It was getting late, and the growls had Yamcha a bit concerned.

Not worried, though. Definitely not worried. But when Shülgam was spending more time fuzzy than she was spending being all the way there, it was okay to be concerned. Right? Right.

He checked around him again. Only two of the dogs were visible, Chazakh and Jikhr, growling away. That meant Jaguin and Ayaruul were out on the sides, which was a little bit more concerning. Sure, Shülgam went wherever she wanted, but Aya was…

Yamcha fumbled around for the stone around his neck. There wasn’t anything to worry about, obviously. But if it was okay to be a bit concerned when Shülgam started doing loops while fuzzy, then maybe it was okay to be a little bit more than a bit concerned when Aya wasn’t visible.

So, a little more than a bit concerned but definitely only that, he pushed enough of his mana into the stone to activate it.

“Mama Dora, Aunt Eymee,” he said, voice almost properly calm, “it’s Yamcha. I’m—Aya’s gone on flank. Odi’s nervous. Open skies, clear tracks.”

The stone crumbled, which was fine. He’d pushed more mana than the stone could hold, which happened when he was… not scared, he definitely wasn’t scared. Not even worried. Just a little nervous.

His hand shook a little as he pulled a new stone, already threaded on its chain, out of his pouch. He didn’t bother taking the old one off, and once the new stone was bouncing against his chest, he felt a lot better.

“Odi,” he said softly, “it’s good you’re not scared. When people are scared, they make bad decisions. That’s what Auntie Eymee says. But it’s okay if you’re nervous.”

Odi didn’t say anything back. That wasn’t unusual; the shaggy pony wasn’t much of a talker, though he did sometimes make noises that reminded Yamcha that a pony could be smarter than he let on. Odi was six years old, and he’d been born when Yamcha was two years old, and they were each other’s best friend in the world.

So when Odi got nervous, Yamcha knew what that meant. Because Odi? He didn’t get nervous about nothing. Jikhr might growl at the breeze, and ‘gam might just turn into a cloud of dots and lines because she wanted to sniff the inside of another dog’s nose, but Odi was steady.

So was Aya, because she was a heartdog, Mama Dora’s own. If she wasn’t on the inside, it meant she thought she could keep him safe better by being on the outside. And Ayaruul was old. Yamcha didn’t know how old exactly, but she had to be at least forty, which was basically forever old, so she was like an adult. And when an adult told you how to be safe?

Well, you listened. You had to, if you trusted them, because maybe they knew. And that meant that once Odi got nervous and Aya wasn’t in sight, he wasn’t trying to show he was one of the big kids, the ones who could be trusted to get the whole herd home on their own.

It meant that he was showing that he could be trusted to call for help as soon as he thought he needed it. Even if it meant admitting he was just a kid, too little to take care of things himself.

“Kasménos, it’s Yamcha.” This one took a lot less mana, and he was more careful with it. “Aya and Odi are nervous. Can you come? Or find—”

“Yamcha.” The voice buzzed from his earrings, vibrating all the way up to his head and tickling. “We’re going loud. Make sure your mana sight is turned down.”

Relieved, far more relieved than he wanted to admit to himself—but you have to know yourself, that’s a rule—he complied. A few seconds later, the pulse of Adei’s delver-wizardry rang out over the grass, and what came back from her spell was too much for Yamcha to understand.

“Kid, don’t panic, but there’s two packs of spites.” That was Matis, the man with the big shield, and if there’d been more than a little bit of judgment in Kas’s voice, there was none in Matis’s. “They just breached. We’re engaging the closer one. Don’t run, but get the herd moving.”

“Help is on the way. You’re going to be fine.” Kasménos’s words were calming, but his voice was worried even through the earrings, and his next words were really scary. “Distance protocol. Do you remember what it is?”

“Don’t go towards town,” Yamcha whispered into the stone. “Go away from the Forest, straight in-ring.”

He’d sent too much mana again. He opened his hand, letting the dust pour off, and felt the tears prickling at his eyes.

“We won’t be able to talk to you soon.” Matis’s voice was relaxed, but there was a poking feeling, like someone had flicked where the earring-stones were touching the earlobes. “The spite packs used some kind of mana-tunnel to breach farther in than we’d like. You’re a smart kid, you’ll be fine. Remember the practicing we did, and remember that your Aunt is on the way. And you’ve never seen how fast—”

The words cut off with a quiet, scratching sound, and then Yamcha was… not alone. He reminded himself of that, not that it took a lot of doing, because Odi chuffed at him and turned to headbutt him in the chest. The sternum, the thought to himself, because he’d learned that word from Auntie Rafa, who even though she wasn’t really an Auntie still let him call her that.

“Kha,” he said softly, pressing in on Odi’s left side with his foot, “we’re changing course. Away from the scary things.”

