Chapter 1
The boys played near the great river against the express wishes of their parents, as boys often did. Threats of punishment did little to dissuade adolescent boys when there was adventure to be had. Particularly at night, when the near-full moons lit the sky, teasing the earth with their shimmering whites and blues. These were the colors of mischief. The colors of fun. The colors of magic.
Finding that the other boys had pulled ahead, Fenrir stumbled through the brush to catch up. The paths along the Fullane were so overgrown here. Not much further, and the boys would be near his and his mother’s special place. He didn’t want the boys to sully the little clearing—one of the few safe places that he and his mother could share. It may have been the only place where his mother smiled her real smile.
Fenrir rushed ahead to distract the boys, to lead them away from their clearing. He had seen a great turtle earlier in the day—maybe he could find it again, and focus the boys on that instead.
Suddenly, he was falling, tumbling forward, his arms flailing to catch his fall. Had he hit a root?
There was a biting laugh behind him. Sigmund Fitra pulled himself from the bushes where he’d been hiding with his leg sticking out. The skinny youth was as well-dressed as always, though they were at play. His parents never cared if he came home dirty, even if he ruined his silks. He would just get replacements. His parents gave him everything he wanted.
Through the brush, the moon glinted off Sigmund’s teeth, painting them a glowing blue and giving him the visage of a demon. The stringy, angular boy was handsome and symmetrical, but Fenrir had always thought he resembled a rat. He was a couple of years older than Fenrir, but Fenrir still thought himself the stronger and the faster of the two, and could take him in a fair fight. But, Sigmund never fought fair.
“What gives, Siggy?” Fenrir asked, pushing himself to his feet and noticing the deep scrapes on his hands as he rose. He did nothing to tend to the wounds, however. Sigmund was like a predatory bird. You couldn’t show injury or he would attack.
“It’s not fucking Siggy, you shit!” spat the boy, his moonlit features twisting in rage, giving him the appearance of Ultner, Lord of Pandemonium. Fenrir was taken aback more by his language than anything. The boy was extremely polite and polished in public, and adults loved him.
But, rarely had they been so far from home, and certainly not at night. So far from any adults.
“It is when you trip me!” Fenrir stepped forward, fists clenched painfully, confident that Sigmund would either do nothing or back down. Astonishingly, Sigmund crossed his arms, a smile creasing his rodent face. It gave Fenrir pause for a moment. He was about to retreat himself when something hard cracked him in the back of the head. He cried out and fell on his face, the scrapes on his hands tearing open even more on the rough terrain. When he made a fist, it felt sticky with blood.
He rolled to his side, squinting up at Aiden and Ethan, Ethan holding a thick tree branch. The cause of his sudden headache, it seemed. His brothers’ faces swam in his sight. He couldn’t make out their features or expressions, but he imagined smug grins. They always wore smug grins.
“Fen, it looks like you fell! Do you need help up?” asked Aiden, his voice a mockery of kindness. He even held out his hand, but Fenrir knew better. He slapped it aside, despite the pain in his own palm.
Wait, was he missing a ring finger? No, that wasn’t right.
Fenrir tried to stagger to his feet, but was hit by a blow he couldn’t see and again knocked to the ground. He tried to roll to one side and escape, but someone leveled a kick at his aching skull, blasting stars across his vision. He was struck, again and again, until he lay moaning on his back, staring up at the twisted branches, above him like grasping fingers trying to reach the moons. Only Instar was visible, blue light giving him the impression of being underwater. The impression of being drowned.
“No, I don’t—” The sound of arguing cut through waters that seemed to fill Fenrir’s ears.
“That’s enough. He’s hurt.”
“No, it isn’t. We agreed—”
“But we could get in trouble.”
“Enough! I’ll do it.”
A figure stood above him, blurry in his vision and silhouetted by the moon. The form raised its arms above its head and the wind seemed to kick up, lashing branches across Fenrir’s blurry vision. It held something that appeared to be a demon’s skull above its head. No, not a skull. A rock?
