2nd week of February, 1460

  10th day of siege

  That damn room was finally finished.

  They had patched together every scrap of wood they could find, even scrapping portions of the manor itself, cannibalizing Georgius’s own walls to shore up the most critical stretches of the palisade. The beams they had ripped from the manor now propped up the outer defences instead, heavy supports bracing the damaged palisade from within so the weakened section would not simply topple over at the first proper push.

  But it was not the prospect of the wall’s collapse that gnawed at him most; it was the men themselves. It had taken days of shouting and threats to bully his men into working, to drag them from their corners where they lazed and whispered their secret plots. God, how they whispered. Georgius could not trust a single one of those beaten curs.

  Ever since the fire, they had not slept properly. The enemy had shown them a fiery display of what happened when they relaxed their guard for even a heartbeat. In the days afterward, every cry in the night, every distant shout, every feint against the walls felt like the start of a true assault. Patrols stumbled through their watches hollow-eyed, and the night-time posts had suddenly become the most dangerous time of all.

  Now, with the room finished, they could finally sleep. His men would stop their muttering, stop gathering in little knots to whisper and scheme and cast glances up at his tower. Once they had a safe bunk, they would settle. Or so Georgius kept telling himself.

  “My lord.” The lookout’s voice was a rasping, fatigued thing. He stood on the walkway above, lips cracked and dry.

  Water had been rationed ever since they had spent so much of their reserve dousing the flames. The cistern lay dangerously low, and the well refilled at a miserly trickle. It was one more weight dragging the already frayed morale toward the breaking point. And now the boy, with his parched mouth and wide eyes, had come to bring Georgius yet more ill news, the kind he simply could not afford.

  “Look…” The boy pointed with a trembling hand toward the horizon. Georgius followed the gesture, squinting into the pale winter light, and felt his heart fall clean out of his chest. At his side, Lycomedes crossed himself at the sight, his own hand shaking.

  Over the far ridge, an army of a hundred fresh men, give or take, was sauntering into the enemy camp with great fanfare. Trumpets blared to announce their arrival onto the field, banners snapping smartly in the wind as they were welcomed like saviours.

  While Georgius and his men were being bled dry by fatigue and dread, while every day of siege shaved another sliver from their strength, the enemy only swelled and hardened. He knew it then, with a cold, ugly certainty that settled into his bones.

  They were doomed.

  Theodorus faced the morning sun with an expression of calm satisfaction as he received his army’s latest reinforcement.

  At the head of the column rode the two Nomikos cousins, Apostolos and Michail, side by side in their saddles as if they were knights out of some grand saga. They held themselves with exaggerated nobility, clearly savouring the moment. Theodorus had to fight back a sigh as they drank in the cheers of his militia like conquering heroes who’d come to bring an end to a hard campaign.

  Kyriakos stood beside him even though he ought to have been asleep after a long night. He had insisted on being present to receive his kin. Unlike Theodorus, he made no effort to hide his contempt, releasing a sharp snort the moment he caught sight of Michail’s theatrical posture.

  “Cousin. Captain.” Apostolos announced as he drew his horse to a halt at the mouth of the command tent that had been set up overlooking the camp. He reined in with a flourish.

  “Lord Apostolos.” Kyriakos gave an exaggeratedly low bow, leaning into the absurdity of the moment. The gesture drew a faint flush to Apostolos’s cheeks as he realised he had been caught out.

  “Apostolos,” Theodorus said warmly as the pair swung down from their horses. “Thank you for coming to assist in the siege.”

  “Nonsense.” Apostolos waved the thanks away, stepping close to clasp each of the aides by the forearm. “I can hardly call it help.” His smile seemed almost apologetic.

  Michail followed a half-step behind him like a shadow, shaking hands with Theodorus - only his handshake seemed to turn into iron when it came Kyriakos’s turn, who had to fight not to wince at the sudden pressure crushing his fingers. “I’ve been winning plenty at the tables since you left,” Michail murmured, a dangerous glint in his eye. “Funny that.”

