The rain never quite committed to falling. For two days it clung to the air instead—a fine, endless mist that beaded on mail and soaked cloaks through from the outside in. Grasshorn blurred at the edges; banners hung heavy; fires smoked more than they burned.

  Scouts drifted in and out of that gray. Some came back with nothing but wet boots and tired horses. “No tracks. No fires. No sign.” Always the same. Others didn’t come back at all. One of Graves’ bowmen found an abandoned mount near the southern rise—reins snapped, saddle twisted, no rider, no blood. Just a churned patch of mud as if the ground had swallowed the man whole.

  Kay slept badly. When he did sleep, he dreamed of reeds taller than men and pale shapes moving through them with no sound at all. He wondered, more than once, where Toby and the others were now. Dead in a ditch was the first treacherous thought. He shoved it away every time it came.

  They were better than that. Maxwell had made sure of it. He’d watched them in the yard for years—the way Toby took every lesson like a problem to be solved, the way Reece turned fear into focus, the way Zak hid his stubbornness under jokes until the work demanded it. They’d trained harder than any boys had a right to. Harder than most knights he’d known.

  And over them all, Maxwell—quiet and uncompromising, seeing angles in men and steel that others missed. His grandfather had knighted Maxwell in his youth, pulling him out of some nameless levy line and setting him in Highmarsh colors because he’d “seen something.” Kay had never heard more of the story. Maxwell didn’t talk about it, and his father had always smiled and said it wasn’t his tale to tell.

  Sid would know, if anyone did. Sid knew most of the old stories. But this wasn’t the time to chase them. Not when new ones were being written whether he wanted them or not. It was time to make history, not catalog it.

  On the third morning, the mist lay thick enough to blur the far end of the green. Men moved through it as shadows, armor dark with damp. Somewhere a horse snorted and shook its mane, sending drops flying. Grasshorn’s keep was earning its fealty. The hall was lit by a low fire and two sputtering torches wedged into iron brackets. Smoke braided itself along the rafters. The rough table in the center still bore the scars of Hamish’s years, knife marks, spilled wax, and the faint ring of an old wine stain.

  Kay was the last to step into the hall. Sire George and Sire Gordon were already there. Sire George stood near the hearth, broad back to the flames, arms folded. Sire Gordon sat, for once, on one of the short benches, hands joined loosely over his middle, expression as placid as a pond in winter.

  Sire Klod leaned against the far wall, boot heel hooked on a stool rung, arms crossed tight over the yellow boar on his chest. His face turned as Kay entered, annoyance plain as paint.

  “How gracious of you to join us at last,” he said. “We’d almost begun to think the south would have to wait for your leisure.”

  Sid came in at Kay’s shoulder and made a soft, disapproving sound. Kay raised a hand a fraction, more to himself than anyone else.

  “Thank you for your patience, Sire Klod,” he said evenly. “Ser Dylan just returned and needed to report. The matters with Ser Quinn and Ser Macro. They’ve agreed to ride with us.”

  Sire Klod’s brows rose. “Ride where?” He pushed away from the wall. “Or are we still deciding which way your scouts have lied?”

  “South,” Kay said. He stepped up to the table, palms resting lightly on the map. Drops of rain fell from his cloak hem and darkened the boards. “We’re marching into the marshes. Some of our scouts are going missing. The ones who come back bring nothing useful. No fires. No tracks. No sign of movement worth the ink. That tells me they’re either blind…” His hand shifted, fingertips tracing the inked line of the river. “…or they’re near enough that the elves are bothering to hide.”

  Sire Gordon leaned forward, peering at the map. “This is where the last ones went out,” he said, tapping the curl of river running south and east. “Here, and here. This run of bank’s where they stopped coming back.”

  “Which is exactly where we’re going,” Kay said.

  Sire Gordon’s eyes flicked up. “You realize that marks the worst ground we know.”

  “That’s the point,” Kay said quietly. “Whatever’s happening, it’s happening there. We keep skirting the edge, we’ll just keep losing men two and three at a time and learn nothing for the cost.”

  Sire George grunted in agreement. “Better to bring weight to a place that bites than keep poking it with fingers and wondering why you’re bleeding.”

  Kay nodded once. “We follow the river south. Scouts in greater numbers—not pairs, but squads, with archers attached. We build a small outpost when we find the first solid ground near where they’re vanishing from. Nothing grand—a timber palisade, ditch, a place to keep supplies and wounded, a point to fall back to if the marsh decides to eat us.”

