The arrow that killed Ulrick struck at an angle, right next to the nose of his helmet. It buried itself all the way to the tailplane with a muffled crack.

The Val flinched, then exhaled sharply, like a relieved man. A red stream poured from his remaining nostril, then his bad knee gave up, and he toppled over in front of me, his armor clanking as the bronze scales jumped under the impact of more arrows. It was the Val's dying body that protected me from the shots, while all around the night was streaked with lightning and screams of alarm and pain. I remember the blood bubbling in his beard, the hissing above and also that I had grabbed his hand like he was my father, while his jolts softened.

I remember the silent tears, not wanting to breathe, and then the crackling white that rushed through me, because I couldn't do anything else in the world, nothing at all. I remember chattering my teeth, and contemplating the darkness without wanting to understand how everything was unraveling before my eyes. Around me, the gates of hell were opening wide.

I later realized that it was because of me that they had fired. When they saw me coming at a run, they must have thought that someone elsewhere on the stockade had spotted their stealthy approach. Not to lose the element of surprise, the crossbows of four hundred carmians mercenaries had leveled the garrison and rained death on the barracks and corral. They were killing our horses from the heights, and the beasts had panicked and broken through the fences, all before Hill's regular infantry even stepped into our trenches. Lying under the moonlight and the twisted branches of the charm tree, Ulrick was barely moving.

More men were dying a little further on. Swords crossed desperately near the pillbox and loud horns were blown everywhere, but it was already too late. The defenses were down, the enemy had us by the throat and there was nothing left to do but fight for our lives. I couldn't tell what happened to me, or how I managed to do anything other than go crazy with fear and grief.

When Ulrick had fallen with that arrow in his face, I had forgotten everything.

I had forgotten Brindy and the pimp's castration, the mysteries of the peregrine and the dreams, Brown-Horn. Everything was gone. The flames of the braziers spilled by the melee on the platform had woven shadows and those shadows had played on that bloody inch of wood as the sun plays on the world. One militiaman burned alive in the burning tower, another screamed with ten shots in his body. It wasn't worth a glance. Of all the disappearances in the world, of all the annihilations, there was nothing so obscene as that monstrous splinter that pointed out of the face of the val-warrior. I had tried to pull it out, feverishly, but it was too slippery.

I had looked up at the stars while elsewhere the drum of steel was beating. Slaughter was running its course in the darkness, in the cold mud between the punctured tents. Then someone had shouted that we had to run. I had not wanted to leave Ulrick. Yet I had run. Others had run with me, south where the lumberjacks had pushed back the forest. The whistles had killed more than one. I don't remember much else about that night.

Early in the morning, Berda had come to find me. There were about ten of us in the frozen woods. Ringer and Jask were there, but Ringer had been shot under the collarbone. He had lost a lot of blood during the night and I wasn't sure if he would make it. There was a dying brownian militiaman with us, limping with his guts in his hands, and the longbowman who had dragged him there, a tall, mustachioed fellow with high cheekbones, whom I recognized as one of Morvin's men. The others were regular soldiers, three surly highlanders, a severely cut man from Vaw, who had lost his bill and quite a few fingers, and a high-brownian spearman with a hesitant and nervous tongue, whose face was red and emaciated. I didn't like the manners of this one. He was rubbing the cracks on his shorn head, and looked as if he was always hungry.

Berda had arrived while we were resting, and I had burst into tears, because she was fine, but also because Pike wasn't with her. She had hobbled right up to me through the black trees and laid her foaming snout in my hand. My fingers were still stained with Ulrick's blood. The big mare had snorted at me insistently. I was pretty sure she had figured out what had happened, and I wondered how it was that she had stayed and if she had really been looking for me, as I figured.

I hoped Pike had left with the other Vals. The mustachioed archer said that he had seen the vaïdoerk making its way to the road with the majority of the survivors. He had tried to join their retreat, but the fighting had prevented him from doing so. I crossed my fingers for Ofrid and Sven and for Ereck too. For all the Vals, because we had parted ways, probably for good and not in the way I would have liked.

