Grasshorn had never seen so many banners.

  Sunshine lay clean on the road, turning the dust to a pale haze around the marching column. Highmarsh’s white falcon led the line, flanked by the black stag of Shimmerfield, the green-and-gold tree of Timberlake, and the yellow boar of Yellowhill. Behind them came men in layered ranks—knights in mail and plate, men-at-arms with spears and shields, the leaner shapes of Vincent’s mercenaries and the bowmen under Graves. Steel caught the light in hard glints, like the river when it ran low.

  Kay rode at the front with the other lords, cloak pinned, helm hanging from his saddle horn. When they crested the last rise before Grasshorn, he saw the village as he’d always known it—low stone walls, thatched roofs, the strip of green where the children would play at war with wooden swords and sticks. Today, there were no children. Only faces at doorways, eyes wide as the army flowed past.

  The keep sat west—slightly down the road, overlooking the town. Its first two stories were stone, thick and gray, but the third was timber-built, jutting out in an overhang supported by stout brackets. A ring of wooden palisades crowned the top floor, and two bowmen stood within them, bows unstrung but ready, their eyes sharp on the fields beyond. The keep watched over Grasshorn like an older brother—weathered, but vigilant, and unwilling to blink. No curtain wall enclosed it; instead, a deep ditch circled the base, fed by a narrow stream. A wooden bridge spanned it, the chains and winch ready to draw the span up should trouble come from the west or south.

  The village bell clanged once, twice. By the time they reached the green, Ser Hamish was there.

  The old knight had not bothered with a helm. His hair, what remained of it, lay thin and white against his skull. His beard had gone entirely to frost. The surcoat over his mail hung a little loose now, the weight having slipped from his shoulders with the passing years. But his back was straight as he stepped forward, sword belted at his side.

  He dropped to one knee in the churned dust.

  “My lord,” he said, voice rough with age and something like shame. “I beg your forgiveness. In my youth I would have ridden at your side. Now…” He flexed the fingers of his sword-hand, the knuckles swollen and stiff. “The hand shakes when it should not.”

  For a heartbeat, Kay saw himself as he had been—the boy trailing behind his father, watching men like this with awe. Then the picture shifted, and he saw what Hamish must see now: not Sire Ray’s son at his heel, but the young lord astride the horse, the one people bowed to.

  He swung down from the saddle before Sid or Dylan could move, boots hitting the earth with a soft thud. The murmur behind him paused as he crossed the space between them.

  “At ease, Ser Hamish,” he said quietly.

  The old knight hesitated, then lifted his head. His eyes were still clear—gray as river stone, ringed with lines.

  When did I get taller? Kay thought.

  He set a hand on Hamish’s shoulder. The bone beneath the mail felt thinner than he remembered.

  “There is nothing to forgive,” Kay said. “You held this place when my father was a boy. You taught half the south what a shield-wall looks like. You’ve earned the right to stand guard instead of riding into the marshes.”

  Hamish’s throat worked. “Someone should be with you, my lord. Sire Hudson…” He caught himself. “No knowing what that man is up to.”

  “Exactly,” Kay said. “That’s why I need you here. Watch the road. Watch the people. If anything moves out of Amberwood that shouldn’t, you send riders until their horses drop.”

  A hint of the old fierceness sparked in Hamish’s face. He straightened as far as his joints allowed. “You’ll have word before the dust settles, my lord.”

  Kay squeezed his shoulder once, then stepped back. “Look after the land while we’re gone.”

  Hamish bowed his head. “With my life.”

  Kay mounted again. As the column rolled forward, he glanced back once. Hamish stood alone on the green, hand raised in a soldier’s farewell, the village gathered behind him like a wall.

  The border with Amberwood was a stone no one had bothered to carve prettier.

  A waist-high marker stood where the road narrowed between two low hills—one face weather-rough with the falcon etched in faint lines, the other bearing a rearing stag that time and wind had half-erased. Some long-ago clerk’s attempt to chisel “CROWN LINE” along the top had worn down to a suggestion.

  Kay reined in just before it. For a moment, he let the horse stand, feeling the weight of the army behind him—men, horses, supplies, a hundred and twenty bowstrings waiting under Graves’ eye, Vincent’s hard-eyed sellswords already counting risks and coin in their heads.

  “We cross as allies,” Sire Gordon said quietly at his side. “Thieves know no honor.”

  “I know,” Kay said.

  He touched his heels to his horse’s flanks and led them over.

  Amberwood’s land looked little different on this side—the same low, rolling fields, hedged lanes, scattered copses of trees. But the shape of the farmsteads was wrong in his eyes; the rooflines, the way the ditches ran. Like looking at a familiar face after a broken nose.

  By late afternoon, the town, Direville, came into view. It sat snug against a low hill, walls of timber and raised earth encircling a tight cluster of roofs. Behind it, on the slope, a small keep rose—squat and practical, a single thick wall wrapped around it like a clenched fist. Barrels and water-carts stood lined along the inside of the town’s parapet; he could see men moving there, spears propped against the crenels. From this distance, the place looked ready for a fight it didn’t want.

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  “They’ve heard something,” Sire Klod muttered. “Or they’re in the habit of being afraid.”

  Sire George shaded his eyes with one hand. “Garrison looks full. No smoke of burning, though. No refugees flowing in from the south.”

  Kay slowed the column well out of bowshot and raised his hand. Horns sounded down the line, breaking the march into ordered stillness. Men passed the signal: halt, dress ranks, stand easy.

  “White flag,” Kay said.

  A page trotted up with the folded banner. Dylan took it, unfurled the pale cloth and rode forward with Kay, the fabric snapping in the light breeze. Sires Gordon, George, and Klod followed, each with a pair of knights at their back. Vincent and Graves held their men where they were, muttering curses, restless under the sun.

