Fallen Eagle

4th Week of July, 1460

The next day

Hard knocks preceded Stathis’s entry into the fortified command room, which had somehow grown even more crowded than the day before, drowning in sweat, old wood, oiled mail, and too many men speaking in low voices over one another.

The rough leather map lay pinned beneath cups and knife-hilts on the central table, its inked roads and forest markings half-obscured by the hands of Pronoia holders and Genoese men-at-arms still arguing over routes.

“Are all the men assembled?” Theodorus asked, looking up from his discussion with Genoese officers.

Stathis gave a nod by way of confirmation.

“Then it is time we set the wheel in motion, my friends,” Federico exclaimed, rising from his stool with an exaggerated stretch that made the plates of his armour creak.

Zeno and Theodorus exchanged a glance.

Federico had proved to be a most… eccentric sort of military officer. Beyond his exuberant expressions and theatrical mannerisms, his manicured caramel-brown beard was crowned by a perfectly villainous moustache, the sort that seemed to have been born with enough curl at the ends to invite a man to twist it while plotting some elaborate betrayal.

“It is time to hunt our quarry,” Federico said, and the warmth vanished, an undercurrent of danger slipping through the words.

Theodorus would still not think to underestimate him. This was the man Genoa had chosen to guard the counting houses it intended to establish across northern Theodoro, after all.

“We can count on your support then, Federico?” Zeno asked as he and Theodorus rose as well.

Federico gave his assent. “There is not much we can spare while the Fondacos are still being built, given this latest news. But the men I have brought are at your service, as am I.” He cut a deep, flourished bow.

The Fondacos were part-fortified warehouses, part-counting houses, and being built across the wine plantations scattered through the Principality, meant to protect Genoa’s newly acquired stake in Theodoran wine. As part of the agreement, Genoa had to help maintain security in the region, something they would already have a vested interest in. The wine they meant to export would need roads that were not crawling with desperate men holding knives.

Something Theodorus’s smaller initial conscription of just fifty militia had, of course, taken into account.

Still, despite Genoese ruthlessness in all matters concerning coin, they had only completed half the Fondacos they planned to build, and needed token guards to protect the unfinished construction crews.

That still left around twenty experienced Genoese men-at-arms, armed to the teeth and ready to assist them.

They walked out of the command room and into the hard summer glare, where their combined force waited in loose order near the edge of Mikros Elos. Forty Suyren militiamen stood with spears and battered shields, sturdier than they had looked weeks ago but still carrying the nervous energy of men new to such work. Beside them waited twenty Genoese professionals, mail bright, and crossbows slung over their shoulders.

The remaining twenty belonged to the professional corps supplied by the Pronoia holders of northern Theodoro. Men drawn in closer due to the cement scheme and the danger bandit raids now posed to it.

“Brother,” Iohannes said from this last group's head, flanked by the various military officers the other Pronoia had sent in their stead. “Let us depart post haste.”

There was a dark fire in his eyes. That the usually administrative-minded recluse had come to lead his men personally said enough about how invested he was in this endeavour. He alone had supplied half the men behind him, then dragged the other Pronoia holders into giving up the rest.

Theodorus understood him fully. They had debts to settle with Georgius.

He stared at the men arrayed before him. It was an eclectic force, stitched together from militia, mercenaries, estate troops - funded by men with interests that only partly overlapped. Still, it was more than enough to bring the fight to the bandits.

Theodorus signalled to Gerasimos to move ahead with his pack of scouts, now supplemented to ten by selected Pronoia troops and a pair of Genoese woodsmen.

They slipped toward the northwestern forests at a loping pace, disappearing beneath the trees.

Theodorus climbed atop his trusted Boudicca, settling into the saddle as the mare tossed her head beneath him.

“Let us show the wrath of God to these sinful criminals!” he called, lifting his voice so it carried across the waiting ranks. It didn’t escape him that they were two different branches of Christianity, but that was close enough for his speech to land. “Let us show them what happens when you attack Theodoro!”

He raised his arm, and the men rallied behind it with a rough shout. Funnily enough, so did the Genoese, though more to show unity than from any understanding of what he had said. Theodorus doubted they were nearly so eager to defend Theodoro for Theodoro’s sake.

