The Iron Desert surrounded them, an ocean of sand and scattered stones with a few clumps of scrub brush clinging to life. The sun's blazing rays reflected off the white dunes. The company marched through the wastes in a loose line, double file for the most part, but the officers showed little inclination to enforce formation discipline.

Jirom wiped his brow with the back of his forearm.

I thought I was done with soldiering when I was captured. The gods must be laughing their asses off.

Irritated and thirsty, he called for his platoon to tighten into a diamond formation. The dog-soldiers squinted at him as if gauging his seriousness, but they moved. Czachur hustled to take the point position. Jirom watched them with a critical eye, ready with a verbal tongue-lashing.

“Attention! Make way!”

A cavalry regiment rode up from the rear of the column. Kapikul Hazael rode in their midst, his dark eyes scanning the troops. A junior officer stood up in his stirrups. “Who leads this squad?”

Jirom lifted his chin. “I do.”

“The kapikul wants to know why these soldiers are in assault formation.” The officer kept talking before Jirom could answer. “Assemble them in double file at once!”

Jirom's troopers looked to him, and he considered the price of disobeying, but then changed his mind. “Double file!” he called out.

The men rushed into the new formation with practiced ease. The kapikul said something to his officer and then rode ahead up the line with his bodyguards.

“Half rations for two days!” the officer shouted before kicking his steed to catch up with the others.

Jirom bit down on his tongue to keep from saying something he and his squad would regret, but that didn't stop him from fantasizing about putting a spear through the officer's back. Or Hazael's, for that matter.

“Looking good, lads!”

Heads turned as Emanon appeared among them. The rebel captain was all smiles as if this were a pleasant stroll instead of a brutal march into the heart of the most dangerous desert north of the Zaral. But everyone perked up at his arrival. One of the troopers started to step out of formation to greet the captain, but Jirom stopped him with a shout.

“Back in line!”

The soldier, Partha, glared at Jirom from under the cloth wrapped around his head but resumed his position. Emanon went over to clap him on the shoulder and share a word. Then he came to Jirom. “The men look good. They're responding well to you.”

“Is that so?”

Emanon scratched the whiskers under his chin. He was growing out his beard in a scruff of black with some gray poking through. “Well, perhaps you're a bit hard on them. We're revolutionaries. We aren't used to military discipline, eh?”

“Didn't you tell me I could run this platoon how I saw fit?”

“Aye. I did.”

“Then let me run it.”

Emanon held up his hands and laughed. “So be it. I just came to tell you to be ready.”

Jirom looked around at the leagues of desert all around them. “What? Escape? Are you insane?”

“Not now, but everyone needs to be ready. We'll be arriving soon.”

That caught Jirom's attention. They had set out from Erugash three days ago, a convoy of four hundred troopers, sixty-some officers, twenty-one supply wagons, and a complement of cooks, armorers, and drovers. They spent the first day on the river, sailing west in a convoy of barges, and disembarked at a small hamlet with no name. Then they marched northwest. The soldiers hadn't been given a destination, only a general heading, but Emanon's contacts had ferreted out these details within an hour on the road. They were going to a town called Omikur. According to the rumors, that was where the invader army was holed up. Jirom hadn't welcomed the news that they were marching for a fight so soon, but there wasn't much he could do about it.

He shaded his eyes to peer over the heads of the soldiers marching ahead of him. It took him a minute, but he finally spotted a dark smudge against the horizon. That had to be Omikur, unless it was another mirage. “We won't reach it before nightfall.”

“Word is that we'll stop an hour before sunset to make camp and approach the town in the morning.”

“Understood. What about getting us extra water rations?”

Emanon pointed over his shoulder. A wagon loaded with clay jars rolled up from the rear of the column. “Already taken care of. And I have something else for you. A piece of information from Erugash. Your friend, Horace, has joined the queen's court.”

A knot formed in the center of Jirom's chest. “What are you talking about?”

“That's what my sources are saying. He's the new First Sword of Her Majesty's Guard. I don't have to tell you that's a sensitive post. She must trust him an awful lot.”

Jirom shook his head, only half-listening now. What did this mean? Had Horace gone over to the Akeshians?

“All right,” Emanon said. “I have other people to see. Keep your eyes open and remember: Be—”

“Ready. Yes.”

Emanon clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Right. See you later.”

The rebel captain jogged ahead, sliding through the ranks as easily as an eel through a murky riverbed.

Jirom watched him go, wondering how much he could trust Emanon's information. He couldn't believe that Horace would embrace a people who had put a collar around his neck. Then Jirom thought back to the sandstorm and how Horace had faced it. After that, the pale Westerner had been a different man. Had he changed so much he would follow a tyrant like the queen of Erugash?

The sun glared down as the army marched onward.

The call to halt came down an hour before sundown, just as Emanon had predicted. Troops dropped their packs and fell out of formation at once, most of them dropping to the ground where they stood.

“Get up!” Jirom shouted at his unit before they could fall asleep.

Heads lifted, but no one moved. Jirom leaned over, his back crying out in agony after the long march, and picked up the man closest to him. Silfar's eyes opened wide as he was hauled to his feet. Jirom growled in the soldier's face, “Get out your spade and start digging.”

