Styke could see exactly what was going to happen next, and he decided in the back of his head that he was just going to let it happen.

The wad of phlegm smacked him just below the left eye, splattering all cross his face and dripping down his cheek. He heard an audible gasp from among the closest members of the crowd and a very distinct, “Oh, shit,” from Captain Cardin.

Styke dropped Prost to his feet, snatching him by the left arm before his drunk legs could give out beneath him. He grasped Prost’s wrist in one hand and his bicep with the other, then brought the major’s elbow down over his knee like he’d done to the cuirassier’s carbine. There was a sickening snap, bone and blood tearing through Prost’s uniform, and an almost startlingly long pause before Prost began to scream.

He continued to scream as Styke forced him around and did the same to the other arm. It was done in just a few seconds, then he let Prost fall to the ground, where he rolled in the dust, screaming in pain and bellowing for someone to kill Styke.

Styke looked up to find Cardin staring at him. Beyond, several dozen of the mounted cuirassiers had arrived, with Sergeant Gracely at their front. They froze in indecision when they saw that the source of the screams was their major, and Styke could practically see the calculations on Gracely’s face as she wondered whether she should kill Styke, and then whether she could.

“Take him and get out of my city,” Styke told Cardin. Styke raised his head to the gathered crowd and spoke over the screams of the man at his feet. “You will disperse now. Constable Remi will be around later to talk to the witnesses of this crime. Thank you.” He turned his back on the crowd and the cuirassiers and headed toward the front door of the inn, where he spotted Tel-islo’s face in the window. There was a thump, and then the sound of a latch sliding.

Styke stepped inside the quiet of the inn and headed to the bar. “Something bitter,” he told Tel-islo, waiting patiently until the mug of beer was set in front of him. He took a sip, then pressed the cool mug against his temple as he listened to the muffled sounds of soldiers trying to quiet Prost’s screaming.

“Thank you, Major,” Tel-islo said, not meeting Styke’s eye.

“Your wife owes me an apple pie this fall,” Styke said gruffly, wishing he’d stayed in bed with Rezi and knowing she was going to spend the next few days reminding him how that would have been a much better idea.

Tel-islo gave Styke a grateful smile. “You’ll have one every day for a week.”

That, Styke decided, might actually make this whole thing worth it. Running a hand through his hair, he asked Tel-islo, “What was this whole thing about, anyways?”

“I asked him to pay his tab,” Tel-islo gulped. “He… objected to my request.”

“What an asshole,” Styke muttered. “Look, it’s all right. You’re under my protection, Palo or not, and I’m not gonna let some continental piece of shit kick you around.”

“Again, thank you.”

Styke listened to the sound of hoofbeats and the shouting of soldiers outside. If Cardin was properly motivated to keep a riot from happening, he would have his men out of town within a quarter of an hour. He’d rush Prost to Landfall to find a healing Privileged, and within a couple of days word would reach the governor. Styke cursed his own temper and tried to decide what he was going to do next. The governor was not going to be happy, to put it lightly. Perhaps, Styke thought, he should quietly retire, heading up into the mountains before someone came to arrest him.

Styke counted down the minutes, growing slightly concerned as the sound of hoofbeats suddenly grew louder and a few angry shouts came from the street. He turned around on his stool. “What’s going on?”

Tel-islo rushed to the window. His face grew ashen, and he took a step backwards.

Before Styke could get to his feet, the door opened. He was surprised to find Captain Cardin and a small group of soldiers in Kez uniforms who were definitely not cuirassiers. Beyond them, he could see that the crowd had not dispersed and that the cuirassiers were definitely still here. These new soldiers each had a red feather stuck in their lapels, and they held their muskets menacingly.

“I thought I told you to go,” Styke said.

Cardin was pale, sweating visibly. “I’m sorry, sir,” he said, “but this is out of my hands. Major Benjamin Styke, I arrest you in the name of Governor Crillot je Sirod, and I ask that you come along with me quietly.”

Styke felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up on end. The sounds he’d heard—those weren’t soldiers leaving. They were soldiers arriving. Something clicked in his brain, and he recognized the red feathers. Of course. They were the governor’s personal bodyguard. Which meant that the governor himself was here.

Talk about bad damned luck.

Styke finished off his beer and approached them. Cardin took a long step to one side, and the soldiers all backed away slowly as Styke ducked out the front door of the inn to stand on the stoop outside. The crowd of townspeople was now almost entirely encircled by a newly arrived company of soldiers, each of them wearing the red feather in their lapels. At their center was a tall man with a thin face, a receding hairline, and a goatee hiding a weak chin. The similarities between him and Prost were unmistakable.

Governor Sirod was dressed in a stiff-collared riding jacket and cravat, his nose turned up to the crowd in front of him, his hands daintily clutching his reins. While Prost was known for his public sadistic streak, Sirod was quietly vain—he owned hundreds of plantations, employed the finest Kressian tailors and cobblers, kept the largest art collection in this hemisphere, and even had his own personal Privileged sorcerer. As far as governors went, he was egotistical and amoral; his only job in Fatrasta was to keep up cotton and tobacco shipments at whatever cost, and therefore bolster his own reputation in the King’s court back in Kez.

Sirod’s bastard brother lay at the feet of his horse, weeping while a Privileged set his arms and healed them. Styke let his eyes linger on the Privileged for a moment—his own sorcerous Knack allowing him to smell the brimstone of the Privileged’s magic—before returning his gaze to Sirod and wondering what he’d look like wearing his own innards as a cravat.

Styke briefly caught sight of Blye in the crowd, clutching a carbine. Styke locked eyes with him and gave a small shake of his head.

Cardin exited the inn and came up beside Styke, every bit of his body language screaming that he didn’t want to be there. He cleared his throat, coughed into his hand, and said, “Major Styke, sir. Please come along quietly.” There was a pleading tone to that “please” that at once irritated and complimented Styke. Even with hundreds of soldiers here, Cardin was scared of him.

What a bunch of cowards.

“You’re a gentleman, aren’t you, Cardin?”

“I… I like to think so, Major.”

“Then give me your word that all the responsibility for what happened will fall upon me. Not the innkeeper. Not the townspeople. Not my lancers.”

Cardin let out a relieved sigh. “I’ll do that, Major.”

“Good. Then I’ll come along quietly.”

Styke sat in the only cell on the second floor of the Fernhollow Jail. It was a large room, meant to be able to hold drunks and dissenters for as long as it took them to calm down, and had bare brick walls and a worn wooden floor. It was separated from the constable’s office by a plank wall and a large iron-bar door, which currently stood open—which would have been a tempting avenue of escape if Styke wasn’t doing his best to let this whole thing blow over.

There were three windows looking out into the town—glass, protected by iron bars. Styke sat on the only bench, one knee drawn up beside him as he looked out one of those windows. A couple hours had passed since his arrest, and the streets outside were a lively spectacle that made him want to spit.

Every citizen had been called to town and now stood obediently in the summer heat while the governor’s bodyguard and Prost’s cuirassiers paraded around the city square. Their horses kicked up dust, coating everyone in a thin film, and their company band—two drummers, three pipers, and five horn blowers—played a discordant racket that made Styke wince every time they marched past his window.

While the citizens stood glumly on the sides of the street, Styke’s own colonial lancers were forced to stand at attention, unmounted and unarmed, in the city square. That made Styke’s blood boil more than anything, and he forced himself watch the sweat pouring off their brows, mixing with the dust to create a muddy complexion while the governor’s bodyguard rode past again and again, laughing amongst themselves. It was humiliation to the highest degree.

“You’re just going to give yourself a heart attack if you keep watching.”

Styke turned his head to find Rezi leaning in the doorway, looking at him with the kind of infuriating pity that one might turn upon a kicked dog.

“I need to watch,” Styke said, looking back out the window.

“Just torturing yourself.”

“That’s kind of the point.”

“Oh, come on.” Rezi crossed the room and leaned on his shoulder, casting a glance out the window before trying to pull him away from it. “You’re not going to help anyone by feeling guilty about this.”

“I don’t feel guilty,” Styke said, wishing he’d up and killed Prost. “I feel pissed. I shouldn’t be in this cell, and they shouldn’t be standing out there. It was some damned bad luck.”

“What, that the governor happened to show up a few moments after you broke his brother’s arms?”

“Yeah, that. Or that those cuirassiers even came through here at all. Did you find out why Sirod is here?”

“Like you said, bad damned luck,” Rezi said. “There were some military drills over in Jerrinshire. He was on his way back when he heard his brother was here, so he changed his route to meet up with him.”

Military drills. Styke wanted to spit. He thought of all the rumors coming out of the north. For the most part, Fernhollow had managed to avoid the unrest sweeping the country. And now they had the regional governor marching his bodyguard back and forth through the town like it was some den of dissention that needed to be tamed.

“Look, you stood up for the people,” Rezi said. “That’s your job.”

“Should have let Tel-islo take a beating so the cuirassiers would go on their way,” Styke muttered.

Rezi slipped into Styke’s lap, wiggling to get comfortable and putting her face between his eyes and the window. She was trying to distract him, and he was both annoyed and thankful. “I don’t disagree,” she said. “You should have dealt with Prost in a gentler manner. But you didn’t, and this happened, and we’ll just deal with it.”

Styke twisted his neck to see past Rezi, eliciting a deep sigh from her. “I don’t know the law,” he said. “What’s going to happen next?”

“Let me see,” Rezi said, raising her eyes to the ceiling. “I imagine they’ll do this for the rest of the day, until Sirod gets bored and goes on his way. If he’s satisfied by this little display, he’ll focus his anger on you. If not, he might levy a fine against the mayor or the town.” Rezi clicked her tongue, clearly annoyed by the second thought. “If it’s just you, they’ll probably let you rot here for a few months, then send you to a military tribunal in Landfall. Your punishment will depend on who’s on the tribunal.”

Styke finally stopped looking outside, focusing on Rezi with a scowl. He’d been insubordinate plenty of times in his career, but the army always needed someone like him, and he was a big enough, brave enough monster of a fighter that his indiscretions had always been overlooked. But he’d never pissed off a governor before. “And what,” he asked, “might my punishment be?”

“They probably won’t execute you,” Rezi said with a lopsided smile, indicating that was off the table. “They’ll definitely use you as a political pawn. If it’s convenient to the tribunal, they’ll let you off with a smack on the wrist. If Sirod stacks the tribunal with his own goons, they’ll strip you of your rank and pension.”

Styke grunted. That seemed like the most likely outcome. An inconvenience, surely, but he’d been penniless before. He mentally ticked through his options, preparing for the berating and humiliations he’d have to go through before he was able to walk free and move on with his life. It felt strange to consider a life outside the military after all this time. “I’ll miss the lancers,” he said.

“Oh, stop it,” Rezi said, playfully smacking his cheek. “I’ve never seen a luckier piece of shit than you, so you’ll probably end up getting a shitty commission on the frontier. Which won’t be bad, considering you broke the arms of the governor’s brother.” She said the second half of the sentence with the kind of condescending wonder that most people reserved for questioning a drunk’s antics the morning after a bender. “Why did that seem like a good idea to you, by the way?”

“Ideas didn’t come into it,” Styke replied. He leaned back with a sigh, trying to clear his head of all this anger he couldn’t possibly vent. He let his eyes wander down the front of Rezi’s shirt. “He’s an asshole, and he deserved it.”

Styke finally looked Rezi in the face. She was smiling, and she’d been playful and cheerful, but he could see in her eyes that she was worried. He wondered what fears were going through the back of her head—whether she feared for the town, or for his safety or career, or if she was just getting used to the idea he would likely be whisked away from this place for good.

He wasn’t fond of the idea himself. He liked the town. He liked the people. He quite liked Rezi, though he knew neither of them were the marrying type. Leaving had not, until right now, been on his immediate list of possibilities.

There was a long silence as they both contemplated this future, and Rezi glanced away as the band marched beneath the window once more. “You’d think,” she muttered, “that Sirod would have better things to do.”

“Where is he, anyway?”

“He’s making the mayor put on a lavish feast for the officers, and from what I understand, he’s being a real dick about it.”

“Playing to his strengths.”

“Pretty much.” Rezi paused. “But really, he has better things to do.”

“Like?”

“You didn’t see a newspaper this morning?”

Styke rolled his eyes. “I only ever take my morning paper after breaking the arms of a Kez officer. No, I haven’t seen a newspaper.”

“You’re friends with the governor of Redstone, aren’t you?”

“Lindet?”

“Yeah, her.”

Styke considered the question for a moment, not entirely certain he wanted to hear what Rezi had to say next. “It’s a little more complicated than friends, but I suppose I am.”

“She disbanded the Kez garrison.”

“You’re joking,” Styke said, unable to hide his disbelief. Lindet had bigger stones than any man he’d ever met, but that seemed like going too far, even for her. “Is that within her power?”

“She raised her own colonial militia and disbanded the garrison at the point of a bayonet.”

Styke glanced out the window toward the mayor’s house, wondering why Sirod wasn’t halfway to Landfall right now. A colonial governor committing outright treason should have the entire country on alert. And the governor of Landfall definitely shouldn’t be bothering with a backwater like Fernhollow in a moment of national emergency.

“Same shit, different day,” Rezi offered.

“Maybe,” Styke said uncertainly. Lindet had made a move, and now he was outright nervous. This whole affair with Prost and Sirod might not even matter in a couple of weeks. He lifted his chin, scanning the street, feeling a sudden pressure in his chest that told him everyone outside—Fatrastans and Kez alike—shouldn’t be wasting their time like this. He wanted to walk over to the mayor’s house and give Sirod a shake.

Rezi took his face between her hands and forcibly turned it away from the window. She wiggled her hips, settling further into his lap. “Come on,” she said. “Don’t worry about this shit. If they’re going to take you away, we can at least enjoy the time we’ve got left.”

The statement made Styke’s heart fall a little. He smiled at Rezi, and she leaned close and spoke in his ear.

“The cot in my office is very sturdy.”

Styke stood, lifting Rezi bodily. She laughed, wrapping her legs around his waist, and he began to carry her toward the open cell door. He paused for a moment to adjust his grip, and his eyes fell on something outside the window. He saw lines of citizens standing in the dust, and toward the back of one of those lines he saw a young woman—fifteen or sixteen—bend over and pluck something off the ground. Her arm cocked back, and a stone flew from her hand.

It struck one of the governor’s bodyguards right in the temple. The man’s head wobbled strangely before he slowly, ponderously, slid from his saddle and collapsed to the ground.

That’s when all pit broke loose.

