Meek

Bo's breath caught at the sound of the laughter. Of the lunatic laughter swelling in the darkness. It wasn't coming from any of his troops, that's all he knew. Well, that and it sent shivers along his spine.

Not that he missed a step. Not after the horrors he'd faced, even before he'd entered the Bloodwitch's service. Definitely not after the things he'd seen in the past few years.

He never lost his nerve, though, not anymore. The Bloodwitch was a power. She was more than human, and serving her made him feel more than human, too. Braver, stronger, better than human. And more ruthless, because that's what 'better' meant.

He drew his sword and bellowed, "Arms! Enemy in the camp! Enemy in camp!"

A clamor sounded in the night as his troops tossed their tankards and dice aside, and reached for weapons. As Bo stepped into the camp, a handful of men stumbled sleepily from their tents, including Nails, the carpenter-turned-scaffolder-turned-soldier, who stood there arse-naked with a hammer in his hand.

The horn blared, two short, one long, sounding the alert.

"To me!" Bo barked.

Nails blinked at him in sleepy incomprehension, but the new recruit and Seten fell in beside Bo.

"Where's it coming from?" he asked the recruit, hoping his young ears could locate the source of the laughter.

The recruit pointed his sword. "There, I think."

A scream tore through the night--one of his men, dying among the tents--and the laughter grew more gleeful, more unhinged.

"Bo!" He brother toward him with Whit. "Nobody approached camp, I was--"

Except then Whit just ... fell. Nothing touched him, nothing happend. He simply collapsed like his legs had turned to wool. Not dead, not unconscious, just gargling and staring and useless.

"What the halo?" the recruit whispered.

"Stay close," Bo snapped, and a tent burst into flames across the camp.

"Here!" one of Bo's men yelled from the direction of the fire.

The laughing stopped, and the abrupt silence sent another tremble of shivers along Bo's spine.

"He's cornered!" the man yelled.

"Archers!" Bo called, racing toward the voice. "In position! Porcupine!"

"And you doubted me," his brother scoffed, running alongside him.

His brother fancied himself knowledgeable about military tactics despite having been whipped out of his regiment after two years. Still, he'd insisted on trying to teach these bottomfeeders a few basic tactics. Apparently a handful of them had actually listened, too. On the way to the burning tent, Bo passed five of his fighters with their bows raised, standing in a circle around a cookfire, facing away. Scanning for the enemy and covering each other, safe from ambush.

The voice called again. "This way! He--ga!"

Bo skidded around the supply cart and caught motion in the corner of his eye. A man in the shadows was chopping at the ground with a hand-axe, like he was trying to remove a tree stump.

Except there was no tree stump. The man was chopping at one of Bo's men with a hand-axe, bringing the blade down over and over and over again.

A man with a blood-caked face, so intent on his deadly work that he didn't seem to notice Bo and the others spreading out, stalking closer while Seten charged forward.

Then Seten jerked backward like he'd taken a blow to the head.

"My eye!" he gasped, and the attacker sprang at him.

Seten's right leg buckled for no reason and the man turned the recruit's swinging sword with his axe-head--without godsdamned looking in his godsdamned direction. At the clang of metal against metal, the man leaped toward Seten but Bo's brother thrust his longknife into the man's side deep enough to slice lung.

Deep enough to make anything falter--at least anything less than one of the Bloodwitch's pets.

Yet the man kept moving. The man kept moving and he tore Seten's throat out with his bare hands. No, not even his hands. He did it one-handed, while stumbling past, injured, which was not possible. Which was not possible, yet he left Seten gurgling and dying on the ground.

Then an arrow took the man in the leg and he toppled around the corner of a tent.

Bo heard himself roar. He and the recruit raced forward while his brother dashed away, to cut off the man's retreat. To trap the bastard. Who the halo was he? Some soldier from West Town? No. It was one of those bless-damned mercs. Had to be. Well, Bo would tear the truth out of the man once he brought him down.

Except when he got around the corner, the man was gone. No sign of him--maybe a few droplets of blood, but there wasn't time to read them, not with a killer in his camp. Bo needed to put a length of metal in his heart before--

There!

A shape moved inside the tent to his left.

Just a whisper of movement, like ass-end of a spear brushing the fabric.

