The party hiked down the river, but Eliska didn’t see any place better than any other for camping.

  She couldn’t figure out what Yvan was looking for. The spot where the Watch came through that barrier from the bone fields looked perfectly good to her—but she wasn’t in charge.

  She tried not to notice the Watchmen surrounding her and Marine, but she couldn’t ignore it any longer.

  Their behavior only drove home the point that she was defenseless in the Coil.

  That battle between the bone Darklings wiped out whatever shred of confidence she got by following Yvan’s instructions and helping the Watchmen build the skeleton shelter.

  Now she jumped at the slightest noise again. She jumped when there was no noise.

  A creeping sensation spread all over her skin and ate away at her insides. This all-consuming dread gnawed into her guts.

  Marine reacted the same way. She kept jerking from right to left trying to see everything, but she didn’t go insane the way she did before.

  The Watchmen didn’t ask Yvan what he was looking for, either. None of the men seemed too concerned about meeting any dangers. The men only acted concerned about protecting the two girls.

  Yvan led the party a long way down the river. It kept winding left and right around corners, climbing over hills, and babbling over rocks.

  The Watchmen studied the ground as much as anything else. Were they looking for animal tracks?

  Eliska kicked herself for not learning how to track an animal before now. She always used magic to find her prey.

  All at once, Yvan shot out his arm to stop everyone. “Shh!” he whispered. “Do you hear that?”

  Everyone held their breath to listen.

  “It sounds like voices,” Neils remarked.

  “It’s more than voices,” Yvan replied. “I hear armor.”

  The party climbed the next hill much more slowly. Yvan flattened himself on his stomach to look over the top.

  The girls and the Watchmen did the same thing. They all stared down at another bend in the river.

  A hundred men wearing armor milled around, saddled their horses in matching armor, and checked their weapons. A few flags with different heraldry embroidered on them fluttered around their camp.

  These men must have been camping here. A few dying fires dotted the area. None of the knights were wearing their helms yet. They walked around the camp bareheaded.

  Some of the knights were in the act of striking tents, dumping out kettles of water, or winding up lengths of rope.

  Some of the knights turned to face the hilltop as they went about their business. They wore purple tunics over their armor with a large symbol embroidered on the chest in gold thread.

  “What does that symbol mean?” Eliska whispered to Yvan.

  “I’ve never seen it before,” he whispered back. “It’s too bad Wesh isn’t here. He might be able to tell us.”

  “Can you tell if any of them have magic?” Yann asked.

  Eliska shook her head. “I can’t tell—but it doesn’t look like any of them do. I don’t see any of them using magic to do their work. This Island might block all magic—theirs as well as ours.”

  “It doesn’t block the Dark, though, does it?” Marine pointed out.

  “No, not that,” Eliska agreed.

  “The Dark might be blocking anything other than Dark magic,” Anríq suggested. “The Dark might have constructed this Island so no one can use any other kind of magic here.”

  Eliska spun around and frowned at him. He’d been talking so much more than before. Why would he do that? He kept violating his vow of silence. What happened to that?

  He saw her scowling at him and faced front. He didn’t explain himself.

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  No one else acted like him talking meant anything—because none of the others knew about the Servant’s path.

  Marine knew about it, but she didn’t seem to notice, either.

  Eliska turned her attention to Marine instead. “Do you recognize that symbol? Do you know who these men are?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know the symbol and I don’t know them. I’ve never seen or heard of them before—but I never claimed to know everything.”

  Yvan pushed himself up. “We’re going down there to find out. Let’s go.”

  Eliska didn’t want to go down there where a bunch of armed men were obviously getting ready to go out to some kind of battle.

  The other Watchmen didn’t hesitate. Anríq didn’t hesitate, either. He, Yann, Neils, and Rien and stood up right away. They all took hold of their weapons and followed Yvan down the other side of the hill heading for the knights’ camp.

  Marine and Eliska scrambled to get to their feet a moment after the others. The two girls had to hustle to catch up with the men walking in front.

  The men formed up in a shoulder-to-shoulder line this time. None of them tried to hide the fact that they were coming down the hill armed and ready for anything.

  The only one of them who didn’t hold his weapons in his hands was Anríq, but his size cast an intimidating figure enough already.

  Yann gripped his glaive in both hands. Rien held his broken sword in his right hand. He didn’t draw his second blade, but that somehow made him look more intimidating than if he had drawn it.

  The girls wound up behind the men’s line. Eliska didn’t dare to walk side by side with them. She didn’t have any weapon. She wouldn’t even have been able to sneeze in the knights’ direction.

