When they arrived at the rest stop where they had planned to overnight, it was to find another group of travellers had got ahead. A well-dressed crowd, with both riding horses and a carriage, they seemed like wealthy burghers who’d visited Heila for pleasure or business, or to visit family. One of the men looked up when Xiun and Ehrban approached. For a moment his expression lit in welcome — and then he noticed their tattoos.

  “You never realise how much you take Vallenese hospitality for granted until it no longer applies to you,” Xiun said in a low voice, laced with bitterness.

  “Let’s not insist.”

  Xiun shot Ehrban a dark look, but didn’t argue.

  As they dismounted, the man approached hurriedly. “Normally… there’s more than enough space, we’d like to be hospitable, but… I’m sorry, we have children with us. Please understand.”

  “Don’t fear,” Ehrban said. “We’re just passing by. However, will you allow us to let our horses drink?”

  The man hesitated. Behind him, his other companions had a hurried discussion. Then a stout woman said: “Let them drink. We won’t punish innocent animals for their riders.”

  “Very gracious,” Xiun said blandly, and Ehrban gave him a warning look.

  They didn’t talk as they let their horses drink and refilled their own water. Ehrban was burningly aware of the travellers’ unhappy tension as they stared at the unthulan, anxious for them to leave.

  They pushed on for another half a mile, the sun sinking lower in the sky, until they found a place where an ancient mango tree provided grassy shelter not far from the road.

  “Better than the open desert,” Ehrban commented. “And at least it doesn’t look like rain.”

  Xiun was darkly quiet while they unsaddled the horses and rubbed them down, ready for the night, and when they unpacked their own bedrolls and provisions for the night. They had seed bread, nut cheese and dried fruit, bought with the aid of Xiun’s vizier’s seal in a village the previous day, and didn’t bother looking for firewood with which to cook anything more than tea.

  When Xiun hissed a curse at his little burner for failing to catch flame right away, Ehrban said: “If there’s something you need to say, then say it.”

  “Well, then.” Xiun crossed his arms over his chest. “Why are you taking all of this so placidly?”

  “‘All of this’?”

  “Being treated like we’re worse than last night’s waste. Shunned, discarded, people going rigid with disgust and fear if we get as much as six feet from them. Why are you taking it like it’s nothing?”

  “It’s not nothing.” Ehrban sank to his heels and thought before he ventured further. “If it was nothing, I might’ve found a different way to spend the past four years. But, Xiun… What we did. I can’t blame people for how they treat us.”

  “What we did, Ehrban, was to prevent all of these people — all of these sneering, disgusted, hostile people, these people who want us arrested for doing nothing but stand by a road or ride a horse — what we did was to prevent the Barsland god-eaters from pillaging, burning, raping and slaughtering all of these people. And for that, I do not deserve to be treated like I eat flesh or rape children.”

  “You’re confusing the results with the method,” Ehrban said. “No one is angry at us for winning the war. They’re punishing us for how we did it.”

  “You’re saying it like we had a choice!”

  “Even if you don’t have a choice, you have consequences.”

  “You truly believe that?”

  Ehrban didn’t meet Xiun’s eye. He had to believe it. It was simpler, and easier, than the alternative.

  The alternative was that Dame Innisgard, the commander of Saint Celund at Ungberg, had betrayed everything the knights of Saint Celund were supposed to uphold.

  The alternative was that it had been only Ehrban’s trust and faith in her that had blinded him to her corruption until it was too late. That he had been blind, too, to the corruption of the superiors of Saint Celund. That Suzerain Tiaoghun had known. Had allowed, had implicitly if not directly condoned the order Innisgard had given at Ungberg.

  The alternative was that the very heart of Saint Celund had been corrupt for a long, long time. Everything Saint Celund had stood for, everything Ehrban’s father had died for, everything Ytharn had died for, and all their other comrades — everything Ehrban himself had pledged to, that he had put his faith in.

  All of it, corrupt.

  And that with his blindness and his pride he had condemned all of his surviving brother and sister knights to this half-death. Being spat at, sneered at, and shunned, their lives worth less than that of a rat.

  And with it the nightmares, and the guilt, and the shame.

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “Yes,” Ehrban said, “I believe in consequences, and I believe we brought it upon ourselves. We have no one else to blame.”

  Xiun shook his head, sharply and in disbelief. “Do you think Ytharn would’ve agreed?”

  Ehrban was surprised to find himself suddenly on his feet, sword hand clenched, and teeth bared in a grimace. He was breathing hard.

  For another moment he and Xiun stared at each other — Xiun’s eyes wide, not about to back down, but bracing himself for the worst — and then Ehrban found the strength after all to turn and walk away.

  He walked until his heart had stopped hammering in his chest, and then walked some more, roughly keeping parallel to the road, picking his way over short grass and the occasional termite hill. He tried not to think of anything.

  Most of all he tried not to think of Ytharn.

  It was well dark when he trusted himself to return. Xiun had lit a lamp and sat hunched in its light, pouring over an enamel locket held in his palm. When Ehrban approached, he hastily slipped it into his shirt.

  “I’m sorry,” Ehrban said.

  Xiun nodded. “Me too.”

  That was all to be said on the matter. They ate, and prepared to sleep.

  *

  Ehrban didn’t know how long he’d been asleep when he felt Xiun’s hand on his shoulder.

  In a low voice, mouth close to Ehrban’s ear, Xiun muttered a single word: “Company.”

