Iron and Magic E-Book

Ilona Andrews

• Herausgeber: NYLA
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 560

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

The Iron Covenant Book 1 No day is ordinary in a world where Technology and Magic compete for supremacy…But no matter which force is winning, in the apocalypse, a sword will always work. Hugh d'Ambray, Preceptor of the Iron Dogs, Warlord of the Builder of Towers, served only one man. Now his immortal, nearly omnipotent master has cast him aside. Hugh is a shadow of the warrior he was, but when he learns that the Iron Dogs, soldiers who would follow him anywhere, are being hunted down and murdered, he must make a choice: to fade away or to be the leader he was born to be. Hugh knows he must carve a new place for himself and his people, but they have no money, no shelter, and no food, and the necromancers are coming. Fast. Elara Harper is a creature who should not exist. Her enemies call her Abomination; her people call her White Lady. Tasked with their protection, she's trapped between the magical heavyweights about to collide and plunge the state of Kentucky into a war that humans have no power to stop. Desperate to shield her people and their simple way of life, she would accept help from the devil himself—and Hugh d'Ambray might qualify. Hugh needs a base, Elara needs soldiers. Both are infamous for betraying their allies, so how can they create a believable alliance to meet the challenge of their enemies? As the prophet says: "It is better to marry than to burn." Hugh and Elara may do both.

Leseprobe

IRON AND MAGIC

ILONA ANDREWS

COPYRIGHT

This ebook is licensed to you for your personal enjoyment only.

This ebook may not be sold, shared, or given away.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the writer’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Iron and Magic

Copyright © 2018 by Ilona Andrews

Ebook ISBN: 9781641970358

Cover Art by Gene Mollica Studio, LLC

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

No part of this work may be used, reproduced, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without prior permission in writing from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

NYLA Publishing

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http://www.nyliterary.com

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Questions about IRON AND MAGIC

Introduction to the Series

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Epilogue

Discover More by Ilona Andrews

About the Author

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This was such a fun book to write. As usual, we had a lot of help bringing it to you. We’d like to thank Nancy Yost, our agent, who worked tirelessly on our behalf, for her guidance, help, and friendship. We’re grateful to Sandra Harding, our fantastic editor for her insights and suggestions as she helped us shape a manuscript into a book. We’d like to thank Natanya Wheeler for cover design and keeping us on track; Sarah Younger for arranging the print edition and moral support, lots and lots of moral support; and Amy Rosenbaum for tackling the gargantuan task of the audio edition.

Big thanks to Joanne Suh for coming up with a series name, Iron Covenant, for Hugh’s and Elara’s books.

We are further grateful to Stephanie Mowery for the copyedit and our beta readers, including Hasna Saadani, Mi Young Jin, Robin Snyder, Jessica Haluska, Julia Wheatley, Kristen Carter, the Carwrights, and M. C. Dy. Special thanks to Brandi Boldden.

All errors of fact are ours alone.

Finally, we would like to thank you, our reader, for taking a chance on us again. We hope the book will be fun.

QUESTIONS ABOUT IRON AND MAGIC

Technically this book is a spin-off from our Kate Daniels series; however, it can be read as a standalone work.

For Kate Daniels fans: although this story is the first in the Iron Covenant trilogy, and the entire trilogy takes place before the events of Magic Triumphs, it is actually written to be read in the following order:

Iron Covenant 1: Iron and MagicMagic TriumphsIron Covenant 2Iron Covenant 3

You don’t need to wait for Hugh’s entire story to be out. If you do, it won’t be as fun, because there are some revelations in Iron Covenant 2 that are best discovered after Magic Triumphs.

INTRODUCTION TO THE SERIES

The world has suffered a magic apocalypse. We pushed technological progress too far, and now magic has returned with a vengeance. It comes in waves, without warning, and vanishes as suddenly as it appears. When magic is up, planes drop out of the sky, cars stall, and electricity dies. When magic is down, guns work and spells fail.

It’s a volatile, screwed-up world. Magic feeds on technology, gnawing on skyscrapers until most of them topple and fall, leaving only skeletal husks behind. Monsters prowl the ruined streets, werebears and werehyenas stalk their prey; and the Masters of the Dead, necromancers driven by their thirst for knowledge and wealth, pilot blood-crazed vampires with their minds.

In this new age, ancient beings awaken, brought out of their slumber by magic. One of them is Nimrod, the Builder of Towers, the man whose name terrified the ancient kingdoms of the Persian Gulf thousands of years ago. Possessing unimaginable power, Nimrod takes a new name, Roland, and sets about bringing his vision of the future to life. To build a new kingdom, one must first destroy the old. Roland requires a Warlord, a leader who will forge and lead his army, someone of great power and even greater cruelty, someone whose loyalty Roland will ensure by searing every shred of doubt with his own blood and ancient magic.

When shaping a human into a weapon, it’s best to start young…

PROLOGUE

“Wake up!”

He sensed the kick coming through his sleep and curled into a ball. It didn’t hurt as much this time. Émile wasn’t really trying.

“You have a client.”

He rolled up, blinking. He should’ve hidden deeper in the drum that was his nest. The drum lay on its side and was long enough that Émile couldn’t land a good kick. But it was so nice and sunny, and he’d fallen asleep on the rags in front of it.

He looked at Émile and the man next to him. The man had dark eyes. He’d learned to watch the eyes. Faces lied, mouths lied, but the eyes always told you if the man would hit and how hard. This man was large. Big hands. Powerful shoulders. Next to him Émile looked skinny and weak, and he knew it too, because he forgot to sneer. All the street people called Émile Weasel, because of the sneer, but only when he couldn’t hear. Émile was mean. He ran the street and when someone tried to stand up to him, he’d fly into a rage and beat them with a rock or a metal stick until they stopped moving.

Émile jabbed his finger in the direction of the man. “Fix him.”

The man held out his left arm and pulled back the sleeve of his leather jacket. A cut snaked from his wrist all the way to the elbow. Shallow, only through the top layer of the skin. Easy to fix. He eyed Émile. Usually Émile made him say nonsense words and drag it out, so it would look mysterious, but the man was watching him, and it was making him uneasy.

He reached out and touched the man’s arm, letting the magic flow. The cut sealed itself.

The man squeezed his forearm, checking the spot where the wound used to be.

“See? I told you.” Émile bared his teeth.

“How much?” the man asked. His voice had an accent.

“How much what?”

“How much for the boy?”

