I’m still alive….

Boo 3 of the Mark of the Dead, title to be determined, is still in the works – fingers crossed for summer release. (Didn’t I say that last year?)

In the interim, I have a new collection of short stories that will be out late winter/early spring 2022. It will have a few oldies in there but some new ones as well including a novella to cap the collection off.

The working title is The Black River Chronicles.

Oddly enough, it chronicles the adventures of the Black River mercenaries and specifically Tyris and Stilthius Menion from the Mark of the Dead books.

I’ll have more info and a cover up ASAP but will share a new short from it until release when I will likely swap it out for something fresh.

So Happy New Year and enjoy!

NO GOOD WAY

(note this story appears in a format which may not reflect the final copy.)

NO GOOD WAY

“You hear the news?”

Darius was a good sort as far as youngsters went, Tyris Menion figured as the boy stared at him wide eyed and grinning. He was decent enough with a sword, took orders as well as any other in Black River and generally earned his own keep. That he was dumber than a bag of goat shit was the real issue.

“Everyone’s heard,” Stilthius answered before his younger brother could. The older of the Menion siblings was leaning against the stone wall of a cottage that edged the street of whatever town they were staying in for the night. Tyris forgot the names of most of them as they passed through. He didn’t recall even asking the name of this one. It was easy to forget to ask when you didn’t give a shit.

“Forty-six more men!” Darius was a hell of a lot more excited than the rest of them by far. “That means there’s a fight brewing. I’ll bet we’re being thrown at the Alliance garrison at Shen’s Hollow.”

Tyris shook his head and spat. “Better off pissing into the wind than that. Take a thousand men and weeks to move those bastards out of Shen’s. Shaddix isn’t one to throw his men away.”

That wasn’t entirely true. Shaddix was competent as far as captains went in the same way Darius was a passable soldier. He got the job done and that was about the best that could be said of him. He wasn’t a moron like Darius. By Tyris’s reckoning he was just a prick and that wasn’t anything exceptional among the mercenaries of Black River.

Darius looked like a bit of his fire had been stomped out. “Why more men, then? Has to be for something.”

Stilthius Menion shrugged his massive shoulders beneath his mail. His dark eyes squinted at the western horizon as the sun was sinking, his earth-brown skin smeared with dirt and sweat from the long march that brought them this far along the road from Tamis. He and Tyris were Tulins, a warrior race from across the sea that most of the people of the island of Kronos only heard about in stories told around campfires and feast halls. He was a monstrous man, a full head taller than any other in the company save Tyris and just as broadly built and thick limbed as his younger brother. He was smarter than most too, smarter than Shaddix by a long ways, and that made him respected too, even though the brothers were only with the outfit one season. Darius looked up to them both, but Stilthius more than Tyris, and his brother seemed to take some notice of that and try to offer some kind of guidance when he could.

Darius looked to Tyris when Stilthius didn’t answer. “What do you think?”

The outlander folded his arms across his wide chest and cocked an eyebrow at the younger man. “Who cares? Shaddix will let us know when and where to fight. Find a place to settle in for the night and drink while you can.”

The idea seemed to subdue him a bit and then his eyes lit up again. “Ale. I’ll bring you both a jug.” He was turned about and rushing away before Tyris could tell him not to bother.

He was not one to turn down ale, but to be rid of Darius, he’d make an exception.

Tyris stepped over to stand with his brother and peered out into the sunset with him. “If it is Shen’s Hollow, Shaddix can eat shit. I’m not throwing my life away for nothing.”

Stilthius shook his head without looking over. “I hear the Duke of Turgin is moving men to surround the town. We’re to hold some bridge between here and there to make sure his men can cross. If the Alliance takes it, they’ll hold it until winter.”

The younger outlander nodded. It wasn’t agreement but acknowledgement. They were paid to fight. Agreement was not part of the arrangement.

They were quiet for a time, saying nothing because nothing needed to be said. Tyris watched the sun sink until the sky was purple and orange and listened to the sounds of the town around him. They were twenty-nine men now, most veterans of the campaign that began in the spring, though campaign was a loose term. The commander of the Black River Company, Peridor Finn, had given Shaddix command of forty men to take west and north to the edge of the Duke’s lands there while he stayed with the several hundred that formed the main force near the capital of Turgin in the east. That was where most of the fighting with the Alliance was. Shaddix and his lot mostly kept an eye on the bandits and slavers who took advantage of the chaos to harass the Duke’s people and steal his tax money and livestock. It was paying work, but Tyris and Stilthius were Tulins and they were born and bred to be warriors. Fighting bandits and slaver filth was a waste of their talents.

The quartermaster of their little command, a tall, lanky fellow called Bek, wandered over and asked if they needed anything, but the brother’s waved him off. They had what they needed. The other men occasionally traded their rations or supplies for women or trinkets or lost them gambling, but the brothers knew better. Losing money on girls and dice was fine, but a soldier never bartered his tools of war.

A few moments after Bek had gone, Afton Leer crossed the road that snaked through the center of the village and approached from where he had made a nest for himself in a barn for the night. He had enough straw stuck to his clothes and what was left of his hair that it appeared he had tested the bedding with one of the whores that had been quick to greet the mercenaries when they arrived. Leer was an older man, a veteran of multiple mercenary companies before joining black River a few months back. According to most, he was something of a legend in his youth, a bold, daring fighting man who was as well known for his sharp mind as the sharp head of his spear. He was one of the few the brothers spoke with often. He was a likable sort, hardened by the years but wiser for them as well. He was gray where there was hair, and that was mostly his face now, and he was too thick about the middle. But he was dangerous man in a fight and was as good for out-thinking an opponent as he was outfighting them.

“You two eat yet?” the older mercenary asked as he came near.

Stilthius nodded once. He and Tyris had helped themselves to bread and cheese offered by the villagers when they had first arrived. Most of the towns and villages treated the Duke’s men, even mercenaries, well, hoping to earn some trust and respect. It made for an easier arrangement while the soldiers stayed and there was always hope among the locals that it might earn them some help when the bandits and slavers eventually did come.

