Jonik ignored him. Something didn’t feel right. He walked up to the mastiff, scratching the big dog beneath the chin. “Not much of a guard dog are you, boy?” He looked over at the inn, frowning. He could hear voices in there, the clutter of cups, drunken chatter, laughing. The others dismounted their steeds, tying them to a post, and stepped over to join him.

“Do you know this dog, Harden?”

The old knight nodded. “I do.” He reached down and stroked his head with a gloved hand. The dog cowered at his touch.

“Someone’s been mistreating him,” Jonik said.

“Not Burt and Betty. They love this dog.”

“And those horses?”

Gerrin looked over. A few spots of rain were starting to fall, pattering gently against their cloaks. “They always kept a couple of them for getting about. Those two haven’t been fed in a while, though.”

Harden stepped over from the inn. He’d been peeking through the frosted window, getting a look inside. “There are eight men in there. All at one big table. Didn’t see anyone else.”

“No one behind the bar?”

“Not that I saw.”

Jonik stepped toward the door to the inn, moving beneath the covered awning. A pair of chains rattled above him, chains that would once have borne the inn’s swinging sign, which now lay aside in the mud, its painted image of a grumpy old man with an onion in his mouth cracked and broken. There were flower pots in little alcoves to either side of the door. Those too had been smashed, the flowers scattered and dead.

Jonik was sensing the worst. He raised a fist and rapped hard at the door.

The voices inside hushed. A short pause, and then he heard the sound of boots stamping over, a heavy thud of steel on wood. The door was unbolted, one and two and three of them, then opened up, a wash of firelight pouring out, the scent of smoke and spices, piss and rum and mead and roasted meat. A man in a coat of godsteel ringmail stood before him, framed by the glow, a large man with a large beard, a thick black tangle of iron wire sprouting from his cheeks and chin. He wore steel about his legs as well, and a half helm on his head in the likeness of a stag, with a pair of antlers twisting off to left and right. There was a scratch beneath his right eye, and his nose was hardly recognisable as a nose anymore, a great lumpen thing that had probably been broken a dozen times before.

He gave Jonik an appraising look, then did the same to Gerrin and Harden, standing behind in cloaks and cowls. The rain was falling harder.

“What do you want?” the big man grunted. “Got no food here for you, no beds to sleep in neither. If you’re looking for ale, you can piss off. That’s ours, and running low.”

“We’re not looking for ale,” Jonik said.

“What then?”

“Information.”

The man gave Jonik another long look, all the way up and down. “The inn is full, boy,” he said. “Now off my porch if you know what’s good for you.” He went to slam the door.

Jonik slid his foot forward, stopping him. “This isn’t your porch. Where are Burt and Betty?”

The man sneered down at Jonik’s foot. “Who?”

“They’re the proprietors of this inn,” Gerrin said, behind. “Old friends of mine.” He gripped the handle of his blade. “Where are they?”

“I’m damned if I know.”

He’s lying, Jonik thought. These men are deserters, or worse. He looked through the gap, saw another seven of them sitting about a pair of tables dragged together, all in bits of armour and mail, boiled leather and wool. There were jugs and flagons, pewter cups scattered about, some overturned, ale stains and wine stains and rum stains on the wood. He saw trenchers of carved bread, soaked in soup and stew. At the hearth fire, some meat was being roasted by another man sitting on a stool, and he saw two others appearing from a stair at the back, swelling their numbers to eleven. But no Burt, no Betty. They’re dead, Jonik thought.

Gerrin was doubtless thinking the same. “We want no quarrel,” he told the big leader. “Stand aside, let us look around, and this needn’t go ill.”

The man scoffed. “Ill? No, you’d best hope not, old man. Now clear off, before I lose my temper. I’m in a good mood. You don’t want that to change.” He kicked at Jonik’s boot, thinking it nought but leather, but beneath it he wore his godsteel sabatons. His foot didn’t budge. The man looked up at him and snarled. “Bladeborn, is it?” He gave them all another long look, Jonik then Gerrin then Harden. Their armour was covered in their cloaks and cowls, their blades hidden, but now he knew. “All three of you?”

“All three,” Jonik said.

The man smiled, a glimpse of brown teeth behind his beard. “We got the same.” He thumbed behind him. “Me, Truss, Hunter, all Varin’s blood. Rest are good with the blade as well. No better knifeman than Nips, ain’t that right?”

A man in the back called out approval. Nips, Jonik supposed he was, a cruel-faced cutthroat by the look he got of him. The rest looked unpleasant to a man, rough and unwashed, some bearded, others bearing scars and drunken scowls. It seemed as though they’d been here for a while, bedding in like rats in winter.

Jonik came out and said it. “You’re deserters from Prince Raynald’s army. You slipped away when he marched to the south.”

That accusation caused half the men in the tavern to stand in outrage, chairs flying back, legs scraping wood. The big leader raised a hand to calm them. “Aye, so what if we are? You his little sheep dog are you, sent off to round up the herd?”

