Tybalt laid down to sleep.

  Markus, his hut-mate, was supposed to be on guard duty later that night. The two men had agreed that Markus would wake Tybalt when Markus went on watch, and Tybalt would wake Markus the next morning before the squad moved out.

  Making things even easier, Markus hadn’t been curious why Tybalt wanted to be awakened at midnight. Tybalt had prepared a few different lies in his head, but none of them were as good as simply saying nothing. The hardest thing about lying was remembering what you had said later, after all.

  The darkness had settled fully over the camp, and the necromancer was almost fully asleep, when he felt a hand on his shoulder, shaking him awake.

  Tybalt opened his eyes and saw Markus.

  “I know it’s not midnight already, Markus,” Tybalt said, still half asleep. “You’d better have a good reason for interrupting my beauty sleep now. I didn’t even dream…”

  He caught the look on Markus’s face. Uncomfortable. Nervous.

  “There are a few guys who want to talk to you outside, Tybalt,” he said. He looked at the necromancer with something approaching sympathy. “I wouldn’t keep them waiting.”

  Tybalt reached into his right hip pocket, found a pair of fingerbones there, and activated Scrimshaw, quickly merging and sharpening them with his fingertips until he had a small, crude knife.

  As he did this, he spoke, his mind racing as he tried to grasp the situation and think of a way out.

  I guess they were closer to figuring things out than I thought. But how? They must have caught Baldwin.

  “Which guys?” Tybalt asked. “Can I talk to the Commander about whatever this is?”

  He was aware that his choice of words might sound suspicious, but his hazy brain couldn’t do any better just then.

  “I don’t think so, man,” Markus said, frowning. “As for which guys—”

  “Come out already, bastard!” a voice hissed from just outside the hut. “We know you’re awake. Delaying will only make things worse for you.”

  Tybalt only needed a moment to place the voice. Graven?

  “What is this, Private?” Tybalt growled with much more confidence than he felt. “How dare you wake me in the middle of the night?”

  “Don’t make us come in there and make a mess of your sleeping quarters.” Another voice, deeper and more assured than either Tybalt’s or Graven’s.

  Despite the two voices just outside the hut, Tybalt could see nothing through the opening to the outside. They were poised to ambush him as soon as he stepped out, and he wasn’t supposed to know exactly who was there. That felt like important information as his brain finally caught up with the situation.

  I’m about to get hurt, Tybalt thought. But if I was getting arrested, Volusia would be the one talking. I don’t hear him. So he’s probably not here. Which means they don’t know. Not about the necromancy, or how I spread an infection through camp. That still left open the question of why there were men waiting to attack him, but it also made him think, Maybe I can handle whatever this is.

  Tybalt rose from his supine position and felt the slight rattle of the loose bones he still had concealed under his clothing. He thought about taking a moment to forge them into a sort of armor, then shook his head.

  My mana’s barely recovered from all the skeletons I raised earlier. Might need what I have to endure whatever’s about to happen.

  Stepping toward the opening, he found that he was slightly afraid. The prospect of possible death didn’t bother him as much as the near certainty of pain.

  As he thrust his head out of the hut, a scathing line on the tip of his tongue—You couldn’t face me alone?—a sack dropped over his head, and a pair of hands drew a noose tight around the opening to the bag. He had only a momentary look at the men outside.

  They all wore sackcloth masks. Perhaps that should have been intimidating. He found it reassuring.

  Confirmed they don’t know anything. If they were here to kill me, they wouldn’t need to hide their faces.

  The voice that whispered into his ear shattered that impression, though.

  “You’ve been talking about some matters that weren't your business to discuss,” Private Indus said. “You’re about to get the payment for that.”

  Shit.

  If Tybalt had to rank the squad members, not on strength or intellect or experience, but sheer enthusiasm for the ugliest aspects of their work, Indus would be number one.

  And he was Volusia’s lapdog.

  Volusia sent this fucking sadist after me? Tybalt thought.

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  The contents of Indus’s first sentence registered a moment later.

  “I didn’t break squad code,” Tybalt insisted with unfeigned desperation. “Fuck you, Indus! You’ve got the wrong guy.”

  There was the King’s Code, the formal rules that everyone in the Army swore to uphold, but ignored in practice much of the time. Then there was squad code. Informal, and the terms varied by squad, but it was enforced much more harshly than the King’s Code, without the niceties of procedure.

  “I don’t think so,” Indus said, his voice cold and unyielding as winter. “Neither does the Commander.”

  “Let me talk to him!” Tybalt pleaded. To his slight shame, he couldn’t keep a note of fear from his voice.

  Indus would be getting off on this. That was perhaps the worst thing.

  Tybalt silently resolved to give Indus no more of what he enjoyed most: those begging, pleading moments when a victim tried desperately to get him to stop.