  “I’m happy for you, cousin. Truly.” Kyriakos answered, jaw tight, his smile straining to hold its usual smug curve under Michail’s grip.

  “I assure you, your help is much appreciated, and will likely lead to a swift conclusion to the siege,” Theodorus said, ignoring Kyriakos’s squirming as he gestured Apostolos toward the open flap of the command tent. “You brought the families?”

  “I did.” Apostolos replied, a gleam of genuine admiration in his eye. “It is a most unorthodox tactic, Captain. I am thoroughly impressed, as I am by what I saw on my way here.” He shrugged off his cloak the moment he stepped into the well-stocked tent, the warmth and smell of spiced wine enveloping them as he made straight for the map table at its centre. Plates of dried fruit and nuts were already laid out to meet them.

  “You saw it?” Theodorus asked, letting the tent flap fall behind them, leaving the two bickering cousins behind.

  “Yes, I did.” Apostolos answered, lips curling into a sly smile. “What a fine piece of theatricality you’ve arranged.”

  “I have you to thank for the extra supplies,” Theodorus said, his tone humble.

  “It was the least I could do, considering the help you’ve been giving me.” Apostolos leaned his hip against the table, fingertips resting on the edge of the map. He meant the training methods Theodorus had shared with him before departing for the siege.

  Cassandra, of all people, had driven him to surrender them, guilt-tripping him by accusing him of tricking her into confronting Lord Adanis to overturn the mercenary arrangement with the nomads. She had unilaterally declared that he owed her a proper date, and this favour to Apostolos besides. Theodorus had been helpless before her bull-headedness.

  “Nonsense. I’m more than happy to.” Theodorus replied. Apostolos looked as though he did not entirely believe it, but it was true. Theodorus’s broader goal involved a strong enough Principality to weather what lay ahead, and spreading modern training across the companies only strengthened the northern frontier.

  “Still, I never expected those supplies would be used like that.” Apostolos chuckled, shaking his head. The laugh faded quickly, replaced by a sober focus that tightened his features. “You have us for four days, as agreed. How are you planning to do this?”

  Theodorus nodded. Four days was the window he had wrested from Lord Adanis for all four of the aides’ companies. When the lord had heard of Georgius’s insolent proclamation on the first day of the siege, he had been all too happy to send men for a mere four-day stint. To him, it was little more than a field exercise, a chance for his levies to gain real experience in a controlled environment.

  “More than enough,” Theodorus said. “They’re on their last legs already. We just have to…” He bared his teeth in something too sharp to be called a smile. “Push them over the edge.”

  11th day of the siege

  The mood inside the fort was at an all-time low, reaching toward a breaking point. So was its commander, Lycomedes thought.

  He had followed Georgius out of the succession because he had seen in him what he had once seen in Konstantinos: a bold man who met battles head-on, who dragged glory toward his banner by sheer force of will, and who was not afraid to do what was necessary. Not like the bookish fop Theodorus, nor the greedy, coin-minded Iohannes. Georgius had seemed the natural choice for a soldier. Now, Lycomedes was living with the consequences of that choice.

  For all his strengths, Georgius had always been irritable at the best of times, and this siege would have tested a saint. What Lycomedes had not expected was the fragility beneath the steel, the seeping paranoia. Georgius had always carried a violent streak, but Lycomedes had never imagined it would turn toward his own men. How wrong he had been.

  “He’s growing unstable,” Athan murmured. He was one of the senior captains who had stuck with the middle Sideris brother when the family split. Athan leaned close to Lycomedes’s ear as they stood along the wall. “You must see this, Lycomedes.” Out of the corner of their eyes, they watched Georgius berating the northern lookout for the great crime of daring to take a water break, abandoning his post for a few minutes to quench his thirst. He still had not forgiven the lad for failing to spot the northern raid in time, as if that ambush had been anything but a masterstroke by their enemy.