His heart sank. He scooted deep into the drum, where he’d kept a knife hidden under his rags. He knew what happened to boys who were sold. He knew what men did to them. Rene was sold. Rene had been his only friend. Rene was fast and when he stole from the market stalls, nobody could catch him. He’d healed a boil on Rene’s back, and since then Rene shared. They’d hide in his drum and eat the bread or pirogi Rene had nicked and pretend they were somewhere else.

Two weeks ago, a man took Rene away. Émile had sold him. Three days later, after dark, he saw the same man leading Rene on a chain like a dog as they walked into a house. Rene was wearing a pink dress and he had a black eye.

Émile had promised not to sell him. That was the deal. He healed clients and Émile gave him food and protected him.

“Not for sale,” Émile said.

The man reached into his leather jacket. An envelope came out. A stack of money hit the dirt in front of Émile. A thick stack. More money than he had ever seen. Émile’s eyes got big.

Another stack.

He was trapped in the drum. There was nowhere to run.

Another.

Émile licked his lips.

“You promised!” he yelled.

“Shut up.” Émile squinted at the man. “He’s a magic boy.”

Another stack.

“Take him,” Émile said.

The man reached for him. He shrank back, his hand clutching the knife hidden under his filthy blanket. He wouldn’t be walking on a chain.

The man stepped toward him, his back to Émile.

“Drop the knife,” the man said.

Behind him Émile’s face turned ugly. He lunged, a dagger pointed at the man’s back. The man turned fast. His hand fastened on Émile’s wrist. Émile screamed and dropped the dagger. The man pulled him over.

“Take him!” Émile squealed. “Take him!”

“Too late.”

The man locked his left hand on Émile’s throat and squeezed. Émile clawed at the man’s arm with his free hand, flailing, trying to get away. The man continued squeezing.

Magic told him the little bone in Émile’s throat broke. It nagged at him, like an annoying itch. He would have to mend the bone to make it go away, but the man kept squeezing, harder and harder.

Émile’s eyes rolled back in his skull. The annoying buzz of magic disappeared. You can’t fix the dead.

The man let go and Émile fell, limp.

He gathered himself into a ball, trying to make himself smaller.

The man crouched by the drum. “I won’t hurt you.”

He slashed with his knife. The man caught his hand, and then he was yanked out into the sunlight and set on his feet.

The man looked at his knife. “A sharp blade.” He held it out to him. “Here. Hold the knife. It will make you feel better.”

He snatched the knife from the man’s hand, but he already knew the truth. The knife wouldn’t help. The man could kill him any time. He would have to bide his time and run.

The man picked up the stacks of money, took his hand, and together they walked out of the alley into the market. The man stopped at a stall, bought a hot pirogi, and handed it to him. “Eat.”

Free food. He grabbed it and bit into it, the sweet apple filling hot enough to burn his mouth. He swallowed his half-chewed bite and took another. He could always try to get away later. Eventually the man would look away and then he would run. Until then, if the man bought him food, he would take it. Only an idiot gave up free food. You ate it, and you ate it quick before someone punched you and took it out of your hands.

They walked through the marketplace past the ruins of tall buildings killed by magic. Magic came in waves. One moment it was here, and then it wasn’t. Sometimes he would go to Sainte-Chapelle on the day of the service to beg by the doorway. Everyone coming out of the church said the world was ending and that only God would save them. He always thought that if God came, he would come during magic.

They kept walking, all the way to the park, to a man sitting on a bench reading a book.

“I found him,” the man with dark eyes said.

The man on the bench raised his head and looked at him.

He forgot about the food. The half-eaten pirogi fell from his fingers.

The man was golden and burning with magic, so much magic, he almost glowed. This magic, it reached out and touched him, so warm and welcoming, so kind. It wrapped around him, and he froze, afraid to move because it might disappear.

“Where are your parents?” the man asked.

Somehow he answered. “Dead.”

The man leaned toward him. “You don’t have any family?”

He shook his head.

“How old are you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Hard to tell because of starvation,” the man with dark eyes said. “Maybe six or seven.”

“You’re very special,” the man said. “Look at all those people out there.”

He didn’t want to look away from the man, but he didn’t want to disappoint him even more, so he turned his head and looked at the people in the market.

“Of all the people out there, you shine the brightest. They are firebugs, but you are a star. You have a gift.”

He raised his hand and studied his fingers, trying to see the light the man was talking about, but he saw nothing.

“If you come with me, I promise you that I will help your light grow. You will live in a nice house. You will eat plenty of good food. You will train hard and you will grow up to be strong and powerful. Nobody will be able to stand in your way. Would you like that?”

He didn’t even have to think. “Yes.”

“What’s your name?” the man asked.

“I don’t have one.”

“Well, that’s not good,” the man said. “You need a name. A strong name, the kind that people will know and respect. Do you know where we are?”

He shook his head again.

“We’re in France. Do you know who that man is?” He pointed to a statue of a man on a horse. The man had a sword and wore a crown.

“No.”

“That’s Hugh Capet. He was the founder of the Capet dynasty. The kingdom of France began with his reign. The descendants of his bloodline sat on the throne of France for almost nine hundred years. He was a great man and you too will be a great man, Hugh. Would you like to be a great man?”

“Yes.”

The man smiled. “Good. All things exist in balance, Hugh. Technology and Magic. This world was born to have both. The civilization your parents built strengthened and fed Technology until the imbalance became too great, and now Magic has returned to even the scales. It floods the world in great waves, crushing the technological marvels and spawning wondrous creatures. It ushers in a new age from the birth pangs of the apocalypse. Our age, Hugh, mine and yours. In this age, you will call me Roland.”

“Yes,” Hugh agreed. He knew the truth now. God had found him. God had saved him.

“The world is in chaos now,” Roland said. “But I will bring order to it. One day I will rule this world, and you will be my Warlord, leading armies in my name to restore peace and prosperity. Today is a special day because we met. Is there anything I can do for you on this special day? Anything at all? Ask me any favor.”

Hugh swallowed. “My friend. His name is Rene. He has dark hair and brown eyes. He was sold to a man.”

“Would you like him found?”

Hugh nodded.

Roland glanced over his head at the man with the dark eyes. “Find this Rene and bring him to me.”

The man with dark eyes bowed his head. “Yes, Sharrum.”

He walked away.

Roland smiled at Hugh. “Come, sit by me.”

Hugh sat by the man’s feet. The magic wrapped around him and he knew that from this moment on, everything would go right. Nothing would ever hurt him again.

1

God was dead.

