Reynard had sealed their fates—the deserters didn’t stand a chance.

  They’d made too many mistakes: splitting up, returning for supplies, and not sending scouts. With organisation this poor, Reynard was certain even Thomas, probably still trembling, could rout them. Especially with Daniel’s help.

  It was sloppy work, then again, what could he expect from starving soldiers caught unaware in the middle of the Holy Land?

  Reynard’s knife slid into the back of another man. He took a swig of ale. Cold. Tasteless. After years, it barely tickled his throat. Counting served no purpose. The outcome was decided. His men were safe; that was enough.

  Another life ended as one of his subordinates crept behind a scavenger and silenced him. Thomas’ group was likely doing the same. Reynard could only imagine the boy’s horror at what it as life to take the life from another.

  He shrugged. Reynard could not even feign mustering care.

  To crusade was to kill; the faces of recruits taking their first life, he’d seen them enough to make it feel like breathing.

  “Captain," one crusader murmured, helmet lifted, eyes dark as coal.

  "That was brutal."

  Reynard nodded.

  It was brutal.

  Reynard had stripped the enemy of choice, weaponised their fear, reduced their lives to calculation.

  If that wasn't brutal, what was?

  But he'd learned a long time ago, brutality saved his men's lives. These same men, he knew, would hold contempt for him now, how they'd look at his hands and see those of a monster. Yet Reynard knew, he knew that was better than having to bury a knight he'd drunk with, that he'd grown to bond with in his own way.

  It was better they live and hate him than die and love him.

  “Okay, men, clear yourselves up. We wait for Deputy Ava to bring the hostages to Fiana, rendezvous with Thomas’ group...”

  His voice quietened.

  “And only then can we claim victory.”

  Reynard sheathed his knife, not bothering to clean it. For the past nine years, whatever blood he tried to wash off his equipment always reappeared.

  Always.

  …

  Thomas was a real crusader now. The first cry for death he had caused would never leave him.

  Reynard’s plan had worked perfectly. The deserters had only two options: camp away from Fiana, exposed and without supplies, or return and be ambushed. The few foolish enough to linger near Thomas’ group were quickly dealt with.

  Blood. Slick. Slippery. Slimy. It trickled into his gauntlet’s hinges.

  “Let’s go,” Thomas wiped the blood off his hands with anything he could find, fabric or the ground, anything would do.

  “The Captain will want our report.”

  …

  If Ava didn’t know any better, she’d have thought Malcolm’s eyes had changed colour.

  Her throat felt like fire. The hours of running, killing, and the earlier vomiting had shredded her vocal cords. She grabbed a scrap of her tunic, ripping it free, and raised her hand to wrap it around Malcolm’s forearm, still leaking blood.

  Malcolm’s hand came down hard. She hit the ground.

  His brow twitched.

  “Ava,” he said, low and controlled at first, then each word rolled into a roar that vibrated through her bones.

  “Do you have any idea how your actions affect the rest of us? Ever quick to save the day and look at us now! The Little Miss Righteous can’t even protect hostages correctly. You can’t even make a mistake without someone else paying for it! Do you lose all sense of reason the moment innocent lives are at stake?”

  Before she could answer, Malcolm punched the tree beside her.

  Tears welled in her eyes, like water rising in a shallow pool. She glanced at his forearm, then down to the ground. Malcolm slapped her—not violently, but sharply enough to knock the thought from her mind. “We’re crusaders. Death is inevitable.”

  He glanced at the men he’d killed.

  “Stop trying to be a hero.”

  He began removing his armour, leaving his left side protected. For the rest, he’d rely on Thomas. Even armour could become a burden for a lifetime.

  …

  The Knights of the Silver Sword, somehow intact after the night, set about restoring Fiana, well enough to last a few days, at least. As the sun crested the horizon, Reynard summoned his two most trusted comrades: Ava and Malcolm.

  “Look. A survivor,” Reynard said. “And here I thought my judgement was flawless after so many skirmishes.”

  He didn’t reach for ale this time. Instead, he produced a ration of cheese and a bundle of bandages. “Malcolm, you’ll live. I’ve seen men lose far more and walk away. You’re stronger than you think.”

  Reynard glanced skyward, as he so often did.

  The survivor lay curled in the rubble of a ruined blacksmith’s forge. A boy, small, fragile, folded into himself, eyes as empty as the bodies that had filled the village hours earlier. His skin was pale, mottled porcelain.

  “Kill me,” he whispered.

  Ava stepped forward. With morbid curiosity, she examined him from head to toe. Aside from starvation, exposure, and dehydration, he seemed intact. Then she saw it.

  “Infection,” Ava stated plainly.

  Her gaze dropped to the boy’s legs, both shattered, bending away from each other, kneecaps crushed beneath stone, bone protruding through skin.

  Infection. In war, Ava had seen it kill more men than steel, slowly breaking even the greatest knights. Christendom had no cure; in Cyprus, she had heard the Muslims had none either. Once the green humors set in, your life was forfeit to God.

  “God has judged me… God has judged me...” The boy mumbled repeatedly. Obsessively.

  Malcolm was the first to draw steel. He carried his battle axe on his back now, rather than at the hip, “Boy’s got a point, he’ll be dead by the summer, if the Almighty is feeling generous, his time is running out, better to die by the blade than in this dump, oozing liquid out until your last miserable breath.”

