5th day of the siege

  “Hold your fucking fire.” Georgius finally gave in, jaw clenched so tight it ached, and let the criers continue their speeches with impunity. For days now they’d prowled the perimeter like wolves, calling him every insult imaginable, promising rewards and damnation in equal measure. Sometimes they’d even asked, in syrupy, reasonable tones, what his soldiers were gaining from this, as though loyalty was just a bad wager that could be corrected with a better offer. And as always beneath it, rang the metal pans.

  That blighted clanging that wormed into the skull and stayed there, so that even when the sound stopped, men still heard it in the spaces between heartbeats. Sleep came in ragged scraps, and the night gave no rest, only a different flavor of the torture.

  Their arrow supply, while not low, had been spent far more than Georgius would have liked in five days. Not because the enemy pressed hard, but because they never stopped asking to be shot at - always a ladder dragged close, always a shadow rushing a ditch, always the hiss of arrows from nowhere, then a retreat before steel ever met steel. Feints, feints, and more fucking feints.

  The only saving grace of this whole debacle was that the defenders were now more practiced and attuned to the enemy’s tricks, moving through the motions with quiet experience. But they were still as completely exhausted as Georgius himself, and that led to a slower reaction time. He felt it in his bones, in the ache behind the eyes, in the tremor in his hands when he tried to hold still. They couldn’t keep going like this.

  He went back inside the manor’s main room, where a command space had been carved out of necessity. Its thin wooden walls did almost nothing to muffle the cacophony outside. The clang seeped through timber like water through cloth. So desperate had they become that the frames around the door and shutters had been stuffed with every scrap of wool they could spare - tufts pulled from blankets, old padding ripped from saddles, anything soft enough to choke the gaps. It dulled the worst edges of the noise, but it couldn’t smother it. The sound still found a way in, as if it had learned the layout of the house.

  “We can’t keep going like this,” Lycomedes said the moment Georgius crossed the threshold, voice low but urgent.

  The circle of eager men who’d smiled at the thought of a siege - at glory, at plunder, at proving themselves - had been replaced by tired, gaunt faces slumped over the table. A few blinked too slowly. One captain stared at a spot on the map as if he’d forgotten what ink meant.

  “Have we finished the soundproof room?” Georgius asked. The question came out rough. They’d started lining a central chamber with wool and scavenged boards, trying to build a pocket of silence where men could sleep like the dead for a few hours at a time.

  “We’re close,” Lycomedes said, rubbing at his own eyes. “But it can only hold ten people at most. Fifteen if they sleep sitting down.” He grimaced. The lack of available wool in winter had throttled the project; one didn’t account for the sheer cost of turning a room into a muffled box while under siege, but even a small closet at the heart of the compound required an excessive amount of fur and wood. So much so they’d had to use most of the men’s blankets for it. Not like they were using it for anything, no one could fucking sleep, so no harm no foul.

  They’d even resorted to prying boards off the stables, hoping extra wood would help blunt the metal clang.

  “And it won’t change the fact that the enemy seems much better rested than us.” Lycomedes continued, his tone the defeated mutter of a loser. It set Georgius’s teeth on edge. “It’s a losing battle, my lord.”

  “We’re biding our time.” Georgius planted his palm on the table hard enough to rattle the cups. “Every day we hold out is another day they drink that blasted sewage water down there. They’ll soon be shitting themselves raw and we’ll ride on them.” A joke that might’ve once landed with laughter now drew only a few weak smiles, like the men’s faces forgot how to grin while truly feeling it.

  “Wake the fuck up!” Georgius slammed his hand down again, harder, pain blooming in his palm. He welcomed it; it helped cut through the drowsy fog. “We are at the starting line and we already look like some pansies who’ve never wetted their blades.”

  He leaned over the table, forcing his gaze to sharpen past the haze of sleep in their eyes. “Once that room is finished, we’ll be able to sleep properly in shifts and this will be behind us.” He looked into the eyes of his men and knew he was losing them, even another day like this seemed too much. He needed to take a risk. “I’ve realized something important, men.”He paused just long enough to make them listen. He saw a few eyes perk up. “The raids are a bluff. My brother is too sentimental to be throwing his troops away. They threaten with ladders and noise, but they never commit.”

  “What are you saying, my lord?” Lycomedes asked. The lanternlight carved shadows under his eyes, making him look older than he was.

  “That we can safely ignore them.” Georgius’s grin was an ugly thing. “Let them rattle their pans. Let them waste their breath. We finish the room and we sleep. We are not finished yet.”

