The road widened as the trees thinned out ahead. I gnawed on a fibrous nut tucked in my cheek as we rode, grinding down on the strands with the frustration I hadn’t been able to shake all day. Holing up under a tarpaulin under a heavy tree for an hour while the heavens opened hadn’t helped. The nut was surprisingly good, though whether it could be considered a foodstuff was still up for question. It had an odd woody-nutty taste. I’d been sceptical when Kaczmarek had cut a cluster of the thumb-sized nodules from a tree, calling them greisknöchel, but chewing on it provided a welcome distraction from the rain.

It had let up from the heavy downpour, but was still drizzling dismally. It gathered in the creases of Munter’s tack to run down his neck and trickle around the saddle, mostly dripping down my boots but also wicking up my breeches to soak my legs and set the rough cloth chafing. I’d unpinned my bicorn again, but every time I looked down at the road little pools of water poured off the front and the rain slipped down my collar at the back. All told, I was not enjoying being on the road today.

His Highness was riding next to me, faring little better. He was also wrapped in a heavy cloak with the hood drawn up, but each time the wind gusted a little the hood would flap and block his vision or spray water down his neck, and it did nothing for his hands or forearms.

“Are you alright?” He suddenly asked, and I awkwardly tried to retain some dignity while getting rid of the nut in my cheek so I could speak. It took me a moment, and my face was no doubt flushed, but I managed.

“Begging your pardon, your Highness, could you repeat that?” I apologised.

“Are you alright, Schreiner?” He repeated. “You’ve seemed on edge all day.”

I frowned. All my friends are dead, I thought, My homeland is falling, I killed two men in cold blood and it still sits ill, and I’ve not slept above four hours in a night for a week and a half. But none of that was His Highness’s fault and burdening him with it would achieve nothing, so I smoothed my brow and smiled instead.

“I’m quite alright, your Highness,” I assured him. “It’s been a trying few weeks and my nerves are a little frayed, sir, but war is my business and we’ll make it through just fine, sir.” I hope that last part isn’t a lie, I prayed.

The prince peeked up at me around the edge of his hood, looking terribly small for a moment. “If you say so, Schreiner,” he said dubiously. “I suppose I may not be able to offer much assistance, but you must ask.”

I suddenly laughed, rolling my neck and shoulders with a series of harsh pops as the stiffness from hunching out of the rain snapped out. “Fret not, your Highness, I’ve will enough to tear Torrea apart brick by brick and fight off ten companies before they get you, sir. The Immer hasn’t stopped flowing yet!”

His Highness blinked. “As you say, gefreiter. So long as you’re sure.”

I grinned, despite the rain spraying my face now that I’d straightened my posture. “You’ve been a great help already, your Highness,” I said, meaning it. “I had lost track of a few things, sir, but I do believe I’ve caught a second wind.”

I’d let myself become mired in the moment, I realised. My mission had not changed, nor my motivation. I would see His Highness safely to his journey’s end or die trying, whatever might come, and if I might I would see him grow from a half-grown boy to a ruler who could raise the Empire from the scattered embers back to the shining bonfire it should be in truth, burning steady and strong through the night. Whether I faced a downpour of rain or a hail of lead, I should take it head-on without flinching.

“So long as you’re sure,” the boy repeated, and I chuckled.

“Rarely surer, your Highness.” A massive drop of water spilled from a tree branch to strike me in the face, and my confident posture collapsed back into a protective hunch as I tugged the brim of my hat back down – allowing another fat drop to fall down my sleeve. “Although if the Heavens saw fit to bless us with a little less rain, I shouldn’t mind a whit…” I muttered.

His Highness laughed as well. “I had thought it would rain less out here, further from Nachberg,” he said.

“It’s the mountains and the forest, sir,” I explained. “I don’t rightly know why, but it’s always raining in the foothills and usually raining in the forest. The plains will be drier, happens quick as blink. One minute light forest in a downpour, ride another ten metres and it’s grass so far as the eye can see and the sun is shining.”

“Well, I shall look forward to it,” the prince said, shuddering and pulling his cloak tighter about him.

“Not very far from here, your Highness,” Kaczmarek called back from where she was riding a short way ahead. She gestured at the underbrush around us and at the forest in general, reining in her mount to let us get a little closer. “Only gets like this near the edge of the forest or the edge of a large clearing—but I’m pretty sure a clearing that big would be on the map, and I don’t remember one in this area.”