“Good,” Leer grunted. “Feel like a ride?”

“Where to?” Tyris asked, a bit more interested in this than he had been Darius’s news.

“A bridge not far from here,” he answered. “A day and half or so by horse. Apparently some little shithole town lies on the opposite side of the river north of here. Word is they recently built a bridge to reach timber on the south side. If that’s true the Duke could take that bridge and move men on Shen’s Hollow. It would basically give us the only route to Shen’s Hollow. The bridge is the best way there. No good way to get around. Shaddix wants me to take some men and have a look at it, see if the Alliance has anyone watching it. Guess he figures he wants to know what he’s getting into before he marches us all over there.” He wiped at his scarred face with one gnarled hand. “You heard about the reinforcements, I guess.”

“They’d be for us to hold the bridge, I wager,” Stilthius responded.

Afton Leer flashed a humorless grin. “Guess that depends on how many people try to take it from us.” He looked around a moment. “I’d be glad to have you two at my back when I have a look. What do you say?”

The brothers shared a silent look and Tyris Menion shrugged. “Better than sitting around this shithole.”

“What’s better?” Darius called as he scrambled back to them, a wooden jug under each arm.

“Shit,” Leer muttered under his breath. He raised his voice a bit. “Not your concern, boy.”

Darius handed one jug to Stilthius and the other to Tyris. “Going somewhere? Scouting are you?”

Leer huffed out a breath. “Damn it, boy, you’ve got ears like a hunting dog. Shaddix is sending me scouting. But I have enough for that. You can stay here.”

The boy gestured to the town around them. “What the hell for? Nothing happening here. I’ll carry my own water, captain. I won’t be no burden.”

“I ain’t the captain,” Leer snapped back. “Just picked for a scouting party is all.” He looked to Stilthius. “What do you think?”

The outlander seemed to think it over a moment. “He could use some experience.”

Leer looked like he’d have been happier if Stilthius had clobbered him with the great steel hammer that leaned against the house next to him. “You sure?”

“Probably for the best,” Tyris spoke up. “If we don’t start teaching him something he’ll be fucking useless forever.”

Darius grinned like a fool, so happy to be included that Tyris’s insult slipped past unnoticed. “So I can come?”

Leer’s expression soured further. Perhaps, Tyris thought, he’ll hit himself with the hammer. “Yes, you dumb shit. Now go find Rin and Sith and tell them they are part of this too.”

Darius hurried away without another word.

“Six then?” Stilthius was asking as the boy disappeared around the cottage.

“Seven,” the old soldier corrected. “Keel too.”

Afton Leer had chosen good men, Darius notwithstanding. Rin and Sith were cousins the company had picked up a few weeks before in a small city along the Alliance border. They were former soldiers that had been chased out of the Alliance army for killing their commanding officer over a gambling debt. That kind of history went unchallenged in Black River. Part of the appeal of joining was that no one gave a shit who you used to be. All that mattered was that you served and served well.

Keel was one of the Shaddix’s trackers, a quiet, intense man with sharp eyes and ears that had kept the lot of them from walking into an ambush more times than Tyris could remember. He was a decent enough sort as far as the thieves, murderers and thugs of Black River went. Whatever his past, Keel never said anything about it. The Menion brothers like most in Black River didn’t care enough to ask.

They were ready within the hour. Keel knew the area a bit and advised there were no settlements between where they were and the bridge. On the other side of the river, the name of which he couldn’t remember, was a fishing village that nominally belonged to the Alliance. He didn’t remember the name of that place either. His lack of specifics alarmed no one. There were enough farms and villages scattered about the frontier between the lands of the Duke of Turgin and the Free Lords’ Alliance that Tyris wondered if anyone knew all the names.

“Garrisoned?” Stilthius asked the tracker as the seven men urged their horses north out of town.

They were lightly equipped, enough provisions for a few days and weapons and armor and little else. It was warm and clear and camping equipment was left behind save for a few light canvas shelters in the event it rained. These would keep weapons and saddles dry. Getting rained on was nothing to worry about. Besides, Tyris decided as he looked at the others, it was the closest thing to a bath most of them would be likely to get anytime soon.

“Doubt it,” Sith spoke up before Keel could. He was a short, powerfully built man with a wild head of black hair and a drooping mustache. He smiled a gap toothed grin as the outlander looked over. “Alliance don’t give a shit about these little towns. They have men in Shen’s Hollow and that’s close enough to scare off raiders and such.”

Tyris glanced at Keel but the tracker gave no indication if he agreed or not.

Afton Leer shifted in his saddle a bit. Something creaked. The old leather or his old bones, Tyris couldn’t be sure. “We’ll have a look and talk to the villagers, see if any alliance soldiers have been through.” He glanced back at Keel. “How far from this bridge to Shen’s?”

“Two days,” the tracker responded without interest.

“Piss poor way to protect that bridge, if it’s really there,” Stilthius muttered and spat. “Tell me again why the Duke hasn’t ground these Alliance shits into the mud already?”

They all chuckled in response. Every man knew the answer to that. These lands were of lesser concern to both parties in the undeclared war between the Duke and the Alliance. The real prizes were the cities and roads to the east that controlled trade and rich farmland. The frontier was worth controlling, but not at the expense of the real money to be made elsewhere. It took money and men to secure more money and men, of course, and neither was limitless.

“We going to fight for that bridge?” Darius was asking Afton Leer. “When the new men come, I mean.”

“Unless the Alliance gifts it to us.”

“We have enough men for that?” the boy pressed.

Afton Leer kicked his horse forward to get away from him. “You let Shaddix worry about that.”

The old soldier pulled his animal up between Tyris and Keel, Stilthius to the right of the former, Rin and Sith to the other side of the latter. “We have enough men for that?”

Rin shook his head. He was built like his cousin, though taller and his dark hair was cut close to his head. A patch work of scars wound around his scalp. “Not if they empty the fort at Shen’s Hollow and throw the whole garrison at us.”

