Peter sprinted after Joris, following the blood splatters on the road.

  “Help! It’s Nine Fingers!” Joris shrieked as he turned around the corner.

  “Spall,” Peter cursed, panting as he pumped his arms.

  Joris headed for the Tedrith central square, where the rest of the overseers gathered.

  Great—in his mind, Peter could already see Major Tobias Visser berating him for screwing up another operation.

  From the moment back when the then-Captain Visser had dragged Peter out of Stalpia by a noose, the Major held an intense dislike for him. It all started when Peter refused to give him the Bedorvan, the armband that granted him his strange immortality. They had gotten over that.

  Now, the Major was hard on him because Peter was his direct subordinate, and Tobias had high expectations of his men. At least that’s what Peter told himself.

  Part of Peter worried that Tobias resented him because he had worn the Bedorvan for a short time and lost control.

  The Lord Commandant Van Graif had returned the Bedorvan to Peter, not trusting Tobias with its power.

  He rounded the corner, skidding to an abrupt halt.

  Nearly two hundred villagers crowded the dilapidated square. Did these people have wax in their ears? When Nine Fingers sent a notice to clear out, did that mean nothing?

  Thirty Sus-stag ghouls corralled the much larger mass, spears pointed inward. The Tedrithians pressed together, the crowd, tightening away from the corpses. Ten more overseers directed the Sentinels, barking orders and waving Slagters threateningly.

  A tall crone, face framed by a shawl, near the edge of the herded civilians, wailed obnoxiously, her voice drowning out the Overseer’s commands.

  “Court!” Joris screamed, darting to an overseer, the only one who seemed to be younger than fifty years old. He wore a Rahshelian brass breastplate under his black coat.

  “Luuk, it’s a trap!”

  Luuk, apparently the head overseer, turned. His eyes scanned Peter, taking in his torn and bloody clothes. His eyes widened. “It’s him. Leech Protocol!"

  Overseers surged, each one grabbing a villager and dragging them out of the crowd.

  Luuk reached for a young boy, but a woman with rage-filled eyes stepped in front of him, shielding him with her arms.

  Luuk snatched her by the wrist instead. She didn’t resist as he pulled her in tight, jabbing his Slagter to her temple.

  Peter winced as he reassessed. A mob of ghouls and traitors, he could handle. Hostages? He was poorly equipped to handle that problem.

  “No closer, Van Seur!” Luuk barked, thumbing the hammer on his Slagter.

  Peter stopped, but largely ignored him, searching individual faces in the crowd.

  “I’ve been briefed about you,” Luuk continued, face taut with stress. “I know you’re a Court, but you’re defective. You leech anyone who gets too close, which means you can't hurt us without draining them.” He jerked the woman's arm, punctuating his point.

  Fire flickered in her eyes, but Peter shook his head ever so softly.

  Luuk waited for a response, but Peter just watched him.

  The tall crone on the edge of the crowd with her shawl pulled tight around her head howled in despair, and Peter flinched. That was annoying.

  The head overseer licked dry lips. “You could come with us. Rahashel has offered to accept your service. You don’t have to fight for them. We could be allies.”

  Peter sniffed, hefting his Tweeledig. “No.”

  Luuk’s face reddened, and Joris fell to a knee, his head wound continuing to bleed.

  “You can’t stop us, Van Suer,” Luuk shouted. “Not without killing them!” He waved at the herd of prisoners.”

  Peter scratched his head. “Just how desperate is Rahashel?” he asked. “You’ve all been leeched. Reparations for the tiles you let us steal, no doubt.”

  Peter swept his gaze across the traitors.

  “I’ve fought Anubis. I’ve crossed blades with elder liches and lived.” He smiled bitterly. “I still have nightmares about them, and they’re mostly dead.”

  His Tweeledig dropped to his side, fingers tightening around the walnut handle. “I’m not even going to remember your face tomorrow.”

  Luuk flinched, neck bulging. “A bluff. You won’t risk leeching them!”

  “Why are you so scared of me?” Peter asked, brow furrowing. “I’m just a Corporal. You should be much more worried about Major Visser and the House.”

  Luuk shifted a wry glance to the surrounding streets. “Keep an eye out for Nine Fingers!” he called. But he was looking in the wrong direction.