  6th day of the siege

  Theodorus watched from the command tent, gaze fixed across the field to the manor perched on its hill. From this distance, the fortress looked calm, almost peaceful against the winter sky. But he could see the truth in the small things: the sluggishness in how defenders took stations, the way heads appeared a heartbeat later than they should, the arrows that flew farther askew than before. The plan was proceeding adequately. The first phase of his strategy had done what it was meant to do - exhaust the defenders under unrelenting pressure. Now, it was time to take the next step.

  Sleep deprivation was an extreme method that had to be used carefully. Its effectiveness was extremely curtailed by the need to deprive yourself of sleep to execute on it. Theodorus had only managed to avoid this pitfall because he had numbers to rotate. And its effectiveness was only so large because the manor house was small enough that the sound could reach everywhere inside it. In other words, it was a tactic to be used with care and in specific situations for maximum effectiveness. And this situation gathered the necessary conditions. But that alone wasn’t why he’d chosen it. The key factor beneath it all, and that allowed the strategy to reach its endpoint, surrender, was simpler: the palisade was made of wood.

  Nearly a week had passed, and now the garrison was finally adapting by letting some threats pass. Theodorus watched as the latest ‘attack’ prompted almost no response at first. No frantic rush of bodies. No immediate volley. His men were actually able to carry the ladder all the way up and plant it against the wall, an unthinkable success on the first night. A few attackers began to climb.

  Theodorus raised a hand.

  “We’re calling off the attack, commander?” Stathis asked beside him. “We’ve finally reached the walls.”

  “It’s a trap,” Theodorus said calmly, as if he were pointing the obvious. Stathis hesitated, but signaled the horn-blower. Two sharp blasts cut the air. At once the attacking men flowed into defensive positions, forming a shield wall with drilled speed, abandoning the ladder without argument.

  Sure enough, almost the instant their shields locked, a barrage of arrows erupted from the manor. The defenders had waited until the last possible moment, both because they were exhausted, and because they wanted to plant the idea that even when they reacted late, it could be a trap. Theodorus saw through the plot.

  They were becoming desperate for sleep.

  It was time to strike.

  “When the night shift comes,” Theodorus said, smile tightening into something predatory, “warn Kyriakos. The plan moves forward.”

  It had been a delightfully eventful experience conducting the siege with Theodorus so far, Kyriakos thought. He had never seen such care in military work. The boy laid the camp out with measured lanes - tents evenly spaced, ropes kept tight and orderly - so runners and carts could move without snarling the whole place. His uncle would never have bothered. Nor would he have taken the time to make seasonal militia excel at wooden construction, so the picket line and base camp rose at record pace. But all of that unglamorious work had resulted in a chokehold that the besiegers could not rid themselves of.

  The purification of the water had also been some sort of stroke of genius. Theodorus spoke of sickness the way other men spoke of arrows, an enemy you could anticipate and blunt. It was knowledge unearthed from whatever secret texts his friend had consumed - the same strange learning that had lead to Theodorus pointing Kyriakos toward Damascus for his father’s treatment.

  Ah, and getting that particular weight off his shoulders had been reinvigorating. In Theodorus, Kyriakos had found a friend who wasn’t beholden to the Nomikos code of law, and who was more than willing to cross it for Kyriakos’s sake. That was reason enough to join him in this endeavour.

  But Theodorus’s true intelligence showed not only in esoteric knowledge or in drilling militia. It showed in the chess match he played with the siege: the multilayered strategem, and all the small moves made far in advance, their timing so exact it felt like he could hear the enemy think. He knew when to press, when to wait, and when to change the tune entirely.

  He had the genius to see what others didn’t, and to devise a strategy so radical and unexpected that the defenders would never guess. They likely thought Kyriakos’s troops to be demons who had no need for sleep, present at every hour of the day and night. That suspicion was the true warfare Theodorus meant to exploit - not the bloody labor of ladders and stones, but the bloodless battle of the mind. And it was astonishing the lengths he would go to, to instill that fear.

  It was the dead of night, and Kyriakos was as well rested as he could be under the circumstances. The camp lay hushed, fires banked low, the air tasting of smoke and damp earth. His men stood beside him: the elites from his own company, already beginning to fill out after Theodorus’s supplementation of rations and physical regiment. They were surpassing Theodorus’s own by a respectable margin now.