“Move out!” he called.

The column began to file out of Mikros Elos, compact and purposeful, boots and hooves grinding over the dry road as smoke-stained villagers watched them pass in silence.

…

The trail they followed was narrow, the kind of half-swallowed path that seemed less made by men than tolerated by the forest.

Branches knit together overhead, thick enough to spare the column from the worst of the scorching sun. Even so, heat lingered under the canopy, making men sweat beneath helmets and padded coats.

They maintained a slow but steady pace.

Theodorus and Zeno had taken pains to teach the Suyren militia how to march properly, but the forest was different than Suyren’s gentle slopes, and there were other concerns to take into account.

They were moving into rough, hilly country through paths Georgius and his bandits would know intimately. Every bend in the trail might open into a killing ground if they grew careless.

That was why Gerasimos and his scouts screened the flanks and forward path with such care, slipping through the trees ahead of the main force.

It was also why they had divided the column. The Pronoia veterans formed the vanguard, the Genoese men-at-arms guarded the rear, and the less experienced militia marched in the middle with Christos’s squad close at hand. It protected the vulnerable ends of the formation.

Some, however, didn’t appreciate it. “It is quite a leisurely pace, I must admit,” Federico commented from atop his steed.

The horse beneath him was a dazzling white creature, beautiful enough that the militia kept stealing glances at it as if half-expecting to confirm that it was not some enchanted beast from an old tale. It moved with offended grace whenever the path narrowed, lifting its hooves delicately from the mud and roots.

“It is to ensure we keep formation,” Theodorus explained, gesturing toward the men ahead, who had slowed to pass through a thinner stretch in pairs. “This way we avoid single file whenever possible. The column thins and expands as the terrain allows, but it remains close to battle-ready.”

“The pace also lets us keep proper spacing between the groups,” Zeno added from his fine black steed. “It costs us speed, but it makes an ambush less painful.” he finished Theodorus's thought perfectly.

Whatever differences the two men had, neither of them could deny that in practical matters, they often saw eye to eye.

“I understand the thought behind it,” Federico said, studying the forest around them. “But it means we will need most of the day to reach Georgius’s hideout, even if we carve the straightest path the woods allow, which will alert him besides.”

It did not seem a genuine questioning of their judgment so much as a test.

“We are not in such a hurry to reach him,” Theodorus replied, aware of the Italian’s gaze resting on him. “We left a pair of scouts to ensure Georgius remains in place, and he is unlikely to abandon the hideout. If he does, his whole operation crumbles. And since it is unrealistic to reach him without detection, it is wiser to make certain nothing unfortunate happens to us on the way.”

Federico nodded, satisfaction brightening his expression. “I see the rumours are not entirely unfounded.”

That caught Theodorus’s attention. “What rumours?”

Federico grinned, his moustache curling with the expression. “The rumours of the young boy who embarrassed La Compagnia del Falcone Nero.” He regarded Theodorus with open curiosity. “Did you not know? Word of you has spread like wildfire. The company is no pack of roadside fools, and to hear that a boy, of all things, stood among the commanders of the Theodoran army?” He placed one hand over his chest, his expression turning mournful with exaggerated pain. “Unthinkable. Deeply injurious to the pride of us fellow condottieri.”

Theodorus could not tell whether he was being mocked, complimented, or measured.

With Federico, it was probably all three.

“I see,” Theodorus said, at a loss for words, turning over the implications of the reputation he had apparently acquired among military circles.

The conversation dragged his thoughts back toward something he had left unfinished. That Italian boy with the amber eyes. He had avoided thinking too closely on that strange exchange, and the boy had not sought him out again. Still, Theodorus could no longer shut his eyes to what it meant.

There were more dangers in this reality than he had thought at first.

Whatever his plans had been, he had already been forced to jump-start them. Recklessness was not a mistake right now - it was the only option left to him. One of the reasons he was in the current predicament at all.

“That battle is past,” Iohannes remarked from their side. “We should focus on the one before us,”

His poor martial ability meant he had left leadership of the Pronoia vanguard to his seneschal, Sir Spiros. He looked distinctly ill-suited to the saddle and even less suited to the cheer Federico seemed determined to inflict upon them.