The rock came down, smashing into his knee. Fenrir screamed, trying to move away, but many strong hands held him in place. The rock rose once more, and again crashed into his knee with the force of a vengeful god.
Fenrir howled, eyes clenched shut to blur out the sight as if that would help with the pain.
It was agony. The shattered bones and fibers ground together like sausage being pressed in a butcher’s shop.
His godsdamn, fucking knee.
***
Fenrir Coldbreaker sat up, disoriented and breathing heavily. His head throbbed, and his lower back was stiff. And his knee! Oh, did his knee ache!
He realized then that he’d been sleeping awkwardly, his leg bent back behind him. It wasn’t re-shattered, thank the gods. Gingerly, he straightened out the damaged joint, grimacing as it sent waves of pain through his body. Even the best surgeons had been unable to fix him completely, either initially or afterward. No wonder he’d had that terrible dream.
But where was he? He pushed himself up from a frigid stone floor, shaking his head to clear his vision and wiping cold sweat from his forehead. Not the first morning that he’d awakened on a floor, although in Rostane, the tavern floors were typically built of splintered, wooden planks, as were the floors in his boarding house for those unfortunate nights when he couldn’t find his bed. He did feel just as weak and dehydrated as he would in those situations, but didn’t think he was hungover.
There was essentially no light, so Fenrir felt his way through the space. It was, indeed, a room. Mortar-stoned walls, and only a few paces wide and deep. There was a thin, barred door on one side of the room—locked, of course, as cells always were—and the place smelled like shit. On closer examination, though, the smell was actually him and whatever soiled rags he wore.
He hadn’t been wearing these rags, last he remembered. No… he’d been wearing an ill-fitting set of steel armor, sprayed with the blood of Duke Penton, and he’d been surrounded by Knights of the Wolf and at least one godsdamned pasnes alnes. One of those cursed magic users! He was lucky that he wasn’t splattered all over the wall, like Merigold had done with those mercenaries back in Hunesa.
Despite his plight, Fenrir spared a thought for the young girl, wondering how she was. Wondering whether she was safe with the Army of Brockmore, and whether there still was an army. He’d done his part, if memory served. Hopefully, Escamilla and the rest could do theirs. He’d rather not have anything more happen to Merigold. Though she’d not told him the whole story, it was clear her recent life had been pandemonium.
The other woman in his life was also with that army. Emma Dram, his crimson-haired, sharp-tongued, cripple-handed minx of an ex-lover. Though she wasn’t necessarily the one who’d gotten him into this situation, she’d delivered her orders with such certainty and finality that it felt, to Fenrir, like she’d controlled his fate. As if she had steered him into a flawed, but somehow successful, attempt on Duke Penton’s life. He supposed it was what he deserved—he was the reason her hand was crippled, after all.
And, though they had been traveling together for at least a couple of months, he had never found the time, or the nerve, to apologize.
He shoved thoughts of Merigold and Escamilla and Emma from his mind. Obviously, there would be plenty of time to ponder the meaninglessness of those relationships later, given his new occupation as a prisoner. After killing the little duke—as unpopular as the man had been in Rostane, and despite the duke having started an unjust war—Fenrir would almost inevitably be executed. Likely
, no one would shed a tear. Certainly not any of the ladies who’d just occupied his thoughts.
So, a cell. It wasn’t a big stretch to assume he was at the Plateau. His fingertips told him that the walls were identically-cut, mortar-stoned blocks. He could feel the bumps and divots that he was so familiar with. How many hours had he stared at these blocks, focusing on any imperfection? When one is on a ten-hour guard shift, one finds stories in the walls themselves. That splotch resembled a bare-knuckled fighter, face swollen from too many fights, while that one looked like a shaggy dog. The two would walk together after the arena fights, and…
Again, Fenrir shook his head, trying to clear out the fog. Somehow, he had gotten back to the Plateau—a couple hundred miles from Florens—while remembering nothing of the trip. That distance had taken the Rostanian Army weeks to traverse, although they’d been plagued by poor organization and training on the march. Even so, he must have lost at least a couple weeks of his life, depending on how long he had been unconscious in this cell. By Ultner’s soggy testicles, it must have been one of those pasnes alna, using their powers to fuck with his mind.
