The Heartlands were a nightmare place to make war in, simply because they had been so firmly under Valoisian control for so long. There had never been any need to build and maintain wide, straight roads for armies to march on. Instead, all the roads were little cobblestone lanes, shaded by trees and often firmly confined in a corset of stone walls atop which wild hedges flourished, sometimes barely wide enough for two carts to pass each other.

It forced the prince and his two marshalls to move their units slowly, and split them over a variety of routes lest one broken cart in the wrong place halted the whole army.

And to make matters worse for them, Mithras wasn’t smiling down at the army carrying his image into the heartlands of Loegrion. Just as the final soldiers moved out of the depot at Port Neaf, it started to rain. Not a bit of a light drizzle, but a proper downpour that had a host of tiny Rot-creatures swarm the area. The werewolves tried their best to herd the monsters towards the Valoise, but it was much like herding cats.

It was still going a few hours later, as David watched from atop a little ridge as the pisscoats struggled to keep their powder dry on the road below. The trees of the little forest hid him quite well, but still, every once in a while, someone tried to take a shot at him. Which meant the soldiers weren’t trying to shoot the werewolves lined up in the thick, windbreaking hedgerow right along the other side of the road.

Waiting for the right moment.

David’s new gelding snorted when another bullet dug itself into the ground a few yards below them. But he was up here and the Valoise were down in the swale. Even with their fancy rifles with their expensive grooved barrels, he was beyond their effective range. The horse didn’t know that, though.

The gelding likely did sense the Rot, crawling about. David certainly had a headache despite his silver-decorated cap. He had sent Rust and Ragna away, clearing and destroying more villages before the Valoisian advance. He had kept only the youngest werewolves around, because he was hoping to watch when the Rot attacked the track of wagons and soldiers in the valley.

Unfortunately, luck wasn’t exactly smiling on him today, either.

Alvin’s shade suddenly flared bright in the rainy gloom; that was all the warning David got. The Rot rose straight out of the ground, like a fountain of mud with murderous intentions. David’s gelding bucked so hard he almost lost his hold in the saddle.

The Rot creature just kept growing until it towered over David and the horse and even some of the smaller trees. It hollowed out the ground where it appeared, flowing up the hill against gravity, carrying a wave of stench with it.

David froze. The only reason he didn’t fall out of the saddle right then was because his horse froze, too.

The Rot’s foul magic had no effect on Alvin’s shade. The gangly, silver shadow threw itself onto the Rot, digging its glowing teeth into the repugnant dirt. Ripping out chunks.

There was no sound. No real sound. David knew he wasn’t really hearing it with his ears. Yet somehow, he sensed the wolf’s furious snarl deep inside himself.

As soon as he was aware of that snarl, he could move again. Could drive his heels into the gelding’s flanks to jerk the horse out of the Rot’s grasps, direct it down the hill—towards the Valoise and his own werewolf-soldiers.

They came down the hill like a runaway train, the horse, David, and the Rot. There were bullets flying right and left of David’s head and he kept waiting for the gelding to be hit, to crumple under him—but it never happened. Instead, he had a couple of seconds to appreciate how the influence of the Rot hit the orderly lines of marching soldiers and carts, how men gagged or fainted or just sat down on the ground or simply stopped moving altogether.

When he glanced back over his shoulder, Alvin’s shade was carried along, riding on the Rot-monster, still tearing at it.

David crossed the road facing almost no resistance at all. He didn’t even draw his sabre. One single brave Chasseur in his silver armour was still moving and tried to stop him, but the gelding trampled him without even slowing down.

Ducked as low over the gelding’s neck as he could, David was still hit hard in the face as the horse crashed into the hedge on the other side of the road. Where Millie and Vigo were hidden by the dense foliage. The fur in their necks was standing on edge but otherwise, they were eerily quiet.

David half fell, half jumped out of the saddle, noisily throwing up his meagre breakfast. He was vaguely aware of Millie slinking around him and the horse, and Alvin’s shade—impaled on dozens of branches that couldn’t touch him—standing between him and the Valoise as his body tried to get rid of everything he had eaten that week. When David spit onto the ground one last time, there were more Rot-creatures on the road, just a few yards away. Keeping away from the werewolves, at least for now.

The Valoise were getting torn apart. In the centre of the street, ripping up the cobblestones, was the creature that had attacked David first, but there were half a dozen smaller ones around it. Fittingly for the countryside, they looked as if a bunch of cowpats had gathered and learned to move. The stink was breathtaking, making David glad that there was nothing left within his stomach to come up.

These Rot-creatures had no hard edges, no claws or maws as so many others David had seen. They just threw themselves onto the Valoise, flattening them. David was pretty sure he heard bones crunching.

Or maybe that was just the cobblestones.

He didn’t think it was just the cobblestones.

The animals pulling the carts with the gunpowder stood perfectly still, paralyzed in place. David watched how one of the smaller Rot-creatures approached the ox closest to him, leaning onto the beast. It snorted softly but made no attempt to escape or fight back. Yet the mound of mud had barely touched the ox’s flank when a ripple went through its shape and it recoiled. Two stubby little “arms” poked at the beast. David wondered if it would form a head, too, but then the whole ugly thing slurped around and away, attacking the driver of the cart.

“Weird,” David muttered.