Later that night, Styke half dozed on the jail cell bench, jumping at every noise he heard in the darkness outside. His body was soaked with the sweat of a hot, angry evening, and his fingers twitched with the desire to put his hands on a knife, a sword, a lance—or just around someone’s throat.

It was almost 3 a.m. when he finally heard the thump of boots on the stairs of the jailhouse. He forced himself awake and turned his head toward the cell door, where the light of a lantern danced its way up the staircase and soon illuminated the entirety of the cell.

Rezi was a mess. Her skin was covered in a sheen of dusty sweat, her black hair frazzled in every direction. Her clothes were caked in mud. There was even a long, painful-looking gash extending from her thumb all the way along the back of her forearm to the elbow. She set the lantern on a shelf just outside of the cell and pushed the door open, trudging in to drop onto the bench next to Styke.

Styke opened his mouth to speak, but found he had nothing to say. He put his arm around her shoulder, still feeling his fingers twitch with the rage he dared not expend.

Rezi’s last words to him had been, “Don’t you move a goddamn muscle from this room!” before she had sprinted out of the jail and into the growing riot outside. It had started at about one o’clock in the afternoon with the rock thrown by that young girl. By the silence outside—and Rezi’s presence—things had finally settled down. Styke craned his neck to look out one of the windows, only to find darkness looking back at him.

“I’m sorry,” he finally said.

“Did you throw that stone?” she snapped back.

“No.”

“Then it’s not your fault.”

“The whole thing…”

“Shut your mouth, Benjamin, or I will leave you in this room to starve to death.”

Rezi ran her hands through her hair. Styke wanted to pull her closer, to do something to comfort her, but her movements were stiff and unwelcoming, and he was afraid she might just follow through on her promise if he pushed any further than a reassuring arm. He pushed back against his own feelings—his guilt over the escalation, his frustration of not being able to head out there and knock heads together, and his cold anger at Sirod for making things even worse.

After some time, Rezi put her head on Styke’s shoulder.

“What’s the damage?” Styke whispered.

“Seventeen dead,” Rezi said mechanically. “Four of those were Kez soldiers. Two were lancers. The rest were citizens. Thirty-nine wounded. Mostly citizens.”

“Which lancers?” Styke asked.

“Hap and Gunny.”

Styke scowled. Hap was a dim sort, not very good at much of anything, but enthusiastic. Gunny was cheerful, always ready with a joke, and the best shot in the company with a carbine at full gallop. Both would be badly missed. He suppressed a sigh and waited for Rezi to continue.

“Chatterline’s farm burned down.”

Styke had thought he’d smelled smoke earlier. “The Kez?”

“No. Freak accident during the chaos. No one was hurt in the blaze, but she lost two cows, a barn, and the better part of her house.” Rezi forced Styke to sit up straight. Then she lay across the bench so that her head was in Styke’s lap. “Someone threw a rock at Sirod’s bodyguards. Caught the poor bastard right in the temple and knocked him out cold. He slipped, fell, and broke his neck when he landed. I can’t really piece together what happened next. The soldiers panicked and charged into the citizens. More rocks were thrown. There weren’t any gunshots, thank Kresimir, but there was a lot of trampling and throwing and cutting.”

“Your lancers were good,” she continued. “They put themselves between the soldiers and the citizens, but it was just too damned late.”

“So what happened?”

“It took hours to get everything back under control. Took a few more to convince Sirod that he should leave town and take his soldiers with them for their own safety. He left just before dark, and I’ve spent every moment since trying to assess the damage and letting everyone burn out their anger.”

Styke was nothing short of impressed that she hadn’t killed anyone in a rage. He knew damn well that if he’d been in her place, the town square would be filled with Kez corpses and he’d either be dead or well on his way to hiding out on the frontier. “They’re gone, then?”

“The soldiers?”

“Yeah.”

“Hours ago,” Rezi confirmed. “I’ve spent the whole night trying to calm down the citizens. But the governor was pissed. I could tell he took the whole thing as a personal affront. Took me and the mayor to convince him not to burn the whole town down.”

Styke looked down at Rezi, wondering if he should point out that the governor would likely be back, and with far more men. At the very least, Fernhollow was going to get a Kez garrison—and the added expense of having to support them. At the most… well, Styke wasn’t sure of the extent of Sirod’s rage. Sirod was a cold, calculating bastard. He only cared for the things that might affect his reputation. An event like this… well, it was bound to get back to the King’s court eventually.

Styke would find out the extent of the damage when a military tribunal sent for him. He thought back to the news that Lindet had dismissed the Redstone garrison, and he dared to hope that today would be forgotten in the face of larger problems across the country.

He decided that this was not the time to discuss more bad news with Rezi. There’d be plenty of time for that going forward, as he sat in this cell waiting for a summons from Landfall.

“I think you should go,” Rezi suddenly said.

“Huh?”

“Break the cell door. Slip out in the night. Fill your saddlebags, take Deshnar, and get the pit out of here.”

The same thought had crossed Styke’s mind over the last few hours, but he was surprised that it had crossed Rezi’s. She was far more law-abiding than he was. “I won’t leave you to take the heat for that.”

“I damn well didn’t say I would,” Rezi snorted. “That’s why I’m telling you to escape, rather than to just walk out.”

Styke almost laughed. He considered the option, leaning his head back against the cool brick wall and running his fingers through Rezi’s sweaty hair. He could go to Redstone. See if Lindet wanted herself a lancer. His thoughts began to follow that road when he noticed something off. The cell was no longer lit by the lantern alone. He could see a harsh, orange light dancing on the ceiling. He looked over his shoulder out the window and accidentally threw Rezi to the floor when he shot to his feet.

Across the city square, the mayor’s house was on fire. The conflagration consumed the entirety of the home’s façade, and he could see figures running to and fro in the flickering light. He opened his mouth to say something to Rezi when he noticed that, several blocks away, the local church was also on fire.

“What the pit did you do…” Rezi trailed off as she cleaned herself off the floor. They both stared, dumbfounded, at the growing fire. “What is going on?” Rezi whispered. She ran for the stairs just as there was a loud crash from below them.

“That was the door,” Styke warned as Rezi opened the cell.

“I know,” she snapped, taking one long step into her office and returning with a big, fixed-blade boz knife in her hand. There was a shout downstairs, and the angry thump of footsteps. Rezi leapt for the stairs and Styke found himself following her involuntarily.

There was a strangled gurgle in the stairwell. Styke froze, his hands on the bars of the cell, watching as Rezi came to a sudden stop. “Rezi?” he called.

She stiffened, then seemed to suddenly float back up the stairs, coming so quickly that Styke took half a step back. She reached the top of the stairs and was thrown backwards, sprawling on the landing and revealing the two men who had just shoved her up the stairs on the end of their bayonets. Styke stared down at Rezi’s unmoving body, then at the four soldiers who rushed up to take the landing, spreading out with bayoneted muskets pointed at the barred cell door. They trampled her underfoot, not even giving her a second glance.

Styke recognized one of the soldiers. It was Sergeant Gracely, the Kez who’d insulted him in the street two mornings before. Her mouth was drawn into a thin, grim line. “That’s him,” she said, brandishing her musket.

Styke stared down at Rezi. Then he looked at Gracely, and back to Rezi.

“Shoot him in the knees,” Gracely ordered. “Captain wants him to burn.”

Styke braced his hands on the ceiling, lashing out with a leg and every ounce of his strength. The cell door, still unlocked and part open, crashed into—and then through—its own frame and off the hinges. The weighty iron smashed into the row of muskets, and two panicked shots in the small space made Styke’s ears ring.

He didn’t know whether he’d been hit, and he didn’t care. He followed the door out of the cell. One of the four soldiers tumbled down the stairs, while the other three were knocked down onto the floor of Rezi’s office. Styke bent over the closest, grasping him by the throat and squeezing hard, crushing the bastard’s windpipe. He grabbed the musket of a second as it was aimed at him and with a deft twist pulled off the musket’s ring bayonet. He flipped it around and buried it in the soldier’s eye.

Gracely lay underneath the bulk of the cell door’s weight, her musket trapped. She tried to free her weapon in vain, glancing up at Styke in a panic as he stepped over her.

“I didn’t want to,” she insisted. “But orders…”

“Prost did this?” Styke demanded. The light from the burning buildings outside now completely illuminated the room, and he could only imagine that the whole town would soon be in flames.

“Yes,” Gracely said. “I mean, no. Prost is giving commands, but Sirod ordered it.”

“Why?” Styke demanded, listening to the movement of the soldier in the stairwell.

“He was humiliated! You can’t cross the governor’s family like this!”

“Where’s Prost?”

“He’s burning down the mayor’s house. Look, Styke, I was just following orders. You would have done the same!”

“No,” Styke said. He bent and lifted the iron door off of Gracely with both hands. “I wouldn’t have. I may be a monster, but at least I have standards.” Gracely tried to bring her musket to bear, but Styke flipped the iron door up and brought the bottom of it down hard, crushing Gracely’s skull like an egg beneath it. He scooped up her musket, stepped into the stairwell, and unloaded it into the chest of the soldier still trying to find his senses.

Styke tossed aside the musket and knelt down beside Rezi. He was surprised to find her eyes open, her lips moving slightly. He looked down at her stomach. It was a scrambled mess of black blood and guts. Not even a Privileged could save her, not after a bayoneting like that.

“I can’t move,” she whispered.

“Bayonet must have grazed your spine,” Styke said gently.

“Am I dead?”

Styke felt his brow furrow, his chin quiver. His vision was suddenly blurry. “You’re dead,” he confirmed. He reached down, running a finger across Rezi’s cheek.

“How long?”

“You might linger a day, if you’re strong.”

“To the pit with that,” Rezi wheezed. “Don’t make me do that.”

Styke scooped his arms beneath Rezi’s back, lifting her as he stood up, and carefully carried her to the cot in the corner of her office. He set her down and looked at her face. Tears streaked down her cheeks, and her teeth clamped in pain. He marveled that she did not scream.

“I love you, Rezi,” he said, bending and place a kiss on her forehead. He kissed both of her eyes, tasting the tears, and then covered her face with a pillow and leaned on it.

He stayed that way for several minutes, until long after any sign of life had passed from her. His own face was soaked with tears, snot ran over his lips, and his jaw hurt from clenching his teeth. The sound of screams outside finally roused him from his reverie, and he forced himself to stand up. He put the pillow beneath Rezi’s head and straightened her hair, then walked to the landing and fetched her boz knife. With one glance backward, he headed out the door.

He emerged into a flickering vision of the very depths of the pit. The darkness was slashed by buildings all over the city going up in flames. Figures dashed between the buildings, someone loudly trying to form a bucket brigade until her shouts were cut off. Somewhere nearby, a child cried. It was nearly impossible to make sense of the scene.

Styke focused on the screaming, striding past the burning general store to the small, neat house beside it. He found a woman kneeling in the dirt, still wearing her night clothes, cradling the body of her husband as she screamed for help. Her name was Mija, and she and her husband had owned the hardware store that now burned mere feet away. Figures dressed in plain clothes but clearly carrying the muskets of Kez soldiers, ignored her pleas while they looted the home and threw the furniture into the street.

One of the soldiers emerged from the house, carrying a screeching toddler by the leg. Mija let out a wail and leapt to her feet, running toward the soldier, who stiff-armed her and held the toddler at arm’s length as one might a chicken intended for slaughter. The soldier drew his belt knife.

Styke remembered Prost’s reputation—and the reputation of his soldiers—and doubled his pace, striding toward the looters. He was close enough to hear another soldier voice her objection, but the soldier with the toddler just shook his head.

“Orders are orders.”

Styke came out of the darkness quick enough that no one had time to react. He caught the toddler by the other leg and rammed Rezi’s boz knife between the ribs of the soldier. He did a half skip toward the soldier who had objected and disemboweled her with a twist of the knife. Mija stared at him, open-mouthed, as he handed her the child.

“Hide,” he ordered, and went inside her house.

He found three more looters and left their corpses where he killed them. He moved on to the next house, then the next, the rage already so hot inside his chest that he could barely feel it. He slaughtered mechanically, efficiently, without remorse or second thoughts. He killed anyone he didn’t recognize, and he stepped over dozens of bodies that he did, trying not to dwell on the fact that he’d wasted too much time in his grief over Rezi.

He lost count of the soldiers he murdered. At some point he took a heavy cuirassier’s sword off one of the bodies and carried that with him as he stalked like death through the night. There was very little fighting—every soldier he happened upon seemed shocked by any real resistance—and it eventually dawned on Styke that something must have happened to the colonial garrison. The lancers would have seen the flames by now and hurried over.

He wondered if Blye and all the others were already dead. He wondered if these bastards had slaughtered Deshnar.

He continued on, working his way as quickly as possible around the city square toward the mayor’s house. He sent the blacksmith’s family running to hide in the darkness, but he was too late to stop the murder of the young cobbler and her husband. He skipped a house already engulfed in flames and crept around the back of the burning mayor’s house to find a small crowd gathered in the garden.

The mayor was a portly, thoughtful man by the name of Dorezen. He and his family stood at the end of a half dozen musket barrels, forced so close to the flames of their own house that the blaze singed their clothes. Dorezen and his wife tried to shelter the five children from the heat, tears streaming down Dorezen’s face as he stared defiantly at the soldiers who held him there.

Major Prost stood just behind his soldiers, watching impassively as the house burned. His hands were clasped behind his back, and it was clear the Privileged had done an excellent job with the healing because he periodically gestured forcefully toward the house, as if directing a symphony only he could hear.

Styke paused at the edge of the light of the flames, examining the group. There were six soldiers, two sergeants, a captain, and Prost himself. The soldiers watched Dorezen grimly, jaws set, with the looks of men who knew that their orders were distasteful but would follow them anyway. Styke had seen those looks a lot during his time on the frontier.

“You cowardly pigs,” Dorezen spat. “There are people dying out there!”

Prost made another gesture toward the flames. “And you’ll join them if you don’t shut your mouth,” he said. Something collapsed inside the home; then the roof fell in and the flames roared so loudly that Styke couldn’t hear what Prost said next. The sound died down after a few moments. “You will be the only survivors,” he said, “and you will tell everyone that you see from this day forward that Fernhollow was destroyed by Palo.”

“That’s insane!” Dorezen said. “No one will believe it!”

“No one is meant to believe it,” Prost responded. “They are meant to look into your eyes as you lie about the fate of your town and see the fear within. They are meant to know what happens when the Crown is humiliated.” He paused. “There will be no other witnesses; no investigation; no one to counter your story. The newspapers will spread the word, and eventually, no matter how much they believe otherwise, people will start to think that maybe it was the Palo who destroyed Fernhollow. And then, who knows? Perhaps we can unite Kez and Fatrastans against the Palo problem.”

