The emerald grass shimmered, heavy with the luscious, beaded dew of the early morning.

"It must have rained before the sun found us," Villen noted, tilting his straw hat back from his brow to squint at the rising light.

The cart gave a violent lurch as a wheel dipped into a pothole, causing the chainmail rings on him to rattle like a bag of loose coin.

Linden winced at the sound, his eyes darting to the shifting treeline.

"The roads are dry enough, at least," he called as he kept his gaze fixed on the shimmering horizon. "No mud to swallow the axles today."

"The Five be praised for that small mercy," Villen muttered, adjusting his grip on the reins."We’re already lagging behind the timetable. The last thing I need is to get mired in the muck when we’ve already had to add leagues to the journey to avoid the main skirmish lines.

We must make Sevavoriari before the sun dips.’’ He looked out on the treeline’’ These roads aren’t what they were a year ago; they’ve gone wild. Got wolves and bandits sprouting from the ditches like weeds, and if you don’t keep your wits, you’ll find either tooth or steel in your guts."

At those words,Linden shivered, his hands tight on his own lead. "Which do you think it was that got Lorens back at Apurvio? Teeth or iron?"

"Hell if I know," Villen spat over the side of the cart. "I’d say bandits for the gold, but I’ve a feeling it was the four-legged kind. The wolves are getting restless on these parts.

They’ve developed a liking for human gut ever since this bloody war started leaving corpses in every furrow.Got no more villages to stop on the road, merchants will keep out of this route for years at very least.

Bloody wolves. They’ve grown lazy and fat on the leavings; much easier to wait for a fool like Lorens to wander off than to hunt a stag. I told the lad to piss in the camp latrine, but he was always shy. Now he’s dead, cause he got a dick he wasn’t keen on showing, and I’m the one who has to look Maxor in the eye and explain why his cousin isn’t coming home."

The wind howled through the valley, a mournful, hollow sound that seemed to chase the rattling carts.

"Oi, Linden, stop squirming," Villen barked, noticing the younger man’s head darting back and forth. "Wolves don’t strike unless you’re alone or deep in the thickets. And bandits? Bandits are easily cowed by the sight of proper steel."

He jerked a thumb back toward the armed squadrons flanking the rear. "We’ve got a lofty gig, lad. We get the Prince’s pay and stay well out of the meat-grinder. When you reach Apurvio, you will surely be met by a butcher-attractor who will offer you a contract with a lofty pay for two months of service in the army. You take that and never come back. Got words they send them to the Bastion for assault and that’s a one way ticket.

But if you keep away from them meat-buyer, you are set. You should be whistling, not shaking."

"Sorry.... I just... I heard the lot besieging the Bastion are having a hard time on the supply roads. I think I’m right to be wary."

"Because they’re fools! Who cares about those bastards? All we have to do is reach Sevavoriari, offload the grain, and wipe our hands of the whole business. Our contract is ironclad."

"The roads got longer, but the pay stayed the same," Linden grumbled.

"You want to be the one to tell the Prince that?" Villen laughed, a dry, rasping sound. "Next time he goes to mass, you can stop his horse and tell him his merchant feels underpaid. I spent a fortune hiring these guards and securing the grain. You think I’d pull back just because we have to trot a few more leagues? There’s good money in the military, my father always said so."

"Wasn’t your father a mercenary?"

"Aye, and he hit it big. Now his son is a merchant who’s hit it even bigger. There was a swarm of traders who flocked to Malshut hoping to catch the same wind I did, but most of them pulled out because they’ve got water for blood. Cowards, the lot of them. I’ll earn back what I spent on these guards three times over. You mark my words: next season I’m renewing the contract with ten carts instead of six. I’ll be the richest man in the province while the ’brave’ ones are still counting their copper."

He chuckled, as the caravan crested the hill.

"Why do you think the Prince of Shaaza suddenly called for so many merchants?" Linden suddendly asked, his voice barely audible over the grinding of the wheels. "As you said, the pay is a king’s ransom, but the volume of grain we’re hauling... it doesn’t seem like the food is meant for his own kitchens.Why send us here?"

Villen shrugged, a casual, rolling motion of his thick shoulders. "Well, next time I’m invited to his high table, I’ll be sure to ask between courses," he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Though you’re right, the man doesn’t exactly look like he’s wanting for a meal. And he’s kept the destination of this particular clause hidden behind a lot of fancy ink ."

"Then the food is likely for those besieging the Bastion?" Linden pressed, leaning in. "Is the Prince of Shaaza in hand with the League of Princes?"

