"Are you sure this will work?"

"Not even in the slightest," said Mouse. "If I'm being honest, I feel so nervous I could just about lean over the rail and throw up. I'd rather charge Wraith's legions again."

"But it's your family, right?" said Quin. "How bad could it be."

"You have no idea." Mouse threw down the rope, and looked out over the water, scowling at churning thunder clouds on the horizon, the deep shadows lurking between the trees. "It's ... It's hard to talk about. I'm worried a really unpleasant welcome is waiting for us."

"I guess we can cross that bridge if we come to it," I said. "Maybe things have changed."

"In the city of grudges and backstabbing? I doubt it."

"So," said Quin. "What's stopping us from rowing straight through to the Blackstone? It's only a few more days up river, and there will be help there for sure."

"I'm worried the Blackstone won't be enough," said Mouse.

"Are you kidding me?" asked Quin, throwing their hands into the air. "We're talking about the same Blackstone, right? The one that trained Specter and Deathbringer and Skulltaker. The one that put out class after class of the toughest warriors? That Blackstone, right?"

A nerve twitched in Mouse's jaw. "Yes, that Blackstone. The one that trained Stargazer, Sabre, and Hawk. I don't think I need to remind you what happened to them. There might be some of the best heroes in the world in that fortress but it won't be worth a damn against another one of Wraiths Legions. This isn't like fighting one monster or a small bandit clan. Heroes won't be enough to fight this. We need numbers, we need foot soldiers and supplies. That's what we're here for."

Quin folded their arms across their chest. "So we're looking for men to stand in the front line and do the dying for us."

"If that's what it takes, yes."

"You're okay with that?"

Mouse shook his head and breathed a long sigh. "Of course not, but you'd be foolish to think that people aren't going to die. I would love it if the three of us could march in there alone and fix this but that's not going to happen. That's not the world we live in."

"So then what's the point?" asked Quin. "Why go through all the trouble, all the years of training, if we're not enough when the time comes. I thought the guild was supposed to protect people, not march them into the meat grinder."

"I'm sorry," said Mouse. "But I don't see any other options."

"Well," I said. "Let's not count our Drake's before they jump out and spit fire at us. We did kill a lot of Wraith's soldiers on our own, and what about the Relic? We're forgetting the spellbook we found in the Phoenix Roost."

"This might come as shock, especially from me, but I don't want to bet all my coin on that Relic still being there. There were a lot of hard years for the family. It might not have survived the hard years. We'll keep it in mind but I don't have much hope. We may have to spend lives and do this the hard way."

"I guess I'll have to have hope for both of us then," said Quin. "I don't want to see anyone else get killed."

"You go ahead and hope then," said Mouse. "I'll stick to the realistic plan."

"Easy, Mouse," I said. "There's no sense in shooting down ideas right now."

"Sorry," said Mouse. "I'm just a little on edge today."

"It's okay," said Quin. "I guess having more soldiers with us won't exactly be a bad thing either."

A warm breeze blew in from behind us, speeding us along and scattering the dark clouds ahead of us. We pushed through another bend in the river, and I spotted a few stone towers peeking above the tree line. The next thing that hit me was the smell. A rotten mixture of wet hay, dead fish and old manure clung to the air so thick that I could taste it.

"Gods," I said. "Does it always smell this bad?"

Mouse swallowed hard and put a hand over his nose. "Not that I remember."

The trees gave way to farmland but no one was working the fields. The lands around the city were absent of every usual noise save for the cawing of crows. We all shared a panicked look and pressed forward, heading for the city walls. Mouse's home town sat butted up against the river bank with high walls on all sides. A series of docks bristled out from the back wall like quillback spines. Each one had a half rotten hulk lashed to it. There must have been a dozen boats in the harbor all of them sporting tattered sails, broken oars, and holes in their hulls. They were barely sea worthy and looked like they'd been dredged up from the bottom of the ocean. Beyond the docks the city wall loomed over us, studded with arrow slits. A set of dark wooden gates reinforced with black iron sat at the center of the wall. There were shut tight and the shattered remains of a battering ram lay in front of them.

Quin and I helped Mouse bring the boat into an open berth and tie it down. I pulled Hawk's sword and my knives from our supply chest and cursed myself for not wearing my armour. I should have known that there would be trouble. I should have shown up my full harness even if that was a social blunder. But no, I'd let myself believe that things were going to be fine, and here I was knee deep in trouble wearing nothing but a light green dress with my swimming scales beneath it. It was about enough armour to protect me from harsh language and spilled wine and that was it.