“How many?” Stilthius asked.

Rin looked to his cousin and back again. “We was there a few years ago. Fifty men, regulars. They’d probably get more than a hundred conscripts from the town and at least that many mercenaries and men at arms from the other manors and villages.”

“And they could hold a damn bridge with half that,” Keel put in. “We’d have less than a hundred. Three to one odds, if your numbers hold.”

Sith whistled sharply. “The gambler in me doesn’t like the sound of that.”

“Seems like the Duke might need to give up on the bridge and Shen’s Hollow for now,” Rin agreed.

Afton Leer shook his head. “Shit chance of that. Shaddix says the garrison at Shen’s Hollow has to go because the Duke thinks the Alliance will pull back from this area if it falls. If so, he can commit to a fight in the east without worrying about Alliance troops using the fort to stage attacks on his western flank.”

Darius pushed himself forward again, squeezing between Leer and Keel. “So why not send more men?”

Afton Leer shook his head and looked away.

Darius looked about in confusion.

“What did you do before you joined Black River?” Stilthius asked the boy without looking at him.

He hesitated a moment before answering. “Cleaned stables. Scrubbed piss-pots. Worked the kitchen. My mother served the lady of a noble household.”

“And you volunteered for this shit?” Rin threw his head back with a laugh. “Dumb bastard.”

Darius frowned and looked down at the grass his horse was trampling as they went. “Alliance soldiers attacked the manor. Killed and burned and raped their way through. Only a few of us got out. No one but me from my family.”

The men went quiet.

“That’s why I’m here. That’s why I begged Shaddix to take me and teach me. Nothing I can do now for the dead. But I can be sure I’ll never be hiding in a corner afraid to fight again.”

There was a long silence before Stilthius spoke. “The reason we can’t wait for more men is that the Duke will have to send his soldiers home in the fall for harvest. That will leave his standing army and Black River to hold his gains and garrison his fortresses. They’ll be no advances. He needs to take Shen’s Hollow now or it will be spring before he has another chance. And by then? Who knows how many more men the Alliance will send this way?”

Darius simply nodded and said nothing. After a time, he let his horse slow and drifted to the rear of their procession. Rin and Sith wandered a bit as well when the former hurried away to get a look at a deer that bounded along the tree line to their left. He’d be too late to get an arrow after it, but that didn’t seem to dull his interest.

“Too bad about the boy’s family,” Leer offered as he rode on, flanked by the outlanders.

Stilthius nodded. “Happens to all of us. You know that. Sword, fever, age – something gets us in the end. No exceptions.”

They camped for the night on a low rise over-looking a forested valley below. The clouds hung heavy but the rain passed them by and the wind gave some relief from the stale summer air. Leer allowed for cooking fires figuring they’d see anyone that might come looking from far enough off that they needn’t worry about being surprised. They fried some fresh pork Rin had traded for in the town they had left behind and shared loaves of dark bread and the jugs of ale Darius had provided the Menion brothers. Watches were set and they men made themselves beds out of tall grass and saddle blankets and went off to sleep.

By noon of the following day, they had spotted the bridge and the town that lay on the other side of the river. The bride was a sturdy timber span anchored in stone at either bank. The river ran close below, a dozen feet or so from the deck of the bridge. It was slow and wide, calm enough that it could barely be heard above the sound of the horses and men that appraised it from several hundred yards back. From here, the buildings of the town were little more than lumps against the summer sky. A road, little more than brown smear in the grass from where they waited, ran along the edge of the river to their left and turned into the bridge.

“Not even a guard posted,” Leer muttered as they started forward at a slow walk. “The fort at Shen’s Hollow isn’t that close.”

Sith shrugged. “Guard, no guard – what difference does it make?”

“Makes me wonder if there is something in the town that makes the folks feel they don’t need protecting,” Keel shot back. “We all heard stories about the dark magic of the Alliance.”

Rin snorted and waved a dismissive hand. “All shit, that. Sith and me served three years. No one burst into flames near us.”

“Not true!” his cousin called from ahead of him. “Remember that poor shit that got doused in oil at the siege of Kernok? Stumbled right into a watch fire trying to clear his eyes and lit up like a torch.”

“Poor shit!” Rin echoed. “Can still smell him when I cook bacon.”

“Magic?” Tyris was asking Keel as the cousins went on about the incident. “What kind of magic?”

The tracker frowned and shook his head. “Curses. Madness. They say the Alliance sorcerers can control men’s minds. They have witches that tempt men and when they have seduced them they steal their blood for sacrifice to their goddess.”

Afton Leer shook his head at that. “Probably just shit like Rin says. If they have so much magic, why don’t they crush the Duke’s army and take his land? Stories and nothing more, boys.”

The outlander thought it was more than that but said nothing. Stilthius glanced over with a look that said he was not so quick to dismiss the tales either. The brothers had seen something of the magic that whispered through this land and they knew it was more than tales and wild talk. Whether the Alliance army had magic to use in battle or not could be debated, but Tyris Menion had no doubt there were strange forces at work in the land of Kronos.

Leer moved the men forward, slow and steady, keeping a watchful eye on the bridge and the road that twisted west along the river bank for any sign of approaching man or beast. They could hear the river as they drew closer, a low, rhythmic rush of water and soft lapping against the near bank. The town came into focus as they reached the south end of the bridge. It was a collection of wood buildings clustered along the road that cut through its center and meandered off through the farmsteads beyond. The fields to the north and east grew high with immature wheat and barley and men on horseback drove cattle and sheep along the slope of a small hill to the west. Townsfolk wandered the area pushing carts and pulling wagons, thatching roofs and repairing pig pens. A few looked up as the seven men gained the bridge, but there was no fear in them, no surprise.

Stilthius nodded toward a group of men to the right of the road just at the end of the bridge and Tyris followed the gesture. There were four of them, stripped to the waist and covered in filth. A cage of wooden poles surrounded them, the door secured with a chain and lock of iron. No one stood guard there and not a single person in the town seemed to take notice.