  Lycomedes saw it more clearly than ever after his own shift in the soundproof room, where men now jostled and argued for the chance to sleep even a single hour between the enemy’s feigned attacks. And what a blessed hour that was. Lycomedes had never needed sleep so desperately in his life. He had sunk into it like a man drowning - waking from it had been its own kind of torture.

  “We’re planning to defect,” Athan said quietly.

  Lycomedes’s head snapped toward him. In the dim light he could make out the captain’s haggard face, lined and hollowed as if the siege had aged him years instead of days. Yet his expression was oddly calm, almost detached. For Athan to be bold enough to bring this to him directly…

  “I should report you to Georgius immediately,” Lycomedes whispered, his voice low and dangerous, but the words lacked true bite, and Athan knew it. The proposal had likely gathered enough backing among the garrison that Lycomedes could do nothing about it, not without killing men he’d known and fought with for many, many years.

  “I know you won’t,” Athan replied. There was no arrogance in it, only weary certainty, and Lycomedes hated him for being right. “Don’t glare at me like that. I’m giving you a chance. We are not handing the commander over, we’ve at least that much honour left.” He leaned in.

  “You mean you don’t trust the enemy to keep their end of the bargain.” Lycomedes shot back. The offer was too good to be true after all.

  Athan grinned. “Two nights from now, we slip out quietly through the postern gate and surrender ourselves.”

  Lycomedes turned his gaze back toward Georgius. Their commander stood in the courtyard below, spitting words and curses, face mottled red, the bags beneath his eyes so swollen they seemed ready to swallow them whole. For all his faults, he had not set foot in the new sleeping room once since they finished it.

  “Think on it,” Athan said, stepping away.

  Lycomedes remained where he was, that sinking feeling in his gut growing heavier with every heartbeat. They were finished; it felt inevitable now. The only question left was how they would go down.

  “Johan, please come home!” An elderly woman sobbed her eyes out, clutching a little boy to her chest, the child barely more than ten. “You don’t have to die for this! They promised you’d live if you just lay down your arms and open the gates. Please!”

  Lycomedes stood on the battlements, stunned into stillness by the enemy’s latest tactic. Of all the things he had expected them to throw at the walls, he had not imagined this.

  “Loukas, my son!” A stout man with weathered hands gripping a cane shouted himself hoarse. “Don’t throw away your life! You still have so much to live for!”

  All along the line, encircling their haunted little fort, families had come in droves to shout up at the walls, to beg and plead and weep. Brothers, wives, parents, children - these were not faceless villagers. Lycomedes’s gaze snagged on a familiar figure and the breath caught in his throat. His own wife stood there among them. She remained at the back, saying nothing, but the way she gripped little Chloe to her side said everything. Her lips formed three small, careful words. At that distance he could barely see her mouth move, yet somehow he knew what she said. Come home safe.

  Right then and there, Lycomedes made his choice.

  “Fucking shoot them all!”

  Lycomedes spun around, even more stunned this time. Georgius stood a few paces away on the battlements, swaying on his feet, bellowing at the top of his lungs. His eyes were wild and bloodshot, his face twisted as he realised, truly realised, that the battle had already turned against him. “Did you not hear me?!” he roared at the men, who stared back at him as slack-jawed as Lycomedes. Those were their families below after all. “This is another of the enemy’s tricks! Do not fall for it!” He was ordering them to cut down their own kin.

  Men began to nock arrows to bowstrings, but Lycomedes doubted any of them meant to aim at the civilians.

  Lycomedes stormed across the walkway toward Georgius and seized him by the collar.

  “What are you-”

  “Command room. Now.” Lycomedes said, his tone leaving no room for argument.

  Georgius slapped his hand away but let himself be dragged along. As they moved down from the wall toward the inner sanctum, the sounds outside seemed to dull. The clanging of pots and pans that had tormented them through so many nights had finally stopped, but only because the enemy knew there was no more need for that tactic. The quiet itself felt like another kind of defeat.

