Riot hated marching at night, and these hills only made it worse. Damp from the low fog seeped into his uniform and chafed his skin, chilling him to the bone. All around, the looming shadows of the hills echoed with the cries of animals, and the leybound cursed and slapped at his necks, tormented by the biting insects.

But Riot had more immediate problems. His barrier was failing, the cracks growing bigger, turning the trickle of ley power into a steady stream that burned in the raw channels in his body like liquid fire. At least the maddening itch was soothed, and he was able to stop scratching his raw skin, but the cost was that every step felt like knives were being stabbed into the joints of his hips, knees, and ankles.

The burned hedron scar on his hand was spared the pain, locked behind the frail, greasy barrier Riley had put in place, but in some ways he feared this more than the slow leak of the barrier. He hesitated to even draw his sword, lest he somehow disturb the protective layer, letting the ley power flood out and turning his hand into a burned and bloody stump on the end of his arm.

The file slowed to a halt, and Riot made his way to the front, where Riley was stuffing a half-folded map back into his saddlebags.

“Sergeant Riot, I shall be back before the next bell. Set the sentries and don’t let any of the wretches escape. Fitz, this is an excellent place to make camp. I want my tent and a warm fire when I return.”

“Yes, sir,” Fitz, replied.

The valley was the worst place to set up camp. Open at both ends with a road wide enough for a full company of cavalry to charge down. What they needed were sentries, no fires, and everyone hiding in the ditches.

“Don’t hesitate to get rough with them, Riot. Fitz has the irons with him. If we have to lock them back up, we will. We can flog 'em when we get back.” Riley added, not taking care to lower his voice. “Where is Miss Quinn?”

Riot searched the gloom around them. Natalia Quinn had been at the front of the file with Riley, but now there was no sign of her.

“Probably gotten lost; the wilds are no place for a woman. Well, we can’t look for her, can we? Got to keep our focus on the mission. Await my return.” Riley put his heels on his horse's flanks and set off alone down the road.

“Did anyone see where she went?” Riot asked aloud.

“If Quinn doesn’t want you to see her, then you don’t see her,” the northman said.

Riot pulled four men out of the file at random and ordered them two hundred paces down each direction of the road to keep watch. He would have gone himself, but the leypower in his body was cramping his guts so badly that he could barely stand. Instead, he found a place where he could watch the road in each direction and settled down alone.

Fitz busied himself hauling Riley's tent from the horse, and some of the leybound joined him, hammering in the wooden pegs to the cold ground, the crack of the mallets echoing off of the hills loud enough to give away their position to anyone within a couple of miles. In his old regiment, he would have stopped them. But his authority was hanging by a thread, and the leybound looked to be one order away from mutiny.

After an hour, Riot changed the sentries and moved further down the darkened road, straining his senses into the gloom. The fourth bell had come and gone, and there was no sign of Riley or Quinn.

“Everything okay, sergeant?” Fitz asked in a hushed voice. “We have a lovely fire going if you would like to join us.”

The old man gave him a wan smile, seemingly oblivious to the danger around them.

“If you don’t mind, sir, I think I’ll take a couple of the men to nip back and check the road behind us,” Riot said.

“I'll send two of them over. I have to say, I don’t think they like you very much.”

“What do you think of them, Fitz?”

“Oh they’re characters, alright, rough around the edges to be sure. If you want to make a good impression, then you should become friends with Loic. Most of them look up to him.”

“Loic is the young northman?”

“Yes,” Flitz confirmed. “I think you’ll like him; shall I send him over?”

“No, not him. Any of the others will do.”

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Fitz scurried away, and two leybound joined Riot moments later. A lean man who walked with a loping gait and a skinny, bookish type with round glasses.

At a gesture from Riot, they advanced cautiously, keeping to the side of the road and as it curved they were alone in the silence, only the buzzing insects for company.

“Someone up ahead,” hissed one of the men.

Riot didn’t know how the man could see anything in the twisting fog, but he drew his sword and weighed it in his left hand, too wary to risk disturbing the delicate barrier on the hedron scar. They moved on and after what seemed like an eternity, a darker shadow appeared before them.

“Who goes there?” Riot called.

A shambling, shivering spectre emerged from the mist, wearing the dark blue uniform of the Duke of Fallow. “Please don’t hurt me,” he called, before collapsing on the road.

