Abbadiah Thawn rolled the cartridge through his gloved fingers and studied it with a cursory eye. The pilgrims of Harvest Section were poised on the fringes of their leathered bunks, stocking their harnesses. Thawn imagined each of them, in their angst and indecision, waiting for the world beneath them to turn for what was, for many, the last time. Death’s saving grace, if one ever existed, was that it would make it the last time Thawn would endure one of Masster Eomin Handall’s briefings.

Thawn set his harness and blade aside as approaching footsteps summoned the twelve of them to their feet. The door to the stone barracks swung wide and Masster Handall took care to look each of them in the eye.

‘In Dos Varren Arrar,’ Handall called.

‘Endon Herr Vannar,’ recited Harvest Section.

Handall furled the edges of his velvet robe across his legs, walking to the far end of the way. His shadow danced across the cobbled walls arching over their heads, as candlelight painted him in a royal glow that his rank demanded.

‘Esther,’ he said, stopping afore a pale-haired girl. The scars on her naked chest were thicker than Thawn’s own, and her mechanical arms were sprayed teal. Thawn looked down the line. The twitch in her shoulders betrayed her fear. ‘You alright, girl?’ His seamed face tightened.

‘Yes, Masster.’

‘You scared, girl?’

‘No, Masster.’

Handall smiled curtly. He moved towards her, but she did not look. Her stare guarded the wall behind him, like her Masster were a ghost. Handall raised a boot to her bare feet and pressed towards the earth with acute satisfaction. Esther’s face writhed, her teeth rolling across her lip. ‘I think it worse, no? That we are cursed to endure… pain without punishment, without recompense, without injury. That we bare no marks…’ He raised a finger to the wounds of her surgeries. ‘Except this.’ Still, his foot pressed against hers harder. ‘Alas, so it is.’ He relented, and the girl Esther dropped to her knees. ‘Don’t lie to me, girl. The Arm raised you better than that.’

The Masster’s robes rippled and he glided to Thawn. ‘Abbadiah.’

‘Masster.’

'Your first Section?’

‘Yessir. It’s the first have I left the Arm of my cradle.’

‘Where were you born, boy?’

‘Torgan, Sir.’

‘I can’t say I’ve come across many Torganers in my time.’

‘Most go to the West Sections, Sir. At the Avail.’

‘You came straight to the front? My, that’s impressive, boy. Your Priestern must recommend you highly.’

‘She does, Sir.’

Handall moved behind Thawn but the pilgrim dare not avert his stare from the boy, Asher, opposite. The Masster raised his hand across Thawn’s back, the bare tips of his fingers were cool to the touch. It tickled, almost. Thawn’s back was well ingratiated to the lashings of the Masters’ whip at the Arm. He wondered if Handall could sense his wounds, even if the leather had left no marks.

Apparently satisfied with his interrogation, Handall moved to study the room at large. His eyes embraced each of them.

‘You are young, raw babes of Winter. Many of you may die tomorrow. More may die the day after that. But he and she who survive, who forge themselves in the crucible, you will be unbroken. Unbreakable. You fight not for the Sign, but for the death of the Enemy. The Enemy is without joy, nor lust, nor pleasure. It does not relent. Nay, yield. You fight to wound the Machine, so that one day its sun may set, and ours… rise again.’ Handall paused between every syllable. His slow, sonorous tones jutted and jarred. ‘For Arval-Harra, we are the torch that lights the Sign to victory. The oath!’ he declared, and a chorus of voices responded in unison.

‘Break me, for I am unyielding

Kill me, for I am already dead.

Show me your wounds, for I have none

Tempt me, for I am of no desires

Love me, for I love no one

By the blood of those who came before,

And those whose is yet to spill,

I am the Sign’s,

It is mine,

And now, I am broken’

‘Ease yourselves. And get a good night’s rest. They’re moving us to Osse Ridge at sun’s rise. It’s four miles from there to Castle Bakh.’

‘They’re moving us, Sir?’ said a girl, Yahya. She failed to hide her confusion. ‘I thought the Alika[1] were at Osse Ridge

‘They’re moving us instead,’ the Masster repeated. ‘Wouldn’t have been my first choice. But we serve at their pleasure.’