  They had started late, but it didn’t change the fact that they were more physically gifted, which was why Kyriakos had paid a pretty penny for them anyway. They stood decked out in the best armour the army had, flanked by the troops of the elder Sideris brother - the most elite contingent in the ragtag bunch their army should have been.

  “You have your orders,” Kyriakos had debriefed them to the men well in advance. They’d practiced the maneuver out of sight of the enemy and, hilariously, in full sight of them as well. Mock raids had served as both rehearsal for the attack and misdirection that tired the defenders all in one, letting them plan the attack and the advance to the camp they would undertake now, and teaching them how best to take advantage of the enemy’s tendencies and blind spots.

  The men looked to him the right amount of scared and confident. He could see it in the way hands lingered on straps and weapons, in the quick glances traded down the line. Good. A man needed fear to know when to retreat, and to not take the action to come lightly.

  “Move out,” Kyriakos called, and the group moved as one.

  …

  The attack began with an inconspicuous move - well, inconspicuous by the standards of the siege they’d been running so far. Twenty militia from Kyriakos’s night shift took position on the west side of the fortifications and began the familiar ritual of beating metal pans with sticks, a hollow clanging that echoed through the night frost. It was a regular occurrence now, and one the defenders wouldn’t bat an eye at. It was to instill a sense of normalcy more than anything, but also to serve as cover for any noise they might make on the approach.

  At the same time, twenty-five of Kyriakos’s trained band moved in concert to feign an assault on the southern slope. That approach was slightly less steep than the others, and the enemy was always more wary there; feigned attacks from that direction were taken more seriously, and the defenders shifted men quickly whenever Kyriakos made a show of it. But tonight the response was late and lackluster - shouts delayed, torches slow to gather. They were sleep-deprived, and in that exhaustion they’d convinced themselves that no true attack would come.

  Kyriakos’s elite regiment approached from the north side. It was the rockier access into the manor, and one they had rarely used for feints. Navigation through it in the dead of night was hard at the best of times, ankle-breaking at worse. That was why they’d plotted the course over the last couple of days, and during the nightly clanging.

  They’d meandered through the dark over the last couple of nights using the paths chosen in the map painstakingly jotted down by Theodorus during the day operations, doing it until the ground felt memorized under their soles. They’d seen more of that hillside at night than in daylight, and the north face had become theirs by familiarity, not ease. They entered via a narrow goat path at the base of the hill, moving as quietly and soundlessly as their mail would allow, shields kept close.

  Next came the rockiest outcropping. It was a stubborn, sheer section that would have slowed them to a crawl if they were forced to clamber it naturally. But it wasn’t natural anymore. Under moonlight and the cover of routine raids, they had slowly leveled it with carried stones, wedging rocks into gaps and building a crude set of steps one handful at a time. In between the banging of pots, shouted threats, and the exaggerated bustle of feints, so the defenders above would assume every sound belonged to the familiar theatre. Now Kyriakos’s men bounded up steadily through the path they’d carved, hands finding the same holds they’d tested, boots landing where they knew the stone wouldn’t roll.

  After that came the ditch. It was shallower on the northern side, but was nearly frozen, its edge glittering faintly where thin ice caught what little light there was. They vaulted it in ones and twos, landing low to keep silhouettes small. The only sound was the faint clatter of teeth and splashes as the men forced themselves through the cold. Near the end, they reached the thorny bushes planted below the palisade, meant to tear at and slow any incoming attackers. Kyriakos’s soldiers threw wool blankets over the bramble, dragging themselves across like men climbing over jagged spearpoints.

  Down on the southern side, the fake assault was in full swing. Ladders snaked toward the ditch slowly, deliberately, and, most importantly, loudly. It worked; there were maybe two lookouts on the entire north side. And they looked like they were about to fall asleep at their posts.

  Finally they were at the base of the wall, close enough that Kyriakos could smell the clay smeared along the lower edges of the palisade - wet earth and grit pressed into gaps as a crude firebreak. At a soundless command from him, the men split into seven squads along the northern wall, spacing themselves by prearranged paces, gripping axes and tinder, bodies taut, waiting for the signal.

  This was the moment of truth. Kyriakos took one steadying breath, counted the heartbeats, and signalled the start. At once, two men in every squad began hacking at the palisade, breaking through the clay, targeting corners and joints where the wood was hollower and the patchwork heavier, where the damage would wound the structure more and threaten its collapse.