He pulled out his pipes while Chazakh and Jikhr loped out. They were good dogs, and he knew he could trust them, but they wouldn’t know exactly what to do yet. So he blew on his fingers to get them a little bit wet, and then he wriggled them like Mama Dora always did, and he took a deep breath and started to play Call They Did For Aid.

He felt everything go to the side, making way for the magic that came with the music. There wasn’t any space for anything else, even so. His grandma had said it was okay, and it would always happen as long as he let it, and he hoped it never stopped. Because as long as the pipes were in his hands, as long as he let himself be one with them and as long as his breath lasted, she was still with him.

He closed his eyes. There wasn’t any point in trying to see past the tears, and Odi knew where they were going.

Mama Dora said I did good when I played Sophie in. He held that thought inside him, in what little space he had for thinking. She let me keep the pipes even though I promised I wouldn’t use magic on anyone. He’d been proud of that, because it meant that he understood the reason under the rule, and knew when that was more important than the promise.

Around him, unnoticed, the herd drew in, and together they started to move faster.

And behind them, closing fast, came danger.

⁂ ⁂ ⁂

Eymee, Plainsheart of Shem’s Southern Reach, was not nervous. Nervousness was for other people, people who didn’t have responsibilities and authority over thousands.

She told herself that again as she circulated her mana through her Flame, reinforcing her Skills and propelling herself to higher speeds. This wasn’t her strength, but this region was her demesne, claimed and proven out, and that was letting her keep up with Rael while keeping both of their stamina topped off.

It wasn’t just the two of them, but they were the locus of action in the maneuver, and the rest of the team depended on them. Zrodne was anchored and watching from afar, a cataclysm-in-waiting only a heartbeat away, but he was plains-blind—couldn’t spot even a whole puck’s plume of shit-smoke. Esse was far faster than them, and Meredith faster still in a pinch, but the grasses ate all tracks and the plains were vast; it was only Yamcha’s good sense to call them in that gave them a chance of finding him.

Between Odi and Shülgam, magic and space itself would twist away from any attempt to scry the group. But that didn’t apply to the tie that the callstone had formed, and she let it pull her onwards. Towards twenty shoats, five of the Southern Reach’s best dogs, and a shaggy grass-pony that’d bred true to his great-grandmother’s Spine blood.

Towards her grand-nephew, the last thing she had left of her sister.

“First spite pack is down.” Kasménos’s sudden, clipped voice betrayed him even through the tinny fossa-stud Eymee was wearing—out of breath and terrified, but still determined. “Still fully fighting fit, but the second pack is past us. Worried about more; Adei is pulsing in twenty.”

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

“Sla—cancel that.” Meredith’s voice was calm and cold all the way down, without any of her usual seething rage. A set of positions—one each for the remaining Forestborn monster pack, the Delve team, and the reserve team—flashed through their minds, and then a set of directions attached themselves to each. “Flare and draw, but move, don’t stick.”

Eymee would have hissed in surprise if she had the breath to spare. Not from the Captain telling the team not to use the pulse—typical delver idiocy, since the pulse would give away everyone’s location. But while it was obvious to the herder that the delvers shouldn’t give away Yamcha’s position to the monsters, ordering them to make themselves a target with a towering beacon of magic and then to run instead of staying to try to fight what was coming?

That suggested that there was something else out there, something they couldn’t fight or even stall. And they’d just killed a pack of spites without taking a wound.

“Esse, switch over,” Meredith snapped after a moment, turning to smoothly pluck the callstone out of the Plainsheart’s hand. “Eymee, Rael, we’re close enough. I’m skipping while Esse breaks west.”

Towards the Forest, towards danger. It was where Esse would have gone regardless, and the proper place for the Delve Pillar.

“Two spite packs isn’t probing,” Meredith continued sharply, “it’s scouting. Esse! Whatever hits the babies dies, and we lose one, it had better be because you went first.”

“Audible. Moving.”

“And fucking work with the overwatch, Esse, you Godsforsaken piece of solo-Delver shit!”

For all the violence of Meredith’s farewell, she was already moving, ignoring the turbulence that the other woman was leaving in her wake. She took five steps, steps that took her dozens of feet each, then stopped and turned around.

“One of these days,” the Captain said in a voice that carried despite its gentle softness, “I’ll have to pick between what I give up. But today ain’t that fucking day. Catch up when you can, don’t go within sixty feet of either breach. We’re out of fuck-around time.”

Eymee could see the cut Meredith’s sword made in reality, metaphysically severing miles of intervening space—and then it sealed itself behind her, and Eymee couldn’t remember anything about what it had been like.

The Plainsheart was old and powerful by the standards of her people. She was close to her three hundredth year, and strong enough that she’d assumed a mantle of authority that drove her higher still in strength. The grasses were her domain, and she could feel the raw wound ahead, despite it being miles upon miles away; even without the callstone that Meredith had used to target her skip, as she’d put it, she knew exactly where she was going.