‘What’s the High Leger’s plan?’

Handall growled, his irritation visible. ‘You expect me to know?’ he said, cracking his neck. ‘Believe me, I wish I did.’

The girl Yahya turned her head in the Masster’s direction. For half a moment, he seemed taken aback by her forwardness. ‘I doubt his strategy, Sir.’

At that, the Masster smiled. As if put at ease by the notion of student and teacher complaining about another teacher behind his back. ‘Makes two of us. The Alika have been moved south. I believe,’ he said, following with a ponderous pause, ‘I think the High Leger’s intention is to use yourselves as a battering ram.’

‘We’ve more use than that,’ protested another, called Labban. It was true, thought Thawn. They may be virgins of the battlefield, but Harvest Section had been trained for far more. Thawn knew how to fight like ten men, and how to immerse himself in the world so completely he may be mistaken for no men at all. He could fight with everything and nothing. Give him a long enough barrel, and Thawn could disable any enemy from two miles, or from hand-to-hand.

‘Well, boy, I respect your opinion. But this isn’t a firefight. We’re only here to liberate the good Count and his castle.’ Handall seemed to smirk at this. His weathered features twisted in the irony.

One of the boys groaned. Handall paused. He almost looked apologetic. ‘I am quite sure, boy, if the Count knew of your impending efforts on the Ridge, he would be most grateful. We don’t have the good pleasure of discriminating between those we fight for. Such is Winter’s burden to the Sign at large. I bare no love for Count Bakh. None of us do. He’s a critic of the war. But his home is besieged by an enemy who does not cower, nor relent. You save one man tomorrow, you save generations. We take the Castle.’

‘Very good, Sir,’ said Labban and Handall dipped his chin. He waved them away and the clack of his boots receded out the far end of the barracks.

Thawn at once returned to his munitions and pushed them to the chest at the side of his bunk. His chores were mostly done, he thought. The rest could do to wait until he woke. It would give him something to do at least, to stave off the tedium of waiting.

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At once, Asher stepped across the aisle to Thawn. ‘Fancy a walk?’

Thawn glanced at his clock. He could do with an hour of the Ellgan air, he supposed. Without a word, he nodded stiffly, and yanked his pullover from his bunkside. ‘Bring your blade,’ Asher added. Thawn raised an eyebrow, but wordlessly obeyed, and collected his Argan steel, sheathing it by his hip. He followed Asher out where Handall had left. Night had already struck the sky down in hues of dark red. The wind was cold, but Thawn paid it no mind.

‘You planning on running into many machines?’ Thawn growled.

Asher led him on. Even from the back of his head, Thawn could tell he was smirking. ‘You never know. Esther told me she caught two inside the boundary on the Skekkle last week.’

‘The Skekkle route goes up into the mines. Bound to be machines up there. And those fences are knackered. Not exactly hard to get inside the line.’

Asher keeled his neck. ‘And that, Abb, is why I never volunteer for the Skekkle.’

‘You mean you’re a lazy piece of shit?’

‘You know me; always. I leave the hard patrols for everyone else.’

 Asher took Thawn past the Icks’ barracks. They were domed silos made of mud and stone and straw, each erected by its occupiers. For his first days here, Thawn had toiled in the red mud and rains of Ellaga with Harvest Section to assemble his. Apparently the Massters thought it good practice that a soldier make his own stead. That he be accomplished in the means of his survival, or some such other. To forge fire in ice, to forge his shelter from the onslaught of the heavens, for a soldier that was not well-rested fought only as half a man. That was how the Priestess Jaho had put it to Thawn anyway.

‘After tomorrow, no more patrols for shit,’ Asher added.

‘Oh?’

‘Ellaga is won, anyway.’

‘You talk at your Pristern with that conceit?’

Asher’s shoulders slumped. ‘I don’t think they ever really noticed me.’

‘Hubris is the enemy of victory,’ Thawn recited. The trite sayings of the Arm were etched into his head like a blade on oak.

‘You bore me,’ Asher answered dryly. ‘We have the fields and the plantations. When Bakh is liberated, the machines have nothing to defend but dust, and their own skins. Wouldn’t kill you to have some optimism.’

