Scamp dropped from the palisade and landed in a crouch. Holding his breath, he listened. Nothing. The dead of night. Not even an owl hooting for a mate. He grinned. This was his time: the witching hour long gone. Everyone asleep, even Kathvar, if the hole even slept. Crouching beside the settlement wall, the boy thought the King’s Summoner had gone too far, messaging Chief Magon in Drombeg, who would send the White Cloaks to haul him off to only Balor knew what fate. His old Ma would break a vein pleading his innocence. Might even cause his Da to pull his mouth away from the mead cup long enough to voice disappointment in his only son.

  Well, cac on that. Meddling midden trench. And all for an old cow shed so rickety it hardly stayed up.

  So, he liked a bit of fire, what harm in that? Watching the flames as they licked the planks caused Scamp’s gut to flutter and his heartbeat up a notch. There was something in the caress of it. Something in its beauty and power to destroy. He often thought he could see a face in the flames, burning eyes under a strange hat, mouth with a wicked grin, pits and cracks all glowing with the flames. Maybe the same face he saw in his dreams sometimes. This time, he’d been trying to decide when the Summoner grabbed him by the ear. The shed wasn’t halfway burnt, so he missed the end when the lot would crash down in a flurry of sparks, the reason he’d set the fire.

  Nothing like watching it all collapse. Sparks flying as everything goes back to the dust.

  Kathvar had been madder than a bag of starved rats when he offered the threat of Chief Magón, the canton’s ruler. Gone too far this time, the old Summoner said. He said it often but never when writing a message glyph to the Chief.

  “Well, cac on that,” Scamp whispered into the darkness. If Caer Scál’s peacekeeper expected him to wait for the White Cloaks, he was lacking the brains his own Ma gave him. He should have locked Scamp in the granary. Maybe even tied him to a post, because the granary wasn’t secure enough to keep one of his skills locked away. Instead, he was leaning against the north side of the palisade, dreaming of a different life.

  First, he would go to Upthog. The recluse in the forest was always his first stop—at least after he’d found her, when he stumbled into the clearing the previous summer. Kathvar had been after his blood again. Something about a missing tun of mead on that occasion. Not Scamp’s doing, but the midden didn’t care. All the ills of the village were his doing as far as the Summoner was concerned.

  Upthog will help.

  The old recluse would know what to do. Not that she was old. Older than Scamp by maybe ten summers and wiser—much wiser—but not old. If he’d time for such, he might say she was a looker, but he didn’t. Women, lookers or not, were low on his list of things he considered important.

  Very low.

  “Will she suggest adventures?” he asked his hide sack before slinging it over his shoulder and glancing at the sky greying on the eastern horizon.

  Won’t do to be caught here when the sun’s up.

  Kathvar’s messenger had ridden for Drombeg in the evening and would return with the Champion, Voltimer—Volt to those who knew him—and his white cloaked horse warriors sometime during the day. Scamp needed to be well into the forest by the time they arrived. He doubted the Champion would bring hounds or a tracker, but he couldn’t be too careful. During the witch hunts, Volt made quite a reputation for himself chasing down The Coven one after another and seeing them all hanged in Tayvir. They said none escaped him once he began the hunt. They said he could find the only brown leaf in a spring forest in the dark.

  Would he bother for an old cowshed, though?

  Crouching low, the boy scuttled to the forest edge. Not that any would see him. Especially not old Cathal the watchman, who was as deaf as his roundhouse lintel and as blind as a one-eyed ogre with milk eye. Besides, scamp was way too small to be noticed.

  That’s why they treat me like I belong in school with the kids.

  As soon as he was under the forest shadows, Scamp stopped to gaze at the silhouette of Caer Scál. He doubted he would see the village of his birth again. He guessed some would feel hurt at the wrench, but not him.

  “Cac on that,” he hissed before hawking and spitting into the loam. With a final salute, he ran into the forest, giving his home not a second more thought.

  ***

  Captain of Horse Warriors, Voltimer, gazed up the hill at the village palisade. The sun was past its zenith, falling westwards towards the forest. Running a gnarled palm through his short-cropped blond hair, he frowned and longed to be away, back in Drombeg. Champion was an honoured role, but it came with a less-than-appealing side. Taking the parchment out from his belt, he unrolled it and reread the glyph.