  “Step back now, Court, or I swear I’ll gas her!” Spittle flew from his lips.

  The tall woman at the edge of the crowd moaned in despair at the threat.

  A reflective flash caught Peter’s eye from a roof. Owen was in place.

  “You poor idiot,” Peter muttered as a nightjar churred to the south, then another from the east—the signal. “Of all the hostages you could have grabbed, you chose her.”

  A knife dropped into Staff Sergeant Isabella Vandersteen’s palm from her dress sleeve, and she snapped her head back, shattering Luuk’s nose.

  He cursed as she stabbed over her shoulder, planting the knife in his eye. A shriek cut the air as he flinched away, and she grappled for his Slagter, but he was almost twice her size.

  Joris jumped at her, and Peter flinched forward. Luuk was right; he couldn’t intervene, not without leeching her in the process. When his enemies and his allies were intermingled so closely, Peter was helpless.

  Isabella was a fine soldier, but grappling with two grown men alone?

  —But she wasn’t alone. The tall, loud woman’s lament cut off abruptly as she tore her shawl and cloak away, revealing—not an obnoxious, ridiculously tall crone—but Sergeant Niels Van Dijk, carbine coming up from the folds of the garment.

  “Surprise, co-stags!” he bellowed as he fired at Luuk and Joris from the hip, working the ratchet action.

  True to form, not a single slug found its target, but the two Overseers flinched away from Isabella, cursing.

  “Go!” Tobias’ voice bellowed from within the crowd.

  The villagers transformed, nearly fifty out of the two hundred, throwing back civilian cloaks and coats to reveal short-barreled carbines, slangers, and falchions.

  With a war cry, they opened fire on the ring of ghouls.

  Five of the thirty crumpled, dark purple smoke billowed off their shoulders, as slugs found their hearts. The attack must have triggered a response command, because the ring of ghouls closed in on the crowd.

  That was bad. Twenty-five ghouls were more than a match for fifty human soldiers. Ghouls felt no fear. No pain. Until their hearts were destroyed, they’d keep coming, mechanical and unfeeling. Men broke much sooner.

  The ghouls almost crashed into the line when Peter heard it—a hum, rising in pitch. He scanned the crowd, looking for its source.

  Sicco stood at the circle’s edge, hands clasped together, brow furrowed in focus. He compressed Waarheid between his hands, building a pressure chamber for the weaponized light.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  The bald valet’s green eyes snapped up as he whipped his joined hands up and around his head.

  A razor-thin green ribbon of light shot from his grip, whistling through the plaza. It passed through the living, ignoring them, but sheared the dead in half, ghoul bodies toppling to pieces.

  The arch carved a glowing groove in stone facades that ringed the square. One human overseer wasn’t spared in the pulse. He crumpled behind his hostage, both legs severed clean at the knees.

  Peter’s breath caught; that pulse attack was far more than anything Julian could have managed. Sicco was a true master pulsist.

  Most of the ghouls continued onward, pulling themselves forward on mummified fingers. Men screamed as weapons clashed.

  Isabella cried out, and Peter’s eyes snapped to her. Luuk jerked her by the wrist.

  Jorris clutched his bleeding head, reeling as he tried to duck behind the others.

  Peter dropped to a knee, raising his Tweeledig. He couldn’t get in and help personally, but that didn’t mean he had to watch helplessly.

  He fired, his weapon hissing, and Joris dropped—finally.

  Isabella and Luuk grappled over his Slagter, and the barrel inched toward her face as the bigger man forced her wrists back.

  Peter aimed, resisting the urge to pull the trigger. Don’t shoot unless you’re going to hit. It was a lesson taught to him by an enemy, Morris Dewolf, a mercenary who had turned on Nine Fingers as soon as things turned hopeless.

  Isabella flashed clenched teeth and cranked her head, trying to avoid the weapon's path.

  Niklas fired.

  Luuk flinched, blood blooming on his side, but his clenched hand still held the Slagter steady, sighted on Isabella’s face. Her eyes went wide.

  Peter cursed, snapping the Tweeledig open; the empty shells popped free. He didn’t have time.

  Luuk’s head snapped back, and he crumpled. The hiss of a long-range rifle hit in a slight delay.

