Chapter 12: Reunion

"Research Log, Year 9, Month 6, Day 20 (Day 2,943) Cont.

“Today we had the first of many social role-play situations I’ve written to help him prepare for interaction with diordna other than me. We did a simple visit from a friend, and honestly, he struggled. He was awkward, quiet, outwardly nervous, fidgety, and stammered almost any time he tried to say something. I’m not too concerned, as we have a long time before he’ll need to use these social skills in the real world, but I have to admit I expected him to do better. When we have a normal conversation he’s confident and articulate, but these new situations I’ve devised will stretch him.”

The soft bioluminescence illuminated the room where Mada and Nevets lay. Mada had only recently returned to the room after helping the machinologists remove shrapnel from wounded soldiers for several hours. It wasn’t exactly hard work, but his fingertips were raw and wrapped in bandages.

Though his own wounds were nothing compared to those of Nevets. Mada felt bad for the na, bundled in bandages instead of skins. He was fast asleep, his bandages dark with drying oil. The Machinologist said the wounds were beginning to congeal. It seemed Nevets would heal, it would just take time. But still, Nevets should never have been caught in all this.

Mada, on the other hand, couldn’t help but be caught in it. It seemed that he was the center of it all, and that made him extremely uncomfortable. His mind raced with anxiety for himself, for Nevets, for Ekivia. Keeping him up when he wished he could sleep. Nagemai said they were keeping an eye out for Kiv, that they would keep her safe, but Mada had a hard time believing that something wouldn’t go wrong.

Finally, he gave up on sleep and rose, careful not to disturb Nevets. Two soldiers watched from chairs by the window and three more stood guard at the door. Nagemai had moved to a different apartment earlier to continue her work without disturbing them, so the table was clear now except for meal scraps they’d left on the way to sleep.

Mada stepped nervously through the door into the hallway, but rather than stop him, the door guards simply followed, leaving Nevets under the watch of the two by the window. The room was dark, though light filtered in through the window. The lights in the apartments could be put out with a trigger branch similar to the kind that opened doors, so they’d put out the lights in the room, but the light vines in the hallway and on the outside of the buildings would glow all night.

Not knowing where else to go, Mada walked down the hall to the command room where Treblig stood guard. He didn’t really know anyone but the general and her right hand, and he didn’t really feel like being alone with these guards. The soldiers had treated him well enough after what he’d done with the machinologists, but they also regularly called him it and spoke to others about him instead of directly to him. The machinologist, Asyral, tried to correct them but it never stuck.

Nagemai sat at the map-covered table with her head resting on her folded arms.

"No one is allowed to see the general," Treblig said quietly as Mada and his guards approached the door.

That wasn’t a surprise, but still, he’d hoped to spend some time with the only diordna that treated him as an equal. He turned away, disappointed, though he didn’t know where he was going to go next. Maybe he’d just take a walk around the building, get outside for a little if they let him.

"It's alright, Treblig," Nagemai said from the table. "He can come in. But just him."

Mada was surprised but turned back, grateful to have permission to ditch his animal handlers. As he entered the room Nagemai stood and smiled, offering him a chair opposite her at the table. Mada took it, glancing at the table as he did so.

The top map of her stack was one of the continent with small wooden indicators marking a variety of locations.

“You’re planning how to retreat,” Mada said. “Already?”

“It’s always a good idea to be prepared if you need to leave quickly,” Nagemai said. “Do you often wander at night? Are you not tired?”

"No, I am," Mada said, not missing the change in subject. There was something about the plan to retreat that she didn’t want to talk about. “My sleep patterns are normally the same as diordna or any diurnal animal. Just… not tonight I guess.”

"I’m having a bit of trouble sleeping too," Nagemai said with a sigh. "It's difficult being responsible for so many lives. I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to it."

"Responsible for guarding them or for taking them?" Mada asked without thinking, then he lowered his head, feeling himself try and shrink deeper into the unyielding wood of his chair.

Nagemai smiled, sorrow and pleasure mixing in her eyes. A strange combination, usually only appearing when someone was feeling nostalgic. This was something else though.

"Both. Always both. Adding you and Nevets to that list increases the burden."

”Why would two more change anything?” Mada asked, meeting the general's turbulent gaze. “It seems to me like we’re sand on a rock.”

“I try to remember that all diordna matter to someone, friend and foe alike,” Nagemai said. “But you two bring me hope in a way I can’t yet explain, and that makes your lives weighty indeed.”

“What hope is that?” Mada asked, genuinely curious.

“Part of it is that I hope you really are diordna made flesh,” Nagemai said. “And if not, then I hope you are better than we are.”

