Free Lost Covenant: A Widdershins Adventure by Ari Marmell

dark. No matter, though; he'd just—
    “Master Cyrille, stop !”
    The young aristocrat hauled back on the reins, painfully twisting his mount's head. The animal screamed, skidding to a stop, rearing violently. It was luck and tight stirrups, rather than any skill on Cyrille's part, that prevented an unscheduled and inappropriately strenuous dismount.
    Once he'd guided the horse around in a tight circle, leaning forward to mutter soothingly at the beast and pat its neck—and, not coincidentally, to give his own breathing and heart rate the opportunity to slow from their own headlong gallop—he turned angry (and still frightfully wide) eyes on the guard who'd shouted.
    “What was the meaning of that , Jourdain?!”
    Clad in a much thicker doublet and a tabard boasting the masked lion sigil of House Delacroix, the soldier guided his mount forward a few paces and idly pointed with one hand, stroking his mustache with the other.
    “Oh.” Cyrille desperately hoped the tint of moonlight made the sudden flush in his cheeks invisible, or else that Jourdain and the others would attribute it to the cold. Then again, it didn't much matter. He knew they laughed internally, though they were too disciplined to show it; and he know Mother would hear all about it.
    “Good eyes,” he commented gruffly. Then, casually as he could manage, he slid from his saddle, took an oil lantern one of his guards had just lit, and knelt to examine the hard earth onto which, in his self-glorifying reverie, he'd almost blindly charged.
    Or rather, what should —like the rest of the field at this time of year—have been hard earth.
    Instead, the soil on the surface was a glutinous slop, seemingly an amalgam of pus and the residue left behind when vegetables were allowed to rot indoors. The vapors wafting from the morass stung theeyes and lungs like those of old cat urine. Cyrille gagged, his gorge rising and his throat tightening, a combination that could well prove lethal if permitted to go to extremes.
    Worms and beetles of every sort, even those normally unseen in winter, lay scattered across the surface of the muck. A few still twitched. Most were long dead. Cyrille knew, from past example, that any grasses or plants to have survived the cold would have perished as well—and worse, that the soil would be dried, grainy, utterly unsuitable for farming of any kind.
    And the longer he waited, the more land would be lost.
    “It's definitely the blight,” he announced, rising from his knee and trying to command through scratchy voice and burning throat. He chose to interpret Jourdain's muffled cough as a result of the fumes, rather than cover for a mocking snort. “Send someone back to the house for more hands. The rest of you, break out the tools.”
    For all their contempt (or at least what Cyrille assumed was poorly hidden contempt), the Delacroix guards snapped into motion at his command. Jourdain barked at one of them to ride for the manor, while the others began yanking open saddlebags that looked packed enough for leagues rather than a quick sprint across the property.
    Shovels and picks from a couple; waterskins and bottles from others. The glistening around the mouths of those skins and bottles was evidence enough that they did not , in fact, contain water.
    “You two, spread out. Figure out where best to start the trench.” He glanced down again at the vile sludge, which seemed almost to absorb the light of the lantern. Yes, it had definitely advanced a few fingers’ widths just in the moments since they'd arrived. A bit of very rough estimation, then, “I suggest you start at least five feet out. Probably more; we'll have help soon enough, but that ground is tough.
    “Jourdain, you and I are on the oil.” He grabbed the straps of several waterskins and began to stride around the decay in the opposite direction, assuming the armsman would keep up. “I don't thinkwe have enough to cover the whole contagion, but I think if we can