  As long as they can’t kill me… I’ll get them back after this.

  A more mature voice spoke up, the deeper one from before, and Tybalt finally recognized it as that of one of their sergeants.

  “Squad code applies here,” the voice said firmly. “The Commander was trying to keep the Lieutenant away from the harder stuff the squad is responsible for. She won’t even be with us that long. You ran your mouth anyway. Just take your licks like a man.”

  Tybalt swallowed and quietly resolved not to fight. They wouldn’t permanently damage him. Probably.

  Damn you all, he thought. But he kept his actions steady, smooth. The Sergeant would probably show more restraint in dealing with him if he took it “like a man,” and that seemed like the only card he had to play.

  Tybalt allowed himself to be pulled through the doorway and stood up, then felt two pairs of hands grab him by the arms. Finally, he was marched out of the village.

  They walked without speaking. The guards didn’t even stop them and ask where they were going, apparently in on what was about to happen. Perhaps one or two of the men escorting him had been pulled from guard duty for this.

  Tybalt knew he couldn’t do anything about the situation he was in. His physical strength wasn’t up to the level it had been before he acquired his dual classes, and the Sergeant by himself could have undoubtedly overpowered pre-necromancy Tybalt.

  But he kept his senses open. Counted footsteps at first, then decided it was pointless without any idea of direction of travel. Listened for any scrap of conversation, but the men walked with all the grim silence of a funeral procession.

  Tybalt had to remind himself he wasn’t actually going to die tonight. His stomach felt loose and shaky at the thought.

  Guess I’m more afraid to die than I thought. Maybe that’s how I know I really have something worth living for. Things to look forward to.

  He mostly avoided getting sidetracked by his internal monologue, but he still only picked up one piece of information during the walk. In addition to the men holding his two arms, Tybalt heard two men moving behind them. So there were four in total.

  They walked a long way.

  Presumably a distance that would assure no one could hear him scream.

  Tybalt pressed down his anxiety and began composing a message to Baldwin. The necromancer might not be in any shape to send telepathic communications in twenty minutes.

  —

  Baldwin trudged through the sand with his miniature squad of horned skeletons in tow.

  It would be a long walk toward the salt mines—and the settlement of the salt miners that he knew would stand nearby.

  He glanced to his left and then to his right. To each side, he saw creatures that looked like they had escaped from beyond the Veil.

  Horned monstrosities with no flesh on their bones, in multiple different shades of evil.

  Baldwin only had eight subordinates with him tonight, and they would be slow and weak compared with even an average human, but it felt surprisingly good to be in command, despite what reservations he might have about the task.

  And at least they would have the fear factor on their side. Those skeletons, with their glowing green eyes, looked nightmarish.

  An ambush shouldn’t be too hard to manage. It was night, after all. The world of the living was asleep.

  The revenant tried to recall everything he knew about the mining camp and make a decent plan.

  Baldwin, I’m being taken somewhere. Tybalt’s voice filled his mind.

  Master? What—

  Don’t interrupt right now, please, Tybalt broke in. It was the “please” that scared Baldwin a bit. The revenant knew that Tybalt relished his position of absolute dominion over Baldwin and the undead generally, and the bastard was rarely that bothered about pleases and thank yous even before he became a necromancer.

  The squad is going to punish me for something I said, Tybalt continued. I told Lieutenant Sperry about the way our squad treats trespassers into the Kingdom. Apparently, Volusia took exception to that. He wanted to keep one member of the squad ignorant of what the rest of us were up to. Ridiculous. Insane. But I’m about to get my ass kicked. I don’t know if I’ll be in any condition to give instructions afterward. So, continue with the plan. Don’t come to rescue me, unless I’m still in bad shape when you and the skeleton crew are on your way back. I don’t want them to start thinking you’re complicit in what I’m doing. One of us has to remain able-bodied… I guess you were right that I haven’t been careful enough, though I doubt even you would have guessed that what would get me in trouble was my conversations with Lieutenant Sperry.

  There was a moment of silence after that message, and Baldwin decided that Tybalt was done.

  I could have told you that you might get in trouble for mentioning that to her, Baldwin thought. But Tybalt was so standoffish that in many ways, he was as ignorant of the inner workings of the squad as Sperry herself, despite having spent a couple of years with them rather than a couple of months.

  Baldwin knew Tybalt didn’t need an I-told-you-so right then.

  What the revenant sent was simple: I’ll make your injuries feel more worthwhile with my results tonight.

  Tybalt sent back a simple, Good, which in this context felt like a strong stamp of approval.

  Baldwin marched forward with a renewed sense of purpose.

  After another ten minutes, he set eyes on a column of smoke lazily rising into the sky, and a wide grin spread slowly across his face.

  He was almost there.

  Tonight’s bloody work would be the beginnings of something grander.

  Author's Note