No, that wasn’t quite it. Hugh was dead.

No, that wasn’t it either.

Voices tugged on him, refusing to let him sink back into the numbing darkness.

“Hugh?”

He was laying on something hard and wet. The stench of sour, alcohol-saturated vomit hit his nose.

He was drunk. Yes, that was it. He was drunk and getting more sober by the moment, which meant he had to find something to drink or pass out again before the void where God used to be swallowed him whole.

Cold liquid drenched him.

“Get up.” The male voice was familiar, but to identify the speaker, he would have to reach deep into his memory. Thinking brought the void closer.

“This is pointless.” Another voice he knew and decided to not remember. “Look at him.”

“Get up,” the first voice insisted, calm, deliberate. “Nez is winning. He’s killing us one by one.”

Something stirred in him. Something resembling loyalty and obligation and hate. He tried to sink deeper into the stupor. God didn’t want him anymore, but the darkness was happy to take him in.

“He doesn’t care,” the second voice said. “Don’t you get it? He’s lost. He might as well be dead and rotting for all the good he would do us.”

“O ye of little faith,” a third, deeper voice said.

“Get the fuck off this floor!”

Sharp pain punched his skull. Someone had kicked him. He briefly considered doing something about it, but staying on the floor seemed the better option.

“Hit him again, and I’ll split you sideways.” Fourth voice. Cold. He knew this one too. That one rarely spoke.

“Think.” The third voice. Collected, reasonable, dripping with contempt. “Right now, he’s drunk. Eventually he’ll be sober. Drunk we can fix. But if you kick him in the head, you’ll injure his brain. What good is he then? We already have one brain-damaged imbecile. We don’t need another.”

One… two… three… The count surfaced from the muddled depths of his mind. He used to count just like this to see how long the insult would take to burrow through the hard shell that was Bale’s brain.

Four…

“I’ll fucking kill you, Lamar!” Bale snarled.

“Shut up,” the first voice said.

Yes. All of them needed to shut up and leave him the hell alone. He was reasonably sure he hadn’t finished the jug of moonshine. It had to be somewhere within his reach.

“Get up, Preceptor,” the first voice insisted.

Stoyan, his memory supplied. Figured. Stoyan was always a persistent sonovabitch.

“We need you,” Stoyan said, his voice quiet and close. “The Dogs need you. Landon Nez is killing us. We’re being purged.”

Eventually they would go away.

“He doesn’t give a fuck,” Bale said.

“Pass me the bag,” Stoyan said.

Someone knelt next to him.

“It’s not gonna matter,” Bale growled. “He’s all fucked up. He’s laying here in his own piss and vomit. You heard that dickhead at the door. He’s been in this shithole for weeks.”

Hugh heard a zipper being pulled open. Something was put in front of him. He smelled the stench of rotting blood and decomposition.

Bale kept going. “Even if he sobers up, he’ll crawl right back into the bottle and get shit-faced.”

Hugh opened his eyes. A severed head stared back at him, the brown irises dulled by a milky patina.

Rene.

“He can’t even stand anymore. What are we going to do, tie him to a stick and prop him up?”

The world turned red.

“To hell with this.” Bale leaned back, readying for a kick.

Rage drove him up before Bale’s foot connected with the severed head. He locked his hand around Bale’s throat, jerked him off his feet, and slammed him down onto the nearest table. Bale’s back hit the wood with a loud thud.

“Hallelujah,” Lamar said.

Bale clawed at his arm, the muscles on his thick biceps bulging. Hugh squeezed.

Felix loomed on his right, reaching for him. Hugh hammered a cross punch into the big man’s nose with his left hand. Cartilage crunched. Felix stumbled back.

Bale’s face turned purple, his eyes glistening. His feet drummed the air.

Stoyan locked his arms on Hugh’s right bicep and went limp, adding his deadweight to the arm. Felix lunged from the left and locked himself onto Hugh’s left arm, trying to force an armbar.

The world was still red, and he kept squeezing.

Water drenched him in a cold cascade, washing away the red haze. He shook himself, growling, and saw Lamar holding a bucket.

“Welcome back,” Lamar said. “Let go of the man, Preceptor. If you kill him, there will be nobody to lead your vanguard.”

* * *

The void gnawed at him, the big raw hole where Roland’s presence used to be. Hugh gritted his teeth and forced himself to concentrate on the head on the table in front of him.

“When?” he asked.

“Six days ago,” Stoyan said.

“What did he do?”

“Nothing,” Stoyan said. “He did nothing.”

“Rene was out,” Lamar said. “He and Camilla walked off after you were forced out. Went civilian. Rene took a teaching job in Chattanooga, high school French.”

“He wasn’t a threat to anyone,” Stoyan said. “They killed him anyway. I came to convince him to meet with you and found his body. They left him on the floor of his kitchen.”

His throbbing head made it hard to think. “Camilla?”

Stoyan shook his head.

Rene’s wife didn’t make it. Pain stabbed at Hugh, fueling his rage. Rene hadn’t been a great soldier. His heart was never in it, but he’d tried. He’d always talked of something better. Of living life after he was done.

“He and Camilla aren’t the only ones,” Stoyan said.

“Caroline?”

“Dead,” Bale said.

“Purdue, Rockfort, Ivanova, all dead,” Stoyan added. “We’re it.”

Hugh surveyed the four men. Stoyan, dark-haired, gray-eyed, in his mid-thirties, looked haggard, like a worn-out sword. Felix, a hulking mountain of a Dominican, leaned back, trying to stop a nosebleed. The bridge of his nose skewed right. Broken. Bale sulked in the corner. About five-eight, five-nine, with dark red hair, Bale was almost as broad as he was tall, all his bulk made up of bone and slabs of thick, heavy muscle. Lamar perched on the edge of the table to the far right. Tall, black, with a body that looked twisted together from steel cables, Lamar was closing on fifty and the age only made him harder to kill. His hair was trimmed short. A neat beard traced his jaw. He’d been an intelligence officer once and never lost the bearing. A pair of thin, wire-rimmed glasses rode his nose.

The second-in-command, the silent killer, the berserker, and the strategist. All that remained of his cohort leadership.

“This is the way things are now,” Stoyan said.

“Nez is going down the roster of the Iron Dogs and crossing out the names,” Lamar said. “Nobody is safe. We’re all tarred with the same brush.”

The Iron Dogs. His Iron Dogs, the elite private army he’d built for Roland. The name made him wince inside. The void gaped wider, scraping at his bones.