“This is your brother’s doing, isn’t it?” Dorezen demanded.

Prost spun, fixing Dorezen with a glare. “It is mine!”

“No, it’s not. You’re not smart enough to grasp political nuance. You’re a sadist and drunk.”

Styke circled the edge of the firelight until Prost and his soldiers’ backs were to him. He crouched down, thoughtful, leaning on the heavy cavalry sword and noticing for the first time a gash across his shoulder, soaking his shirt with blood.

Prost drew himself up, chest puffed, and snarled at Dorezen. “Do you want to join your friends in the fire? I’ll start with your children, if it helps make my point.”

Styke sprang forward, crossing the distance between him and Prost at a run. He snatched up a sergeant first, slashing his throat with a quick savageness with Rezi’s knife and tossed the body aside. The second sergeant died before the first had stopped moving. The captain turned toward Styke, surprise on his face as Styke discarded Rezi’s knife and lopped off the top of the captain’s skull with a two-handed stroke of the heavy cavalry sword.

Styke stepped past Prost, slamming the hilt of the sword across Prost’s face and falling among the infantry. Two were down before the others even knew what was happening, and the surprise allowed Styke to make short work of the rest. Less than a minute later, he stood panting, chest heaving, his arms, face, and jacket coated in blood. One of the infantry had gotten off a shot, the ball skimming Styke’s shoulder, while another had managed to slash him along the ribs with a bayonet.

“Ben,” Dorezen breathed, while his wife led the children away from the fire.

“Sorry I came so late, Mayor.”

“Ben, I…”

Styke recovered himself and shook his head. “Don’t waste your breath. There’s more of these bastards on the other side of town. Looks like he brought most of his company with him. You should get out of here while you still can.”

Dorezen looked down on Prost, who began to moan and squirm, clutching at his face. Styke had never seen Dorezen utter an ill word about anyone until this night, yet the mayor leaned over and spat on Prost’s face before he and his family hurried into the night without a word. Styke knelt down next to Prost while the Kez major attempted to gather his wits, and didn’t move until he heard the sound of hooves in the darkness. He snatched up the cavalry sword and braced himself for a cuirassier charge, only for the familiar sight of lances and sunflower yellow jackets to emerge into the light.

Blye stared down at Prost and the bodies. “Styke, are you all right?”

“Took you long enough,” Styke grunted.

“Fifty of these assholes tried to barricade the doors to the barracks and set the building on fire. We spent the last twenty minutes slaughtering the bastards. Then we saw the flames and came as quickly as we could.”

Prost managed to roll over onto his hands and knees, attempting to stand. Styke grabbed him by the back of the jacket and lifted him one-handed. “Is that all the fighting you assholes learned out on the frontier? Setting buildings on fire and hoping it does your work for you?”

“What do you know about fighting?” Prost croaked, his feet moving in the air. Styke turned him so that they faced each other. Prost lashed out with one fist. Styke caught the blow and broke that wrist, then shook Prost until he stopped screaming.

“You’re a real arrogant son of a bitch, you know that? How many men do you have with you?” Prost clamped his mouth shut. Styke backhanded him hard. “How many?”

“A hundred and sixty!” Prost squealed.

Styke looked up at Blye. “I killed maybe thirty or forty on the way over here.”

“Kresimir,” Blye breathed.

“The rest are still burning down Fernhollow. Get out there and finish them off. Hunt them down like dogs. Go!”

Blye barked an order and the lancers spread out, heading across the town square at a gallop. Within moments, the sound of a carbine blast sliced the air. Then another. They continued intermittently, and the brief sounds of fighting flared up as the rest of the Kez realized that they were no longer alone.

Styke idly carried Prost over to the fire, as close as he could stand, then held Prost face-first toward the flames. Prost cried and thrashed, trying to escape his grip, until Styke took a few steps back and turned him once more so that they faced each other. “Does that feel good, you cowardly prick?” Styke demanded. He threw Prost to the ground, then kicked him in the stomach hard enough to send him hurtling through the air. He fetched Prost, pulling him from the ground by his hair.

Prost blubbered, his neat goatee singed by the flames, his face coated with blood. He cradled one arm. “I’m a monster, Prost,” Styke said. “I know what I am. But I don’t kill kids or burn civilians. I don’t approve of suffering, either, but for you I’ll make an exception.” He leaned forward until their faces were almost touching. “You came to Fernhollow with two hundred men. Where’s the other forty?”

Prost blabbed so incoherently that Styke made him repeat himself twice. “They’re at camp, six miles north of here. Captain Cardin and everyone else who refused to come with us tonight. They will be court-martialed for insubordination when we return to Landfall.”

“They wouldn’t help you burn women and children, and you’ll have them court-martialed?”

“Insubordination!”

“Your brother gave the order, right?”

Prost’s eyes widened. “Yes. Yes! He gave the orders. He said we needed to protect the family name. That we must be feared, or things will get out of hand.”

“He has no idea what getting out of hand actually means,” Styke said, searching the grass for Rezi’s knife. He found it and wiped it on Prost’s jacket. He knelt down beside Prost, staring thoughtfully at the blade, doing his best to hold at bay the fury and grief that threatened to incapacitate him. “Do you really think you’re going to get back to Landfall alive?”

Prost swallowed hard and raised his chin. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“Dare?” Styke looked around incredulously at the bodies. “I just killed dozens of Kez soldiers and probably five or six officers. Why the pit would I give a shit about one more?” He sighed, closing his eyes, swallowing that grief. He wouldn’t be able to for much longer, so he needed to get on with things. He held Rezi’s knife up between Prost’s eyes. “Now, would you like me to do this after you’re dead? Or do you want a few more minutes of life?”

“Do what?” Prost tried to scramble backwards. He put weight on his broken wrist and screamed. “I want to live,” he wailed.

“Kind of a stupid answer. But I’ll give you a few more minutes while I work.” He raised the knife and began to hum a lancer’s hymn.

Styke buried Rezi on a hill outside of town, in a spot where the sun came through the willows first thing in the morning. The fires still smoldered all over town, and he stood by the grave for nearly an hour before he walked to the half-burnt barracks and fetched Deshnar from the stables left untouched by the blaze. He brushed Deshnar down, taking his time while he swallowed what was left of his love of this place, and then rode back into the center of Fernhollow.

Ashen-faced citizens stared dumbly at the remnants of their homes. Blye and the mayor attempted to rouse the people to get bodies buried and put out the last of the fires. Styke rode to Tel-islo’s inn, which, ironically, was one of the few places that had survived the raid. Tel-islo stood fearfully in the doorway, blunderbuss in hand, no doubt expecting some reprisal. His wife ran in and out of the door, bringing beer and bread to the wounded.

Blye stood on the stoop of the inn, trying to look like an authority figure and clearly failing. His face was haggard, his eyes red and his shoulders slumped. He told Mija, still cradling her husband’s body, that they needed to bury him soon, then raised his hand in greeting to Styke.

Styke dismounted, tying up Deshnar outside the inn. Blye came close. “These people are shell-shocked. They’ve never seen anything like this.”

“Why would they have?” Styke retorted. He forced himself to remember that Blye was a friend and softened his tone. “It’s never easy the first time. Or the second. You can only get used to it.”

“Some of the men deserted after we slaughtered the Kez last night,” Blye said. “They ran scared. I can’t blame them. There will be consequences for this.”

“I don’t blame them either,” Styke said. “Let them go. Forget they were here.”

“I…” Blye fumbled on his words, scratching his head as he looked down the street at the burnt husk of what had once been a sleepy town. “We were right to fight back, weren’t we? If the Kez come, they’ll court-martial us, but we were just protecting ourselves.”

“We were,” Styke confirmed.

“Then how can . . . ?”

“I wouldn’t worry too much about the morality of this whole thing. Have the Kez ever struck you as moral stewards of Fatrasta?” It was a moment of rare naivety for Blye, but Styke let it pass. Much had changed since last night. He scowled down the road, catching sight of movement. A few moments later, he could make out a large column on horseback. He recognized the yellow jackets of his men, but among them were the green and tan of Kez soldiers and the gleam of breastplates.

“I sent some of our boys to round up Captain Cardin, like you asked,” Blye explained.

Styke waited until the large group—nearly a hundred, including his lancers and Cardin’s cuirassiers—came to a stop in the middle of the road. The lancers were tight-lipped and bleary-eyed, having ridden all night to fetch Cardin. The cuirassiers stared around them like men haunted, and Cardin himself attempted to remain stately while looking like he was on the verge of tears. Citizens stared at the cuirassiers in the deepening silence, and Styke stepped forward before anyone could gather their wits enough to form a mob.

“None of you participated in what happened last night,” Styke said loudly, as much for the ears of the citizens as for the cuirassiers. “You all disobeyed your commanding officer because it was the right thing to do. Major Prost has ordered you court-martialed for this offense. Correct?”

The cuirassiers nodded glumly.

“Dismount,” Styke ordered. The cuirassiers looked between them, and more than one hand twitched toward their weapons.

“You heard him!” Cardin croaked. “Dismount!” Cardin was the first to do so, planting his feet at attention and standing beside his horse as if he were up for review. The rest slowly complied. Styke could see the uncertainty in their eyes.

“Weapons and breastplates,” Styke said, pointing to the ground at his feet. “Pile them here.”

No one moved. “Are you going to kill us?” someone called fearfully.

Styke repeated himself. Cardin approached, unbuckling his breastplate and throwing it at Styke’s feet, then his carbine, musket, and sword. A line formed, and one by one each of the cuirassiers followed suit. When they had almost finished, Styke turned to Blye. “Have some of the boys fetch wood from the smoldering buildings. Make me a big damned fire in the square.”

It didn’t take long, and soon the flames licked the branches of the big oak trees, and the cuirassiers stood unarmed and at attention in a single line. The rest of the citizens—those who had not fled completely—gathered on the outskirts of the square. Nearly a thousand pairs of eyes watched, and from the muttering, they weren’t certain whether they were watching an execution or something else.

“Remove your jacket,” Styke told Cardin.

Cardin obeyed without a word. He held it out to Styke, who did not take it.

Cardin looked at Styke, then looked at the fire. He fingered the stars at the lapels, then with a look of disgust he strode over and flung his cavalry jacket into the flames. The rest of the soldiers, clearly realizing that this was not an execution, began to strip off their jackets.

Styke turned his back on the spectacle and found Mayor Dorezen watching from the still-smoldering remnants of his home. “I’m surprised you spared them,” Dorezen said.

“They refused to attack us,” Styke said. “They disobeyed that unhinged piece of shit. They’re not our enemies.” He glanced at the remnants of Dorezen’s house and wondered if the mayor blamed him for this whole sequence of events. It had started and ended with Prost, but Styke was the connecting piece between them. He wished for the hundredth time that he had kept his temper—and for the hundredth time he knew he couldn’t have stood aside while Prost beat Tel-islo to death.

Styke continued, “You should take everyone from here and go. As soon as Sirod finds out what’s happened here, he’s going to send a whole brigade to stamp out any witnesses.”

“Holdenshire has offered us shelter,” Dorezen said.

Holdenshire was the next town over. They were close enough that they would have seen the flames last night. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Styke said.

“What can we do?” Dorezen scoffed, his eyes red. “Where can we go? Even if we go a hundred miles, it won’t make a difference. Sirod will find us eventually.”

“As soon as you’ve buried the dead, you need to collect what valuables you can and head northwest. If you get out of Sirod’s territory, he’s less likely to chase you down. Tell everyone you meet what happened here. Make sure that stamping out the survivors will gain him nothing.”

“Northwest?”

“Governor Lindet ejected the Kez garrison from Redstone. I imagine she’ll be sympathetic. Tell her that I sent you.”

Dorezen still seemed uncertain, but Styke had said his peace. He turned to go, then offered one more thought. “These cuirassiers… don’t let anyone attack them. They were innocent of this. Have them help bury the dead, and send them on their way.” With that, he left the mayor and headed back to Blye, only to find the whole group of cuirassiers, Cardin included, were going off on separate tangents in Kez.

Blye leaned over to Styke. “They’re renouncing their military oaths to Kez.”

“I can hear that,” Styke said, raising his eyebrows. He hadn’t asked that, nor had he expected it. Most of these men would probably change their names and rejoin the Kez armies in some far away places, hoping this blew over. The sight of the town must have affected them deeper than he expected. “I think you should take the men to Redstone,” Styke suggested.

“Huh? You’re not coming with us?”

“No, I’m not going with you. You’ll do well in Redstone, and you can tell the governor there I sent you.”

“Where are you going?”

Styke walked over to Deshnar and untied him from the post. He tapped the side of a canvas bag hanging from his saddle horn. It dripped ominously. “I’m going to take Sirod what’s left of his brother. Then I’m going to cut out his spine and show it to him.”

Styke left Fernhollow on his own, and it took him two days to reach Landfall. The capital city sat upon an enormous plateau on the coast, overlooking miles of floodplains and the Pelos Ocean. Styke entered the suburbs from the south, the plateau rising nearly two hundred feet above him. It was almost two miles across and topped by houses, tenements, government buildings, and more.

Unlike the cities of the Nine, Landfall was a more recent creation. A few hundred years ago it held little more than a town, a fort, and a lighthouse. Only in the last eighty years or so had the population exploded and the city overflowed so that suburbs spilled onto the floodplains.

Styke had last been in Landfall over the winter, and even in the suburbs he could feel that a change had come over the city. He listened as he rode, picking up on local rumors—that the port might be closed soon, that Governor Sirod had mentioned martial law. Everyone walked with their eyes down and their shoulders hunched, whispering to each other in the alleys while newsie boys claimed calamity to sell their stacks of papers.

He avoided the main avenues where the Kez grenadiers patrolled the streets, and instead circled through the suburbs at the base of the plateau and caught a keelboat down the Gorge River. He disembarked in Greenfire Depths—the old quarry-turned-slum—and led Deshnar on foot up the switchbacks that took him straight into the center of the city.

Not far from the Depths was a bar that hung precariously over the gorge. It was marked with a yellow sign proclaiming it to be Canyonview Spirits and Livery. Most people would pass Canyonview and assume from its daring location and ramshackle appearance that it had seen better days, that it had maybe even once been a place of fashion for the daring drinker. Styke was privy to the knowledge that it had been built exactly like this only a few years ago. There had never been better days, and there never would be. The owner liked the look, and she liked the location.

