Hakiem closed his eyes as if in pain.
“The Stepsons,” he repeated softly. “As if Sanctuary didn’t have enough trouble
already.”
“Who knows?” Jubal shrugged. “Maybe they’ll restore that order you long for. If
not, I’m afraid there’ll be a new meaning for ‘the dead of winter’.”
HELL TO PAY
Janet Morris
On the first day of winter-a sodden, sullen dawn of the sort only Sanctuary’s
southern sea-whipped weather could provide-the bona fide Stepsons, elite
fighters trained by the immortal Tempus himself, crept round the barracks estate
held by pretenders to their unit name and defilers of all the Sacred Banders
stood for.
Supported by Sync’s Rankan 3rd Commando renegades and less quotidian allies
wraiths of the netherworld lent to the Band by Ischade, the necromant who loved
the band’s commander, Straton; Randal, the Stepsons’ own staff enchanter; and
Zip’s gutterbred PFLS rebels-they stormed gates once theirs at sunrise, naphtha
fireballs and high-torque arrows whizzing from crossbows in their hands.
By midmorning the rout was over, the whitewashed walls once meant to keep in
slaves now bright with blood of ersatz Stepsons who’d betrayed their
mercenaries’ oaths and now would pay the customary, ancient price.
For nonperformance was the greatest sin, the only error unforgivable, among the
meres. And Sacred Banders, the paired fighters who cored the Stepsons unit which
had spent eighteen months warring on Wizardwall’s high peaks and beyond, could
not forgive incompetence, nor cowardice, nor graft nor greed. The affront had