He’d led the Iron Dogs, and Landon Nez led the Golden Legion, the necromancers who possessed mindless vampires, piloting them like remote-controlled cars. The Iron Dogs and the Golden Legion, the right and left hands of Roland. He’d hated Nez, and Nez hated him, and that was the way Roland liked it.

Hugh would’ve found a way to kill Nez eventually, but he’d run out of time. Roland had purged him.

The memory punched him, hot and furious. Roland standing before him, devoid of all life and warmth. At that moment Hugh would’ve settled for rage, fury, sadness, anything. But there was nothing. Roland stood before him, cold.

The words scalded him. “You’ve failed me, Hugh. I have no further use for you.”

He remembered every sound. He remembered taking a breath and then the lifeline of magic that anchored him to the man who’d pulled him off the streets vanished. The void had opened, and all became pain. It bit at him now, its fangs shredding his soul.

His purpose, his teacher, his surrogate father, everything that was right and true in this fucked up world was gone. Life had no meaning. And he didn’t even fully understand why.

The four men were looking at him.

“How bad is it?” Hugh asked.

“We’re down to three hundred men now, with us,” Stoyan said.

A few months ago, Hugh had left five cohorts of the Iron Dogs, four hundred and eighty soldiers each. He’d hammered them into an elite, disciplined, trained force, the kind of soldiers any head of state would cut off his arm to have.

“There are more out there,” Stoyan said. “Some are in hiding, some are wandering about without any direction. Nez has bloodsucker patrols out. They are hunting us down.”

What the hell had happened since he was banished? “Why?”

“Because of you!” Bale snarled from the corner.

Hugh looked at Lamar.

“Roland discovered an unpleasant fact,” Lamar said. “We do not follow him. We follow you. You are our Preceptor. We’re viewed as untrustworthy.”

Idiots. He stared at them. “You swore an oath.”

“Oaths go both ways. Show him your arms,” Lamar said.

Stoyan yanked his sleeves up. Jagged scars marked his forearms.

“It’s the same old story,” Lamar said. “Roland wanted some land that was occupied. He offered the town money, but they refused to sell.”

“He told me to raze the town,” Stoyan said. “And hang the civilians on trees to send a message. I told him I was a soldier, not a butcher. He crucified the lot and hung me on the crosses with them. Thirty-two people. I watched them die for three days. I would’ve died there.”

“What saved you?” Hugh asked.

“Daniels saved me. She pulled me off the cross and let me go.”

The name cut like a knife. It must’ve shown on his face because Stoyan took a step back.

Kate Daniels, Roland’s long-lost and newly-found daughter. The reason for his banishment.

Hugh shoved the name out of his mind and concentrated on the problem at hand. Roland would’ve known Stoyan would refuse the order to butcher civilians. That wasn’t what the regular cohorts did. The dark arm of the Iron Dogs, which would’ve wiped the village off the face of the planet without question, no longer existed. Roland was painfully aware of that. The order had been a test of loyalty, and Stoyan had failed. Roland didn’t just require loyalty; he demanded unquestioning devotion. When he failed to receive it, he must’ve decided to destroy the entire force.

A waste, Hugh realized. Hugh had sunk years into building the Iron Dogs, and Roland tossed them away like garbage.

Much like Roland had thrown him away. No, not thrown away. I was his right hand. He’s cut me off. What kind of man cuts off his own hand before going into a fight?

This new heretical thought sat in his brain, burning and refusing to fade.

He groped for the tether of magic to banish the uncertainty and found only the void. It sank its fangs into his soul. The invisible tie had connected him and Roland even when the magic waves waned and technology held the upper hand. It was always there. It had linked them since the moment Roland had shared his blood with him. Now it was gone.

The void scraped the inside of his skull, the new sharp thoughts seared Hugh’s mind, and he had no way to steady himself. An urge to scream and smash something gripped him. He needed liquor, and a lot of it.

The four men watched him. He’d known each one for years. He’d hand-selected them, trained them, fought with them, and now they wanted something from him. They weren’t going to let him alone.

“Unless we do something, none of us will be alive this time next year,” Felix said.

“What is it you want to do?” Hugh already knew, but he asked anyway.

“We want you to lead us,” Stoyan said. “The Dogs know you. They trust you. If they know you’re alive, they will find you. We can pull in the stragglers and hold against Nez.”

“You don’t know what you’re asking.” To stay awake and anchored to reality, with the void chewing on him. He would go mad.

“I’m not asking.” Stoyan stepped in front of him. “I trusted you. I followed you. Not Roland. Roland didn’t make me promises. You did. You sold me this idea of belonging to something better. The Iron Dogs are more than a job. A brotherhood, you said.”

“A family, where each of us stands for something greater,” Lamar said.

“If you fall, the rest will shield you,” Bale said.

“Well, by God, we’re falling,” Stoyan said.

Fucking shit.

Rene’s head stared at Hugh from the table. He’d saved Rene back then, many years ago, in Paris. He’d saved him again and again, in battle. In the sea of shit and blood that Hugh made, that was the one good thing he had done. Nez had killed Rene for one reason only – to stab at him. No matter what he did from now on, Hugh would always have Rene’s death. He would carry it.

He’s dead now. Because of me. Because I wasn’t there. Because he was here instead, wallowing in self-pity and trying to drown the red-hot vise that clamped his skull.

Hugh studied the head, committing every detail to memory, and hurled the image into the void. The old days were gone. He would fill the bottomless hole with rage or it would drive him insane. Either way it made no difference.

“Do you know why you’re still alive?” Lamar asked. “Every day, every week, there are less of us, but you’re still breathing. If we found you, Nez can, too. I bet he knows exactly where you are.”

“I’m alive because he wants me to be the last,” Hugh said. “He wants me to know.”

Nez wanted him to watch as his necromancers tore apart everything Hugh had built, and when nothing was left, he would come calling to squeeze the last bit of blood out of the stone. Nez wanted him awake and sober. No fun chasing a dog who didn’t run. Fine. He’d be awake.

Lamar smiled.

“What do we have?” Hugh asked.

“Three hundred and two men, including us,” Stoyan said.

“Weapons?”

“Whatever each one of us carries,” Bale said.

“Supplies?”

“None,” Lamar said. “We’re close to starving.”

“Base?”

Felix shook his head.

Hugh’s mind cycled through the possibilities. Rock bottom wasn’t the worst place to start from, and the Dogs who’d managed to stay alive were probably the smartest or strongest. He had three hundred trained killers. A man could do worse.