  Georgius did not nearly collapse onto the stool in the command room - he actually did - and would have slid to the floor if Lycomedes hadn’t caught his shoulder at the last moment.

  They stayed like that in a silence heavy with the weight of the siege, of the shouting families outside, of the madness on the wall, all of it pressed in on the small room. Only after a long while did Georgius finally speak.

  “Tomorrow we sally out,” he said.

  Lycomedes turned, ready to argue, to demand he surrender and spare their men. But the look in Georgius’s eyes stopped him mid-breath. There was no wild lunacy there now, no reckless fury - only a hollow certainty. The knowledge that he had already lost, and there was no way out of this trap.

  Not unless he could carve one open himself.

  12th day of the siege

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  Theodorus wagered the garrison would break soon. Bringing the families from Georgius’s recently incorporated villages had been the final piece of the puzzle. That and a hundred fresh reinforcements marching in under the banner of the Nomikos house. It lent credence to Theodorus’s claim that the Crown backed him and that Georgius stood a traitor.

  Inside the manor, the men were outmatched, bone tired, and now their own kin stood beneath the walls begging them to come home. It was one thing to imagine their families far away and safe. It was another to hear their names screamed up at the battlements.

  The families’ appearance before the manor served several purposes at once. It showed that Georgius’s lands had already been annexed by his brothers. It reminded the defenders that their homes and fields now lay at the mercy of the besieging army, their loved ones hostages in all but name. And it drove a spike of guilt straight into their hearts, forcing them to confront the idea that by clinging to Georgius, they might be abandoning the very people they had sworn to protect. For an exhausted, overstretched garrison, that kind of pressure was likely to be the last straw. It would be for Georgius as well, though he would be the last to admit it.

  Warfare in the Middle Ages was as much a battle between commanders as a clash of spears and shields. Theodorus’s plan had been tailored from the start to what he knew of his brother: that he was reckless, aggressive, impatient, and boastful.

  Men like that ruled through brute force and fear and despised subtler, intrigue-laden moves. So Theodorus had attacked indirectly. He robbed them of sleep, sent feints instead of charges, answered sword and fire with noise. Under that constant pressure, Georgius’s irritability and impulsiveness only worsened. Most of all, Theodorus had driven a wedge between commander and garrison, pushing the men to question Georgius’s judgement until he began to look like a weak commander.

  When a leader loses his men, that is when he truly loses.

  The irony, invisible from within the walls, was that Georgius had ample supplies to last well past the winter, enough to empty Iohannes’s coffers if the siege dragged on that long. Theodorus, on the other hand, only had this army for another week or so before Lord Adanis recalled his levies. But the defenders did not know that. All they felt was the noose tighten. It was the illusion of inevitability, as much as any real shortage, that turned them against Georgius. And men like Georgius, used to solving problems with anger and steel, were ill-equipped to deal with threats that had no throat to cut.

  Theodorus had, in essence, engineered problems Georgius could not batter aside. That was what would grant him a swift victory. Another opponent might have stalled him, turned this into a grinding affair. Georgius, being who he was, could not.

  Even so, Georgius had put up a better fight than Theodorus had expected. The water fouling strategy had been sound, even clever. Theodorus might have admired it under other circumstances. But he carried knowledge that did not belong to this century – knowledge of germ theory, of the filtration properties of charcoal and sand – and he used it to turn that ploy back around. When he paraded the captives and the bodies of those left outside the fort to ambush them at the stream, their faces swollen and darkened, even that ploy became just one more blow against the defenders’ will to fight.

  All this to say that, up to that point, everything had unfolded neatly within Theodorus’s calculations. The one thing he had not expected was for the gates to swing open to a full-blooded charge.

  “Assemble the men! Shieldwall formation!” Apostolos was the first to react, voice cracking across the camp. You could see he certainly inherited his father’s poise in moments like this. His company was still settling into the rhythm of rotations and patrols of the siege, but they scrambled to their feet at his shout. Michail was not far behind, barking orders of his own.