He left Deshnar with one of the kids that counted as a groom and headed inside, a tiny part of his stomach lurching as he stepped off firm ground and onto the floor suspended almost entirely over the edge of the gorge. It creaked angrily under his weight.

Canyonview’s owner was a tiny, yellow-toothed woman of indeterminately advanced years with a shock of white hair and a mean streak as deep as the gorge. There were rumors that anyone who couldn’t pay their tab were tossed out a hatch beneath the bar, screaming their way into the gorge below. Before Canyonview, she had been a lancer—and a damned good one.

“Afternoon, Benjamin,” she said as he took his seat.

“How are you, Sunintiel?” he asked, sliding a coin across the bar and stretching his arms. He glanced around the half-full place, seeing more than a few eyes squinting in his direction.

Sunin cocked her head to one side and poured him a brown liquid out of a green bottle. “I thought you were dead.”

“I’m not sure why.” He lifted the glass she’d poured him and looked through the murky liquid. “What the pit is this?”

She beamed at him. “Made it myself.”

“It smells awful.” Styke took a sip and nearly spit it all over Sunin’s smiling face. “It tastes awful.” Someone had once tricked him into taking a shot of rancid whale oil. It tasted like that, only worse.

Her grin broadened. “I saved you a bottle.”

“I don’t want a bottle. I want a beer, and news.”

Sunin thumped a bottle onto the bar between them, pushing it below his nose. “You’re supposed to be dead,” she repeated.

“You mentioned that. Why?” Sunin nodded at the bottle. Reluctantly, Styke slid a few coins across the bar. She scowled at the coins, nudging them around with one bent finger as if counting them.

“I’m not paying you any more for that shit,” he told her.

Sunin scooped up the coins. “You’re supposed to be dead because Governor Sirod came through Landfall last night with the news that a renegade tribe of Palo slaughtered the Fernhollow garrison and burned the town to the ground.” She leaned forward, squinting at his face. “So either he’s telling a fib, or you’re a survivor. Or you got transferred recently, in which case I’m sorry to give you the news that Fernhollow is gone.” She put her elbow on the bar in a clear so give me your news gesture.

Styke finished off the shot of brown liquid, doing his best not to hurl all over Sunin’s clean bar, and let her stew in her curiosity. “What’s the fallout of this news?” he asked.

“Hmph,” Sunin said. “It’s gotten partially buried among all the other bad news. You hear that Redstone is in open revolt?”

“I heard that Lindet ejected the Kez garrison.”

“Well, that’s the real news today. She’s gone two steps further and claimed independence from the Kez crown. Stirring up a real hornet’s nest around here.”

“So nobody even cares about Fernhollow?” Styke asked, feeling his heart fall a little. It might have been a quiet, backwater town, but it had been his for a while.

“Oh, people care,” Sunin said. “Last night I had a rough crew of colonial skirmishers in here drinking till sunup. Said they were gonna go lynch some Palo, then volunteer for service on the frontier.”

Styke grunted. The thought made him sick. Colonials should know better. A “renegade tribe of Palo” was a weak story. Any Palo this far south were what a lot of Fatrastans liked to refer to as “domesticated.” They’d adopted city life, keeping their heads down and trying to make a living like anyone else. The violent tribes were way too far north to bother with a little place like Fernhollow.

“So were you there?” Sunin asked. “What really happened?”

Styke reached inside his jacket and produced a scrap of cloth that he’d taken off the body of a cuirassier back in Fernhollow. He laid it out on the bar.

“What’s that?” Sunin’s smile faltered slightly.

Styke ignored the question. “You know who Nons je Prost was?”

“Yeah.” Sunin drew the word out hesitantly. “Sirod’s bastard brother.”

“On Sirod’s orders, Prost’s company of cuirassiers burned down Fernhollow and slaughtered a couple hundred people—men, women, children. They tried to burn down the barracks, but the lancers managed to fight their way out and save what was left of the town.”

Sunin’s smile slid off her face completely. “Kresimir,” she breathed. “Why?”

“An insult.”

“An insult?” she echoed.

“Prost beat on the local innkeep for asking him to pay his tab. I broke Prost’s arms. Things… escalated from there.”

“That’s quite the escalation.” Sunin fell silent, clearing contemplating the consequences of what Styke had just told her. “So the governor doesn’t know that his brother’s attack wasn’t successful?”

“Nor that his brother and his whole company are corpses in the ashes of Fernhollow,” Styke confirmed. He decided to leave Cardin out of the story. Cardin was a deserter now, and he deserved a head start.

“You’re a wanted man,” Sunin said, eying the current patrons of the bar.

“I will be,” Styke said, “as soon as the governor hears what actually happened. You going to turn me in?”

“Pit, no. I want to keep my skin. But I can’t speak for any of these fools.” She gestured subtly at the patrons of her bar. “You should run, Ben. Get out of here before word spreads. I can lend you a little money and send you with some feed for Deshnar, but you’ve got to get out—”

Styke cut her off. “Prost’s men killed Rezi.”Sunin’s lips continued to move, but no sound came out. She swallowed hard and took a half step back. “What you gonna do?” she asked in a whisper.

Styke took out Rezi’s knife. He used it to pop the cork on the bottle of foul liquid Sunin had made him buy, then upended the bottle over his mouth. He downed about half of it in a single go, then slid the bottle over to Sunin while the warmth of the alcohol deadened the knot in the pit of his stomach.

“I’m going to make a delivery. Also, I need a favor.” He tapped the scrap of cloth he’d laid out on the bar. “This is Prost’s company colors. I want you to repeat that story I just told you. Get it moving. By tonight, I want everyone in Landfall to know what the governor did. Use these colors as proof.” Sirod seemed unconcerned with the revolution in Redstone. Angry citizens on his doorstep, however, would no doubt get his attention.

“Do you want him to come after you?”

“Yes. Yes, I do.”

Styke left Landfall within the hour, stopping only to purchase a small, waterproof sea chest. He filled it with the contents of the stinking, fly-blown sack that had been tied to his saddle horn for two days. He tied up the chest and rode on, hoping to stay ahead of the news that Fernhollow—and he—had survived Prost’s assault.

The tension within Landfall extended through the remaining suburbs and into the towns along the banks of the Hadshaw as he headed upriver. It seemed that everyone he met asked for news with a guilty duck of the head, hoping to find out something valuable that might let them ride out this new revolution growing in Redstone.

Late in the evening, Styke spotted a large gathering in the center of one such small town. He paused, curious as to what could get the attention of sixty or seventy people, and cautiously directed Deshnar off the highway and toward the town center.

It didn’t take long to see what was happening. The crowd seemed subdued, watching as a handful of agitated men and women raised some kind of ruckus next to a big oak tree. A rope hung from the tree, suspending a noose around the neck of a young Palo man who stood on a crate just high enough that he wasn’t yet hanging.

Styke rode up beside a little girl who watched the proceedings from a store stoop. “What did he do?” he asked.

“Dunno,” the girl said, not taking her eyes off the scene. “Da says he didn’t do nuthin’, but the city elders claim he burnt down Fernhollow. Says he’s been actin’ all suspicious-like.”

“No one’s speaking up for him?”

“Nah. He’s just an orphan boy. Been workin’ the cotton fields for the last few years, but he likes to fight, so Da says it might be best just to let ’im hang.”

Styke felt his lip curl. Whatever was being said at the front of the crowd was finished, and a barrister kicked the crate from beneath the Palo’s feet. The Palo dropped a few inches, immediately beginning to strangle.

Styke clicked his tongue, leading Deshnar into the middle of the street before letting out a “Yah!” and digging his knees into Deshnar’s sides. The horse leapt beneath him and galloped full speed into the crowd of townsfolk. The crowd scattered before the sound of his charge. He reached the oak tree, circling it twice, driving back the few angry mob leaders before standing up in the stirrups and severing the rope with Rezi’s knife.

Styke dug his knees in again, urging Deshnar into a gallop around the oak again and again, in increasingly wide circles, nearly running down anyone who tried to approach the recovering Palo.

When the crowd finally seemed to get the message, he reined in beside the Palo and looked down. “What’s your name?”

The young man couldn’t have been more than fifteen or sixteen—a boy, really. He was of medium height and had the kind of lean, muscular hardness brought on by a life of physical labor. He had sharp cheekbones, giving his face a perpetually sinister look, and his freckles were so emphasized by a life in the sun that his whole face was ashen with them. He wore a cotton suit, the jacket torn, and his face was bloody. He rubbed his neck and looked up at Styke.

“Henrich,” he coughed. “Henrich Jackal.”

“What kind of a Palo name is Henrich?”

“It’s the one I chose.”

“You should go, Jackal,” Styke said.

“He’s ours to hang as we see fit,” someone shouted from the crowd.

Styke turned to find a red-faced woman dressed like a barrister—the one who’d kicked Jackal’s crate from beneath him. Styke sniffed. “What he do, sleep with your daughter?”

The woman gave a strangled cry and leapt forward. In the time it took her to reach Styke, he had unlimbered his lance and lowered it. She skidded to a stop mere inches from its tip.

“Where’s the town constable?” Styke demanded, sweeping his gaze around the crowd. There was no answer, and he asked twice more before someone finally responded.

“He went into Landfall a couple of hours ago.”

Styke snorted. He’d seen that kind of thing plenty of times; a sheriff or constable “stepping out” just ahead of a bit of mob justice so they don’t have to get their hands dirty or say no to a mob.

“And the garrison?” he asked.

“They don’t want to get involved. This is a local matter,” someone else shouted.

Typical. “So did he actually do anything worth hanging?” Styke asked.

There was a very long silence, and no one wanted to meet his eyes. Styke thought of what Sunin had told him—about the drunk colonials looking for Palo to lynch—and wondered how many Palo had died in the last twelve hours because of the governor’s fearmongering. Sirod wanted to turn the people’s attention toward the Palo, to distract them with a fictional enemy. It was working.

“I thought as much,” Styke grunted, raising his lance. “You’ve got better things to do than take out your problems on the Palo—because that’s just going to make everything worse.” He jerked his head at Jackal. “With me.”

Styke remained unmolested as he returned to the highway and continued north, the Palo walking beside him. They left the town far behind. Styke eventually brought Deshnar to a stop and leaned on the saddle horn, looking down at the sullen, silent boy.

Jackal stared back at him for some time before finally saying in a quiet, stoic voice, “I did.”

“You did what?”

“I slept with the barrister’s daughter. But I didn’t force her.”

Styke scoffed. “Good for you. You might want to work on your timing, though. Governor’s stirred everyone up against the Palo. There’s going to be a lot of this sort of shit the next few months.”

“I didn’t know about Fernhollow when it happened. I’m not stupid.”

“Well, continue being not stupid and get out of here.”

Jackal gave a nod of thanks and headed off the road, disappearing into the marshlands. Styke wondered if the boy would be a fool and circle back around to try and retrieve valuables—or the girl in question—from the town, or if he’d be smart about it and head toward the frontier as fast as his feet would carry him. It wasn’t Styke’s problem anymore.

Styke’s own journey carried him another three miles north before he crossed the river and headed west. The landscape quickly grew more varied—strips of willows marching along streams that broke up the cotton fields; rolling hills; and the immense plantation manors that belonged to ex-patriot Kez noblemen and successful Fatrastan merchants.

It was about three hours later that he found himself along a narrow road underneath a line of big willows, viewing a distant manor from across a field of tobacco. The manor was built in the same style as any plantation house in this part of the world—a two-story brick building with a columned porch, large white door, and big, shuttered windows marching across the face of both floors. It was, however, much bigger than most plantation houses. Wings of the manor had their own wings, and it seemed to creep into the distance like some kind of noble’s estate. The kennels off to one side were bigger than the barracks where Styke had lodged three hundred lancers, while the museum at the far end of the valley housed an infamous art collection that was rumored to be the envy of Kressian nobles.

The governor of the Landfall region of Fatrasta had, in short, done very well for himself.

Styke watched as a group on horseback came around from the side of the house to the front drive, where one of them dismounted and went inside. There were about twenty of them, and they all wore the little red feathers of the governor’s bodyguard.

These weren’t cheap Kez cuirassiers with little experience and less bravery. These were handpicked men, many of whom came straight from the grenadiers. Maybe not the equal of, say, Adran riflemen, but they were more than Styke wanted to wrestle in broad daylight.

Styke turned in the saddle, glancing back to see a wagon trundling toward him. He had passed it a few minutes before, and now he waited until it caught up and hailed the frail-looking man smoking a pipe in the driver’s seat. “Are you heading to the governor’s residence?” Styke asked.

“I am. Delivering salted fish from the Landfall market.” The old man squinted at Styke. “Boy, you’re a big one.”

Styke fished a few coins from his pocket and bent to hand them to the old man. “Do me a favor and deliver something for me. A gift for the governor.”

“Can’t deliver it yourself?”

Styke winced. “Used to sleep with the head maid of the household. She swore she’d shoot me if she ever saw me again.”

“All right, then. I’ll take your money. For the governor, you say?”

“It goes to him personally.” Styke untied the sea chest that he’d lashed to his saddlebags. “Tell him that it’s from a Major Prost.”

Styke woke up from a dream in which fires danced in the ruins of Landfall. He lay in the damp grass, hidden beside a stream in one of the long, thin groves of willow trees that divided the cotton fields a few miles north of the governor’s mansion. He felt sweat on his brow and a sharp pain like a bug bite on his left forearm. He swatted at the bug bite and rolled over.

He’d only just gotten comfortable when his eyes flew open, the sleep gone from him, at the sound of a soft grunt. He rolled to his knees, Rezi’s knife coming to hand, and he squinted into the darkness.

Two dark forms thrashed in the long grass. He caught the raised glint of a knife and dove forward, wrestling it away from the hand that held it, then threw his weight onto the two figures, pushing them both back until they lay one on the other with Styke’s knee on the chest of the one on top.

As his eyes adjusted, he quickly ascertained that the figure with the knife was being choked by the second figure that now lay on the bottom of the heap. The first was a woman, the second, on bottom, a muscular youth.

The second, he realized with a start, was the Palo boy, Jackal.

“Explain,” he said, pressing the knife to the woman’s throat.

She remained silent.

“I followed you at a distance,” Jackal said quickly. “This one was dispatched from the governor’s mansion not long after you passed it. She has been following you. She tried to cut you, so I will now kill her.”

The woman gave a strangled cry and began to thrash. Styke pressed his blade closer to her neck. “What is this? Do you work for the governor?”

