Shevi had walked the road to Frostwood a hundred times before. At times, the walk through the miles of uninhabited wild forest or rugged mountain paths was lonely, even when Blackeye had been at her side for the trips. Shevi bore the loneliness as simply a burden of the job; she was a runner, and running wasn’t supposed to be pleasant. It was duty.

  Now, Shevi would trade for that loneliness in an instant if it meant a chance to get rid of a traveling companion who never. Stopped. Talking.

  “Now, eight’s a bit harder of a number to put into song,” godsdamned Sunshine was currently blathering. Softly enough that it wasn’t a danger to their stealth. But persistently enough to be like a buzzing gnat the entire trip. “’Raise your wine to the tale of the nine’ is a good line. Even seven has a bit of nice rhythm to it. Eight? Should we rhyme it with late? Gods, I hope we’re not late! Mate? Well, if this trip winds up with that it’s very different than I envisioned.”

  “If eight’s the wrong number, then Logash can throw you off the mountain,” Janaya growled from the back of the line. “Leave us with a number of perfection.”

  “Ha!” the worst part was that Sunshine responded to everything they said with that damn smile. As if their anger was part of his performance. “And I’d roll down as a snowball! Never been a snowball, before. It sounds rather exciting, if one doesn’t die on impact. A tragic end before we even reach the destination. That in itself could be a fine stanza to our tale.”

  It was just talk, Shevi told herself. Just chatter. Soldiers always talked about the most inane matters on the road. At least this group wasn’t talking about their favorite tavern wench, which is what most of the runners Shevi had the displeasure of hearing on marches seemed to talk about.

  “I’d imagined an epic or tragedy, but I could live with a farce,” Sunshine continued. “A cautionary tale of eight fools marching to their doom!”

  “If death comes too soon for you, there will be no one to sing of it,” Logash noted. “Perhaps you should save your voice until it is time to tell the tale.”

  “Bah, even if I fall, I’m sure others will sing of it!” Sunshine turned around and faced Janaya, walking backwards as if heedless they were on a narrow mountain path with a hundred foot steep fall on one side. “You’d never let my death be forgotten, would you, dear Janaya?”

  “I would dance upon your grave,” Janaya snarled.

  “A performer can think of no other fate better than inspiring women to dance!” Sunshine said. “’Twould be an honor!”

  “Vili,” Katrin spoke for the first time in hours. “Gag the fool.”

  The shadow spirit shot out, molding into a shape like a black hood that swooped over Sunshine’s hand and enveloped it in a smothering embrace.

  “Mmph!” the singer gesticulated even while being too muffled to speak. “Mmph, mmm, brrrrurur!”

  “You have found a strange one,” Logash nudged Ouron.

  “Brm, righ, eer!” the muffled voice still managed to say.

  Ouron glanced at Sunshine’s struggles, “Aye. One who saved me and my family, though. Don’t choke him, Katrin.”

  “Vili will let him breath,” Katrin said. Reluctantly. “...if he keeps quiet.”

  By far the strangest company Shevi had travelled with. Nothing remotely like Frostclaw or Breton’s disciplined forces. Shevi glanced at Aven.

  Silent, in distinct contrast to Sunshine. Strange. Shevi had often seen the captain speaking when passing by the drills in the courtyard of Hellfrost. Seemed quite vocal then. Not so, now. His eyes were on the road ahead, but Shevi had a sense his mind was far, far away. Vis of mind domains often felt like that.

  That mind would have to guide them once they reached the destination. For now, Shevi’s task was getting them there. Through the mountain path to Frostwood.

  In places, the snow drifts high enough that they had to wade through it. That was where the massive ogre usually came in, able to push through the piled snow and blaze a trail the others could walk through. In others, Janaya’s hellfire melted a path through, though that came with its own dangers - both the hellfire itself and the ice that formed when melted snow froze over in her wake. In other places, the shadow spirit abandoned its more important task of silencing Sunshine to take on more trivial duties of searching for the actual path in the middle of the snowpack. Only occasionally did they get the chance to use their legs properly. Like now, on a stretch where the shadows of the cliff kept the path clear.

  Each of them had their own ways of handling the snow. Aven’s was the strangest: his legs actually elongated, lower parts stretching into black cords that lifted him up to better handle the snow. Visual proof that the rumors about his voidtouched body were all true.

  They pressed on. The terrain was hard, but they kept the pace strong. They’d have to make it a two-day trip to the mountain pool. Any initial enthusiasm faded into the monotony of travel.

