Draken and Hood return late that afternoon. It’s nice to be out of the midday sun as the wizard’s house is always cool and comfortable. The boy lands in the soft cushions of an armchair and closes his eyes.

“Don’t get too comfortable.” The wizard says causing Draken’s eyes to shoot open. “You’ve got a lot of studying to make up for.” He indicates an ungodly number of books piled high on the reading desk.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Draken groans. “I’ve been running around all day!”

“And whose fault was that?” Hood asks unsympathetically. “You’ve had your fun today, now it’s time to do some real work. If you start reading immediately I expect you’ll be done before midnight.”

Draken bites off what he wants to say, clenching his jaw. There’s no point arguing, it’ll only remind the wizard to be mad at him. Instead he quietly walks to the desk and opens the first book. Maybe it will take his mind off of everything he’s learned.

***

Shun inhales deeply. The morning air is cold, damp and polluted by the smell of smoke and death. The ashy taste of his cigar helps drown out the noisome odors. It’s surprising, he thinks, that the reek of combat in the city has reached as far as the outlying farmland where he and his spent rocket now rest.

Beside him groans private Macleod, possibly seriously injured or possibly hungover. It would be just like that fucking asshole to go into basttle drunk.

Shun is more than a little surprised that they both got out of the shit breathing, though neither of their previous partners can make the same claim.

He takes another drag on the Taniranese cigar and wonders what kind of people could enjoy smoking something so tasteless and foul. Valisian cigars are works of art, hand rolled with the best tobacco in the world and custom flavored. What he wouldn't give for a real cigar.

He spits in the dirt and stands to stretch. The curvy steel rocket makes for a poor chair, his ass has gone numb.

Two kicks to the soft body on the ground.

“You dying on me down there?” Shun asks.

“Fuck your mother!” Comes the reply. “My head is on fire.”

Hungover.

“Get your ass up!” Shun shouts, pulling Macleod to his feet and giving him a good shake.

“We’re out here all alone. We gotta get moving before some pissed off local decides to put some arrows in us.”

Macleod slaps away Shun’s arms as he blinks the sleep from his eyes. He really does look like crap, his eyes are redder than blood and his skin has taken on a slimy yellow hue. Shun reminds himself to ask just what rotgut the pilot was drinking so he can avoid it like hell.

“I’m up, I’m up!” Macleod says, wobbling on his meaty feet. “Fuck, Shun who put you in charge?”

“You did when you decided to fly around drunk off your ass.” Shun replies, pushing him away. Macleod’s stench is enough to make him briefly forget the horrid smell of war hanging in the air like a shroud.

As he checks the supply bags and reloads his side arm the gunner remembers to review the footage on his personal recorder. After a moment he smiles.

“Hot damn, I didn’t dream that shit! I got three of the bastards.” He digs around in the supply sack until he finds a tangled leathery rope with metal pieces at the ends.

“Just what the hell are you doing?” Macleod asks as Shun untangles the cable.

“If some hillbilly really does snipe us out here I at least want to get credit for the three mages I iced.” He firmly plugs the straightened cord into the small black box on his belt and examines the rocket until he finds the small blue painted circle next to his limply hanging harness. He plugs the other metal end of the rope into a small black hole. A tiny red light glares as an antenna extends from the base of the rocket and rotates until it faces the sky.

“So, now you think you’re hot shit.” Macleod says.

“Now I know i’m hot shit.” Shun replies.

The slow clopping of hooves causes the two to go quiet as dead men, guns out instantly.

“Fuck, you think they heard us?” Shun whispers.

The hoofbeats stop just beyond the rising hill. Shun’s eyes search for cover but find nothing. That’s the trouble with spinach fields, no place to hide.

***

Draken sneezes, his nose irritated by the cloud of dust kicked up as he closes the last book. His eyes feel strained and tired as he blinks repeatedly. Reading by the flickering light of a candle for hours is not a habit he wants to make.

The large hourglass on the desk is more than half empty, making the time something like two hours past midnight. He yawns, picking up the sack of books and shoving them two at a time into the empty spaces on the shelf.

“That isn’t where they go!” The bookend snaps. Draken stares dumbly at the talking statue, his mind foggy from hours of study.

