The second raider may not have been an amateur, but Riley was banking on the fact that he didn’t want to die that day. She was right.

  It didn’t take long for his bravado to collapse in on itself as his eyes darted toward the door where his companion had vanished. His breathing came fast and shallow, the cords in his neck standing out as panic overtook whatever resolve he had walked in with.

  “House Corvessa,” he blurted. “We work for House Corvessa.”

  “Corvessa,” Riley repeated silently to herself so that it would etch into her brain.

  “What do they want from us?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Riley wasn’t going to accept feigned ignorance.

  She tilted her head slightly, studying him the way one might assess a faulty tool, not angry, not impatient, just measuring where pressure would be effective.

  “You don’t know why,” she said evenly. “Fine. Then we’ll start with what you do know.”

  The raider swallowed.

  “Who gave the order?”

  “Our leader,” he said quickly. “He gives the word, we move. That’s it.”

  “Who is your leader?”

  “Ivan,” he replied. “He’s new to our gang. Face is disfigured. Drinks too much. Likes his ale and his women.” He shrugged. “That’s all I know.”

  “Who gave Ivan his orders?”

  The raider hesitated. His throat worked as he swallowed again, afraid that the truth may not be enough of an answer for Riley.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “That’s not our level. Leaders get their orders privately from representatives of the House. Then they rally their gangs. They know what the target is and where to find it. We don’t. When we get there, we’re told what we’re there to do.”

  “How many gangs are there?”

  He blinked at the question.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Corvessa is one of the richest houses. They own most of the commercial ore mines in the Lastlands. Still greedy though.” He shifted uncomfortably. “So yeah. Probably a lot of gangs doing their dirty work.”

  “So,” Riley said calmly, “someone who works for House Corvessa tells your leader who to attack, and you follow through. Blindly.”

  That tracked. They were the illegitimate arm, everything was compartmentalized to make it difficult to tie orders back to any individual. Or back to Corvessa itself.

  “Yes,” he said. “Sometimes they tell us exactly where to hit because their spies scouted an opportunity. Other times, we just ride and see what we can find.”

  “So did you just find us,” Riley asked, “or were you told to come here?”

  “When Ivan came to get me he said we had a job and we were leaving immediately. That usually means there’s a lead on an opportunity and we need to move fast.”

  “And what opportunity did they see here?”

  “We were told to take your ore,” he said. “As much as we could carry.”

  “And kill my men?”

  He shook his head. “No. We do that to make the getaway easier.”

  The casualness of the reply was disturbing, and telling. This wasn’t bravado. It was habit. He’d been doing this long enough that killing barely registered as a decision anymore.

  “You killed seventeen of my men,” Riley said.

  His eyes dropped. Not in shame, just calculation. Drawing attention to himself had already gone badly for his companion. He’d seen how easily Riley had ordered a man executed. He didn’t want to trigger her any more than he probably already had.

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

  “How many men were in your gang?” she pressed.

  “Twenty,” he said after a moment. “I think… It changes. Some drink too much the night before to be of any use on a raid so they get left behind. Some guys just don’t make it back…”

  Riley considered the numbers. That meant Ivan, and seventeen others, were still out there. With her ore. Free to raid the next unsuspecting settlement.

  “So,” Riley said, “are they coming back for you? Or are you just one of the ones who doesn’t make it back?”

  He shook his head slowly, eyes still downcast. He knew the answer. To them, he was expendable. A body. A pair of hands.

  And now, so was he to her.

  Riley turned to Valrik.

  “Bring him to the mine,” she said. “Unbind his arms and legs, but chain him to the ground. Give him enough slack to work.” Her voice didn’t rise. “He wanted what we’re pulling from the earth. Now he can help pull it.”

  She looked back at the raider, her expression flat and unreadable.

  “You will work to repay what was stolen,” she said. “As for my men you hurt, retribution will come later. Try to escape, and there will be nothing left of you. I promise.”

  The raider nodded frantically. “I’ll work,” he said. “I swear.”