  The night fell, and they made camp in a cliff shadow mostly clear of snow, recessed into the mountain to form something not quite a cave. Tired, aching, but still moving. A fire was quickly started in a sheltered cave, the heat of it a blessing. Hellfire, strangely, barely gave off smoke. It also gave off a nearly unbearable sulfurous smell that had all of them gasping and coughing within minutes before Katrin had the bright idea to cut strips of cloths into face masks that at least made it tolerable.

  Rations eaten in near silence, Sunshine’s idiotic request for campfire songs soundly defeated by unanimous vote, they settled in for the night. Took lots for watch duty. Shevi got first with Wally, followed by Logash and Katrin, Ouron and Janaya, and finally Aven and Sunshine. Thank the gods, a commander should always be the one to suffer most for their mission.

  Shevi didn’t have Wally’s enhanced senses, but canin eyes were naturally better in the dark than most other races. The night was cloudy, but even with little moonlight, she could see the mountainside clearly. Empty as these lands so often were in winter. By rights, all creatures should be in their homes, waiting out the winter for warmer times. Not out slaughtering each other. Not fighting. But here they were, in the dead of the night, sitting on a freezing mountain path, marching out to fight.

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

  “Um...” the boy Wally at least gave warning before speaking. Ample warning, given that the silence following the initial noise lasted so long Shevi wondered if Wally was ever going to actually speak. “You’re canin.”

  Shevi turned slowly to glance at the boy. He was staring at her. Gods, no. Boys were boys, but surely even a boy had more sense than to try flirting with someone they’d just met and were sharing watch with. “Yes?”

  “Were you...” the boy glanced away. “Born in the empire?”

  Oh, so that was it. Well, it was better than getting propositioned.

  “Yes,” Shevi said.

  “What...tribe are you descended from?” Wally asked.

  “I don’t know,” Shevi said. “My parents were imperial. As were my grandparents. Whoever my ancestors were before the empire, they are forgotten.”

  Wally looked with wide eyes. Horrified. As if the very thought were unimaginable.

  “That...doesn’t bother you?” Wally asked. “That you...don’t know where you’re from?”

  “I’m from Hellfrost,” Shevi said. “...or K?rvi to be more precise. I know where I am from. I am of Octarnis. The empire is my home and my heritage. Its glories are mine. And its failures.”

  “But...your ancestors...weren’t they conquered by the empire?” Wally asked.

  “Possibly. Or they joined with the empire. What of it?”

  “Just...” Wally shook his head. “I don’t understand. The empire could have destroyed your ancestors, your tribe, and you don’t care?”

  “Destroyed? I am still here,” Shevi said. “My mother and father have a good life in K?rvi. I am a herald of the empire. Why should I care what the empire did centuries past to people I do not know?”

  “The empire killed people I did know,” Wally whispered.

  “Yet you fight for us.”

  “I don’t...” Wally trailed off. He stared at the treeline outside. “No, I do have a choice. That’s what Aven keeps telling me.”

  “If you have such doubts, you shouldn’t be here,” Shevi swept her gaze into the darkness. At least one of them should keep proper watch. “We are marching to a fight to the death. leave your doubts to die here on the mountainside.”

  “In that, I would disagree,” Logash approached. Too soon for the watch change, Shevi confirmed by the break in the clouds revealing the Watch Star and waning moon still low in the east. The ogre lowered himself down to the ground with surprising ease for his bulk, stretching his legs out. “Doubts are no less part of a soldier’s mind than hopes and dreams. You will have doubts. And you must fight regardless.” The ogre looked at Shevi, “Do you not have doubts?”

  “I...have fears,” Shevi confessed. Sergrud’s face splattered with Blackeye’s blood still haunted her dreams. “That is different. I fear failure, or death. But I am not doubting the path.”

  Logash chuckled. “You fear the path you walk will end in death. I look back on the paths I have trod with regret. And young Wally here worries his path may not be what his ancestors would want, yes?”

  Wally gulped and nodded.

  “Yet we still walk,” Logash said. “One foot in front of the other. Doubt, fear, worry. Still we walk.”

  “But...what if the path is wrong?” Wally said.

  “Then choose a different one,” Logash said. “But when you decide to walk, doubt only slows you. Walk the path with strength and pride in yourself.”