  Axes bit through clay, punching through the damp outer wood in a harsh, practiced rhythm, exposing the inner dry heart in a matter of swings. Up above the lookouts staggered to life, looking down as if in disbelief. It was too late.

  In no more than twenty seconds, nasty gouges lined the designated sections. The work flowed in steps they’d drilled until it felt like muscle memory: one man cut the upper edge, another the lower, while a third wrenched free the chunk of wood and clay, leaving a gaping hole. The final fourth man would then immediately pour kindling soaked in fat and pitch into the gap. The first two then shifted to secure shields up and outward, bracing for arrows or stones from above, although none came. The enemy were still shouting themselves silly, arguing and calling for reinforcements for the north side it seemed.

  Across the wall, light blossomed as heavy torches were shoved unceremoniously into each breach the fire catching immediately. Not even a minute had passed between the first bite of the axe and the last firestart.

  It was then that Kyriakos noticed the defenders were slow to react. There were shouts from above, startled and confused, but the trudge of boots along the walkway was still distant. Kyriakos followed his intuition and decided to take a gamble; he’d made a killing at the tables following his nose for these moments - it was time to raise the pot.

  “Cut between the holes!” he shouted, voice sharp. “Twenty seconds!”

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  The men obeyed without pausing to think, frantically scraping and chopping out clay between the burning points, trying to smash the palisade’s anti-fire measures before the defenders could mount a coordinated response. Clay crumbled, falling in cold clumps and exposing the fresh wood beneath. The thumping of boots was now dangerously close. Kyriakos chose that moment to fold.

  “Fall back!”

  By then the wall was already burning substantially, the torches having done their work. The fire had found the dry heart behind the damp outer layer and was beginning to roar, hungry and bright. The squads broke away as one, retreating through the wool, sprinting down the thorny hill.

  Kyriakos caught one man trying to wrestle a blanket free as they left, hands fumbling in panic as if the cloth were some prize worth saving.

  “Leave it!” Kyriakos grabbed his arm hard enough to bruise through leather. Leaving behind wool was well worth the price of a few lives, and Kyriakos didn’t intend to gamble with that.

  Arrows began to flit past them as they crossed the ditch in record pace, black shapes hissing through the cold. A man slipped and fell in his haste, going down hard enough that Kyriakos heard the grunt of impact even over the distant din. Kyriakos was there in an instant.

  “Shield wall!”

  They formed it on reflex - shields up and bodies tight as they formed a moving shell of Kyriakos’s favorite kind, the kind that protected you from sudden death by a hail of arrows. Kyriakos and another man hauled the fallen soldier by the straps of his armor.

  “My ankle,” He cursed through clenched teeth, as he was dragged half-hopping, half-carried through the barrage. They reached the outcropping where the arrows finally began to peter out as the range grew dicey for exhausted defenders who were now scrambling in confusion, their frantic shouts to put out the fire echoing along the palisade.

  Kyriakos chanced a glance back as they disappeared into darkness and rock. The northern wall was an inferno.

  “God fucking damnit!” Georgius roared from the parapet, his voice hoarse and raw from smoke. He was hauling bucket after bucket of water, half-melted snow, mud, anything wet enough to fight the blaze that had erupted along the northern palisade. Sparks leapt up in orange ribbons, dancing on the icy wind. The fire hissed mockingly as it devoured the inner supports, glowing through the cracks like veins of molten gold. Of all the sides to mount an attack, they had chosen the hardest one. He slammed a fist against the blackened wood, splinters biting into his knuckles, as he saw the foundations crumble from within.

  The small well inside the courtyard was choked with men, shouting over each other, sloshing water everywhere in their haste. Buckets tipped, ropes tangled, and the smoke hung so thick it made their eyes sting. Every breath was half air, half ash.

  “The enemy on the southern flank! They’re near the walls!” a lookout screamed from the tower.

  “GOD FUCKING DAMNIT!” Georgius bellowed again, voice cracking under the strain. “Lycomedes! Handle the fire! Ten archers with me!” He barely waited for the echo to fade before charging down the ramparts. The surge of panic brought with it a brutal kind of energy, fierce and mindless, but useful. For the first time in days, his men moved like soldiers again, snapping to motion under the lash of urgency rather than fatigue.

  Georgius and the archers rushed to the southern wall, loosing arrows into the darkness. The attackers there withdrew as quickly as they had come when they realized there would more than a token resistance, though not before occupying Georgius’s lot for a good 15 minutes, hindering the real fight happening with the fire at his rear.