Kiv had said similar things while Mada was growing. He intended to tell the general that Ekivia felt the same, but his throat constricted with fear, the thought of not knowing if she was as alive stopping his voice.

"That right there," Nagemai said. "That emotion. Was that fear? Sorrow?”

Mada sighed heavily. "Both, yes. You’re getting good at reading my expressions."

"Thank you," Nagemai said. “I think it’s an important skill to learn, even with diordna. Sometimes we can suppress our eye color if we try hard enough, but our expressions are harder. You’re worried about Ekivia?”

“Yes,” Mada said, again surprised at how insightful Nagemai was. “I can’t help but think that she may already be dead.”

“I sincerely hope not,” Nagemai said. “I believe my soldiers would report if they found her. Most of them would anyway. I know that’s not very comforting, but it’s the best I can offer while still being honest. Perhaps she’s on the opposite side of the city.”

“Perhaps,” Mada said. She was right that her words weren’t exactly comforting, though he did appreciate the honesty. “How did you know about her? About me?”

Nagemai glanced at Treblig in the doorway, then turned and met Mada’s eyes. “One of my spies in the area sent word to me of a promising project many years ago. When the project was shut down I tried to find a way to keep contact, but Ekivia isolated herself, to protect you I’m guessing. I didn’t want to expose you if she had continued her work. So I didn’t exactly know about you, I only hoped. And Dytie often rewards hope.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in Dytie,” Mada said. “Your conversation with Nevets earlier, about Dytie not being merciful, made me think you had given up belief. I wouldn’t blame you either, after what you must have seen.

“I haven’t given up belief,” Nagemai said. “My belief has just changed. Would you walk with me? I need to move my legs."

The fact that it was requested rather than demanded showed a level of respect that shocked Mada after dealing with other diordna all day. Even Nevets had been slower to treat him so much like a diordna. It was like she’d been expecting to find an equal in him and so only needed an excuse to see it rather than expecting to see the opposite and needing convincing.

Mada nodded and followed Nagemai from the room. As they left Treblig fell in behind them, and the general dismissed Mada’s minders, who’d been waiting in the hallway, with a wave. Nagemai led them to the stairs in the corner of the building and began descending.

“I still believe in Dytie,” Nagemai said. “But my experience has made me see that his mercy is applied differently than most think. He allows us to be unmerciful to each other. He allows us to create pain and destruction, and he watches it happen. I do not think he wants it to happen, but I do think that he made us to be autonomous, and so allowing us to be merciless is in a way a mercy. He will not take the gift he has given us, even if we abuse it.”

“That doesn’t seem very merciful to me,” Mada mumbled.

“Then you see what I meant when I spoke with Nevets,” Nagemai said.

Some soldiers passed them going up as they walked down the stairs, and their conversation lapsed briefly into silence.

“How do you deal with it all?” Mada asked quietly as they stepped out onto the fifth floor. “I don’t know how long you’ve been a general, but I can’t imagine living like this can be easy.”

“It’s harder some days than others,” Nagemai said. “Eventually every soldier has to decide to either live in pain or live numb. Our instinct is to live numb rather than face the horrors around us."

She didn’t continue, and the silence made Mada uncomfortable, so he said the safest thing he could think of. “I think I understand."

Nagemai’s eyes turned a little blue, though her expression didn’t reflect the pleasure. "Do you also understand why I reject that instinct?"

Mada shook his head, but before Nagemai could respond they entered a room, and her attention turned to her soldiers inside. It was another apartment, nearly identical to the ones upstairs. The primary difference was that these rooms had been cleared out and had mats down for soldiers to sleep on covering the floors in every room. Mada saw no reason for Nagemai to choose this particular room.

Nagemai crouched beside a soldier that lay with her eyes open, touching the nawo gently on the arm.

“How’re you holding up?” Nagemai asked.

The soldier stiffened when she recognized Nagemai and tried to rise, but Nagemai shook her head and gently pressed the soldier back down.

She saluted feebly from her back. “I’m doing alright sir. No complaints.” The soldier’s voice was low for a nawo. It had an almost soothing effect on Nevets.

“No complaints is good,” Nagemai said. “As long as that’s the truth. Are you happy?”

“I...” The soldier’s salute fell. “I can’t say that I am sir.”

Nagemai smiled a sad, comforting smile. “Do you want to talk to me about it?”

In the bioluminescent light that filtered through the window and doorway, Mada saw the soldier’s eyes fill with black sorrow.

The soldier barely nodded.

“Go ahead,” Nagemai said gently.