  Malcolm raised the axe high. From the boy’s perspective, it blocked out the sun. “Any last words, boy?”

  The boy smiled, memories of his parents flooded, and a single tear streaked down, “None.” He managed to croak.

  “Farewell.” Malcolm brought the axe down in an instant.

  Ava parried. A sea of sparks soared outwards. Reynard even took a step back, studying his deputy as if seeing her anew. Malcolm grunted deeply in frustration. The night’s carnage was not lost on him.

  “All. Life. Is. Sacred.”

  Ava immediately sheathed her sword, walked towards the boy, and took a knee. He stared at her with a hatred far too old for his face.

  She returned his gaze. He looked at her like a man with nothing left to lose, which wasn’t entirely wrong. Ava returned his gaze. She had seen that stare before, in the lost souls of the Canterbury slums, begging to die. She had seen that stare. In herself.

  “Boy," Her voice laced with a stern but understanding undertone, "How many hostages did you see the soldiers who ran to the forest carry with them?”

  He muttered inaudible groans under his breath, “Twenty,” the boy finally managed to mutter out of his mouth, “or around that, the whole place was up in a blaze.”

  His gaze lingered, the gaze that few had seen, and fewer could tolerate. The passionate depths of misery lingered deep in those eyes, which had seen a lifetime of fear.

  Ava got back on her feet and took a step back. She placed her hand on her chest, “I, too, have begged for death.”

  Solemnly, she pulled her bible from her sack on her hip, ever bearing the sigil of the Silver Sword, “And each time I resisted the urge to put steel in my own flesh, I thank Him,” she raised her bible upwards, the Silver Sword glistening in the Levantine sun, “for the strength to continue onwards, so that I may save someone else from the same darkness I peered into…”

  Ava tossed her bible aside. Reynard briefly raised his eyebrow; for once, his attention was more focused on Ava than his drink.

  Her gaze locked firmly onto the boy, unyielding in the face of despair.

  “But I don’t need Him to tell you why you should live on, you said some survivors escaped? Where are your parents?”

  The boy glanced away, unable to meet Ava’s gaze, “Don’t know, they could be in Antioch for all I know.”

  “You don’t know. That’s the point.” The Deputy allowed herself a thin, careful smile. “Your parents might find you. Your legs might heal. Or they might not. But as long as you are breathing, your life is not forfeit. It is still yours.”

  The boy’s teeth locked tightly, grinding hard and heavily, “What do you know? Look, look at me!” He signaled to his destroyed legs, “Whilst you go off crusading, I’m stuck here, even if I wanted to find my parents—”

  Ava swooped in, cutting the boy off mid-sentence, with a fatal move, not of violence, but of compassion. She embraced the boy gently. Warm liquid soaked through her tunic. She stiffened for half a breath. For once, it wasn't blood that ran down her body, but tears.

  Malcolm took the sight in. He spat on the ground and bent to retrieve his axe. He slung it across his shoulder and turned away, staring into the distance. The knight went to cross his arms — then stopped. One arm.

  He clenched it into a fist instead.

  Thomas, weary from his mission last night, stood afar, watching the trio, hands folded at his waist. His eyes lowered. He did not speak. He did not move. But he did not look away. This task, this duty, was for true crusaders; he could only hope to reach that level someday.

  With a heavy heart, he glanced at Malcolm’s arm. There was no such thing as innocence in the Holy Land; Thomas was learning this firsthand. He prepared his saddle and met up with the other knights…

  …

  Reynard cleared his throat.

  “In any case, you’ve got a point. You’re not completing a week’s march in that state.” He glanced at Ava, a faint smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth, “Don’t mind our righteous deputy. She can’t help herself. Heroics come naturally to her.”

  Reynard turned and beckoned the Fourth Company closer, “Bind his legs. Carefully. We’ll bring him along for now, set him down at the first village or settlement we pass.”

  His gaze returned to Ava. "And make sure he rides with the deputy. She saved him,” he paused, “and she’ll carry his weight.”

  …

  Grainne was always a happy mare.

  She waited near the outskirts of Fiana, by the grove the archers favoured, where the grass was sweet, and the ground sloped gently beneath her hooves. She ate. She breathed. She neighed at nothing in particular.

  The night was loud elsewhere. Grainne did not go there.

  When morning came, one of the blue men approached her, offering grain from his palm. He moved too quickly and smelled of iron and smoke, but his hands were gentle. That was enough for Grainne.

  When the Gentle One returned, she smelled wrong. Not blue and white this time, but orange and pale cloth, and something sharp beneath it. Grainne shifted her weight, ears flicking.

  The Gentle One carried something warm and heavy, wrapped badly, making small sounds. Grainne did not like it. She lowered her head and snorted once, hoping it would not be placed where the plates already hurt.

  The Thirsty One began to shout, sharp sounds spilling from him as he waved the silver stick from side to side. The blue ones moved when he did. Then Grainne felt it—the familiar pull at her mouth. Time to go. The Gentle One was heavier this time. Grainne shifted, then settled. She hoped the weight was yellow food. Yellow food was better than grain. Much better.