Whatever General Osote wanted from them, it would be bloody.

The Victrix general’s hexagonal command hut was barely visible beneath the shadow of the thorn trees common to this part of the Scalus lands. A fire burning behind its green canvas walls beckoned lieutenants Mero and Quo with the hope of fresh quail roasting over its heat. Sentries posted at each of the six corners of the tent met the eyes of these two most trusted souls as they walked the traditional path around the entire structure before approaching the entrance. It was an old custom, from the days when Victrix were superstitious. Back then, it was meant to show the guards anyone approaching was not a ghost. Now it served to prove anyone approaching had no ill intent, because all six sentries had noted their presence and any odd behavior, and could be summoned instantly in the event of trouble.

“A summons in the middle of the night to the general’s quarters,” murmured Quo to his friend. He rolled his shoulders around to loosen the knots forming in the aftermath of the day’s battle. “I’m sure it must be good news.”

Mero cracked a brief smile. Brief, for he had no other. Not unless he was with his love. Then he smiled rapturously.

The two Victrix men paused just short of the entrance flaps, straightening their black quilted leather vests and giving each other a quick scan for anything out of place. These were not dress uniforms, and Osote wouldn’t begrudge the scrapes and stains of yesterday’s battle, but he still expected his men to show attention to detail when standing before him.

Mero pulled back his shoulders, which were broader than Quo’s. Quo flexed his knees to limber them up, bringing himself down to Mero’s height; he was taller than Mero by two hand spans. Mero batted a stray dry leaf from Quo’s tightly curled black hair. Annoyed, Quo spat on the thumb of his right hand and made as if to wipe smudge away from beneath Mero’s dark eyes.

Mero blocked the attempt. “I’m fine, Mother.”

Quo grinned. “You started it.”

It was the sort of exchange that kept soldiers sane. The war with the Scalus had gone on too long.

Satisfied with their appearance, Mero and Quo pushed aside the heavy woven tent flaps and stepped inside.

General Osote sat behind a folding table, crafted by the finest Cerchi woodworkers in Seena. Mero never failed to marvel at the craftsmanship; how the Cerchi made simple wood so intricate and fine while still functional and mechanical, he’d never understand. He thought of himself as more or less a brute—made for war, not fine artistic labor. The table, made from trees nearer to home, gave off the slightest tantalizing acrid odor even over the woodsmoke from the general’s fire.

The general was not alone. Captain Helenai sat on a leather-bound chest at the general’s left, her back straight and chin up. She stood as Mero and Quo approached. The three soldiers traded nods. Helenai’s short golden hair twinkled in the firelight of the pit in the center of the tent. It reminded Mero of the hair of his true love back home.

He fought a brief swell of homesickness for her. Her hair was longer and more fine than Helenai’s, and he longed to run his fingers through it again. It had been months.

Helenai stood proudly in her full armor kit, sword at her side. She let her battle-calloused hand rest on the pommel in manner of all Victrix soldiers as Mero and Quo bowed toward Osote.

“Lieutenants,” Osote greeted them.

He gave his billowing gray beard a pull with one gloved hand, a habit of his that told Mero and Quo that things were, in fact, about to get very bad. Osote had not ascended to the rank of General, second only to the Magistrate of Seena, by frightening easily. The lieutenants had only ever seen him make this nervous gesture if something quite wicked was in the offing.

“You’re acquainted with Captain Helenai?”

“We are, sir,” Mero said. “She is one of our finest. She slew three Scalus in the battle yesterday.”

“My team helped,” Helenai demurred, dipping her narrow chin in deference to the general.

The general frowned, surprising Mero. “This is no time for humility, Helenai. We are on the precipice of betrayal.”

Mero tensed, and felt Quo do the same.

Osote waved a hand at Helenai, who nodded in return and faced the two lieutenants, formally clasping her hands behind her back.

“One of my scouts died this evening. He’d been patrolling southward, and came upon one of our own soldiers in conversation with a small group of Scalus.”

Mero winced angrily.

Quo was more vocal in his disgust. “One of our own talking to Scalus?”

“Very few have such a skill,” Mero said. The Scalus language could barely be called such, in the opinion of most citizens of Seena. Including Mero.

“Yes,” Helenai said. “Myself and a handful of others have been able to learn rudiments of their language. The trouble is, I don’t know who it was that met with them. My scout was ambushed by other Scalus warriors as he watched, and barely escaped. He survived only long enough to tell me of the betrayal . . . and their next meeting.”

Mero gripped his hilt. “When.”

“Tonight. Soon.”

Quo spat into the fire. It sizzled angrily on a log. “How could a scout fall prey to an ambush?”

Helenai’s jaw visibly clenched. “Scouts too are merely men.”