“I see someone is grumpy,” Federico said with a smile, unaware or unconcerned that the words only curdled Iohannes’s mood further. “I was merely making light conversation to pass the time. We will need to know one another quite intimately, after all.”

He brushed a fallen pine needle from his sleeve with fastidious care.

“I have been stationed to ensure the safety of the vineyards of northern Theodoro, after all. And I hope this deployment will prove long and fruitful.”

The hint was obvious enough. His duties would place him near the wine production Iohannes controlled.

“There will be none of your Fondacos on my land,” Iohannes said pointedly.

Federico seemed caught off guard.

Iohannes had been one of the noblemen whose wine plantations were exempted from the third-share of produce surrendered to the Genoese, in large parte due to his track record of loyalty to the Crown. He had supplied men to beat back the Crimean raiders, refused to side with the Nomikos despite standing within their sphere of influence, and even helped pay the extraordinary tithe, although it was ultimately used by the rebels.

Hilariously enough, Iohannes was far from a patriot and had to be convinced by Theodorus on most of those points.

“It is never too late to make our acquaintance,” Federico said, recovering with impressive speed. He even winked. “And there is no need for such hostility.”

Iohannes did not bother answering him. His eyes remained fixed on the path ahead, jaw set, hands tight around the reins.

“Apologies for my brother’s indiscretion,” Theodorus stepped in, “but we are not in the best of situations. The bandit leader we are headed to murder is our brother, after all.” Theodorus said, and the easy humour drained from Federico’s face in a heartbeat. “We have unfinished business to resolve, to put it mildly.”

Federico failed to hide his surprise entirely. His gaze flicked from Theodorus to Iohannes, then toward the darkened forest ahead.

“I see,” he said at last, more softly than before. “La vita fa strani giri. You have my condolences, friend.”

No one else spoke after that.

…

By the time the army reached the hideout, the forest had grown close enough to feel hostile, until all of a sudden, it broke.

The column emerged from the shadow of the woods and came upon a hidden hollow in the limestone highlands, a secluded descent carved into one of the countless pale plateaus that dotted the Principality’s landscape. From above, it might have seemed like any other stretch of broken stone and scrub, but the plateau itself was anything but plain. Its centre caved downward into a miniature valley, sheltered from casual eyes by the surrounding rise.

The place had a rough, almost idyllic beauty. Sunlight pooled across the valley floor in bright patches and birds startled from the branches at the army’s arrival and scattered across the sky in a flash of wings.

At the hollow’s centre sprawled the bandit refuge.

It was larger than Theodorus had expected. A sizeable collection of rough buildings had been thrown together with mud, reed matting, and whatever scraps could be stolen, scavenged, or dragged from abandoned villages. Huts leaned drunkenly against one another, and a crude palisade of pinewood ringed much of the encampment, more fence than fortification, its stakes unevenly cut and badly set into the earth.

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From where Theodorus stood at the lip of the hollow, he could see how wretched the whole place looked. And how vulnerable.

The buildings were little more than shacks. There was no noticeable organization, no proper lanes, and no defensive depth to speak of. Their vantage gave them a cruelly clear view of the destitute conditions below, of families packed as tightly as they could fit within the small palisade.

Theodorus felt his jaw tighten.

“It is as vast as Mangup’s plateau,” Federico remarked with a low whistle, sharing none of his anguish. “One does wonder why it has not been claimed by one of your famous fortifications.”

Theodorus answered, having pored through countless documents concerning the geology and geography of the land he meant to rule. “While stunning, this is a remote highland surrounded by untamed woods and close to no natural resources,” Theodorus said, eyes fixed on the settlement below. “It is also nowhere near as defensible as Mangup, or even Eski Kermen.”

He gestured toward the path they had taken. It had winded the militia, but the ascent had not been narrow or steep enough to be dangerous.

“The plateau itself is not terribly high,” Theodorus continued, “and there are multiple sloping approaches that are easy to traverse.”

Federico followed the gesture, his expression turning thoughtful as he looked over the surrounding rim. The hollow hid men from distant eyes, but once found, it offered too many ways in and too few ways out. A trap that only worked while no one knew it existed.

“And there is another crucial factor,” Theodorus added. “There are no natural water sources in the region.”