Just as Pike had brought me back to sanity, when on the plateau I had found the icy calm under the volcano of my own rage, it was Berda's deep breath that helped me regain my senses, after Hill had broken the siege of Ac-Pass. There was something in her mutinous eyes that told how she still wanted to fight. "I'm standing," her dark eye said. "I'm shivering, because I've been sweating all night, but my chest is broad and my hooves are sharp, and I'm not done here. This whole thing isn't over." With my nose pressed into her tawny neck, I gently reasserted my grip on myself, because at that moment and in that place it was all there was left to do. Under the fierce gaze of the war mare, my sobs faded gradually, and slowly turned into confident breaths. I decided I wasn't going to die here, or at least not this way, not holed up in the woods like a scared rabbit.

For the first time since the attack, I finally dared to think about Brindy, and my resolution found a strong anchor. I clung to it so tightly that I felt as if I were taking root in the world again in one revolting jolt. It suddenly came back to me that I had steel on my belt. And above all, that despite the tidal wave that had just drowned my life, I would rather be damned than let anything separate me from it again. In any case, I had nothing else left. I flattered Berda while trying to come up with a rough draft of a plan. The dying Brownian had finally fallen asleep and was moaning softly in his sleep, curled up under a tree. The hungry-looking spearman thrust his weapon into the snow, got rid of his shield and rinsed his throat with his wineskin. The shadows of the bare branches haunted his face as he turned to us. "It would be doing this guy a favor to help him out a little," he whispered hoarsely, pointing to the disemboweled man, but his voice was empty of the compassion he was mimicking. "Now that we have a horse, we have a good chance," he continued with a complicit tone. "Wouldn't want to get in the way."

"I'd rather take him," replied the longbowman evenly. "I know one of his brothers in Garnear." I adjusted Berda's halter without getting involved in their discussion, cursing in a low voice, because the mare had not been saddled. "Do it yourself if you want to," said the fingerless man with a hilarious grin. "I would have a hard time giving him the knife." I think that even the highlanders were amazed that the man from Vaw could joke while his stumps were still bleeding. "Fuck it," muttered the spearman, and he walked towards the dying man, his hand on the dagger. He barely had time to take ten steps before one of the highlanders got up on his feet. He was a young warrior with a tattooed face and hair spiked with pitch, and he stepped in with aggressive confidence. "Leave that one out in the cold," he urged, with plenty of gestures to back up his words. "He deserves a better death than the knife."

The lancer hesitated a few moments while taking the measure of the warrior, the eyelid quivering. Then he walked away, grumbling. The Brownian was either losing his patience or losing his mind, perhaps both. The archer had leaned against a dead trunk, where he was chewing on a piece of dry fish, but his lively eyes didn't leave the red-faced man who was pacing under the frozen foliage. "We've got to pick a leader now, guys," the lancer announced nervously. No one answered anything and his words scattered under the dark trees. The highlanders exchanged a few words in their rough language. One of them laughed dryly and contemptuously. The spearman spat into the snow, his face even more purple than before. "You should rest, friend," Ringer shouted from the twisted roots of the beech tree under which he had settled. "You need it as much as the rest of us. I'll have my dick cut off if it's not true." The agitated man didn't seem to hear him. After staring at Jask with disturbing attention, he finally moved toward me. "Come on, wildling, you're going to help me load the horse," he said in an overly loud voice. Above, the snow began to flutter again. I breathed out deeply, because I could see where this was going.

"It's not the horse, Brownian," I answered in a voice that was meant to be confident. "It's my horse. And I haven't decided what to do with it yet." The man looked incredulous, as incredulous as if I had stabbed him right there in the clearing in front of the others. Blood deserted from his face, and his tongue stuck out between chapped lips, like a varan that would have taken on a human face. I looked down, almost out of modesty, as his mouth twitched monstrously, forming silent words. Then the man began to laugh. It was febrile at first, but as it went on, it became louder. Soon he was laughing at the top of his lungs, as if I had told him the funniest joke in the world. Worried looks converged on him. The dying man woke up with a jolt and the highlanders whispered in the shadows. "Shut up, moron," hissed the crippled vawan, half standing up. But the hilarious Brownian didn't listen to him.

He took a step toward me, laughing loudly, his arm outstretched as if he were going to grab the bridle.

