The fence marked the edge of the camp, but it had never been built to stop an assault.

When eighty soldiers hit it at a run, the defensive barrier failed almost immediately. Rails snapped. Posts tore free of the ground.

Cedd jumped through them with his left boot and crossed into the camp two strides later.

The sentry on the near-right side lay face-down three feet from the fence. The rifle round had struck the base of the man’s skull during the volley. Blood had spread into the dirt around the wound and was still soaking into the soil.

The body showed no movement. There was no need to check it.

Another man was pushing himself up near the first row of tents. He had flattened himself when the shooting started and was only now realizing the volley had ended. His crossbow lay within arm’s reach.

As Cedd watched, the man’s hand moved toward it.

Cedd fired from eight feet away.

The pistol’s gunshot sounded different from the rolling barrage that had started the attack. At this range it was sharp and concentrated, deafening near his hand and less distinct farther out.

The mercenary’s reach stopped.

The ball hit him square in the chest. He slammed back into a tent post, slid downward, and left the crossbow where it lay.

"Tent, right," Leod called from Cedd’s left.

The squad was already moving to clear it.

Every step deeper into the camp revealed the effects of the volley.

Bodies lay near the fence and beyond it.

The man with the shattered femur was still between the third and fourth rows of tents. He had pressed himself into the dirt and was making a noise that wasn’t speech but wasn’t silence either. Blood continued to spread through the cloth around his ruined thigh.

His eyes followed the advancing soldiers.

He looked like a man trying to understand what had happened to him.

No one stopped. The camp wasn’t secure yet.

Three mercenaries had gathered between the fourth and fifth rows of tents. They stood with drawn weapons and their backs to a stack of supplies, trying to form a defensive position.

Cedd could see why. These were men who had spent years conducting raids and ambushes. They knew where a line should form.

The problem was that they no longer had enough time.

The southern captain’s squad reached them first.

Eight pistols fired together.

At thirty feet the pistol balls carried enough force that they rarely passed through a body cleanly. They struck and stayed inside. The impact arrived faster than the body’s ability to react.

Two mercenaries collapsed immediately.

The third took a hit through the left shoulder. The impact spun him away from the position he had been holding, but somehow he remained standing.

He still had a sword.

He raised it.

"Come on!" he shouted at the captain closing on him. "Come on, then!"

The captain answered with his second pistol from ten feet away.

The mercenary sat down hard in the dirt. His right hand pressed against the new wound in his chest.

He kept his eyes on the captain as his breathing changed.

The defiance remained on his face. It simply had nowhere left to go.

Beyond the supply crates, sounds from the rest of the assault overlapped. A pistol fired behind the tents. Another shot followed from a different direction.

Somewhere inside the camp a soldier called out.

"Corner right, two men."

The squad receiving the warning was already changing direction before the sentence ended.

At the enclosure near the center-left of camp, figures crowded against the far side of the fence, keeping as much distance from the fighting as possible.

Cedd remembered their position. A possible complication.

He shifted south of it.

The squads ahead of him had reached the same conclusion and were doing the same.

A crossbow bolt shot from between two tents on his right.

It struck the soldier beside him in the thigh. The soldier dropped to one knee but managed not to fall completely.

"Man down!" Leod shouted.

The wounded man’s squad reacted immediately. Two soldiers turned outward to cover the surrounding tents while the others secured the position.

Leod dropped beside the casualty and reached for the cord attached to the man’s kit. Every soldier carried one on the left forearm strap for exactly this situation.

He wrapped it tightly above the wound, looped it, and pulled until it reached proper tension. He tied it off, tested it, then tied it again.

The blood soaking through the cloth slowed almost at once.

"What’s your name?"

"Weg," the soldier said through clenched teeth.

"Weg. Breathe. Can you do that?"

"Yeah."

"Good. Keep both hands on the wound. Press as hard as you can and don’t stop."

Leod was already rising.

"You stay right here until the all-clear. Understand?"

Weg nodded and pressed both hands against the injury and the tightened cord beneath it.

Leod rejoined the advance.

Inside the tent cluster, the mercenaries never managed to form a group larger than two men. Every attempt ran into a company squad before it could take shape. The company had spread too widely and was moving too quickly.

Survivors couldn’t find one another fast enough to rebuild any organized resistance.

One mercenary reached that conclusion before the others.

He dropped his sword and raised both hands. He looked to be somewhere in his thirties, lean and practical. The decision had happened before pride could interfere.

"Down," the young eastern captain ordered, pointing toward the ground. "Face in the dirt. Hands behind your head."

The man obeyed immediately.

A soldier secured him without slowing the squad’s movement.

"Dry!" someone shouted from deeper in the tents.

Another soldier had emptied both pistols.

The sounds in that part of camp shifted accordingly. Gunfire gave way to the shorter, sharper sounds of sabers at work.

Then a voice rose from the far end of the camp. 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

"North fence! Come to to the north fence you fuckers!"

The command carried clearly.

"Anyone still standing, on me! Now!"

Cedd searched for the source and found it.

The mercenary captain from the supply crates had survived both the rifle volley and the pistol assault. He was now near the north fence, calling out for anyone who could still respond to orders.

Seven or eight men were moving toward him from different parts of the camp. Others hesitated, caught between the fighting around them and the direction he was giving.

"You," the captain called to one of them.

His voice remained stern.

"Move now or you’re finished where you stand."

The man moved.

Cedd considered the distance.

A pistol shot at sixty yards was unreliable. Against a moving target in partial dawn light, it became worse than unreliable.

He didn’t need to think through the odds. He already knew them.

He left the pistol where it was.

Instead, he stopped.

He sheathed his saber so both hands were free and brought the Sceotan around from his back.

The rifle was empty. That meant time.

Time was the problem.

He measured a charge of powder and poured it down the barrel. Then came patch and ball. He seated them at the muzzle and pulled out the ramrod.

The ball resisted as it entered the grooves. The Sceotan always did.

Cedd leaned into the rod with both hands, using what strength he could manage with his old injury on the left hand. The ball moved downward.

He seated the charge, returned the ramrod, primed the pan from the smaller flask, and snapped the frizzen shut.

The battle continued around him.

A pistol fired somewhere behind him among the tents. Steel struck something hard and rang out before the sound died. A man shouted somewhere to the northeast.

The cry ended abruptly.

At the north fence, the mercenary captain had gathered his people together. He was issuing short orders. Cedd couldn’t make out the words at this distance, but he could hear the cadence.

The man was still organizing resistance.

If left alone, he might create a new problem.

Cedd raised the rifle.

The commander had turned toward a man on his left. While speaking, he stopped moving. His head and upper chest remained visible above the fence rail.

Sixty-two yards.

Cedd held his aim.

The captain’s face turned along the camp. He was checking the battle, looking for threats, looking for opportunities, looking for one more resource he could bring into the fight.

He was still trying to solve the situation.

Cedd fired.

The ball struck the left temple.

The result was immediate.

One instant the captain was a brave figure directing men.

The next he wasn’t.

The impact carried his remaining momentum sideways into the fence rail before gravity took over. The fence shook once, then became still.

The eight men around him stared for a moment.

Then they ran.