“Shut the fuck up.” He says, leaving the books where they are. “I’m too tired for this shit.”

As he ambles up the steps toward his room, legs feeling heavier than stone he hears the squeaky voice shouting after him.

“Get back here and put those books in order!”

***

“What do we do?” Macleod asks.

“Stay low, move in close to the hill.” Not the best strategy but the best Shun can think of.

At least it will lower the chances of being shot from a near certainty to merely a strong possibility.

“You boys need a ride?”

Valisian accent, thank the gods.

He breathes a sigh of relief and cautiously climbs the hillside to see the friendly yellow and black tabard hanging on the lanky body of a broadly smiling soldier under a kettle helm gleaming in the morning sun.

“You’re one of them aren't you?” The soldier asks, slapping him affectionately on the side.

“A goddamn mage killer.” He spots Macleod, “two goddamn mage killers!”

The soldier pulls Shun toward a rickety horse wagon filled with a dozen Valisian soldiers and what looks like a few local girls. The wood seems near rotten and there’s a few too many rusty nails sticking out to promise comfort but it’s better than walking and definitely safer.

“Make room, assholes!” The young sargent shouts. “We got some bona-fide heroes here.”

The bodies shift to allow space for Shun and Macleod to sit.

“You gotta tell us what it’s like up there, ridin all that power and shootin death from your fingers.” The sarge asks.

Macleod smiles as the wagon lurches into motion.

“It’s like fucking the gods,” he says. “No better feeling in the world.”

Shun’s eyes wander to the five girls huddled in the back of the wagon, fear painted on their faces.

“Any you fancy?” A young soldier asks, braces sparkling in the sunshine. With that charibic face full of freckles and acne he can’t be older than fifteen.

“I had blondie on the way in, she’s a screamer.” The boy laughs. The blond haired girl tries to hide her face.

“They don’t know we’re doing them a favor.” An old soldier says, offering Shun a Valisian hand-rolled cigar. He tries not to show his greedy enthusiasm as he accepts the gift. He smells it, the scent of home is unmistakable. The older man smiles beneath his bushy mustache.

“I’ve seen it before when we sacked Caloon and Tanirport, they fight us now and give us dirty looks but soon they’ll love us. See, these tramps have won the lottery, they just don’t realize it yet.” He lights his cigar and offers Shun the flame. “Just look at this proud bitch.”

He indicates the redhead in the middle, trailing smoke with his cigar. “Doesn’t that look in her eyes just burn you up?”

Having avoided looking any of the girls in the eyes Shun makes contact and is staggered by the contempt that meets him. For an instant he's slapped with terrible doubt. Her stare is like a dagger cutting at the canvas of his illusions and revealing a glimpse of a truth he doesn’t want to see.

Who the hell does she think she is?

“Never had a girl look at you that way before I’ll bet.” The older man laughs. “That’s because she don’t know she wants you yet. In a fortnight or so we’ll cut em loose and believe you me they’ll come crawling back inside a day. Give em a taste of how rough the rest have it and they always come running to their soldier boys begging for their comfortable beds.”

The thought of the haughty Taniranese slut before him swallowing her pride and willingly crawling into his bed brings a smile to Shun’s lips. “I guess the women of Taniran just need to be told what to think.”

The older soldier laughs. “That’s true of every woman the world over!”

Laughter rings out from the wagon as it pulls into the camp.

***

Draken lays awake in his weirdly comfortable bed free of itchy straw and biting insects. Satin sheets better even than the ones in the best brothels, his jaw clenches.

The anger stews inside him, simmering as he lets it sit but never quite going away.

He closes his eyes, listens to the hoot of the owl outside his window. He hopes it will calm his nerves, he’s always found the sound soothing but not tonight. This night his mind is filled with images pulled from his uncle’s memories. Images of his mother, her loving father and his own thrice damned father.

Tiberius Grisham, the man who refused to marry his mother and lived in a castle as she died the squalid death of a whore. A murderer who’d cheated in a duel and struck his grandfather down in the streets.

It’s a strange feeling but he’s grown to love his dead grandfather. In him he sees so much of his mother, his uncle and himself. Beyond that he was a genuinely decent man. Certainly not perfect, but still the sort of man Draken would want to make proud.

