Fallen Eagle

3rd Week of April, 1460

Theodorus felt like Arminius on the eve of the battle of Teutoburg Forest. The thought had lodged itself in his mind as soon as their battleground - a wooded hill where the fate of a small Principality would be decided - came into sight.

They had done it. They had made it.

“It almost feels hard to believe, commander,” a voice murmured at his side.

Theodorus turned. Stathis was gazing at the same slope he was, the same narrow cut of road threading between the trees with a small, relieved smile tugging at his mouth.

“It is surreal,” Theodorus admitted. “But the preparations are complete.” He exhaled, forcing the tightness from his shoulders.

They had arrived the day before, filing into the temporary base raised a fair distance from the ambush site, on the main road between Kalamita and Mangup.

“Do you think they’ll fall for the bait, commander?” Stathis asked quietly.

“That we sit on the main road and not this side path?” Theodorus glanced at him. Stathis gave a single, sharp nod.

“I do,” Theodorus said. “You were not privy to the information we dragged out of the nomads, but we learned enough of their scouting habits to be confident they will bite.” His eyes sketched out the lines of fire as he laid out the reasoning. “They are competent enough to seek out travelling merchants and local carters, and generous enough with coin to buy any and all information. Word will reach them that we blocked the main passage…and that now, suddenly, the way is clear again.”

He could already picture the weary column of rebels snaking along the road, full of the certainty that they had outfoxed their enemies.

“To make them work for the truth, to make them believe they have prised it loose with their own hands… you are devilish, commander,” Stathis said at last.

“Information freely given is always suspect,” Theodorus replied. “Conclusions you reach yourself are the most immutable of them all.”

Stathis fell silent, chewing that over.

“So,” he said eventually, “we gave them just enough clues to lead them to the wrong answer. And now they believe they have cracked the puzzle.”

“Precisely.” Theodorus could not quite keep the satisfaction from his voice, nor the small, sharp smile that followed. Stathis only shook his head.

“All of this hinges on us knowing how they can gather that information,” he pointed out. “And we only learned that after the nomad interrogations.”

“And had they proved more incompetent, we would simply have changed the way we fed them their crumbs,” Theodorus assured him. “We had a few days of leeway in our timing after we forced them to detour around the capital. If letting a few merchants escape our net wasn’t enough we simply would have to be more…direct.”

Stathis followed his line of sight, north along the muddy road. “Then we have them where we want them.”

“Almost,” Theodorus said. “Now we need a little more time to rehearse the ambush.”

He was walking through the sequence of horn calls, volleys, and charges when a figure seemed to peel itself out of the nearby woods, as if the trunks and leaves had been wearing him like a cloak until now.

“I’m not sure you’ll have much of that, I’m afraid,” a rasping voice came, thin and dry as old bark. Both men started despite themselves.

“Gerasimos.” Theodorus greeted the old huntmaster with a nod. He still remembered the first time he had found him, half-starved in that decrepit hovel in Suyren, and how he’d insisted on having the man extracted with the rest of his levy, despite the dangers and difficulties associated with the escape.

“Theodorus,” the old man replied, tone casual and utterly indifferent to propriety.

“Gerasimos,” Stathis warned, not for the first time.

“Save it, brat.” The old hunter snorted. “I’m too old for all this ‘Lord’ nonsense.” Years spent living as a vagrant had worn most courtesies out of him, and crawling back from the brink of death hadn’t put them back in. “Had my fill of such nonsense back when I held a title that actually meant a damn.”

Theodorus could easily imagine Lord Adanis demanding every last honorific from his terrified retinue to soothe his ruffled mane. He lifted a hand before Stathis could voice his own response. “And I’m too young to start caring. If everyone keeps calling me ‘Lord’, I’ll start feeling ancient before my time.” He said to put the matter to rest, friction could arise from even these small disagreements and he preferred to avoid perpetuating them. He also wasn’t too keen on enforcing rigid protocol for old men like Gerasimos. Rigidity was a tool to give structure to unruly young men, the old huntmaster had no need of it.