“It wouldn’t be right to say,” the nawo said.

“It may not be wrong either,” Nagemai replied. “I’ll order you to tell me if it makes you feel better.”

The soldier chuckled. “No, you don’t have to. It’s just... I don’t mean to question you, sir.”

“I question me all the time,” Nagemai said. “So it’s nice when someone does it for me.”

“That’s what you always say, but still,” the nawo said, then took a deep breath before going on. “Is this whole attack just suicide?”

Nagemai’s eyes darkened to match the sorrow-black eyes of the soldier, then she nodded. “It is meant to be, yes. But it has several other purposes as well.”

“What other purposes?” The soldier asked.

“For one, to draw the Drolite armies inward so another one of our armies can advance,” Nagemai said. “But there’s also a reason I was sent instead of some other general and her army.”

The soldier nodded, eyes clearing slightly. “Because you’re the best.”

“I am, but that’s not why I was chosen,” Nagemai said. “I won’t lie to you. The Redael doesn’t like me. In short, I was sent here to die. Because she can’t do it herself without an uproar back home she needed the Drol to do it for her. And she’s willing to sacrifice this army to get to me.”

White fear swirled into the soldier’s eyes, dancing with the black sorrow but never mixing. Those two emotions were the only two that didn’t mix. “So we’re all just going to die? If it’s the Redael’s will then it’s Dytie’s will.”

“No,” Nagemai said, tightening her grip on the nawo’s shoulder. “I can’t save you all, but I promise you this. Even if your Redael abandons you to hell in order to kill me, I will not abandon you. I will find a way to get as many of you out alive.”

The soldier nodded, though she looked confused. Mada understood why. To her, the will of the Redael and the will of Dytie were one and the same. So if the Redael wanted them dead, then Dytie did too. Why would Nagemai resist that?

Still, the soldier seemed to take comfort in the promise that Nagemai would do all she could to protect them. “Thank you.”

“Your fellow soldiers will have these same questions,” Nagemai said. “You don’t need to defend me against them, but when they ask tell them what I’ve told you. Tell them they are not alone.”

The soldier sat up and saluted. “Yes, sir. I will sir.”

“Thank you. Now get some sleep.”

The soldier lay back down, and Nagemai left the room with Mada and Treblig in tow. They walked in silence between rooms, stopping occasionally for Nagemai to speak to those who were awake, before returning to the stairs and climbing down another level. On the floors above the ground floor, there were some sleepers with guards at most windows, but once they reached the bottom there wasn't a single sleeping soldier.

Again, Nagemai repeated what she’d been doing, speaking to groups and individuals. Comforting them, hearing their complaints, but most surprising of all telling them the truth about their situation. They should have left the conversations with more fear, Nagemai didn’t pull her punches, but instead, they seemed more resolute. She trusted them with the truth, and they trusted her in return.

It was probably an hour after they left the room upstairs when they stepped into an empty room on the bottom floor and Nagemai sent a runner to get one of her maps. As much as Mada wanted a distraction from his own thoughts he felt too awkward to try breaking the silence, so he opted instead to watch the window with Treblig. A few soldiers patrolled the street, but with so many watchers at the windows above them, their job was more to be ready to respond to threats than to spot them.

As they looked out the window Mada considered the question Nagemai had asked him upstairs, and he had to admit he didn’t understand why she decided to feel all the pain. But he hoped eventually he might.

Movement in the street caught Mada’s eye, and his heart leaped. Three figures crept through the darkness, one of them tied at the wrists. In the low light of hot coals and bioluminescence, he could just make out the officer’s uniform and something strange about the prisoner’s head.

It appeared to be painted green, but without any pattern at all.

“That’s Ekivia," Mada shouted and leaped through the window into the rubble-strewn street without thinking as the figures in the dark vanished behind some rubble. The only thing Mada saw in the bioluminescence and the smoldering red coals was the place where Ekivia had been.

So when he rounded the rubble he ran headlong into a nawo.

They tumbled, thumping against the ground beside each other. Mada scrambled to his feet in unison with the nawo, but she was a hair faster. A knife flashed in her hand, reflecting the light from the shouldering ruins beside them in an unnatural way. Stone didn’t reflect like that.

She lunged, and Mada stepped back, raising his arm defensively. His backward motion mostly saved his arm, but the knife still cut a shallow slash across his arm, throwing droplets of blood to sizzle on the shouldering coals beside them.

The attacker froze at the sound. “You’re not... You...”

She knew what he was. A diordna’s oil would have flared up, not sizzled.

