The wind howled through the passes that night.Thin and sharp, like a knife drawn along old bone. The men of the Black Harp huddled close to the fires, sharpening blades, binding wounds, gnawing hard bread between rough hands.
Garran didn't sleep.
He stood at the edge of the camp, one hand resting on the pommel of his sword, watching the mist coil around the tree line like a living thing. The warning from the rider sat in his mind like a stone. He knew the kind of men gathering beyond the Dagger Hills. He'd been one once.
Men without masters.
Deserters. Sell-swords. Murderers turned warlords. When the land bled, these were the scavengers who came to gnaw at it.
By dawn, he made his choice.
"We strike first."
The company moved at first light.Fifty picked men. The rest stayed behind to shore up Thornholt's miserable defenses. Garran left Mera in charge of the camp — she'd earned it, though neither of them said so.
Jorik rode at his side, axe across his saddle. "Reckon we'll find 'em?"
"We'll find something," Garran muttered.
The Dagger Hills rose ahead, sharp ridges of stone clawing at the sky. Narrow trails snaked through gullies and under brush, perfect ground for an ambush. Garran kept them moving in staggered columns, two scouts ahead at all times.
By midday, they found the first corpse.
A man hung from a tree limb, throat opened, eyes pecked by birds. Black Harp colors on his tattered cloak.
Dannic swore under his breath. "One of ours."
"No time to bury," Garran said. "Mark the spot."
They pressed on.
The trail narrowed, rising along a rocky incline, until it opened onto a shallow hollow. Smoke rose from scattered campfires below. Tents, crude and filthy, were pitched between leaning stones and scraggy pines. Maybe a hundred men.
More than he liked. Less than he feared.
Jorik eased up beside him."Looks like the scum scraped every outlaw den from here to Brennar."
"Good. Saves us the ride."
Garran called his lieutenants in close.
"Two flanks, pincer from the north and west. Crossbows on the high ridge. Wait for my signal."
The men nodded, faces grim. No banners here. No glory songs. Just blades in the dark and quick deaths.
The Black Harp moved like a closing noose.
When the horn blew, the hollow erupted.
Bolts raked the outlaw camp, men falling mid-step, skewered through throat and belly. Garran's men came down the slopes in a rush of steel and fury, screaming their war cries.
Garran led the center charge, his sword cleaving a man's collarbone with the first swing. The outlaw's dying shriek was lost in the clash of battle. A knot of spearmen tried to rally by a fallen oak, but Jorik hit them like a storm, his axe hacking through wood and bone alike.
The fight was brutal, fast, and filthy. No rules. No prisoners.
A bandit tried to throw down his weapon and run. Garran cut him down with a single stroke.
"No quarter!" he roared. "Kill them all!"
It was over within a quarter-hour.
The hollow lay littered with corpses. Smoke clung to the air, thick with the stench of blood and burned flesh. A few survivors crawled through the muck, begging, weeping. Garran's men dispatched them wordlessly.
Jorik wiped blood from his face with the edge of his cloak.
"Gods," he muttered, grinning through split lips. "I'd missed this."
Garran didn't grin.He stood in the center of the carnage, sword slick, chest rising and falling, and looked at what they'd done.
A warning. And a message.
He called the men in.
"Strip the dead. Burn the camp. Hang their heads along the ridge road."
Jorik raised a brow. "The whole lot?"
"All of them. I want any man who rides these hills to know Thornholt's claimed."
A rough cheer went up.
The heads went up by dusk. A crooked line of pale, blood-dripping faces staring down the valley road. Wolves circled the edges of the battlefield, yellow eyes catching the last light.
Garran mounted his horse.
"Back to Thornholt."
The men fell in behind him. Fewer than they'd left with. But alive.
For now.