  7th Day of the Siege

  By dawn, the fire had been beaten down to a smoking ruin, but the air still smelled of charred pine and burnt clay. Lycomedes at the far wall of the command room, his face gray with soot and exhaustion. “The wall still stands,” he muttered heavily. “That’s about the only good news I can give.”

  Georgius clenched his jaw so tightly it made his temples throb. Something dark and sharp was growing inside him, hard as stone. “That damnable, insufferable, conniving brother of mine will pay for this,” he said through his teeth. “I swear it.”

  They had gathered in their nerve center once again, only now it was scraped raw by anxiety and stress and all of its parts, the hollow-eyed and barely upright men that stood before him, stood nearly collapsed. Lycomedes was still talking when the sound began again, metal pans clanging in the distance like clockwork. It was the infernal, ceaseless rhythm of the siege.

  “And goddamn these fucking metal pans!” Georgius exploded, overturning his stool with a kick. He refused to sit down and give into fatigue. One of the men nearly hit by the stool grabbed at it and collapsed on top of it.

  “We need to focus, my lord,” Lycomedes said, his eyes bloodshot, voice shaking with desperation. “And we need a new plan.”

  There is no new plan, Georgius thought bitterly. But he bit it back, forcing his tongue still. The men couldn’t afford to hear that truth.

  “The soundproof room,” Georgius suggested, though even he sounded doubtful now.

  “We can’t board it up with wood, it can’t be finished,” Lycomedes explained. “We need that to patch the palisade.”

  “God fucking damnit,” Georgius muttered under his breath, “use the wood to brace the palisade from the inside,” he said aloud.

  “We need somewhere safe to rest. A night without the noise.” Lycomedes said, grasping at the thought like a drowning man at driftwood.

  Georgius exhaled hard, rubbing a hand over his eyes. “Use whatever we can spare. Redaub the gaps with clay if it’ll hold. And gather the wool those fools left behind when they burned the north wall. Stuff it into every crack and seam. Nail it into the room’s walls if you have to.” His tone turned flinty. “Nothing’s off the table at this point. The room will be finished. Now get back to your posts.” Georgius commanded, effectively ending the meeting, though he doubted anyone was even half listening.

  When the meeting broke, Lycomedes lingered. He waited until the others had stumbled away, half-asleep on their feet, before speaking quietly.

  “My lord,” he began, eyes flicking toward the door. “I overheard some men whispering last night… about the attackers’ offer.”

  Georgius froze, his fatigue evaporating in an instant. “What did they say?” he demanded, voice low and dangerous.

  “I don’t know the details,” Lycomedes admitted quickly. “When I got closer, they stopped talking.”

  “But the squad, whose men were they?” Georgius pressed, stepping forward until Lycomedes had to look away.

  “There were too many in the shadows. I couldn’t tell which group.” Lycomedes hesitated. “It could have been anyone.”

  Georgius’s eyes darkened, his breath sharp and ragged. “All of those men were listening,” he said, pacing like a caged wolf. “And didn’t report who said it. That makes them complicit.”

  “If we punish them all, we lose a quarter of our force,” Lycomedes said, tone firm despite his exhaustion. “They weren’t plotting desertion, Georgius. They’re scared. They were talking about their families, about the land they’ll never see again.”

  “Traitors, the lot of them.” Georgius hissed as he stomped out of the room. Lycomedes tried to grab at his arm.

  “My lord, no-” Georgius shook him off.

  He stormed out of the tent, his cloak snapping behind him. The dawn light caught on his armor as he climbed the ramparts and faced his men. They’re faces were drawn, their eyes were haunted, and their hands trembled on spears.

  “I know you’ve been whispering in the darkness,” Georgius began, voice cutting through the fort like a blade, “wondering about the enemy’s offer. Talking about surrender.” Georgius’s voice spat the word like a sacrilege, his expression thunderous, the gleam in his eyes dark as he looked every man in his own.

  “Any man who speaks of family or land again - who gives breath to the enemy’s lies - will hang for treason. Do you understand me?” The men looked away, staring at the ground and each other, as if they could hide their traitorous thoughts from him that way. Georgius knew better.

  The silence that followed was colder than the snow. The fire on the northern wall had burned itself out, but another had begun to smolder, unseen, inside the camp.

  9th day of the siege

  The last six days had been a terror for Kratos. Not because of any ungodly amount of work, his squad had been spared that ever since the incident; not because he was stuck being the latrine boy either, they’d relieved him of that duty right quick, as if they were lettin’ him mourn or somethin’.