  Theodorus signalled to Stathis, who had grown into his favoured second by now, to rouse his men and bring them into line. Stathis answered with a curt nod and vanished into the milling ranks.

  The aides’ forces pounded toward the picket lines, boots churning up the cold earth. Archers rushed up the timber platforms and along the crude walkway, stringing bows and nocking arrows, while spearmen and shield-bearers formed a wall at the base. Wood creaked, leather straps tightened, and the front ranks locked their shields together with practised thuds as the warning horns blared.

  Theodorus took his place on the low ridge behind the forming line, where he had a clear view of both his own men and the manor beyond. Apostolos rode past him on horseback, a gleaming figure in full mail with a breastplate strapped over it – a luxury in this poor Principality – the golden stag of his house embroidered on his sweeping cloak.

  “They’re probably noticing something amiss now,” Apostolos called as he rode on to his own company, a quick smile tugging at his mouth.

  “Aye,” Theodorus replied. From the walls, the enemy would now see that this was not the full strength of his army. Ironically, if Georgius had sallied during those first chaotic nights, he might have done real damage to the forward camp. But they had never known the army was split at all. “But it’s too late. We’re more than enough now that you’re here.”

  Theodorus watched Stathis pace along the shieldwall, calling out adjustments, gesturing for men to tighten here, to shift half a step there. The companies responded far faster than they would have months ago. The peasants he had inherited had become soldiers: shields overlapped cleanly, and gaps closed in heartbeats. For a moment, he allowed himself a flicker of satisfaction. They looked, at last, like a proper force.

  Georgius’s men poured out in a ragged charge, feet drumming against packed earth, weapons raised. Theodorus felt the tension ripple through his own line as the distance between them began to close. He lifted a hand, ready to loose a storm of arrows.

  Halfway through the charge, the change came. One man faltered, then another. Weapons clattered to the ground. Shields were thrown aside. Like a wave breaking, the entire line slowed, then halted, men dropping to their knees as they raised their empty hands, white scraps of cloth fluttering from spear shafts and belts.

  “Hold!” Theodorus shouted. “Archers, hold your fire!”

  A strained silence settled over the field, broken only by the harsh breathing of men between the two lines. From the front of the surrendering group, a single figure stepped forward. Even at a distance, Theodorus recognised Lycomedes, Georgius’s second-in-command.

  Once Theodorus’s forces had moved in and disarmed the men, surrounding them with spears and watchful archers, Theodorus and the two other aides advanced at a slow walk, horses picking their way through the churned ground.

  “Surrender!” Lycomedes called. The man looked exhausted, with deep bags under his eyes, but his back was still straight. “We surrender.”

  “Where is Georgius?” Theodorus demanded.

  “He isn’t with us,” Lycomedes replied, giving nothing else. Theodorus narrowed his eyes.

  “We have your families,” Michail said at once, quick to reach for threats. “You would do well to share everything you know, right now.”

  “You will come to no harm if you tell us where he is,” Theodorus added, firm but not unkind, smoothing the edge off Michail’s menace.

  Lycomedes looked between them, tongue darting out to wet his cracked lips. His gaze flicked to his men, huddled with their hands on their heads, then back to the riders before him. Honour told him he could not betray his lord, even after everything Georgius had done. Duty to the men he had led told him he could not do anything else. In the end, the latter won. His shoulders sagged.

  “He has fled,” Lycomedes said at last, voice rough with bitterness. “Northbound.” He lowered his head, remembering the last conversation in the command room, and the moment he realised his lord had already abandoned hope of victory.

  …

  “Sally out? What’s your plan, Georgius?” Lycomedes asked. “The men won’t fight for you.”

  “I know.” Georgius’s smile was thin and bitter. “I’m giving them a choice. Those who want to live under the yoke of those conniving bastards can make a show of it – fake a charge at the main camp, stir a bit of chaos, distract them. Those who remain loyal, those who still have a spine…” his voice sank, turning dark, “we ride away.”