  Wally made a noise that could have been confirmation. Or indecision. Or indigestion. Difficult to tell. He was still silent for the rest of the watch. Contemplative. Night watches had a way of making soldiers into philosophers.

  Shevi was fine with that, so long as philosopher soldiers had the sense to not afflict everyone else with their musings.

  * * *

  The spear pierced Aven’s chest, and he died.

  Aven froze for a fraction of a second, and he died.

  Aven broke past Sergrud’s guard and struck, only for the blow to glance off his skin, just as it had off of Erdrak’s. The butt of his spear to smash open Aven’s head. Again he died.

  Sergrud was faster. Far faster. Strong as Logash. Spear a blur.

  A hand shook Aven, tearing him out of the endless cycle of imagined deaths.

  “Time for watch, captain,” Ouron said simply.

  Aven gave a weak smile and wiped his sweating brow. “All quiet?”

  Ouron glanced over to where Janaya was huddling up in a corner, “Except for Janaya’s rehearsing, aye.”

  Old habits died hard, it seemed. At least Janaya’s wrathful proclamations would be well honed by the time they fought the Vulgares.

  Aven thanked Ouron and headed out for the last watch. Sunshine was already out, sitting cross-legged, humming and tapping the ground in rhythm.

  Aven sighed and settled into his watch position, looking out towards the treeline. Nothing there but the faint sounds of wind in the pine boughs, occasional creaks, the groan of the mountain.

  “A fine night,” Sunshine said in a stage whisper.

  Imperial discipline demanded silence and focus through the entirety of watches. Even not being part of a real legion, Aven knew that such discipline was oxshit. Try as the empire might, people were people, not clockwork. Continued focus on the mere possibility of danger for hours was impossible. Aven had heard watchguards’ chatter enough times to know that even idle conversation was a necessity to stay sane in the long night hours.

  “A fine night indeed,” Aven agreed.

  Besides, any distraction was welcome to drive away the headache from overuse of the Battle Mind’s simulations.

  “You’re a trusting lot,” Sunshine said mildly.

  “Are we?”

  “I’m a stranger, yet I’m accepted on such an important mission,” Sunshine said.

  “Ouron trusts you, and I trust him,” Trust was transitive, right? If not, society itself was probably untenable. Etrani had spoken once on the importance of trust for social cohesion, that her own trust in the Hellfrost Legion wasn’t a natural feeling so much as a strategic choice, demonstrating the necessity of trust for Hellfrost to survive at all. And that legion’s betrayal had killed Frostclaw. Damn Iskir. Not just for killing Frostclaw - frankly, Aven couldn’t fault the canin for that. Damn him for betraying Etrani’s trust. “Besides, I comfort myself from the fact that you couldn’t possibly make my own situation worse.”

  “Oh, don’t say that!” Sunshine laughed. “Why would you tempt my Fair Lady Fortune so? She adores a coquette, but her affection can sting as much as her cruelty. Besides, surely you have better imagination than that. Things can always become worse. Neither fortune nor misfortune are near so limited as we often believe. That’s why the stories of them can be so delightful! They broaden our imagination of what is possible.” The red-haired youth turned and gave a smile. “Broaden my imagination, would you? I know so little about the legend. Ouron’s recounting of your time in Hellfrost was so...” Sunshine waved vaguely.

  “Matter of fact?” Aven suggested.

  Sunshine snapped and chuckled, “That’s it. Man gave a military report when what I desired was a drama!”

  So, a bard wanted Aven’s story. That was a new one. Apparently one of the bathhouse girls spread a tavern song about Aven’s “prowess”, but that was more an annoyance than an honor.

  “Perhaps when this is over, I’ll get a chance to tell you,” Aven said. “And you’ll have this current tale to write as well. A song of eight fools, was it?”

  “Oh, a marvelous song,” Sunshine said. “Our tale has it all. Tragic heroics, a rescue mission, the promise of an epic battle...it promises to be a good one.”

  “Let us hope that it ends well, then,” Aven said. He turned his attention back to the treeline, watching the wind in the pines. Nothing to be seen, nothing to be done but wait and watch. “What will your part in that tale be?”

  “Perhaps when this is over, I’ll get a chance to tell you,” Sunshine’s grin was a mile wide, showing a few distinctly crooked teeth. The grin of someone who was in on a joke everyone else missed. The grin of an idiot.

  An idiot was perfectly suited for their scheme. Only an idiot would try.

  * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

  patreon.com/OrpheusDAC