Gerasimos barked a laugh, short and genuine. Stathis only sighed, looking faintly exasperated as always whenever protocol lost another skirmish.

“You’re back from the forays?” Theodorus asked, letting his gaze sweep over the man. Gerasimos was still mostly skin and bone under his worn leathers, but the strict diet Theodorus had forced on him had put some meat back on his frame, no matter how loudly the old man had grumbled. He’d been pressed into service as a scouting commander the moment he could sit a saddle again, though he was responsible more for directing the scouts than riding into the unknown himself. Truth be told Theodorus hadn’t wanted him anywhere near the scout lines, given his condition, but the old man insisted on being close to the action - and in taking a slice of the danger

“Aye.” The lines at the corners of Gerasimos’s eyes smoothed as his face sobered. “Truth be told, it was more the pups than me. My strength isn’t all back yet. But we’ve found them.”

The news acted like a douse of icy water, extinguishing the easy banter from moments before.

“How far?” Theodorus asked.

“Two days’ march for the main host,” Gerasimos revealed, eyes sharp. “One day till their scouts sniff our camp.”

Theodorus felt the words like a splash of cold water. Stathis actually breathed, “Already?”

“They had to take the long way around to reach us,” Stathis went on, frowning. “And we scouted the routes well ahead of time to make the good time we did.”

He wasn’t wrong. It had been no small feat to bring a mostly intact peasant levy this far, this fast. Every Captain and Sergeant they could spare had spent weeks grinding basic marching discipline into their host, teaching them how to pace themselves, to breathe, to keep formation instead of trudging like a mob, all to eke out the slightest bit of speed they could from tired feet, without filling them with rotting blisters. By his reckoning, they were marching a tenth faster than when they’d first set out, a massive difference all in all.

“They must have force marched,” Theodorus said at last. “There is other way I can see for them to have matched us over ground we prepared and they didn’t, not with the long trek they had to undertake.” He chewed on the thought. “It’s clever. They mean to catch us before we properly settle, but there will be a price,” His eyes narrowed like a predator smelling weakness. “Loss of cohesion, more stragglers, men dropping on their feet. Their levy column won’t be able to keep up. It will be split from the main body.”

“Are you taking this to high command?” Theodorus asked, turning fully to Gerasimos.

“Was on my way now,” the old hunter grunted. “I spotted you on the way and felt like doing you a courtesy.” He couldn’t quite hide his grin.

Theodorus nodded in appreciation. “Stathis,” he said, shifting in the saddle. “Have the militia assembled. Start them on drills at once. I’ll go with Gerasimos to the council. Once the meeting’s done, we resume training immediately. We have today, and only today to reach a basic level of proficiency. We have to make it count.”

He wheeled his horse to fall in beside the huntmaster.

“Understood, Commander.” Stathis brought fist to chest in a sharp salute and turned away at once, already barking orders before they had fully ridden off.

“How are you finding army life, Gerasimos?” Theodorus asked after they’d spent a short stretch beneath the canopy. Between Gerasimos’s long scouting forays and his own overworked schedule, they hadn’t had the time to share more than distant nods and quick greetings since the campaign began.

“It is a different hunt.” The old man spoke after a time, tasting the words. “But I cannot deny the thrill is the same.” He said, almost annoyed at the admission as if expecting Theodorus’s answering grin, and feeling as if he’d lost at some unknown game.

“I told you I wouldn’t let you be bored didn’t I?” Theodorus was unable to keep a small hint of satisfaction from his tone. “Plotting an ambush with the Principality’s fate on the line has to be your greatest hunt yet. And that is only in the first month you’ve been employed under me.” He had made a habit of snaring capable minds into his retinue wherever he found them, drawing them in and giving them room to grow. Gerasimos, grizzled and sharp-eyed, was one of his finest catches, as he didn’t have to be nurtured, he was already extremely competent at his given skills.