  No. It was because he couldn’t sleep.

  Every time he closed his eyes, he saw it: the lolling head, the ugly angle of the body, the way it slumped like it was made of sacks. He saw the shafts of arrows jutting like spines. He saw the terror in the giant’s eyes when it happened. The way they widened in helplessness for a heartbeat. And he saw the blood-soaked figure that had come back after, staggering into camp like a man crawling out of a river.

  Kratos couldn’t stop cursin’ himself for gettin’ into a spat that cost men their lives. He replayed it the way a gambler replays a bad throw. If he’d just shut his mouth. If he’d just walked away. If he’d just swallowed it for once. The thought tasted like bile even though he didn’t speak it.

  He heard heavy trudges behind him. He didn’t need to turn to know who it was. Some steps were quiet by habit, others weren’t. These belonged to a man built like a cart horse.

  Christos plopped down on the rock next to ’im, the stone shifting under his weight, a little cascade of frost and grit. For a while he said nothing, just breathed. The kind of silence that wasn’t awkward so much as careful, like he was making sure Kratos didn’t bolt.

  “How you doing?” he asked at last, after the silence had settled heavy.

  “Terrible,” Kratos said, voice rough like he’d swallowed smoke. He didn’t see any need to lie right then and there. He was past that at this point.

  “Yeah,” Christos murmured. “I get that.”

  Another beat of silence. The two of them stood there, staring at the small fire that barely kept away the cold. In the tent next to it, they heard Agapios’s snores echo out ragged and uneven, like the old man was fighting his dreams. He’d rarely left the canvas these last few days. Didn’t talk to no one, as if he was damn near mute. Kratos used to pray that such a time would come, he imagined the peace like a blessing, but now that it was here he’d rather have the naggin’, annoyin’ old man back than the husk that was left behind.

  Kratos would rather have a lot of things right now that he didn’t have, to be true.

  “I’m sorry,” Christos said.

  Kratos thought for a second he’d misheard the grumble next to him. Sorry wasn’t a word that often came out of men like him. When he turned and saw Christos’s face, though, he knew he hadn’t misheard. The giant looked tired, unbearably so.

  “I got too hotheaded,” Christos went on, jaw working as if the words were hard to chew, “and I pushed for a fight that didn’t need to happen. One that got men killed.”

  Kratos stared into the fire, unsure what to reply. No, that wasn’t true. He knew the reply. He just had a hard time sayin’ it without it catching in his throat like a fishbone.

  “You know,” Christos said, quieter, “apologizing is a sign of strength.”

  Kratos eyed him nastily at first, thinkin’ it was a dig. His pride flared on reflex, but Christos’s expression was vacant, not smug, so Kratos swallowed the reply he’d been about to spit.

  “I know,” Kratos muttered. He buried his face in his hands, palms rough against his eyes. “But it sure don’t feel like it.” He dragged in a breath that scratched all the way down. “You were right.”

  Christos tilted his head, questioning. “About what?”

  “About what you said,” Kratos forced out, each word dragged as if he was pullin’ them through mud. “That I’m scared.” His jaw tightened, stubbornness doing the work his courage wouldn’t. “I’m used to failin’ and suckin’, I guess. So I figured it would hurt less if I just didn’t try at all. Then I could say, yeah, but I weren’t tryin’.” He jabbed at the fire with a stick, watching the embers smolder back to life like they resented being disturbed. “And I am jealous. Jealous that you lot have somethin’ to live for. That you don’t have ta hate life or others just to feel better about yourself.”

  He didn’t know why he was sayin’ it. He’d never shared it with anyone, not proper. And the giant wasn’t exactly a role model for someone you’d usually spill your insides to. But his chest felt heavy. Like stones stacked on his ribs. Like he needed to get them off before he choked. And a large man seemed like a good one to shoulder that burden with. If only because he looked like he could carry anything.

  Christos was quiet for a long moment, watching him. Not judging. Just weighing, like he was turning something over in his head to see where it cracked. Then he seemed to make up his mind.

  “I was like you,” he said. Then paused, as if his honesty needed an amendment. “No. I still am. I’m just… someone trying to prove something to everyone else.” His gaze drifted toward the dark line of the palisade, toward the siege beyond it like the world itself was listening. “I raged and shouted at the world. Tried to prove my worth that way, by demeaning others and perking myself up, because the truth hurt.”

