1. Barbezht

Chapter one

Barbezht

Han

O ne more minute. If I could survive one more minute, I'd be able to go home. My heart pounded, muscles aching with the exertion of the battle. Just one more minute.

I'd been telling myself the same thing for what felt like hours.

"Watch out, Han!" My friend and commander, Benedikt, shouted a warning, and I turned just in time to block an ax aimed for my head. I cut the man down with a blow to his stomach and dodged past him, stumbling in the blood-soaked mud.

"Thanks," I shouted.

Benedikt jerked his head in acknowledgment, pushing sweaty strands of hair from his dark brow. Then his brown eyes widened, fixed on something behind me. Sharp pain shot through my head, and the world went black.

I drifted in and out of consciousness, hearing the clash of metal on metal and the screams of dying men. Unable to move, I lay in the mud, waiting to die. The face of my betrothed appeared in my mind, her soft, brown skin, the twinkle in her brown eyes when she laughed. Mila… I hoped I would see her in the next life.

Eventually, the sounds of battle faded, and I regained control over my limbs. They were stiff, weighted down by something that lay atop me. I opened my mouth to call for help, and a foul-tasting substance dripped on my tongue. I moaned.

A muffled voice came through the darkness. "Got a live one back here!"

The weight on me shifted, and I blinked in the sudden brilliance of sunset. Sunset. I'd been out for hours. Long enough for the battle to be decided. I looked up into the faces of my rescuers.

On the peak of their pointed iron helmets, they each wore a black-and-red flag. Miroslav's men. My stomach turned to iron as they dragged me to my feet and pushed me toward a row of wooden cages, cursing when I stumbled.

"Enjoy your stay." One of the men laughed as he pushed me into the first cage.

Several people sat inside the makeshift prison. As I fell to the ground, I heard a familiar voice.

"Han?"

"Benedikt!"

He helped me to my feet and embraced me. "I thought you were dead."

I pulled back and took stock of my body. Aside from a few scrapes and a bone-deep ache, the only injury I seemed to have was a gash across the back of my head, deep and tender but no longer bleeding. The blood was matted; it would be next to impossible to wash it all from my tightly coiled curls. I'd have to shave it all off. I wondered, briefly, if Mila would still find me attractive without my hair.

Time enough to think about that later, after I'd survived this. After I made it home to her.

I licked my lips, wetting them to speak. "I'll survive. What happened?"

"We lost." Benedikt's voice was flat, as though he didn't quite believe it yet.

"The tsar?" I didn't want to know the answer, but I had to ask. Had to know if Borislav was alive.

Benedikt's face grew grim. "Gone."

My throat closed. Impossible. Borislav was supposed to save the tsardom. He couldn't be dead. Couldn't leave us to his brother Miroslav, whose paranoia and reckless ambition would drive the country into the ground.

"Sit down." Benedikt gestured to a bare patch of ground between a grizzled, black-skinned soldier and a pale beardless boy not older than thirteen. Another man sat in the corner of the cage, sandy hair swept over his brow and a haunted look in his eyes.

"How did we lose?" I asked. "I missed the end of the battle, but I thought we were winning."

He shrugged, taking a seat across from me, between the young boy and the man in the corner. "Reinforcements. Miroslav's allies from Vasland arrived just in time to prevent his men from retreating. The tsar… Tsar Borislav must have been killed in the confusion."

Silence hung thick in the pen, broken only by the sounds of revelry coming from Miroslav's nearby camp. After a moment, Benedikt cleared his throat. "We fought like hell, but after Vasland showed up, we were hopelessly outnumbered. They slaughtered us. There's about three dozen of us in these pens," he said, gesturing to the row of wooden cages, "but I'd say that's all of us that survived. They hadn't brought anyone else for a couple hours before you came."

I blew out a long breath. Of all those hundreds of men that had taken the field for Tsar Borislav, less than forty had survived. It was a massacre.

But at least I was alive. Whatever came next, I could manage it, if it meant I could go home to my Mila.

"What do you think they'll do to us?" I asked. Execution was possible, though unlikely—after the massacre his men had just committed, Miroslav could hardly be eager for more bloodshed. Would he imprison us, or have us beaten and sent home?

The man in the corner gave a humorless bark of laughter. "You're a fool if you think we're getting out of here alive. If we're lucky, they'll hang us one by one, but most likely they'll use us for sport. I've heard the Vasland army travels with a giant white bear, makes their prisoners fight it bare-handed. They take bets on how long each prisoner will last."

The boy flinched, his freckled face a mask of terror. "They wouldn't take us prisoner just to kill us, would they?"

The sandy-haired man grinned. "No one will expect you to last more than a minute, boy. The bear's massive, a single paw twice the size of your head. One swipe—"

"That's enough, Boris." Benedikt threw a protective arm around the boy's shoulders. "Most likely they'll ransom us back to our families."

The words didn't comfort the boy, whose lip quivered. "My mama'll never be able to pay a ransom!"

"There's no need to worry about it now," Benedikt soothed. "Try to get some sleep now."

The boy swiped the back of his hand across his eyes and nodded, curling up on the ground and tucking his long coat over his feet. The patches on the coat spoke of years of use. His older brother's, perhaps, or his father's?

The old soldier to my right nudged me, his long gray locs brushing against my shoulder as he leaned close enough to speak. "Yakov's father was killed in the tsar's service when the war first broke," he muttered. "As soon as he could, the boy signed up to follow in his father's footsteps."

