Rain pattered against Patrick’s hood.

He hated this.

It wasn't technically one of the duties Western Barracks was supposed to perform, but it was one Knight Commander Kelvin liked to stick them with. The rain was still drizzling, and likely further west, upriver, it was raining harder.

It was fall, meaning the rains would continue for another month until they turned to snow and the water receded. Then, instead of cleaning up drowned Hannish corpses, they'd be cleaning up frozen Hannish corpses. The City Guard would undoubtedly get a lot of complaints about the Hannish blocking the road in the meantime, because they couldn't pitch their tents in the river, and there was literally nowhere else for them to go.

They'd be jailed for trespassing if they camped in any of the abandoned buildings. The riverbank was the only land that wasn't claimed,

“That boy.”

Patrick nearly jumped out of his skin as he turned to look down at the older Hannish woman. She'd followed him over when he'd run to check on Avery and Reed. He supposed he shouldn't have been surprised, since she'd felt the need to yell at Reed. Patrick was sure she'd taken him to task about being rude, since she'd thrown her shoe. Some things were clear regardless of what language they were spoken in.

This older woman was someone Patrick had seen every time they came out to do this chore. This would be the first time she’d spoken to him, though. She stared up at him distrustfully.

“Ah… Squire Reed Owen?” Patrick asked, taking a guess as to what she wanted to know. “He came here from Molton.”

"Shameful boy," the woman said, shaking her head.

"I’ll discipline him when we get back to the barracks,” Patrick promised. He would need to, since Reed had thrown some kind of extremely rude hand gesture. Even if Patrick didn't understand what it meant, he'd understood it wasn't a pleasant greeting. Again, some things didn't require translation.

The woman’s expression softened. She cast a dissatisfied glare at him but took his hand, allowing him to help her back to the muddy bank. “Your name?” the woman asked.

“Patrick Davis,” he supplied.

“Fatima.” She looked back over her shoulder when there was a splash.

Patrick turned to look as well. No one else had fallen in. Just Phil and Reed tossing debris away from the bridge support. It looked like they'd found someone else. He had to sigh at that. He'd assumed that because Reed was Hannish, he wouldn't know how to swim. But the squire he'd been sure of had been the one to need rescue, and Reed had handled things without the need for help.

Timmons was returning with another corpse from the other side of the riverbank.

Unfortunately, Patrick knew these were soulless children, but it didn't make the task any less unpleasant. The Hannish kept their soulless, even though they were more mouths to feed when they already didn't have enough. Their continued refusal to conform to Durrish standards also made them stand out.

He shook his head slightly and sighed. They'd collected the ten reported missing, but Reed and Phil were coming back with something else.

Reed Owen was strange. He didn't act like a fourteen-year-old boy. Patrick had expected mischief, and that was what he got out of Avery and Timmons, who were the same age, but Reed was their leader for some inexplicable reason.

"Seems we found someone else, Sir," Phil said, "Don't seem to be fresh, though."

Identifying this body would be a pain, but that would be Captain Raccoon's job, not Patrick's.

Turning to the older Hannish woman, Patrick asked, “Is that everyone, Miss Fatima?”

“Yes,” she said sadly. Her gaze wandered the devastated riverbank.

“Can’t believe you fell in,” Timmons teased Avery as he and the others on bank-duty returned without any further corpses.

“Shut up.” Avery attempted to shove Timmons, but could barely move the boy who stood a half-head taller and outweighed him.

“Stop!” Patrick ordered, striding over to break the pair up. “Back to the barracks. Mold-scrubbing duty for you both.”

Timmons glared at Avery. Avery scowled back at Timmons. They saluted Patrick and began trudging back up the hill. Patrick sighed. This was the largest batch of squires they’d had in a while, and Patrick was at his wits' end.

“Probably should just let them punch it out.” The awful accent gave away who was speaking.

Turning to look down at the kid, Patrick frowned. “You disobeyed direct orders. And were rude. You’ll be joining them.”

“Also, that shit hole’s a health hazard. Should just close it up and use one of the baths in the west wing,” Reed said, looking up at Patrick blandly. “Gonna get everyone sick breathin’ in toxic spores.” He shrugged and started walking soggily up the slope.

***

Reed rubbed the back of his head where that old woman's chankla had struck.

Five years he’d been in this world, and that had been the first time someone had reacted to him flipping the bird. Durs understood that it was meant to be insulting, but they didn’t know what it meant, so they ignored it.

He chuckled. She sounded just like Abuela Hernandez. He missed her.

There were very few people Reed thought of fondly from Earth, and Carlos and his family were pretty much it. Carlos had joined the army with Reed, but he'd died early on. Reed had stayed in for another tour before getting his legs blown off. By then, Abuela Hernandez had passed and Reed just felt awkward asking them to take him in while their son hadn't made it home.

So he'd stayed under the I20 bridge in Birmingham.

Clenching his fists, Reed stared at the wet ground as he walked up the main road to the palace. Everything about today had been like sandpaper on his mental wounds.

"Can't believe you didn't dodge that old bitch," Timmons said, dropping in beside Reed.

"Dodging a chankla is worse than getting hit with it. Makes them madder."

Timmons laughed. "You were afraid of her? I didn’t think you could be afraid of anything!"

"I'm afraid of plenty of things," Reed reasoned. He was starting to really feel the chill now. Avery was still walking ahead, arms crossed and head down, grumpily slogging up the road toward the palace.

"Yeah? Like what?" Timmons countered.

Reed smirked. "Ghosts. Vampires. Your farts." Thankfully fourteen year old boys were easily distracted by fart jokes. He didn't want to talk about his past.