  Isabella panted heavily, the contested Slagter clutched tightly in her hands. She trembled in more than just exertion. Glancing up, she saluted gratefully at the rooftop.

  Captain Owen Hartman, their eye in the sky, was watching. Isabella turned before joining the melee.

  Peter tore new slugs from their clips on his belt, slamming them into the chamber before spinning.

  The villagers had joined the fight, holding down bisected mummies as Nine Fingers soldiers dropped on top, plunging daggers into their chests. Five ghouls, cut in half, gave them special trouble, lashing out from the ground with Rahashelian short swords. Locals cried out as they dropped.

  Peter flinched to move in. To save them, to take the hits these mortals couldn’t, but he’d leech ten men for each of the remaining ghouls. Additionally, he couldn’t get a good shot in the mob.

  His hand tightened on his Tweeledig, his teeth grinding. Luuk had been right. Why’d he have to be a defective court? He should have been able to control his leech field, reanimate corpses at will, and control undead armies, but for some reason, he couldn’t.

  For the brief moment Tobias had worn the Bedorvan, he’d accessed the true power of a court, but the rush had nearly driven him mad. Maybe Peter’s defect was the only reason he had the presence of mind to serve his own.

  Peter shifted as several more puffs of purple smoke whiffed from the battle. Nine Fingers was winning.

  A muted thump, like an underwater explosion, blasted in a clear-green shockwave, as Sicco pulsed three of the ghouls out of the circle.

  Overseers took a few shots at the battle, then dropped smoking canisters at their feet before fleeing.

  Peter’s leech flare lit up brightly behind him, warning him of something coming in fast.

  He spun to find an aged overseer, his face aging rapidly, swinging a Rahashelian sword at his neck.

  Peter should have let the blade impact him; it couldn’t have harmed him. But reacting instinctively, he beat the sword aside with the Tweeledig; the barrel and blade sparking against each other.

  He thrust the barrel into the man’s chest and dropped him with a slug.

  Three ghouls behind the overseer surged into combat.

  Peter should have been horrified at the monsters. At being outnumbered by undead warriors, but he barked a joyous laugh. This would hurt; that was okay, he could take it.

  Every one of these freaks he could kill, statistically saved five Nine-Finger soldiers. Three ghouls—fifteen lives. He clung to that number, using it to reinforce his will as he braced for pain.

  He fired his second round, and the Tweeledig shrieked in malfunction, the premernox gas blowing bolts off the bottom barrel and freeze-burning his fingers. He hissed, the frosted weapon dropping from his hand.

  A short sword descended, and he caught it on his arm, the blade biting deep. He wasn’t at risk of losing the limb. Dr. Aarts had conducted a study, cataloging the anomalies and inconsistencies. Someone could shoot through or spear Peter easily enough, but if they tried to take off his arm or decapitate him, the bones grew perpetually more dense the closer the blade got to the core. This fact baffled the doctor as, in most cases, Peter’s bones would break from blunt force trauma as easily as anyone else's.

  Peter lunged with a sharp intake of air, ignoring the blade embedded in his forearm. He slammed his fist into its face, rocking it back. The leech tether flared bright as he made contact.

  He slammed his hand back down on its forehead, draining it in moments before letting it drop at his feet.

  Peter tore the sword from his arm, parrying a Rahashelian battle axe as he fell back.

  “Comin’ up behind you!” Sicco’s voice announced, the grumbled whine of a pulse building at Peter’s back.

  He didn’t glance back at the domestic, too focused on his defense. He deflected the ax and countered, his sword bouncing harmlessly off a shield.

  A buzzing whistle snapped out, a clear green pinprick of light shooting through Peter’s chest and drilling a glowing hole in the ghouls' shield.

  Peter cried out, but he didn’t even feel the pulse.

  The ghoul crumbled.

  The final ghouls came for him, chopping with a short sword of its own.

  Peter jumped in close, swinging down with both hands. He sheared its arm at the wrist, but he had positioned himself recklessly for the maneuver; the ghoul’s blade continued, edge opening the side of his face.

  Pain mixed with the sputtering violet leech flare. He slammed a shoulder into its shield, blinking blood from his eyes as it stumbled.

  He bellowed, spearing it through its exposed back. Smoke whiffed off its shoulders, signaling that he had gotten its heart as it collapsed.