  “Ride away? To where?” Lycomedes could hardly believe what he was hearing.

  “Anywhere,” Georgius said, as if it were the most natural answer in the world. “There is always another lord to hire a good sword arm. Failing that, there are hills, forests, the borderlands.”

  “As an outlaw?” Lycomedes demanded. “Have you gone mad?”

  “No, I fucking haven’t,” Georgius snapped. “And you will not talk to me as if I’m addle-brained.” His eyes flashed with something raw and dark. “I would rather live as a free man at the edge of the world than die on my knees in some gilded cage. I will not bow to those scheming cowards and call it mercy.” He stared at Lycomedes with the desperate intensity of someone who would burn the world before letting go of the last scrap of power.

  “Now you have to choose.” Georgius’s tone cooled. “Will you stand free with me, or bow and let yourself be shackled by others? Make your choice.” He held Lycomedes’s gaze without flinching. For a heartbeat, Lycomedes saw a shadow of the charismatic Konstantinos, who had taken him in and taught him everything he knew, who had given him a life worth living. But behind that memory, he saw his wife’s white knuckles gripping their daughter, the life he had built, the faces of the men on the walls who trusted him.

  Lycomedes closed his eyes. He made his choice.

  …

  “On the north side?” Apostolos repeated. The main camp sprawled along the gentle southern slope, they were on the other side.

  “Canny,” Theodorus murmured. “He means to use the path we cleared for the northern raid to slip away.” The track cut through the rocky ground, hidden from the main road.

  “But now that we know his plan, it won’t matter,” Michail said, a savage edge to his voice. The idea of chasing down an enemy noble clearly pleased him.

  “Theodorus?” Apostolos asked, looking to him for the final word.

  Theodorus frowned. He should call for an immediate charge and pursuit. But Georgius, for all his faults, had shown more layers as a commander than Theodorus had given him credit for. Reckless, yes – but not entirely stupid. Was this plan truly so simple? Or was there some twist waiting behind it?

  Suddenly, flames rose from the manor in a sudden, chaotic bloom.

  A roar went up as men all along the lines turned toward the commotion.

  “What on earth…?” Apostolos breathed.

  The manor was up in flames, tongues of fire licking across its roofs and outer halls as if someone had soaked the timbers in oil and touched a torch to them.

  “He means to leave us nothing of his grand fortress,” Theodorus said, his voice low with grim awe. It was the purest kind of spite – if he could not hold it, then no one would.

  “No!” Lycomedes burst out, terror roughening his voice.

  The aides turned toward him.

  “The servants are still inside the castle!” he said, agitated, face draining of colour. “The maids, the kitchen boys – all of them!” All around them, men from every banner – the aides’ retinues, the militia, even the surrendered defenders – stood frozen, staring at the blaze.

  Then the horror set into their bones.

  “We ride!” Apostolos spurred his horse forward, galloping toward the burning fort where the inner gate had already been barred and cries for help echoed over the crackle of the fire. His militia pelted after him, scrambling for mounts or racing on foot.

  Theodorus caught Michail’s arm before he could follow. “The north road. Find him and bring him to justice,” Theodorus ordered, his voice tight. He could not allow his brother to vanish into the hills after this. And an extra handful of horsemen would make little difference against a fire already eating its way through the manor. It was a callous choice, but the only one he had available to catch his brother.

  Michail nodded once, the earlier gleeful spark in his eyes completely gone, replaced by something colder and murderous. He wheeled his horse away, signaling a dozen grim-faced riders who thundered after him.

  To trap innocent women and children inside a burning building to cover his escape… Theodorus realised, with a twist in his gut, that he had underestimated Georgius yet again.

  “Please, you must help!” Lycomedes seized Theodorus’s arm, fingers digging into his black and grey brigandine.