Villen let out a sharp, barking laugh that made the lead horse flick its ears. "The League of Princes? Where did you hear that heap of shit?"

"In the tavern on the way to Malshut," Linden replied shyly.

He remembered that tavern, the last time they had slept in a proper bed with a roof that didn’t leak. Since then, the landscape had turned into a graveyard. All they saw now were the blackened skeletons of villages, the grey dust of ashes, and the rotting corpses that the crows hadn’t finished with. And of course, the wolves. Those damn, howling wolves that kept Villen awake at night, clutching his ears and cursing the moon.

"The League! Bah!" Villen spat a thick glob of phlegm onto the passing grass. "I bet it was the owner’s daughter who whispered that in your ear. Did you bed her? The bitch refused me even when I offered good coin." He laughed, his misshapen, yellowed teeth gleaming in the morning sun as he relished his own mishap. "Hell if I know whose bed the Prince has crawled into! Maybe I’ll ask him that, too. ’Your Grace,may I humbly know if you are sucking the cock of the Habadian Prince, or is he sucking yours?Or do you both strokes each other?’"

He shook his head, the humor fading. "Sometimes I don’t understand you, boy. Why do you insist on putting your head into the clouds? Think simple and look close. The world is a mess, but coins are swarming like flies if you know which rotting rock to flip over."

Linden didn’t answer immediately. He looked away from Villen’s greedy grin, his eyes fixing on the terrain ahead. "Sometimes," he muttered under his breath, "you best look far to see what is pressing close."

He watched the two steep hills that flanked the trade path like the jaws of a beast. A sudden, unnatural silence seemed to fall over the valley, broken only by the frantic flapping of a thousand wings. A swarm of ravens erupted from the trees on the ridge, a black, screaming cloud that blotted out the sun for a fleeting second.

"What the fuck is that supposed to me-?" Villen grumbled, but his question was drowned out by a sound , like that of a thousand angry birds taking flight at once, along with the collective terrifying whistle of iron cutting through the air, sounds that Villen had never been familiar with.

Shouts of agony soon erupted from the armed guards.Their patrons unable to do nothing but watch in horror as men were jerked off their feet, pinned to the carts and the earth by a sudden rain of black-shafted javelins.

The guards he had paid pretty coins for, coming down like grain during harvest.

"Ambush!" someone shrieked, rather uselessly, as even that cry was cut short by a wet thud.

’’Bandits!’’ Another clenched between bloody breath.

Then, from the crest of the hills, the nightmare took shape. Charging hulks of men, came thundering down the slopes. They didn’t come with the orderly tread of soldiers; they came with the roar of monsters. Javelins hissed through the air again, and two handed axes were raised.

A single shout coming from those monsters flew in the air.Rattling teeth , ringing ears, and making briches soils themselves solid and wet.

"VYR SMORNAEEE!"

Villen knew he felt all of those three as he heard his death.

Then came the burst of white-hot agony.

It wasn’t a javelin from the ridge or an axe from the woods.

He felt a blade punch through his ribs, twisting with a sickening quelch of his guts being broken.

He looked down, his vision swimming, breath exhaling , stomach burning , to see a dagger being wrenched back and out of his side. Blood followed the steel in a frantic, pulsing fountain, painting the wood a sticky crimson.

The air he had been holding in a terrified gasp was punched out of him. He slumped against the seat, his strength draining into the floorboards.

"Hey, Villen," a voice called from beside him. It was calm, eerily so amidst the slaughter of the guards.

The merchant turned his head with agonizing slowness. He saw Linden standing over him, a smile in his face as he held on a dripping knife.

"It weren’t the wolves that got Lorens,and it weren’t the bandits, neither."

Linden wiped the flat of the blade on his tunic, his eyes tracking the charging sun-kissed hulks as they began the butchery of the caravan.

He held a longing expressions in his eyes as he watched the bloodshep unfolding.

"The Falcon sends his greetings to the princes," Linden whispered, leaning down so his breath was warm against Villen’s cooling ear. "Don’t you worry, though. I’ll be sure to send them yours too when I collect the rest of my pay. Especially the Prince of Shaaza; next time I meet him I’m going to ask all those questions.Don’t you worry about nothing.You can go take a wink of sleep now."

Villen tried to speak, but all that came up was a mouthful of red foam. He watched, fading, as the boy he had mocked and offered employment in exchange for the packhorses he brought from a stable he had ransacked , stepped over his twitching body to welcome the monsters that came down from the hills.