“Lord Feleke, are you awake?”

Alvin shook his shoulder to wake him. The sun wasn’t up yet when David opened his eyes. The tent was dark.

“What’s going on,” David yawned. The cannons thundered in the distance, but he heard nobody move nearby, no voices talking as he would have expected at the reveille.

“General Clermont said to get you,” Alvin said. “There’s news from the palace.”

What news could there possibly be at this hour? But Clermont wouldn’t wake him if it wasn’t important, would he? Not today?

David yawned again and sat up, rubbing the scruff on his chin, wondering if he should get presentable first or hurry.

“He wants you quick,” Alvin said, as if reading the question from his mind.

“Of course he does.” David sighed and sat up. The tent was cold as he got dressed, especially compared to his camp bed. It was dark, too, except for a little lamp Alvin lit for him on the folding table. The uniform was far more fiddly than his usual clothes, too.

Still, David was the first to enter the command tent, where Clermont was waiting, pacing up and down. It took a good ten minutes for the rest of the officers to trickle in, and the general wasn’t saying what this was about until they all got there.

“Alvin, wasn’t it?” he said instead. “Take to your other body and make sure nobody who I didn’t call for listens in.”

“Yes, Sir,” Alvin said, but promptly looked to David for confirmation. When David nodded, the boy started taking off his clothes.

Having a werewolf on guard outside should certainly discourage eavesdroppers, though David wondered if Clermont was aware that being wolf would make it easier for Alvin himself to hear what was said. Or did the general trust him that much?

Alvin had been prowling outside long enough to circle the command tent multiple times when de Burg finally showed up, complaining: “What’s the rush, uncle? Are we attacking early?”

“The food at the party your wife sponsored last night was poisoned,” Clermond replied. “Death cap and possibly other dangerous mushrooms were added to several dishes. Dukes Stuard and Desmarais appear to have been the primary targets. The healers have little hope for them. Nor for your wife and daughter,” Clermont looked at the Marques of Southshire before turning to David, “or your mother, Lord Feleke. I further note that Marques Picot is demanding of me to call off the attack, while Countess deLande also sent a message on the matter, urging me to leave the matter in her hands and proceed as planned.”

The old general rolled his command baton between his hands, giving his audience time to digest the news. But when de Burg opened his mouth, Clermont cut him off.

“There is nothing we can do for those afflicted. They’re in Mithras’s hands now. I will not call off the attack. We cannot afford to let the Valoise land. Countess deLande appears to be checking Picot. We’ll have to trust in her ability to prevent more ill from happening. Do not tell your men, not even your most trusted. Lord Feleke, I trust you can ensure our guard’s confidentiality.

“We will take Port Neaf today. Tomorrow, we may ride for Deva. Until then, let the fury over this dastardly act of cowardice heat your blood and fuel your strength.”

“Uncle—”

“There is nothing we can do,” Clermont repeated. “However. The Lord who takes the harbour today might just win a crown, too.”

The general pointedly looked at David.

As if the crown mattered while his mother… How long did it take for death cap poison to kill? When had Lane sent that message? Was Imani even still alive?

“I don’t want the crown,” David said softly, since everybody else turned to look at him, too. “Never did. And I don’t think we should discuss that issue while both dukes still live, either.”

“But—it’s deathcap,” the younger Lord Pettau said quietly. “And we don’t have enough healers, do we?”

David turned to the young man, who quickly raised his hands, as if he could hide behind them. “It’s just—my father said that’s why Lord Rover passed away. Because there weren’t enough healers—enough magic—to keep healing him until the poison left the body.”

“Ah.” David took a deep breath of hope.

“What?” de Burg snapped. “What did you think of?”

“Werewolves are inherently magical,” David said. “That’s how they can fight the Rot.”

“You could have mentioned that when Rover died.”

David blinked tiredly at deVale’s snippy comment. “I wasn’t aware of the issue. And the scientists have been writing whole books on the matter.”

He took another deep breath. Surely, Greg would figure this out? Grab Morgulon, and—save Imani, if nobody else. Either of the dukes.

He really didn’t want the crown.

Tomorrow. As Clermont had said, right now, there was nothing they could do. Asides from going to battle.

***

The werewolf battalion lost its first couple of soldiers before the battle even started. The surgeons asked to have a settled werewolf in the tent, so the injured might be bitten swiftly, and the healers asked for another werewolf to keep them safe from the Rot. Grudgingly, David sent Fleur to the healers and Lorenz, just five months old and sixteen years as a human, to the surgeons.

He had time to introduce them in person: The werewolves were one of the last battalions marching out of the camp. The regular troops were already engaging the enemy by the time they crossed the no-man’s-land between the camp and the city. A bright flame lit the morning fog as they closed in. Something was already burning; gun smoke and other noxious fumes filled the air.