That sent Federico’s eyebrows upward. He glanced back down at the hideout with renewed puzzlement. Looking closer, one could see large vats tucked beneath sagging roofs in what must have amounted to the bandits’ clumsy attempt at rain collection. In the scorching heat of late July, it was a futile attempt.

“Not even pockets of water?” Federico asked, disbelief breaking through.

Access to potable water was perhaps the most crucial factor in withstanding a long siege. It was why fortifications were, without exception, built beside rivers, springs, wells, cisterns, or underground sources that could keep men alive once the gates closed.

“Nothing,” Theodorus shook his head.

“Unbelievable,” Federico said in open disgust. “They will not even last a week.”

His pride as a military commander seemed almost offended that this was the enemy placed before him.

“That is because this was never built to withstand a siege,” Zeno said, leading his horse to their side after finishing his instructions to Stathis and the sergeants. They had begun setting the men along the advantageous high ground, spreading the formation carefully along the rim of the hollow. “This desolate little stretch means few men pass through. The rise crowning the plateau makes travellers prefer to detour around it, and the hollow hides them from the surrounding lowlands even if someone climbs partway up without knowing what to look for.”

He laid it out plainly, his gaze cold as it swept over the bandit settlement below.

“This was built to be undetectable.”

“It does not seem to have done a very fine job of that,” Federico snorted, still unimpressed.

“I think it is more that we did too good a job finding it,” Theodorus said.

His eyes found Gerasimos in the distance. The man read the woods like no one else. They had only reached this place because of him.

“Whatever the case,” Federico said, drawing himself back into his usual polished ease, though his irritation had not quite left his eyes, “this seems like it will be finished quickly. Now, if you will excuse me.”

He saluted his way out of the conversation and rode toward his men, visibly displeased.

Theodorus looked again at the hideout, at the thin walls, at the desperate people moving behind the pinewood stakes. Somewhere within that wretched little hole waited what could only be called a demon.

He wondered whether it would truly be that easy after all.

“Damn it,” Georgius muttered. “Why are they taking so long? They’ve been in there forever.”

He stabbed the straw dummy again with his little wooden sword. The dummy was already full of holes. Straw poked out of its belly like yellow guts, but Georgius kept hitting it anyway.

The dummy did not make a sound, and that made him angrier.

The maids had gone behind closed doors, and the servants kept running around with cloths and bowls of water like the world was ending in her room.

“What? Did you think giving birth takes as long as lunch?” Iohannes called from behind him.

He was sitting in one of the few spots of shade in the training courtyard, stretched out in a chair like he owned the place. Iohannes always did that. He sat too straight, and spoke too neatly, even though he wasn’t a proper noble.

“It’s my birthday!” Georgius shouted, swinging harder. The toothpick smacked the dummy’s side. “They should be celebrating with me.”

“That is what I am stuck doing,” Iohannes said. “And I am not happy about it either.”

“Then leave,” Georgius snapped, glaring back at him. “No one invited you.”

He hated Iohannes. He always acted better than everyone else, even though Mother said Iohannes was half Tatar. A half-blood barbarian pretending he belonged with proper Romans.

Georgius did not understand all of what adults meant when they said that, but he understood enough. It meant Iohannes was less than them. It meant he had no right to look down on anyone.

“No, Father commanded me to stay here. ” Iohannes said. “Though he did not tell me I would have to listen to you whine like a toddler for three hours.”

“Three hours?” Georgius cried. His chest filled with fresh anger. “I never take that long in the outhouse.”

Iohannes stared at him, then he burst out laughing.

“Did you just compare giving birth to using the latrine?” Iohannes asked, almost choking.

Georgius knew that laugh. It was the laugh people made when he had said something wrong, and everyone else knew why except him. His ears went hot. He gripped the wooden sword so tightly his fingers hurt.

“What?” Georgius demanded. He felt unsure now, and he hated that. “It’s just pushing something out. I do it all the time.”

Iohannes laughed harder. He bent forward in his chair, one hand on his stomach. Every laugh scraped at Georgius. Made him angrier.

“What an idiot,” Iohannes managed to croak out.

