Screaming and blood - much more blood than he had expected. Then the empty, staring eyes as he rounded the corner to retrieve his weapons. He'd done something wrong, hadn't he? The first bolt to fly around a blind angle had shocked him even though the basic idea was quite sensible from the other side's perspective. Then Cassian had sent his own daggers around the corner, blindly slamming into something there.

  Screaming and blood - that was the result. Usually it was a bad one. Cassian absently reached down and ran a thumb along his belt. He realized with a start he was missing his daggers.

  "I grabbed them on my way back."

  Cassian started as the unexpected voice broke into his thoughts. He'd lost track of where he was for a moment. They'd moved to a little sheltered area of the island while they waited for the evening tide to roll out. The small, walled nook the others had chosen offered shelter from the wind and good sightlines on most of the island's interior. Adalai had made a large pile of assorted gear and was sorting through it.

  Cassian shook himself, trying to get away from the sound ringing in his ears. "What's that?"

  "Your daggers," Adalai replied, still on whatever thing he'd been talking about before. "I grabbed them on my way back here." To prove his point he set down the crankbow he'd been examining, pulled two knives out of his belt and offered them to Cassian.

  He swallowed hard, staring at the daggers, a nagging feeling as the back of his mind. "Those aren't mine."

  "Yes, they are. I just cleaned the blood off of them."

  "Oh, I see." Cassian gingerly took the weapons back, a slight shudder passing through him as he touched the hilts. "What are you doing?"

  "Looking over the bandit's weapons. Did anything about them strike you as strange?"

  "Well I've never been attacked by bandits before but, other than that, I can't say the experience was unusual per se." He glanced over the crankbow once. "That doesn't look like an unusual bow, either. Were any of their weapons Artifacts or something similar?"

  "No, they were all normal, mundane weapons. The problem I've run into is that they're practically identical, the crankbows in particular." Adalai set all three of the projectile weapons on the ground at his feet. "Look at them. The gears on the primary lever assemily in particular. These were all made at the same place."

  Cassian frowned, not sure what, exactly, he should be looking for. "I'll take your word for it, Signore Arminger. If that's so then what does it tell us?"

  "Unfortunately it doesn't say much for certain. That's the problem with situations like these, where all we have are hints and suggestions. But consider the nature of the men as well." Adalai ticked things off on his fingers. "First we encountered a Leaper, someone with a gift that makes scouting, particularly over water, much easier. Then there's a Bladebearer, someone uniquely deadly at close range. Finally, a man with the Gift of Impulse, which is one of the ideal gifts for attacking at a long distance. Now what does that suggest to you?"

  Cassian shrugged helplessly. "They were intelligent? Tactically speaking that sounds like the ideal composition for a three man group. None of those gifts are rare, though Bladebearers are not exactly commonplace. If we had such a group I would be perfectly happy with it."

  "Your analysis seems flawless to me." Then Adalai held up one of the swords the bandits had carried. It's blade shone like a mirror in the early afternoon light. "Now let me ask you this. You meet three men, with the perfect set of skills for skirmishing, carrying identical weapons with little to no wear and tear on them. They were camped between two large, wealthy cities. However they were not on the route large caravans or wealthy merchants would take but on a route favored by couriers and spies, or anyone else with a need to move quickly. Does that sound like bandits to you?"

  Cassian began to see what Adalai was getting at. "No, bandits don't have weapons this nice or enough people to make such a perfect scouting group. They'd send whatever people they have with whatever weapons are on hand. This looks more like an army group, or at least scouts for a large mercenary group."

  "That was my guess as well." Adalai set the sword down and sighed. "Unfortunately they hadn't owned their gear for very long, there wasn't any kind of useable impressions to read from it. Verina mentioned you worked in a smithy. Do you recognize anything about this stuff?"

  You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

  "No, I can't say that I do. If the smith who forged it had some kind of maker's mark it was filed off or otherwise removed after it was bought. But not everyone has something like that. I know I don't." Cassian picked up one of the crankbows and looked at the mechanism Adalai had pointed out earlier. "I'm not a machinist though. There may be some hint in these gears that I don't have the know how to pick up on."

  "Does it matter?" Marta asked. "Forgive my ignorance but in Hessex they say every man in Nerona is out to find some advantage for themselves. If those weren't bandits we fought, so what? Some mercenary or minor lord was lying in wait on some business of their own and wound up ambushing us by mistake. Is it that important who they were or why they were here? We already survived their attack."