“We have the barrels,” Stoyan said.

“How many?”

“All of them.”

Life kicked him, then blew him a kiss. “Good.”

Hugh strode to the door and flung it open. Fresh air greeted him. A small, ugly town sat in front of him, little more than a street with a few buildings and a rural road, leading into the distance and disappearing between some fields. A sunset splashed over the horizon, dying slowly, and the three street lamps had come on already, spilling watery electric light onto the stretch of road in front of him. He remembered the oppressive heat, but the air was cooler now.

“Fall or spring?” he asked.

“September,” Lamar told him.

“What is this town?”

“Connerville, Tennessee,” Stoyan said.

The last thing he remembered was Beaufort, South Carolina.

“Where is Nez?”

“In Charlotte,” Lamar told him. “He’s set up a permanent base there.”

Far enough to keep out of Atlanta and the surrounding lands. They belonged to Daniels now. But not so far that Nez couldn’t bring the Legion down if Roland became displeased with his precious daughter.

Stabilize three hundred Iron Dogs, arm them, and find a base to keep them alive. Simple to visualize, complicated to execute. Most of all, he had to convince Nez that attacking them now wasn’t in his best interests. If he kept the Dogs alive through the winter, by spring he would have enough people trained.

The bottle of moonshine called to him. He didn’t have to turn around to know exactly where it was, tempting him to do what severed limbs did - wither and rot. And while he rotted, his people would die one by one.

No. No, he owed Nez a debt. He was Hugh d’Ambray, Preceptor of the Iron Dogs. The Dogs paid their debts.

Magic rolled over the land. Hugh couldn’t see it, but he felt an exhilarating rush that tore through him, washing away the headache that pounded at the base of his skull. The electric lamps winked out, and twisted glass tubes of fey lanterns flared into life with an eerie indigo light.

He raised his hand and let his magic flow out. A pale blue glow bathed his fingers. Felix grunted as his nose knitted back together.

Hugh picked up Rene’s head. They would bury him tonight.

“Find me some clothes. And call Nez. Tell him I want to talk.”

2

Black Fire Stables spread across twenty acres about a two-hour horse ride east of Charlotte. The large, solid house sat in the middle of the lawn, on a rolling hillside, with stables to one side and a covered riding arena to the other. The tech was up, and the inside of the house glowed with warm electric light. Sweet green grass stretched into the distance, to the wall of the forest, shaded here and there by copses of pines, their needles carpeting the soil in a brown blanket. Red and pink roses bloomed at the gate. A rooster perched on the fence. As Hugh rode up, it cocked its head and gave him and the men behind him the evil eye.

He’d brought Stoyan, Lamar, and Bale with him. He needed Lamar’s take on Nez’s strength, and Bale’s axe would help to cut them out if things went sideways. He’d sent Felix to gather what was left of the Iron Dogs, and by all rights, he should’ve sent Stoyan with him too, but that would’ve meant listening to Bale and Lamar bickering the entire way with nobody to shut them up except him. There was only so much he could take.

Hugh halted his horse before the gate. The borrowed mare Stoyan had found somewhere wouldn’t cut it, especially not with Nez. They had to appear strong. He needed a horse, a war stallion. Problem was, he had no money.

Until a few months ago, money had been an abstract concept. He understood prices, he haggled on occasion, but he never worried where it came from. It was something he traded for goods and services, and when he needed more, he simply asked for it, and in a few days, it was there, in the appropriate account or in his hand. Now all of his accounts had been cut off. He didn’t have a dime to his name. He must’ve earned money somehow to keep himself drunk, and he vaguely remembered fighting, but most of the months between his banishment and Rene’s head had vanished into the darkness of an alcoholic haze.

The door of the farmhouse swung open. Matthew Ryan hurried out, stocky, balding, a big smile on his broad face, as if nothing had changed. The past stabbed at Hugh. You were something. Now you’re nothing.

“Come in, come in.” Ryan pulled the gate open. “Maria just got the table set. Come in!”

They rode up to the house, dismounted, and went inside.

The dinner was a blur, superimposed on the composite of his memories. He’d come to this ranch three times before. Each time he’d been treated to dinner and left with a horse. He sat there, watching his people attack mashed potatoes like starving wolves and tried to get a grip on reality. It kept slipping through his fingers.

After dinner, he and Ryan sat on the back porch of the house, beers in hand, watching the Friesians run through the pasture. The Friesians were his breed: jet black, built like light draft horses, but fast, nimble, and lively. He’d gotten his last three stallions from these stables. He’d paid at a premium for them, too. They were his mark - vicious black horses with flowing manes.

On the far right a stallion ran a lazy circle around his pasture, black mane flowing, his coat shiny like polished silk, high-stepping gait… Black fire in motion. Yeah, that one would do.

“I need a horse,” Hugh said.

Ryan nodded.

Here came the part he detested. “I can’t pay you now.” The words tasted foul in his mouth. “But you know I’m good for it.”

“We heard. Terrible business, that,” Ryan said. “Work for the man for years and have nothing to show for it. Shame, that’s what that is. A damn shame.” He let it hang.

Hugh drank his beer. He wouldn’t beg, and Ryan knew better than to push him.

Silence stretched.

“I’ve got no stallions right now. Nothing but the breeding stock. The market’s been slow.”

Bullshit. Ryan bred war horses, big and mean. In the post-Shift world, where tech and magic switched, a good horse was worth more than a car. It always worked. People who came to Ryan for a horse didn’t want a gelding and demand was always good.

Ryan glanced at him and shrank away before he caught himself. A small drop of sweat formed on his temple.

That’s right. Remember who you’re talking to.

“I want to show you something.” Ryan turned and yelled into the house. “Charlie, bring Bucky out. And tell Sam to come here.”

Hugh took another sip of his beer.

Ryan’s oldest son, stocky, with the same blunt features carved out of wet mud with a shovel, trotted over to the barn to the left.

A kid walked out onto the porch. Lean, blond. Young, eighteen or so. There was some of Ryan there, in the broad cast of his shoulders, but not much. Must’ve gone into the mother’s side of the family.

The doors of the barn swung open, and a stallion strolled out into the small pasture.

“What the hell is this?” Hugh set his beer down.

“That’s Bucky. Bucephalus.”

Bucky turned, the afternoon sun catching his coat. He was gray gone to pure white. He practically glowed. Like a damn unicorn.

“He isn’t a Friesian,” Hugh ground out.