Bo didn't need more than a whisper: he sliced through the tent and burst inside, followed by the recruit.

Then he stopped short at the sight of an empty tent. Bedrolls on the floor, scattered clothing and gear, nothing else.

"Uh, boss," the recruit said.

"Keep your sword up!" Bo snapped.

The recruit showed him something in his fingers. A thorn. "I got stung," the recruit said, then sat heavily on one of the bedrolls. Not unconscious, just ... dazed, like Whit.

"Halo," Bo cursed.

He started for the tent flap--then spun at a sound behind him.

The recruit was still sitting there, but now his head was bowed and he was gaping at the spear impaling his chest. Shoved all the way through him from the other side of the tent wall.

And the laughter started again. Manic and taunting.

Bo felt the touch of real fear for the first time in a long time--at least outside of the presence of the Bloodwitch or her creatures.

He ignored the feeling and took a step ... and a blade drew across his throat.

He crouched and spun reflexively, slashing his sword to kill his murderer with his last breath--and there was nobody there. And ... and his throat wasn't slit. No pain, no blood. What the unholy halo? He'd felt a touch at his neck, but nothing was--

He dropped to his knees, and felt the impact a moment later: a starbust of pain in his head.

From behind, from the flat of a hand-axe.

A rough hand turned him onto his back and he found himself looking up at the blood-faced man. Not a merc. Not one of those vale-cursed mercs.

No, this was the godsdamned yokel with the donkey. Who shouldn't be able to stand after being dragged for an hour, much less walk.

"I'll make you a guarantee," the man said, his green eyes gleaming.

"I--the witch will tear your guts out. She'll tear your bloody guts out for this."

"Here's my guarantee." The man raised his axe to chop at Bo's stomach. "I'll strangle you with yours."

Bo clamped his jaw to keep from whimpering, to bite back the urge to beg.

Except instead of disemboweling Bo, the man twisted the axe suddenly. For no reason--except then an arrow punched through the fabric of the tent, chimed off the axe-head, and sunk into the ground two inches from Bo's leg.

The man had seen the arrow coming for his head. He'd seen the arrow coming from outside the tent. He was more than human, too ...

The man crouched and another arrow sliced the air above him. He vanished through the slit in the tent and Bo breathed too hard and too fast. The blow to his head kept him pinned to the floor for too many dizzy heartbeats, then he forced himself to his feet.

He grabbed his sword and reeled after the man, two images of the camp blurring around him.

By the time he reached the clearing, his double-vision cleared. He saw his archers at the campfire, but only three of them were still standing. The fourth was a heap on the ground, while the fifth was clutching at her chest where the man had thrown his axe at her. It hadn't struck her blade-first, but it still hit hard enough to stagger an unarmored target.

At least the three remaining archers were all shooting at the man stalking toward them.

Except what he did then was, he blocked the arrows and giggled.

Well, no. He didn't block them. He tracked them without a single flicker of his gaze, he tracked them in the air as he stalked forward, and he caught them in the flesh of his right hand and forearm.

Four arrows, five, six arrows embedded in his bleeding, shredded arm.

Then he reached the archers, and by that time they weren't thinking anymore. They were panicked by this laughing horror, this unstoppable thing, and he pulled an arrow from his right hand with a gush of blood and jammed it into the first archer's eye and then the townsman--the one with the now-dead son--charged into sight and tackled another archer and started beating her head against the ground as he sobbed and the man pivoted and stabbed the final archer in the face with the heads of arrows that were impaling his arm.

Not enough to kill but the final archer fell screaming.

Bo staggered toward the man, toward his own death and--

"Bo!" his brother called. "The tent! The pets, the pets!"

He veered sideways, responding unthinkingly to his brother's voice. He jogged past the latrine and the laughter followed him as he burst into his tent. The biggest tent, the finest tent. The tent where he stored the ferret and the kestrel.

His brother stood guard, a longknife in each hand, as Bo uttered the words that the Bloodwitch had taught him, to awaken her creatures.

The crate lid opened and a mangled paw appeared.

The ferret crawled out and the man stepped in, still laughing softly. Sheeted in blood. Free of arrows. Empty hands, bloody arms. Terrible eyes. Laughing and laughing and laughing.