  Theodorus nodded sharply. “Run for the fort! Bring any axes you can find. And the ladders!” he bellowed, voice cutting through the growing panic. “We have to break through the walls and get those people out before the fire consumes them!”

  It had become a race against time. And they had started late.

  Georgius rode away on the few horses they had left, surrounded by the handful of men who were still worth half a damn. Almost all the garrison had turned their cloaks the moment it suited them. Good riddance. Let them grovel before his brothers. Georgius hoped every last one of them ended up sold off as slaves or worked into the grave as serfs, breaking their backs on land that had once been his.

  Even Lycomedes had… the damned fucking traitor. Georgius’s jaw clenched until it hurt. He turned in the saddle, looking back toward the southern approach to the fort, where he knew he would be surrendering now, licking the dust off his bastard brother’s boots. It enraged Georgius all the more to think that Theodorus – who had been utterly useless in every raid their estate had suffered, who had watched their father die and done nothing – was suddenly some military genius who had outplayed him at every turn.

  Yes, he could admit that much. His brother had beaten him. But the admission brought a twisted sense of satisfaction to his lips. Because he could just imagine Theodorus panic now, scrambling to put out a fire he had never seen coming. He could picture the camp surging toward the manor, desperate to save the blubbering fools he had left inside as bait.

  He wondered what face Theodorus would make when he saw them all burned to a crisp. He had lit the fuse, but he had not doused the place as thoroughly as he might have. He had left them a sliver of time. He needed his soft-hearted brother distracted, pouring his soul into rescuing every last child and kitchen maid, not sending the full might of the army to hound Georgius across the countryside.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Georgius caught sight of a squad of cavalry peeling away from the main chaos, riding hard around the east side of the manor, hooves already pounding north. His heart sank a fraction. So Lycomedes had betrayed him after all. Georgius ground his teeth until his head throbbed.

  As if they would ever catch him. He had slipped out through the west, not the north. He had sent a scattering of would-be traitors with horses in every direction, one group conveniently bolting north just as he’d said, while his own loyal band rode west under cover of the smoke. He had even surrendered a few mounts to the greedy bastards so they would play their part in the ruse. Let the hunters chase ghosts; Georgius Sideris was already gone.

  They hit the outer picket line at a dead run. The southern side of the siege was a frenzy of shouting and ringing steel, but out here, on the western fringe, the defences were a skeleton – a few scattered watchfires, half-manned posts, men who had turned to stare at the column of smoke rising from the manor. Georgius lowered his body over his horse’s neck and drove his heels in.

  “Forward!” he roared, voice raw, and his little band of riders crashed through the scrub and brambles like a thrown spear. Horses shouldered through gaps in the fortifications, splintering wood, tearing loose brush and thorn. A lone spearman leapt into their path, and Georgius’s sword flashed down from the saddle almost on instinct, years of training moving his arm while his sleep-starved mind lagged behind. The man toppled away, forgotten as hooves thundered past him.

  The world swam around the edges, colours too bright and sounds too loud after nearly two weeks without real rest. For a heartbeat, the whole field tilted, and Georgius had to blink hard to steady it. He forced his focus down to the simple rhythm of breath and movement as an arrow hissed past his ear. They trampled over the barricade, scattering the few defenders who had tried to hold their ground. By the time anyone thought to loose a proper volley, Georgius and his men were already plunging into the tree line, swallowed by the sheltering dark of the woods.

  As they finally broke through the thicker undergrowth and reached the deeper forest beyond, something to his left caught Georgius’s eye. Beyond the ridge that sloped down toward the southern approach to the manor lay another camp, tucked neatly out of direct sight. Rows of tents, picketed horses, cookfires banked low. Georgius’s eyes widened in disbelief.

  So that was how they had done it. The nonstop clanging, the relentless feints, the way the enemy never seemed to tire. They had held a second camp, hidden from the fort’s view, and rotated their men between the two. While one shift stayed close, banging pots and throwing themselves at the walls in mock assaults, the other slept deep and undisturbed just over the rise.