Afton Leer slowed his horse as he noticed them as well, raising hand to stop the rest of them. They were nearly across the bridge now, a few feet from north end. A few of the townsfolk were watching them from their doorways and windows now, but most continued about their work.

“What do you make of that?” the old veteran asked the outlanders.

“Thieves caught by the villagers or maybe raiders that were captured?” Tyris suggested.

“Help us!” one of the prisoners wailed suddenly, one much covered arm reaching out toward them between the wooden bars of his cage. “Free us before he comes!”

A door opened on the back side of the nearest building, a single story wooden structure that looked no different than the rest. A man emerged carrying a long wooden pole that resembled a blunted lance. He was tall and broadly built with an ample belly that hung over the wide leather belt at his waist. He was dressed in stained pants and tunic, but what it was that had soiled his clothing was not apparent at first glance. He strode to the stockade without looking at the horsemen on the bridge and poked the pole through the bars, jabbing the speaker in the gut. The man doubled over and the pole jabbed him in the face under his left eye and dropped him to his back.

“Told you to be quiet!” the new arrival barked. He turned away from the cage and then paused, looking back to the bridge and the men on it. “None of your affair. You go about your business and leave these wretches be if you know what’s good for you.”

Without another word he stomped away, reentered the building from which he had come and slammed the door shut behind him. Tyris was about to look away and forget him when he saw a slight rustle of the canvas curtain over the open window. The grizzled face of the big man with the pole peered out from the gap there, watching them closely. He caught Afton Leer’s eye and shook his head at the old warrior before he could turn his horse toward the cage to speak to the prisoners. Leer continued ahead instead and led them along the road through the center of the town.

There might have been two hundred people living here, Tyris thought as he looked about. That would include the farmsteads that surrounded the place. If half were women and a third of those who remained too old or too young to fight, that left sixty or seventy men who could hold a spear and defend the village. Rin had been right about a garrison. Tyris saw no soldiers here. In fact, aside from an odd hunting knife he saw no weapons of any kind among the people who milled about.

“You there!” Afton Leer called to a man carrying a basket of wool across the street in front of them. The man paused and looked back at them without the slightest hint of concern at the sight of the mercenaries. “What is this place?”

“Ancramdale,” the man responded and continued on without looking at them again.

“Know it?” Leer asked of them all. Keel shook his head. Sith and Rin shrugged. Darius did not bother to do either.

“Who is your leader?” the old soldier called after the man.

“House with the slate roof,” he called back without looking at them.

There was only one such place and the seven mercenaries continued a short distance down the road until they found it. An elderly woman was at the side of the place, hanging wet clothes on from a length of rope stretched between her home and the next. She did not seem to notice them as they approached.

Leer dismounted. “You lead these people?” She did not answer him or acknowledge his presence. A took a few steps toward her. “A coin for a moment of your time,” he told her as he stopped a few feet away, his thumbs looped into his belt.

The woman did not look up from her work. “Keep your coins. What do you want?”

Leer cast his men an uneasy glance. Having someone refuse money might have been a first for all of them. “Asking about Alliance soldiers in the area. Have you seen any?”

“No soldiers here,” she replied, her voice thin and shrill. “Not for years.” She jerked a thumb back toward the bridge. “Not until those fools came a week past. Demanded we surrender access to the bridge to the Alliance.”

“The bridge?” Afton Leer asked. “Alliance town means it’s an Alliance bridge, don’t it?”

She stopped a moment and squinted up at him. She was weathered and bent, her skin like old leather, but her eyes were bright and clear. Intelligence there, Tyris thought as he looked down at her from his saddle. “

“Our bridge. We built it, not them. For forty years I’ve taken care of these people. Raiders. Famine. How many times did the Alliance come to help us? No men to drive off the slavers and thieves. No food for the starving. Now we build a bridge and they take notice? They’ll have nothing.”

“They will send soldiers looking for their men you hold. Have you no fear of them?” he pressed.

She flashed him a toothless smile that made Tyris recoil a bit. He could swear his horse shied slightly. “Fear? No, not me. They’ll come for their men and we will bargain. If they want to use our bridge they’ll pay for the privilege.”

“Or you’ll pay for refusing,” Stilthius put in.

The old woman shook her head. “Not me. Not my people. They know better.”

“You people locked them up yourselves?” Leer shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“Didn’t say we did,” the old woman replied. She went back to her wash. “Feed your horses, buy your supplies and move along if you know what’s good for you, Afton Leer.”

The old mercenary’s hand dropped to the sword on his hip. “You know me?”

She shrugged. “You’ve lived a life of fame, haven’t you?”

“Maybe. Maybe not. You have a name, old woman?”

“No.”

He stood looking at her a moment more and then turned away when she did not react. He took his horse’s reins from Sith and led it back down the road a bit so they were out of earshot from the old woman.

“Fear and respect is heaped on your name even here,” Rin told him with a crooked smile.

“That wasn’t fear,” Stilthius muttered.

“Or respect,” Tyris agreed. “Ever been to this place before?”

Afton Leer shook his head,. “Never even close. Spent most of my time elsewhere. The mercenary companies I served with before Black River fought in the east. No one should have heard of me out here. Certainly not some old fool in a backward town.”

Sith nodded. “All right then. So she knows who you are. We can call that an odd coincidence. But she didn’t lie about Alliance soldiers. Haven’t seen one since we rode in except those poor bastards in the cage. Maybe we just stumbled on strange people in a strange place. Won’t matter when Shaddix marches in with sixty or seventy men.”

“Somethin’ wrong here,” Leer insisted. “I smell shit.”

Tyris took a long, slow look around the place, taking in every building, every person walking on the road or through a yard, every pig that milled about a pen. Nothing out of place. Nothing but townsfolk going about their business like the Black River men weren’t even there. Leer was right. This smelled like shit.