As most cities in the heartlands, Port Neaf had once had sprawling outer districts, outgrowing their unyielding—and these days unnecessary—fortifications against the Rot. Those houses had been reduced to rubble by cannon fire, so much so they barely even offered cover to the Loegrian soldiers. Still, the attackers had taken the first wall—digging underneath it and planting charges. In gruelling house to house combat, they had made their way through the old town.

Yet the city didn’t surrender, which was in part because the defectors knew that all they had to do was hang on until the Valoisian fleet reached them. But they also trusted in the geography of their position: The castle, high up on the cliff, still stood strong, shielded from the cannon fires by the city surrounding it. The harbour sat right underneath the castle, at the foot of the bluff.

Because of this harbour and the Valoisian sea superiority, Loegrion couldn’t cut off the defector’s supplies. They didn’t run out of food, or shot, or blackpowder.

To get from top to bottom, one had to follow the road down into the valley cut into the bedrock by the river Neaf and around the stony shore. At the narrowest point, where the road swung around into the bay that protected the harbour, sat the harbour garrison, the stronghold they absolutely had to take today.

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To make the job harder, there was a second, mediaeval wall connecting the castle and the garrison, all of it shielded by a half mile of destroyed city. Stone buildings, as Rust had pointed out, which left mountains of rubble.

According to Clermont’s briefing, this wall, too, had been treated with alchemy against the Rot, back when even this part of the heartlands had been struck regularly.

Which was why David and the werewolf battalion weren’t leading the attack. General Clermont wanted to see if his regular troops could force a breach before he risked permanent injury to one of the werewolves to take that wall.

Until then, they waited at the remains of the outer wall, where Clermont had his command post atop a tower that had survived. David allowed himself to relax in the saddle.

The weight of the sabre and sheath pulled at his hip. It wasn’t that heavy—just unfamiliar. His usual swords were lighter. It reminded him somewhat of the equestrian games he’d participated in as a youth—fighting with lances and old-fashioned broadswords, even shields…

“I always thought the wait before a battle was the worst,” Rust interrupted his thoughts.

The elder werewolf was craning his neck, trying to see what was going on behind the ruins of the city, where the gun smoke hung heavy in the air.

David straightened up a little, remembering that his soldiers were watching him. He probably shouldn’t slouch. His shrug made the crossbow on his back bounce. It was pre-loaded with steel today, though he had a half dozen silver bolts, too.

“Waiting is part of hunting,” he answered the implicit question. “Any hunting, but especially for werewolf hunting. Who else has to wait for the full moon to come up?”

“Of course,” Rust said softly.

Hooves on the cobblestones cut the conversation short. “Charges planted! Charges planted!” the rider screamed.

“That’s our signal,” David said, and indeed, a trumpeter was blowing the signal up on the tower.

Asides from that signal, the werewolves marched out in silence. They needed no drummers or marching songs to keep them in step. The will of the veteran leading them was enough.

It did make David feel rather useless—not that he would have been good at giving orders.

The werewolves stepped forwards in orderly columns, past him. He couldn’t ride in front of them, or he’d have a bullet in his head before they even got past the wall. No, he’d ride at the very back of the battalion, like a coward. Ragna was the one who carried the flag for them to rally around. When the battle started, she’d be right in the front, right in the thick of it.

Staying back did allow him to appreciate the orderly way his troops filed into the destroyed city of Port Neaf. There were few dead bodies in sight—did those get moved away, or did the Rot claim them?

Maybe it was just that there hadn’t been any fighting here for a few days.

De Burg raised his hand in a salute when the werewolves moved past his troops, held back in reserve.

David answered the gesture.

“What was that?” Alvin asked, when a light flashed in the distance.

Rust spit onto the ground. “Magic,” he growled. “Lots of it.”

“What kind?”

“Can’t tell, Sir. Can’t tell which side used it, either.”

David opened his mouth to protest that point, then stopped and chuckled to himself. Why shouldn’t it have been their spell? It wasn’t like they didn’t have any sorcerers of their own.

He rubbed his fingers. Maybe, if they had had another year or two, he would’ve been able to rain down fire on the enemy.

Time they didn’t have.

The sound of gunfire grew louder with every step the men and women took. The screaming did, too, and David spotted the first fresh bodies. The defenders must have tried to sally—or had it been hit and run tactics?

Not all the bodies lying asides the street were dead, David realised as they got closer. Both sides simply left their wounded behind. Broken men, clutching at what was left of their arms and legs or passed out—moaning and crying for help.

“Rust, pick a settled werewolf you can spare, have them check on the wounded and bite the ones wearing the red band,” David said quietly.

