"You’re a rare sight, Specialist," Torg said, his voice like grinding gravel. "Don't see many of your kind out here on the fringes anymore. Not since the Alliance put a leash on the craft."

  Macus didn't look up from his work. "The certification process takes years, Captain. Most don't have the patience for the math."

  "It’s more than just the math," Torg countered, crossing his scarred arms. "The Alliance mandated those papers for a reason. They wanted to stop every fool with a cauldron from poisoning an entire battalion. In my time, being an alchemist was often a death sentence. You didn't always die from an enemy blade; you died because your own potion decided to melt your lungs or turn your blood to lead. The alchemists were almost always the first fatal victims of their own misuse."

  He gestured to the pristine vials on Macus's belt.

  "Now, the Alliance treats you like walking high-explosives. Only the 'certified' get to touch the glass. It makes for a shorter supply, but I suppose it means fewer of our own men turning into puddles in the trenches."

  Macus just smiled. The wheels of the supply wagon groaned in the mud. The forest pass was too quiet. Macus, riding beside the lead wagon, was a quartermaster, not a warrior. He wore boiled leather armor, practical but dull. A short sword hung at his hip—an accessory of his rank, not a tool of his trade.

  His true weapons were in the waxed canvas bags secured inside the wagon behind him: vials, powders, catalysts, and compounds.

  “Sir?” Torg, now fully recovered from the river, spat to the side. “You're tense as a bowstring.”

  Macus glanced at the Captain. “You're the ranking officer, Captain. But Master sent me to keep you alive. I hear no birds.”

  Torg nodded, his respect for the specialist overriding his rank. “If you say it's quiet, it's quiet. Halt!”

  The caravan stopped. An arrow thudded into the wagon's side.

  “Heretics! Ambush!” Torg bellowed. “Circle the wagons!”

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  A score of ragged heretics emerged from the treeline, howling, testing the guards' nerve.

  “Orders, sir?” Torg asked, deferring to Macus's tactical mind.

  Macus’s heart was a hammer against his ribs. He thought of Caelthon, who would have charged. He thought of the First Champion's legend. But he was not them. He was Aether's student.

  “Captain, can you hold them?” Macus asked, his voice surprisingly steady as he scrambled into his wagon. “If the men can buy me one minute without breaking the circle, I can finish this.”

  Torg barked at the line, “Hold the circle! Don't let them through! Give the specialist his minute!”

  Inside, Macus didn't grab a spear. He grabbed his alchemy kit.

  Survival. Not glory.

  He reappeared holding three small, sealed vials of dark, oily fluid and a heavy clay pot that hissed with pungent steam.

  “Captain!” Macus yelled, tossing him the vials. “If you aim for their feet when they hit that mud patch, the fight's over!”

  The first wave of heretics hit the churned-up mud. Macus gave a sharp signal. Torg didn't hesitate, roaring the command: “Now!”

  The vials shattered. The oily liquid instantly reacted with the wet earth, transforming the mud into a thick, rock-hard, adhesive cement. The charge dissolved into a panicked, struggling pile. Men were trapped up to their knees in stone that had been mud seconds ago.

  The second wave of heretics skidded to a halt. It was the pause Macus needed.

  “Captain, the gas! Get the shields up!” Macus shouted, snapping his leather filtration mask over his face.

  “Shields up!” Torg bellowed, his voice carrying over the din.

  Macus hurled the heavy clay pot. It shattered, erupting in a cloud of thick, white, acrid smoke—a potent, fast-acting paralytic. Coughing filled the air, and the heretics collapsed, neutralized but not dead.

  The “battle” was over. Torg stared, his sword clean.

  “Gods be,” Torg whispered. “You didn't... you didn't kill a single one, sir.”

  Macus was already on the ground, adjusting his mask, applying a clotting agent to a wounded guard.

  I had the Red Vials of jellied fire, Macus thought, checking the guard's pulse. Aether let me keep them. But he taught me that a war won without screaming is a better victory.

  “Glory doesn't get the supplies home, Captain,” Macus said, his voice muffled by the mask. “Survival does.”

  He sounded just like Aether.

  Torg pointed to a small, unlabeled vial of white, viscous liquid tucked into a reinforced, separate loop on Macus's belt. "And that one? Another stimulant?"

  "No," Macus answered, his hands momentarily stilling. "It’s called 'Mercy’."