“And it truly will have less rain out of the woods?” Alemayehu asked, looking as miserably wet as I felt. He wore a heavy cloak like the prince’s, but it and the wet upset his densely-patted hair, pulling wiry strands loose and rousing the whole thing into a bird’s nest dripping water down his brow.

“Yup,” she said, “Though I dunno why either. Rains in the forest, rains in the mountain, rains on the plain too but only the normal amount. You don’t know any weather magic?”

The magus sighed. “If every scholar in the Tarimate Court worked a month, perhaps the sun of one day or two.”

“Wait, can you do any magic at all?” Kaczmarek stared.

“Jäger!” I snapped, “Show some respect. Sorry, sir.”

“No, no, it is fine,” Alemayehu waved it aside. “It is a good question. With a click of the fingers, no. The magic of…” he cast about for the word, rolling his hand in the air, “...weight, you could say, yes. Oaths and understanding, auguries, to read the stars. But to change the world by speaking, that is lost. The ancients could, but no more. Some scholars say it is because the world has become, eh… solid, set as it should be, others say it is because we have lost the arts. It is one of the reasons we travel, to seek the old knowledge. Ah, but I must be boring you.”

I shook my head. “I find it quite interesting, sir. I know nothing of magic. My studies were only in warfare and a little of the classics.” Only a little of the classics. My classmates had mostly been of noble backgrounds, tutored in Satern and Jarenese and even Zdorish from a young age. I’d had to make do with translations and what I could read in Satern.

Magic… its existence was acknowledged, but its utility in war was limited. It rarely grew powerful at the same rate as arming more men with better weapons. Foretelling and clairvoyance sounded good on paper, but were terribly easily confused or wrongfooted and turned from crushing advantages to deadly liabilities in the blink of an eye—with no way of telling that it had failed or been subverted. I’d not heard of it being used at scale in centuries, until now.

“If it’s words to change the world you want, he keeps a book of them in his bag.” Our pathfinder jerked her head towards me. The Afamacian’s eyebrows shot up.

“Truly?” He asked, doubt tinged with interest in his voice.

I sighed. “She means the Book of the Saints, sir. I don’t think it’s what you had in mind.”

He let out a rueful chuckle. “I should have thought as much. No, the words of power are shorter, more direct. You could not topple a castle with a parable, yet our histories say Tafari cast down the walls of Aderatuni only by speaking it so.”

“Saint Janelie was said to have called down fire from the Heavens on the cultists of Ktosha,” I agreed. “And many others of the saints. Though that was through prayer, sir, perhaps not quite what you had in mind.”

“They are not so different, maybe.” He shrugged. “Some scholars say they are one and the same.”

I tipped my head to the side, spilling water from my hat down my shoulder. “I should be careful with those scholars, sir,” I cautioned. “That’s flirting with heresy, sir, of the kind that kills too many.” Advising a superior felt awkward to me—even if he was from a different country. But it was a school of thought that started wars, and I knew it too well, to the Empire’s cost.

Apparently not sharing my opinion on how interesting our discussion was, Kaczmarek spoke up again. “Could you tell the future now? In some way that we could tell?” She sounded a bit excited. His Highness had been listening in quietly, but this apparently piqued his interest as well.

“Jäger,” I warned her, “This had better not be another of your japes.”

She shook her head resolutely. “No, I really am interested.”

“I will take it in the spirit it is given,” the magus said, bowing shallowly in the saddle. “For a small thing…” He trailed off, looking around. His eyes snapped from one thing to another—a branch blowing in the wind, a bird that darted across the road, the shape of a puddle in the road. He rubbed his chin and then solemnly pronounced, “In the next ten minutes, perhaps, you will suffer a disappointment.” He pursed his lips, thinking for a moment more. “I am not sure how great.”

“How am I supposed to tell that?” Kaczmarek objected. “What does that even mean?”

A slight smile pulled at the planes of Alemayehu’s face. “It will be obvious at the time.”

“Alright then,” she agreed. “I’ll be on the look out.”

We were distracted again a moment later as we crested a rise and the forest abruptly fell away around us, giving way ahead of us to a vast field of tall grass dotted here and there with scrubby bushes. I closed my eyes for a moment, sharply reminded of home; though it’d been years since I left.

“You can see where we’re headed there, your Highness,” I heard Kaczmarek say. “Where the Talbens are broken up. We’ll pass through those breaks.”

Heavens willing, anyway, I thought, but I kept that to myself. There was no need to dampen things further than the rain already had.