“That’s because you weren’t there for the hunt where we caught a full pack of wolves and three boars,” Gerasimos shot back. Laughter rippled between the two men, and as it faded, Theodorus noticed Gerasimos tilt his head back toward the canopy as if the branches might hold some answers. “But perhaps you were not wrong, the taste for meat never goes away.” He lowered his gaze, his emerald eyes fixed on Theodorus with a predator’s appraisal. “As long as you give me good prey to catch. I’ll stick around.”

“I’ll try.” Theodorus promised. “You’ve already been invaluable.”

The words were not an empty platitude. The single greatest reason they had moved so swiftly was not the quality of their horses or the endurance of their men, but the path itself. They had spent nearly a week preparing this march back, sending Gerasimos’s team ahead to scout the terrain and select a route that balanced speed, rest, and water access, with places to resupply along the way. Theodorus might have sketched lines on a map saying where he needed the men to go, but it was Gerasimos who had turned those lines into something men could actually march through.

Gerasimos waved him off with a snort. “I don’t care for thanks, so you can save them.”

They crested a low rise and the heart of their preparations came into view.

Here was where the main ambush would take place. Deeper in the forest, a fair margin away from the road, stood a line of wagons bunched up off to one side of a deep, narrow ditch that hugged the road. The sight reminded him of the strategy he’d used in the Giant’s tear battle, but it varied in one key difference. Whereas in that battle, singular carts that had been transformed into makeshift, isolated and immobile platforms, here the wagons were built in a way to perfectly interlock with each other and, crucially, were light enough for the wheels to still be able to bear the weight even with a dozen armoured men atop them. That mobility was a key fulcrum of their strategy and it was a woodworking feat he would have much trouble replicating. For the time they’d had, it was good work. Better than good. And more than he had hoped for if he was being honest.

Two bald men in mail and plate stood atop fine stallions, inspecting the improvised battlements. For a heartbeat Theodorus thought the long ride had finally rattled something loose in his head. His horse stumbled as his left hand slackened on the reins.

There were two Douxes.

“Brothers, most likely,” Gerasimos said, amusement colouring his voice. Even with his greater years, the man seemed to see farther and clearer than Theodorus.

As they closed the distance, snatches of conversation drifted to them.

“Looks passable.” One muttered.

“If barely,” the other grumbled.

“We can’t aim for perfection,” the first replied.

“We could have aimed for more than this,” the other countered.

Sir Silvanus stood nearby, helm tucked under one arm, his usually composed face pinched into an expression of extreme puzzlement, as if the sky had fallen out of its proper place. The corners of his mouth twitched, trapped between horror and laughter. Theodorus found he could understand him perfectly.

“You are always too harsh on your subordinates.” The first Doux softly admonished the second. Or rather, it was a stern rebuke by anyone’s standards, but light by the Doux’s own.

This second one, Theodorus noticed, lacked eyebrows entirely. He had taken the Doux’s austere style of shaved scalp one step further, ridding himself of any trace of hair on his face. On another man it might have looked ridiculous. On him, paired with a stone-hard stare and a scarred jaw, it was simply terrifying. “Demanding breaks every three hours, complaining they cannot work from dawn to dusk.” the hairless Doux went on, disdain dripping from every word.

Theodorus felt a surge of pity for the levy who’d been working on the ambush site.

“No man can.” The Doux stated. Gennadios’s presence at his side all but confirmed the real Doux. Theodorus still felt as if he were in some sort of macabre dream.

“I can.” The eyebrowless one who had to be Poseidippus answered, there was no hint of jest in his tone.

“Enough.” A faint thread of frustration ran through the Megas Doux’s voice, so subtle most would have missed it. Theodorus had never seen the man so much as ruffled before. It seemed not even he was immune to irritation when it came to his younger brother. “The road has been thinned, the ditch is complete and the carts are serviceable. We have all the tools we need to crush the rebellion.”