He rushed the nawo, grabbing her by the wrist and yanking her toward himself. He lifted his other arm upward, shoving his bloody forearm into her neck to knock her off her feet. Mada didn’t follow the nawo into the dirt, he didn’t have time to stay and fight. He had to get to Ekivia, so he stepped over her to continue his pursuit of Ekivia.

The nawo grab Mada by the ankle and he toppled forward, catching himself with his hands.

The next instant she was on him, pressing her hand firmly against his collarbones, pinning him without choking him. She leaned down and looked closely at his face.

Instead of striking with her knife, she spoke in a soft, almost gentle, voice. “Are you... Mada?”

He looked at her, confused. “How do you know my name?”

The nawo’s hands began to tremble. “You’re an AI.”

“Yes.”

“Ha!” She laughed, leaping to her feet.

Then she cut her own hand with her knife and reached won to lift Mada from the dirt with the same hand. A chill ran down Mada’s spine as he thought about grabbing the oily hand.

“Oh come on,” the nawo said, reaching down and grabbing his hand in her oily one. Mada could feel the cut, a small flap of skin that had folded back pressed against his palm, and he had to suppress a gag.

“Wait here,” the nawo said. “I’ll go get Kiv for you,”

She dashed off, vanishing behind the corner of a burned-out building.

Mada stood stunned for a moment, wanting to pursue her, but a strong hand grabbed his shoulder.

"Combat isn't just about matching skill, but wit,” Nagemai said. “Don’t rush into it witless like that or I can’t keep you safe."

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

“But—“

“I heard,” Nagemai said. “We’ll help you free her, but the farther we follow them the more likely we are to encounter resistance. We have to be quick and smart. You were only one of those.”

“I get it,” Mada said impatiently. “Let's go.”

“Stay behind us,” Nagemai said. “Grab the first weapon that falls near you, put your back to something, and kill anyone that gets too close."

Mada nodded, scratching his arm nervously, and followed the general and Treblig in a low run.

**********

Ekivia followed Iakedrom and Fosia as they crept across the street. The Redaeli soldiers had collected debris from burned and fallen buildings, making barricades between some of the still-standing buildings, and open paths between others. Then there was a wide section that was more clear of debris than the rest of it, like a road that had been cut through several buildings. It was straight, which couldn’t be said about any of the regular streets in the city, and that made it feel… unnatural. She felt like if it was daytime then she could see all the way to the edge of the city in either direction. And it wasn’t completely cleared of debris yet, so they had some cover even as they crossed that section.

Once they were across that new street they paused, crouching in the shadows beside a building that was mostly standing, though it had a hole in the side of one of the stairwells halfway to the second floor where someone had exploded. Ekivia wondered if it was the person they’d heard earlier just before Yelis leaped from the balcony. This was roughly the right direction.

“Why’d we stop?” Ekivia whispered.

Iakedrom held up a finger to silence her, then pointed ahead of them, through the other side of the alley to the next street over which was heaped with debris. A figure stepped out of the shadows. Ekivia couldn’t make out any of the diordna’s features. This area was almost entirely dark as less than half of the bioluminescent vines crawling up the buildings still shone. It was why they picked this particular alley to pass through, the fires had killed enough of the vines that it should be safe.

The figure clapped a soft pattern in the darkness. Fosia clapped a response and the figure approached slowly until they crouched with them in the shadow of the damaged building.

It was a nawo in an officer’s uniform, though in the darkness Ekivia couldn’t make out much more about her than that.

“It’s all clear up ahead,” the officer said. “We haven’t moved into the area yet to keep out of bow range, but it’s devoid of enemy patrols.”

“Good,” Iakedrom said. “Let's go. Stay close to the wall.”

Ekivia rose with the others but hesitated, looking back the way they’d come. If the Redaeli soldiers was to be trusted the Mada and Nevets would be back that way, not ahead of them. But finding them somewhere in that hostile army was most likely to end in her death than success. She decided that when she reached safety with Iakedrom she’d try and trade information about Mada for help getting him back. Under the circumstances, it was the best she could manage.

The rope around her wrists tightened, forcing her to follow Iakedrom.

Dytie keep them safe, She prayed silently as she followed her captors.

A figure leaped from the shadowed doorway of the building they were using as cover, arm swinging downward in an attack. Ekivia didn’t even have time to flinch back, but she tried anyway, tugging the rope tight.

Then it fell slack.

The knife hadn’t fallen on Ekivia, nor on Iakedrom. It had cut the rope. Iakedrom turned, dumbly staring at his half of the rope while Ekivia stared dumbly at the silhouette between them.

