Sometimes bards would sing heroic songs of the lone warrior, the blade without a warlord, a noble and dashing hero. Looking at these ragged men and hearing them talk, Moria would now place those stories alongside those of snow dragons, as products of a romantic—or optimistic—imagination.

The men filed past. Moria craned her neck to follow, making note of everything from their faces to their clothes to the cut of their weapons. The last part was, unfortunately, most impressive. Whatever care they neglected to give their bodies and garments they seemed to have paid to their weaponry. Their swords were clearly new—not ancestral blades—but they were the highest quality. True and strong steel, free of the adulterated metals and nicks and scrapes one saw on the purchased weapons of the lower-born guards.

They had more than blades, too. Two mercenaries bore bows. Another had a quiver of darts. Yet another wore a whip coiled on his belt. True warriors were forbidden such weapons; they were left to hunters and farmers.

Today the goddess showed some modicum of mercy, and the men continued on to the streambed. She could hear them sloshing and slopping in the mud. She and Gavril had walked on the firmer ground, but she still tensed, certain they’d spot a stray footprint.

The mercenaries split up, going both ways along the stream. Then came a cry. A body had been spotted.

Moria strained to listen as they seemed to decide Orbec was newly dead, and that’s what their comrade had heard—the warrior shouting or cursing, and then his death scream.

She listened as the footsteps retreated the way they’d come—after the mercenaries had stripped anything usable from Orbec. Still, she and Gavril stayed where they were until Daigo nudged her and rose, meaning even he could no longer hear the men.

Moria plucked the tunic from her head as they crawled out and stood. She handed it to Gavril.

“You ought to wear a hood,” he said. “Something to cover that hair and skin. I don’t know how you Northerners survive outside your land of ice and snow.”

He pulled his tunic on. She watched. He didn’t seem to notice, his gaze distant, looking toward Orbec’s body.

“I took his dagger,” she said.

“So I saw.” Still no expression.

“I thought I should. It’s an ancestral blade. I’ll return it to his family.”

He nodded curtly. “Good. Might as well use it, too, while you have it.”

Was he mocking her? His voice lacked the edge that usually crept in when he did.

“I wasn’t sure if I ought,” she said. “It seemed wrong, but it also seemed wrong to leave it. What does the warrior’s code say?”

She expected him to snap some retort. But he only shrugged.