“We also felled the tree like you asked.” Poseidippus jabbed a gauntleted finger toward a green giant that lay half across the road, its trunk and branches forming an obstacle that would force any column to bunch up and slow. “And that godforsaken ramp as well. If I had to tell you about the lazy peons’ reaction to building such a thing-”

He was clearly winding up for another tirade about the worthlessness of his men when the Doux seized the first excuse at hand to cut him off, which just so happened to be the arrival of Theodorus and Gerasimos.

“Captain. Stratiotes.” The Doux’s gaze locked on them the moment they dismounted. To him, their presence meant only one thing. “Report, do we have a timeline for the rebel’s arrival?” The clench of his jaw betrayed his expectation - this could make or break them.

Poseidippus’s attention snapped to them as well. It was then that Theodorus realized he had never been subject to the boring gaze of two Papadoupoulos’s. A ridiculous urge seized him to confess every secret he had ever kept and beg their forgiveness like a chastened schoolboy.

He fought to straighten his shoulders and meet their eyes.

“The rebel host has been spotted two days’ march from here,” Gerasimos reported, snapping a salute that was more habit than formality. He seemed utterly unmoved by the oppressive weight of the two Papadopoulos gazes. “We have maybe one day before their scouts reach this valley.”

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Every officer within earshot straightened as if someone had pulled a string down their spine.

“So quickly?” Sir Silvanus’s eyebrows shot up. “How?”

“Forced march most likely,” Theodorus said. The thought settled over the gathered men like a damp cloak. “We have little time to prepare. But,” he went on, seizing the thread before pessimism could take hold, “given what we know about their host, it might yet turn to our advantage.”

“Their column will be stretched thin,” the Megas Doux said at once, picking up the line of reasoning. “Mercenaries in the vanguard setting the pace, and the militia in the rear struggling to keep up. They might be minutes behind the main force.”

“Exactly.” Theodorus nodded. “That potentially removes their five-hundred-strong militia contingent from the fight, at least for the opening clash. They’ll be straggling behind, worn down. Men driven that hard don’t arrive in any condition to fight.”

“That evens out the numbers between both sides,” Sir Silvanus conceded. “But we’re still completely outmatched when it comes to fighting ability.” His tone was sharp on purpose, playing devil’s advocate as if a villain in a play.

Theodorus followed smoothly, the hero with the righteous comeback.“Even a mouse can defeat a lion,” His smile turned thin and sharp. “If he knows exactly which place to bite.”

Around him, the men who understood the sort of war they were about to wage mirrored it. On the Papadopoulos brothers, that flash of savagery was downright unsettling.

“Then we begin drills at once,” Poseidippus declared, seizing on the only part he cared for. “We cannot waste a single moment.” He looked about ready to turn on his heel and march straight to the nearest levy to start screaming orders.

“The question is what we should be drilling,” Sir Silvanus thought aloud, bringing a hand to his chin. “We only have a day at best. We’ll have to abandon our original attack plan. The levies won’t manage anything too complex without falling apart.”

“The first minute,” the Megas Doux said.

The murmurs died. Men turned toward him, Theodorus included, surprised by the Doux’s acumen; it made a vicious sort of sense.

“We will focus entirely on that,” There was a cruel sort of clarity in his voice that made the hair on Theodorus’s arms stir. Like a killer sharpening his blade. “The key to any ambush is the moment of surprise. If we are still trading blows after that, we are already lost. We must break them in the opening heartbeat. That first minute will decide everything.”

“One minute to rule them all…” Sir Silvanus murmured, half to himself.

Theodorus had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep a laugh from escaping.

“What?” Silvanus straightened, suddenly self-conscious. “I thought it was a good saying.”

“It was,” Theodorus said, more than he knew. “Indeed. One minute to rule them all.”

“Again!” Leonidas bellowed at the head of their hundred-man company. He’d been placed in charge of holding one of the most crucial points of the battlefield, the wagon forts. His voice cracked through the heavy woodland air like a whip. “You’re too early! You went before the signal. Not before, not after. On the horn!”

Groans rose and died as he waved them back into position. Christos trudged through thorns and snaring brambles, boots sinking into soft earth as his squad wrestled their heavy cart back to its starting mark on the slope.

