He strode to the main yard where the men in question were waiting, his stride like his face; purposeful, hard, mirthless. It was a foul business, there was no doubt, plenty enough to scourge the soul of even the noblest man, and Lythian’s had been whipped red and raw by all the lives he’d been required to take.

He hated it. He hated it as much as he hated the men who made him do it, but mostly he had come to hate himself. He remembered an executioner from his youth, a cold-eyed monster who handled the killings in the town of Mistvale where he’d grown up. I am become that man, he thought, as he took the blade from Sir Adam Thorley. A cold-eyed monster, soulless and uncaring.

The blade Sir Adam gave him was an executioner’s sword, a long plain blade of common godsteel to ensure a clean true strike. Lythian would not anoint the Sword of Varinar in the blood of these deserters. Several hundred men were gathered in the square and on the ramparts around the River Gate, standing in the rain or beneath the awnings of their tents. Shadows and scowls, Lythian thought. In the dark of the afternoon he could not make out one man from another. They stood about, still and silent. The only sound was the lash of the rain, washing across the cobbles, and muted whimpers of the doomed men sobbing in their gags.

All six were lined up on their knees before him, soaked to the bone, their hands tied behind them. Each had a bag over his head and a gag in his mouth to prevent him from making too much noise. Lythian gestured to the first man and his bag and gag were removed. The man blinked into the sudden light, taking a deep breath. His eyes were red from tears, and he was young, no older than twenty. “Any last words?” the First Blade asked him. “Speak them now, and go in peace.”

The young soldier blubbered something about not wanting to die, how he loved his mother, how he was a good man and only wanted to go home and fight for his family. There was nothing happening here, he said. They were all just waiting to die anyway, and for what? Couldn’t he return to his loved ones instead? Lythian closed his heart to him as he swung the blade, detaching his head from his shoulders. It bobbled into a depression between a crossroad of cobbles. Blood drained out, spreading through the grooves.

Lythian went to the next man. “Remove the hood.” He stared down, dead-eyed, as he asked him for his last words and saw the man’s mouth move in reply, saw his face twist and contort in fear and desperation. But he didn’t hear the words. He did not see the face. He heard only muffled noise and perceived only a blurred facade. Close your heart, he told himself. You do not have a choice. He swung the blade.

And down the line he went. One man and then another and then another had their bags and gags and heads removed, with a few unheard words spoken in between. There was a strong chance there were some decent men among them. Not every deserter was craven as not every knight was courageous, but Lythian was only a conduit for Amron’s law. His, he thought. Not mine. His orders, his kingdom, his rule…his blade.

At last he came to Sir Fitz Colloway. “Remove the bag and gag.” It was done. The skinny young knight let out a great breath of anguish and began pleading at once for his life.

“My lord…you mustn’t! You mustn’t…please…”

Lythian looked at him blankly. “Any last words? Speak them now, and go in peace.”

“My lord, no! NO! I have command of four hundred men here…they count on me, if you do this, they’ll…”

Lythian swung the blade in a swift cut and Sir Fitz Colloway went bleating into the afterlife. The First Blade turned a half circle to face Sir Adam Thorley. “Your blade.” He handed it back, dripping blood to the wet grey stone. “Have them buried outside. If there are men here who knew them, permit them to go and speak the rites and remember them as they will. Tell me when it’s happening. I would like to be there to pay my respects.”

Sir Adam took back the blade. “As you command, my lord.”

Lythian returned to his private tent, set aside from the rest toward the edge of the square, the tent Amron had given him, like the rule of this ruin and the curse of the blade. He took the Sword of Varinar off his hip at once, and stored it in a chest set as far from him as possible. Separation was important, he had learned, and yet he must always keep it in sight to guard it. Sir Ralf followed him in. “Would you like me to summon the other lords?” the old man asked.

Lythian wanted no such thing. He wanted to sit and stew in silence, but he could not. “Yes. Thank you, Ralf.”

They did not take long to come. Lord Tanyar, Lord Barrow, Lord Warton, the old castellan of the Spear. Sir Storos Pentar came as well, and Sir Nathaniel Oloran. Both had worked hard on Lythian’s scheme to catch and tame a dragon, but what had come of that? Nothing. Just mockery. With the rains refusing to ease, Lythian had finally brought that project to a close, admitting his folly and failure.

Lord Barrow coughed violently as he sat on a stone block. “That cough isn’t getting any better,” Sir Storos observed.

“Thank you…for noticing,” Barrow said between hacks. The cough was almost as bad as Lord Warton’s perpetual blight and had been growing worse each day. “It’s these rains. And the cold. It’ll improve once the weather clears.”

Then it’ll never improve, Lythian thought. He could not remember a time when it wasn’t raining. He could not remember seeing a shred of blue in the sky, or the sound of silence. The wash of rain was constant. It splashed against the stone of the city and pattered incessantly on the roof of his tent, sometimes loud, sometimes softer, but never stopping for good. No doubt it was one reason for all these desertions, escaping these insufferable rains.

He looked over the men. “Thank you for coming,” he said in an empty voice. “Drink wine if you want. And there’s some ale.” He waved at a sideboard. “I don’t mean to keep you long.” A few of them partook. Cloaks were hung on pegs and shaken free of the rain, and Sir Nathaniel went to warm his hands against a brazier. Once the men had settled, Lythian spoke. “Six more dead,” he said. Six more scars on my soul, to add to all the rest. “And over forty deserted. How much longer must we suffer this?”