Some hinges screeched in the distance, and there was the sound of a metal door slamming shut. Armored, booted feet approached his cell as a light became visible down the hallway, burning his eyes like they were those of a newborn. Apparently, Fenrir would learn more about his situation without delay. He took a deep breath and attempted to focus, squinting against the light as shapes formed outside of his cell.
“He’s awake,” came a young voice which Fenrir didn’t recognize.
“Of course; he was supposed to be conscious by now. Open the door.”
This voice, Fenrir did recognize. The rising rage burned away his mental fog in an instant.
“If it isn’t Fenrir the Coldbreaker, the regicide pile of shit himself.” Sigmund Fitra strolled into the cell, flanked by two Knights of the Wolf, the man’s rodent face twisted in a smile. As always, the skinny man was resplendent in the most expensive clothing that money could buy, and he still had the platinum Rostanian wolf emblazoned over his heart—the sign of a general in the military. Interestingly, he also had the three-masted ship of the de Trenton family on the opposite breast. It seemed like quite the conflict of interest, serving both the state and private enterprise.
“Regicide is a term reserved for king-slaying,” Fenrir pointed out. “Little Penton was not a king, no matter how he styled himself. At worst, I am a murderer. But, given that we were in wartime, on opposite sides of the conflict, there is no crime. Penton was a casualty of war.” He wasn’t exactly trying to absolve himself, but perhaps he could anger Sigmund with knowledge. It was an excellent weapon against the ignorant.
The grin didn’t leave Sigmund’s face. Damn.
“Always such impertinence. However, you have reached the end. You have no friends to help you. No allies. Escamilla is dead. Her army has scattered beneath the raging storm of Rostane. Florens is ours, and Draston prepares to capitulate,” Sigmund answered with smug pride.
The general must have felt personally responsible for these successes.
“Capitulate to whom?” Fenrir asked. “Penton is dead and has no heirs. Rostane must be scrambling to find a new ruler. I would expect politics to subvert the war effort. In fact, I would not doubt that Penton’s successor would hail me as a hero for killing the war-hungry tyrant. Are you here to give me an award?”
“These politics are not your concern. Dukes and counts and barons are so above your current station—literally and figuratively—that you might as well not strain yourself thinking about them. Rather, you should focus on your own fate.” Still with that smile. His crooked nose gave him a sinister appearance.
Obviously, Sigmund wanted Fenrir to ask about his fate. He wouldn’t give the man the satisfaction. It wasn’t like his circumstance would change if he knew the plan.
“How did you end up being a general, Siggy? You can barely manage to dress yourself without servants, and yet you somehow lead men? You think anyone respects someone who sucks my father’s cock to get promoted? And—” A back-handed slap from one of the gauntleted knights sent Fenrir staggering backwards with an aching face.
“You will show respect to the Lord General,” said the young Wolf Knight, roughly grabbing his arm.
But Sigmund’s smile had finally left his face. The stinging in Fenrir’s jaw was worth that.
“Again, Fenny, you must not realize your plight. I have the pleasure to inform you that the Council has deemed your presence to be a threat to national security. You are to be executed, publicly, within the month.”
“Oh, so Rostane is being ruled by a council right now. Thanks for the glimpse into what’s happening upstairs.”
“I look forward to lowering you onto the spike myself. I expect a big turnout,” Sigmund sneered, curling his lip. Fenrir remembered the boy as a youth giving him that same condescending stare. The general turned to leave.
“Sigmund, wait,” Fenrir said, hanging his head, his overgrown, greasy hair tickling at his eyebrows.
“What, are you going to beg for mercy? Beg for mercy from me? Even you should be smarter than—”
Fenrir yanked out of the knight’s grip and slammed his fist into Sigmund’s face with all of his strength. The second knight rushed forward to restrain Fenrir as the first regained his grip, but Fenrir did not struggle. Escape hadn’t been his goal.