Maybe they could save a life or two.

“Yes, Sir,” Rust replied. “What about the traitors?”

“Bite them all—somewhere where it won’t stand out.”

David didn’t look after the werewolf who slunk off to see to the wounded. He tried not to look at them at all. Whoever was in charge of the defenders wouldn’t hesitate, either.

“Someone has to do what’s necessary,” he whispered to himself under his breath, hoping that this time, it wasn’t a lie. He couldn’t see a better way than to fight. But he had never seen a better way to deal with the werewolves, either.

Alvin gagged at the sight of a soldier whose face had been taken off by a bullet, who was still, somehow, moving and crying for help.

It made David want to reach out, to hug him, comfort him. The boy shouldn’t have to see this kind of horror. No child should. No child should have to fight.

David tried to take resolve from that thought. Maybe, if they did their job today, no other children would have to witness such pain.

***

The battalion marched up the hill. When they crested it, they got their first glance at the fighting: There was the inner wall, looming over the remnants of the buildings in front of it. The Loegrian troops were hiding behind the broken walls and inside the half-crumpled buildings.

“Finally!” deVale greeted them, waving at David to take cover with him.

David passed the reins onto Alvin, ordering him to take the horses into a mostly intact building. Crouched low, he hurried forwards to where deVale was hunkered down. Through the window of a single remaining wall, David got a decent view of the situation:

Something had blown a hole into the inner wall of Port Neaf. It must have been wide enough for a couple of men to stand in, with jagged edges. Pulverised bricks still hung like a cloud in the air, making David wish for something to cover his mouth and nose with. He could barely see shadows of the defenders who were racing to fix the breach in their defences.

Yet the Loegrian soldiers weren’t making good on their opportunity. Quite the contrary, they had retreated away from the hole. Hunkering down behind whatever cover they found. A red-robed priest was raining fire down on them from atop the wall with wanton abandon.

Even from a distance, David felt the heat.

With every blast of fire, the priest’s face seemed to become more waxy, more gaunt. How long could a man keep this barrage up?

Burned and charred bodies littered the ground.

As David watched, a Loegrian soldier leaned out from behind the half-destroyed wall he was hiding behind to take aim, but the next blast of fire forced him back.

“Lord Feleke! Will you kindly order your monsters to do something!”

That was deVale.

“Why?” Rust growled behind them. “He’s killing himself keeping this up. We just got to wait.”

But while the elder was still speaking, a second red robe climbed the wall. The first priest toppled backwards—dead or unconscious, David couldn’t tell.

“They’ll close the breach!” deVale howled, as another of the human soldiers was doused in what looked like liquid flame just as he raised his musket.

David flinched, he couldn’t help it. Fire engulfed the man, and his musket misfired. Then the rest of his blackpowder supply went off.

Even worse than the screams of the dying soldier was the way everyone was staring at David: The regular soldiers as if they expected him to fix this, and the werewolves pleading wordlessly not to send them into the inferno the priest was unleashing at anything that moved in his range.

“Oh, for…” David cursed and swung the crossbow off his back, keeping low.

He reckoned the distance was some seventy yards; not an easy shot for sure. Doubly so with a weapon as inaccurate as a musket.

But his target wasn’t moving much, except to wave his arms.

He glanced around the wall, fixing the target in his mind. Breathe in slowly. Not too deep, not too shallow.

As he exhaled, he pushed himself up, swinging the crossbow around, jamming the stock firmly against his shoulder and aiming in the same movement. The priest turned at once, raising his arms.

David stilled his breath, his lungs half empty. Pulled both triggers and ducked down again, not waiting to see if he had hit anything. A glob of fire exploded above his head, where his face had been a moment ago. Some of it dropped down. David hissed in pain as the priest started screaming.

The soldiers cheered. Rust hit his back so hard David almost toppled over, knocking the wind out of him.

“Get in there,” David gasped, reaching for his lever to re-cock the double crossbow.

He needn’t have wasted his breath at the order. Before he had finished speaking, Rust’s eyes glowed blue, and the werewolves charged towards the breach, muskets ready. DeVale yelled his own orders, ensuring that they had covering fire as they did.

A dozen werewolves in three ranks fired their muskets into the gap in the wall, forcing the defenders back. They quickly ducked out of the way to reload and another dozen took their places smoothly. Calder in his wolf shape took a run-up. As soon as the second group, too, fired their volley, he raced forwards and jumped over their heads, right into the enemy lines.

David could only imagine what it would look like from the other side, the giant wolf flying out of the gun smoke, landing ten yards deep into their own ranks. Neville followed hot on his heels, and then Boris joined the ensuing melee, too.