  Ehrban took a full breath. For an instant he felt the icy clarity that always came in moments like these, fear exchanged for purpose. Then he remembered he was no longer at war, was no longer a sworn knight of Saint Celund, and no longer had sigils, a sword, or the right to wield either.

  “The horses,” he murmured back. The horses had the most value, although bandits probably would not be content if they did not also search Ehrban and Xiun’s packs — at best. At worst, they were set on murdering them and stealing their clothes while at it.

  Their attackers would have seen the Watcher Xiun had ensouled, and if they were confident enough to attack despite knowing Xiun would have prior warning, they likely had superior numbers.

  You don’t even need a blade, paladin, the little voice taunted him. A rock can make do just as well. What is a blade but a stone once? Even stones hunger for blood.

  And even bandits had more rights before a court of law than unthulan. Ehrban and Xiun would be in the wrong even if it was self-defence.

  “Here,” Xiun whispered, pressing something into Ehrban’s hands. It was a foot-long dirk, sheathed. He jerked away from the feeling of the hilt against his palm, dropped it, and did not pick it up again.

  “Distraction,” he told Xiun and almost immediately felt the beginning of an ensoulment.

  Silently, Ehrban rolled to his knees to crouch against the tree under which they’d been sleeping. The horses were more than twenty feet away, tethered to a low branch on the other side of the trunk.

  He could sense rather than see the movement in the dark as Xiun’s hands moved rapidly but discreetly through the gestures of a sigil. Further away, there was a faint rustling and a half-heard snap of a twig. One of the horses whinnied softly.

  Feeling Xiun complete his sigil, Ehrban threw his arm over his eyes just in time. The next instant, the Bursting Star, one of the lesser sigils of the Sun, flared to light the space under the tree brighter than any day. Multi-hued colours pulsed outward like the patterns behind one’s eyelids if you’ve been staring at the noon sky. Its goal was to blind — and to distract.

  In a second, Ehrban was next to the horses and on top of the shape that had fallen to its knees with a startled cry. In the dimming light he saw the figure throw its arms over its head, hands futilely scrubbing at its eyes.

  “Up,” Ehrban commanded, putting action to word by hauling the would-be-thief by a thin upper arm.

  “Oh, please, dear Khada, we didn’t mean harm, please don’t hurt me, I didn’t mean to… to…”

  The voice was squeaky and emerged from quite a ways below Ehrban’s shoulder. He guessed the boy couldn’t have been more than fourteen, fifteen at most.

  “What did you mean if not harm?”

  “We, just, we thought… You passed our town, earlier, and Hashnar said we should, we should free the horses, that… that you… Everyone knows unthulan… what you do to animals, and… we just…”

  “Ruoi weeps,” Xiun’s voice came, irritated. “Didn’t you see the sigil I ensouled, you dimwit? You think I could’ve done that if I was tainted? We’re not fucking flesh-eaters.”

  “How many of you are there?” Ehrban gave his charge a little shake. “Should we be worried that one of your friends is going to do something foolish now?”

  “Oh no, no,” the boy blubbered. “Never! They wouldn’t! I know who you are now! That was a, it was a battle prayer, wasn’t it? And you’re — you’re — you’re the knights of Saint Celund!”

  Ehrban let him go, bemused. “You’d steal from other unthulan but not from us?”

  “No! Please, I’m so sorry, please let me go!”

  “Xiun?”

  “I have no use for a whining child,” Xiun said. “Besides, can you imagine the uproar if anyone thinks we’ve kidnapped him? Shoo,” he said. “Off with you. All of you. The whole lot. And don’t come back!”

  “Thank you, thank you!” The boy scrambled to his feet and scurried off. His friends must’ve been waiting nearby, and soon hasty footsteps along with a faint babble of ‘The knights! Saint Celund, it’s really them!’ quickly receded into the distance.

  “Well.” There was a much more mundane glow of light as Xiun lit the lantern again. “How are you feeling? Not faint again?”

  “No.” Ehrban clenched and unclenched his hand. Something of the feeling of a thin arm, fragile in his grip, rang darkly of Dnisenfeld. “But I doubt I’m going to sleep again anytime soon.”

  Xiun bent to pick up the dirk from where it had fallen. “So you’d rather go unarmed up to an unknown quantity than pick up a blade?”

  “It worked out well.”

  “And what if the next time it doesn’t?”

  “You fought in battle. The outcome will always be uncertain, no matter how well-armed or armoured you are. It’s mostly a matter of luck.”

  “Except, brother, we generally do give luck a sword and shield and point it in the right direction.”

  “I’d rather have tea than a lecture,” Ehrban told him, “But I’m just as happy going back to bed.”

  “Make your own fucking tea.”

  Xiun waited until the water was boiling and Ehrban had poured it over the leaves before he offered: “Don’t worry that you’ll be useless if you really cannot bring yourself to wield a blade again. Planning a long journey, with a sizeable party, some of whom can’t defend themselves — it’s always good to have another head, and yours is better than most when it comes to these things.”

  Ehrban inclined his head, accepting the peace offering for what it was. “We’ll see.”

  What they would see, he didn’t know, and didn’t dare guess. He could still feel the small, terrified weight of the almost-thief as he’d pulled the boy up by his arm.

  And what, Ruoi helped him, if he’d had a blade? He could no longer believe She would’ve stayed his hand, to ascertain that the boy was no threat before offering threat to him — and if he no longer had faith in Ruoi stilling his blade when there was no need for it, he had even less faith in himself.

  Give yourself to Vishak, paladin, the dark little voice whispered, and you will never need to stay your blade again.