  "True," Adalai said. "But it would be nice to at least know if there will be more of them to come or if we made an enemy by killing them."

  "The latter is almost certainly true," Verina said. "If their group was more than we saw here the rest will resent us for killing them. That is the way of the world."

  A brief sense of dread washed over Cassian at Verina's words. Almost as soon as it rose it was swallowed up by anger that he had any sympathy for people who attacked him in the first place. It took only a few seconds for the warring emotions to settle. In spite of the brevity of his introspection Cassian caught Adalai watching it with a strangely approving look on his face.

  "I suppose the question of whether there will be more of them is worth thinking about," Marta said, the silent aside lost on her. "Perhaps we can outpace them? If we can get ahead of their faction we can easily avoid further conflict."

  "It's not clear they're from Fionni," Adalai said. "They had enough provisions missing from their bags they could have come from Renicie and camped here for a few days. There were no seals or heraldry with them so it's impossible to tell where they came from."

  "They certainly were trying hard to stay a mystery." Verina casually sat down next to Adalai, studying the sword he was holding by leaning in close to him.

  "Clearly," Cassian said, voice flat, "We are dealing with someone of great subtlety."

  "A master of the craft," Marta agreed, sounding much more amused than he was.

  Adalai resheathed the weapon, seemingly oblivious to Verina's antics. "Can we change routes?"

  "Unfortunately we can't, not if we want to move quickly." Cassian unfolded his map and pointed to three lines through the Drownway. "These are the paths known to the man who sold me this map. As you can see none of them are terribly direct." Cassian tapped the southern line. "This is the path we're on right now. There's no way to switch from here to one of the other routes without charting a new path on our own, which could take days. Picking out our own route the whole way would be worse."

  "And you are in a hurry," Marta murmured.

  "I am."

  "Then there's nothing we can do but press on," Verina said with a sigh. "The tides don't go out again for another eight hours. I'll take first watch. The rest of you should get some rest."

  She got up and paced along the rock wall until she reached the corner and perched herself on it. The air around her began to shimmer slightly. Cassian idly wondered whether it was her or the Linnorm that would do most of the watching. Marta snorted and started unpacking her bedroll.

  "Something wrong?" Adalai asked.

  "From push to pull," Marta replied, "a masterful display."

  Cassian shook his head and got up to stretch his legs, pacing away from the campsite down to the shoreline. For a few moments he just stared out at the ocean, enjoying the sound of the waves and studying the islands in their temporary archipelago. He'd always known a large chunk of the Drownway were ruins of old Nerona. As a youth that had seemed grand and mysterious. Now that he was there it just felt melancholy.

  "Are you feeling more clearheaded?"

  Cassian looked up to find Adalai coming down the slope to him. "How so?"

  "You killed your first man today, didn't you? It has an effect."

  A hot flush crept up Cassian's neck. "You could tell?"

  "Certainly. I wasn't that different from you the first time I took a life."

  "I never heard about it from my brother."

  "It's not something people like to talk about, doubly so to someone who hasn't lived through the thing themselves." Adalai joined him at the waterline and stared at the waves as well. "Look, I'm no expert. I had to live through it. I've watched one other person live through it as well. Based on that extensive group of people I'd say you're handling things rather well. Although it's probably a wise choice not to try and sleep this afternoon."

  Cassian grimmaced. "I figured as much. I can't go this entire trip without sleeping, though."

  "No, no, just don't try it right now. Maybe you can break down the weapons we picked up and do something with them? I've heard Ironhands don't need a forge to work metal."

  "Well you've been listening to fairy tales, then," Cassian said with a laugh. "There may have been one or two Ironhands capable of something like that in history but I'm not one of them. I don't think there's one living in all Nerona, Isenlund or Hessex with that kind of power."

  "My mistake." Adalai shrugged and said, "In that case you can park yourself between me and the yaga once she's done on watch."

  "I was beginning to think you weren't interested in women, my friend," Cassian said with a laugh. "She was clearly inviting you to pay her a visit just now. Instead you came to talk to me! I'm not sure the Highplains honor can take the slight."

  "It's not the Highplains that bothers me," Adalai said. "It's the Linnorm."

  "You've never seen an Invoker with a nature spirit before?"

  "I have." Adalai's gaze focused on something in the far distance. Beyond even the windswept horizon. "But that dragon reminds me of something I'd rather keep as far away as possible. It's nothing personal."

  Cassian grunted. "My friend, when it comes to a woman it cannot be anything but personal."