Every night on the march, no matter where they were or how long they'd traveled, Jirom forced his platoon to dig a trench around their campsite before they bedded down. Six feet deep and six across. He would have had them install stakes, too, but he couldn't get his hands on enough disposable wood. His men had refused the first night, until he put three of them on their backs with bloody lips and busted noses. The second night they'd tried to go over his head to Emanon, but the captain shrugged and left. Part of him didn't blame them. Twelve hours on the road in this terrain was enough to kill a man, but if he let up discipline for even one night, he'd lose them for good.

“Up!” he shouted. “On your feet and get this camp squared away!”

With groans and curses, they obeyed. Despite the pain shooting down the backs of his legs, Jirom got in the trench with them as he did every night and came out as sweaty and fatigued as everyone else. Then he got them fed and let them sleep in peace, taking the first watch for himself.

The sun was setting behind Omikur's ramparts. Lights twinkled in the towers studding the long curtain wall. Jirom wondered about the people inside. He'd heard that the crusaders had allowed the town's inhabitants to leave in peace when they occupied the town. About half had taken the offer, leaving with as much food and water as they could carry, but the rest—as many as a thousand people—had chosen to stay. Why?

Jirom knew Akeshian tactics, having fought against them enough times in the past. He had seen it firsthand. The people inside, the civilians, had to know they would receive no mercy when the legions took back the town. Many would die. Savagely, painfully. The soldiers would sate themselves with rape and looting, and the survivors would be sold into slavery. It was madness to resist.

“Hail!” a voice called from across the trench. “Do I need to know a password before I can cross?”

Jirom scowled at Emanon. “Yes. It's ‘asshole.’”

The rebel captain scrambled across the ditch. Brushing off his hands, he surveyed the sleeping soldiers. “I'm amazed you didn't have to kill anyone tonight.”

“Me too. How many did we lose today?”

Two men had fallen down dead on the first day of the forced march, and six more on the second day. Jirom's platoon hadn't lost anyone yet, mainly because he made sure they got plenty of water throughout the day.

“Thirteen,” Emanon replied.

Jirom let out a sigh, too tired to make more of a comment. What could be said? Nothing. The dead were dead, and the living had to keep on going. “Well, we're here. Now what?”

“We've been attached to the Third Legion, the Queen's Silver Demons,” Emanon said.

“Charming name.”

“They're charming lads, I'm sure. They've had the town under siege for almost a fortnight now. Earthworks and siege weapons. Your kind of stuff.”

Jirom grunted. “Any luck with the gates?”

“Not from what I've heard. Omikur's a tough nut to crack. The walls are thirty feet high in most places and at least ten paces thick. The gates are sheathed in iron.”

“How many defenders?”

“The command is guessing about two thousand.”

“That means three thousand, at least.”

“More. My friends tell me there are freed slaves on those walls.”

“That's why they didn't leave when they had the chance. The foreigners offered the slaves their freedom.” A thought occurred to Jirom. “You aren't planning to sneak inside and join the defense, are you?”

Emanon laughed and shook his head. “No, I'm not that crazy. I feel for those poor bastards inside, but I'm not suicidal.”

“So what are we going to do?”

“Just follow orders for now. And be—”

“—ready,” Jirom finished for him. “Don't you ever get tired of saying that?”

Emanon grinned in response. Jirom was about to ask for more details on the secret plan when a boom exploded above their heads and bright green light illuminated the sky. Black clouds formed over the town, despite the fact that the sky had been clear all day. A powerful wind sprung up out of nowhere, showering the camp in sand and the unsettling stench he had come to associate with sorcery.

Lightning struck several times in succession, most of the jagged green bolts landing inside the city. Horns blared in the gathering night as fires sprung up within the walls. The wind continued to whip over the camp, tugging on blankets and cloaks. Jirom's unit was awake now, every man standing and staring at the pyrotechnic barrage. Jirom thought he should say something, but there were no words for it, only a sense of dread in the pit of his stomach. The storm lasted for the better part of an hour, and then slowly died down, the lightning coming less frequently until it ended altogether. The clouds dissipated to reveal a firmament of twinkling stars. The wind was the last thing to go, taking with it with the reek of black magic.

Jirom looked around his camp. His men were mumbling to each other, their faces shadowed with worry. He cleared his throat. “Czachur, get a fire going! Minach, you're on watch!”

The commands snapped some life into the soldiers, and before long most of them were settled on the ground around a growing fire. Jirom wished he had some way to take their minds off what they'd just seen, but he didn't have the heart to assign them any more camp chores.

Emanon touched his elbow. “Get some sleep. We'll be up early tomorrow.”

Jirom nodded, though sleep seemed leagues away. He watched the rebel captain leave the same way he had come, over the trench and off into the night. Jirom found his gear and unrolled his trail blanket. Lying on the rough material cushioned by the sand, he gazed up at the night sky. All the constellations were out. If he blocked out the camp sounds, he could almost believe he was somewhere else, perhaps even back home. But then the afterimages of the storm flashed through his head and destroyed the pleasant illusion.

With a sigh, he closed his eyes and tried to ignore the pain chewing into his lower back.