I belted on the knives and drew Hawk's sword from its sheath. "I'm going to go ahead and guess that this isn't the usual collection of ships docked here."

"Unless the family has really stopped caring about trade or patrolling the river for pirates, I'm going to say no," said Mouse.

Quin jogged to the nearest wreck and leaned over the rail. They muttered a curse and hauled a carcass up out of the boat. "Gods damn it all to every tiny hell." They threw the body down onto the dock. It was a withered corpse, skin stretched taught over it's brittle bones, and it was wearing the segmented plate armour of an Imperial legionaire. "It's Wraith. He's been here already."

I snatched Quin's sword from the boat and tossed it to them.

A shadow flitted along the wall looming ahead of us, and a javelin whistled down from the ramparts, burying itself into the wood between my feet.

I staggered back, tripping over the hem of my dress and falling arse over tea kettle into our boat with a curse.

"Wait," someone from the wall shouted. "Those don't look like corpses down there."

I righted myself and climbed back onto the dock to find Mouse fishing for something in an inner pocket of his robes. He came up with a medallion on a long chain. "It's Easton," he shouted. "The Lord's son. We need help."

The city walls were silent for a long time, and then the wooden gates opened just enough to let us through and a handful of soldiers marched out in single file. "Best hurry up then," said the woman at the head of the column. "The city is no longer safe."

Mouse stuffed his medallion back into his robes and jogged for the gates. "Not safe, huh? You don't say."

The soldiers led us through the gates and into a short corridor where an identical set of doors stood barred at the other end. I glanced up and locked eyes with another city guard through the murder hole in the ceiling. He was holding a heavy stone in one hand, not intent on dropping it on us by any means, but still ready for trouble.

The woman leading the guards opened a short door in the side wall of the tunnel and took us up a tight set of spiral stairs that led to the top of the wall. Once there, we crossed to another locked door at the base of a tower, and one more spiral stair later, we were standing in a small room over looking the city. There was lowe table at the center of the room piled high with maps and scrolls. A set of bookshelves crowded the left wall, over flowing with old tomes and scattered pages, and a rack of swords and spears filled the right side of the room. A tall man with broad shoulder and dark curls stood opposite us, gazing out at the city through a narrow window. He turned, lancing us with a glare so cold it nearly froze the blood in my veins. The family resemblance between him and Mouse was clear. They had the same mess of curly hair, the same pale complexion, and the same green eyes, but where Mouse was built short and thin, this stranger was built tall and broad.

"Hello, cousin," said the stranger. "I thought you died."

Mouse's shoulder slumped and he took a shuffling step forward, answering with a one shoulder shrug. "Nope, still alive."

"That's a shame."

I heard a sharp huff from Quin behind me, like a bull snorting before it charged. The warrior shoved their way between us and came nose to nose with the stranger. "You jumped up son of whore. You don't talk to my friends like that. What in all hells is your problem anyway?"

The stranger took a step back and scowled at Quin as if the warrior was a piece of horse shit stuck to his boot. "My problem, is that two Guild Rats have barged into my city with Easton the Betrayer in tow. You have five minutes to explain why I shouldn't have my guards throw you from the ramparts."

Prick that he was, the noble turned over a small hourglass and waved for us to get on with our story.

Mouse grabbed Quin's sleeve and pulled the warrior back. "Tiberius, please, you have to give us more than five minutes."

"Did you give more than five minutes thought to us, before you turned your back on your family and ran?"

"Of course I did. You know I never meant for anything bad to happen."

"You started a war, Easton. Do you understand that? Half the family is dead because of you."

"Yes, I understand that." Mouse squared his shoulders and his hands balled into fists. "We have bigger problems now, though, and as much as it pains me, I need your help."

Tiberius stepped aside from the window and motioned for us to look out at the city. "You'll find no help here, Betrayer. I don't think there are enough people left alive to be of any use."

We crowded together at the window. The city was in ruins. Entire neighborhoods had been burned to ash, corpses lay piled in the streets, and Wraith's dead legion stalked the alleyways, shambling from building to building and forcing their way inside. The music of death filled the air. The steady cry of crows circling the bodies, the sharp ring of steel on steel, the crackle of flames, the screams of the wounded.

"This city is dead," said Tiberius. "There's nothing for you here."

Mouse pointed to a squat fortification sitting on a low hill over the city. "What about the keep? There may be something that we need. If we can take that, we'll leave you alone."

Tiberius rolled his eyes. "I cannot believe you, you sniveling little vulture. We're not even cold yet and you're swooping down to pick the riches from our corpses. We have nothing for you. I'm the one in charge here, and I'm ordering you out of my city or I'll have your heads."