I matched the man's volume. "You knew his parents?"

"No, he's in my unit. We're out of Tsebol, but he came from Selyik, a small town not far from there."

I looked down in surprise to where the boy's coat shook with silent sobs. "I'm from Selyik." Yakov. The name wasn't familiar, but I didn't know everyone in the town. Mila would probably know who he was.

"Are you?" The old man raised a bushy gray brow. "Maybe if we get out of this alive, the two of us can see him home safe." He leaned back against the pen and closed his eyes.

The sandy-haired man had settled in as well. "You should rest, Han," Benedikt said, turning deep-set eyes toward the camp. "I'll stay awake in case anything changes, but they're drunk on victory. They'll be passing around drinks and women until dawn."

I nodded. "Wake me in a few hours, and I'll take the second watch. We should all be rested for whatever happens tomorrow." I pulled my collar up and shut my eyes for a fitful sleep.

***

I woke to the distant sound of cheers. In the dim moonlight, I saw Benedikt craning his neck between the slats of the pen, looking toward Miroslav's camp.

"What is it?" I scrambled to my feet as the others started to stir.

"Miroslav," Benedikt spat. "I guess he wanted to get an early start greeting the troops. Middle of the night and he's out there soaking up all the praise. He probably figured they'd be too drink-sick in the morning to cheer for him."

I peered toward the camp, but I could see nothing through the tents but the glow of their fires. A tall soldier walked toward us and barked something at the two sentries who slept near the middle pens. They leapt to their feet.

The newcomer thrust a long rope into one sentry's hands and gestured for the other to open the pen. The prisoners—my fellow soldiers—stood against the wooden slats of their cage as our captors tied them wrist to wrist, linking them together. They repeated the process in each stall, forming a chain of prisoners.

When they reached our pen, they bound me between Benedikt and the boy, Yakov.

"What are—" Yakov began, but a sharp blow to his cheek cut him off.

"Shut up," the tall soldier ordered.

With prods and pushes, they shepherded us toward the camp. As we approached the tents and Miroslav's soldiers caught sight of us, they jeered. A rock hit my temple, but the pull of the rope kept me from turning to look for the source. Not that it mattered. There was nothing I could do in response.

The further we walked, the more men surrounded us, until at last we reached the center of the camp. We stopped moving, and I looked around at the tents, all in various shades of gray, illuminated by the fire in front of us. On the other side of the fire, a large man lounged in an even larger chair.

The soldier who had collected us spoke. "You are in the presence of Tsar Miroslav Vyacheslavovich of the Blood, Heir of the Sanctioned and rightful ruler of Inzhria."

Miroslav might claim to be our rightful ruler, but I would never accept him. He was a monster. Benedikt swore, and someone behind us kicked him.

Miroslav stood and clapped his hands together. He had straight black hair, like his brother, but that was where the resemblance ended. Borislav was tall and muscular, his bearing that of a lifelong soldier. Miroslav, on the other hand, was short and stout, better suited to a feast table than a military camp.

"Welcome, welcome!" he said in a honey-sweet voice, much higher than I expected. "I apologize for the accommodations, but you understand. Perils of war and all that." He walked around the fire, gold glinting around his fat stomach and arms. "I have a proposal for you, sirs. My brother, Borislav, once the Grand Duke and pretender to the throne, is dead. Now, a wise man knows when his cause is beaten. I'm prepared to be merciful." He gave a warm smile that turned my stomach. "Renounce your ties to the pretender. Kneel before me, and all will be forgiven. You can return to your homes and families."

He paused and looked at us, gauging our reactions. "If, however, you will not kneel, the punishment will be…severe."

The threat hung over us like a cloud. Further down the line, someone knelt.

"Traitor!" Benedikt shouted. "You should burn for that!" He yanked on the rope that bound us together.

"What an intriguing idea." Miroslav's sweet voice dripped with venom. He snapped his fingers and held out a heavily jeweled hand.

Benedikt stopped struggling and eyed the velvet-clad man. A soldier handed Miroslav a long, black staff, which he caressed.

"‘You should burn for that,'" Miroslav repeated. He stalked toward us, his movements surprisingly smooth for a man of his size. I took an unconscious step back as he passed me. "Shall we see what that looks like?" He stopped in front of Benedikt and touched his staff to my friend's head.

Benedikt burst into flames. He fell to the ground, screaming. The rope binding us together burned, releasing me from my friend. I scrambled back, desperate to avoid his fate, as the flames licked my arm.

After a moment, the screaming stopped, and there was only silence and the acrid smell of burning hair and flesh.

My stomach roiled as I watched Benedikt's body burn. What was I going to tell his wife? Their son was only two, and they had another baby on the way. He'd been fighting for them, to make the country a safer place for his children, but what would happen to them now that their father was gone and a monster ruled the tsardom?

"Kneel," Miroslav said in a sickly sweet voice. "Kneel, or face the same fate."

I had to make it home to Mila. I had to survive for her. Her face flashed before me, her warm brown skin flushed with worry, umber eyes full of unshed tears. We were supposed to marry this fall. What would she do if I didn't come home to her?

Bile filled my mouth, but I knelt. All along the line, other prisoners knelt as well, until we all bowed before the vile creature who had slaughtered our army and murdered Benedikt.

"You will never again take up arms against me." Miroslav turned and spoke to the guards. "Remove their sword hands before you release them."