[h3]Gold Is The Only Loyalty.[/h3]

The defeat at Katalani did not merely break the Red Army. It broke the illusion that the Red Wyvern could protect those who gathered beneath its banner.

In the days that followed, the roads south of Inbur filled with fugitives, wounded men, broken companies, deserters, priests, camp followers, and mercenaries suddenly eager to explain that they had never truly been Ariana Hasikos’ men in the first place. The Red court had always been an uneasy thing, a storm of peasant rage, old grievances, hired blades, former Owned Men and would-be revolutionaries bound together by the promise that history itself had begun to crack. At Katalani, that promise had been answered by cannon, cavalry and the cold arithmetic of disciplined war.

Those who had believed fled into the fields and forests. Those who had been paid looked for new paymasters.

Among the latter was Warrin Montfault, known as "Grey Beard", an infamous Monchian of Emiddley and captain of a hard-bitten company of former pirates, smugglers and shore-raiders. Warrin had never been Red in any meaningful sense, he had taken their coin, lent them steel, and followed the tide while it seemed to run in their favor. But with Ariana captured and the Red host shattered, there was little profit in dying for another's crown, much less for the sermons of mad priests and the dreams of field slaves.

So Warrin did what men like Warrin had always done, survive.

It was said he came to the Imperial lines with a wagon of like-minded men, a purse of stolen coin, and enough knowledge of Red movements, passwords, river routes and partisan methods to make himself useful. To the officers of Voron’s eastern host, he was a distasteful necessity: a pirate, murderer, and faithless sellsword but one who knew how rebels moved and how desperate men found their way through marsh, quay and alley. There were still commanders in the Empire who would have hanged him on principle but there were others who understood that principle was a luxury armies could seldom afford, especially with how chaotic the country had become.

The arrangement would never be called an alliance, rather it was a contract and nothing more. Warrin and his Monchians would serve as scouts, raiders and irregular hunters, striking at supply lines, messengers, river crossings and rebel screens. In return they would receive coin, plunder rights where permitted, and the quiet protection of men who preferred not to ask too many questions about where their new auxiliaries had been the month before.

Thus the war entered one of its uglier phases. The Empire, once proud enough to rule through law, tribute and terror, now bought the services of sea-wolves and cutthroats. Rebels who had sworn to destroy the Elgan order now found some of their former hirelings wearing Imperial favor and across the country, every faction learned the same lesson in turn: claims and banners mattered less than powder, food, horses and men willing to kill.

Word of this would eventually reached the remaining forces in the conflict, including those where Alberic Thorel served.
[hr]
[h3]A Quest Yet Unfulfilled.[/h3]

Alberic had never liked waiting for war to decide where it wanted him, yet the training yards had called for him and he had done his best to serve Andronika within them. The rawest recruits had been sent off to Marcus and the pike drills, where they could learn how to stand shoulder to shoulder without tripping over their own feet. The veterans Vassos had ordered brought back from the walls were gathered instead beneath Alberic’s eye, joined by a handful of sharper recruits, some Carnelfennian volunteers, and a few men who looked like they had lived long enough on bad roads to know when to duck.

Alberic walked the line slowly, arms folded, his trimmed hair stirring in the breeze. “You are not pike,” he said, voice carrying across the yard, “You are not line shot. You are not here to stand pretty under a banner while some lord’s drummer tells you when to die.”

A few men glanced at one another. Alberic let them.

“You will scout roads, guard powder wagons. You will sleep light and wake fast. You will learn to move through mud, trees, alleys, ditches, and broken ground. If the enemy comes for our baggage, you meet them before they smell the flour. If riders come for our messengers, you put them in the earth and take their horses. If the column is struck at night, you do not scream, you do not run, and you do not wait for some nobleman to explain the situation to you.”

He drew his blade then, one clean motion, the steel catching the sun.

“You fight like men who mean to live.”

This was what he could do, not politics or crowns. Not treaties with elga princes or marriage hopes carried in by royal detachments. Vassos could count battalia and supply wagons. Kreznik could hear secrets through walls. Andronika could turn a room with a smile and a sentence. Aonène could make men believe the world might yet be saved.

Alberic could teach men how not to die quickly and that would have to be enough.

Near sunset, a rider came in from the east road, mud up to the horse’s belly and dust caked in the folds of his coat. He was not one of the Hounds, nor one of the prince’s men, but a local scout pressed into service by the army’s sudden need for eyes. He waited while Alberic finished correcting a man’s grip, then stepped close and lowered his voice.

“Captain Thorel?”

Alberic turned.

“Word from traders out of the south. The Reds are broken worse than we thought. Katalani was a slaughter. Ariana Hasikos taken alive.”

That brought a murmur from the nearby men. Alberic said nothing.

The scout swallowed. “There’s more. Some of the sellswords who rode with the Reds have changed coats. Gone over to Voron’s people, they say. Irregulars... Men who know river roads and smuggler paths.”

Alberic’s eyes narrowed.

“One name came up.” The scout hesitated, perhaps sensing something in the silence that followed. “A Monchian. Montfault... They call him 'Grey beard.'" 

For a moment the yard seemed to empty of sound.

The recruits were still speaking, somewhere behind him. A horse stamped near the gate, a hammer rang from the farrier’s shed, all of it seemed to come from far away, muffled beneath the sudden rush of blood in Alberic’s ears.

Warrin Montfault.

[b][i]Grey Beard.[/i][/b]

He was here, on the mainland, selling his sword again just as Coralie's men had informed him. His trace had gone cold months ago and Alberic had come to assume he was likely dead or had fled but now he knew... he had gone to the Empire, crawling into the purse of the very masters this army was marching to fight.

Alberic felt his hand close around the hilt of his sword until the leather creaked.

“Captain?” the scout asked carefully.

Alberic breathed in through his nose, slow and hard, then released the grip before the anger could show too plainly.

“Tell Commander Vassos,” Alberic said at last. His voice was calm enough that even he almost believed it. “If Voron’s hiring raiders, then our baggage and messengers will be the first things they test. I want double watches on the powder caravans once we march. I want no lone couriers or fires after dusk without cover.”

The scout nodded and hurried off.

Alberic turned back to the men assembled in the yard. They were watching him now, some curious, some uneasy. He looked them over one by one, these half-trained soldiers, these boys with shaking wrists and veterans with tired eyes. Then he drew his pistol and held it up.

“Again,” he ordered.

No one complained as the drills resumed, Alberic watched them move. Duty had chained him here once more, perhaps that was fitting. Bugt Warrin was ahead now, somewhere between Andronika’s march and Voron’s army, the old pirate had found himself a new master.

Alberic would not abandon the White Army to hunt him. Not yet.

If Grey Beard came for their roads, their powder, their wounded, or the Dawnbringer herself, then Alberic would be ready.

And this time, nor the sea or time would bring mercy.