“Don’t trust this boy,” the woman hissed. “I am…” she trailed off, and Styke snorted.

“If you’re not good at excuses, have one ready before you botch a job. Answer quickly if you want to live: Did the governor send you?”

There was a distinct erk sound, and she choked out, “Yes, yes he did!”

“Then why didn’t you slit my throat?”

The woman remained silent for some time, until Styke put slightly more weight on the knee on her chest. “I was sent to poison you. The governor wanted you intact to display to the world. We would slit your wrists later and tell everyone you killed yourself from shame.”

Styke scoffed. The idea that Sirod had an assassin at his beck and call was incredible for a provincial governor, but somehow unsurprising. Styke stood up, jerking the woman out of Jackal’s grip and quickly shoving her across the clearing. If she had poison on her, he would need to strip her down and examine everything she had on her. He didn’t relish the idea of this kind of work. Killing her would be simpler, but leaving her alive would send a strong message back to the governor: I don’t fear your minions. In Styke’s experience, the enemy’s terror was always worth the effort.

“Everything off,” he told her, pointing to the ground between them.

She peered at him, her face looking genuinely confused in the darkness. “I will not.” He suddenly felt tired and irritable, and wondered if maybe he should just kill her.

“That or the knife,” Styke offered. “I’m not going to touch you, but I damn well won’t let you get a chance with that poison.”

The woman seemed to consider this for a very long moment before removing her jacket. She laid it on the ground, every movement done with exaggerated slowness, and Styke wondered suddenly why she was taking so damned long to do everything.

“Faster,” he ordered.

She stopped, staring at him intently for several seconds. “Why aren’t you dying?” she demanded.

“Eh?” Styke didn’t have the chance to ask her what she meant before she leapt forward, a hidden weapon flashing.

He used Rezi’s knife to take off the woman’s hand at the wrist, then buried the blade in her heart. She was dead before she could scream, and Styke pushed the body off the knife and cleaned it on her jacket, feeling more than a little annoyed.

“You should have let me finish her,” Jackal said, picking himself off the grass.

“It’s done either way,” Styke said. He used the tip of Rezi’s knife to nudge the assassin’s jacket, trying to see if there was anything in the pockets. He would have to search her in the morning. “Why did you follow me?”

“It seemed like a good idea.”

“That’s it?”

“I couldn’t go home. I don’t know anyone to the north. You’re Ben Styke, aren’t you? The one they say died at Fernhollow.”

“I am.”

“You’re not dead. That seemed like good luck, so I decided to follow you.”

Styke snorted. Far be it from him to contradict a Palo’s instincts. He didn’t for a moment think that Jackal was in on the attempted murder. The boy had saved his life, that much was obvious, and for that Styke was grateful. He should send him off, though. He didn’t need a Palo whelp hanging around. He would, however, wait until morning.

“Hide the body,” Styke said, “I’m going to sleep a hundred yards downstream.”

“You have a scratch on your arm,” Jackal observed.

Styke’s mouth was suddenly dry. He remembered the bug bite and touched his forearm, his fingers coming away with a few drops of blood.

“It’s nothing,” he said.

Styke shivered violently despite the morning heat, arms wrapped around himself and wearing his extra cavalry jacket, while his extra pair of pants were draped around his shoulders. Sweat poured down his brow and soaked his clothing, leaving him sitting a in a sodden patch of grass with his saddle as a pillow. He stared across at Jackal, his eyes having trouble focusing. His skin hurt, and everything that touched him felt like the jab of a thousand needles.

It was morning, and Jackal squatted in the grass, watching him back. “We can’t start a fire,” he said. “They’re looking for you.”

“I’m aware,” Styke said, his teeth chattering. He could barely lift his head, barely move his mouth. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so incredibly helpless. He wondered, if a squad of grenadiers stumbled upon them right now, if he’d even be able to stand up.

“You can speak.”

“Very observant,” Styke replied.

“That’s good,” Jackal said, looking slightly put off by Styke’s sarcasm. “The poison should have killed you by now.”

Styke readjusted his second jacket to better cover his chest, every movement causing pain. He slowly pulled back his jacket sleeve to look at the scratch on his arm. It was barely the scrape of a needle, already clotted over and well on the way to healing. “Do you know what it is?”

Jackal watched him for a few moments. He had a dour look on his face, and Styke couldn’t tell if that was his natural expression, a result of his recent attempted lynching, or if he was just a teenager. Styke was beginning to think Jackal wouldn’t answer when the boy finally said, “I think it is fallow root.”

“How do you know?” The name was vaguely familiar to Styke. He knew what fallow looked like, and had been told by a Palo guide long ago that he could eat the leaves while foraging but to never touch the white stem, nor the root.

“I said I think,” Jackal replied. “Do you have cramps? The shits?”

“You’d smell the shits,” Styke replied. “No cramps.”

“It might be fallow, then.”

“And?” Styke rubbed his arms, trying to get them warm. It felt like rubbing his arms across stinging nettle.

“Fallow causes a bad fever and weakness. Also paralysis. I’ve seen a man die from it before. It’s just…”

“What?”

Jackal seemed uncertain. “It kills in a couple hours. You should have felt the paralysis within minutes of being scratched.”

“It’s not that, then,” Styke grunted. He didn’t know what it was, only that it felt like an illness he’d had as a child, and the memory of that time came back to him along with the pain.

He remembered the fever seizing him, sending him to bed for almost two months. He’d drifted in and out, listening to a string of doctors tell his father that he would be dead within days. His mother had sat by his bedside, singing softly, and his baby sister had brought him sweets that she tucked under his tongue so that father wouldn’t find out. He felt as if he could taste those sweets now; the smell of the lemon honey, the slight flavor of ginger as the sweet dissolved. It was strange that he associated something so pleasant with this horrible pain.

He remembered his father pacing the halls outside, arguing loudly with his mother that Styke should be put out of his misery. He could still feel that cold, quiet rage—that determination that he wouldn’t give his father the satisfaction of dying. He didn’t remember growing well. One day, the fever was gone and he could walk again. He’d never had so much as a cold since.

Styke drifted through his memories, feeling the fever wax and wane. The passage of time meant nothing, and at one point he focused on Jackal through bleary eyes. “You were a field laborer?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know about poisons?”

“I . . .” Jackal trailed off, tilting his head to look at Styke. “When I was ten, the orphanage sold me to an apothecary to work as an assistant.”

“Then why the pit were you picking cotton?”

“Because my master used to beat me with a stick. I didn’t like that. She had an accident while I was away on an errand.”

Styke might be feverish, but the way Jackal said “accident” suggested it was otherwise. “How old were you?”

“Twelve.”

Styke tried to feel something. Horror. Empathy. Interest. He couldn’t summon the energy for emotion. “I was around that age when I killed my first,” Styke grunted.

“Another boy?”

“No. Never children. Even the worst little shits should get the chance to see adulthood. It was an older man.”

“Why?”

“Because he deserved it.”

Jackal nodded along, not pressing further, and Styke thought he could see that perpetually angry expression soften. Styke felt tired from talking, his tongue numb and his jaw sore. Perhaps this was the beginning of that paralysis. Perhaps Jackal was right about the fallow root.

“Rumors are spreading about Fernhollow,” Jackal said.

Styke grunted in response.

Jackal went on. “The survivors are saying that you killed seventy or eighty soldiers all on your own to save the town. Is that true?”

“You going to turn me in?”

“I don’t love the Kez any more than Fatrastans. You’re all the same to me. But you saved my life, so no.”

Styke coughed, and it felt like he’d just hacked up a piece of his lung. He waited for his chest to stop throbbing. “It was more like thirty, I think. Forty at most.”

Jackal’s eyebrows rose. “You joke?”

“No.”

“Boast?”

“I’ve got better things to boast about.”

There was a long silence, and then, “I believe you. How did you fight so many?”

“There was little fighting. It is not hard to kill forty men in the dark when their attention is on murder and looting. All it takes is a good knife and the will. I had both.”

Jackal’s brow furrowed, and he watched Styke with what Styke could only guess was concern. His lips pursed and his expression troubled, he said, “If you survive, I’ll come with you.”

“I’m fomenting rebellion,” Styke said.

“How?”

“I stopped by Landfall and made sure the story of Fernhollow would spread quickly. It won’t be hard to trace back to me.”

“The Kez are cruel. I approve.”

“I’m also going to murder the governor.”

“Because he deserves it?”

“Yes.”

“That’s a good enough reason.”

Styke tried to scoff, but all the strength had gone out of him. He managed to roll onto his side, his thoughts growing fuzzy. It seemed that he could sense the paralysis now. He closed his eyes against the afternoon sun, clenched his fists, and waited to die.

Someone shook Styke from a feverish dream. He jerked his head to the side, trying to return to the warmth of Rezi’s strong, smoky arms, before remembering where he was.

“You’re not dead,” Jackal said.

“Don’t sound so goddamned surprised.”

“We can’t linger here. The governor’s bodyguards are scouring the countryside in large groups. They are beating the bushes and checking all the groves. If we stay, we’ll be found.”

Styke’s mouth was dry, but every scrap of his clothing soaked through with sweat. He opened his eyes, focusing on Deshnar as the stallion nibbled on the grass of the riverbank. He moved one arm experimentally, then the other. His body still felt uncomfortable, like he was wearing someone else’s skin that didn’t quite fit right, but he was able to move. He was not paralyzed.

He forced himself to sit up and find his saddlebags, searching them for his water skin and taking a long drink. Slowly, uncertainly, he crawled to the edge of the stream and refilled the skin, then dunked his head in the cool water.

“We have to go,” Jackal insisted again.

“How long?”

“Ten minutes at most.”

“Kresimir,” Styke swore. His legs were wobbly, but with the help of the trunk of a young willow, he was able to gain his feet. Jackal stared at him like he’d just crawled out of a grave. Styke felt like he had. “Help me get Deshnar’s saddle on him,” Styke instructed.

They managed to saddle Deshnar and, after an uncomfortably long attempt that included two willows and Jackal’s shoulders beneath Styke’s ass, he was once again sitting in the saddle. He swayed dangerously, gripping the saddle horn with all his strength.

“Where do we go?” he asked, wishing he had the strength to go out and look himself. They were currently protected by the willow grove and the banks of the stream, but it meant he couldn’t see any of the approaches to their position. He could, however, hear shouts in the distance.

Jackal scrambled up and over the bank, returning just a few seconds later. “Downstream! Go!”

Styke prodded Deshnar and leaned over, burying his face in Deshnar’s mane and holding on as tightly as he was able as the stallion sprang into motion, splashing down the center of the river at a leisurely canter. The very motion made Styke want to throw up, each step a jolt that shook his frame in a way he hadn’t experienced since he was first learning to ride.

Jackal sprinted alongside, dodging around trees and clinging to the riverbank with the kind of ease that made Styke suspect he’d done a lot more than pick cotton over the last few years.

Styke listened for the sounds of pursuit—the thunder of hooves, the shouts of men, the blast of a carbine—but none appeared as they followed the stream through the willows. They passed beneath a stone bridge, and soon the banks lowered to the point that they were no longer concealed. Styke could see cotton fields and a plantation house in the distance. He glimpsed a small group of soldiers riding away from them down the road they’d just passed under, and assumed they were part of the search parties Jackal had warned him about.

Jackal waved, slowing down, and Styke followed suit. The ride could not have been longer than a mile, but he was already exhausted, his whole body aching. Beneath him, he could feel Deshnar’s eagerness to break into a full gallop on open ground. That run through the stream had been nothing but a warm-up.

Jackal went to the edge of the nearest field and looked upstream for a moment before gesturing to Styke. “Come, come.” Styke joined him and followed a pointed finger. He could see a couple of cuirassiers milling about at the edge of the wood some ways off. “They’ve found where we camped,” Jackal said. “If they find our tracks in the stream, they will follow. We should keep moving.” He paused, then pointed to the nearby road. “South.”

South meant back toward Landfall. “That’s toward the governor’s mansion.”

“We’ll head west before long. I know a path that will take us well around.”

Styke considered his options. He’d meant to deliver Prost’s body parts to the governor and then hide out as Sirod went mad with grief and fury. The rumors spreading about Fernhollow would cause local unrest, while the confusion of everything going on up in Redstone would force Sirod to act—either to head north himself, or to send his personal troops. Styke would follow, and when Sirod was the most vulnerable, Styke would strike.

It had seemed like a sound plan at the time. But with this fever, Styke did not trust himself to be able to sneak and kill with any skill. It would be best to head back to Landfall, where he could hide and wait out this illness. Sirod would die for what he’d done to Rezi. But Styke would be a patient man.

“South is good,” he said, sagging in the saddle.

They left the streambed and took to the road heading south. Styke kept Deshnar at a trot while Jackal jogged along beside.

“Do you know how to ride?” Styke asked.

“I’ve only ridden once. It was terrifying.” Jackal spoke without breaking stride, no evidence that he was in any way out of breath.

“We get back to Landfall, and I’ll teach you to ride. It’s the least I can do,” Styke said.

“I’d rather not.”

Styke snorted. “And I’d rather not ride while you run alongside like some kind of slave.”

The word “slave” had barely left his mouth when they crested a steep rise in the road and found themselves looking down on a small group of cuirassiers. There were four of them, their breastplates and horsehair-plumed helms polished, their green and tan uniforms decorated with the red feather of the governor’s personal guard. The four blinked back at Styke, mouths open in the middle of conversation, as if they were just as surprised to see him as he was them.

In the instant it took for their sergeant to cry out, Styke forced himself to sit up straight and snatch up his lance. He dug in his heels and felt Deshnar leap beneath him, nearly throwing him from the saddle. Deshnar reached a gallop as they closed the distance, and Styke’s lance sliced cleanly through the throat of a cuirassier, causing a fount of blood that covered them all in fine, crimson droplets.

The lance punched through the center of the cuirass of the second man and into his ribs, spinning him out of the saddle and jerking the lance out of Styke’s weakened hand.

The sergeant managed to draw his curved cavalry sword and slash it across Styke’s brow as he fumbled with his lance. Styke reeled in the saddle as he shot past the cuirassiers, half blinded by his own blood. He tugged at the reins, turning Deshnar to face the two remaining soldiers as they did the same with their own horses.

There was a moment of calm, Styke wiping the blood from his eyes, feeling the flap of skin falling loose from his forehead while the sergeant and his companion took their stock of him.

The moment was broken as Jackal, having rushed to the fallen cuirassiers and stolen one of their swords, took the weapon in two hands and ran at the sergeant. The sergeant looked down on Jackal with a curled lip, digging his heels in to charge. Styke did the same, drawing his own cavalry sword and ready to watch Jackal get ridden down like a dog.

