Riot's eardrums ruptured, and he felt blood trickle out of them as the air was sucked out of the world.

The hedron pulsed in his hand, and there was burning pain. Then he had no hand at all, and the pain was everywhere, opening his body and savaging it like a rabid dog clawing at a carcass.

The hedron grew brighter, gorging on arcane power. He knew it would explode, but the moment lingered, and Riot clawed at salvation like a man with a sword in his gut gripping the hilt, knowing that as long as the blade stayed there, he could go on living just a moment longer.

But the blade was yanked out, and the arcane power shredded the world, and he was cast adrift, less than a thought in the gray void.

The hunger of the surging power cowed him, and he shrank back, desperately willing it away from him and out toward his enemies, and strangely, it responded. High-pitched screams punctured the howling of the storm, and dark shadows appeared in the void, the dead echoes of those burned from existence, arms raised in vain to shield themselves.

The light faded, and he took a ragged breath, choking on the acrid stink of burning bodies and vomiting noisily, thinking they were the charred bodies of his own men.

He woke, but he’d been walking, hadn’t he? So had he even been asleep? His eyes were open, but he could only see blurred shapes, and even the weak daylight brought pain. Voices spoke, but they were muffled, like they were calling to him from a deep cave. Or he was in the cave. That made more sense; he was lost in some darkened cave.

The waking sleep took him again.

A gentle but consistent tug pulled his bound hands onward, and he heard the clip clop of a horse on the road before him. He was still blinded, and the drool on his chin was cold. His broken shoes were gone, and the strips of moldy blanket that replaced them were shredded. His bloodied feet scraped on the cold road, each jagged stone drawing a ragged sob from his sore throat. Muffled sounds were torture to his damaged ears. Men talking, horses hooves. Water was held to his grateful, cracked lips.

The waking sleep descended once more, and he didn't even try to resist.

He soiled himself; he didn’t remember doing that. See the last man, covered in his own shit. He laughed, the sound escaping in a wheeze.

He slept.

The journey to the underworld of the Father had been long and full of pain. But now he was here, and there was a smell of burning lamp oil and a voice that spoke in the slow, rolling tone of a country wife. There was also the sharp tongue of a noble woman, questioning him.

Were they here to sit in judgment?

What did he have to balance the scales but the honest life of a fighting man? Except when he killed Alric Rook, but that had been honest too, hadn’t it? An honest day working the sword.

Hauled out again, trying to speak but only dribbling like a fool, reeking of his own shit and piss, and tossed into a cell, cold, damp, mercifully quiet.

See the last man. He slept.

Riot stepped out into the cold yard and pulled the ragged blanket around his shoulders, breathing into his cupped hands. Gods but it promised to be a bitter winter if it was this cold already. A killing winter, to be sure. He stayed close to the blurred outline of the prisoner in front, his eyes stinging from the weak light. The blanket strips that he had tied around his bare feet were rotting away and he shuffled forward as the line moved.

His turn. He held out his cracked bowl and kept his head down. His left hand was still completely numb and covered in a dirty rag, and he didn’t have the courage to look under to see the wound the hedron had left.

The gruel splashed into the bowl.

“That’s a rare awful bowl of stew, sarge,” came the voice of a young man, but full of pain.

“Perks?” Riot's voice barely sounded like his own.

“It’s me, sarge; you better move along, I’ll come and find you.”

Riot reached out a hand, unseeing, and the young boy grasped it briefly. He’d last seen Perks with a mangled leg, begging him not to cut it off.

“Move on you bastards!” the guard snapped.

Riot moved on, one hand touching the wall to guide him, and hunkered down in a corner out of the wind. The gruel was rancid, and he swallowed it down without chewing, shutting off his senses so he wouldn’t gag on it.

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There was a scrape of movement on the other side of the wall.

“Perks?” Riot hissed.

“No, friend,” a voice said through a crack in the stones. A thick northerner accent, a deep voice, and a big man by the sound of it. “You’re the one who set off a hedron?” the voice asked.

Riot remained quiet. The other side of the wall separated the prisoners from the leybound. He’d seen them once before, months ago. Rutted scars on their arms and hands. Each of their faces had seen no small amount of pain, living like most other prisoners, dirty and hungry.

The northerner continued. “I know it wasn’t you who stole it; what I want to know is how you got it. And where is Gerrard Price?”

Price. The leybound prisoner they had found in the basement of the farmhouse. The one who had signed their death warrant with the high faelen.

“Come now, friend,” the northerner said, making it clear that the word ‘friend’ was only a temporary arrangement that could change at any time. “Don’t think this wall will stop me from coming to ask you face-to-face.”

All Riot had was the chipped wooden bowl, and he thumbed the sharper edge. A poor weapon, but he’d used worse. “I’ve no secrets. Price is likely as dead as the rest of them, but don’t weep for him; before he died, he tried to go over to the long ears.”

