Chapter 50: The Song Of Drowned Men

The horse’s steps were not quiet, nor was the noise they made. The little camp looked unguarded, but in Velen, men who kept no watch in the wild had long since turned into dung.

“Who’s there?”

Steel clattered first. Then a halberd thrust out from beneath the great tarp. It came level at first, and only rose upright once the blade had cleared the canvas.

The man who followed was a soldier, one hand still trying to straighten his helmet. His face was dark, but not by birth or honest labor. Lannor knew the answer the moment he looked at him. Dust, sweat, and grease had caked together into a black film because the man had not bothered to wash. His beard was just as neglected. By then, Lannor had led Pope close enough to glance beneath the tarp and see two more soldiers sprawling there, scrambling up with hands on the storage crates.

The black-faced soldier who had spoken first grew impatient and barked again. “In Lord Vserad’s name! Stranger, tell me who you are and what you’re doing here.”

Lannor kept his eyes lowered. He did not answer. Instead, he asked, “Vserad? You serve the Lord of Velen?”

“Thump, thump. Plain enough, isn’t it?”

The black-faced soldier rapped the Temerian silver lilies on his breastplate, his expression perfectly righteous.

Calling that piece of gear a breastplate was generous. Unlike the men under Phillip Strenger, veterans fresh from war, these soldiers did not wear proper Temerian standard armor. Those men at least had mail beneath, broad plates over the torso, and steel guards for limbs and knees. This one wore a ragged gambeson as his base, with only a curved iron plate strapped over his belly. The gambeson itself was worse than the thing Lannor had first arrived in, and could not be compared to issued armor at all.

Lannor lifted his gaze for a heartbeat, then lowered it again.

At least the mark was real.

He understood now why Vserad’s soldiers were here. Phillip Strenger’s unit was an elite force under Vserad, but a lord could not hold his domain with one elite squad alone. The true fingers of Vserad’s rule were men like these, the trash soldiers, stationed in villages and hamlets, three or four to a post, moved around regularly and given pay and supplies. Taken together, several hundred or perhaps a thousand such men were the broadest force under the Lord of Velen.

They did not have to be strong. They did not have to fight well. They did not even have to be brave. So long as they existed, Vserad’s rule over Velen remained solid.