Stilthius urged his horse a bit closer, beckoning Leer and the rest over as well. “Two hundred people here, you think?”

“Exactly what I figured,” Tyris agreed with a nod.

“Say half can fight. Four men didn’t ride in to threaten them for the Alliance. If that was the case it would fifty or more. So where are the rest? Dead? Can’t believe these sorry shits took on fifty armed and killed the other forty-six.”

“A lie, then?” Leer asked.

“Could it be anything else?” Stilthius countered. “So who are those men? Part of me thinks I shouldn’t give a shit. We came to scout for Alliance troops. Maybe four men from the Alliance came to scout for us. They won’t be reporting on us, but more men will be coming to look for them. So we turn around and ride back and make this Shaddix’s problem.”

“So why don’t we?” Tyris liked the sound of that.

“Because this ain’t right and we can’t lead men into something until we know what is going on,” Leer answered.

“Maybe they don’t matter,” Stilthius suggested. “Maybe they are just thieves. They could have tried to rob a man or take a horse. We might be letting our imaginations get the better of us.”

“All right, then,” Leer relented. “We’ll have a look around and then go. We’ll head farther north and see if any Alliance men approach. We’ll see watch fires after dark if there is a force coming.”

“So how long do we look? How far do we go?” Darius asked, his eyes lighting with the possibility of adventure.

“As long and as far as I say,” Leer bit back, trying to make it seem like a hardship.

Darius did not seem the least deterred.

“Moron,” Sith muttered and Rin and Keel nodded their agreement.

The mercenaries found a man selling ale in the town and traded a few silver bracelets and a knife for it before buying some fresh bread and smoked fish for their evening meal. The local black smith didn’t have anything they would call functional weapons and they looked his wares over without much interest before riding slowly north as the sunset.

Tyris glanced back to find the strange old woman standing at the door of her squat stone home with the slate roof, watching after them, a small, frail shadow thrown by the roaring hearth that he spied through the open door behind her.

Mad old fool, he thought as he turned away. Black River or Alliance soldiers, within a week she’d have her little town overrun. Shit, less than a week.

*****

The road out of Ancramdale wound through a lightly forested plain for a time, quickly turning faint and narrow. A handful of hunting paths branched off into the trees at different points and animals dashed about in the darkness as men rode past. They heard the cry of a wolf twice and the song of the insects filled the darkness around them. The moon was a weak glow in the sky above, but it was enough to keep sight of the trail by and Keel led them slowly but steadily north. None of them spoke, not even Darius. A few times Keel would point or wave them onward but nothing more.

A few hours into their ride, the moon already past its peak and slipping east, the trees thinned ahead and what remained of the trail climbed up a sharp rise. They hesitated a moment and then Keel motioned for them to stay and went ahead on foot, disappearing into the shadow of the trees that dotted the hill along its base. Tyris could not see him after a few minutes and gave up trying. Keel could disappear like spit in a rain storm and looking for him was a waste of time and effort. Best they just wait for him.

“That’s where I’d be,” Afton Leer muttered to the outlanders as they sat atop their horses and watched the hill. “On top looking south.”

“No fires though, Stilthius pointed out. “Nothing moving either.”

The older man nodded in acknowledgement.

“Don’t look like anyone is out there,” Sith suggested as he eased his horse over to join them. “Think maybe you were right, outlander. We let our imaginations run away.”

“Might have made too much of nothing,” Leer agreed. “We’ll see what Keel finds before we leave though.”

The tracker was back and was quick to tell them what he found. “Not a damn thing,” were the first words he spoke when he materialized from the darkness and stepped into the moonlight before them. “No sentry on the hill. No army on the other side. No watch fire for a mile or better on the other side and it’s a clear view far enough up the road that I didn’t miss nothing.”

“Back it is then,” Stilthius suggested.

“To the town?” Darius asked.

Tyris thought his brother was going to punch the boy in the face as he turned to stare down at him. He grabbed the fool by the cloak and jerked him back. “Just get moving so we can get out of here.”

Rin shook his head as Darius hurried away. “Shit, but that boy is stupid.”

“Remind me to throw him off the bridge on our way back through,” Afton Leer muttered. “Let’s get going before we’re seen.”

They were moving south again as quickly as they were able, their pace a bit quicker than was safe in the half light, but the men were uneasy and there was silent agreement that they wanted to be away from this place and headed back to the main camp with Shaddix and the rest as soon as possible. None of them spoke of any fear or concern. Fighting men rarely did, especially those in Black River. But Tyris knew they all were thinking it. Everything was strange about this from the disinterested villagers to the captured men to the old woman. Leaving it behind was fine with him.

The town was quiet and still when they approached, heading south toward the bridge. The seven men slowed almost at once, sensing all at once that something was wrong here. The villagers should have been preparing for the day, herding their sheep or tending their hogs,. Fishermen should have been at the river already. Roofs needed patching, fences mending and homes cleaning. But there was no one on the street. Smoke still puffed from chimneys and the animals were still in their pens near the homes. The mercenaries proceeded slowly as they made their way along the road. Sith had his sword in his hand and Afton Leer his spear.

The latter paused as they passed the home of the old woman, staring at the silent, empty windows and the door that stood closed. If she was in there, she was being quiet. Everyone who was anywhere was.

Tyris glanced over at Stilthius and his older brother nodded toward the bridge. No point waiting to find out what was going on.

“Where are they?” Keel asked suddenly.

“Who gives a shit?” Afton leer shot back. “Keep moving,”

But Afton Leer was still studying the silent homes and the villagers and had not seen where Keel’s attention was focused. Tyris saw the tracker was looking at the stockade that lay at the edge of the river bank near the bridge. The men who had been inside it were gone. There was no sound from the nearby stone building from which their jailer had emerged to silence them earlier in the day. There was no sign that they had been killed in the makeshift prison and dragged away. They were just gone.

“What the fuck?” Rin muttered, pointing.

“Just keep moving,” Stilthius told him, waving them all ahead. But he saw it as the rest of them did and stopped where he was, dragging hard on his horse’s reins.