At the very last second, as the sergeant’s horse bore down on him, Jackal ducked in front of the animal and dodged to the sergeant’s off-hand side. Before the sergeant could move his sword from one hand to the other, Jackal brought his own weapon up and rammed it beneath the sergeant’s cuirass.

The final cuirassier, head turning as her sergeant went down, didn’t even see Styke’s sword as it slashed her throat.

The whole fight lasted less than thirty seconds. Styke gasped for breath, every bone and muscle on fire as he clung to Deshnar. The sergeant, mortally wounded and half-thrown from the saddle, stared at Styke in confusion until Jackal pulled him to the ground and finished the job with a savage flash of steel. Styke pressed a handkerchief to his forehead to stop the bleeding and drank deeply from his water skin as he watched the man die.

“That was well done,” Styke told Jackal. It was very risky to time a jump across the chest of a charging horse.

Jackal just nodded, making sure the other three cuirassiers were dead.

“You should take one of those horses,” Styke told him. He wiped the blood away from his face, then pressed the handkerchief to the wound once again. It stung badly, but he could tell by feel that it felt far worse than it was. The flap of skin would stitch easily, though he would need to keep pressure on it for now.

“I don’t want a horse,” Jackal responded.

Styke eyed the four horses. One had been hurt when its master fell to Styke’s lance. Another currently fled across the tobacco fields. The third and fourth were both halfway decent mounts. He pointed at the black one. “I don’t care. Take that one.”

“I don’t know how to ride.”

“Walk it, then. I’ll teach you later.”

He turned away without waiting for an answer, urging Deshnar down the road, eager to be gone from this place. Miles of cotton fields stretched in every direction, with few places to hide. He needed to get away from the plantations and find some rough terrain where he could hide out until he’d purged this poison from his body. Four cuirassiers wouldn’t stay missing for long. Someone would come looking.

A few hundred yards later, he glanced over his shoulder to see Jackal catching up, a glum look on his face, leading the black horse. Jackal had almost caught up when Styke’s feverish thoughts were interrupted by the distant sound of a whinny. He looked up sharply, seeing riders about a half mile away, blocking the road. They stared at him from the distance.

There were a lot. He could see fifteen of them, and that there were more behind.

“Jackal,” he said, nodding to the riders.

“I see them.”

“You sure you want to hang around? They probably won’t give a shit if you flee right now.”

Jackal considered the offer. “You’re good luck.”

“I’m still not sure how the pit you got that idea.” Styke reached for his lance, nearly tumbling from his saddle with weakness. He kept his eyes on the distant riders. They remained where they were, and after a moment he looked down at Jackal to find the Palo’s face serious.

“I went back to the assassin’s corpse while you slept,” Jackal said. “She had fallow root. You should have been dead this morning.”

Styke didn’t have time to wonder about the fallow root. He eyed the distant riders. Maybe they weren’t members of the governor’s household. They could be travelers or mercenaries or colonials. Maybe one of them had seen him dispatch the cuirassiers and the whole group hesitated. He peered at them, trying to focus his eyes.

After a few tense moments, one of the group finally broke off and trotted down the road. Styke summoned the strength to sit up straight in the saddle and lower his lance. By the time he looked back at the rider, he did let out a laugh.

“Afternoon, Major,” Captain Blye called. “I was about to offer our help, but it looks like you’re taking care of things just fine.”

“What are you doing here?” Styke demanded. He and the lancers camped in a hollow some distance from the four dead cuirassiers, their horses hidden among the willows, and not daring a fire lest they attract attention.

Blye had brought about half the company with him. There were a hundred and sixty-seven lancers and twenty-three of Cardin’s cuirassiers, including Cardin himself. They all wore civilian clothes, though they were heavily armed. They stared at Styke as if he were some sort of oddity or aberration, and he wished he could send them away.

“We came to help,” Blye said, lighting his pipe.

“I thought I told you to protect Fernhollow.”

“We saw them twenty miles north of the town, then headed your direction. Some of us, anyways.”

“Why?” Styke could feel his strength slipping away, the need to sleep growing stronger and stronger. His forehead still bled, and this damned fever persisted. If he didn’t rest, he would die. He did not have patience for do-gooders right now, not when a larger group was going to attract so much more attention than a single man. He almost voiced that thought, but a single glance around at the faces looking back changed his mind.

Blye puffed on his pipe, blowing a ring of strong-smelling smoke. He exchanged a look with Styke. “You came to kill the governor.”

“So?”

“So I know you’re bloody Ben Styke, but a governor’s bodyguard is too much even for you. You need help, and we want to give it.”

Styke wondered whether they’d been turned and were here to lull him into a false sense of security and then kill him. He wasn’t normally paranoid, but the fever clawing at his mind was allowing in things that he might have otherwise disregarded. “Why?” he asked again.

“They killed Cherry,” Blye said flatly.

It took Styke a moment to catch up. Cherry was—or had been—Blye’s niece. A fourteen-year-old girl with a head for numbers. Blye’s brother had been saving up to send her to university.

“One of them murdered my mate Semm,” someone spoke up.

“Burnt down my farm.”

Another voice called from the back of the group, “Tommy’s never going to walk again.”

Names were spoken, misdeeds recalled until the faces surrounding Styke turned from curiously concerned to outright angry. He forced himself to hold his tongue while he considered this, letting his slowed thoughts work through it naturally. These people were angry. They were soldiers who’d lost friends, property, family, and lovers to a vengeful prick of a governor who couldn’t handle the idea of being chased out of a sleepy little town.

“You’re all decided about this?” Styke asked.

“We are.”

Styke thought about the resources that the governor had at hand—the thousands of troops he could summon from Landfall in addition to his personal bodyguard. He thought about the Privileged sorcerer that the governor had with him, then considered his own plan of action and decided that maybe he didn’t have as much of a shot at succeeding as he’d thought.

“Find somebody to stitch up my forehead,” Styke grumbled. “It’s a fight then, I suppose. We’re probably all going to die.” He laughed darkly to himself.

“What’s so funny?” Blye asked.

“We’ll need a name. One we can yell it when they torture those of us they haven’t killed.”

“Sirod has a Privileged,” Blye told Styke in the morning.

A night’s sleep had done Styke wonders. The fever was almost completely gone, and the pain in his muscles had subsided to the kind of weakness one might feel from a common cold. The men broke camp, grumbling about the dew and the heat and the lack of meat and a cooking fire. He was amazed they hadn’t been found yet.

Jackal lurked nearby, watching Styke. Styke could remember waking at several points in the night to find Jackal crouched in the darkness, eyes open.

“I’ve been thinking about that,” he answered Blye. “I’m trying to figure out how to deal with it.” Looking at Jackal, he said, “Do you sleep?”

“On my feet,” the Palo responded.

“That’s handy.”

“Picked it up in the cotton fields. Eighteen hours of labor in the summers. Needed to get the sleep somewhere.”

“Shitty way to pick up a good habit,” Blye commented. He eyed Jackal. “Why does he have a horse and doesn’t ride it?”

“Ask him.”

“Why do you have a horse and don’t ride it?”

Jackal flinched away from the question, looking like he’d been struck. Styke recognized that sour, angry look sliding back onto the boy’s face and saw Jackal’s fist tighten. It was, apparently, a more sensitive topic than Styke had realized.

“No one taught him to ride,” Styke interjected. “He saved my life, so I told him I’d teach him when we get out of this.” Jackal might be a scrappy youth, but he’d have a bad day if he took a swing at Blye.

“I don’t want to learn,” Jackal said.

“Too goddamn bad. You want to follow me around, you have to learn to ride.” Styke turned to Blye. “What do you know about Sirod’s Privileged?”

Blye sucked on his pipe thoughtfully, smoke curling out of his nostrils. “His name is Bierutka. Not very powerful as far as Privileged go—he has some strength in healing, but not a lot else. He pissed off the king and wound up here in exile.” Blye tapped the side of his head. “I’ve heard he’s a bit thick, but… don’t underestimate a Privileged. It’s not a good idea.”

A low call went across the small camp, and Styke got to his feet, instinctively heading towards Deshnar. A young man named Gredain, not much older than Jackal and fairly new to the company, sprinted down from the lip of the hollow, out of breath. “Two hundred Kez cuirassiers sweeping across the fields,” he reported.

Styke began saddling Deshnar, working quickly while Blye tapped out his pipe. Styke asked, “Did they see us?”

“I don’t think they know we’re here. They’ve got the governor’s feather, and they’re taking it nice and slow.”

Styke locked eyes with Blye. “They’re still looking for one man. Assholes think I’m just going to sit in a cotton field and wait for them? Get everyone ready.” He finished saddling Deshnar and rode up to the lip of the glen, where he could see a company of cuirassiers spread out across an entire field, their horses walking between the rows of cotton as the riders occasionally swung at the plants with their riding crops. Even at a distance, the company looked bored.

Their path would take them past the hollow within minutes, at which point they could either turn down a narrow dirt path and head down into the hollow—which seemed likely if they were serious about their search—or they could continue through the field.

He didn’t want to give them the chance to make that turn.

Styke took a few deep breaths, gathering his strength. He was still weak from the fever and several wounds. But he had help now, and he needed to take advantage of his lancers and finish this soon. He raised his hand. “Keep ’em quiet, and follow me.”

The company pulled out of the hollow in the opposite direction and looped around, using the willows as a thick screen, until they were well behind the line of enemy searchers. Styke led them back across the stream that fed the hollow and to the edge of the willows.

He caught sight of Jackal, hanging at the back of the group, still walking with the reins of his captured horse dutifully in hand. Styke rode to him quickly. “Stay here,” he instructed. “If any of them flee this way, smack them in the face with a tree branch.” He returned to the edge of the wood, where he was joined by Blye and Cardon.

“I gave you an out,” Styke told Cardin.

Cardin was ashen-faced. “Prost was an evil man. Sirod is no better. When I joined the army, I thought it was to fight against such people—not for them. I intend to change that from this day forward.”

Styke let the words hang in the air, then turned to Blye. “You’re sure you want to be involved?”

“We’ve already committed treason by killing the king’s soldiers,” Blye said. “Might as well kill a king’s governor.”

“Good enough for me. Loosen your lances, boys,” he called over his shoulder. The sound of creaking leather followed, and Styke urged Deshnar out into the field of cotton.

It was about a hundred yards from the edge of the willows to the backs of the Kez cuirassiers. Styke quickly urged Deshnar into a gallop, feeling the joy in the powerful beast, and listened to the pound of hooves as his lancers fell in behind him.

Normally, he would wait to lower a lance until the last minute, first unloading a carbine barrage into the enemy to soften them before the clash. He had no interest, however, in attracting nearby soldiers with the sound of gunfire.

Their gallop was noticed at seventy yards. A general, panicked shout erupted from among the cuirassiers, and they attempted to wheel around. At twenty yards, the cuirassiers had mostly turned to face the charge, some of them drawing their swords. A single carbine shot rang out before the lancers slammed into the loose line of confused cavalry with the sound of steel lance tips striking cuirasses, quickly followed by the screams of men and horses.

A proper lancer charge was a devastating thing. The cuirassiers, regardless of their armor, fell like wheat before the scythe. Styke killed three with his lance and another with his sword before he was on the other side of them and turning Deshnar in a lazy loop for another charge.

The second charge reduced the cuirassiers to a confused mess, most of them fleeing across the field. A handful remained, circling closely, making a brave stand around the body of their commanding officer. They fell to the third charge.

It was not difficult for the lancers—most of them with faster horses not weighed down with armor—to chase down the fleeing cuirassiers. It was a pitiful sight, but necessary, and Styke waited by the body of the commanding officer while they cleaned up those final enemies.

“Three of ours dead,” Blye soon reported, joining Styke in the middle of the field. “Eighteen wounded, none of them badly.”

Styke glanced around at the dead and dying cuirassiers, many of them begging for help or to be put out of their misery. A few of his lancers wandered among them; some offering solace, some mocking. A few just staring while wounded men wept. “That went well,” he said. “Not for them, of course.” He lifted his head, working the last of the kinks out of his neck, still thinking about yesterday’s fever. He could feel it deep in his bones. Another melee would exhaust him. He lifted his nose to the air, breathing in deep, imagining that he could pick up the scent of brimstone. “How far are we from the governor’s mansion?” he asked.

“Four miles, give or take,” Blye responded.

“And how many are in his personal guard?”

“Five hundred, I think. He can double it with a request from the Landfall garrison, or just summon the whole damn army. With this group gone, he’ll only have around three hundred left—and they’ll be looking for you in smaller groups.”

Styke considered their options. Most of the guard would be out like these poor bastards, beating the fields while they looked for Styke. Sirod would have kept fifty or sixty men nearby in case Styke attempted something stupid, and then . . . he quashed that thought. No, he wouldn’t have kept much of anyone nearby. He didn’t need to.

“Do you want to go hunting?” he asked Blye.

“More than anything.”

“Good. Take the boys in an arc around the mansion. Kill anyone wearing a Kez uniform. If they outnumber you, lead them on a merry chase.”

Blye’s brow furrowed. “What are you going to do?”

Styke thought of what Blye had told him of Sirod’s personal sorcerer. For most men, the strength of a Privileged didn’t matter—their reputation alone was enough to give them a wide berth. Styke was not most men. All he needed was will and a good knife. He had both.

“You’re going to bait the guard. I’m going to go kill a Privileged.”

Styke ignored Blye’s objections and took Deshnar, heading directly toward the governor’s mansion. He was a few hundred yards from their small field of battle when he remembered Jackal and turned around to find the Palo boy following at a distance with the horse he could not ride.

Styke rode back to him. “You should go. No room for someone on foot today.”

“You swore to teach me to ride,” Jackal said, expressionless.

Styke felt the corner of his mouth twitch. “You said you didn’t want to.”

“I want,” Jackal responded in slow, deliberate words, “to watch you kill a Privileged. I will suffer learning to ride if I get to see that.”

Styke considered this. “That sounds fair.”

They proceeded slowly, cutting across fields, following the small, wooded streams that divided plantations, and using ridgelines to their advantage. It took them most of the rest of the day to reach the outskirts of the governor’s mansion grounds, where they circled and approached from the deep, old forest that served as the governor’s private hunting ground.

The occasional baying of hounds reached them through the woods, but it always seemed to be heading in the opposite direction.

As the sun began to set, Styke left Deshnar tied to a tree beside Jackal’s nameless horse and crept to the edge of the wood, where he watched the distant manor. The sun was behind him, and he felt confident that no one would spot their spying.