  “How many times is that?” he asked the messenger beside him.

  “My Lord?”

  “How many times has Kathvar asked for Chief Magón’s indulgence on late payment of the King’s taxes?”

  The messenger shrugged, causing Volt’s frown to deepen. He suspected he was the puppet in the Summoner’s private show. No doubt Kathvar knew begging the Chief’s indulgence would lead to a visit from his enforcer sooner or later. Late payment of taxes finally arrived in Tayvir to adorn King Connavar’s platter, and that was never a wise course. Magón wouldn’t want it, and the King certainly didn’t want to be bothered by such pettiness as late taxes.

  Why does he always scheme?

  Kathvar would never straight up ask him to come. Concocted situations were his oats and mutton. Volt knew the Summoner. Knew of his bent towards complex schemes and political intrigues. During the witch hunts, Kathvar led the council of Summoners the King had relied on. It was Kathvar who suggested The Coven needed to be eliminated. The Captain commanded the best trackers, so the King demanded his service to bring the witches in. And then Kathvar insisted on a public hanging for each witch. It had been the Summoner who pulled the lever, causing the drop, grinning all the while. Volt—sure the motive had been less than honourable—hated the man and would rather not have to spend time in his company. He wouldn’t go against his Chief’s orders, though, not in three millennia.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Go and see what he wants,” Chief Magón said after reading the message.

  Volt’s plea of, “You know it’s a game, Chief?” had not altered Magón’s mind.

  So, here he was, riding up the hill to Caer Scál, feeling Kathvar tugging on his strings with anything but good grace.

  When they arrived at the gates and found them open and unguarded, Volt reined in his horse and stood in the stirrups. It was unsafe for the canton’s remote villages to remain less than vigilant. Raids between cantons were commonplace, to say nothing of reavers from other kingdoms. It wasn’t only the open gates, though. There was no sign of life. Caer Scál’s people might as well be in the land of Tír nóg, so silent was it. Volt stared over the palisade. The cluster of roundhouses and blockhouses could conceal a small army: enough to ambush his column of thirty horse warriors, for sure.

  Maybe it’s not Kathvar who’s playing.

  “Where is everyone?” he asked the messenger, who shrugged again.

  “Ruairí, you go east. Oisín, west. Check for signs of trouble. Intruders, maybe.”

  At the orders, two warriors peeled away from the column, and rode in opposite directions. Volt grinned at the image. To the casual observer, they would have appeared identical: brown horses, black boiled leather cuirasses, polished iron pot helmets dampening scraggly blond locks, cloaks that were once white. Trained trackers, they leaned out of their saddles and started to read the path at the base of the palisade before riding out of view.

  Satisfied, the Captain sat back down in his saddle. Getting completely around the wooden defences would take time. Never known as a patient man, he fidgeted with his reins while waiting. Fidgeted and wondered what Kathvar’s new scheme might be.

  Let the Four take him.

  Oisín was the first to return. He appeared to be relaxed.

  “Well?”

  “Villagers are on a hill west side. Performing some sort of rite, I reckon.”

  “No sign?”

  “Someone dropped down from the rampart to the north. Furthest point from the gate. Ran into the forest. Bit suspicious, like.”

  When Ruairí also reported no sign of intruders, Volt ordered the column to rest the horses before swinging down and heading for the hill. What he found didn’t appear to be any sort of rite. The villagers were gathered in a circle, blocking something from view. There was a still smouldering ruin of what might have been a woodman’s shed on the north side of the hill.

  Forcing his way through the crowd, he found Kathvar crouching by a hide-covered hump.

  “Kathvar.”

  The Summoner frowned up at him. “You got my message about taxes, then.”

  “Aye. Mention of a delay. Another delay. Chief sent me to find out why. What’s that?” the Captain asked, pointing at the hump.

  “That was our gate guard, Cathal. Found him this morning in the ashes of the cowshed.”

  Glancing at the smoking ruins, Volt asked, “Accident?”