Ahead, gathered atop the bridge that spanned the river, were the people of the town, men, women and children alike. Torches lined the rails, illuminating them all against the darkness. The old woman and the fat man who had come from the stone building to punish the prisoners stood at their center. Kneeling before them were the men they had seen in the stockade, stripped naked and bound at the wrists. Their attention focused on the prisoners, no one saw the seven riders approaching in the darkness.

Afton Leer immediately turned his horse to one side to take advantage of the cover provided by the buildings and motioned for the rest of them to do the same. The mercenaries dismounted and crept to the corners of the buildings, Rin, Sith and Keel on one side of the street and the outlanders with Afton leer and Darius on the other.

“What the hell are they doing?” Leer asked as they watched the old woman wave her arms and address her people. They were too far away to be heard but it was clear this was some sort of ceremony.

“Sacrifice?” Stilthius asked his brother.

Tyris nodded slowly. “Looks like it. Mad fucks! We were right about them.”

Darius looked around the corner of the building and then pulled back again. “We could charge the bridge,” he suggested. “Break through before they can pull us down. They don’t have horses.”

“Or crossbows,” Leer agreed in a rare moment of support for one of Darius’s ideas.

Stilthius shook his head. “Too many people and too little bridge. Lucky if half of us make it.”

Keel was waving at them and pointing to the bridge and Tyris turned away from his brother to what was happening.

The fat man with the staff was pushing the prisoners up onto the rail of the bridge and, with the help of a few others, looping the cords that bound their wrists to hooks in the posts that lined the bridge. The men seemed docile and made no move to stop them or resist.

“Drugged,” Tyris heard Leer mutter beside him and was forced to agree. The prisoners barely seemed to move under their own power, all but limp in the grasp of their captors.

“But what the hell are they hanging them there for?” Stilthius asked beside him. “Thought they might drown them – praying to a river god or some such. But they are leaving them there.”

“Not our concern right now,” Afton Leer interrupted. He eased out from their cover slightly and beckoned to Keel. The tracker checked to be sure no one was looking their way and sprinted across the street to join them.

“What are they doing out there?” he asked as he squatted down among them.

“Don’t much care,” their leader answered. “You know another way around this place?”

“No good way around,” Keel told him without hesitation. “No way at all I know of. Through them is it. When they are done with what they are doing they’ll be back. Maybe we head north again, wait til dawn and come back through.”

Leer looked up at the outlanders.

“Probably the safest,” Stilthius agreed. “Night in the open didn’t kill us last night. Won’t end us tonight.”

“Captain!” Darius hissed.

No one looked at him.

“Captain!”

“I ain’t the fucking captain,” Leer muttered back at him still focused on the outlanders.

“Look!” Darius insisted.

“By the gods!” Stilthius declared, staring over the crouching Afton leer.

Tyris followed his gaze to the bridge where the towns folk had all gathered near the five men who hung by the wrist from the posts. Black shapes had emerged from the water, nearly indistinguishable from the inky darkness, visible only in the weak torch light as they scaled the side of the bridge. Two were already moving like spiders along the rail when two more burst from the water and joined them. They were reptilian with long, slender arms and thick tails between their short, powerful legs.

The townspeople bowed their heads in reverence and the old woman and her fat companion dropped to their knees and bowed theirs as well. The remaining people then joined them in a mass display of worship.

Stilthius had been right. This was a sacrifice.

One of the strange creatures opened its mouth, the jaw extending overly wide like a snake’s and swallowed the head of the nearest man. There was no scream, no struggle. The creature them wrapped its black arms around the offering, pulled the man up and off the hook and dropped back into the water with its prize. The remaining three did not move, waiting it seemed.

And then another shape emerged from the river below, so tall it did not need to jump to the bridge, but instead reached up and grasped the deck of the structure and pulled itself from the water to stand at the edge of it. It towered over the assembled people, fifteen feet tall or more, a massive thing with the same lizard like features of its brethren. It looked the kneeling worshippers over a moment and then went to one of the captive men and wrapped a huge hand around his head.

And then, it saw them.

Tyris was never sure how or why it noticed them. They had not moved. They made no sound. But the horned head of the creature turned right to where he and Stilthius stood at the edge of a building, only one side of their faces peering around the corner.

“Ah, fuck,” Stilthius muttered, pulling his hammer free from the harness on his back.

“Yeah. Fuck!” Afton Leer readied his spear as the rest drew swords.

Tyris hefted his axe as the creature threw back its head and roared with such force it echoed all through the town. The smaller creatures added high pitched shrieks to the larger one’s signal and the three of them scrambled over the rail to the deck of the bridge and turned to the town. The villagers snapped out of their quiet supplication and retreated, crying out in a mix of fear and outrage. Tyris saw the old woman gain her feet and stare back at the Black River mercenaries in a fury. One man froze directly in the beasts’ path and the foremost swiped at him with a clawed hand, raking him across the face and sending him screaming as he fell back.

And then they charged.

They were fast, nearly as fast as horses as they scrambled along, running on all fours and shrieking in a high pitched squeal as they came. Their eyes were yellow and slitted like a cat’s in the night, huge like a frog’s. Their lizard like mouths flashed long, sharp teeth and claws like daggers tipped their webbed fingers. Tyris took position at his brother’s left shoulder as the older outlander ground his heels into the hard earth of the road. A few feet away, Afton Leer shoved Darius behind him and set the butt of his spear against the inside of his right foot and lowered the point toward the enemy. Across the road, Sith and Rin anchored themselves with a building to their right and readied their swords.

The creatures were a dozen yards away when Keel loosed his crossbow. The steel tipped bolt punched through the scaled chest of one of the creatures, sending him tumbling to the ground. The other two did not even slow.