They lay in last fall’s leaves, occasionally swatting at the flies as the shadows slowly grew longer and longer until the shade of the forest itself touched the distant manor.

“What are we watching for?” Jackal finally asked.

Styke tapped a finger against his nose. “Not watching. Smelling.”

Jackal responded with a look of bafflement.

“I have a Knack,” Styke explained. “A minor sorcery. It allows me to smell sorcery. Not terribly useful, all things considered, but it comes in handy on occasion.” He lifted his nose to the wind and breathed in deeply. The smell of brimstone he had imagined hours before was now real, and he tested it several times. “There’s a Privileged in there,” he told Jackal.

“If you’re a Knacked, can’t you just see Privileged?”

“Never practiced the skill required,” Styke responded. “Never needed it. Come on.”

The sun had finally gone across the horizon when Styke and Jackal, leading their horses and keeping a small hill between them and the mansion, crept close to the house and tied their horses in a small grove just a few hundred yards from the east wing. They moved from there toward the stables, which they found empty but for a handful of racing stallions.

“Let them out,” Styke instructed, “and make sure they get far away.” Once Jackal rushed to do his bidding, Styke crouched in the hay and waited. The brief rest was welcome, and he breathed deeply, steadying himself against whatever violence was to follow, hoping that his strength wouldn’t fail him. He would need it all—and more than a little luck as well—against a Privileged sorcerer.

Once he felt he’d waited long enough, he produced a match and set it to the dry straw.

It was ablaze within moments. He ran from the stables, catching Jackal by the arm and giving the last of the horses a good swat to send it running. They heard the yells from the mansion almost immediately, and they cut across the darkening yard to the very end of the east wing, where they waited another two minutes to let the blaze completely engulf the farm—and attract the attention of the entire staff—before slipping in through a garden door.

Styke paused for a moment just inside, before stopping Jackal with a hand on his chest. “Keep an eye out. You should be able to see the front drive from that room there. Watch for Sirod leaving, or his bodyguard returning.” He handed Jackal his carbine. “Fire off a shot if you see them.” With that, he set off on his own.

The house was enormous, and this servant’s corridor along the east wing stretched nearly as long as a drill field. It was dark but for a few gas lamps and the dancing of the flames from the stables through the occasional high window. Styke paused beside each of those long enough to look for any familiar figures out in the yard. He could see the rush of servants trying to put out the fires, reminding him of the people of Fernhollow attempting to do the same—only to be cut down.

Styke had no quarrel with the servants. Just with one man and his Privileged bodyguard.

He finally reached the end of the corridor, pausing to listen to shouts coming from what he guessed were the kitchens. He tried to orient himself, getting an idea of the layout of the house. He could smell that brimstone stronger here. The Privileged was close.

Styke slipped from doorway to doorway, soon catching sight of the servants as people rushed into the kitchens, the head maid shouting for buckets and bowls, and sending all the young men out to the garden pumps. A few of the maids crouched by a window, watching the whole event, whispering to each other.

One last glance out a window made Styke freeze. He saw a single figure—a man, six feet tall or more with broad shoulders—framed by the flames and walking toward them with arms outspread. Even as Styke watched, the smell of brimstone in his nostrils grew stronger. The flames of the barn suddenly flickered, as if being battered by an invisible wind, and then began to subside.

The Privileged, Bierutka.

Styke did not know how long it would take him to contain the fire. He hurried through the halls, looking this way and that, opening each door with a soft hand to check inside. He knew the general design of these manors, and he knew that the study would be near the center of the manor, perhaps just off into one of the wings.

He found it within the minute, opening the door just a fraction and seeing the soft gaslight within, noting the built-in mahogany shelves and the high, wing-backed chairs. He pushed the door open in silence, then closed it behind him and took a long look at the man sitting in one of those chairs.

Sirod wore a dressing gown over bedclothes, a pipe in one hand. He looked at Styke over the top of his book like one might look at a flea-bitten dog that had just stolen into the kitchen. One eyebrow raised, and then Sirod’s lip curled in disgust. Styke wondered how he looked—looming in the dim light with his forehead stitched, his jacket and shirt stained with dried blood. Sirod slowly closed his book and set it in his lap. “What the pit is this?”

Styke took a step into the room.

Sirod inhaled sharply. “You’re him, aren’t you? Yes, I recognize you from that damned little village. The lancer who attacked my brother.”

Styke glanced around the room. There was a gilded hunting rifle above the mantelpiece but no other weapons, and he was surprised at how calmly Sirod took a giant of a murderer slipping into his study. “Did you get my message?”

“Message?” Sirod echoed.

“The box.”

Sirod looked disgusted. “You mean the hands, feet, and head of my brother?” Sirod’s eyes narrowed, his hands drawing up over his book to steeple beneath his chin. He was calm and collected, but Styke could see a smolder in his eyes. “Yes, I got that. You’re a monster, Styke.”

“Fine words, coming from you.”

“You think me a monster?” Sirod seemed genuinely surprised.

“You ordered the death of a whole town because they insulted you.”

“I have a duty to keep order. Fernhollow would have started something that may have put the empire in danger. What are the lives of a thousand commoners next to the fate of an empire? Attending to my duty is far from monstrous.”

“Yeah? Your brother messed up. He didn’t kill me or the garrison. He just made it all worse. Everyone within a hundred miles of Landfall knows what he did, and that you ordered it.”

Sirod considered this for a moment before giving a slight shrug. “Perhaps you’re right that I overreacted. People make mistakes. Martial law will make them forget it.”

“That’s not a mistake. Just proof that you’re a piece of shit.” Styke drew Rezi’s knife.

Sirod shifted in his chair, the first bit of genuine consternation crossing his face as Styke stepped toward him. “You mean to kill me?”

“That’s about right.”

“I am the governor of this province!”

“You look like a dead man to me.”

Styke was feet from Sirod when he felt a breeze across his neck and his nostrils filled with brimstone. He whirled, hurling the knife with all his strength at the Privileged who had opened the door behind him.

There was a faint pop, and Rezi’s knife shattered into a thousand pieces. Styke didn’t even wait for the shards to hit the ground, throwing himself at the Privileged as quickly as his legs could carry him. He only made it a few steps when what felt like an enormous wind swept beneath his feet and lifted him, hurling him through the wall.

The impact knocked his breath out. Every bone rattled as he smashed like a cannonball through one wall, then another, then another. A table finally slowed his momentum, one wooden leg splintering as his shin went through it, and he finally rolled to a stop in a cloud of plaster dust.

Styke lay in a heap for several moments, the wind knocked out of him and his whole body aching. He tried to think through it, forcing his arms to move, to get them beneath his chest so he could get up to his knees and then, if nothing was broken, to his feet—where he might be able to fight. As he struggled, he could hear loud talking from several rooms over.

“Sorry I was late, my lord.”

“By Kresimir, Bierutka, why the pit did you do that?”

“Pure instinct, my lord. I wanted to get him away from you quickly. You saw what he did to your poor brother.”

Sirod gave a sigh, as if throwing his arms up. “Fine. Go kill the dog and get this over with so we can deal with the Lindet situation.”

Styke finally gained his knees. His eyes began to focus again, his breath returned, and he saw that he was in the kitchens. A single cook stared at him, her eyes wide and her apron dirty, and then gave a loud scream before fleeing the room. Styke crawled to the closest preparation table, using it as support to get to his feet.

He’d no sooner lifted his head above the table than he glimpsed Bierutka looking through the hole Styke’s body had made in the wall. The Privileged had a strong chest and a powerful frame, and he stretched his arms as he stalked around the wall and in through the kitchen door.

“Still alive, are you?” Bierutka asked. “Still moving. Very impressive.”

Styke fumbled for a butcher’s knife, flinging it at Bierutka. There was no real strength behind the throw, and it clattered harmlessly against the far wall to Bierutka’s left. Styke shook his head, still trying to clear his vision, and leaned heavily on the preparation table. “I heard you were a shitty Privileged.”

Bierutka paused, blinking in surprise. “Where did you hear a thing like that?”

“That’s what people say.” Styke looked around for something—anything—to use as a weapon.

Bierutka took a few steps forward and hesitated before raising his hands. His pinkie wiggled, and a ball of flame appeared over his shoulder. His middle finger wiggled next, and the flame shot toward Styke. Styke ducked, but he needn’t have bothered, as the flames splashed against the wall behind him as ineffectually as the knife he’d thrown a moment ago. Plaster immediately cracked and popped, smoke filling the room.

“Shit,” Bierutka said loudly. He stood up straight, chin thrust haughtily at Styke. “I am not a combat Privileged, if that’s what you mean. But that doesn’t mean I can’t kill you as easily as this.” He thrust his left hand forward, the little finger of his right hand twitching. Styke felt a breeze on his neck and braced himself to be thrown through another wall.

The blow did not fall. Bierutka stared at his hands for a second, shook them both out, and struck the same pose as if to try again. Still, nothing happened.

Sirod appeared behind Bierutka’s shoulder. “You’ve set the house on fire,” he complained. “You really are an idiot.”

Bierutka pulled a face, and Styke wanted to laugh. He’d never seen a genuinely daft Privileged before. He took a half step over, ignoring the flames that began to curl from the wall behind him, and snatched up an iron frying pan. Bierutka switched stances, his fingers twitching as another fireball appeared over his shoulder and streaked toward Styke. Styke swatted it away as if he and the Privileged were playing a game of tennis, and the fire caught just above one of the nearby windows. The effort caused Styke to stumble into a stove, scattering pots and pans with a loud clatter.

“What are you doing?” Sirod demanded of his Privileged.

“I’ll deal with it, my lord,” Bierutka said, his voice sharp. “Go to the museum for the night.” Bierutka stalked into the kitchen, tugging angrily at his gloves as Sirod made his exit. “You’re a nuisance, Major Styke,” Bierutka said.

The next bit of sorcery took Styke by surprise—a gust of wind punching him in the stomach hard enough that he swore a rib cracked. The frying pan flew out of his hand, and Styke bounced off the stove and fell to the ground. Flailing for purchase, Styke caught himself on one of the big iron pots, the kind that cooks used to make soup for the entire household staff.

Bierutka, clearly frustrated, closed the distance between them at a quick stride as he shook out the fingers of both hands.

Styke gathered all his strength and lifted the immense pot, standing up and swinging it as Bierutka rounded the preparation table. He stumbled forward into Bierutka, and the Privileged’s hands rose in defense. Styke felt the pot impact with something before it suddenly shot out of his hands and flew across the room, raising an enormous racket. Styke reeled backward into the stove.

Bierutka stared at his left hand. The pot had slammed into his fingers at the same moment his sorcery sent it flying, leaving the hand bent at an odd angle, the knuckles bashed and bleeding through the white gloves. He blinked in shock. “You’re beginning to—”

Seeing double and barely able to stand, Styke snatched up a frying pan and staved in Bierutka’s head before he could finish the sentence.

The Privileged crumpled, leaving Styke alone in the room, choking on the spreading smoke. He dropped the frying pan on top of the body and lurched out into the hallway, looking for Sirod. He found Jackal instead.

“What’s going on?” Styke asked.

“I fired the carbine, but you didn’t hear it,” Jackal said.

“And?” Styke demanded.

“Sirod is fleeing.”

“Shit.” Styke fought through the pain and the confusion and forced himself to run toward the front door, only for Jackal to catch his arm. “He’s headed toward the museum.”

Styke reversed direction and followed Jackal back down the east wing, stopping to rest every few dozen yards. Servants rushed to and fro, a general alarm going up over the fires in the kitchen, and no one seemed to pay Styke any mind as he burst from the garden door and headed toward the grove where they’d hidden the horses. Jackal pointed into the darkness as they ran, and Styke could make out the silhouettes of a few riders galloping toward the museum in the corner of the property.

Styke untied Deshnar and pulled himself into the saddle, and within moments they burst from the grove and galloped through the darkness after Sirod.

Styke leaned down, urging Deshnar on and then turning control over to the horse. The ground seemed to disappear beneath them, Deshnar’s legs a blur, flying over the surface of the earth as if he sensed the sudden urgency swelling in Styke’s chest. The hot night air whipped at Styke’s face, forcing tears from his eyes.

In his dazed fury, realized that Rezi’s knife, the only thing he had kept of hers, was now gone. She was nothing but mist in his memory, and he could do nothing to change any of it. He wondered, as Deshnar barreled forward, if there was any point to this—if Rezi would care what he did or didn’t do. If perhaps he should turn Deshnar and disappear into the night forever, leaving Sirod to wonder about the man who’d killed his brother and his personal Privileged.

Styke thought of the lancers he’d sent out to draw off Sirod’s bodyguard, and he wondered if Blye, Cardin, and the rest were even still alive. Styke banished all of these thoughts, leaning further still against Deshnar’s neck, and feeling the powerful muscles of the warhorse roll beneath him. He breathed in Deshnar’s scent, drawing strength from it, before focusing his mind and unlimbering his lance.

He caught up to Sirod and his few bodyguards less than fifty yards from the torches glowing in the high windows of the museum. Styke left his lance in the back of one of the bodyguards and slashed his cavalry sword across the spine of another. The second man’s scream alerted the rest to Styke’s pursuit, and three more soldiers turned to fight him.

He was through them in moments, taking off the hand of the first as he drew his sword, slashing the neck of another, then letting Deshnar’s powerful shoulders bowl over the horse of the third. Deshnar barely broke stride through the whole thing, and within moments Styke was at the thick, ironwood door of the museum as Sirod slammed it in his face.

Styke smacked the butt of his saber into the door, then his shoulder—again and again. It refused to budge, even with all his strength. He could feel his frustration and that sense of urgency growing, and he choked it down and returned to the saddle, backing Deshnar up to the door.

It took two mighty blows of Deshnar’s steel-shod hooves to splinter the door, and Styke dismounted once again to use his sword to clear the remaining fragments. He stepped inside, looking for Sirod.

The bastard was alone now.

The museum had been built to replicate the ancient keeps of the Nine, and nowhere was that more apparent than in the front entry. The walls were thick stone, the ceilings fourteen feet high, and full suits of armor paraded along the length of the hallway like a king’s guard waiting at attention. The area was lit by gas lamps that had been crafted in bronze to resemble torch sconces. Styke had the distinct impression that this was what an architect thought a keep looked like, rather than an actual replica.

Styke continued down to the first door, glancing inside to find a long hall, lit similarly, with twenty-foot ceilings and walls covered in art. Pedestals with ancient busts marked the spots between each piece, and the shadows played long behind them. The hall appeared to end in thirty yards, so he moved on to the next doorway.

