Even within the hidden fraternity who carried out the will of the Black Priests, Wren was of a special breed. He had spoken the true name of a demon, and would play host to the creature until the end of his days. When his death came, he would be condemned to eternal torment for daring to traffic with the supernatural. He had accepted this burden, and the certainty of this ultimate fate, to serve the Church and save others from suffering similar punishment. He was one of the Ignahta Sempria, the Penitent Damned.

*   *   *

Wren stared down at the plain, across the miles, to a place where many campfires had lately burned like fireflies. At that distance, most men would have seen nothing but the fields and the rivers, but Wren’s demon was with him. He could feel it in his eyes, a tight feeling like someone twisting knotted cords around his skull, and it sharpened his vision to excruciating precision. Tiny men in blue milled and marched and formed ranks, teams of horses were harnessed to cannon, and cavalrymen checked their saddles and mounted. An army, preparing for battle.

The brush beside him rustled. With his demon’s strength wholly poured into his eyes, Wren’s hearing was no better than a normal man’s, and only the discipline of long training kept him from starting at the sound. Instead he let out a long breath and forced himself to relax, letting his demon return to its resting state. Between blinks, the clarity of his vision faded, though it still would have put any hawk to shame. Sound rushed back in, every tiny rustle and animal noise of the forest now as obvious as a fanfare. He could hear the heartbeats of the two men who now stood beside him, and their breathing was as loud as the rasp of a bellows.

“The Vordanai are breaking camp,” he said. He spoke in Murnskai, the native tongue of those raised in the fortress-temple of Elysium. “But not to retreat. Vhalnich will offer battle to di Pfalen.”

“Bold,” said the man on his left.

He was much older than Wren, well into middle age, with a bald dome of skull sticking up from a ring of black and gray. His name, the only one that Wren had ever heard anyone use, was the Liar. Like Wren, he was dressed in simple peasant garb, but his hands might have invited comment: his nails were each at least an inch long, and painted with gleaming white resin.

“Di Pfalen has the numbers,” Wren said. “He has broken his force into three columns to attempt to cut off Vhalnich’s escape.”

The Liar snorted. “I might not be so confident in his place, given Vhalnich’s reputation.”