A week after leaving Sundale. That was what Captain Jonathan had promised him before the army would storm up the mountain. Only three nights remained. It was not enough, not when he was wasting away the first, leaning against a crumbling wall, knees huddled to his chest to keep warm, avoiding slipping in the puddle of water in the middle of the sandbag bed. 

He let out a sigh, annoyed with the frozen stillness of the night, the almost starless and moonless sky, and the lack of food in his stomach. Frost flowers bloomed on the windowpanes, preventing him from studying the ebb and flow of life at Whitepeak Base, to find out where they kept George hidden, or whether the General was still alive.

No doubt Uncle Tom's men were galloping towards Whitepeak at the speed of twenty-five miles an hour, thirty if they weren't sparing the horses. They might have already reached the village of Lowdale, discussing a more well-thought-out plan than he had.

Goddess of Humility, he would gain nothing if the Sundalers plucked him from this very room before he had the chance to rescue George or close the base. Preferably both.

A loud snore erupted from the bunk below, the six-foot hulk of a man, turning around in his sleep, the iron frame of the bed rattling as though it would collapse.

Silence didn't get the chance to settle. The man murmured in his sleep, incomprehensible nonsense, then blasted a thunderous noise, a cannonball of gas escaping his pants.

The stench rose and spread fast. In the bunks around him, men cursed under sleeping breaths, "Max!"

"Welcome," the giant mumbled, amused.

Sebastian clutched his hands to his mouth, but no avail; the smell was trapped in his already bruised nose. Tears sprung to his eyes.

This was it—he wasn't staying here a second longer.

Contemplating his next step, he jumped off the bed and landed with a soft thud, a move refined by moons of leaping up and down his window sill. 

But before he could take a single step, Max grabbed him by his calf. "Where do you think you're going?"

"Out." Sebastian pulled himself free from the loose grip. "Pissing."

Max chuckled. "You don't go outside, Muttonhead. There's a pot."

Sebastian hardly attempted to look around. "I don't see it. I'm going out."

"It's a few beds down that way." Max gesticulated towards the door. "When the smell of rotten socks hits you, you know you've found it."

More rotten than your farts—impossible. "Fine."

Sebastian had no intention to find the tin pot, nor to find out how long it had been since it had last been emptied. He hadn't drunk enough to produce more than a thimble-full of urine. He moved from bunk to bunk, touching nothing, placing his feet like a wolf silently padding through the forest.

Here and there, men grumbled or breathed louder as he passed. Someone muttered that he should go back to bed, but the man did nothing as Sebastian continued.

Dan was shivering in his sleep, hugging his thin army jacket like a blanket. Too far gone to notice him. Luckily, Eric lifted his head. One lazy eye, then a soft gasp. Two eyes wide awake.

Sebastian brought a finger to his lips and tapped twice. Meet me in two minutes.

Yawning, Eric sunk to his side and scratched his nose. Understood.

Sebastian continued, slowly placing one foot before the other. He preferred doing this alone. Less likely to get detected when you're sneaking around by yourself than in pairs, but he needed the backup, the warning signal to run or hide when an officer came close. The Goddess of Charity would have to help him buy the time he didn't have.

Fresh air greeted him by the door, a cold draught slipping through the cracks. The wood so battered all he had to do was push the door open, and he was free.

The hinges creaked, loud and unnerving; the potential to wake up half the barrack. He sped through the opening, fast as lightning, and ducked behind a man-sized barrel, its iron chains and lock glistening in the reflection of the snowy mountain peaks. The door slammed shut.

"What was that?" asked a voice.

"The wind," a second voice said.

"No, it was the new lad—the troublemaker, the scrawny one with the longs legs, who defied Gavin," said a third voice.

Then came a shout. "Shut it—I'm trying to sleep!"

Silence, followed by a whisper from the other side of the wooden wall. "Mark my words. That lad ain't gonna last a moon."

"Not gonna last a week, you mean."

Not a day longer than needed. Sebastian blew into his hands, his limbs freezing as he waited for Eric. Sundale's mild spring temperatures a faint memory that stopped him from feeling like a lump of ice. One ray of sunshine, two rays of sunshine... sitting behind the window on his sill at noon.