The second hall had a different motif—something distinctly more foreign, with ancient stone slabs and a dozen sarcophagi lining each wall. There were even bones on low platforms, and the room seemed to smell of sand. Styke moved on, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other to keep from stumbling, feeling his strength ebb with each step.

Room after room continued, each of them decorated with the art and artifacts from a different country. After that first room and a couple of pieces of art that Styke recognized from visiting the Landfall museum a decade ago, nothing was familiar. It was foreign to him, strange and exotic, and he wondered why such a collection would catch the imagination of any man. Ego, he supposed.

The whole place smelled of sorcery to him—a biting, metallic flavor that reminded him of a Palo bone-eye he’d met on the frontier, though not exactly the same. It grew stronger as he proceeded.

He heard a crash from the second-to-last room in the long hall and stalked toward it, sword at the ready He put his back to the wall just outside the door, listening for further sound. There was an odd noise—a crack, followed by number of fast clicks. Styke stepped into the doorway and raised his sword.

A string thrummed, and something struck Styke full in the chest, producing a meaty thwap at it impacted. He staggered back several steps and looked down, the breath knocked out of him, and stared at the short, feathered bolt sticking out of his chest just an inch or two above his heart.

He looked up, blinking through tears, pushing away the pain, to find Sirod cranking a winch on an old crossbow. The smell of that metallic sorcery filled Styke’s nostrils, and he saw that the room behind Sirod was filled with suits of ancient armor displayed on mannequins, and that the walls were decorated with literally thousands of weapons.

Sirod himself wore one of those suits of armor—though only the breastplate, hastily buckled, and the helmet with the visor up. Sirod’s eyes were wide, his expression one of sneering anger, as if he was offended by the very act of having to defend himself.

Sirod began to crank faster. Styke put one hand on the crossbow bolt but thought better of pulling it out himself. The pain was intense, the muscles of his breast and shoulder crying out with the slightest move. He shook his head, tears streaming down his face, and gave a groan as he stepped forward.

Click, click.

Styke took another step, more painful than the last, then another, then another, until he had halved the distance between himself and Sirod. The crossbow string clicked into place, and Sirod fumbled with a bolt. Styke took a sharp breath, pain lancing through his body, and dashed forward, swinging his sword with his remaining strength.

The sword slammed into Sirod’s breastplate, enough power behind the fine steel to cleave through ancient armor. Instead of shearing through, however, the weapon bounced off the breastplate as if it were an anvil, the clang of the metal on metal ringing through the hall.

Sirod dropped the crossbow, stumbling backward from the force of the blow.

Styke struck again and again, slamming the sword against Sirod’s armor until he could barely lift it, then stumbling forward and colliding with Sirod. Styke fell, twisting to land on one shoulder and letting out a gasp of pain. He watched Sirod wobble, then crash to the floor beside him.

“Enchanted armor?” Styke asked, considering the metallic smell of sorcery that permeated the building.

“You’ll never cut it,” Sirod exclaimed, climbing to his feet and heading toward the display of weapons on the wall.

Styke managed to swing his sword around in a final arc, neatly severing the tendon of Sirod’s right foot. The governor screamed, slumping to the floor midstep. He continued to wail as Styke laboriously lifted himself to his knees and crawled over. Using Sirod’s breastplate as a crutch, he got back to his feet.

“You shouldn’t have burnt down Fernhollow,” Styke told him.

Sirod looked more angry than hurt. He hyperventilated, spittle on his lips. “Why aren’t you dead?”

“I get asked that a lot.” Styke stepped over the governor, his big legs straddling the man. He took Sirod’s helmet between his hands and lifted it so that they looked eye to eye. “You’re a piece of shit. Do you know that? Do you have any idea?”

“I,” Sirod screamed, spittle flying from his lips, “am the governor of Landfall, and you will unhand me!”

Styke jerked his hands in a circular motion, twisting Sirod’s head around so that he was staring at the back of the enchanted helmet. The body beneath him spasmed once and then slumped. “Enchanted armor or not,” he said, rapping the helmet with his knuckles, “all men die.”

“I’ve heard of this place,” Jackal told Styke a few minutes later, looking around the museum’s vaultlike armory with a kind of casual examination that did not suggest Styke was bleeding out slowly from a crossbow wound a few feet away.

Styke grunted, hand on his heart, just below the bolt, keeping pressure on the area and hoping it didn’t pull out anything vital when he finally removed the damned thing. He stared at Sirod’s body, which was still wearing the armor, and wondered how long it would take to strip the armor and impale Sirod on one of his own stupid collections of pikes. He could leave the body just outside the museum, where everyone could see it.

Right now, that seemed like a lot of work.

“This is cavalry armor, you know,” Jackal told Styke.

Styke was surprised Jackal could tell. “Yeah, I know.” He scowled at a nearby set, examining the fine lines, wondering when it had been made and enchanted. Modern Privileged, he understood, could still accomplish such things but almost always thought of enchantment as beneath them. It simply wasn’t worth their valuable time. The fact that these enchantments were still potent meant that they had been done by a powerful Privileged.

“Give me that breastplate.”

Jackal took a few moments to unbuckle the breastplate from Sirod’s corpse, then brought it to Styke. It hurt even to lift his hands, but Styke took the plate and examined it. Not even a scratch. This, he decided, could be useful.

The sound of boots on stone floors turned his head. He reached for his sword but gave up when he saw a familiar face in a sunflower-yellow cavalry jacket appear in the doorway. It was one of his lancers, a soldier named Petyr, and he skidded to a halt at the sight of the carnage.

“Report,” Styke managed.

“Sir, heavy losses, but we think we’ve cleared out most of the governor’s bodyguard. We can’t find the governor or his Privileged anywhere, but…” he trailed off, looking at the body with the turned-around head. “Is that Sirod?”

“Yeah. Round up whoever is left. We want to get out of here before the whole Landfall garrison comes after us.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Find me some horngum. This hurts a damned lot.”

“Immediately, sir. I might have some in my saddlebags.”

“Good. Oh, and search the grounds for wagons. We’re going to steal everything we can get our hands on. Start with this armor.”

“Blye is dead.”

Styke sat on a stump, two days after killing Sirod and about two dozen miles northwest of the governor’s mansion. Wagons filled with treasures and supplies lined the road, quickly being unloaded onto a number of keelboats that his lancers had managed to commandeer from a nearby town. For two days he hadn’t heard word of a small group that had gotten separated during a fight with the governor’s bodyguards.

Jackal stood next to him, his expression placid as he gave the news. Styke had sent him looking for Blye and the thirty-odd men who’d disappeared.

“Any survivors?” Styke asked hopefully, a hand on his chest, trying to ignore the pain of the bolt wound Sirod had given him. He’d been chewing on horngum and rubbing it in the wounds, which dulled the pain enough to ride. Barely.

“I don’t think so. A few of us are unaccounted for, so they may have managed to get away from the fighting. We can only hope they’ll find us later.”

Us. Four days together, and Jackal already considered himself one of Styke’s lancers. Damned kid couldn’t even ride a horse yet. Styke chuckled, shaking his head before turning to darker thoughts. Captain Blye was a friend—not terribly close, but enough that Styke considered him so. He was a good officer and solid in a scrap. He would be missed.

“Where’s Cardin?” Styke asked.

Jackal frowned. “I’m not sure. A few of his boys said they saw him take off to the east to lead away some of Sirod’s bodyguard. He may still be alive.”

Styke needed a new second-in-command. Cardin, still practically a stranger, wasn’t his first choice. But if he was still alive, he was probably Styke’s only choice. At least for now. “See if you can find him.” He pressed a hand against his chest, his next breath causing all the muscles along his left side to sting. The damned wound had finally stopped bleeding, but it would take a long time to heal. “How many do we have left?” he asked Jackal.

“Eighty-two. Seventeen of them are wounded, but they can all ride.”

Styke looked at the keelboats, where the first of the horses were finally being loaded up. “No riding necessary for a while—not till that last stretch to Redstone. It’ll give them a chance to heal up.” And, hopefully, keep them ahead of any pursuit out of Landfall.

Styke put his chin on his fist, leaning forward on the stump and drifting into his own thoughts as the men continued to load the keelboats. He wondered if it was worth all of this trouble—if perhaps he should just disband the group and head off into the sunset. He could disappear into the mountains, or head north and sign up with the Wings of Adom and get a mercenary posting in Gurla. That wouldn’t be a bad life.

But wondering made no difference. He might as well wish he’d never gotten out of bed the morning Prost had decided to beat Tel-islo. And he’d already made up his mind about what to do next. He still had obligations on this continent.

“Riders on the road!” someone shouted.

Styke climbed to his feet as soldiers abandoned their loading work and grabbed swords or carbines, climbing up onto the high ground on the opposite side of the road. Styke fetched his own carbine from Deshnar’s saddle and waited, watching.

A rider soon appeared on the horizon. He stopped just on the crest of a hill and turned in the road. A few moments later, he was joined by more riders, and Styke felt his stomach turn as dozens joined them. He glanced toward the keelboats—only half-loaded—and realized that they wouldn’t be able to make much of a fight.

“Launch those three boats,” he said, gesturing as he painfully climbed into Deshnar’s saddle. “Everyone whose horse isn’t on the boats, get ready to ford the river. Go!”

The men scrambled to do his bidding, and Styke let Deshnar walk a few dozen feet toward the riders. He shaded his eyes against the sun, trying to determine the color of their uniforms. His curiosity was answered as the group began to move once again, coming toward them down the road, and he was soon able to make out a mix of sunflower yellow jackets and tan and green. They came on slowly, cautiously.

Three keelboats launched, and the remaining thirty or so lancers were mounted beside the road, ready to head into the water if they needed to make a run for it. Styke held up his hand, signaling them to wait, trying to read the strangers’ body language. It was clear they weren’t in a hurry.

At fifty yards, he recognized their commanding officer. She wore the uniform of a colonial and carried a lance much like his own. She slumped in the saddle lazily, yet couldn’t conceal her great height—a little taller than Rezi, if Styke remembered right. She had strong hands; square, powerful shoulders; and a bemused, sour expression as she signaled a halt to her men and rode out ahead of them to meet Styke.

Styke’s grip tightened on his carbine as he examined the woman. It had been well over two years since they’d last met, and he had the scars from the night they’d spent together. He still hadn’t decided whether that was a good memory or a bad one.

“Captain Fles,” he said, nodding.

“Are we that formal now, Ben?”

Styke snorted. “How are you, Ibana?”

Ibana tugged off one riding glove and examined her fingernails. “I’ve been better. Some asshole in Landfall gave me two hundred lancers and ordered me to track down and kill an old lover. You? You look like shit.”

“I’ve had better weeks,” Styke acknowledged.

“I heard they killed Rezi.”

Styke stiffened, trying to determine where that line of thought was going to lead.

“I always liked Rezi,” Ibana said, her forehead wrinkling. “She was good for you.” Styke would have expected a note of bitterness in that statement, but there was no trace of any. He decided not to respond to that.

“So,” he said, clearing his throat, “two hundred lancers. What took you so long to find me?”

Ibana sucked on her teeth, glancing over her shoulder at the cavalry that filled the road behind her. None of them looked terribly eager for a fight. “We, uh, got lost. Might have dawdled a bit. You know. That sort of thing.”

“I appreciate that,” Styke said, feeling a little more certain about things, but still cautious. “But you seem to have caught up with us.”

“Heard you were heading this direction. Hard not to follow up on that.”

“And now you’re here.”

“And now we’re here,” Ibana echoed.

There was a long, thoughtful silence. Styke glanced over his shoulder at his own beat-up group of lancers, then examined the faces of hers. He spotted many old acquaintances, comrades, and even some friends. In fact, now that he looked carefully, he realized that he recognized most of the people with her. “You didn’t handpick your search party, did you?”

“I might have,” Ibana smirked.

“A revolution has started in Redstone. We’re heading that way. I could use a few more men, and a new second-in-command. They killed Blye.”

Ibana grunted. “Sad about Blye. Another good one.”

“There will be a lot more good ones in the ground before this is over.”

Ibana tilted her head to the side, then turned one last time in the saddle, sweeping her gaze across the group behind her. “Major Styke, sir, I think we’re going to need more keelboats.”

“Get looking,” Styke ordered, a grin spreading across his face. “And give me your fastest rider with a spare horse. I want to send word to Lindet that we’re bringing her some cavalry.”

Ibana turned her horse around. “You heard the man!” she bellowed. “We need more keelboats! Ferlisia, track down a spare mount and get your ass up here!” She nudged her mount toward Styke’s, and soon they were sitting side by side, watching as the fresh company of lancers fell out to help finish loading the keelboats, and groups headed upstream and downstream to find more. The transition had been almost instantaneous, two groups forming into one, and Ibana sitting beside him felt as natural as the saddle beneath him. “Do you have a name for this company?” she asked.

“I haven’t come up with a good one.” Styke felt a weight lift from his shoulders. Ibana was a damned good officer, and she had picked a fantastic group of lancers. If Styke had been forced to fight them, he would have been hard-pressed—even at full strength.

“You hear what they’re calling you in Landfall?” she asked.

“Didn’t know they were calling me anything.”

“Oh, you’re the talk of the whole damned town now, my friend. When I left, word was already going around that a giant had staved in the head of Sirod’s personal Privileged and twisted off Sirod’s head.”

“I didn’t twist his head off. Just around.”

“They’re calling you Mad Ben Styke.”

Styke couldn’t help but laugh at the double meaning. “Crazy or furious?”

“Both.”

“I like it.” He paused, considering the men working together by the river. “Mad Ben Styke,” he muttered. “Mad Ben Styke’s Mad Lancers. How’s that?”

“I’ll get someone working on a banner.”

For more in the Powder Mage Universe:

Promise of Blood
The Powder Mage Trilogy
Orbit, April 2013

The Crimson Campaign
The Powder Mage Trilogy
Orbit, May 2014

The Autumn Republic
The Powder Mage Trilogy
Orbit, February 2015

Sins of Empire
Gods of Blood and Powder
Orbit, March 2017

Forsworn
A Powder Mage Novella
January 2014

Servant of the Crown
A Powder Mage Novella
June 2014

Murder at the Kinnen Hotel
A Powder Mage Novella
November 2014

In the Field Marshal’s Shadow
Stories from the Powder Mage Universe
November 2015

Ghosts of the Tristan Basin
A Powder Mage Novella
February 2016

Contact Brian McClellan

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