The siege camp reeked of piss, sour ale, old tallow smoke, and damp earth. Fires spat yellow light across rows of torn tents, and the evening fog hung thick enough to drown a man's shadow. Garran Stone sat hunched by a guttering flame, carving a notch into the hilt of a battered sword — his father's sword, though none here knew it.
"Marking kills now, are we?" came a voice, rough as gravel and twice as dry.
Garran didn't look up. "Marking days," he muttered.
Ser Orlec Marnis, a hedge knight older than the siege walls they camped beneath, limped into the firelight. His hair was thin, his teeth yellowed, and one eye blind from a long-forgotten wound. The old man spat into the mud and dropped a crude bone die onto a flat rock by Garran's feet.
"Day's worth nothing, boy," Orlec said. "But dice might buy you luck. Or cost you it."
Garran snorted. "Luck's a poor man's lie."
"And lies keep poor men breathing." Orlec grinned, kneeling with a wince. "You'd do well to learn both."
The dice clattered. A six and a snake-eye. Orlec cursed in some old tongue and made the sign of an outlaw saint. Garran picked up the die and turned it between his fingers.
Across the mire, men huddled around fires, grumbling over spoiled grain and thinner rations. Two mercenaries argued over a stolen cloak while a third pissed against a wagon wheel. Somewhere a dog barked, sharp and desperate.
"You'll ride with me tomorrow," Orlec said.
Garran arched a brow. "Why?"
"Because I'm too old to swing a blade without a fool to bleed beside me."
A shout broke the night — coarse, half-drunk, and spiteful.
"Crows take you, Red Bart! That's my damned stew!"
Laughter followed, rough and mean. Garran glanced toward the racket. A pair of soldiers wrestled in the mud over a tin pot. Another cheered them on, waving a wine-skin like a banner.
"Idiots," Orlec grumbled. "Men starve and they fight for scraps. Good omen, though."
"Since when is a brawl a good omen?"
"Since I say so. Bad omens are quiet."
A bell tolled from the direction of the siege lines. Three long, hollow knells. Every man within earshot fell silent. Even the mutts tucked tail and slunk toward the shadows.
"Debt call," Orlec said grimly.
Garran watched as a cluster of figures moved toward the gallows tree by the command tent. Lord Halden Rowe's men, cloaked in blood-red. One of them dragged a man by a noose, half-naked and shivering.
"Who is it?" Garran asked.
"Some levy-boy caught stealing a relic off a dead man's neck," Orlec muttered. "The price for that's a rope and a curse."
"Man's a fool."
"All men are fools. Some just die quicker for it."
A tallow-eyed crone passed by, muttering a bone prayer to an outlaw god. She spat over her shoulder, making a warding sign with three crooked fingers. Garran caught Orlec's smirk.
"Don't laugh at crones, boy," Orlec said. "Half these bastards believe it works."
"I don't."
"Then you'll die clean. The rest of us'll drag our curses to the grave."
A gust of wind scattered the fire's smoke, bringing with it the stench of the siege lines. The walls of Stonegrave Keep loomed in the distance — a jagged outline against the gray sky, its banners tattered. The garrison still hadn't yielded, though rumor claimed they'd eaten rats and old boots for a fortnight.
"Lord Rowe's losing his nerve," Orlec said. "Wants one last push before the Bleak Company gets here."
"Bleak Company?"
The old knight chuckled darkly. "Outlaws. Betrayers. Killers. They fight for coin and gods both. If Rowe doesn't break the walls soon, those bastards will take the keep, the spoils, and our heads for their troubles."
"I'll fight them if I have to."
Orlec gave a wheezing laugh. "Boy, you couldn't piss on their boots without them gutting you. And you'll fight them because coin's thin, and Rowe won't pay men who run."
A soldier staggered past, muttering to himself. Another swigged from a cracked jug, slapping a companion's back with a bloodstained hand.
From the dice ring, a sharp cheer rose. Garran turned to see a skinny man named Haim standing on a crate, waving a purse heavy with coin.
"Dice fell for me, lads!" Haim shouted. "Drink's on my name and your mother's shame!"
Men jeered and tossed curses, but smiles cracked weathered faces.
"Go on," Orlec said, nudging Garran with a boot. "Dice'll suit you better than brooding."
"I've no coin."
"Dice take blood too."
Garran stood, sliding the battered sword into his belt. "Tell Rowe's men I'll ride at dawn."
"I'll tell the crows," Orlec said. "They're the ones'll feast first, after all."
The night closed in as the fires guttered low. Somewhere a crow cawed three times. In the old Marcher tongue, that meant death by dawn.
Garran grinned to himself.
Good.
He'd always liked the sound of dying men's curses.