I stood firmly on my feet and drew the sword. The laughter was swallowed in an instant. "You filthy..." the red-faced lancer shouted, and then he threw himself at me. I would have preferred to have a shield, but I was confident, because I had the reach, and my mails against his dagger, but we had both forgotten the Rigan mare. Berda intervened in a flash, ears back. She suddenly reared up against the madness of the lancer, her broad hooves whipping through the air like gigantic horn clubs, and Jask, whom I had not even seen move, tackled him into the snow like a training dummy. They struggled for a few moments for the dagger as the highlander insulted him, then the mustachioed archer joined the fray and struck twice with the flat of his longsword. He then put his blade across the throat of the lancer. The man immediately stopped fighting, and softly begged for his life. "Go rest," muttered the longbowman as he stepped aside, once Jask had slipped the confiscated dagger into his belt. The red-faced man didn't move. Crouching in the snow, he shivered, as if caught by fever, his eyes lost between the trees. His breeches were smoking.

The vawan soldier chuckled to himself.

The archer gave me a sharp look. He was in his early thirties, with a short haircut and a waddan accent. Something about him reminded me of Bert Sesh, but it could also be what I had wanted to see. "You were with the Vals," he said. It wasn't a question. I nodded. Berda was stamping her feet.

The man sheathed his weapon. "The way I see it," he continued, "your horse won't do us much good. Hill must have gone behind our men last night, and that means there's an army between us and the border. The road, we can forget about it. So a horse like that, in the mountains, will be good and bad." I nodded again, my mind wavering. "I have to go back anyway," I said at last. I had made the decision as I spoke. "Gotta go get Brindy. I won't leave her again." There was a silence, the survivors stared at me as they had earlier stared at the red-faced man. Yet, after I spoke those words, I felt calmer than I had in a long time, a state of grace, focused and intense. It was a cause that made sense.

"You're not going back there, young Fyss, not for anyone," Ringer croaked, in a voice he no longer had enough strength to make him authoritative. "Tell him, Jask." At his side, the highlander looked at me for a long time, but he did so in silence, ignoring the imprecations of his associate. Under the stunned eyes of the others, I took off my belt and the sword hanging from it, my aventail, and then my mails. I methodically piled up my equipment in the snow, before hurriedly folding my shirts and my coat with holes in it. I shivered because of the cold, but I was determined, and that at least, it seems to me that my companions of misfortune saw it.

"I'll leave my things with you," I said to no one in particular.

"The mails are copper, so you'll just have to melt them. And there are a few pieces of smoked pork in the belt pocket." Jask coughed, shrugged his shoulders. Disregarding the flow of weak protests from Ringer, he approached me with a determined step. From his worn boot, stitched with metal strips, the highlander drew a thin knife, which he handed to me. "You shouldn't go bare-handed," he said with an exaggerated grimace that looked like a smile. I grabbed his forearm in a warlike salute, which he returned to me. "We won't see each other again," Jask said flatly, in clanic.

His fierce face had become as expressive as a viper's mouth again. "I know," I answered and he turned away.

When I grabbed Berda's tether, Ringer stood up grumbling. His eyes darted from one survivor to the next. "Is there no one to hold him back, this kid?" he spat incredulously. "Stay here, kid," said the mustachioed archer, but I shook my head stubbornly. "I've got the idea that this kid, he'll stab whoever wants to hold him back," growled the archer in the direction of Ringer, before he turned his gaze back to me. He looked at me from the shadow of his tree, a bloody rag around his hands, and spat his black quid into the snow. "I don't know what the hell you're gonna do out there, kid, and it ain't my problem 'cause I won't be there when they tear your nails off. But you got a pair, so you better listen to me. I'm sure they didn't kill everyone in the canvas village. Our civilians will just have changed their shirts, and Hill's officers won't have let the soldiers touch the merchants. Not too much, I mean. So introduce yourself as the son of one, and they'll probably leave you alone."

I breathed in deeply, while gently pointing Berda towards north.

The vaïdoerk's foresighted training had already forced us to consider what would happen if we found ourselves behind enemy lines.

What the Vawan was saying stuck word for word with what had then been mentioned, and also intersected with the unstable stratagem that was bubbling up inside me. "That's what I thought, vawan," I said kindly. "Thank you," I strained my voice, trying to sound more confident than I was, and I did this more for Ringer than for myself. I had already evaluated my chances. I knew I was betting on a miracle.

