Shade whirled around at the sound of a new voice, his hand flying to his sword. He had the schiavona half-drawn before he recognized the sole surviving venator from the earlier fight; the man was still bleeding from his shoulder wound, pale and haggard.

The pungent smell of blood cut through the sharp scent of damp wood and flesh burning, mixing the three together in an unpleasant barbequed mess.

“You speak the old tongue.” The words were a raw whisper. The boy—because this venator was barely more than a boy, maybe eighteen, probably not that old—stared at him with big brown eyes that begged Shade to make sense of the violence.

“I do. And I am not.” Shade sheathed his sword. He was too tired to kill this boy. Too tired of the slaughter, too tired of watching his people die.

“But were you?”

Shade tried not to look at the boy. Blood loss made his skin as pale as an Olorian’s, and his sunken eyes made him look even younger than he probably was. Wild brown curls framed a too-innocent face—this boy tried to kill him not an hour earlier. He would not pity him.

“That is not your business.” Shade let his eyes flick to the boy’s shoulder. “Put pressure on that if you don’t want to bleed out.”

“You’re not going to kill me?”

He cocked his head. “Did you follow me hoping that I would?”

The boy gulped.

“Find your own fate. I will not deliver you to the Lady without just cause.”

Turning away, Shade remounted Vic, whose steady presence kept the dead venatores horses from wandering off. He’d sell those horses later; leading them around would slow him down, and leaving them loose would only get Olorian attention.

“You’re going to leave them burning?” The boy gestured at the pyre with his good arm.

“They’re your friends. You should watch over them.” Shade adjusted his cloak, settling into the saddle, and continued without looking up. “Say a prayer for them in a language you understand.”

The boy stared. Gaped.

Finally, in a small voice, he whispered: “Let your future be of light. Let your end be a beginning. And may your legacy be worthy of your life.”

Shade nudged Vic into motion just as a rustling came from the trees to his right. His head snapped around, catching a glimpse of yellow eyes staring at him.

No.

That was surely his imagination.

Shade was too tired to make it too many miles past the head of the Bridge, and Vic wasn’t much better. The dead venatores’ horses were even worse off, and if he didn’t let them rest, they’d get him next to nothing. Shade wasn’t particularly worried about his profit margin—making money off those he killed wasn’t exactly new to him, but it felt wrong to profit off Evendarians.

Mostly.

They had tried to kill him.

He made in the thickest trees he could find, a mile northeast of the Via Pontis. There, Shade pulled the saddles off all six horses but left the bridles on the venatores’ mounts. He tied them off to a line between two trees, loose enough that they could graze but not wander off. Vic, he allowed to roam.

Muscles screaming with fatigue and lightheaded from exhaustion, Shade peeled his still-wet clothes off and changed into his spare set, scowling. He’d hoped to save that clean set for after a bath, but the deluge he endured on the Bridge was anything but.

It was also cold, and his limbs wanted to shiver. Sickness couldn’t be forced aside by sheer force of will, either, so Shade wrapped himself in his spare cloak, kept dry by his saddlebags, and then nestled into his other cloak. That one was well-oiled and dry on the inside. Good enough.

Sleep claimed him almost immediately, but not before he thought he glimpsed yellow eyes watching from the distance.

Two days later—well-rested, but no cleaner—Shade rode into Coelera. Once a significant trading port at the head of the Bridge, Coelera’s heyday came and went several centuries earlier. Two sacks during the First Great War doomed the city to second-rate status, as did the expansion of Cirantium, another port further east in the Sea of Cirus.

But Coelera would do. Large enough to boast multiple hospitia, taverns, and bars of ill repute, the city had a thriving Evendarian black market and a tolerance for Olorians barely skin deep. No one dared do anything to make an Olorian’s life difficult, of course—that earned you a quick trip into slavery or worse—but people flouted Olorian law more eagerly in Coelera than most towns.

It was a good place to be a Night Rider. Almost as good as Qelldoria, Evendar’s famous haven of licentiousness and luxury, and not hundreds of miles south.

Shade found a horse trader at sunset, just as the market was growing feisty. Olorians went home at dark; their traditions said evenings were to be spent with family. Evendarians grew a little braver in the dark.

Not that Shade knew anything about that.

“Selling?” The horse trader was a one-eyed woman with gray hair and muscles to put a strongman to shame. She was two inches taller than Shade, too.

“These five.” He gestured at the venatores’ horses. “Not the gray. You can have the tack, too.”

“Sure about that?” She squinted. “I’d pay you as much for the gray as the others combined.”

“I am aware.”

“Pity.” The horse trader sighed. “I suppose they’re decent. I can offer you a hundred twenty-five sestertii each. Six-twenty-five total.”

Shade let his eyebrows rise. “You and I both know you can sell nags for that.”

She grinned. “Yeah, but how long do you want to drag them around for? I also won’t ask where you got them from.” A shrug. “But I’ll throw in another seventy-five sestertii for the tack. Call it seven hundred even.”

Seven hundred sestertii was more than enough to keep Shade and Vic fed and on the road for months. Not that Shade was terribly worried about money; he took enough purses off dead Olorians that he never went wanting. He’d starved before, but never as a Night Rider.

“Done.”

Detaching the reins of the lead horse from Vic’s saddle, Shade washed his hands of the venatores’ horses and led Vic towards the nearest inn for a less metaphorical washing. His practiced eye picked out the sign for two, Val’s Barstead and Praccus’ Pocket.

There were two Olorians outside Val’s Barstead, drinking heavily. Neither looked interested in trouble—one looked away in a real hurry when Shade glanced at him—but Shade still headed for Praccus’ Pocket. He knew of the place; it was considered safer than most for Night Riders.

Then again, so was Gunstrum’s.

At least the Pocket had a barn, complete with grubby stable hands. These two were twin girls, each missing opposite front teeth. The one on the right smiled, showing more dimples than her sister.

“You gonna help with Lleu’s Lords?” the lefthand girl asked as her sister whispered sweet nothings to Vic and rubbed his neck.

Ornery and tired or not, that was the way to Vic’s heart; he followed her like a lost lamb. Shade barely had time to snag his saddlebags and spare cloak before the stallion vanished into the musty stable.

“The what?” Shade’s mind was a tad slow, but he was certain he’d never heard of whoever those people were. The name sounded like they were trying to be impressive. And failing.

“Lleu’s Lords.” She chewed the stick leftover from a goat stick, or maybe a chicken stick; they made the latter up here in the north, which Shade found odd. Some people even put beef on a stick. Goat sticks were normal. Other meat wasn’t meant to be eaten on wood. “They say they gonna protect us, but ain’t nobody to protect us from ‘cept them.”

“Fascinating.” Shade’s face didn’t twitch, though he flexed his free hand. “Lleu is an Evendarian name.”

She shrugged. “So’s he. ‘S why he’s got one.”

“Thank you.”

He did not smile. One, because Shade was unfailingly polite but rarely friendly. He didn’t like people, which was no excuse for rudeness but did not earn them smiles.

But the second reason was more important. With trouble in the air at the Pocket, no way was he getting a bath tonight.

Faex.