  Riley stepped aside as Valrik issued orders. A soldier seized the raider and dragged him toward the mine entrance.

  She watched them go, jaw tight.

  There would be more to extract from him later. And she still had to deal with the other raider, the one she had “executed”.

  “Keep the other raider out of sight,” Riley said quietly to Valrik. “I don’t want Number Two to know Number One is still alive.” She paused. “I’ll decide what to do with him later.”

  As the raider was hauled away, Riley remained still, her thoughts already moving past him, past the raid, past the mine, toward the hands that never dirtied themselves.

  ***

  Riley made her way to the hospital. She needed to check on her soldiers and see firsthand what she was dealing with, to understand the cost beyond numbers and reports.

  She stopped near the entrance and watched the steady flow of injured men being brought inside. Some were walking under their own power. Others weren’t.

  Bandages. Blood. Shocked faces trying to stay brave.

  The HUD had warned her what to expect. It had given her counts, alerts, severity markers. But it hadn’t prepared her for recognition, for seeing names turn into bodies, and decisions turn into consequences.

  This wasn’t abstract or distant. It pressed in on her, immediate and unavoidable, settling into her chest with the weight of responsibility she couldn’t delegate or deny.

  As she watched the door, Thorne rushed in. He was less injured, but somehow more worn. Dirt streaked his clothes. Sweat darkened the fabric at his collar. A rope burn was etched into the shoulder of his tunic, fresh and angry-looking. His hands were stained dark, the color of dried blood.

  For a brief, unhelpful second, her mind supplied a very different image of him. Bare skin. Confusion. Her blanket tangled around his waist.

  She shut the thought down immediately.

  “Where have you been, hero?” Riley asked. The words came out sharper than she intended, half sarcasm, half irritation, half relief she hadn’t expected to feel.

  “I’m sorry, Riley,” he said quickly. “I saw Valrik. He told me what happened.”

  Riley raised her eyebrows, waiting for an explanation.

  “I heard a monster close by and left in the middle of the night,” Thorne continued. “Tracked it deep into the forest. On my way back this morning, I passed the foraging spot to check on the men. I saw one of them being carried back injured. I ran back as fast as I could.”

  Hunting.

  So that was what he had been doing on those nights he’d vanished into the trees without explanation.

  The realization landed quietly, and uncomfortably. Back then, she’d assumed instinct, restlessness, maybe even disobedience were the cause of her trusty sidekick leaving her alone. Now it reframed everything. He hadn’t been wandering. He’d been working.

  “I’m sorry,” he said again, earnest and plainly uncomfortable under her scrutiny.

  “It’s alright,” Riley said after a moment. “You were doing your job.”

  The words tasted bitter.

  I wasn’t doing mine.

  She didn’t say it aloud. She had already admitted as much to Valrik, and she wasn’t ready to hear it said out loud again. That would only make it harder to shake the blame already taking root. Plus, she felt strange baring her deepest regrets to the man who had once been her dog.

  “How did it go?” she asked instead. “You look a little banged up.”

  “It was manageable,” Thorne said. “Clean enough. The pike I took from the infantry helped. A sword and shield would have made it easier.”

  “We’ll work on that,” she replied automatically.

  “I know,” he reassured her.

  The silence that followed was heavy with all the unspoken conversations they had yet to have. Riley turned her head as if needing to check on something happening around them.

  “I’ll need to go back and retrieve the carcass,” he added. “I left it at the foraging spot. The men could use the meat. But that can wait. What do you need from me right now?”

  There it was again, that strange shift. Not her dog waiting for direction. But a soldier. A hero, to be exact. Waiting for orders.

  “Do a perimeter check,” Riley said. “Then come back. I’ll need your help collecting resources to heal the men.”

  Thorne bowed his head in acceptance and turned to leave, moving with purpose. He exited as quickly as he’d entered, leaving behind a silence that felt heavier than it should have.

  Riley turned her attention back to the hospital.

  There were men laid out everywhere.

  That sight cemented what she had already known but had hoped she was wrong about.

  Level one troops broke easily.