“Spanish Norman horse,” Ryan said. “A Percheron and Andalusian cross. Picked him up at auction. He’s big the way you like them. Seventeen hands.”

Hugh turned and looked at him.

Ryan squirmed in his seat.

“You’re trying to give me a cold-blooded horse?” Hugh asked, his voice quiet and casual.

“He’s warm-blooded.” Ryan raised his hands. “Look at the gait. Look at the lines. That’s Andalusian lines right there. The neck is long and the legs…”

Oh, he saw the Andalusian, all right, but he saw the Percheron, too, in the size and the big chest. Percherons ran too cold blooded for fighting under the saddle; all that bulky slow-twitch muscle dragged down their reaction time. They were difficult to anger, slow to charge, and heavy on their feet. Everything he didn’t want.

Hugh looked at Ryan.

Ryan swallowed. “He’s comfortable under the saddle. Trust me on this. After a Friesian, your backside will thank you. No feathers, so less grooming. He jumps like a Thoroughbred. Look at the lines of the head. That’s a beautiful head.”

“He is white.”

“Nobody is perfect,” Ryan said.

In his mind, Hugh reached out and squeezed Ryan’s neck until the rancher’s face turned red and his head popped.

Maria, Ryan’s wife, came up to the doorway and froze. The young kid held completely still, waiting and watching Hugh’s face.

“I bought him to breed. I thought I would diversify, you know?” Ryan was babbling now. “Had a particular mare in mind, but that deal fell through. He’s a good stallion. Powerful and fast. Bad-tempered. Bit the shit out of me and the stable hands.”

Hugh stared at him.

Sweat broke out on Ryan’s forehead. His hands shook, his words tumbling out too fast.

“You two will get along. He’s like you.”

“How’s that?”

“A big, mean sonovabitch that nobody wants.” Ryan realized what he’d blurted out. His face went white.

A stunned silence claimed the porch.

“I didn’t mean it…” Ryan said.

A cold realization rolled over Hugh, smothering all anger. He would take this horse. He had no choice.

He had no choice.

It felt like he’d fallen off of somewhere high and smashed face-first into the stone ground. A year ago, Ryan would’ve paraded every one of his stallions in front of him and he’d have had his pick.

Hugh rose slowly, walked down the steps into the grass, approached the pasture, and vaulted over the fence. Bucky spun in place and stared at Hugh. A scar crossed the horse’s white head. Someone had taken a blade of some sort to him.

Bucky blew the air out of his nostrils, his amber eyes fixed on Hugh. A dominant stance. Fine.

Hugh stared back.

The stallion bared his teeth.

Hugh showed his own teeth and bit the air.

Bucky hesitated, unsure.

Once a horse decided to bite, there was no stopping it. Sooner or later you would get bitten, especially if the horse was a habitual biter. Some bit because they were jealous; others to show displeasure or get attention. Horses, like dogs and children, followed the principle that any attention, even negative, was still attention and therefore worth the effort.

A war stallion would bite to dominate.

He had to demonstrate that he wouldn’t be dominated. Once the biting started, it was difficult to stop. Yelling, hitting the horse, or biting it back, as one guy he remembered used to do, had no effect. The point was to not get bitten in the first place. You treated a war stallion with respect, and you approached it like you were first among equals.

Bucky stared at him.

“Come on,” Hugh said, his voice calm, reassuring. Words didn’t matter, but the sound of his voice did. When it came to humans, horses relied on their hearing more than their vision.

Bucky pawed the ground.

“You’re just wasting time now. Come on.”

The stallion eyed him again. In his years Hugh had seen all sorts of horses. The Arabians who would rather die than step on a human foot; the strict, mean horses from the Russian steppes that gave all of themselves, but forgave nothing; the German Hanoverians that would just as soon walk through a man as around... With a cross like this he couldn’t tell what the hell he was going to get, but he’d ridden horses since he was ten years old, all those long decades ago.

Their gazes locked. There was a fire inside that horse, and it shone through his eyes. A mean sonovabitch nobody wanted. You will do. You belong with me.

“Come here. I don’t have all day.”

Bucky sighed, raised his ears, and walked over. Hugh patted the warm neck, feeling the tight cords of muscle underneath, dug the sugar cube he’d stolen from Ryan’s kitchen out of his pocket, and let warm lips swipe it off his palm. Bucky crunched the sugar.

“I knew it,” Ryan said from behind the fence. The kid behind him rolled his eyes.

Bucky turned his head and showed Ryan his teeth.

Hugh stroked the stallion’s neck. “How much do you want for him?”

“A favor,” Ryan said.

The man really didn’t know when to stop pushing. “What do you want?”

Ryan nodded at his youngest son. “Take Sam with you.”

What the bloody hell? “I just told you I couldn’t pay you for the horse, and you want me to take your son with me. You know who I am. You know what I do. He’ll be dead in a month.”

“I can’t keep him.” Pain twisted Ryan’s face. “He isn’t right in the head.”

Hugh squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. It was that or he really would strangle the man. He opened his eyes and looked at the kid.

“How old are you?”

“Seventeen,” the kid said, his face flat. His eyes were dull. A liability at best, a pain in the ass at worst.

“What’s your name?”

“Sam.”

“Are you slow?”

“No.”

“I didn’t mean like that.” Ryan grimaced. “He can’t act like normal people. He doesn’t know when to stop. He caught a horse thief last month. Now, you catch a horse thief, you beat the shit out of him. Everyone understands that. That’s how things are done. You don’t get a rope and try to hang the man. If I had found him, that would be one thing. The sheriff saw him getting ready to string the thief up.”

Hugh raised his eyebrows at the boy.

“He stole from us,” Sam said, his voice flat.

“He had the rope over the tree ready to go right there by the damn road. Why hang him by the road, I ask you?”

“A warning is only good if people see it,” Hugh said.

Sam looked up, surprise flashing in his eyes, and looked back down. The kid wasn’t as dim as he pretended.

“He was always like this. He fights and don’t know when to stop. The sheriff told me he would let that one go, but this idiot doesn’t think he did anything wrong.”

“He stole from us.” A harsh note crept into Sam’s voice. “If one person steals and we don’t do anything, they will keep stealing.”

“See?” Ryan reached over and smacked the kid upside the head. Sam’s head jerked from the blow. He righted himself.

“Sheriff says he tries it again, he’ll end up in a cage for the rest of his life, or they’ll string him up instead and save everyone the trouble. He just isn’t made for ranch life. It’s not in him. At least this way he’s got a chance. You take him and Bucky, we’re even.”