No Eric. Sweating after a training session with Master Paul.

No Eric. All the warmth from a hot bath in his chamber.

No Eric. 

His teeth clattered.

Crunching footsteps drew near. From the opposite direction.

They stopped.

"Well... well... who do we have here?"

Sebastian looked up at a wild beard, three sycamore leaves on his collar. He gulped. Lieutenant Raymond.

"I'm... eh..." Sebastian cursed himself. Back in Laneby, Alex and Nick had always been the ones to come up with excuses whenever they had been caught in their mischief. "I'm... I couldn't sleep..." Then remembered to add, "Lieutenant."

"So you decided to come outside, freeze to death?" It wasn't a question; not really.

He held his tongue but kept staring at the Lieutenant, if not to assert dominance, at least to show he wasn't afraid.

"All quiet now, like the cat stole your tongue," Lieutenant Raymond said with a huffy snort. "Stand up, Cadet. You're pathetic."

Sebastian obeyed. He saluted too.

Lieutenant Raymond smacked his hand away. "You're worthless. If outside is where you want to be, I have just the mission for you. For you, and six other sods." He smiled disdainfully. "If you survive, you'll sleep like the baby you are."

"Yes, Lieutenant," Sebastian said, suppressing the tremors of his body. In a couple of days, the roles would be reversed, Raymond trembling, completely at the mercy of his Crown Prince. The man would come to regret every word he ever said to pathetic and worthless Cadet Ian.

Tristan, James, Adam, Mack, Hopkin and Harry were the six men haphazardly taken from their beds and sent outside. Sebastian knew only James because the man slept a few bunks away from him. The first one outside was a bald soldier missing his left eye and two fingers. Next came a Serjeant with long dark hair with shaved sides and a beard in a single braid. With a key hanging from his belt, he opened the barrel lock and tossed pelts at his comrades climbing down their bunks, all decades older than Sebastian.

The Serjeant glanced a look at him, furrowing his brow, then waited for Lieutenant Raymond to return. "Him too?" he asked, pointing at Sebastian.

"Aye." The Lieutenant nodded. "Give him a baptism of fire, Hopkin. He'll sing a different tune come morning, all arrogance wiped off his face."

"Can do that." Hopkin sniffed. He rummaged through the barrel and threw Sebastian a bundle of fur.

It was an old spotted cloak, once white and as soft as the snow minks killed for their warmth, now riddled with cuts and holes, hair crusted with blood so old it no longer smelled. Whatever fate had waited for its previous owners, Sebastian quickly wrapped the fur around him. Too small, but better than no cloak.

"The scouts heard bells ringing halfway the faerie pass, just south of the Pine Ridge line. One or two, potentially a mage amongst them," Lieutenant Raymond explained.

One of the men yawned, a soldier with trimmed hair and half a missing eyebrow. "If they're just two, why didn't the scouts take them? What's their use then?"

"Leave the thinking to the officers, Adam," barked Lieutenant Raymond. "You're too stupid to understand."

"Not too stupid to understand the mess we're in," Adam muttered.

The Lieutenant drew his weapon. "What's that, soldier?"

"Nothing, just cranky you woke me in the middle of my beauty sleep, Lieutenant."

As the patrol, led by Serjeant Hopkin, moved through the base, Sebastian stayed close to Adam. His boldness had been a sign that he knew more about the malpractices happening at Whitepeak, perhaps even about George. He had to befriend the man, make him spill the beans to a fledgeling Cadet. If he did, he'd personally reward the soldier with the rank of Lieutenant, or make him a Lord. Whichever title a Crown Prince was allowed to give.

They went into a stuffy barrack where torches gave the minimum of light to find the appropriate armour, shields, bows, arrows, and swords. Packed like a mule, and no longer cold—safe for his nose and fingers—Sebastian followed at the back of the patrol as they went in a wide arc round the stone prison cells carved into the mountain. Still, he managed to catch a glimpse of the men and women chained by their limbs and neck, a worse treatment than Sundale gave its prisoners. 

Then again, Uncle Tom beheaded any magician causing trouble in the streets.