“How many times are we goin’ to cycle through this same old shit?” Kratos hissed under his breath between heaves. Sweat beaded along his stubble, dripping down the side of his face. They’d been at it for hours, drilling the same short, brutal manoeuvre over and over, all to that single shrill note that had long since grated on their ears.

“As many times as it takes to get it right,” Christos grunted. His shoulders burned as he leaned into the wood, helping drag the makeshift barricade back uphill. The cart reminded him of the ones they’d used at the Giant’s Tear – only this time the had been turned into something mobile, rough timber as heavy as a bull that they had to drag across the battlefield.

“This damn cart ain’t full of feathers or wool,” Kratos muttered. “It’s like a bloody boulder. I don’t see too many other squads burdenin’ themselves with this shit. Somehow we always get the honour of having the toughest jobs.”

His complaining buzzed around the squad like a persistent fly. He shot Christos a sideways glare - everyone knew exactly why the nastiest assignments ended up in their hands. Stathis and the Captain trusted them not to break, trusted Christos not to break. They’d gathered the meanest of the levy to haul at the carts, as the Guards were needed for the frontal assault. The good news was that both the Suyren Levy and the Probatoufrorio one were joined together once more for this one effort.

“Each drop of sweat we spend now means a greater chance of living through the day, you ratty bastard,” Philippos wheezed, shoving at a small peg along the side of the cart to lock a wheel. It was a clever little addition for ease of use, though that only helped so much when you had to push the thing up a man-made incline in thick woods. “And a greater chance of the Principality not falling apart around our ears. So shut up and push.”

From what Christos had heard, most of the soil under their boots had been dug out of the ditches that now bit through the inner forest like scars. The heaps of earth had been dragged and shaped into ridges and ramps, all of it carefully dressed with leaves and scattered branches until it looked like untouched forest floor. It boggled his mind, the sheer amount of change an army could force on a valley in so little time. That was the power of men with shovels and fear in their bellies.

“Every effort I spend is just another reminder of the fat, easy life I coulda been havin’ if I was back home right about now,” Kratos went on. His muttering always soured when he was pushed too far, and Christos understood it. Didn’t mean it grated any less.

“Then leave,” Christos said.

He didn’t bother looking at the boy when he spoke. He kept his eyes fixed dead ahead, muscles coiled as he drove the cart up the last few paces of the slope. He still caught Kratos’s shocked stare at the edge of his vision.

“If you don’t have what it takes to be a soldier, there’s no point staying,” Christos went on, voice flat as an anvil. “You can run tonight. Good chance of slippin’ away while everyone’s distracted with preparations.”

“Christos, what are you saying?” Agapios puffed from the side of the wagon, alarmed at the bite in his tone.

“I’m sayin’ if you don’t have it in you to take up steel and carry it proper, then you should give up now and take your complaints elsewhere,” Christos replied. He turned then, meeting Kratos’s burning glare head-on. “Otherwise, suck it up.”

Kratos’s face went a shade close to purple between the climbing rage and the strain of hauling the cart. “Shut the fuck up,” he spat.

Christos didn’t mind. That was good. An angry Kratos was a focused Kratos, and a focused Kratos worked twice as hard just to prove someone wrong. If he were still the boy he’d been when they first marched, he might have stormed off at those words. But Christos trusted the stubborn streak he’d come to know too well. Under all the whining and bravado, there was a spine of iron that would rather break than bend.

Christos thought he glimpsed Leonidas out of the corner of his eye looking at him from the front of another wagon. He felt judged, as if he were weighing Christos's burgeoning leadership. After a long moment Leonidas gave a rough nod, and a surge of relief surged through Christos, despite himself. Perhaps he wasn’t doing such a shit job after all.

“Remember!” Leonidas called from atop his horse, voice carrying easily over the huff of lungs and scrape of boots. “On the horn, you sprint down the hill in formation. If you’re slacking again like last time, you know what’ll happen. Now, take your positions.”