Quo touched a palm to his chest in apology. “I intended no disrespect to a fallen brother, Captain. I only wonder how crafty the Scalus must have become to catch a skilled tracker in an ambush.”

The captain relaxed. “Had he lived long enough, I would have asked. Do not underestimate our opponent.”

“Enough,” Mero said to Quo, softly, just enough to come back to the most important part of the discussion. “Captain, you’re saying this traitor is meeting again with the Scalus this very night?”

“Correct. At the three falls several miles southwest of here. Deep in Scalus-held land.”

Mero turned to Osote, not speaking, intuiting the general’s likely plan.

Osote tugged his beard and seemed almost to nod, as if reading Mero’s thought. “Under other circumstances I would send a band of scouts to investigate and report the identity of the traitor. But now I know not who to trust. Mero; Quo; you I can trust.”

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Mero met his general’s eyes. His faith was well-placed. “What are your orders?”

“Go now, with Helenai. Your job is to listen, not attack. Gather intelligence on this traitor, whomever he is. Then return here quickly to report. Do not engage unless you have no choice.”

The lieutenants nodded. Mero appreciated Osote’s caution. The Scalus were fierce fighters, and had the advantage not only of fighting in their homeland, but for their homeland. A veteran of those campaigns, Mero knew from experience such opponents were the most hard-fought. In fair and open combat, a Scalus warrior was worth any two from Seena. The strength of the Seena army, while skilled enough in warfare, lay largely in their overwhelming numbers.

Creeping around the Scalus woods in the middle of the night, where one of Seena’s finest scouts has fallen to an ambush, in search of a soldier with the resolve to betray his countrymen . . . this was not an assignment Mero would otherwise have wished for, nor wished upon any of his own men.

But better he than they. With Quo at his side and Helenai leading them, there was at least a chance they’d be successful.

Turning to Helenai, Mero asked, “What was the content of this talk your scout overheard?”

Helenai sneered. “Money and power. Is it ever anything else? This soldier, whoever he or she is, was negotiating water rights in exchange for intelligence on our movements and plans.”

“Bastard!” Quo cursed.

Mero, who prided himself on more subdued reactions than his friend, nevertheless released a disdainful snort. Everything about Seena’s conflict with its monstrous neighbors to the south revolved around water. The growing population of Seena needed it; the Scalus possessed it. Mero privately held his own convictions about the motivation and execution of this war with Seena’s lizard-like southerly neighbors, but his life was in service to Seena. He had no ground, nor desire, to question politics. While his rank ultimately placed him in line for succession, he happily preferred to let others like Captain Helenai be chosen before him. He had no desire for court life.

Quo rubbed the back of his neck as if the idea of treason knotted the muscles there. “If one person was able to come to an agreement with the Scalus . . . control access to the water in the woods . . .”

“Precisely,” Osote said. “Such a person could manipulate all of Seena. Perhaps even control the state outright. The representative government of Seena must control the water.”

“General,” Mero said, cautiously sounding out his words as they formed; he was intelligent, not clever. “Doesn’t this suggest, though, that the Scalus are in fact willing to negotiate? The treason notwithstanding, is there some way we can capitalize on this apparent desire for peace?”

Osote grinned the mirthless grin of a veteran. “This thought occurred to me as well. You’re an old campaigner for someone so young, Mero. I appreciate that you thirst not for blood. I will, of course, send word to the Magistrate upon your return that the Scalus were at least amenable to some sort of treaty. But such plans are far beyond soldiers like us. Peace treaties are the business of the Assembly.”

While Mero sought not to be a politician, he was no stranger to court politics, and nodded his understanding at the old general. The topic was closed.

“We must hurry,” Helenai said. “The meeting was to take place when Andra rises.”

“That’s not long. We’ll leave now,” Mero said. Andra, a large point of light in the sky, orbited in the cosmos with predictable regularity each night. Ilia, a large, slow moon with regular phases, already hung high in the night sky and crescent-shaped; it would be quite dark in the Scalus woods.

“Go,” Osote agreed. “I want this traitor’s name, and then I want him hewn in the salt mines back home.”

Mero, Quo, and Helenai touched their chests and strode out of the tent.

Helenai took the lead as the thorny trees grew thicker to the west. The Seena military was encamped east of Osote’s tent, where the trees were spaced further apart. “We’ve no time to stop,” she said. “We must get there quickly and find the best place to hide.”

“I hate hiding,” Quo grumbled. “If I wanted to hide, I’d have applied to become a scout.”

“You’d never pass the selection process,” Helenai cracked.

Quo punched her spine between her shoulders; the captain retaliated with an elbow into his chest.

Recognizing their antics as release before a potential battle, Mero said to Quo, “Enjoy Osote’s trust in you. You’ll be General someday.”

