The Marrow-Oath

The Marrow Lances' binding contract-rite: swear it over coin and you are bound to the work — and the company will hunt anyone who breaks it.

More than a handshake and less than magic, the Marrow-Oath is sworn marrow-to-marrow: a drop of blood on the contract, the company's name spoken, the coin taken. Breaking a Marrow-Oath isn't a crime to the Vale's courts — it's a debt to the Lances, and they collect it themselves. The whole reputation of the company, the only reason five warring powers will all hire the same swords, rests on the rite being unbreakable. The Broken Lances are proof it isn't, and that is precisely the wound.