“Don’t just stand there,” Yelis said, grabbing Ekivia’s arm.

“Get the others,” Iakedrom shouted angrily, drawing his cnido.

Yelis yanked Ekivia through the doorway she’d appeared out of earlier, into the half-destroyed building.

Yelis slammed the door behind them and held it, a bioluminescent vine beside the door illuminating her broad grin. “Told you I’d be back to get you.”

“Yes you did,” Ekivia said, breathless and uncertain. “Your entrance is as dramatic as your exit was.”

“I keep my word,” Yelis said. “The stairwell down the hall opens onto the street halfway to the second floor.”

“I saw on our way here,” Ekivia said. “Cut me free.”

“I, uh, dropped my knife outside,” Yelis said, though Ekivia could see the handle peaking from beneath her shirt.

“It’s—“

Someone tugged on the door from outside, jerking Yelis’ arms and cutting Ekivia short. Yelis managed to hold on, but only barely.

Ekivia grabbed the doors handle branch with her tied hands. “What now.”

A cnido clapped in the street, though Ekivia couldn’t figure out why. Bonelettes wouldn’t pierce the door.

“I don’t know,” Yelis said. “But we can’t go back out this way. We have until someone comes around another way to figure it out.”

**********

Mada and the others reached the corner of the building, just below the hole in the stairwell, as Ekivia was violently dragged into a building. Two of the officers, Mada guessed Iakedrom was one of them, tugged at the door and the third ran to get help.

Nagemai dashed forward, footsteps surprisingly quiet, and Mada followed with Treblig. Mada’s boots crunched louder than Treblig or Nagemai’s and he wondered briefly how they could move so quietly and quickly at the same time.

Iakedrom’s partner looked in their direction, but Nagemai already had her cnido out. She fired a single shot, and the clap drew Iakedrom’s attention from the door. The sound was loud enough that it hurt Mada’s ears, and he worried they may have drawn more than Iakedrom’s attention.

The bonelette burrowed into the door jam beside Iakedrom’s head, splintering a bioluminescent vine and ending its glow.

“Slag!” Iakedrom cursed in surprise and leaped away from the door.

His partner grabbed his arm and began dragging him away down the alley, raising her own cnido and firing it back toward Nagemai. Mada flinched and ducked his head, Treblig flattened himself against the wall, and Nagemai spun, shoving Mada against it as well, protecting him with her body. She was shorter than he was, but she put her arm around his head and pulled it down near her chest.

Iakedrom and his partner stepped into the moonlight at the edge of the building and pointed back toward Mada and the others, shouting something before disappearing around the corner.

Seven officers ran out from behind rubble and into the alley.

Mada straightened as Nagemai loosened her grip on his head, and even though he still hunched fearfully he was almost a head taller than her. He looked down at her and was surprised to see sorrow in her eyes as she looked toward the approaching officers.

She really did feel the weight of those that died by her command, friend and foe.

“Remember Mada,” Nagemai said, stepping away from him. “First weapon at your feet is yours. If we can’t protect you, you’ll have to do it on your own.”

Nagemai held the cnido pointing downward as she approached the officers, her other hand held wardingly in front, Treblig a few steps to her side in a similar posture. It looked like the officers weren’t going to use cnidos in this fight, probably because the noise might draw Nagemai’s soldiers. The silence and the darkness together made Mada feel as though the night held its breath with him, waiting for the fighting to begin.

Then Nagemai and Treblig reached their enemies, and the held breath burst.

Nagemai deflected the first na's spear with her arm, twisting her limb around the shaft to grip it inside her elbow and armpit as it slid past her. Then she pivoted, using the na’s own weapon to throw him off balance before stepping past him. Mada panicked and froze as the officer careened toward him. Nagemai had left the na alive, and now Mada would have to fi…

Nagemai’s twirled the spear so the tip faced backward and rammed it into the stumbling officer’s back without looking. The na stumbled forward then dropped at Mada’s feet, dead, spear sticking straight up as if waiting to be taken by Mada.

A weapon, down near him like a gift from Nagemai.

Mada yanked the weapon free and backed against the wall beside the doorway as Nagemai spun and downed another na with shots to the chest and head from her cnido. Beside the general, Treblig wielded his short spear in one hand, a cnido in the other, a nawo already at his feet as he stabbed a second so hard that his spear shattered.

He dropped the broken weapon in the oil at his feet.

"Mada!" Nagemai called, drawing his attention as she sent another stumbling officer his way.

Mada flinched and barely raised his spear in time for it to meet the stomach of a na.