Quo grunted. “May the Cerchi’s god hope not!”

The three of them shared a brief, harsh laugh. All three were Victrix, and privately held various levels of contempt for the Cerchi’s theism. Mero knew Quo’s disdain to be authentic; his own was more tempered. While all Cerchi were theists by definition, not all of them were quite so vocal as those who ascended to the Assembly.

“I can’t believe one of our own soldiers would dare betray us like this,” Quo said as Helenai set a quick pace. A teacher of scouts herself, she found the quickest way through the forest with haste Mero could only marvel at.

“Captain Helenai is right,” he said. “Money and power. They play havoc with the best of us.”

“But the Scalus! Those slimy lizards.”

“I for one am not certain they have the taste for war,” Mero said.

“Have not the . . . ? Begging the lieutenant’s pardon, but have you been in the battles lately?”

Quo’s sarcasm didn’t bother him; he was far too used to it. But Mero caught Helenai casting a glance at him over her shoulder. She hoped to hear an answer.

“We lived in peace with the Scalus for generations,” Mero said. “We ought not mistake their fierceness in combat as desire. We are the invaders.”

Quo stopped. It was so abrupt that Helenai nearly disappeared into the darkness before realizing he’d stayed behind. Mero came to halt as well as he saw Quo glaring at him.

“Mero . . . you oppose this war?”

“I oppose conquest. The water in the Scalus woods is abundant. I should think there is some way to negotiate rights with them.”

Quo stepped to Mero and lowered his head to peer into his friend’s eyes. “We are on our way to find and identify a traitor who has the same idea, Mero. What’s the matter with you?”

Holding himself still, Mero said quietly, “Step back, Quo.”

Quo held himself in place for a moment—then respectfully took one step away.

“This traitor, whoever he is, shares nothing in common with me,” Mero said. “Whoever they are, they are usurping the rule of law in Seena. Usurping the Assembly, and all in Seena who placed them there, as Osote said. I serve our state, Quo. I serve our people.”

“Bah,” Quo said, waving a hand not to dismiss his friend, but the conversation. “I know that. I just want my hands around the throat of whoever is betraying us. That’s really the thing.”

“Agreed,” Mero said, and nodded at Helenai to continue leading the way.

The captain crafted a winding path through the woods, guiding them around and between tall, thick trees blocking what little moonlight from Ilia shone down. Night creatures called one another around them—small nocturnal animals and birds, Mero knew, but some were poisonous and deadly.

“But let’s say for the moment,” Quo added a few moments later, because he loved a good argument—so much so that Mero chuckled in his friend’s predictability. “That Magistrate Lidia did somehow approach the Scalus to write a treaty between us. First of all, they have no written language. That would prove problematic.”

“Most certainly.”

“Then there’s our water shortage—”

“Pending water shortage, and then only if our scholars are correct.”

Quo laughed. “Going to Cerchi church, are you? Since when do you question our scholars?”

“I don’t. Not often. They have been wrong in the past, that’s all. Perhaps Seena’s water supply is sufficient.”

“The crops, Mero! The growing size of our citizenry! We need the land and water.”

“Now who sounds like a Cerchi?”

Quo laughed again, caught. For all their religion, the Cerchi’s god “Holy Creator Anyi” apparently had eyes only for his “chosen children” and their comfort, a hypocrisy which at best dismayed the Victrix, at worst incensed them. The founders of the Victrix system had been scholars and thinkers, though not sinless by any measure. Long ago, they and the spiritually minded Cerchi had walked together in peace if not harmony, developing the Assembly to represent the entire population of the small but burgeoning city-state of Seena. As generations passed, each side grew more convicted in their righteousness, until today, when in many corners of the state, each system could barely tolerate the other. Prior to their invasion of the Scalus lands, brawls in the city streets between Victrix and Cerchi had been rising. Mero could only wonder how the relationship stood now. The Cerchi favored this war, had clamored for it in the Assembly, yet few served in the military.

“And if our resources are thinning,” Mero went on, “then perhaps we ought to stop adding quite so many Victrix and Cerchi to Seena’s population in the first place.”

Quo clapped his shoulders and gave Mero a shake. “But that’s the most fun part!”

All three veterans laughed at that. Some things were simply universally true. The pleasure of making babies happened to be one of them.

“Don’t worry, my friend,” Mero said. “I don’t question our orders. Regardless of what this traitor’s plans are, the betrayal itself is reason enough to send them before Lidia.”

“I’ll gladly sharpen the saws myself,” Quo growled.

They walked on. Mero was glad for the banter between them, to take his mind off the mission for a moment while still reasonable. But now a silence grew between the three of them, and his heartbeat sped.

They could punch and joke and argue all they wished, as soldiers do.

It would not protect them from this mission, nor from this night.