“My Lord General, I apologize…” said the young Wolf Knight, fear plain in his quivering voice.
“You imbecile!” Sigmund sputtered from behind his hand, clutching his face. “I will see you lashed!”
“And you!” He moved his hand, revealing blood streaming from his nose and trailing into his mouth. Sigmund got within an inch of Fenrir’s own face. “Let me see if we can advance your sentence. I’ll see you soon.”
Sigmund turned away, adding, “Soften him up. Nothing permanent; just enough to make him cry. I do not want him to be numb to the spike.”
As the Wolf Knights began striking him, Fenrir smiled around the pain.
Worth it.
Chapter 2
Several thousand cavalry, resplendent in the livery of Rostane, began to trot forward, aiming for the tattered battle lines of the Army of Brockmore. The summer heat was already sweltering, and even more so due to the reflected light shining off of the twin Atwater Lakes. Ever a tourist destination, the land bridge which neatly cleaved the lakes in twain was a marvel. Its scant hundred-yard width and mile-long length was covered in tall, pink flowers that could be seen slowly blowing in the breeze, mirroring the gentle waves of the crystal-clear waters. Morning dew rose in a foggy mist, both enhancing and obscuring the beauty of the scene between the armies.
It had taken a great deal of time and patience to move her army without disturbing the flowers overmuch, but their strategy depended on these pink beauties. Lady Emma Breen, observing her armies from the relative safety of their makeshift command post, a raised platform shared by her captains, could only hope that it worked. Ferl was confident—but then, that slimy, handsome man always was. And, after all, he could count on a huge bonus if they managed a victory.
Numbering just over eight thousand, Emma’s forces were ragged, though perhaps not as ragged as they appeared. Before the attack by those creatures—the same monsters who’d assaulted her and her dubious companions in the ruins under the Plateau—they’d had over eleven thousand. Now, her army more closely resembled a fraying patchwork quilt, consisting of many flags and banners with far fewer soldiers under those standards than there should have been.
First among them, though, there were Lady Escamilla’s forces—Emma’s forces. The Army of Brockmore, fighting under a simple apple crest. These were soldiers and guardsmen who had been stripped from Escamilla’s numerous holdings all over Ardia. Her inexperienced fighters had suffered most in the night raid made by those indefatigable creatures. They were Emma’s now, thousands of men who would live or die based on her un
qualified decisions.
She appraised the Florensians next, and their leader Duke Eric Malless, who sat slumped on his charger. He was young for such leadership, even younger than Emma, though he’d spent his entire life knowing that he would eventually command men. And he now commanded the best equipped force in Emma’s army. The best equipped… but also the most beaten. The betrayal from within Florens, and the subsequent sacking of their city, had destroyed the hearts of these men. And those hearts only shattered further as they marched away from their loved ones, not toward them.
And then there were the two mercenary armies. Ultner’s Fist—with their silver-fisted banner over a red background—was commanded by the Silver Lady, Trina Almark. This elite, if small, unit of fighting women had proven itself in both this conflict as well as many past battles, often to the chagrin of their metaphorically castrated male opponents. Ferl’s Company was a less-savory group of mercenaries, and Ferl himself was not well-liked by the Silver Lady. Nonetheless, this day, he held the key to victory.
The well-organized ranks of Rostanian cavalry were only a few hundred yards away from Emma’s front line. This was a poor location for a charge, though—a narrow, defensible strip of land, with terrain obscured by flowing flowers. Still, the Rostanians were confident in their training and numbers. Emma’s poorly-formed and ragged line of Brockmore soldiers were too tempting of a target.
Certainly, the Rostanian commander desired the glory of such a charge, not to mention the promotion that would come with scattering the remainder of Emma’s forces.
At the sight of the well-armored, well-trained Rostanian cavalry approaching, Emma—her brilliant red hair captured by a tight, headache-inducing bun—clenched her teeth, fear weakening her limbs. But, like her liege lady before her, Emma did everything she could to appear calm, collected. She wondered how much of Lady Escamilla’s life had been spent hidden behind such masks. Had she ever felt fear like this?
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