“Get out!” Georgius shouted, pointing the sword at him. “I don’t want a half-blood at my feast!”

Iohannes stopped laughing.

The change pleased Georgiu. It always pleased him when he found the right words to shut Iohannes up. It was so easy too. All Georgius had to do was remind him what he was.

“Careful what you say, cur,” Iohannes said, standing up.

He was much taller than Georgius. Fourteen already, almost a man. His shadow stretched over the hot stones, but Georgius did not step back. He never backed down from a fight. He was no coward.

“Savage,” Georgius spat.

“Imbecile.” Iohannes shot back.

“Barbarian!”

“Enough,” Iohannes said, voice cold enough that nearby servants looked over. For a moment, Georgius thought he might hit him.

Instead, Iohannes turned and walked away before he made a mistake.

“If you do not want me here, I am happy to leave,” he called out, sullen and brooding like usual. “Enjoy your little celebration.”

And with that, he disappeared into the main house.

Georgius was left with the torn dummy, the hot courtyard, and the faraway sounds from Mother’s room, where everyone had forgotten him.

He glared after Iohannes until his eyes hurt.

“I will!” Georgius yelled. “Because you won’t be there!”

He waited by the archway, expecting Iohannes to come back and say something. When he did not, Georgius turned on the dummy again.

The wooden sword hit straw, rope, and patched cloth. He struck the belly, then the throat, then the charcoal face someone had drawn on it. He imagined Iohannes’s cold eyes there.

Straw fell loose and scattered across the stones. Sweat ran down Georgius’s neck. The sun pressed on his shoulders and made the air waver above the ground.

For a while, being angry felt good.

Then it began to feel stupid.

The dummy did not fight back. It did not bleed. It did not cry. It did not tell him he was strong.

No one came to watch him. No one brought sweet bread. No one called him brave.

The servants kept hurrying across the far side of the courtyard with their heads down.

This was wrong.

Father should have been here, Mother too. Even if the baby was coming, someone should have told them that Georgius came first today. The day was his before it was anyone else’s.

That was it! He would tell them himself! It wasn’t like anyone else was going to do it.

He threw the wooden sword onto the ground and marched toward the main house.

Inside, the halls were cooler. Georgius moved fast, bare feet slapping against stone. He knew these halls better than some of the servants.

A girl carrying folded linen almost dropped it when she saw him.

“Young master-”

He ignored her.

Voices came from deeper inside the house. Low voices. Many of them. That had to be where everyone was. Georgius followed the sound, waiting to hear Father’s firm voice, or Mother calling his name with the tired smile she used when he had been too loud.

But the closer he got, the worse it felt.

The voices were not happy. They did not sound like people welcoming a baby. They sounded scared.

Georgius slowed down.

There was a smell in the hall.

It was sharp and ugly. Like iron. Like sweat and hot cloth and something sour. It made his stomach twist. And suddenly, he didn’t like his idea so much after all.

He also didn’t like the women’s voices behind the half-open door. They rose, then broke, then went quiet again.

Something in him told him to stop.

It was a small feeling, but strong.

Georgius froze with one hand near the wall. His breathing sounded too loud. He should turn back, they would remember him eventually. He could wait a little longer.

Turn back? That sounded like something a coward would say. Georgius clenched his fists into little balls.

He was anything but a coward.

He crept toward the door, which was half open from the servants hurrying in and out of the room at a run.

He leaned into the crack, and through it he saw only pieces of the room. Red light from the shutters. Moving skirts. A hand holding a dark, bloody cloth.

So he leaned closer.

“What a terrible thing…”

“Wasn’t it meant to happen next month?”

“The baby barely lived. He is so tiny…”

“It’ll be a miracle if he lives a fortnight at all. Who will even feed him?...”

“But Elisa…” A maid began to cry. “Oh God, why?”

The words blurred together. Georgius hardly heard them.

His eye was fixed on the narrow slit of the open doorway.

Fixed on the bed, where red had soaked through linen in ugly waves.

Fixed on the pale shape of his mother lying still among it all, her hair spread loose over the pillow, her face drained of colour, and her eyes open in horror.

They forgot to close them. That was the first thing that went through Georgiu's mind.

One of the servants spotted him from inside the room and turned so quickly that his shoulder knocked into a maid carrying a basin.

