Count Arcolin, commander of Fox Company, led a column into the outskirts of Valdaire as he had many times before. Cracolnya rode beside him; Versin had dropped back to the rear with Cracolnya’s cohort. The recruit cohort was first, as always on arrival.

Arcolin halted the column at the gate, and the familiar game played out—the troops in the compound snapping into formation with unnatural speed. The recruits looked as stunned as always. Arcolin took Selfer’s and Burek’s salutes, nodded, and for the first time since Kieri’s departure, the three cohorts of the Company were together, in the South, with a contract. It felt like the old days, though without Kieri and Stammel it could never be the same.

Within a turn of the glass, the recruits had been given their final assignments, filling in the two southern cohorts and bringing them all slightly overstrength. Arcolin, in the Company office, listened to Selfer’s report of his cohort’s journey and the winter’s events.

“You did exactly the right thing about the oaths,” Arcolin said. “We’ll have a formal ceremony day after tomorrow, just to make it clear, but that was very well done. And I approve your releasing those who wanted to stay with Dorrin.” Selfer looked relieved; Arcolin remembered his own first time away from Kieri, his worry that Kieri might not approve decisions he’d made. “Harnik—yes, a mistake, but how could you have known? Even Kieri hired bad officers at times. I don’t blame you for that. How did the next substitutes do?”

“Captain Ivats is back with Clart Company, my lord.” Selfer was still very formal. “But he was a great help over the winter—made a solid training schedule possible. M’dierra’s nephew will make a decent squire in time; he’s just young and still dazzled by the big city and all.”

“Is he still here?”

“Not today, no,” Selfer said. “Because of his youth, M’dierra asked that he be given one day in ten off to visit Golden Company. Today was his day. He’ll be back in the morning.”

“And you, Burek—how have things been with you?”

Burek grinned. “It seems I’m no longer in bad odor with Andressat, sir. It’s a long tale, but the short of it is that the Count has acknowledged me his grandson and offered me a name and place. I chose to stay with the Company, and he accepted that choice.”

Arcolin felt his brows rising. “The Count of Andressat? I heard from the king he’d been through Vérella after going the long way around—I thought he was going to Lyonya.”

“Indeed, and he did.”

“And you came back to us … why? Not that I’m not pleased.”

“I belong here,” Burek said. “It is a place I have made for myself—with your help, of course—and I am happier here than I have ever been.”

“Good.”