  The knights would have had to be blind not to see the Watchmen coming in. The knights stopped what they were doing. Then a dozen of them split off and gathered into a loose group to meet the Watchmen.

  The two parties halted ten feet apart. “Can I help you?” a tall, dark-haired knight asked. He looked young and fresh-faced above the neck.

  “We’re members of the Black Watch as you can see.” Yvan waved to those nearest him.

  “He isn’t.” A scruffy, middle-aged knight curled his lip at Anríq. “He’s a Barbarian.”

  “He’s a Servant and he’s our friend,” Yann interrupted.

  “A Servant!” the first knight exclaimed. “You should come with us. We could use your help.”

  “What’s your business here?” Yvan asked. “How did you come here?” He jutted his chin at the knights’ tunics. “What does that symbol mean? I’ve never seen it before. Our companion here is a member of the Guardian Templars and she’s never seen it before, either.”

  “We belong to the Chivalric Order of Custodians,” the first knight replied. “I am Amaury Marais, Captain of the Guard, and this is my lieutenant, Yves Sylvain.” He waved to the scruffy man next to him. “Our mission is to hunt down the Voyant Mendicat and stop him from destroying everyone in the Coil.”

  Marine gasped, but Eliska grabbed her arm to stop her from saying anything. Yvan allowed himself to raise his eyebrows ever so slightly. “Do you know where the Voyant is? Do you know how to find him and how to defeat him?”

  “That is our quest,” Marais replied. “Our mission is to find out how to defeat him.”

  “Do you have magic?” Neils asked. “He’s a powerful magic-user, you know.”

  “That’s exactly why we have to defeat him. We can’t allow him to use his magic to hold the rest of us in slavery.”

  “Is that what he’s doing?” Anríq asked.

  Marais and Sylvain both turned to confront him. “You’re a Servant,” Marais pointed out. “You should be with us. We could use your magic to heal wounds when we go into battle.”

  “I’m already serving that mission with these men of the Watch,” Anríq replied. “Besides, I don’t have any magic in this Island.”

  “Then you really are a Barbarian and you deserve to die.” Sylvain took a threatening step forward and his hand flew to his sword hilt.

  Yann sidestepped in front of Anríq and raised his glaive. “Lay a hand on him and you’ll wind up fighting all of us,” Yann snarled.

  All the other Watchmen drew their weapons and closed around Yann and Anríq. Anríq didn’t move, not even to touch his weapons.

  Marais grabbed Sylvain’s arm just as fast and pulled him back into place. “We have no quarrel with the Black Watch,” Marais went on. “If you have no magic, then you wouldn’t be any good to us anyway.”

  “I know,” Anríq replied.

  Marias’s eyes darted from one Watchman to the other. “Stand down and put your weapons away. We’re on the same side in this war. Fighting each other will accomplish nothing.”

  No one moved for a second until Yvan elbowed Rien. “Put your weapons down.”

  The Watchmen lowered their weapons and no longer pointed them outright at the knights, but none of the Watchmen slackened their guard even for a second.

  Marais pulled Sylvain farther away and nodded at Yvan one more time. “Take your men aside until we leave. We didn’t plan to stay in this river valley after this morning anyway. There’s no reason for us to come to blows. We’ll be on our way and you can go on yours.”

  Marais tugged Sylvain’s sleeve one last time and then motioned all his men to back off. They turned to their horses and tents and left the Watch standing in the same place.

  Yvan straightened his arm in front of Rien and the Watchmen backed up twenty feet before they turned away, too.

  Marine and Eliska backed up behind the Watch. The party finally turned around to climb back up the hill they came from.

  They discovered Niyazi, Omer, Barsali, and Vidal standing at the top watching the whole incident. All four men held their weapons ready.

  The two groups rejoined on the hilltop. Yvan and the others turned around to look down at the knights’ camp.

  Yvan didn’t flatten himself behind the hill this time nor did he suggest that any of his men do it. They all stayed where they were, armed in plain view, while they watched the knights finish packing up their camp.

  The knights pretended not to see the Watchmen standing guard over the place. The knights got to work more energetically than before.

  They finished folding up their gear, fitting out their horses, and the knights put on their helms before they mounted up.

  They pulled the flags out of the ground and carried them in procession past the hill where the Watchmen stood.

  Marais took the lead carrying a large red flag emblazoned with a roaring golden lion. He raised his flagstaff in salute to the Watchmen as the horses filed past.

  None of the Watchmen answered that salute even with a wave. No one said a word until the horses vanished around another bend in the river farther upstream.

  End of Chapter 6.

  ? 2024 by Theo Mann

  I post new chapters of The Corrupted Coil series on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday PST.

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