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now calm and peaceful. While he’d been away, blood beetles had begun feasting on Fyir’s damaged leg, shredding the cloth Brynd had used to staunch the bleeding, and reducing his truncated leg by at least a hand span. In the process, the fist-sized insects had secreted a resin that stopped the bleeding and induced healing, so maybe they weren’t completely a bad thing. Brynd had to scrape the creatures off with a saber, then split them down the center of their shells to kill them.
    The skies cleared, and the world became unbearably cold. He couldn’t yet light a fire because it would inevitably draw attention. Three horses were hidden deeper within the forest so they wouldn’t be stolen. What strategy now? If only he’d brought Nelum along, a man who could generate plots in his head with simplicity, but Nelum was back in Villjamur, because Brynd hadn’t thought he’d need him.
    There had been several more explosions, sparks that shattered the darkness as barrels of firegrain were touched by the spreading flames, but Brynd was confident that the night ahead would be calm. Thirteen of the Night Guard were dead. That left five more unaccounted for, so he assumed them dead too.
    Shadows had moved in front of flames for a while, a few hours back.
    A featureless ship had rowed away.
    Eerie stillness now lingered.
    He could barely remember a time when the Night Guard were made to look so easy to defeat. The Empire’s forces usually dominated battles, clearing rebel islands with brutal efficiency. All thoseyears of early confidence since he’d begun his service for the current Emperor in the Regiment of Foot, then transferred to the Dragoons, and finally to the Night Guard. For his loyalty and renowned fighting skills, he had climbed to the rank of commander. Was he really so loyal? Or, because of the color of his skin, did he feel he always had something to prove?
    He needed to show he was
normal
, steadfastly loyal to the Empire. That made his life easier. Being one of only a few albinos known in the Jamur Empire, he was used to being considered as a permanent outsider. True, people found him curious more than anything else. Their gaze usually settled on his red-tinted eyes, hesitating there a moment because of either fear or amazement, he’d never know—because people liked to stare, didn’t they? As a result of his abnormality, he had worked on improving his fitness and knowledge with remarkable dedication.
    He stared out from the cover of the trees at the fires that still burned where the firegrain had spread among the debris. Most of the grain would be underwater, soaked and useless. Some of it had caught on the wreckage floating along the fjord, and small fires lit its passage to the sea as if there was a festival for the water god, Sul. He wondered vaguely if priests from the Aes would come down to the shore to look for shells as a result of these fires to supply their divinations.
    And what would they tell me tonight? That my luck’s out? No shit
.
    He picked up an arrow he’d rescued from a dead soldier, held it close to see if he could work out its origins. Most likely it came from the island of Varltung, though there were no runes inscribed to indicate a maker. Varltung had a long history of resistance to the Emperor’s forces. Being naturally fortified by its high cliffs, it was difficult for a sea landing. But, because of the Freeze, the Council was reluctant to acquire new territories.
    How could a foreign force even arrive on Jokull, the Jamur Empire’s main island, without anyone noticing? His mission here had been ordered from the highest levels in the Empire, with only the Council, its governing body, being privy to that information.
    A man lurched out of the darkness.
    “Ha! Some bloody Night Guardsman
you
are,” the figure said. “Could’ve slit your throat in a heartbeat.”
    “I noticed you over an hour ago, captain, a hundred paces up theshore. With the noise you made, I’m surprised