The northerner paused. “He wouldn’t.”

“Don’t know what to tell you, ‘friend’, but come over here and ask me again, and I’ll cut your strings.”

The bell clanged, and Riot got to his feet with a groan from his protesting muscles and shuffled back inside.

The jailor had a club foot and walked with a limp, step-drag, step-drag. So when Riot heard the irregular step of boots outside, he was on his feet, the sharpened knife he’d made out of the wooden bowl clutched in his good hand.

The door opened a crack, and he wrenched it towards him and caught the figure by the scruff of his scrawny neck, throwing him against the wall.

“Sarge, it's me,” Perks hissed, raising his hands.

Riot released him. “Sorry Perks. Damn I can hardly believe you're alive. I'm sorry about the leg.”

Perks spared his missing leg a forlorn glance. “Not your fault, sarge, if it wasn’t for you we’d all be dead.”

“Who else made it?”

“There was eight of ours dead in the farmhouse, ‘bout twenty of theirs.” Perk counted the eight names off on his fingers, among them Ruddle, Swan, Emerson and Linner.

Had he killed them? Just thinking about it made the bile rise in his throat. “Those eight, how did they go?”

“All dead by blade or dart,” Perk said. “The long ears were fair lumps of charcoal. I was right close to you, but it barely felt hotter than the open door of a baker's oven.”

“What about the leybound prisoner, Price?”

Perk glanced at the half-open door, his voice dropping to a whisper. “They couldn’t find his body. I think the long ears took him. The Wikkan weren’t happy. The short, fat one was fair fearful till she pulled that hedron away from your hand, then she seemed to pluck up a bit. They said you stole the hedron, sarge. They’re going to hang you.”

“I didn’t steal anything; it was that leybound bastard.”

“The others told the Wikkan that, but she didn’t want to listen, told us we could all be up on the gallows with you. Told us to keep our mouths shut about the whole business. Colonel Williams was fair raging and Mercer looked like he’d started shitting golden eggs. I got sent here on account of my leg.” Perk looked over his shoulder again, shifting his weight on the wooden crutch jammed under his arm. “We got a plan to get you out of here, sarge; my da's from here, and my uncles a fisherman. Knows the coast like the back of his hand. Prolly done a bit of smuggling. He’s game to take you west.”

Riot listened closely to the sounds of the jail. Some screaming and hollering from the inmates, but no heavy footsteps from the jailer.

“What about the guards?”

“Only one jailer in the tower, the one with the limp, and he’s as partial to a few gilders as any man. Don’t have much to give you to ease your way, sorry to say, but all the lads kicked in. Should have you out of here tonight. If I don’t see you. Good luck to you, sarge.”

Riot clasped Perk's hand. “You’re a good lad, Perk. And I’m sorry about the leg.”

Perk saluted, standing as smartly to attention as his one leg would allow. “It’s been an honor to march with the last man.”

Back in the dank cell, Riot lay awake waiting for dawn, and as the nature of the darkness changed with the new day, the door to his cell was opened and left open.

The fat jailor beckoned to him and began to descend through the tower, and Riot followed. Down and down until he heard the sound of water splashing against rock. The jailor opened a small wooden door onto the deserted corner of the quayside, and once Riot was through, he pulled it closed behind him, and the lock made a heavy clunking sound as it snapped closed.

There was a light whistle, and Riot saw a fisherman in a battered fishing boat with fading yellow paint beckoning to him. He hurried over, wearing a grim smile at the irony. He had judged Price harshly for desertion, and now he was about to do the same thing.

“I really didn’t pick you for a deserter, Nathanial,” said a voice behind him.

Ritta Kerne, the plump Wikkan, who had arrived at the regiment camp with arcanist Riley stepped out of the shadow of the sea wall. Two younger Wikkan girls stood either side of her, and Riot's hand strayed instinctively to his sword that wasn’t there. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the fishermen huddle back into the cramped pilot house.

“Perk set me up?” Riot asked.

“He genuinely thought he was helping you, though he will certainly come to regret that if you get on that boat.”

None of the wikkan had drawn a weapon, but they didn’t need to; the threat in Kernes words was implicit enough.

“What happens to him if I leave?” Riot asked.

“He will hang for aiding in your escape. If you stay, he will continue to serve the regiments.”

Kerne took a step forward. She spoke and moved like a farmer's wife, and it was a fine act, but her eyes betrayed her nature. Riot had seen eyes like that many times over the years on battlefields and in dank alleys when he fought to stay alive as a youth on the hard streets of Fallow-Neck. As a rule, he only killed when he had to, but Ritta Kerne killed whenever it was more convenient.

“What about me?” Riot said, his voice hoarse.

“You are to be court-martialed by your own regiment, but I don’t expect it to go in your favor. Colonel Williams has lost the support of arcanist Riley, and I understand Captain Mercer is most anxious to see you again.”