  Then, at some prearranged hour where visibility was low, before dawn or after dusk perhaps, they switched. Georgius gripped his reins with vicious force as the truth settled in. From the very first night, he had been played. Those early attacks had been cover, not only to rattle his men but to let Theodorus build this ghost camp out of sight. And by keeping his troops in constant movement and the defenders exhausted, Theodorus had made it seem as if the main camp was always at full strength.

  Theodorus had danced him around like a puppet on strings, there was no denying it. But he would soon learn that Sideris meant iron in the old Greek. And like iron, Georgius did not bend to anyone, and he did not give up without a fight.

  Tonight, he would sleep for the first time in days, and when he woke he would pick apart every mistake, every misstep. Tomorrow, he would begin to plan.

  Revenge was a dish best served last, and both of his brothers were already on the menu.

  Theodorus stood amid the charred ruin that had been the manor. The foundations had collapsed in on themselves, blackened wood jutting out at mad angles where beams had once stood. Any valuables and coin? Burned to a crisp. Any scrolls detailing the management of the estates? Lost. Every writ that had once proclaimed the Sideris family’s lawful claim over this land? Cinders.

  And the bodies that had not escaped the inferno? Fused to the fallen timbers and cracked flagstones at his feet.

  Some were barely recognisable as human, limbs contorted, faces melted away, only shapes in the soot to mark where they had fallen.

  They had tried. God knew they had tried. They had hacked through the weak northside palisade with axes to open a breach, shouting themselves hoarse as they hauled people through the gap. But there had been trapped souls on every side of the manor, cut off from one another as the blaze roared through the central halls and turned the courtyard into four burning cages. They had thrown ladders up against the outer walls to ferry people over, only to find the inner staircases already choked with fire and smoke with no way for the people to climb up. They had thrown water, mud, snow – anything they could lay hands on – in frantic, bucket-to-bucket lines. It hadn’t mattered enough. Over the roar of the flames they had still heard children screaming, then choking, then falling silent. They hadn’t even saved half. And in the end, it had been Theodorus who gave the order to fall back from the palisade as it, too, started to catch. While he could still hear pleading voices on the other side.

  By any military measure, the siege was a clean success. Five dead men on his side. A heavily fortified manor taken in less than two weeks. But as Theodorus stood in the smoke and ruin, he could only taste ash on his tongue, it did not taste like victory at all.

  Michail rode up to him, his horse coming down from a hard gallop to a weary trot, flanks lathered. Soot streaked Michail’s face and clung to his hair; his jaw was clenched tight.

  “Did you catch him?” Theodorus asked, eyes still on a smouldering heap nearby that had once been a servant. He could not tell if it had been man or woman, young or old. It hardly seemed to matter now.

  “No.” Michail’s voice was low and dark. “He didn’t flee north. It was a ruse. He went west. By the time we found his trail, he’d already broken through the western picket line. Two of our men there are dead.” Seven casualties, it was still a trivial price to pay to eliminate a strategic target.

  The taste of ash in Theodorus’s mouth only grew stronger.

  “He’s gone,” Michail said quietly.

  Theodorus tipped his head back. The sky above them had turned a dirty grey-black, the smoke hanging low and heavy as if it refused to disperse, trapped over this hill by some unseen hand. And from that mass of clouds and smoke fell a heavy, black rain, staining skin black, leaving marks that would not wash away. It felt like sin raining down from the high heavens.

  Theodorus turned sharply and started back toward the camp. His cloak, still damp from thrown water and melted snow, snapped around his boots as he walked towards the camp. Theodorus’s eyes held a light he had not carried in a long time - hatred, banked but burning. His gaze slid westward, as if he could see his brother’s shadow moving somewhere beyond the hills.

  He would continue his plans and move forward, to prepare for what came. Because he knew one thing for certain. His brother would not be gone forever. And when he returned, Theodorus would be ready to mete out judgment.

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