Sir Storos drank his wine. “Permission to speak frankly, my lord.”

Lythian gave a lazy flick of the hand. “Go.”

“I fear there’s nothing more we can do that we haven’t already tried. We’ve closed what breaches we can and have archers on the walls. Men still go. They’re like rats and roaches, and they find a way. And forgive me, Lord Barrow, but your men aren’t doing much to stop them.”

Barrow harrumphed. It was a ridiculous sound coming from him. He wasn’t big enough to carry it off, or old enough, or important enough. “I take umbrage with that, Sir Storos.”

“I thought you might.”

“My men are not helping these deserters.” He looked over at Lythian. “My lord, I tell you they’re not.”

Lythian didn’t care. His dull expression said as much. “You’re not to blame, Lord Barrow. But if your men are caught aiding anyone leaving, they’ll have to face the blade as well. Have that spread among your captains. Any guard turning a blind eye to desertion is as bad as a deserter himself.”

Lord Rodmond cleared his throat. “My lord. Is that not too much? Oft as not the deserting parties outnumber the guards. If they try to stop them, it will only come to blood. And these are friends of theirs, kinsmen.”

Taynars, Lythian thought. He was surrounded by them, cursed by them. They called him dragonlover and sympathiser and traitor. Once, a man had stepped right up in front of him and spat into his face. “For the hanged,” he’d said. Lythian might have hanged him as well, but instead he’d only let Sir Oswin put his fist through his face, shattering his jaw. Another man had dared insult Talasha in his hearing, and he’d suffered the same fate…by Lythian’s own hand. Now they only muttered behind his back, scowling as he passed.

Kindrick was to blame. The weaselly little lord had taken two hundred men and run when Lythian discovered his part in the butchery at the prisoner camp. He’d have taken ten times that if he had the time, Lythian knew, and perhaps he was even planning more than that. A coup. Mutiny. The rule of this rotting ruin. A part of Lythian would happily have let him have it, but the weasel had slipped away before he could collar him.

After that, the desertions had come thick and fast. Forty here, fifty there, never less than several dozen each night, and some were even leaving by day. By now a thousand must have abandoned him, all fleeing back home to their lands across the Ironmoors. And in a week, what then? How about a month? Would he even have an army left when Amron returned? Would it even matter if he did?

Lythian had cause to doubt it. He had perhaps eight thousand men left here, hungry, cold, wet, and weakening. And they were never the best. What good would they do in any battle? Numbers, he thought. That’s all they’d be. Bodies to make up the numbers.

Rodmond Taynar spoke again. “My lord. I would ask you not to make this decree. Killing deserters is one thing, but if a man only turns a blind eye, then…”

“Fine. We’ll stick to the current ruling. But I want more archers on the walls who’ll be happy to fire when they see a man running. In the dark they won’t know who it is, and that should make it easier.” He looked over. “Nathaniel. See to it.”

Nathaniel Oloran nodded. “As you command, my lord.”

Not a word of complaint, as ever, Lythian noted. The tar of being a known traitor had forged the man into a very dutiful knight. It was curious how things went sometimes.

“My lord,” said Lord Rodmond. He had a frown on his face, and clearly disagreed with the order. “I’m not certain that firing into the backs of fleeing men is honourable.”

“Deserting is not honourable.”

“No. But this is not common desertion. This war is unprecedented, and what that soldier said, the first one…about us doing nothing here…”

“We’re here by the command of the king, Lord Taynar.”

“Yes. And of course we should obey. But I wonder if a certain amount of desertion should be considered permissible.”

“Permiss…” Lord Warton started, incredulous, before he was consumed by a bout of coughing.

“Yes, my lord,” Rodmond said. “We are only cutting off our nose to spite our face. These men can still do some good to protect the people, even if it is their own. Isn’t that the cause we’re all fighting for, in the end? Our own survival.”

Lythian sighed. It was something he might have once said himself, a well-meaning thought and yet a naive one all the same. “We cannot have one rule for one man, and a different one for another. We have set the precedent now, Rodmond. If we decide that men can freely leave, how many do you imagine will want to stay?”

The young lord frowned in troubled thought. “I would say the Brockenhurst men will stay, my lord. This is their city, their land.”

“And the rest? Your own men, Rodmond? Yours, Lord Barrow? How many will choose to stay in this wet and rotting ruin if given the chance to return to their wives and children, their mothers and sisters? I tell you few. Duty and honour only go so far when you’re hungry and cold and sitting idle, fearing for your loved ones.”

Lord Barrow gave that a grave nod. “I fear Lord Lythian has the right of this. If we open the gates, thousands will go. That can’t be done, Lord Taynar. Not here. Not anywhere. It’ll lead to chaos across the north.”

“No…I don’t mean to open the gates. I just…firing at fleeing men. Like Sir Fitz. There is something about it that sits poorly with me, is all.”

There is much about this that sits poorly with me, Lythian thought. “You’re still young, Rodmond,” he only said. “You’ll get used to it.” He didn’t mean that to sound dismissive, though it probably did. He rested his forearms on the table, thinking. “I want a closer eye kept on the Rosetree men,” he commanded. “Not all will have taken kindly to Sir Fitz’s death.”

That would be for Lords Taynar and Barrow to contend with. Barrow nodded and coughed into a dirty square of cloth. The gouts of blood did not look healthy. “As you say, my lord. I’ll have my men looking for…for troublemakers…among them…”