From the shadow under the beech tree, the gruff Brownian stared at me with feverish eyes.

Despite the cold, his thick skull glistened with sweat. During the night, I had given him my second shirt, to support his slung arm, but neither the red nose nor the trembling chin that he now displayed were the result of his injury. "Goodbye, Ringer," I said, my throat knotting as I raised my hand. "Take care of that sting!" I didn't wait for him to answer, because it would have made me feel bad no matter what he said. Instead, I ducked between the frozen trees, dragging Berda behind me and not looking back.

It took us a few hours to leave the snowy woods. A pale sun was rising in the east and I walked slowly, feverish and cold, but dangerously determined. The flakes were falling hard now. I sometimes ate a little snow to make up for the hunger and fatigue, even though I knew I shouldn't. Then the tangle of black trunks and bushy pines suddenly opened on this great white abyss that was the Pass under the snow. I knew that between where I stood and the camp, the land had been stripped bare, ravaged by labor over a mile and a half of chopped stumps.

Yet from here, there was only the airy swarm of flakes devouring the landscape, and that bumpy coat that covered the slope and the hidden snags. This was the most dangerous part. Berda could break her leg on a stump, and then I would be embarrassed to use her as a pretext for my travels: you couldn't sell a crippled horse. I could compensate for this risk by taking a little more time, but that would expose me to another peril, that of running into a hillian patrol or a group of foragers. Without officers to keep them on a leash, soldiers could very well not bother with manners and just stab me to take the horse, do my ass, or have a little fun. Against an armored fighter, the boot knife Jask had given me would be about as useful as a lady's nail file.

This slow descent from the heights seemed to have lasted a lifetime.

Each step in the rising wind cost me strength that I had spent the night before. Every moment my body tensed to receive the sharp impact of an arrow and my ears pricked up to hear the scream that would betray us, yet we reached the road safely. With the snow falling, coupled with my eagerness to avoid the remnants of the massacre I had witnessed during the night, I had misjudged our course. We found ourselves too far west, in a howling blizzard. With my face buried in the dingy hood of my cloak, I turned Berda into the wind, not sure if I should thank or curse the weather for changing so quickly. The gusts were freezing me to the bone. As I made my way back to the the path under the cover of the snow, my chances of infiltrating the camp without getting killed increased significantly.

A little before the canvas village, the first silhouettes emerged from the blizzard, striking their martial cadence on the frozen road. They were two squads of hasty soldiers, wearing thick tabards, emblazoned with Hill's tower. There were glances, and though they only grazed me as flatly as if I had been a tree or a cat, my heart began to drum under my cloak. I lowered my head, pressing myself against Berda's strong side, while trying to ignore both my reason - which was too late whispering to me the virtues of escape - and the gusts of biting cold. I thought I'd die of relief when the last two men of the contingent passed by without a word to me and I finally had something to listen to other than the rhythm of the boots. Usually, I would have had to listen to the morning commotion of the camp, the chatter of the washerwomen and cooks, the dogs, and the lively rhetoric of the peddlers. That day there was only the barking of orders, a chorus of hoarse voices, the sound of the horn and drum and the mournful creaking of the food carts. Somewhere a woman was crying.

The Hillians had set up their blockade at the point where the road intersected the front alleys of the canvas village. Some of the trenches had already been filled in with snow and earth to create a temporary but passable path to the Ac-Pass gate. No one had yet had time to replace the walkways that once crossed the Breach, yet that was where most of the carts were going. The drivers had to face the slope of the crucible in both directions, which seemed to me to be a perilous exercise with the wind and snow. Nevertheless, the impatience with which these provisions were awaited behind the walls of Ac-Pass was palpable.

I could only imagine the triumphant welcome and gratitude that the liberators would receive. Crews and beasts formed a choppy, gaudy line that curved upward. Despite the blizzard and the frustrated cries of effort, there was joy too. I would catch occasional glimpses of a relieved smile, music, and less harsh bursts of voices tumbling down from the walls of Windy-Pass. Children. Laughter. I think I wished I could have been happy for the people of the city, but at that moment I was deliberately keeping my emotions under lock and key, out of sheer necessity. I was allowing myself one and only one window of sensitiveness. There was Brindy, and my vigilant tensing to let nothing else through would have made the most diligent jailer blush.