  They waited. Some of them with patience. Some of them, namely Sire Klod, without.

  The town didn’t open its gate. After a time, shapes moved on the parapet—men looking down, pointing, conferring. A bell tolled twice somewhere inside, then fell still. The breeze tugged at Kay’s cloak; the horse shifted under him, hoof scraping the dirt.

  Twenty minutes, maybe thirty. Long enough for impatience to thicken the air.

  “Are they counting our helms one by one?” Klod said at last. “If Sire Hudson’s taught his people to think this slow, it’s a wonder the elves haven’t eaten him already.”

  “Give them their time,” Sire Gordon said. “If I saw four fiefs on my doorstep unannounced, I’d be gut-checking my oaths too.”

  Kay said nothing. He kept his eyes on the gate, resisting the urge to fidget with his reins. This was the part no one sang about—the waiting, the measuring, the not knowing whether the messenger had lied or the world had shifted under you since you’d heard him.

  At last, the gate creaked inward.

  Two knights rode out at a careful pace, a squire trotting between them with his own white banner held high. The men wore Sire Hudson’s colors—red and black surcoats with a yellow rearing stag stitched at the breast, mail bright and well-kept. Both were solidly middle-aged; one had a streak of white through his hair and an old dent in his left pauldron, the other carried the relaxed alertness of a man who’d seen too many fairs and too many skirmishes and preferred neither.

  They halted at a respectable distance.

  “My lords,” the one with the dented pauldron said, helm tucked under his arm. “I am Ser Macro, vassal to Sire Hudson of Amberwood. This is Ser Quinn. Sorry to keep you waiting, but let’s get straight to the point. You’ve come to get revenge?”

  “No,” Kay said, more sharply than he had wanted. He took a breath and pushed down the rising thoughts—the actions of Hudson that had led to his father’s death—tempting his anger. “I am Sire Kay of Highmarsh.” He gestured to either side. “Sire George of Timberlake. Sire Klod of Yellowhill. Sire Gordon of Shimmerfield. And under us, captains Vincent and Graves with their companies.”

  Ser Quinn’s brows rose. “An honor, my lords. An unexpected one so soon.”

  Macro’s gaze moved over the banners behind them, then back. “We would surrender, but Sire Hudson would have our heads. And I’d rather go out in honor.”

  “We’re not here to seek revenge or to attack,” Kay said.

  A flicker of tension twitched around Quinn’s mouth. “Then we must ask why four fiefs march their strength into Amberwood with mercenaries at their side. Has… the King grown impatient with Sire Hudson?”

  Kay frowned. “No. We’re here in answer to an attack.”

  Silence grew for a heartbeat, not quite disbelief, not yet relief.

  “From the elves,” Kay said. “We received word yesterday. Farms in Amberwood taken, riders cut down, border pushed hard from the south. The writ from King’s gives us leave to call banners and move against elven incursions along the southern marches. We’re here to help hold your lord’s line.”

  Macro and Quinn exchanged a look. They didn’t look like men caught in a lie; they had the look of men who’d just had their world rearranged.

  “We’ve had no such word,” Quinn said slowly. “No fires, no smoke. No messengers from the border.”

  Sire Klod’s horse stamped, picking up the edge in its rider. “No word?” he repeated. “The south burns and you don’t hear a whisper?”

  Macro’s jaw tightened. “The south does not burn, my lord. Our patrols report the usual—stray raiders, one hamlet with a fever, nothing more. If there had been an elven push, we would have ridden, and you would not find us behind walls.”

  “And no messenger came from you to Highmarsh?” Kay pressed.

  Macro shook his head. “None, my lord.”

  Sire Klod turned his horse, not fully, but enough that his words were pointed where they needed to go. “Then whose tale are we chasing, Sire Kay?”

  Dylan’s hand tightened on his reins. Sid shifted in the saddle, the movement small but carrying. The mercenary captains behind them watched with fox-bright eyes, weighing more than coin now.

  Kay kept his voice level. “We had a rider from the south,” he said. “Highmarsh’s scouts brought him in half-dead, with word that Amberwood was under heavy attack. Lawrence sent pages through the night. By dawn we marched. Why, exactly, would I drag four fiefs and two companies into Sire Hudson’s land on a lie?”

  “To take it,” Sire Klod said bluntly. “You’re young. Young men think wars can be finished by cleverness and one good push. You get us all inside the wolf’s den, you cry ‘elves’ when it’s really hunger for another man’s fields.”

  Sire George snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous, Sire Klod. If the boy wanted to carve himself a bigger chair, it wouldn’t be while the elves pulled it away from underneath.”

  Sire Gordon’s voice was mild, but the iron sat under it. “And I’ve known Sire Kay since he was small enough to trip over his father’s boots. His honor’s sharper than most men’s swords. If this smells like anything, it smells like Sire Hudson.”

  Macro shifted in his saddle, visibly uncomfortable being the center of that particular triangle. “My lords, with respect—”

  “Do you have proof?” Sire Klod cut in, ignoring him. “Any of you? You say it smells like Sire Hudson. That’s wind, not warrant. Proof is required. The only hard thing I can see is that your man lied to you, or you to us.”

  Kay felt heat rise under his ribs, not the wild flash of anger that used to own him, but a deeper, steadier burn. He thought of the writ, the King’s seal, and of his father’s voice telling him what it meant to swear something in public.

  He let the anger sit where it was and spoke past it.

  “If I wanted more land—moreover, if I wanted revenge,” he said, meeting Sire Klod’s eye, “I wouldn’t invite you to help me take it. I’d wait until we crushed the elves then chew on what’s left over. I have enough trouble keeping my own people fed and safe.”

  Sire Klod held his gaze for a long moment, jaw working.

  Kay turned back to Macro and Quinn.