Christos’s squad shoved the cart into its predetermined slot on the wooded slope, angled just so, hidden from the road by trunks and undergrowth. They checked the wheels, the pegs, the handholds, then peeled away to their own hiding places. Men slipped behind holes, into hollows, beneath low-hanging branches, until the hill seemed to swallow them whole.

Then came the worst part.

They stood absolutely still.

Officers and sergeants stalked along the road below, eyes raking the treeline, calling out any man whose shoulder, boot, or steel glinted where it shouldn’t. Men shifted, muttered, were corrected and sent back into cover. The minutes stretched like pitch.

It was utter tedium.

But to Christos, as he held his breath and felt bark digging into his back, if this is what it took to make it home to Agape in one piece, he wouldn't rather have it any other way.

…

Surely there must have been another way. Anything but this.

“And that’s a wrap,” Leonidas called, a faint sheen of sweat coming from his brow, even though he’d been atop a horse for the majority of the time. Even he was tired.

But tired wasn’t the right word for them. What Christos felt sank deeper than that, a bone-deep heaviness that made every breath feel like work. His muscles ached as if he were hauling a boulder on his back. By the end of the drills he had the distinct impression he’d been dragging the cursed cart on his own, like ploughing a field with a hoe while letting the ox rest. Around him stretched a sea of men on the edge of collapse.

The officers had pushed them hard before, but never like this. At some point they had slipped past the line where any of them could still answer the horn and complete the manoeuvre properly, and then kept going. They were so far beyond that point now it felt almost sadistic, the sheer number of times they’d been made to run through the ambush procedure.

“It’s over… thank God,” Agapios breathed at last, the words barely more than a ragged whisper.

In the distance Christos saw a few men sink to their knees and actually weep with relief.

“We have to get back to camp,” Orestis called from a nearby wagon to his Dekarchos, half carrying one of his men and pausing to make sure everyone was still standing, brows furrowed in worry even between the exhaustion. “We still have to eat dinner before sleeping.”

That brought a smile to Christos’s face, some things never change. Then it fell as soon as the meaning caught up to the words.

It was as if a heavy stone fell on every man present. The thought of cooking, of gathering firewood, of fumbling with tent pegs in the dark with trembling hands, was almost worse than another round of drills. Sleep felt very far away. For one treasonous moment, Christos actually considered skipping dinner altogether.

“Don’t worry.” Leonidas must have read the mutiny in their eyes, because his tone became full of mirth, clearly enjoying their suffering. “You won’t have to cook today, or pitch your tents. The Kalamita men took care of that for you, since they’ve already gone through these drills before.”

“Thank you, thank you, Lord…” Agapios choked, and joined the men openly sobbing on the ground.

Kratos shuffled over and tried to pull him up, but the slighter boy’s muscles seized halfway through the motion and he froze, glaring at Christos without a word.

He hadn’t uttered another complaint since the argument earlier that day. Instead, he had somehow found fresh reserves of spite to fuel him, shooting Christos dark looks whenever he caught his eye, jaw set, shoulders straining. In terms of sheer stubborn will, Christos wasn’t sure there was anyone stronger in the entire levy.

Christos slipped an arm under Agapios’s and hauled him upright, then let the boy lean heavily against him as they limped back toward their tent. When they arrived, a clay bowl of warm broth was already waiting for each of them. It wasn’t Agapios’s cooking, but it was thick and steaming, vegetables bobbing in the surface and tender chunks of meat settling at the bottom.

The first spoonful burned Christos’s tongue and he didn’t care. It was the best meal they’d had on campaign, and the Crown hadn’t exactly starved them until now. For a few minutes, hunched over their bowls, they felt like kings.

“For them to be driving us this hard…” Philippos said at last, eyes fixed on the swirling broth. His voice carried oddly far in the, for once, quiet camp. “It can only mean the battle’s bound for tomorrow.”

“Or the day after,” Orestis countered through a mouthful. “We’ll probably have to lie low from the scouts tomorrow. So we’ll sit tight and wait.”