Hugh looked at the kid. “You want to die fast?”

Sam shrugged. “Everyone dies.”

The void scoured Hugh’s soul with sharp teeth.

“Get your shit,” Hugh said. “We’re leaving.”

* * *

The magic was still down.

The tall, gleaming office towers that once proudly marked Charlotte’s downtown had fallen long ago, reduced to heaps of rubble by magic. The waves would keep worrying at the refuse, grinding it to dust until nothing was left. Magic fought all technology, but it hated large structures the most, bringing them down one by one, as if trying to erase the footprint of the technological civilization off the face of the planet.

With construction equipment functioning barely half of the time and gasoline supplies limited and pricey, clearing thousands of tons of rubble proved an impossible task, and Charlotte did what most cities decided to do in the same situation: it settled. It carved a road roughly following the old Tryon street, with hills of concrete and twisted steel beams bordering it like the walls of a canyon, and called it a day. Stalls had sprung up here and there, clustered where the road widened, selling all the fine luxuries the post-Shift world had to offer: “beef” that smelled like rat meat, old guns that jammed on the first shot, and magical potions, which followed the tried-and-true ancient recipe of ninety-nine parts tap water to one part food coloring. This early in the morning, only half an hour past sunrise, most of the vendors were still setting up. In another half hour, they would start squawking and lunging at the travelers, trying to hawk their wares, but for now, the road was blissfully quiet.

It didn’t matter, because for once Hugh didn’t have a hangover. Yesterday, after they’d left Black Fire behind, they’d spent the night in the open, at an old campground. He’d wanted to drink himself into a stupor, but then he would be no good the next day, so he stayed sober. His mood had soured overnight, and in the morning, when he found Sam waiting with the rest, the irritation heated up to a simmering hate.

He hated Charlotte. He hated the way it looked, the way it smelled, the rubble, the tortured skyline of the city, the white stallion under him, and the void waiting just beyond the border of awareness, ready to swallow him. He thought of getting off this damned horse, finding a hole within the rubble, laying down, and just letting it eat at his soul until there was nothing left. But he had a feeling the four men riding behind him would pull him out, set him back on the horse, and force him to keep going. There was nothing left but to stew in his own hate.

“Friends.” Bale grinned and patted his axe.

Hugh glanced up. An emaciated figure crouched on top of the wall of the rubble canyon on the far left. Thin, a skeleton corded with muscle, the creature hunkered down on all fours as if it had never walked upright, its hairless hide turned to a sickly bluish gray by undeath. It was too far to see much of its face, but Hugh saw the eyes, red and glowing with all-consuming hunger. No thoughts, no awareness, nothing except bloodlust, wrapped in magic that turned his stomach. A vampire.

Not a loose one. Loose bloodsuckers slaughtered everything with a pulse, feeding until nothing alive remained. No, this one was piloted by a navigator. Somewhere, within the secure rooms of Landon Nez’s base, a necromancer sat, probably sipping his morning coffee, telepathically gripping the blank slate that was the undead’s mind. When the vampire moved, it was because the navigator willed it. When it spoke, the navigator’s voice would come out of its mouth. He never liked the breed, the undead and the navigators both.

“A welcoming committee,” Stoyan said.

“Nice to be recognized,” Lamar quipped.

“Have you found a base?” Hugh asked.

“I found several,” Lamar said. “None that would have us.”

“What’s the problem?” Bale demanded.

“We are the problem,” Lamar said. “We have baggage in addition to a rich and varied history.”

“What are you on about?” Bale asked.

“He means we’ve double-crossed people before,” Stoyan told him. “Nobody wants Nez as an enemy, and nobody wants to take a chance on us stabbing them in the back.”

“We need to find someone desperate and willing to overlook our past sins,” Lamar said. “That takes time.”

Hugh wished for something to happen. Some release. Someone to kill.

Bucky raised his tail and shit on the road.

“You gonna clean that up?” a male voice challenged.

Thank you. Thank you so much for volunteering.

Hugh touched the reins. Bucky turned.

A tall, dark-haired man stood on the side of the road. In shape. Clothes loose enough to move, but not to grab, light stance, plain sword, no frills. Flat eyes. There was emotion in the voice, but none in the eyes. He wasn’t angry or riled up.

Behind him another man and a woman waited, the man shorter and stockier, holding a light mace, the woman armed with another plain sword. Long blond hair.

Professionals.

This was a test. Nez wanted to see if the months of drinking had taken their toll. Disappointment slashed through Hugh. He couldn’t take his time. He would have to do this fast.

Hugh dismounted and held out his hand. Stoyan pulled his sword out and put it in Hugh’s palm. Hugh started toward the three fighters.

“Should we--” Sam started.

“Shut it,” Bale told him.

The leading fighter stepped forward. The man moved well, light on his feet despite his size. Hugh swung the sword in a lazy circle, warming up his wrist.

The shorter man stalked to his right; the woman moved to his left with catlike grace.

He waited until they positioned themselves. “All set?”

The leader attacked, his sword striking so fast, it was a blur. Hugh moved, letting the blade slice through the air half an inch from his cheek, and slashed, turning into the blow. The blade of Stoyan’s sword met the mercenary’s neck and sliced clean through in a diagonal cut. The man’s head rolled off his shoulders, but Hugh was already turning. He batted the woman’s sword aside, dodged the mace, and brought the sword down in a devastating cut. The blade caught her shoulder and carved through one breast. She stumbled back, her arms hanging by her side. Hugh stabbed, sliding the sword between her 5th and 6th ribs on the left side, withdrew, and spun. The mace wielder had already started his swing. Hugh leaned out of the way, caught the mace’s handle on the upswing, throwing his strength and weight against the man and driving his blade up through the attacker’s liver into his heart. The mace wielder was the only one to realize what was coming. His eyes widened as the sword pierced his gut. The lights went out. Hugh shoved him back, freeing the blade with a sharp tug, and turned.

The woman was still alive, but barely. She would bleed out in another thirty seconds or so. Death from blood loss was relatively painless. She’d close her eyes and go to sleep.

Hugh crouched by her. Her breath was coming in shallow rapid gulps. He wiped the sword with her pretty blond hair, got up, and handed the blade back to Stoyan. Sam stared at him, his face slack.

Hugh mounted.

“I think you didn’t look hard enough for a base,” Bale said.

“I wouldn’t do so much of that if I were you,” Lamar said.

Hugh nudged Bucky, and the white stallion started down the road.

“Do what?”

“Thinking. It’s not your strong suit.”