The na’s eyes widened and he gasped in pain and stumbled, falling to one knee. The spear shaft snapped under the weight of the body, leaving the tip and several inches of wood extending from the na's gut. He looked down as oil oozed around the wound, then up at Mada who had given it to him. The officer fell forward, reaching for Mada as he did, and the weight of the dying na pulled Mada to the ground. For a brief moment the two of them locked eyes. Mada saw blended anger and confusion, then finally sorrow in the officer’s eyes. It was strange for Mada to see his own emotions reflected back at him by this dying na.

The officer gurgled, coughing and choking on his own oil as he slowly died. Mada’s oil-smeared hands shook and he felt tears in his eyes, but his mind couldn’t comprehend what was happening, what he was feeling.

He’d read about combat, about the moment when two na face one another and both know one will die. He'd read about great warriors who slew twenty na without help or hesitation. Books depicted violence alongside glory, relief, exultation. Not…

Emptiness.

Mada shoved the body aside and glanced up at Nagemai and Treblig, watching their brutality. The whole thing left him feeling cold as bone.

Unable to listen to the oily gurgling of the dying officer, Mada took the cnido from the na’s belt and fired it three times into his chest.

The alley fell silent except for the heavy breathing of the oil-stained victors. The officer beside Mada still looked at him, eyes wide in death. Their colors had changed, becoming the murky blend of all emotion called death-sight.

Suddenly Mada’s entire body began to shake and he felt cold. Every muscle felt restless and exhausted at the same time. His throat tightened and he felt dizzy.

Nagemai crouched down in front of him, pushing the corpse aside and placing an oily hand on his shoulder. It was meant to be comforting, but Mada flinched as she touched him.

"That was the first time you've ever killed," Nagemai said.

Mada nodded.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Mada said, then he swallowed. He was salivating, and it tasted like it always did when he was about to vomit. "I'm glad to be alive."

“I’m glad you are too,” Nagemai said. “But how are you feeling other than that?”

“I don’t think I’m hurt,” Mada said.

“I didn’t mean physically,” Nagemai said.

Mada shrugged. “I feel alright I guess. My body feels weird, but…” How did he explain? He had tears on his cheeks, his hands shook, and his stomach turned, but he felt empty. Nothingness wasn’t a feeling, was it? It was like he was an observer only, watching his body react, but not being a part of it. So instead of saying anything more he just shrugged again.

"I understand,” Nagemai said. “Remember what I said earlier about choosing to feel. Remember it’s better to hurt than to feel nothing. For now, the numbness will only intensify. Just… try not to let it last too long.”

“I’ll try and remember that,” Mada said, nodding and scratching at an itch on his arm. Even as he said it he was forgetting, his mind blanking and seeking distraction.

He hadn’t really noticed earlier, but he was strangely itchy. His arm and across his shoulders both itched unpleasantly. It was like he’d gotten sweat in a scratch he didn’t know about, which he probably had. With all this fighting he’d likely hurt himself without realizing it. Or maybe his mind just wanted a distraction.

“I shouldn’t have asked you to walk with me tonight,” Nagemai said, standing and reaching down to help Mada up as well.

"If you hadn't I wouldn’t have seen Ekivia," Mada said, taking her oily hand in his own. He must have had a cut on his hand he hadn’t noticed before because it stung slightly. "Let's go make sure she’s safe."

**********

The force pulling against the door vanished and someone, Ekivia thought it sounded like Iakedrom, shouted. Something was happening out there that had drawn attention away from her.

“We’re not going to get another chance,” Yelis said.

Ekivia nodded and they ran toward the stairwell. As they turned right into the stairwell a disturbing thought occurred to Ekivia and she grabbed Yelis by the hand.

“Wait! Those shots have to be from Verds. They might be waiting outside the building.”

“Yeah,” Yelis said, standing a few steps down from the hole in the outside wall. “I know. Mada is with them.”

“He...Wha...” Ekivia’s knees shook as she heard his name, threatening to collapse under her. The Verd soldier had told her that Mada was safe, but she wasn’t sure she believed it. “You saw him?”

“I ran into him on my way here,” Yelis said. “Thought he was a patrol going after you. But don’t worry, I didn’t hurt him bad.”

Ekivia nearly gasped, her chest tightening.

Mada is alive.

The thought shook her. She hadn’t realized how worried she’d been until that moment. But could she trust this nawo she’d only recently met? She didn’t know if Iakedrom was telling the truth about her or not, but even if he wasn’t she didn’t know anything about this Yelis.

