Dawn came grudgingly to the March. A pale, piss-colored sky bleeding through a veil of mist, the kind that clung low to the ground like an old sin, wrapping around the boots and breath of every man in camp. Fires guttered in their pits, nothing but embers and bitter smoke, while crows circled overhead, their cries sharp as old knives.
Garran Stone sat on an overturned bucket near the dying fire, chewing a strip of sinew-dry meat that might've been goat, might've been dog. It made no difference. Hunger stole the difference from men.
Around him, the camp stirred like a dying beast. Men coughed, pissed, spat, and cursed the cold. Dice clattered over a flat rock nearby, two levies wagering a bent silver coin and a knot of relic string said to ward off the flux. Garran watched without much interest as one of them, a red-nosed boy barely out of his mother's skirts, lost three tosses in a row and swore an oath to Saint Malden's cock.
"I told you, relic string's no luck unless it's tied with crow's hair," came a grumble. An older sellsword, face like a butcher's slab, leaned in and plucked the string from the boy's neck. "This'll fetch half a copper at the relic tent. Fool's luck you're not already bleeding from the eyes."
"Give it back, Toren," the boy whined.
"You'll have no use for it when the spears come. Better off trading it for wine."
Garran snorted and spat into the dirt. Same as it ever was. Camps before a siege soured faster than milk in summer heat. Men either fucked, fought, or gambled what little they had left before the walls went up and the gods started keeping count.
A shadow loomed over him. Haim, face still smeared with last night's drink and a streak of ash from the firepit. The man grinned around a mouthful of teeth gone yellow with age and bad wine.
"You look like death's leavings, Garran."
"I feel worse."
"Good. Better you than me."
He dropped onto a log beside him, pulling a crude bone dice from his belt pouch. The thing was carved from a man's knuckle, still dark in the cracks. Haim rolled it across his palm and grinned.
"Dren's already wagering coppers he can make the reeve's daughter squeal before the Ford's gates crack. Swears she's warming Rowe's tent already."
"Dren couldn't make a corpse squeal," Garran muttered.
Haim cackled and gave him a shove. "You're a dark one this morning. Must be the mist. Even the crows look nervous."
Above them, a black shape wheeled in the sky and let out a single, rasping cry. Every man within earshot flinched. Even the dice-throwers went still.
Dren spat over his shoulder, making the old sign with two fingers. "Saint's teeth," he cursed. "Bad breath, that is. Crow's breath at dawn. Mark it, one of us won't see dusk."
"Then stop betting like you've got coin to lose," Garran called.
More laughter, though it was thin and brittle as ice.
A column of men trudged past then, spears over shoulders, heads down. Levies mostly. Mud-spattered, sullen-faced, faces like whipped dogs. No one spoke. One carried a bundle of bones on a string, clacking softly as he walked.
"Relic man," Haim said, nudging Garran.
They watched the man pass. He'd painted Saint Talric's mark on his brow in mud and ash. More a curse than a blessing these days.
"Fools like him always die first," Garran muttered.
Haim grinned. "Aye, and leave us their relic bones for the taking."
A trumpet's blare cut through the fog then, sharp and sour as a crow's shriek. Men scrambled, half-awake, kicking embers over, pulling on cloaks, buckling belts. Garran rose, hand on the hilt of his old blade. The trumpet sounded again.
Orlec's voice followed, carrying over the camp like an executioner's axe.
"Crow-mark! To me!"
Garran's jaw clenched. Around him, men exchanged looks, some sharp, some wary. No lowborn man got called by name twice in two days unless the ground was about to open under him.
"You best get moving," Haim murmured. "Before someone else answers it."
Garran left the fire, moving through the camp. The air stank of sweat, smoke, and old blood. A pair of Bleak Company mercenaries squatted near a firepit, arguing over who pissed in whose stew pot. A levy dragged a dead dog toward the cook tent, muttering a prayer as if the thing's bones might sell for a relic charm before nightfall.
He reached Orlec near the main fire ring, where a cluster of captains and lords' men had gathered. Lord Rowe stood among them, the crimson of his cloak deep as fresh blood against the mist. His face was stone, the kind of face that cracked only in war or death.
Orlec's scowl was as dark as ever. "Crow-mark," he barked, waving him close. "On your knees, bastard."
Garran dropped to one knee, eyes on the mud.
"Look up," Rowe commanded.
He did. Met those cold, pale eyes. No warmth in them. No pity. Only the cold calculus of blood and coin.
"We march within the hour," Rowe said, his voice carrying like a blade through the fog. "The grain roads to the east are to be cut. Levies to the far fields, torchmen to the crofts. Orlec rides at the head. You'll ride second with a spear-line."
Garran kept his face still.
"Take fifteen. No relic-thieves, no dice-rats. I want men who'll kill clean. You'll burn the barley mill at Hather's Croft by noon. No prisoners."
He felt the words settle in his bones like frost.
"Yes, my lord."
Rowe's gaze lingered a beat too long. "The March remembers bold men, Stone. And it buries them."
A slight smile from Orlec. "We'll see which you are."
Dismissed with a flick of the hand, Garran turned and left. As he passed the cluster of captains, one muttered something under his breath. Another spat in the dirt.
"Bastard's getting too many eyes on him," someone said.
"Best he bleeds quick," another replied.
Garran didn't slow.
He found Haim by the fire, sharpening a rust-bitten dagger.
"Orders?" Haim asked.
"Ride with me. Torch the mill."
The man grinned. "Always did hate barley."
Dren ambled over, a relic bone on a string around his neck. "They're sending you to Hather's Croft, eh? Burn the old miller's daughter while you're at it. She cursed me with a flux last winter."
Garran snatched the bone charm from Dren's neck and tossed it into the fire.
"Saint's teeth!" Dren yelped.
"Luck's what you make," Garran said. "Get your kit. We move."
The men scattered. The crows wheeled overhead again, their cries sharper now, the mist thickening.
Somewhere beyond, the Ford waited, and with it old debts. Garran felt the weight of his name like a chain around his throat.
Another dawn. Another chance to bleed.
And by dusk, the March would drink again.