‘I am optimistic,’ Thawn said stately. ‘But I prefer not to think a battle won before it is.’

Asher glanced back. ‘Give it a rotation and it will be won.’

Past them, the barracks and tents thinned into the obscurity of night. The land enshrouding the encampment was low and marshy, guarded by dense reeds that their steps cut through like knives. Thawn glanced ahead to the silhouette of a crest cut out against the stars that sat beneath the plump moon of Otheus. That was Osse Ridge.

‘You’re not taking us beyond the line?’ Thawn said a few moments later, spitting reads from his mouth as he spoke.

Asher ignored him, parting the last of the reeds. They filtered into a small clearing, guarded by a spot lamp that hung from a catwalk above them. ‘Your blade, Squire?’ he said, producing his own from his hip.

Thawn obliged. He hacked at the reeds, only for them to bend and crumple beneath its weight. He ran his finger along the blade’s edge. It was blunted, harmless to flesh but the Argan steel shattered the guise of the machines as sure as glass. Asher held out his arm to Thawn, its reach extended by the tip of his blade and Thawn reciprocated.

‘You best spare a prayer for the Pantheon,’ chided Asher. ‘I don’t mean to go easy on you.’

Thawn smirked. ‘I’m sure I can cope. I never put much stock by the old gods. And I’ve never been out-sparred yet. My Md.[2] agrees.’

Asher huffed haughtily, as if this fact counted for very little. ‘I heard Torgan was a dirty little place. Doesn’t surprise it sets low standards of its pilgrims.’

Thawn laughed loudly, irked at Asher’s churlish insults. But he was happy to oblige. Wordlessly. Thawn thrust a jab at Asher’s hip. The swordsman stumbled, the edge of his sword cutting through the dirt. He growled. At once, his poise was lost. Each encircled the other, a flurry of pointed jabs exchanged between them. The volley of their swords danced through the night, above and below, to either side, each predicting the other in perfect synchrony. Like their movements were trained to a rhythm. The glint of their blades scattered the light of the three moons.

The cry of an usther-cat scythed through the night, and they were halted. Asher turned his glance to the beastly silhouette upon Osse Ridge. In his moment’s pause, Thawn took his blade to Asher’s leg and the body gave way.

Asher’s hands embraced the mud. His eyes alit, scowled at Thawn. But Thawn only laughed heartily in reply.

‘Justice has its ways, I think,’ he said. ‘I owe you a debt, Asher Ashtersen.’

Asher drew the cuff of his muddied sleeve across his lips. ‘And what would that be?’

‘Were I at all nervous, consider my nerves eased.’ Thawn sheathed his blade and extended an arm to drag Asher from the mud. ‘Some wonders your words to the gods did.’

Asher seemed to think of no reply, as he stayed silent. If his words had been irksome to Thawn, his now chastened form, hunched like a wounded hound, was entirely amusing.

‘I got distracted,’ Asher said eventually.

Thawn hmm’d. ‘Would were that an excuse on the field of battle.’ He led Asher from the clearing, and into another thicket of reeds. ‘I best hope you’re saving yourself,’ he added. ‘You really think this will be over tomorrow?’ Thawn’s voice took on a more sombre tone.

‘I have faith in us. Castle Bakh is all they have to defend. Once it falls, Ellaga falls. They should know they’re beaten and leave.’

‘That’s one view the Patents could take,’ Thawn surmised.

‘And the other?’

‘They have little further to lose. They may defend it with their lives. It’s the mines they want, after all. The Count’s lands just happen to sit on them.’

Asher contemplated this. ‘Whatever it is, is surely not worth losing a legion over.’

‘Depends what it is.’ Thawn’s voice was matter-of-fact. What the Patents had been mining under the Castle was information he did not need to nor was privy to know. And Thawn did not care to lose sleep over it. But if the Patents were prepared to defend it to the last machine, then it must have been of great significance.

‘I stand by what I said,’ Asher asserted.