About twenty carmian crossbowmen were guarding the crossroads, nonchalantly installed around the old waddan pillboxes. They looked well organized and identically equipped with boiled leather and large helmets, and quilted linen jackets. I had no doubt that at the next round table there would be much to talk about, when the news would spread. Carmians in arms on Hill soil would raise more than one eyebrow, especially since the treaty of the Near-Islands had been revoked by the High-Serif. I noticed these men as I approached, and my attention wavered between them and the large felt brothel, which was like a flat palace in the center of the silent camp. Despite the fact that they had probably walked half the winter to get to us, the Carmians were like satiated beasts: relaxed and arrogant. Their rugged faces expressed nothing but confidence, and there was also something like disdain behind some of the gray looks. Three fresh bodies lay in the snow on the side of the road.

I didn't look at them.

I stopped Berda behind a cart that two men were loading with rations looted from the waddan supplies and quietly whispered to her to wait for me. I didn't know yet how I was going to rescue Brindy, not exactly, but I could feel the reassuring discomfort of metal in my boot. I had an idea that maybe I could cut my way to her, literally, through the cloth of the brothel, in the same way that the assassin had tried to escape from the val pavilion. I flattered Berda to make sure she understood what I wanted from her, and then, just as I thought I'd get away without having to talk to anyone, a rough voice called out to me from the pillbox:

"Where you going with the charger, kid?"

I turned around with a heavy heart. My heartbeat quickened dramatically. A heavily armed man was advancing toward me in the snow. "My father told me to wait here to harness the horse," I said sharply, but he didn't slow down. The guy took five more steps. Suddenly I recognized his killer look and almost swore out loud. It was the cuirassier who had called out to Ulrick on the eastern road a few days before the rear guard joined Vittori's army. After a few moments of total incomprehension, which I spent staring stupidly at his two companions who were squinting at me from the other end of the crossroads, I suddenly realized what was going on. What had been going on, in fact, for nearly six moons. It struck me, with the clarity of the rising sun. From the beginning, Carson had been in the pay of Cleo Gon.

It was so obvious that I would have slapped myself for not having guessed it earlier. The difficulties faced by the vaïdoerk, the almost pathological management of the siege by the legate and his subordinates, his silences, his mockery, all of this had been skilfully orchestrated to keep out the vermin, all those who could have organized an effective defense of the siege camp. Piece by piece, everything began to make sense, even if the motives for Carson's betrayal escaped me entirely. As the cuirassier's steps brought him closer to me, the details began to fit together with disconcerting speed. The casual treatment of the hillian prisoners, who had - on second thought - simply been let go. The scouts, whom we had not been allowed to consult, not because Carson despised us, but because they didn't in fact scout anything.

No doubt they even acted as messengers between the legate and Hill, since the beginning. And there was also the seneschal Vittori, whose skull had been split during the battle of Ac-Pass. In my mind, it was beginning to look not so much like an accident. Then I went back even further, to the ambush in Lager and the fact that Carson had preferred to precede us when we left Garnear, without any valid reason. If the rear guard had been decimated in Lager, the waddan army, without reinforcements or provisions, would have been forced to turn back. It became clear to me that Amon Carson had originally planned to sacrifice the convoy. The vaïdoerk's luck and skill had kept his plans in check. Without it, the siege of Ac-Pass would simply never have happened.

The cuirassier camped close to me, rubbing his jowls, his eye twinkling. He smelled of sweat and rancid leather. I swallowed, stuck in place waiting for him to grab me, but instead his gloved hand came to rest on the mare's withers. Berda shivered. "That's a fine beast you have there," he said in a hoarse voice, looking at the charger's musculature. "That's a war horse." I nodded weakly, as the cuirassier's fingers brushed the horse's mane. I couldn't believe he hadn't recognized me. "I know," I stammered in panic. "She was with the Vals." My fright was far from being feigned and I saw immediately that the cuirassier liked her. He was a soldier by trade and he liked to create fear. "You'll take her to the stables of Windy-Pass," the man said in an authoritative voice, his hand clutching the hilt of his sword. I hesitated briefly. "Maybe we can harness her one last time, lord, so she doesn't ride unloaded," I suggested as obsequiously as possible. The cuirassier seemed to be thinking, and my heart was pounding so hard that I was pretty sure it was going to explode.