  He looked to each lord in turn.

  “Lawrence is already sending a supply line after us. Wagons with wood, extra fodder, craftsmen, salted meat, pitch. They’ll move slower, under light escort, and peel off once we set the outpost. That way we’re not tied to Grasshorn’s good graces for bread.”

  Sire George nodded, gaze distant, calculating distances in his head. “A river at your back for water, scouts on the flanks, an anchored line.” He glanced to Sire Gordon. “I’ve seen worse plans.”

  Sire Gordon rubbed his beard. “A forward base makes sense. So long as we don’t over commit defenders to it and find ourselves besieged instead of mobile.”

  “We won’t,” Kay said. “It’s a foothold, not a fortress. If the elves mass, we count numbers—we either fall back in good order or—“ Kay clenched his fists, “—we make our stand and rid ourselves of them. But I won’t keep sitting in another man’s village while our people disappear in twos.”

  Sire Klod tapped his fingers on the table edge. “March into the very stretch of bog that’s already swallowing your scouts,” he said. “Brave. Or foolish. Hard to tell at this distance.”

  Sid shifted his weight, but Kay spoke before he could cut in.

  “You’ve been asking to move for two days, Sire Klod,” he said. “This is moving. Into the problem, not around it.”

  A slow, sharp smile tugged at Klod’s mouth. “Good. I was starting to think you enjoyed talking more than fighting.” He cracked his knuckles. “It will be a relief to put my sword into something other than air and patience.”

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  “Just make sure it’s an elf and not one of ours,” Sid said dryly.

  Klod snorted, but there was less acid in it than there had been two nights ago.

  Kay drew a steadying breath. “Ser Dylan has convinced Ser Macro and Ser Quinn to ride with us,” he repeated. “They know Sire Hudson’s south side better than any of us. They’ll keep their men under our line, not Sire Hudson’s. If the elves are pushing from his marches like the scout said, I’d rather have his local steel with us than sitting behind walls pretending nothing’s wrong.”

  “And if Sire Hudson finds out?” Sire Gordon asked.

  “Then he can write the King a letter complaining that his neighbors marched to save his fields,” Kay said. “I’ll attach mine explaining why. The writ covers us as long as we’re answering elven threat. And we are. Worse comes to worse, we call upon him with the writ and force him to join us or seek the King’s justice.”

  Sire George scratched at his jaw.

  “You want changes?” Kay asked. “Give me your suggestions. I want to hear if anything I haven’t thought of will get men killed.”

  George huffed. “Everything gets men killed. But an anchored line on a river, bows on the flanks, a base to fall back to… it’s as sound as any plan that involves walking into a swamp full of ghosts.”

  Sire Gordon tapped the spot he’d indicated before. “We should be careful about pushing too far past this elbow in the river on the first day,” he said. “If that’s where the scouts went quiet, we test it, not leap into it. I’d suggest short advances—send a spear-point of light cavalry ahead along the bank, with archers screened wide. Men who know how to look and run both.”

  Kay nodded. “Done.” He looked to Sire Klod. “Anything, besides wanting to hit something?”

  Klod shrugged. “You line the archers out too far, you risk losing them in the mist.” His eyes flicked toward the door, where the pale weather clung to the crack like fog from a bad dream. “Make sure they have horns and runners between them. I’m not dragging my men in to save bowmen who’ve wandered off the leash.”

  Kay filed that away. Irritating as he was, Sire Klod knew how fast a line could unravel in bad ground.

  “We’ll have enough pages as runners,” he said. “And horns.” He drew himself a fraction taller, not that it changed the room much, but it made his voice carry. “If there’s nothing else… inform your captains. We leave tomorrow at first light. Armor on, lines tight. Once we commit south, we won’t be stopping for every sore foot and loose strap.”

  Sire George gave a single, solid nod. Sire Gordon followed with one of his own. Sire Klod hesitated, then inclined his head—shallow, but unmistakable.

  “For the south, then,” Sire Gordon said quietly.

  “For the south,” Kay echoed.

  Sid’s hand brushed his elbow as they turned to go. “You’re learning to herd cats,” the old knight murmured. “Only these cats have banners.”

  Kay managed a thin smile. “I’d almost rather face the elves.”

  “Give it one more day,” Sid said. “You may get both.”