Thawn skulked his shoulders as if to say, ‘fair enough’. He guided Asher back whence they had come. Ahead, a trio of fires were crackling, half a dozen Icks scattered sparsely amongst them. They passed Thawn and Asher unsavoury looks. The lines on their faces were hardened by deep-cut shadows and an orange glow. One was carving shapes into a trunk of wood with his switchblade. He peered up at the pilgrims with a weary look, before feeding his artistry to the flames.

‘It’s rude to stare,’ Asher said.

Thawn raised an arm to Asher. ‘Ashtersen.’

One of the Icks stood. A stout man, balding, but blessed with handsome features. From the distance, he looked about a third their height and half as wide.

‘You best be moving on.’ He nodded towards Winter’s barracks, a ways past the Ick’s own.

‘I’ll move at my own damn pace,’ Asher growled. But the Ick did not seem intimidated. Asher understood as he did, that Winter’s pilgrims stood on thin ground here.

War’s end had grown near, and with it the Sign’s regard for its supersoldiers had waned. Thawn had heard tales of days Winter’s might ruled the Sign itself. But history was an unkind judge. And Thawn found himself acutely self-aware as a relic of darker days, when warcraft had not been blighted by thoughts of hope and victory. Winter were the Sign’s darkest days. And now they stood apart, a fringe order, dripping in the blood of its followers as well as its victims, an order sullied by magick and mutilation. An order the Sign tolerated as a means to the Patents’ end, but not a shade more.

It was a cruel irony. Winter only had its place as long as war raged. They fought for their own destruction.

The stout man laughed. ‘I mean it no offence. The High Leger’s a curfew tonight.’

Thawn raised an eyebrow. ‘Damned man. Does he not know we don’t need to sleep?’

‘Perhaps he means to spare us from you,’ the stout Ick said and his companions laughed.

There was a time these men would have paled before Thawn and Asher, beset with a sickly deference for their betters. But that was long ago. Now they seemed at worst merely curious.

‘What a burden sleep must be,’ Asher said. If he had meant it as an insult, the Icks did not receive it that way.

‘Aye, what burden indeed. To be damned with such mortal needs as sleeping, good food and drink in a world full of shit. I give thanks to life’s small pleasures.’

Asher pondered. ‘Can’t miss what I’ve never known.’

The stout man rolled his eyes, almost pitiful. ‘I do not envy your kind. Be thankful that’s all it is.’

Thawn moved in the warm bask of the fire and Asher followed, his stare fixed on the Ick. ‘You best get your rest.’

‘Aye. The High Leger’s dispatching us to the mines. So, I guess we best.’ There were undertones of a taunt in the Ick’s voice. ‘And from there to Bakh. I hear the Count’s daughter is willing to throw herself at the first man that saves her. Eight months under the arrest of the Patents; seems reasonable any girl might long for the touch of her saviour.’ The Icks laughed, with and at each other.

Thawn sneered, and he stepped closer. ‘You listen here, boy. You don’t know the mind of a soldier. Think of the task at hand, and not of the spoils.’

The stout man smiled greedily. ‘Oh, I think of the task at hand, dear pilgrim. A pity for you up on that ridge, clearing the fields.’

‘You disgust us,’ Asher said.

The Ick smiled. ‘Feeling’s mutual.’

Thawn placed a hand upon Asher’s shoulder before he could incite more conflict, and guided him from the fires, the Icks’ oranged stares still fixed on their backs.

What lowly men, Thawn thought. Were they so much better than Harvest Section? In war and in life. Thawn was struck by a pensive mood. After all, many of them would surely die tomorrow. He may survive for centuries or millennia yet. They slipped back into the barracks and upon their bunks without a word to their colleagues or each other. Thawn withdrew his pullover and collapsed onto his back and turned over towards the wall, where he hoped for the next eight hours he might pretend to sleep.

[1] Alika – ‘Abomination’ – mutant, animal creations of the Sign deployed onto the battlefield

[2] Md. – abbreviation ‘Minder’ – a formal title reserved for those who educated the youth of Winter in a particular field. For example, this may have included swordcraft, languages, history, arithmetic, resourcefulness, the natural world, and feats of mental accomplishment. The precise disciplines the youth of Winter were educated on was subject to great variation across its many Arms.