"If someone hurts it on the way, you'll have to account for it," threatened the cuirassier in a strange form of concession. The wind died down for a few moments, and Berda snorted gently. Other steeds came trotting along the plank path, hooves thumping and skating on the frosted wood. As the riders slowed for the crossroads, my interlocutor glanced over his shoulder. I breathed out in relief as I contemplated my feet. I still couldn't believe my luck. "I'll go get my father," I whispered, and then everything went disastrously wrong.

As the invisible riders passed, a heavy slap hit the corner of my hood. I dropped to one knee, black spots in front of my eyes. "Your manners, brat!" barked the cuirassier. "You uncover yourself when..." then I felt the breath lifted by Berda. The soldier stumbled over me as the mare's teeth snapped within an inch of his face. We rolled into the path of the incoming soldiers. Hooves screeched as we skidded through the frost. Half tangled in the pestering cuirassier, I looked up at the horses rearing and neighing in the middle of the blockade. There I found the face of the first rider, whose thick figure was wrapped in a winter cloak edged with black ermine. It was Amon Carson. He stared straight at me, his beard streaked with white flakes. Beyond, the commotion had drawn the gaze of the carmian mercenaries and the few hillian lancers who were hanging around with them.

Berda danced forward on the cuirassier, her teeth bared, bristling like a nightmare in the shape of a horse. A few steps away, from atop his gray steed, Carson spoke in an authoritative voice, calm and clear, his finger held out toward me. "That one's a Val," he stated repeatedly, as his men came running toward us. "Take him." I saw the spears rise, heard the snap of the crossbows the Carmians were cocking, and the rustling footsteps on the snow. I froze. I had failed in the worst way. It was all over, and it was so overwhelming that it felt light, because by then I had already surrendered. I didn't regret it, not really, I just hoped it would be quick. And since nothing else mattered, I kept telling myself one thing. I didn't want them to kill my horse.

I stood up on one bruised knee and tossed the boot knife into the snow in plain view for Carson to see. "Naï, Berda," I said finally in a weary voice. "Naï." The big mare snorted curiously, her dark eye on me, and she neighed her disagreement. To this day, I remain convinced that she had decided to die at my side. Yet, at my command, Berda stopped fighting. She obediently let herself be led away by the first militiaman who had the courage to take hold of her bridle. Carson contemplated me, impassive, and his mount stumbled under him while the troop circled me cautiously. Even as a young man, even alone and unarmed, I was still a val-warrior. At least I had earned that respect. Above, the flakes swirled against the black background of the walls of Ac-Pass, crackling white on the dark rock. I had time to pick three or four of them on my tongue and hope that Brindy would get wind of my attempt. That she wouldn't think I had abandoned her, but that she wouldn't see my corpse. Then the sweaty cuirassier bent me in half on the pommel of his chipped sword.

In the end, they didn't kill me. My hands were tied with a burlap cord, and I was dragged to one of the frozen barns. Other captive, shivering bodies were piled up there, on dirty mats. A carmian captain was waiting for me with a steel knife. I had not looked away from him, not once. Not when he cut the triangle in my cheekbone, not when he stuffed the dripping wound with mud and shit. My jaw had remained clenched the whole time, and in their musical language they had praised the bravery of this bleeding thing, as one praises the valor of a brave dog. I was no longer really a man in their eyes, nor was I in mine, because my red blood was dripping into the white snow and I felt nothing.

Two moons later, half of the prisoners of Ac-Pass had died of cold or disease. The late snows had finally allowed us to cross the border, through a winding, narrow gorge, across the steep ledges of the carmian Wall. In Ifos, those who remained were sold to a merchant consortium for sixty drogs a head. As the silver coins changed hands, for the first time since the debacle, I smiled. I smiled because I was worth sixteen gold crowns on the other side of the Wall, and also because they had paid for emptiness, for nothingness that had taken the form of Fyss. It wasn't much of a grin, barely a wrinkle. A nothing of flesh lifted by the remains of someone, like a dying wind can inflate a sail. Then they sent me to the mines, where smiles serve as ornaments for the insane and shrouds for the dead.

- Book 1 Complete!!! -

Thank you everyone for reading!