“What are you two doing out here?” Riot hissed as he reached the boy.

His name was Norton, and he didn’t look like he’d reached his twentieth year. After he’d taken sips of water with shaking hands, he explained that they had been caught outside the gates and chosen to flee to the hills. Ten of them had grouped together and found the road, and followed it in the hopes of finding a town or village.

“You said that there were ten of you; where are the others?” Riot asked.

His question was answered immediately by the distant clip clopping of hoof beats on the road.

“It was Faelen cavalry,” Norton said, his voice breaking.

“Back, back to the others,” Riot hissed.

They hurried back down the road, and Riot ran to the meager fire and kicked it out, sending sparks everywhere.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Loic snarled.

“Horses coming; get up into the hills,” Riot hissed.

“Cavalry? We can see them off,” Loic spat. A dirty-grey light leaked out of his forearms and filled the lumped scars on the backs of his hands.

Riot didn’t care what power the leybound might have at their fingertips; it couldn’t change the fact that they had been caught in a terrible position. The land on either side of the road was flat turf, perfect for horses to gallop, and it stretched all the way up to the hills on either side. Only a mad one hundred yard dash would give them any hope of reaching the sparsely covered slopes where the horses wouldn’t be able to follow.

“We should run,” Riot argued.

“A stone eye and a coward,” Loic said loudly.

The leybound laughed, but it was tinged with uncertainty as they took in the state of the young boy, Norton.

“Lieutenant, we need to get to the hillside, where the horses can’t follow,” Riot advised.

“What about Commander Riley? You want him to ride back into a platoon of cavalry?” Loic countered.

Riot could see that the mention of his master being in danger easily swayed the small manservant. “We shall hold them off,” Fitz declared.

“To the back, stone eye, you’re no good to us,” Loic spat.

“Form up,” Fitz announced in his reedy voice.

The cavalry were louder now, the echo of their hooves clip clopping deep in the mists. In moments, they would appear right in front of them, and Riot knew the leybound would scatter to save themselves. As much as Riley wanted it to be true, they could never be a real regiment.

“Get ready,” Loic announced.

Along the line, dirty gray light bled down the forearms of the sixty leybound and pooled in their cupped hands, illuminating the grim expressions on their dirty faces. Exclamations of surprise came from the mist, and a handful of glowing red orbs appeared in the gloom as a blaring horn ordered the charge.

“Hold,” Loic called, his deep voice clear even over the pounding of hoofbeats.

The leybound crushed the leypower in their hands, grunting with the effort, and Riot gripped his sword as the platoon of Faelen cavalry exploded out of the mist thirty feet from them, their red darts ready formed in their palms.

The leybound closest to Riot opened his hands and released the dirty gray charge of arcane power. It cracked like a whip as a lumpen ball of dirty gray light the size of an apple shot out and vanished ten feet from their enemy.

In response, the dull red light of Faelen darts shrieked through the air and caught another leybound in the throat, sizzling into his neck. The man fell to his knees, and though he clamped his hand to the wound, the damage was done, and hot blood gushed out between his fingers as he fell onto his face. Another dart caught a leybound in the leg, and he howled in pain but kept hold of his gray charge.

“Release!” Loic shouted.

The sound of sixty leybound spells being released was deafening, and at close range, the volley battered the charging cavalry. At least ten of the horses fell, hammering onto the road and tossing their riders. Five more faelen were hit with the powerful charges; two of them plucked out of their saddles entirely, while the others flopped listlessly as their well-trained horses held the line. The cavalry horn blared the retreat, and they swerved to the side of the road, galloping over the flat ground and fleeing the way they had come.

The leybound whooped and jeered at the retreating cavalry as Riot grabbed the two wounded and pulled them back from the front rank. One of the men was dead, while the other clutched his leg and hissed as Riot tied a strip of fabric to stop the bleeding.

The savagery of the leybound assault had taken his breath away. In a pitched battle, they were clearly no match for the long-range darts of the Faelen infantry, but as light troops, they were a killing machine.

“They won’t be back,” Loic announced.

But Riot knew it was a promise that the northman couldn’t keep because, from the opposite direction, a lone horseman thundered down the road, and close behind him was the spectral red glow of a second unit of Faelen cavalry.