“Either way,” Agapios murmured, his voice barely above the crackle of the nearby fire, “this might be our last meal together.”

A heavy stillness settled over the little group. They’d all spoken of what they would do after the war, of farms and wives and taverns and coin, but those dreams suddenly felt very small and very far away, like something viewed through water.

“If we die, we’ll die together,” Christos said. The words surprised even him with how steady they sounded. “No one gets left behind.”

“Same as always then.” Leonidas said with a rough sort of smile. He’d insisted on foregoing the warm Captain’s tent for tonight, just for tonight. He raised his broth to the sky, as if for a toast.

The others lifted their bowls at that, wood knocking against wood in a rough, uneven circle.

“If we die, we’ll die together,” they echoed.

It was a broken chorus, voiced by men who had forged their bonds in the fires of war and had tempered them into steel. In that moment, it felt like a binding oath. “No one gets left behind,” they repeated, and the words went up into the night like a prayer.

The light flooded the camp, silvering the canvas above them and casting long, thin shadows of ropes and posts across the packed earth.

“It is a full moon,” Izzet observed from the pole he shared with Edae.

It was unfortunate that their fates really did seem to be bound together - some crude jest from the Sky Father for his past mistakes. The god must have known how much Edae loathed having the obvious pointed out.

The binding part was quite literal as well. Thick ropes looped around their chests and arms, tied off to the rough posts inside the tent flap that passed for their sleeping place.

The ground was a hard, cold mistress, but Edae did not mind overmuch. He was still breathing. That alone was more than he had dared hope for.

“And the breeze is not too cold,” Izzet continued his obnoxious mutterings.

Boredom could strip a man bare, and they had spent the day with nothing but their own thoughts and the mutter of the other prisoners for company. Edae understood the need to fill the silence, but he wished Izzet would find some way to do so that did not scrape at his nerves. He made no reply, staring instead at the faint slit of moonlit canvas.

A shadow approached their prison. Someone spoke briefly with the guards, a low exchange of words and the jingle of harness. Edae recognized the voice at once.

“Nikos Arslan,” he greeted as the sergeant stepped beneath the awning they’d been confined to.

Nikos had become a familiar presence among the prisoners, and had kept true to his word that he would ensure they were watered and fed.

“Edae Qirimli,” the sergeant replied. He always used his full name, as if polishing a small victory every time he spoke it aloud, a reminder of the lie Edae had tried on their first meeting.

“Checking in on us?” Izzet asked, far too eager for the distraction.

“Yes. Of a sort.” Nikos’s gaze slid briefly over Izzet, then settled, intent and steady, on Edae.

“The time nears,” Edae said, reading the look easily enough. “The great battle.”

Around them, a few of the nomads shifted on their ropes, ears pricking despite themselves. Even chained men could not help but lean toward the scent of coming blood.

Nikos nodded once. “If we win, a path forward may become possible for our people.”

He said it with a conviction so clean and unshaken that Edae felt a flicker of envy twist in his chest. He’d long given up such hope, just trying to eke out a living on the fringes.

“Your captain will make it happen?” Edae asked. He had spoken with Nikos often enough to know what this man fought for, and who he pinned his dreams upon.

“Yes,” Nikos replied, without hesitation.

“I’d like to see that happen.” One of the nomads snorted at that, a dry, disbelieving sound in the gloom. Nikos did not so much as glance his way. His attention remained fixed on Edae, as if the rest of the tent had fallen away.

“I’ll hold you to that, Nikos Arslan,” Edae said, his tone turning hard. He owed nothing to his former employers. His loyalty was for his own people alone, and even if he didn’t believe the Sergeant, he would pray to the Sky God for his victory. “So win.”

He spoke the words out as if hammering an oath into shape between them.

Nikos’s mouth curved, but it was not a pleasant sort of smile. His eyes took on a cold, assessing light.

“Min süz biräm,” he said.

I give my word.