They came right for Tyris and Stilthius teeth flashing, claws reaching. Stilthius met the closest with a brutal swing of his hammer, catching the beast on the left shoulder and knocking him sprawling. The second launched itself at Tyris and he brought his axe crashing own on its head. The thing slammed into him, knocking him over and they crashed back onto the street. His axe slipped from his hands, black ichor washing over them and making them slick. The fetid breath of the thing was hot in his face and its dark blood spattered his cheeks and ran into his eyes. The axe was stuck in the creature’s skull, half the blade buried deep and it thrashed and screamed but could not mount an attack. The flailing arms slashed at him in its death throes, but his mail protected him and he worked one foot under the creature and heaved, throwing it off him.

The thing Stilthius had managed to send sprawling was pinned to the ground by Afton leer’s spear when Tyris managed to gain his feet and wipe his eyes clear. Rin, Sith and Darius were stabbing it with their swords, fighting to penetrate the thick scales with several thrusts before Rin finally took it through it’s open mouth and ended it. Ahead of them, the creature Keel had wounded with his crossbow was trying to reach them, stumbling as it came, falling and rising and falling again, shrieking and spitting. Stilthius approached it cautiously and brought his huge steel hammer down on the crown of its reptilian head and shattered its skull.

Tyris wrenched his axe free from the one he had killed and watched as some of the men from the town, the fat jailer included ran from the bridge to where they waited. He assumed it to be an attack, but then realized the largest of the creatures was slaughtering the people on the bridge. He did not see the old woman, but the kneeling villagers were being slashed and stomped by the great lizard—thing as it waded across the bridge toward the town. The outlander could not be sure if it was killing them out of fury or simply clearing a path to the men of Black River. Whatever its thinking – if the thing thought at all – its ultimate goal was clear.

He glanced to Keel to find him hurriedly reloading the crossbow.

“Fuck it!” Leer called to him. “Get the horses!”

Sith and Rin did not need any more encouragement. They were scrambling into their saddles at once and Darius hurriedly joined them. Leer gathered his horse and those of the outlanders and dragged them to where the brothers waited as Keel swung into his own saddle. Tyris was up and ready and waiting for Stilthius when the fleeing villagers reached them, running past without stopping, screaming in terror and almost oblivious to their presence. Only the fat man paused, seized two handfuls of Stilthius’s cloak and began screaming and tearing at him.

“Defilers! Fools! You have doomed us!”

Stilthius shoved him away and Tyris kicked him in the head when he stumbled close, dropping him to the road where he lay on his back staring up at the sliver of the moon in a daze.

“Around the buildings,” Afton Leer called as the huge creature pounded across the bridge and came for them.

They followed him through a space between two homes, leaving the road to their left. The creature followed, so tall it could see them over the roof of the single story home. Leer led them past a second home and the thing gave chase. Huge as it was, it did not have the speed of the smaller creatures and lumbered where its fellows were quick and fluid. As it turned to chase after them, Afton Leer led them in a bending and turning ride between buildings and back onto the road facing the bridge. The creature let out its fearsome roar again, seeing its prey slipping away. Down the bridge they raced, some of the villagers scattering and those that were too slow or too wounded to react being knocked aside by the charging horses.

The old woman stepped in front of Afton Leer at the end of the bridge shouting something and cursing him as she waved her torch like a sword. The old warrior did not even slow, he simply ran her down and knocked her aside where she slipped under the rail on the side of the bridge and fell flailing into the water below.

The rest of the mercenaries followed and for a heartbeat of time, Tyris though them away. A surge from the water to his left and the high pitch shriek of the creature who had taken one of the captive men and dived back into the water brought his attention around.

The thing had gained the bridge again and launched itself off the railing at them, one clawed hand swiping. It managed to catch the rear leg of Darius’s horse, gashed deep and sent the animal sprawling, Darius was thrown from the saddle just as he reached the far end of the bridge. The boy landed on his face in the grass and rolled away as the horse kicked and screamed behind him, its leg mangled and useless. The creature ignored the fallen animal and came for Darius, its mouth splitting wide to reveal the rows of long teeth.

Sith and Keel were closest and turned back, the former charging his protesting horse into the creature and knocking him away from the fallen boy. The lizard thing recovered and slashed at the horse, wounding it and sending it into a frenzy. Sith abandoned his attack as he fought to control the maddened animal. Keel was out of his saddle, hoisting the semi-conscious Darius up and trying to throw him over the horse’s back. The creature was after him at once, shrieking as it charged.

It would have had them both if not for Afton Leer. His horse a few steps faster than those of the outlanders, he charged at the thing with his spear leveled, caught it in the throat and ran the steel head and wooden shaft completely though and out the beast’s back. It fell away, pulling the spear out of his hand. Leer slid from his saddle, pulled it free and then turned to help Keel with Darius.

Ahead, the larger monster was crossing the bridge and Sith, dismounted and struggling with his horse, the reins around one hand as he tried to drag it away from the bridge, was directly in is path.

Rin scream a warning to his cousin and closed on the creature, spurring his horse on furiously, sword lifted. He would not succeed; Tyris Menion knew it at once. Swords had barely been enough to penetrate the armored hide of the smaller creatures. Rin might as well attack with a stick.

The outlanders charged, spurring their terrified horses on. They might be too late to save Rin and Sith, Tyris thought as they did. Hell, they might not survive themselves.

Rin put himself and his horse directly in the massive thing’s path, slashing at the scaled face with his sword. As Tyris predicted, the blade skidded off as surely as it would mail and the creature dealt Rin a savage back hand blow that hurled him from his saddle and left him in a crumpled heap in the grass. Sith abandoned his horse at once and ran to his cousin’s side, sword ready as the creature advanced.

Stilthius came at the lizard-thing from its right flank as it focused on the cousins, his hammer arcing down to smash onto one unprotected leg. There was a great, echoing thud and the creature bellowed in pain, but it did not fall from the blow that would have pulverized the bones of a mere man. It swiped at him, but Stilthius was clear of it before it could reach him and the thing missed. It turned away from Sith and Rin just as Tyris approached, his axe aiming for the thing’s left leg. The keen blade bit into the armored scale with a blow that would have dismembered a man, blood flying, but it was a shallow cut and the thing only roared again and whirled on him, jaws snapping.