“Oh God, Georgius, what are you doing here? You are supposed to be in the courtyard!” He hurried to the doorway at a near sprint and pulled it wider just long enough to step through, blocking the bed from sight with his body. "Why isn't Iohannes with you? He's supposed to be keeping an eye on you."

“Demetrios, what happened?” Georgius asked. His own voice sounded distant, thin, as though someone else had spoken from the far end of the hall.

“Clean everything up,” Demetrios ordered the others over his shoulder, then he caught Georgius by the arm and began ushering him away, too firmly to be gentle and too frightened to be properly angry.

“My mother,” Georgius said, trying to twist back toward the room. His legs felt wrong beneath him, heavy and weak at the same time. “Is she fine? Why was she so pale?”

He did not know why he asked. He thought he already knew the answer, even if the answer made no sense.

“It is…” Demetrios hesitated. Georgius had never seen him look so old. He glanced back toward the door, then down at the boy gripping at his sleeve. “Your father will speak to you later.”

Georgius should have fought him. He should have kicked, bitten, shouted, and forced his way back into the room until someone told him properly what had happened. That was what he always did when people tried to move him where he did not want to go.

But his body wouldn’t move. Maybe he was scared of what he would see if he returned. Maybe some part of him understood that going back through the door would make it real.

Or maybe it was that one image that held him still above all else. His father, the great warrior, Georgius’s hero, knelt broken beside the bed with his back shaking like he was crying.

In his arms he held a tiny thing wrapped in cloth, cradled with all the care his great body had.

Georgius could still hear his whisper, how it cracked. “My b-baby boy… Theodorus.”

…

Georgius woke with a terrible dread inside him. A tendril that woke him in an instant.

He jolted upright, breath caught in his throat, and sent Nadia, who had been lying half-sprawled over him in sleepy warmth, tumbling onto the hard-packed floor. She landed with a dull thump and an immediate curse.

“Jesus Christ, can’t you wake up like a normal man, you bastard?” she snapped, blowing a curtain of dishevelled black hair out of her face.

Then she saw him properly and stilled.

“Quiet,” Georgius rasped.

His jaw was clenched tight enough to ache, his eyes fixed on the crooked doorway of the shack. His hand had already found the grip of his sword, fingers wrapped hard around the leather. At least this time Nadia had not taken it from him. He knew he would need it for wht was to come.

“What is it?” Nadia asked, fear catching up with her anger as she dragged the rough wool blanket over herself.

She had no chance to say more before knocks struck the door, sharp and frantic.

“What is it?” Georgius demanded, already on his feet.

Lambros burst inside and stopped dead. His eyes went wide as they took in Georgius standing completely naked with a sword in hand, and Nadia seated on the floor with only the blanket preserving modesty by the barest margin. She took the opportunity to give Lambros a slow wink that made the fool’s face redden.

“What the fuck is it?” Georgius snarled, stepping forward.

That seemed to remind Lambros why he had come, and perhaps more importantly, why Georgius had beaten the life out of him the last time he stood around gawping instead of speaking.

“The ah-” Lambros swallowed hard. “The Crown has found us.”

Nadia let out a sharp sound, half gasp and half horror.

Georgius was already moving. He crossed the room in three strides and seized Lambros by the throat, dispensing with the shirt’s collar men usually used for such situations. He slammed him back against the shack’s wooden door with enough force to rattle the hinges and shake dust from the roof beams.

“You bastard,” he growled, face close enough to see the fear bloom in Lambros’s eyes. “Didn’t you tell me there was no way they could follow us?”

“They couldn’t have!” Lambros choked out, hands clawing uselessly at Georgius’s wrist. “I muddied our tracks, I'm sure of it!”

Georgius threw him to the ground in disgust.

“A fat load of good that did,” he spat, turning away to drag on his clothes and armour as quickly as he could. He pulled pieces on by habit more than thought, movements sharp and brutal, each buckle yanked tight as if leather deserved punishment.

“Aren’t you supposed to be some hotshot poacher?” Nadia said as she rose, letting the blanket fall aside while she reached for her own clothes with furious haste. Her brows were drawn tight, mouth twisted in contempt. “Evading the Crown for half a dozen years? What a joke.”