  Kratos looked down at his hands, blackened with soot. That line hit too close to home for comfort, like a finger pressed into a bruise.

  “In the end,” Christos said, voice rough but steady, “what hurt the most wasn’t what others thought of me. It was what I thought of myself.” He jerked a thumb at his chest, at the place under bone and muscle where no armor reached. “Then someone told me you don’t get anywhere by shouting the loudest. You get somewhere by proving others, and yourself, wrong.” He let the words sit a second, solid as stones. “That’s the loudest shout you can make.”

  Kratos chewed on those words the same way his sheep did on tough grass - slowly, thoughtfully, and with a pinched face at the taste. He stared at the banked fire and tried to believe wantin’ could be the start of it.

  Christos kept his eyes on the coals when he spoke. “Thought if I got stronger I could prove myself wrong,” he said. “So when I was offered this role, and the opportunity to become more than who I am, I took it. I believed I was ready to command men.” He looked down at his hands, hollow-eyed, like he didn’t recognize what they’d done. “I was wrong. I thought I was ready to learn the weight of a sword. But all I’ve learned is the weight of failure.” His fists tightened. “Men died because I was too proud to stick to the mission. And their blood is now on my hands.” His face contorted in pain, and he hung it like a man defeated.

  Kratos didn’t know what to say, so he stayed quiet. Not the awkward quiet of strangers, but the kind only one man deep in the shits can give another. The recognition that the way out ain’t clear, but you can stand here a moment without pretendin’. Kratos laid a hand on Christos’s shoulder, clumsy but steady.

  The trudge of mud and scrape on stone heralded the arrival of a sergeant into their little ‘tent cell’ - the designation for three or four tents bunched together in a squad. Stathis was his name, the one who was always measurin’ you with his eyes.

  “We found the men who ambushed you,” Stathis said, careful-like. “And we’re going after them.” Christos and Kratos looked up, eyes sharp. “Do you want in?”

  Both rose on instinct, but before either could answer, an old, tired voice came from the nearby tent. “Of course we do.”

  Agapios stepped into the firelight looking haggard, beard wild, eyes bloodshot from cryin’. His jaw was set like a man who’d decided he’d pay any price.

  Stathis nodded once. “Thirty men. Quiet. We move now.”

  …

  They followed the tracks into the woods, breath steaming, boots muffled where they could. Stathis murmured as they walked. “Tracker found signs of an erased campfire - ash scattered, stones flipped - a few miles from the ambush. We think they were meant to retreat back to the manor after the ambush, but the picket line stopped them.”

  Then he asked Christos, “I need to know. Were they lightly armoured?”

  “No,” Christos answered at once. “Mail. All of ’em. Moved like true men-at-arms.”

  “Then we do it clean,” Stathis said. “We circle them. Two files swing wide to each side, one behind. We close the ring, then flush them out with arrows. No heroics. Once they break and run, we shout terms and take whoever yields. The rest…” His lips thinned. “We deal with.”

  The plan passed down the line in murmurs. The rhythm of their march changed as men peeled off into the undergrowth, vanishing in pairs and trios.

  Kratos, Christos and Agapios drifted toward the point of the spear almost by instinct. Stathis scowled at them. “I said no heroics, not ‘put the three most stubborn fools in front’.”

  Agapios only snorted. “You’ll need eyes that hate these bastards to keep you honest, Sergeant,” he said. He looked older in the pallid forest light, every line in his face carved deeper by grief. “Besides, those boys who died yesterday… they were the same age as my son.”

  That pinned the silence down for a heartbeat.

  Kratos frowned, something that had been naggin’ him finally slipping loose. “Why are you here, old man?” he asked bluntly. “Why not your son, if he’s of age?”

  Agapios’ mouth twitched into the faintest of smiles. “Because I came to keep him from this,” he said. “I’ll stand between him and war as long as these old bones can hold a shield.” His voice went softer, almost ominous. “And I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure it stays that way.”

  Before Kratos could answer, a soft hiss moved down the line – the signal to halt.

  They crouched behind a low rise overlooking a shallow hollow. Below, tucked between a stand of firs and a thicket of brambles, lay a makeshift camp. In it, over a dozen men in mail lounged about, helms close at hand, blades too.

  Stathis’ hand cut through the air. The archers on the flanks rose like ghosts, nocking in silence.

  The first volley rose with a whisper and fell with a hiss.