  “Three!” he panted, as he wiped blood from his face, fingers passing over unbroken skin.

  Sicco came to a stop at the edge of his leech field. The domestic butler’s face had gone gaunt and pale, his steps unsteady—the price for expressing his boon. “Peter! You okay?”

  Peter glanced at his Nyamarian handler, his hands trembling. Rather than wearing the uniform suit and white gloves of his station, Sicco also wore civilian clothes—part of the plan to blend in.

  Peter mournfully picked up his Tweeledig, the bottom barrel blown out. “The twins are going to kill me,” he murmured as he holstered the damaged weapon.

  Behind them, Nine Fingers had destroyed the ghouls, a feat that would have yielded much more loss if not for Sicco.

  Major Tobias Visser surged forward, his men falling into step behind him. “After them! I’ve got five overseers who escaped.”

  Peter turned to join the group at a safe distance, anticipating a rebuke from the major for revealing himself early. Tobias only briefly met his eye before nodding once.

  Peter didn’t have a chance to feel relief before they rushed eastward in pursuit.

  Sicco stuck with Peter, hanging back a safe distance. They jogged through the village, sweeping the building without incident.

  “Peter, did you see my pulse?” Sicco called as they jogged. The bald man’s voice carried, loud, and charismatic, his broad smile always articulating his confidence

  Another lesson? Now?

  “Uh, yeah.” Despite only being a footman in the House of Nyamar, Sicco had been tasked to train Peter, though to what end, Peter wasn’t sure.

  “Define it.”

  “Um,” Peter scanned the street as he ran, panting as he looked for escaping overseers. ”Can this wait?”

  “Now, Peter,” Sicco said, not unkindly. “Practice thinking while exhausted. You need to keep your head under stress.”

  There was more to it than that; the House was preparing him for something. Rather than years of service in an estate and constant lies, he got a drill sergeant hiding the fact behind that smile.

  Peter sighed.

  “Pulsing, a metaphysical gene expression manifested in waarheid compression and manipulation. It only works on non-living material.”

  That’s why Domestics made perfect ghoul killers. The dead machines didn’t have the same protections as the living.

  Peter caught movement down the street and spun to find Sergeant Van Dijk shouldering his carbine. When Niels recognized Peter, he waved before leading a squad further east. Where were those overseers?

  “But that can’t be true,” Sicco said, brow cocked in mock confusion. “I definitely cut a living man in half.”

  “All living beings have an Iola, a shield that protects them from exprite boons,” Peter had to slow down to think.

  “The only way your pulse could have affected that overseer is if he gave you permission to chop him to pieces, or he dropped his Iola by attempting to harm you.”

  Sicco nodded, still breathing heavily. “Not bad. Yes, he shoved me when they herded us to the plaza. It’s important to understand how easy it is to drop your Iola, even physical contact paired with ill will is enough to do it.”

  Tobias’ voice rang out. “Hold your fire!” Peter looked up abruptly, then ran to the edge of the village to find Visser’s company jeering at the road.

  Five overseers sprinted away from Tedrith.

  “Let them go!” the Major ordered. “Rahashel will take the lost time from them.”

  Van Dijk threw back his head. “Let’s give them the ninth-finger, boys!”

  The Nine Fingers force laughed and called out mockingly as they flashed their ring fingers, sticking up from closed fists—a sign that they were free from Rahashl’s cursed crop rings. A few, including Van Dijk and Peter, presented missing stubs instead, an even higher badge of honor—those who had been cropped but broken free from Rahshel’s influence. Even now, phantom memories of the ring’s teeth tickled Peter’s mind.

  “That’s enough!” Tobias called. “We have one hour to get off the X. Find grain, animals, anything we can eat, then let’s move out!”

  At the prospect of food, Peter’s stomach growled. Nine Fingers had grown too quickly. Rations had shrunk to a quarter of what they used to be.

  Soldiers, dressed as civilians, split into squads and rushed to execute their tasks. Peter shifted to help, but Tobias continued.

  “Knights!” His eyes sought out Isabella, Van Dijk, and then Peter. “The Colonel wants a brief.”

  Peter sighed. In addition to Corporal, Peter had a different title. It was time to report to the colonel. Van Den Hoek, Director of the Final Cell. Leader of the Knights of Nine Fingers.