Zeno sat on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, staring through the narrow window at the swollen moon hanging over the roofs and battlements, washing the stone in a pale, pitiless light. It was deep into the night, but sleep would not come to him.

His thoughts prowled in circles of plots and counterplots, whispered promises, and stabs in the dark. His mind kept slipping to the task Philemon had set before him, to the shadow of the battle that waited at the end of it.

“Oooh, so serious.”

The languid whisper drifted from behind him. Markos lay sprawled across the tangled sheets like a stretching cat, one arm hooked behind his head, jaw cracking in an exaggerated yawn. In the moonlight his smile was sharp and lazy all at once. “You look as if your face has been carved from stone.”

“I thought you were asleep,” Zeno said. His voice was flat, neutral, giving away as little as he could manage.

“I could hear your brooding from the other side of the castle,” Markos replied airily. “How is a man to get his beauty sleep under such conditions?”

He reached out and idly traced a line along Zeno’s bare back and side, fingers cool against his skin. The touch followed the curve of muscle with absent-minded familiarity, more a statement of possession than comfort.

“What is on that overworked mind of yours?” he prodded, tone light but eyes watchful. Zeno knew that look. Markos was too clever, too accustomed to prying truth from careless words and uneasy breaths. If Zeno did not give him something, he would only dig deeper.

“Wondering if I will still be alive once the task is done,” Zeno said at last, hoping the weight of it would block the path of the conversation. Talk of death and endings usually made Markos retreat behind jokes and innuendo. It was one of the few ways Zeno had found to shut him out.

“Probably not.”

Zeno turned to stare at him, startled not only by the fact that he answered, but that his answer was so stripped of irony.

Markos looked back without flinching.

“Master Philemon will not let you live,” Markos’s tone held none of its usual playfulness. “He understands that when you clean a garden, you pull everything up by the roots. You do not leave bad seeds in the soil.”

The words landed cold. Zeno had heard many things from Markos’s lips, but seriousness sat oddly on him, like armour on a jester.

“Comforting,” Zeno muttered.

Silence stretched out between them, thin and taut.

When Markos finally spoke again, his voice was softer. “We can run away.”

“Run away?” Zeno could not quite keep the disbelief from his tone.

“Yes.”

Markos rolled onto his side to face him fully. The easy smile was gone - his expression was unreadable, carved in shadow and silver. Only his eyes betrayed him so feverish were they in their intensity, bright and fixed on Zeno’s face. Zeno could not tell if he was jesting, testing him, or speaking from some hidden well of sincerity.

“Far from this cesspit,” Markos said. “There is much more to the world than this little corner.”

“You would betray your master so lightly?” Zeno asked. He could not help the shock in his voice.

“Please.” Markos scoffed, the sound brittle. “Betray?” He tilted his head, dark hair falling forward. “I am a slave, property. Property has no business thinking such things, but neither is it valuable enough to track down should it...get lost in the schemes and tribulations our Master employs.” He said with a knowing smile.

“And you believe you can arrange our departure?” Zeno pressed, scepticism returning to steady him. “Philemon would hunt us both. Especially if he becomes Regent.”

“I have a few tricks up my sleeve, my dear Zeno,” Markos said. He pushed himself upright as he spoke, the movement smoothing into a graceful sit, his earlier languor burned away by sudden animation. “Do not underestimate my abilities. This is simple really.”

He gestured toward the window with a small, dismissive flick of his wrist, as if the fortress and its looming cliffs were no more than a bad painting. “I will take us so far from this dreary pile of rock that your uncle cannot reach us.” he shrugged, lips curling into a small, confident smile.

The ease with which he spoke of it shook Zeno to his core. The offer itself, the contempt for Philemon’s power, the casual certainty. Where did this naked, unashamed arrogance come from?

“How can you be so certain?” Zeno asked, unable to stop himself.

Markos’s smile changed. The playful curve sharpened, framed by the moonlight into an evil, cunning thing, his eyes were alight.

“Because all you see, my dear Zeno,” he whispered. "Is the smoke and mirrors."