Ekivia searched the nawo for any clue that she might be telling the truth. In the dim light of smoldering wood and fading bioluminescence, she saw what looked like blood smeared across Yelis’ neck.

The world turned red.

“What did you do to my son,” Ekivia growled, stepping toward Yelis.

Yelis held her hands up. “He’s fine, really. He just got a scratch. He...”

She trailed off, eyes widening suddenly. “When you escape meet me at the place marked on his skin.” She spoke so quickly that Ekivia barely understood the words.

Then she leaped through the hole in the building. Ekivia tried to pursue her but barely took two steps when the rope suddenly tightened and then jolted. Ekivia leaned forward against the pull, crouched, and tucked her hands against her stomach to avoid falling backwards down the stairs. Still, she slid back, her feet bouncing as they dropped once, then twice. She twisted around to get better footing and balance and faced her assailants.

Iakedrom and Fosia.

The two of them were in the hall straight across from the stairwell entrance, while Ekivia had come from the one perpendicular to it. Despite the pain in her wrists, she pulled against the rope with all her might, leaning back up the stairs and shouting her resistance.

Her left wrist popped loudly, shooting pain up her arm, the shock of it causing her foot to slip. She bounced down the stairs, unable to resist now that she’d lost her foothold. Desperate, she rolled sideways, trying to get close enough to the inside corner of the hall that she could grab it like a cliff’s edge that would save her from falling down the hallway and into the arms of Iakedrom and Fosia.

The rope caught the corner, and a moment later she slammed against the wall. She tried to use her hands to grip the corner, but she was too slow and Iakedrom pulled her arms around the corner, scraping them painfully as he did. Ekivia flattened herself, legs scrambling against the floor and wall, trying to resist. She looked down the hall toward Iakedrom and felt as though she were looking over the edge of a cliff, arms and head hanging down, her stomach against the ledge, his weight pulling her down to her death. She pressed her knees into the wall and heaved with all her strength, the anger in her eyes slowly changing to pink as instead of drawing Iakedrom closer to her she slipped further around the corner. She couldn’t hang on much longer.

Iakedrom would win this fight.

At least he would have if someone hadn’t thudded to the floor beside her and latched onto her shoulders at that moment.

**********

“No!” Iakedrom shouted as someone appeared around the corner and grabbed Ekivia’s shoulders.

The figure was wearing a cloak and Iakedrom didn’t get a good look at them, but one of the sleeves on the cloak was bunched up, exposing a prosthetic arm with a long bloody cut.

And black marks running up it.

Iakedrom couldn’t be absolutely certain they were the same marks as the ones on his prosthetic, but his intuition told him that they were.

He saw the relief on Ekivia’s face, but he would not let her go. Not unless there was no other choice.

Almost as he had the thought two verds came around the corner, spears at the ready, and gave him no other choice.

"Go!” Iakedrom shouted to Fosia, dropping the rope and drawing his cnido. Iakedrom fired at the Verds, his shot snapping into the stairs behind them, throwing splinters of bone and wood into the air. Fosia drew her own cnido, running backward and firing toward the Verds. Iakedrom didn’t know if either of them had hit their marks, and they didn’t have time to find out. The shorter Verd raised her spear to throw just as Fosia pulled Iakedrom into an outside room with a blackened hole in the wall that would give them an escape.

“Should we fight?” Fosia asked. “Or run?”

“Run,” Iakedrom growled. He’d heard the fighting earlier, and the two verds appeared unscathed, though covered in oil. If seven couldn’t kill them then two wouldn’t either.

They ran to the hole, Iakedrom’s mind racing through what he’d seen. Another marked prosthetic. He wished he’d had time to compare, but they had to match his own. The anger-sight deepened in his eyes, narrowing his vision, and in his rage, he nearly turned back to seek retribution.

Ekivia had lied to him. She’d deceived him so thoroughly that he’d almost considered her a friend. And when he started uncovering her lies she still managed to make him believe she was innocent. But he knew now. A na with a prosthetic bearing a message. Ver soldiers coming to her rescue.

She was a traitor and a spy.

They jumped through the hole in the wall into the heaps of rubble outside and began picking their way back around the building to safety. Ekivia and her friends didn’t pursue them, and Iakedrom prayed silent thanks to Dytie for that.

As they reached the corner of the building Iakedrom saw more Verds on their way. Their little encounter would trigger a battle tonight, but they were far enough ahead of the enemy that they would be safe.

"I’m sorry Iak,” Fosia said as they ran between the empty corpses of two buildings.

"Don’t worry about it,” Iakedrom said, voice harsh. “We learned what we needed to. Now we just have to get to safety and tell the Drol what we've discovered.”