  Graves and Vincent were waiting for him near the half-dried horse trough when he stepped back out into the mist. The archer captain stood with his bow unstrung in his hands, hood up, rain beading on the worn leather. His men lingered in loose knots nearby, oiling strings, checking fletchings, quiet as men who understood what their craft meant. Vincent, by contrast, looked like a man carved out of scar tissue and old coin—mail half-hidden under a stained surcoat, sword worn in like a habit, eyes sharp and tired all at once.

  “My lord,” Graves said, with a small nod.

  “Tomorrow we march south along the river,” Kay said. “I want your bowmen fanned out ahead and to the flanks in four groups, Graves. Not all in one line. Two forward, watching the bends and the reeds. Two out on either flank, far enough to see more than the man in front of them, close enough that a horn will reach.”

  Graves’ eyes narrowed, not in refusal, but in calculation. “Four screens,” he said. “You expecting something to walk between them?”

  “I’m expecting elves to be where our scouts died,” Kay said. “And elves don’t like being seen. Your men will spot more than heavy infantry ever will. I want them to have room to notice, and room to run.”

  Vincent’s mouth twitched. “Run back to us, I assume.”

  “To you and Ser Sid,” Kay said, glancing at the older knight. “You’ll be working together. Highmarsh’s men-at-arms will be under Ser Sid, your company under you, sitting behind Graves’ forward screens. If elves appear—”

  “When,” Sid cut in quietly.

  “When,” Kay allowed. “When they appear, Graves’ people fall back in good order. You move up to meet whatever’s coming through. No heroics. No chasing shapes into the fog because they look insultingly delicate. You hold the line where we choose it, not where the marsh does.”

  Graves folded his arms, bow resting against one elbow. “My people don’t like running,” he said. “But they like dying less. We’ll fall back if we have cover to fall back to.”

  “You’ll have it,” Kay said. “We’ll have flags, horns, and runners between your screens and Vincent’s line. I won’t ask you to hold ground alone against something you can’t see the end of.”

  Vincent gave a small, humorless smile. “Good. I’d hate to charge blind because some lord thought bows were cheaper than men.”

  Sid snorted softly. “Bows are men,” he said. “They just stand further back.”

  Graves’ mouth twitched. “Nice to hear someone remembers that.”

  Kay looked between them, feeling, for a moment, the shape of the day ahead like a map in his bones.

  “Expect elves,” he said, simple as that. “We’ve all grown too used to ghosts and rumors. Tomorrow we plan for the worst and get to be pleasantly surprised if we’re wrong.”

  Vincent rolled one shoulder, joints popping. “I’ve never been pleasantly surprised in a swamp,” he said. “But there’s a first time for everything.”

  That’s what Zak once thought, Kay thought, not saying it aloud as he wasn’t among them, but maybe—just maybe—his friend’s jokes were finally getting to him. Kay put it down to the stress.

  Graves nodded once, already turning the instructions into placements in his head. “We’ll be ready at dawn. Archers fed, strings waxed, horns passed out.”

  “Good,” Kay said. “Ser Sid will ride with you, Vincent. I’ll be with the main line. Ser Dylan will be my right hand. If horns sound long and drawn out, that means pull back toward the river and prepare to form a wall. No one dies scattered in the reeds if we can help it.”

  By now the mist had thickened again, softening the outlines of men and tents. Fear and anticipation clung to the camp like smoke—none cared for the elves, and every man hungered to bring the war to their doorstep.

  Kay looked south, though all he could see was gray. Somewhere beyond that, Toby and the others moved through their own slice of it, hunting the same enemy from another angle. He didn’t know if their paths would cross in the marsh. He only knew that if the elves were indeed stirring, those paths were already bent toward the same fire.

  “Get some rest while you can,” he told the captains. “Tomorrow we walk into their shadow.”

  Vincent gave a half-salute with two fingers. Graves inclined his head. Sid fell into step beside Kay as he turned back toward Hamish’s hall.

  “Think we’re ready?” Sid asked.

  “No,” Kay said. “But I don’t think we’ll be truly ready.”

  Sid grunted. “That’s all war ever is.”

  Kay didn’t argue. He just pulled his cloak tighter against the thin rain and fixed the shape of the river in his mind. South, into the marsh. Into the place where men went missing and answers waited with knives. Time to stop waiting for the elves to come to them.