Alchemy, Millie replied. On the coat of the beasts.

She wrinkled her nose. David couldn’t tell if that was because of the smell of the alchemy or because the Rot swallowed the cart driver whole, growing in the process.

Might need some backup for this, Vigo commented.

David nodded silently. Already, he heard horn signals somewhere behind a bend in the street, and then the sound of hooves on cobblestones and the rattle of armour. While the Rot was still feasting, a line of chasseurs a cheval charged into the tunnel of trees surrounding them—twelve silver-armed riders, whose horses were armoured much like those of ancient knights. All of it plated in silver.

Vigo and Millie both retreated deeper into the brush, ducking low in the foliage. David didn’t move. He needed to see. To watch how the Valoise aimed their short stocky guns at the Rot and fired a volley at almost point-blank range. The mud went flying where the brightly glowing alchemy hit home. Before the creatures managed to reassemble themselves, the chasseurs drew their sabres and spurred their horses onwards.

“Turn human,” David whispered to his own soldiers as the chasseurs engaged the Rot directly. “Grab your muskets!”

It would have been an inspiring sight a couple of years ago, the way the Valoisian soldiers tore into the Rot, seeing the monsters rear and flee or get simply hacked apart. Now, David really wished the chasseurs were less effective at what they did.

But their silver armour had to be expensive as hell. Surely, these were elites of which even the Roi Solei could only field a limited number. So they had to lower that number further.

Vigo turned quickly. Millie barked softly, passing the order on to the wolves hidden along the road, before shifting, too. David only had eighteen of them hidden in the hedgerow, but most of them were veterans. And that was still eighteen bullets and a crossbow bolt the chasseurs weren't expecting in the middle of fighting the Rot.

Naked men and women gathered around him with their weapons loaded.

“Ready,” David hissed, and swung his own crossbow off his shoulder while the werewolves took their firing stances. “Aim…and fire!”

He loosened his own bolt, straight at a man’s face. Aimed again and shot another one in the neck. The rest of his soldiers had to be far less careful where they aimed: Silver armour was great against the Rot, but it barely offered any protection against musket fire. Especially at just a few yards of range.

David reached for the lever and a fresh bolt. “Don’t kill the horses,” he ordered quietly.

“Ambush!” yelled one of the chasseurs in Valoisian. “It’s an ambush!”

Those chasseurs who still could promptly turned and ran in confusion—elites they might have been, but they weren’t used to fighting people. Let alone armed people. Which they couldn’t see.

Now came the hardest part.

“Catch any horse that can still move,” David ordered. “Take the men’s armour.”

The werewolves stared back at him in shock.

“We’re stealing as much of it as possible,” David added, raising his voice. Meeting their eyes as much as he could in the shadow of the hedge. “Quick!”

It was one of the veterans who snapped him a salute, then stepped into the battlefield. David waited till the rest of them followed, then went, too. It was gruesome work, stripping the dead and dying of their armour. And David had the easy end of it. The werewolves were hissing and cursing at the pain, but they did it, collecting the silver mail and strapping it onto the five remaining horses.

When there was another signal blown out of sight, David swore under his breath.

“Leave the rest!” he ordered. “Take the horses and let’s get out of here! Through the hedge!”

The horses snorted loudly, but they followed the werewolves into the thicket. David didn’t wait until they were out of sight and pulled out his field lighter, to set fire to a rope inside the cart with the powder.

Quickly, he followed his werewolves into the hedge, then out on the other side, onto the open field beyond.

“Turn wolf!” David yelled, jumping into the saddle of his own gelding as soon as the open ground stretched before him. It was muddy and heavy, slowing horses and wolves alike.

They hadn’t made it halfway across the field when it turned out that yes, the Valoise had succeeded in keeping their powder dry. The noise when the first barrel of the stuff went was like a physical blow to the back of his head.

Mithras’s flaming balls…

David couldn’t tell which of the werewolves that specific bit of blasphemy came from. He couldn’t hear his own chuckle, either, because the rest of the cart’s load went off at that moment. Possibly the next cart, too.

The stolen horses flew over the wall on the other side of the field as if their tails had been set on fire. All the werewolves had to do was turn them down an even narrower holloway, so overgrown by trees David had to duck low in the saddle.

Good luck to the Valoise trying to find them in this rabbit warren.

If they were even trying.

Though David was fairly sure they were. After all, they had just stolen six whole sets of horse armours, and seven human ones.

Now they just had to do it another hundred times. Two hundred times? It didn’t matter.

They just had to keep killing and stealing and burning their men and material until even the Roi Solei decided that Loegrion wasn’t worth it.

Not to speak out of turn, Sir, Vigo asked when they slowed down to a trot. But what are we going to do with all the silver?

“I’ll keep a helmet for myself,” David said. “Maybe all the helmets, to trade them for food if need be. The rest of it, we wrap up and hand over to the regular army at the first opportunity.”

If there wasn’t an opportunity soon, of course, they might just have to bury the whole lot and hope they could find it again after the war.

Loegrion was going to need this armour one day. Once they got to clearing the Rot.

“Anyway,” he added, to banish that cheerful thought. “I hope you enjoyed your first successful raid as Loegrian irregulars.”

There was laughter, and one of the veterans said: Lord Relentless’s Irregulars.