Timmons shoved him, laughing. Avery snickered.

"Quit making up animals," Timmons chortled. "And my farts aren't that bad."

"Yeah, they are!" Reed retorted. "Smells like a skunk crawled up your ass and died!"

"Oh, so you know what that smells like?" Timmons joked.

"Of course I would. I smell it every night. You fart so much in your sleep your blanket puffs up like a bubble until you roll over and let it out."

Timmons shoved him again, laughing. "I do not!"

"Why you think the window is open every morning? Yer shit's rancid. Should get that checked." Reed, of course, was lying. Timmons only had disgusting farts when they served pickled eggs in the Barracks cafeteria. He just liked having the airflow in the room.

Avery's shoulders were shaking. He finally broke out laughing. "Might help if he quit eating from the garbage can."

Scrunching his nose, Timmons folded his arms. "No one asked you."

Reed swatted Timmons' shoulder. "He's got a point. Raccoon lord."

"You can't take his side!" Timmons objected. "That isn't fair."

"I'm friends with both of you," Reed retorted. "I'll take whoever's side I feel like. And right now, we're rippin' on your rips. Sir Toots-a-lot." Reed had only been in Lockton for a few weeks, but quickly determined that he liked Timmons and Avery. They were about as opposite as possible. Avery was from a wealthy family. He'd been educated in reading and writing. Timmons was from a farming family near Krematon, but he'd been sponsored by his local lord to the Western Barracks.

"Well, I'm not friends with him. So I don't appreciate his input."

"Lemme find my tiny violin," Reed patted his pockets. "I'll play you the saddest solo. What're you even mad at him about? His hair too nice? Jealous of his dainty feet?"

To Avery's credit, he snickered and shoved his hand through his soggy hair and looked back at them. "My hair is pretty nice."

"Oh, shut up, Avery," Timmons grumbled. "You can't swim."

"So what?" Avery snapped back. "Least my farts don't kill rats."

"Why you!" Timmons broke into a sprint.

Avery pelted away. Both of them left Reed to walk back on his own, shaking his head.

It was fun playing around with teenage boys, but draining sometimes.

He wasn't alone for long. Reed turned his head to look at Lily Marx as she came up beside him. To his understanding, she'd been there for four years. Usually, it only took one or two years before being promoted to knight. She knew her stuff, but Reed could tell her heart wasn't in it. She lost every spar she was in because she refused to dodge. Though, he'd quickly realized that it wasn't just her. They needed an overhaul of their training if they were going to be an effective fighting force, not just decorations.

"That was really brave of you," she said.

Lifting his brows, Reed asked, "What?"

"Saving Avery like that," she said.

"Was I not supposed to?" Reed asked.

"He knocked you into the water, too." She looked down at the ground. She was damp, but not soaked the way Reed was.

"All the more reason to go get him," Reed shrugged.

"If only someone had been around to save those Hans before they drowned," Lily added sadly.

Reed pulled his wet coat off and wrung it out, even though it was still drizzling, carrying all that water was irritating. "Pisses me off, to be honest," he admitted. "People shouldn't be livin' like that."

"I wish there was something we could do," Lily said, still looking down.

He didn't have an answer to that, but it itched in the back of his mind.

I'm just a squire. I'm only going to be paid a hundred a month. Haven't even gotten my first pay. There's nothing I can do. Though a hundred was way more than he'd been getting as Hunter's Guild, it still wasn't enough to do anything useful with.

He gripped his damp coat in one fist. There are plenty of people around who could do something, too. Yet they don't. It's like Earth all over again.

***

“I can’t believe you threw a shoe at an Amro,” Jamila said, adjusting the shawl over her head. It was soaked, she was soaked. Everyone was soaked.

Fatima sighed. “Shameless child. Not wearing a tabba. Pointing Ifri’s Sword at his superior officer. Insulting an elder.”

“At least he apologized to you.” Jamila snorted. “Ifri’s beard!” She shook her head again. “Perdon Abuela? Is he educated or not? If he is, how did he end up here?”

“Clearly not educated. And that Sir Davis is too soft to be in charge of a troublemaker like that,” Fatima said. Her lips were blue as she stood shivering in the drizzle. The Western Barracks knights had collected all ten of their soulless children who hadn't been evacuated in time, plus someone who had ended their life a few weeks ago by jumping off the bridge. Now they had the task of burning the bodies while it poured rain on them for weeks. What would have been a blessing in Hanbul was a curse here in Lockton.

Jamila looked at her, then opened her shawl to bring her mother close. Though they were all cold and wet, perhaps together they could warm up. “Durs don’t even know what it means. What was he supposed to think of it? It’s like them biting their thumbs at us. Silly-looking.” She and Fatima had taken the day off from work to chaperone the Western Barracks men, even though it meant they wouldn't get paid for the day. Six shang was a lot when that was all they would get for the week, and because they'd missed a day, they wouldn't get paid at all for any of the work they'd done.

Fatima snorted. “Amro made it clearly an insult. His hand makes that gesture far too easily. I suspect he’s done it often.” She looked up at the overcast sky. For all that they had to complain about, at least the Western Barracks were kind enough to come out and bring their dead back.

“Perhaps this is a sign from Ifri?” Jamila asked, leaning her cheek against Fatima’s hair. “An Amro will be a Durrish knight.”

“Western Barracks have no power,” Fatima said. She didn’t have much hope that things would change for them.

“I don’t know. Amro seemed rather angry,” Jamila said.

“He’s a boy. A squire in the Western Barracks. I suspect they will discard his corpse before long. The nobles will probably take offense to him existing soon.”

And that was that.

Fatima supposed she would take his corpse and burn it properly when the time came.