  For a heartbeat nothing happened. Then a man screamed, high and raw, dropping where he stood. Another staggered, arrow sprouting from his thigh. The camp exploded into motion – men scrambling for shields and helms, curses tearing the quiet to shreds. A second volley came down. One of the horses went wild, dragging its tether and kicking over a pot, sending sparks and embers skittering.

  “Forward!” Stathis bellowed. “Shields up!”

  Kratos surged over the rise with the others, shield raised, spear ready. The enemy did exactly what a cornered beast did when fire licked at its heels - they bolted in the gap that seemed thinnest. Straight toward Kratos’ group.

  Christos met the first of them head-on. For a moment he looked almost calm, then something in him cracked open. He moved like a man unleashed, all tight control gone. His spear crashed into a mail-clad shoulder, bit, and ripped free in a spray of blood. He pivoted, shield bashing another man’s faceplate aside as he drove forward with a savage shout that sounded like it had been trapped in his chest for days.

  Kratos stuck to his side, his own spear working shorter, uglier stabs, catching those who tried to slip past. He felt the jolt of each impact up his arm, but worked to protect Christos as he overreached and skewered the poor fools who had thought they’d make quick work of the bunch.

  On the other side, Agapios fought like a man who’d already died and hadn’t noticed yet. He broke from the line more than once, throwing himself into gaps no sane soldier would rush, hacking at men who were already half-falling. Twice Kratos saw blades whistle past the old man’s throat by a finger’s breadth. The third time, a sword slid along his gambeson and bit into the meat of his side. Agapios gasped but did not go down, driving his spear home in the bastard’s gut and shoving him away.

  “Fall back a step!” Kratos shouted at him. “You tryin’ to bury’ yourself out here, old man?”

  Agapios paused only to spit pink saliva onto the trampled earth and went back in. Christos and Kratos followed him to make sure the old fool didn’t off himself too early.

  The fight went from sharp and frantic to desperate and messy, then to men on their knees, weapons cast aside, panting and bleeding into the mud. A few lay still and would not rise again.

  “Drop your blades!” Stathis roared over the ragged cries. “Do it now and you live!”

  The last handful standing let their swords fall.

  Kratos’ chest heaved. He turned in a slow circle, counting their own. Scrapes, cuts, a lot of shaken faces – but everyone was still on their feet.

  Everyone except Agapios, who had finally let himself sag to his knees, one hand pressed hard to his side. Blood seeped between his fingers, dark and sticky.

  Kratos strode over and dropped into a crouch. “You’ve got a son waitin’ on you,” he snapped, more harshly than he meant to. “If you think you’re protectin’ him by gettin’ yourself killed, you’re a bigger fool than I thought.”

  Agapios huffed something like a laugh, breath wheezing. “You talk too much for a shepherd,” He beamed a smile to Kratos. “But it looks better on you than that ugly, silent mug you usually show around.”

  He slumped as the pain dragged him under.

  They hauled him up between two men and started back. Kratos walked beside them, one hand steadying Agapios.

  By the time they reached camp, the light had begun to die.

  …

  “I had the notion that I would feel better after skewering the sons of bitches,” Kratos muttered later, staring at the banked fire in their tent circle. The coals glowed dull and red, like something wounded and sullen.

  “You never do,” Christos said quietly. He sat opposite, shoulders hunched. “Revenge doesn’t bring friends back.” His eyes had that hollow gleam again, as if he were watching someone die all over in the flames. “And the glory of a victory usually hides the tragedy beneath it. You just… learn not to look down.”

  Kratos squinted at him. “You a poet or somethin’ now?”

  Christos blinked, as if surprised himself. “What?”

  “You’ve a knack for it,” Kratos said, mouth tugging into a crooked smirk.

  Christos actually laughed, short and startled, some of the tightness in his shoulders easing. The quiet that followed felt less like a weight and more like a blanket.

  After a long moment Kratos spoke again, voice low. “I think I’d like to do less shoutin’,” he said, “and more of that provin’ others wrong.”

  “And yourself,” Christos added, reaching for the small jug of watered wine each squad was privileged to have, courtesy of their little Captain.

  Kratos took it with a faint smile. “And myself,” he agreed.

  As he drank, he made a promise in the space between one sip and the next – that he’d be the sort of man whose temper didn’t get other men killed. For the boys who’d died, and for those who still lived.

  The two misfits stood shoulder to shoulder then, watching the last sparks wink and settle, sharing the kind of companionable silence that didn’t need any more words at all.

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