Lambros did not seem to hear a word of it. He was still on the floor, staring up at her naked body with open, stupid hunger.

Nadia crossed the distance and kicked him square in the face.

There was a loud crack as his nose broke. Lambros folded around the pain with a strangled moan, blood spilling over his mouth and jutted chin.

“Can’t believe I actually slept with an idiot like you,” Nadia said, rolling her eyes as she stepped over him.

“We walked downstream for at least a mile!” Lambros protested, voice thick and nasal now, made worse by the faint whistle through his broken teeth. “I laid false trails. Had us wearing sheepskin under our boots, for Christ’s sake. No one could have followed them!”

Georgius might have laughed at how pathetic he sounded if they were not buried neck-deep in shit.

“They clearly did,” he said, fastening the last strap of his armour with a vicious tug. “And now I have to deal with your fuckup.” If he didn't need every warm body this dump had in it, he would have killed him on the spot.

The Crown was not supposed to find him yet. He'd barely had time to prepare.

Georgius shoved past Lambros and out into the hideout with his sword at his hip and fury hot beneath his skin.

The hollow was already coming apart.

Men ran between the shacks with spears, axes, hunting bows, and whatever rusted iron they had managed to steal from burned villages. A few had helmets. A handful had mail. Most were hard-faced bastards with hungry eyes and the quick, mean movements of men who had lived too long by taking what others were too weak to keep.

They looked to him as he passed, and Georgius gave them nothing but a glare sharp enough to cut the panic out of them.

“Get to the palisade!” he barked. “Anyone standing around with his cock in his hand loses it.”

That got them moving faster.

The families were worse.

They huddled in the gaps between the buildings, packed into the miserable little settlement like rats. Thin women clutched children with hollow faces and cracked lips, looking like they were already in the next life instead of this one, more ghosts than living beings at this point. Old men sat in the dirt beside walls of mud and scrap timber, coughing into filthy sleeves, their bodies folded inward like bad rope, glaring at him with equal parts hate and fear.

The whole place stank of people forced to live too close together with too little water.

Georgius saw the rain vats as he crossed the open ground near the centre of the camp. Broad, crooked things patched with pitch, bark, and cloth, most of them nearly dry at the bottom. One woman knelt beside a barrel and tried to scrape dampness from its side with a cup. A guard slapped her hand away before she could gather more than a mouthful.

They had rules for a reason. Water went first to the men who could fight, then to the horses, then to those useful enough to keep the camp working. Everyone else got what was left. The same went for food. Georgius prized usefulness above all else. And these fools’ use was running out quickly.

That was why he didn’t care about how many eyes had fever-glazed looks or sickly yellow skin. The siege had barely started, and half the useless mouths in this hole already looked ready to keel over.

Nadia caught up to him near the inner fence, buckling her belt as she walked. “I’m gonna need that miracle you promised me if we’re going to make it out of here alive.”

“You’ll get one as long as you shut up and do what I say,” Georgius answered, and there was no wavering in his voice.

“And if I don’t?” Nadia challenged, because of course she did. Didn’t she know how to be a proper woman and nod along to whatever her man said?

He smiled without warmth. “Then you’ll learn the Crown isn’t the only thing outside these walls you have to worry about.”

"Oh I'll hold you to that, darling" she cracked a smile.

"I told you to never call me that again." The only woman he allowed to do so was long dead. Killed by the bastard who had led troops here. A little boy that on the top of his kill list.

The palisade rose ahead, a crooked line of pine stakes and nailed planks with men crowded along the walkways. Some had climbed onto barrels and roof frames to see over the top. Georgius shoved one aside and hauled himself up the ladder, feeling it sway beneath his weight.

The high ground beyond the hollow was crowned with soldiers, and there, near the centre of it all, sat a young man on horseback.

His face was young. Younger than he remembered, as cold as he expected, and familiar enough to make something old and ugly twist in his chest.

Theodorus looked down into the hollow.

Georgius gripped the top of the palisade until splinters bit his palm, then leaned forward with a grin full of teeth.

“Well, little brother,” he called across the dry air, “so you finally came.”

“To settle old debts,” he answered. "With iron and blood."