Seeing him killed like that, his bravery and conviction met with dirty tricks and murder hurt Draken. He’d known it was coming but it still broke his heart.

Thinking about it he knows he’s been robbed not only of a father but of a loving grandfather and a birthright.

He pictures that old castle by the bluffs and knows that if the world were just he’d have grown up there, son of a lord and his mother a lady. His uncle should be finishing his bakers apprenticeship. His grandfather and his mother would be so proud to learn that Draken passed the mage trials and everyone would be celebrating.

He never would have had to become a criminal, never would have had to kill anyone or see his friends die. His eyes open full of tears.

“I hate him,” he says to no one in particular. “If I could I'd kill him myself.”

The admission makes him feel numb inside. He’s not religious but he knows that most consider patricide a sin. He feels uneasy thinking it as his mind tries to balance truth with the fantasies he’s held onto his entire life. No heroic father returning from a long adventure and begging for forgiveness. No martyr who sacrificed himself to save the lives of widows and orphans. Only a man who chose not only to abandon him but to destroy what little chance he had. For that he feels a hatred burning in every fiber of his being and knows what just came out of his mouth is nothing but truth.

“I know it’s a terrible thing to say but how else am I supposed to feel?”

The only response is the continued hooting of the owl.

“It wouldn’t be hard.” The red clay, he could make another golem, make a dozen, make them fly like death on the wind to burn his father to the ground.

***

The smell of the chow tent reaches Shun’s nose before the wagon comes to a stop. In spite of the lingering stench of death all around him his mouth waters at the smell of food. He takes one last look at the five women.

“Set that redhead aside for me, I wanna take her down a peg.”

He can’t tell if the crimson hue to her skin is from fury or embarrassment but it makes him laugh as he leaps down.

“You ought to smile, you're gonna be my woman!”

The men shout after him as he sprints to the chow tent.

“You just picked the viper in the henhouse!”

He smiles from ear to ear until he sees the chow line and frowns. Hungry men loop twice around the tent, moving by inches rather than feet. His stomach growls in protest as he takes his place in the back. A hand slaps his shoulder.

“We’re big heroes until it’s chow time, then we’re scum like everyone else. ” Macleod chuckles.

After twenty minutes Shun is rewarded with a tray of unidentifiable meat and brown slurry posing as gravy. He savors every bite of the spongy meat and the greasy sauce.

He feels a firm tap on his shoulder. As he looks up his heart skips a beat, an officer.

Standing with cold eyes and a humorless face is a Lieutenant Musketeer. Sauce splatters from Shun’s plate as he promptly salutes.

“Trooper three five-five?” The musketeer asks.

Shun slowly nods.

“You’re summoned to headquarters.”

Shun’s eyes nervously seek Macleod.

“Just you,” the musketeer says coldly.

Shun hesitates over his plate and tries to take one last bite.

“Are you deaf, asshole?” The musketeer slaps the plate from Shun’s hand. “You have your fucking orders, follow me.”

As he wipes the splattered grease from his face Shun decides he doesn’t like this lieutenant one bit. He wordlessly follows the musketeer out into the hot noonday sun cutting between tents and around corners until they turn left into a muddy clearing scarred with wheel tracks.

A man in coveralls lazes against an odd looking wagon with a big metal framework in the front.

“Wake the fuck up, Private!” The Lieutenant shouts, startling the man into a salute.

“I … I … I ... wasn’t sleeping, honest!” The private stammers.

“I ought to have you whipped but we’ve got a schedule to keep. Get that smoke wagon warmed up.”

“Yes sir, Lieutenant Sim!” The man leaps up on the wagon and begins singing as he turns the crank sticking out from the metal block at the front. “Oh, the old lady’s dress has plenty of frills, plenty of frills, plenty of frills, it so little conceals and the skin it reveals tonight.”

Shun coughs painfully, closing his eyes against the stinking black smoke that spews from the wagon and claws at his senses like a rabid cat. He staggers back to get some clean air only to be hauled in by Sim’s strong, meaty hand.

“Quit being such a baby and take a lungful. That’s the smell of power, the stench of victory.”