Blood and Honor

Mordan anticipated his question. “Yes, Grasht, we will be riding through the night.” A loud groan issued from the troops. “There have been reports of Valenar activity in the area, and if they’re behind this the Captain needs to know right away.” He paused, struck by a sudden thought.

“Brager,” he said, “did you ever sleep in the saddle back at the Ministry?”

Brager shook his head. “No, Lieutenant,” he replied. “Endurance testing was done with sandbags.”

Cardel muttered something, and Grasht stifled a chuckle.

“Well, now’s your chance to learn,” Mordan said. “Get sleep whenever you can. You’ll need it. Just take care you don’t roll over.”

As the rest of the troop laughed, Mordan signaled them to move out.

The Talenta Plains stretched away to a curtain of heat haze. Mordan signaled the squad to halt, took off his broad-brimmed hat, and wiped the sweat from his eyes. Squinting in the harsh light, he scanned the horizon.

“Kalla!” he called, pulling out his flask. “Are you sure we’re on the right trail?”

The trooper slid from her horse, trotted a little way in front of the line, and dropped to a crouch. She stared at the ground for a few seconds, then looked up.

“They’ve been this way,” she said. “Here’s one hoofprint split almost in half, and this other one looks like a bone-end where the hoof must have come off. If they were living horses, they wouldn’t still be moving.”

Mordan wiped his mouth and stowed his flask again. “Garn, where’s their next stop?”

The dwarf fished the map out of a saddlebag. “They were supposed to head east another fifty miles or so, to a rise with small rock spire on the top. Then back north till they hit the lightning rail, and west back to the fort.”

Mordan nodded and turned back to Kalla. “Were they headed the right way?”

The shifter nodded, raising one arm to indicate where the tracks led.

“Why don’t we just say the Valenar got them and go home?” grumbled the half-orc.

“You know why,” said Mordan. “There’s valuable military property to be recovered.” The skeleton troopers of Fort Bones were equipped with masterwork armor.

Grasht snorted. “The Valenar got their armor. We all know it.”

Behind him, Cardel snickered. “Maybe they did, maybe they didn’t,” he said. “You may be too rich to care, but I could use the bounty. Or could it be you’re afraid of running into the Valenar yourself?”

Grasht spat something in his own language and half-drew his massive sword. Mordan rode between the two as fast as his lurching undead mount would move.

“That’s enough!” His voice was more tired than angry. “Grasht, move up to the head of the column. Cardel, you’re the back. Move out!”

The sun was low in the sky when a batlike silhouette appeared above the horizon, drawing closer through the diminishing heat-haze. Within a few minutes, the reddish-brown glidewing was circling above the patrol. His face hidden behind a snarling beast-mask of painted wood, the rider gestured back the way he had come and made a chopping gesture across his own throat, indicating death—or the dead. Mordan waved an acknowledgment, and the column of riders changed their course to follow the flying scout.

The splintered bones of the lost patrol stood out white in the gathering dusk. Grasht kicked at half a skull and spat on the ground.

“Told you!” he said. “The Valenar aren’t going to leave masterwork armor lying around. This is pointless!”

Mordan scanned the wreckage. “Not entirely,” he said. “Now we know what happened to them.”

Kalla looked up from the edge of the debris. “Valenar horses, for sure,” she said. “See how long the strides are? They came in from that way, surrounded the patrol. Seven of them. Five elves for sure. The other two didn’t dismount so I can’t tell. Looks like a couple were wounded, but not badly. They headed back over there.” She pointed to a low ridge on the horizon. “Their hoofprints are a little deeper going away, like they were carrying something.”

“There goes the armor,” muttered Cardel. Grasht shot him an I-told-you-so look. Mordan nodded his thanks to Kalla and walked over to where Dern was tossing scraps of dried meat to his glidewing.

The troopers began gathering up the bones without waiting for an order. They were all familiar with the task. Cardel hummed as he worked—a patriotic Karrnathi song about the glory of the dead who rose again to serve their country. The others ignored him.

Grasht, as usual, was complaining. If Fort Bones needed more material for its walls, he muttered to himself, he’d be happy to kill a bunch of recruits and use their bones instead. Then they wouldn’t have to come all the way out here, and he’d have something to eat into the bargain. No one had ever actually seen him eat a human, but he liked to play the savage half-orc.

His grumbling was cut short by a yelp of pain as an arrow caught him in the shoulder. Mordan whirled to see seven Valenar raiders bearing down on them. He cursed Dern for not having spotted them and drew his longsword.