“One day, Lamar,” Bale growled.

The void ate at Hugh. He closed his eyes for a long moment, trying to shut it out. When he opened them, he was still in Charlotte, still riding, and the air around him smelled like blood.

* * *

The canyon of debris widened. Shops and eateries popped up here and there, evidence of the city fighting back against the rubble. All were post-Shift, new construction: thick walls, simple shapes, and bars on the windows.

“Was that vampire from the People?” Sam asked.

“The Golden Legion,” Stoyan said.

“Is that like the People?”

“The necromancers who work for Roland call themselves the People,” Stoyan explained.

“They call themselves that because they feel they are the only people. The rest of us are lesser mortals,” Lamar said.

“The People have ranks,” Stoyan said. “They start as apprentices, then become journeymen, then finally they get to be Masters of the Dead. The best one hundred Masters make up the Golden Legion. The Legion is led by the Legatus, the prick we’re riding to meet. Each Master of the Dead in the Legion can pilot more than one vampire. A Master of the Dead can wipe out a US Army platoon with one undead.”

“Depending on how big the platoon is,” Lamar said. “Regulation size for a platoon is between sixteen and forty soldiers. Forty would be pushing it for one bloodsucker. The Legion would need at least two, maybe three if the platoon is well trained.”

“The point is,” Bale said, “when we meet the Legatus, you’ll be deaf and dumb, Sam, you get me? If I hear one squeak out of you, you’ll wish you were back on the ranch getting strung up by that sheriff your daddy is so afraid of.”

“How will I know if he’s the Legatus?” Sam asked.

Hugh thought about turning around and knocking him off his horse to shut him up, but it would take too much effort.

“Because he’ll look like the rest of the People,” Stoyan said. “Like a dickhead in an investment banker’s suit.”

“That’s redundant,” Lamar pointed out.

“Who’s Roland?” Sam asked.

“Someone you need to steer clear of,” Stoyan said.

“An immortal wizard with a megalomaniac complex who wants to rule the world,” Lamar said.

“Why does he want us dead?” Sam asked.

“All you need to know is that he does,” Bale growled. “Now shut the fuck up, or I’ll count your teeth with my fist and then you’ll be busy picking them up out of the dirt.”

The path turned. Ahead, on the left, a Viking mead hall stood on the corner. Built with thick timber, with a roof of wooden shingles, the mead hall resembled an upside-down longboat. A sign on the side proclaimed, “Welcome to Valhalla.”

On the side, a low deck offered several wooden tables, flanked by short benches. Landon Nez sat at the corner table, in plain view of the street.

There you are.

Nez hadn’t changed in the past few months. Still lean, like he was twisted together from steel wire. Same sharp eyes. His dark hair fell loose around his face. He wore a tailored charcoal suit. Good fabric, no padding on the shoulders, fitted through the waist, the English cut. About three grand, Hugh decided.

The Legatus of the Golden Legion. The most powerful Master of the Dead Roland could find besides himself or his daughter.

Nez nodded to him. Hugh nodded back. They’d been trying to kill each other for most of the last decade. The urge to borrow Stoyan’s sword and ride Landon down was almost too much.

“Is he Native?” Sam asked quietly.

“Navajo,” Stoyan said under his breath. “They kicked him out for piloting vampires.”

Hugh altered course, aiming for Landon. Bucky obliged.

“Join me?” Nez raised a cup of coffee.

“Why not?” Hugh swung from his saddle, tossed the reins on the hook in the rail, walked up the two short steps, and landed on a bench opposite Nez.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Stoyan and the rest of his people turn and park themselves across the street at a breakfast taco hole-in-the-wall.

“Coffee?” Nez asked.

“Nah. Trying to quit.”

“What are you doing in my neck of the woods?”

“Have I told you you’re lousy at sounding folksy?”

Folksy didn’t come naturally to Nez, and he did it in a trained bear fashion, like a circus animal forced to perform against his will. If you decided to go that route, you had to mean it and sound genuine. Landon Nez had walked out of the Navajo Nation with nothing and climbed his way to a Harvard Ph.D. and the top of the People’s food chain. The man would stab himself in the eye rather than be confused with common rabble.

Nez raised his eyebrows.

“It’s just us.” Hugh hit him with a broad grin. “Just go ahead and be the snobby prick you are.”

“Why are you here, d’Ambray?”

“Came to see a man about a horse.”

Nez glanced at Bucky. “Your horses do seem to be getting bigger and bigger. But white? Don’t you think it’s a bit on the nose?”

“Felt like it was time for a change. How’s life been treating you?”

Nez gave a one-shouldered shrug. “Same as always. Research. Management. Undeath is a demanding mistress.”

It would only take a second. Reach across, snap his neck. End all his earthly burdens.

Hugh wouldn’t make it. Nez would never come here unprotected.

“What about you?” Landon asked. “Planning new campaigns?”

Here it was, probing for weaknesses. “Settling down,” Hugh said.

“You?”

“There is a time and place for everything.” Hugh leaned back. “I’ve got a nice place picked out. Good supply, good defenses. Trees.”

“Trees?” Nez blinked.

Hugh nodded. “Eventually a man’s got to put down roots. Looking forward to sitting on my porch, drinking a cold beer.”

Nez stared at him a second too long. Got you.

The Legatus drank his coffee. “Have you heard any odd news from the North?”

Odd. “There is always odd news from the North.”

A shadow of alarm flickered through Nez’s eyes. The Legatus grimaced and nodded. “That’s the truth.”

They stared at each other in silence.

“Do you miss him?” Nez asked quietly.

The void yawned in his face. Missed? The memories alone tore Hugh apart. The clarity of purpose, the warm glow of approval, the flow of magic between them... The certainty.

“There’s more to life than being a dog on a leash.” Hugh rose. “Got to leave you now. Places to be, people to kill.”

“Always a pleasure, Preceptor.”

Hugh grabbed the reins, hopped over the wooden rail, mounted his horse, and started down the street. A few moments later his people caught up with him. They rode in silence for another ten minutes.

“How did it go?” Lamar asked.

“He’ll attack us the first chance he gets,” Hugh said. “He would’ve done it already, but something in the North has him worried. He’s a careful asshole, who likes to know every card his opponent is holding. I put a doubt in his head. Right now, he isn’t sure if we have a permanent position or not, so he figures we can wait. We’re easy to find and we’re not going anywhere.”

He would have to tell Felix to send some scouts north when they got back, to look for anything strange that would give Nez pause.