  “No. It was murder.”

  “Who murdered him?”

  “I saw a village boy, Scamp, set the fire. He got a feel for burning things twelve moon cycles or more since.”

  Burning things? Never a good sign if the old legends can be believed.

  “Scamp?” Volt asked, his eyebrows raised.

  “He’s a rogue, so we all call him scamp.”

  “Where’s he now?”

  “He ran, as any murderer would.”

  “My man, Oisín reported some sign on the north side of the palisade. Let’s go and have a look.”

  ***

  A short time later, Volt squatted beside the spoor midway between the palisade and the forest edge.

  The sign was as clear as a cloudless summer’s day. Someone dropped from the palisade and hesitated before running towards the forest in a loping gait as though crouching. It had to have been the boy. No one else would have needed subterfuge. No one else would have run after the witching hour.

  But how long after?

  “What do you think, early morning?”

  “Aye. Dampness in the prints says before dew could form. Before dawn,” Oisín said. “Sure as rabbits in the meadow.”

  “There’s little point to us all tracking through the forest. Little point and less chance of success,” Volt said, rubbing his bristles.

  Riding a horse through the underbrush would be impossible. Having thirty horse warriors on foot in the shrubbery would be disastrous. They would be bitching before going thirty paces, and bitching horse warriors were worse than a dose of the plague.

  “He’s just a lad. Me an Oisín can track ‘im,” Ruairí said.

  “Aye.” Oisín agreed, his mouth cocked in the corner where he chewed a blade of grass.

  The Captain thought about it. As they were walking around the palisade, Kathvar said the boy had seen sixteen summers and was slight. He was a mischief-maker rather than a bully or a threat and carried no weapons. But something in the Summoner’s words didn’t sound honest. Not lying so much as not revealing everything he knew. Something about the boy made Kathvar wary, no doubt related to his arson.

  “You said it was murder,” Volt said, standing and turning to the Summoner.

  “I did.”

  “The boy knew this Cathal was in the shed when he laid the fire?”

  “Well, no. I doubt it, but—”

  “So, it was more accident than murder?”

  “I warned the boy about burning things and the probable outcome,” Kathvar repeated. “For me, that’s murder.”

  “Aye. Sure as rabbits,” Oisín said. Volt glared at him, and he turned away, reddening.

  Rubbing his jaw, the Captain frowned. The Summoner had told him the boy’s like for setting fire to things had been progressing for more than twelve full moons.

  “He likes to burn, and you failed to report it. Why?” Kathvar stared into the forest, either refusing to answer or unsure how. “What are you not telling me, bundún?”

  “How dare you. I’m the Summoner—”

  “And I’m Chief Magón’s justice. The Chief represents the King in this canton, Even you, Kathvar, must answer to the King’s law.” The Summoner smirked at him, almost leering. A lesser man might have flinched, but Volt continued, “According to those laws, you should have brought it forward for investigation.”

  “I didn’t think it worthy.”

  “As Drombeg’s champion, I and I alone can decide what is worthy of justice.”

  “And what will King Connavar make of that statement?”

  “Connavar is in Tayvir. Leagues away. I could try you on a whim and hang you before he heard anything.”

  Kathvar grinned at him and said, “But you won’t, because the King would level such vengeance on you.”

  With a reputation, the King of the Kingdom would, no doubt, do something bloodcurdling.

  His love of blood and death was one reason the King was so willing to accept Kathvar’s counsel. That was why he agreed to erase The Coven from his lands, and indeed from three of the other four kingdoms—there’d been no way into West Kingdom—the reason Volt was forced to hunt hundreds of men and women and witness their hangings.

  “You two, get after the boy,” he said to his trackers. “The troop will ride for Caer Droma. Bring him there.”

  “Will you not return him to me?” Kathvar asked.

  “No. I shall bring him to Tayvir, directly to the King. Let Connavar decide his fate.”

  “In that case, I shall come with you. I need to travel south, as it happens.”

  Volt considered refusing before realising it would be futile. The King’s Highway was open to travellers and not a private road he owned. Kathvar could follow him to The Point of Death if he so wished.