"And what exactly is that?" Fosia asked.

"She used her own son as a messenger to the Verds," Iakedrom said, still fuming at the thought of how completely he’d been taken in by her. He was always so good at reading those he interrogated, and he’d been so certain that he read her right as well. But he obviously hadn’t. Someone who could lie so effectively would be as dangerous as Yelis, though maybe not as mad.

“What exactly did we learn?” Fosia asked. She obviously hadn’t seen what he had.

Iakedrom held his prosthetic out. "The na who grabbed her had a prosthetic with these same marks on it. I think they’re a way of sending coded messages that can’t be intercepted like messenger birds or calling bird signals. The attack on this city is likely a result of information given to the Verds through messages like this."

Fosia nodded thoughtfully. “To get this deep into Drolite territory they definitely had help. But how would Ekivia get that kind of information?”

“I don’t know,” Iakedrom said. “Maybe Nevets helped her somehow. But however she did it, we know she’s a traitor. And the next time we see her we can take comfort in the fact that she’ll be executed.”

**********

As Iakedrom and Fosia disappeared down the hall, Ekivia turned to look at her rescuers. The two who’d come around the corner with their weapons and drove the Iakedrom and Fosia back. One was a solid looking na wearing green painted wood armor. He had a square jaw and redaeli copper skin.

The other was a shot nawo with features that should have been soft, but her expression was a violent storm as she commanded the first soldier not to pursue. She was a half-skin and wore white armor, which was strange. A soldier in white would be a criminal, and wouldn’t give orders.

Suddenly she knew who the nawo was. She hadn’t followed politics or wars much in the last fifty years or so, but there wasn’t a drolite alive who hadn’t heard of the redaeli white. Fear rose in her chest and eyes, and her legs scrabbled, bringing her to her feet as she tried to run.

But strong hands held her firm. The ones that had grabbed her and stopped Iakedrom from dragging her down the hall long enough for the general to reach them. She twisted, breaking their grip on her shoulders.

“Wait,” a familiar voice said. “Kiv, it’s me.”

Ekivia froze, shaking, and turned back to look at the figure. She knew that voice as surely as if it were her own. Slowly she turned to face the figure, nearly as tall as she was, wearing a cloak and mask to obscure his features. He stepped toward her and she stood transfixed as he removed his hood and mask. A face she thought she’d never see again stared back at her. She hadn’t believed the redaeli soldier. She hadn’t believed Yelis.

But she believed her own eyes.

Intelligent animal eyes. Pale animal skin and white hair on his chin and head.

“Mada.” Her eyes flooded with sorrow and pleasure-sight, making the glass swirl with black and blue for a moment before the two chemicals mixed. “Oh Dytie, you’re alive.”

Mada just nodded, smiling at her and reaching toward her. She’d only made it a couple of meters in her escape attempt before his voice had stopped, but those meters felt too far now.

Her hand shook as she reached back toward him, emotion-sight overflowing, deep blue tears running down her cheeks, leaving trails of dark grey and dark orange swirls as they passed over the textures of her face.

She tried to step toward her son, to clasp his hand and embrace him, but her knees buckled and she fell onto them.

“My boy,” She whispered, trying to rise unsuccessfully.

In response, Mada closed the distance between them and crouched down, and she saw tears swim in his eyes. She thought she might never see that again, thought she might never see him again when she was taken. That fear only intensified when the Redaeli army arrived.

Yet here he was.

Crouching in front of her he put trembling arms around her, and she reached desperately around him, pulling him in tight and weeping into his cloak. She felt his tears fall on her shoulders, though they fell more quietly than her own.

My Mada is alive. Oh, Dytie my boy’s alive.

The two of them relaxed into the hug. Ekivia hadn’t realized just how tense she had been, how fearful, and Mada must have been experiencing something similar for she felt the tension melt from him as they embraced. It had only been a couple of days since she last saw him, but she thought she’d never feel this embrace again.

And in the embrace, she felt safe for the first time since they’d parted.

“I thought you were dead,” She whispered, pulling away from him to look him in the eyes, to confirm that he was real.

“I thought you were too,” Mada said, voice shaking.

Ekivia laughed through her tears, unable to contain her joy.

Then a shadow fell across them and she looked up to see the white general standing above them. Despite the half-skin’s height, she cut an intimidating figure in the near darkness.

“I’m sorry to interrupt, but we need to get back to a safer position,” the general said, reaching down to help them up. “You two can catch up on the way.”

Mada took her hand and stood, then helped Ekivia up, and the four of them escaped through the hole in the stairwell.