There were blades being drawn now, naked steel sliding from sheaths, daggers and swords and axes gleaming in the firelight. His boast of three Bladeborn wasn’t a lie; two men behind him bore misting blades, one a short sword, the other a long one. They weren’t knights, though, that was clear enough. Freeriders and sellswords, Jonik suspected. Lesser sons of lowly houses at best.

Their leader, though… The helm on his head was a fine thing, and the ringmail about him rich. Jonik sifted through the houses that had stags on their sigils. Kanabar was most famous, though that was an elk, and Vandarian too, and no good Kanabar man would ever turn deserter. He knew of House Buckland as well, who bore a stag and bear on their sigil, facing off against one another, but the Bucklands hailed from Rasalan. Big men, though, and hairy. He peered at the man, wondering. He’d heard that Lady Payne of Rasalan had fought with the Vandarians, so perhaps Lord Buckland had sent men to fight with Prince Raynald? Lord Morwood had not mentioned that, if so. It was a Tukoran army only, the way he told it, with banners drawn from Ilithor and the surrounding lands.

A lesser house, he thought. Ramfort, maybe. Or Neldrey. They had stags on their sigils, he remembered. Or maybe that helm is stolen. That seemed just as likely.

It made no matter either way he wanted to cut it. They were deserters, and Jonik knew what the penalty was for that.

“Tell your men to throw down their arms,” he said. “We need to search this house.”

The big man reached behind his back, and his hand came back with a spiked warhammer. From each little point came a drift of mist, swirling upward. “No. Anything else?”

Jonik was not wearing his helm, nor were the others. I have a more important duty, he tried to tell himself. You can’t risk yourself. Just turn around and walk away.

Instead he drew Mother’s Mercy.

The big man smiled. “Fancy blade.”

“You’d have liked my other one.”

“I got a nice bit of steel too.” He tapped the sword at his hip, which rattled in its sheath. There was something about it Jonik recognised. The cross-guard, long and twisting like the arms of a kraken; the pommel, bulbous and bumpy and a deep black-grey, like the sea-monsters’s head. The likeness was good. Jonik knew that firsthand having fought a kraken once before.

He peered closer, eyes narrowing. “Where did you get that blade?”

The big man gave a chuckle. “Like it do you, boy? Aye, thought you might. Must’ve been some Rasal lord owned it once, what with these tentacles and whatnot. Maybe I’ll kill you with it instead? How’s about it? You want me to hack your head off or cave it in? Either works for me.”

The rain was falling in sheets now, heavy and cold, spitting with bits of hail. Jonik reached up, unfastening his brooch, letting his sodden cloak slip to the ground. His armour had been silver, filled with light, but now it sank to darkness at his command.

The big man watched the light leech out of it, frowning. “How in the frosted hell…”

Jonik had heard enough from him. He raised a boot and kicked at the door, blasting it open, knocking the big man back, who tripped, stumbling away into the men behind him. Jonik pressed forward, thrusting for the leader, but another of the deserters got in his way and he skewered him through the chest. He pulled back, swung at another man as he roared and ran, cutting him down. There was a whistle of air and Jonik turned, jerking his neck aside as a throwing dagger came flying for his head. Nims was there, pulling another knife from his criss-cross belt. He threw again. Jonik flicked the blade away with his gauntleted hand, and the knife went plunging into the eye of another man who lurched backward, arms flailing, to crash into a table.

By then the others had followed him in, Gerrin and Harden moving left and right, cutting and engaging. The ring of battle filled the inn. The big leader roared something wordless and charged, swinging down with that godsteel warhammer, but Jonik swung hard and knocked it aside, then swung again at the flank of his ringmail shirt. Several of the little links burst asunder in a shower of silver mist. He felt the edge of Mother’s Mercy cut through mail and leather and wool and flesh, then pulled back, saw the blood come sluicing from the wound. The big man roared.

The planks behind him rattled. Jonik turned. Two men were there. One bore a battleaxe, the other a broadsword. The axe chopped down at his head, the sword lunging for his neck. Jonik whirled away, quick as lightning, hacking down through both weapons at once with his blade, shattering the steel, shards of sword and axe splintering. The axe-man went crashing to the floor at the force of Jonik’s strike, chin cracking hard against the wooden deck, jaw crunching, teeth bursting from his mouth in a spray of blood and spittle. The other deserter stood there, open-mouthed, piss leaking down his leg, shivering all over. “I…I yie…”

Yield, Jonik thought, but he didn’t care to hear it. He cut through his neck before the word could be uttered, carving him open to the nape. The head snapped back, almost tearing free, blood spraying up in a wild red fountain. Jonik brushed the man aside, saw the Bladeborn with the shortsword running for Harden, ghosted forward and swung right through his body, parting top from bottom. Blood and bowels, guts and gore all poured onto the floor in a great stinking splash. A man nearby let out a shuddering scream of horror and ran, and another scrambled after him, fleeing into the night.