It caught his horse about the head and broke its neck with one twist. Tyris launched himself from the saddle, hit the ground on his shoulder and rolled to his feet. He and Stilthius had been trained to fight since they were old enough to hold a weapon. Being thrown from a saddle was something he had trained for and experienced more times than he could remember.

The lizard creature squared itself and came for him, claws reaching. Tyris heard the click of a crossbow as Keel loosed a bolt behind him, but the steel head only barely penetrated the scales, sticking fast in the thing’s back but most of the shaft still exposed. The creature barely slowed, reaching for the outlander. He ducked away and slashed with his axe, biting into a thick finger and drawing a screech of pain. It was a minor wound to the monster and it turned on him again, swiping with its huge clawed hands. He managed to roll away again, but the it was relentless.

Behind the creature, Stilthius charged, his steel hammer lifted. To the back of its knee he struck, the fluked spike atop the hammer digging deep and punching through armored scale. This time the monster faltered its leg buckling. Tyris slashed at its head, but his axe struck the armored plate and thick bone of its brow and scored only a superficial cut. The beast reared back as Stilthius twisted the head of the hammer, digging the spike deeper into its leg. Afton Leer stabbed out with his spear as he came to Tyris’s side, the steel head skidding off the face of the monster and taking it in the eye. It screeched again and flinched away, one hand coming up to clutch the eye, the other flailing at the old mercenary. Leer managed to get his spear up to deflect the blow but was bowled over nonetheless.

On one knee and half blind, the creature was as vulnerable as they could hope and Tyris Menion knew he might not get another chance. With a defiant roar every bit as impressive as that of the monster’s, the outlander charged, his great axe gripped in both hands. His heart pounded. His face was hot with exertion and battle lust. The strange beast saw his approach with its good eye and tried to slash at him with its claws, but he sidestepped the blow and skirted the reaching hand. Face to face with the kneeling creature, he brought the axe crashing down on its remaining eye, the yellow orb shattering like an egg thrown against a rock, clear and yellowish liquids bursting forth.

This time the high pitched shriek the monster let loose was long and desperate, agony mixed with fear. It forced itself up to its full height, knocking the outlanders back as it turned and stumbled blindly back toward the bridge. Flat on his back in the grass, his axe still clutched in one hand, Tyris Menion watched as the creature lurched into the side of the bridge, fell to one knee and then rose again. It tripped and fell a second time, leaning against railing for a moment until its weight caused the timber to split and break and then it tumbled the dozen feet to the water below with a splash that sent white foam up above the deck of the bridge.

None of them moved for a time, waiting to see if it returned or if any of the villagers would try to attack them for what they had done. But no one moved and the creature did not reemerge from the river. Finally, Tyris pushed himself up and hefted his axe. The side of his face hurt where the creature had clipped him with a flailing back hand, but he was not injured. A few feet away, Stilthius had gained his feet and looked no worse for the battle.

Keel and Afton Leer approached from behind him and he turned to appraise them. The former was not injured and the latter limped slightly. He shrugged when the outlander cocked an eyebrow at him.

“Jumped off my horse before it stopped. I’m too old for that shit, outlander. Not like you pups.”

The four of them went to Rin and Sith who were slowly gaining their feet a short distance away. Sith’s hands were raw and bleeding from fighting his horse and Rin’s left arm hung useless at his side.

“Fucking broke,” he muttered, holding it gingerly. “Least of what I could have expected fighting that bastard.”

Sith clapped him on the good arm. “Saved my ass. I owe you.” He looked to Keel and Afton Leer. “The boy?”

Leer turned and pointed. Keel’s horse was a hundred yards away with Darius draped over the saddle and flailing like a fool.

“Thought he was out cold,” the tracker told them all. “Tied him to the horse and then that creature started shrieking and screaming and the damn thing bolted, took the boy with it.”

“Suppose we ought to cut him loose?” Rin asked.

Keel shrugged. “We can walk slow.”

The cousins and the tracker drifted away, heading for Darius and the spooked horse. Afton Leer set the butt of his spear against the earth and leaned on it. He lifted his chin toward the bridge and the town beyond were several of the villagers could be seen.

“Think they’ll be looking to come over and take vengeance.”

Tyris laid his axe over his shoulder. “Not if they like breathing.”

Stilthius shook his head. “Best we go. No telling if they will.” He looked to his brother when he tried to protest. “We killed their god. Or maimed him at least. Those beasts were why they never had to worry about the Alliance or slavers or bandits. Anyone that came here looking for trouble got fed to the things in the river. They worshipped them because the creatures protected them in exchange for sacrifices.”

“Why not kill them all and eat them if they liked the flesh of men?” Afton Leer suggested and then shook his head. “Because if you hunt one place too much you run out of prey,” he said, answering his own question.

“Exactly,” Stilthius agreed. “Now let’s be on our way before someone’s love for their god overrules their sense and they come looking for another fight.”

“Have to double on horses,” Leer advised as they walked after the others. “Except you two bastards. Too big for that.”

Tyris nodded but was considering other matters. “What do we tell Shaddix about this?”

“The truth?” his brother suggested.

Leer shook his head and snorted. “He’ll think we were drinking.”

“Probably,” Tyris agreed. “But the bridge is ours for the taking now.”

“With half the village dead and their gods too,” Stilthius thought aloud. “Shitty work we do.”

Paying work though, his younger brother, thought. He decided not to say it.

“Needed the bridge,” Afton Leer reminded him. “Like Keel said, no good way around it.”

Tyris shrugged when his brother shot him a look that said he was not so sure of that. Stilthius looked at life different than most. Thought too much about how things were and how they should be. By Tyris’s reckoning, they were as they were and there was no sense fighting it. A mercenary couldn’t try to get the job done and think too much on it too. That just lead to second guessing and that got men killed.

It was no way to live this life.

No good way, anyway.