She ran on, pushing herself still to maintain as good a pace as she could. It would be long minutes before she made it to wherever Yamcha’s herd was, tens of long minutes, and Rael wouldn’t be able to make it any faster, either—it was only Eymee’s Skills that let the Warsworn sustain her movement Skills for this long.

For that matter, Zrodne’s attentions had lifted from them, and his enhancement spells were no doubt focused on elevating Esse’s speed to new heights. When the Delve Pillar made contact with anything she couldn’t kill in passing, they’d know from the cataclysm that would descend on the Magus’s targets; but that part wasn’t their concern, wasn’t their fight.

And so with every string already loosed, with tens of minutes to get to a fight that might already be decided, the two of them ran on, praying.

There was, after all, nothing else they could do.

⁂ ⁂ ⁂

Yamcha switched to playing And He Bled Heartsblood when the two dogs beside him tore off to the rear. If his pipes had reached far enough over the plains—well, the pipes themselves, you could maybe hear a mile away. He thought maybe the magic could reach five miles, if it was just him feeding it.

It would be different if he wasn’t a kid, he knew. But it was a pretty song, and that was nice. All swoopy.

This song wasn’t a pretty song. It wasn’t an easy one, either; he had to really focus on his breath and his fingers, on the way his hands moved across the air bladder. That was okay, though. The music filled him, and he let everything else flow away.

It had to flow through him first, though. Basathon-who-builds and Emmna-the-shield, and he knew that wasn’t how people said it but it made more sense, they stood on the walls and looked at the Forest and the armies. So Yamcha knew that he had to look too.

When you did things the way the Gods would have done them, they saw you. That’s what Cleric Veil said, and they would know, because they were Cleric Veil.

But Yamcha would have watched anyway. Someone had to bear witness, and Yamcha was the only one there.

He couldn’t really see the spite pack. Not because he was still crying—he’d dried his eyes. They were just too fast, or too blurred, or invisible. He could only see the way that they flattened the grass around them, or the blood that fell around them.

His song fell apart after the third time Jikhr got hit, and before he could start the next song up properly, she did something that made a whole lot of blood happen, but then she got hit again. Yamcha’s fingers felt stiff on the pipes, and the only thing he could remember to play anymore was Song For The Skies That Shelter Us.

Eyes blurring with tears, he felt the warmth of a hand on his shoulder. The song pulled the last bits of mana out of him, and he closed his eyes, relaxing into the touch despite the sudden jerk and the oddly soft fall.

I’m sorry, he wanted to say, but he was too sleepy, and everything was going so quiet. I’m sorry.

⁂ ⁂ ⁂

The end, when it came, was an anticlimax.

Meredith was quite willing to let that bloodthirsty warhound of a Pillar she’d come with tackle whatever the spite packs were baiting for. Let someone who gave a fuck about the Theurgist’s piece of shit System pick a fight for power that was handed to you—Meredith had a job to do.

The dogs had done as good a job as she’d expected, and the kid an impossibly better one. Out of nineteen creatures in the spite-pack, when she cut her way through the skin of the world, there were only thirteen alive.

The cut was, obviously, an impossibly impressive act of might, and James was sure to remind her of that when he found out. Meredith was just pissed she couldn’t yet do it twice.

She threw her sword, instead. Side-throw, spinning through the air, form… decent. There was nothing special about that sword—good steel, well made, but not even a Master’s work.

It split the sound barrier and ripped through all five of the brothers, black-furred and human-faced. It didn’t come back to her hand, because that wasn’t a thing that swords fucking did, no matter what some cretin might write in a pulp novel, but the shockwave from the hilt’s spin bowled over the three rakatha that were facing up against the two dogs.

Good odds for the dogs, usually. Not so good when they had two more dogs down or crippled behind them, two dogs they needed to protect—but with the opening provided by her throw, the dogs had their claws wet with blood before the rakatha hit the ground.

Meredith wasn’t Esse or Zrodne. She couldn’t run faster than the speed of sound, she couldn’t summon lightning out of a clear sky or make the ground rise up or swallow titanwoods. But she wasn’t out to play fuck-around, not when she’d been having a nice time in bed with a very attentive husband, so she wasn’t holding back much.

Much. She’d long since made one choice, and she wasn’t going to go back on that now. Not in a not even to save the kid’s life way, though; that was for suckers.

So Meredith wasn’t a sword, not tonight, not ever. She wasn’t the sword, she wasn’t who swings. But having a sword is a habit you can get into. Swinging it, too—why should you need a sword in your hand to swing a sword?

For that matter, swords all came in different lengths. And when you’d practiced enough with them… well, you knew what they felt like.

Meredith swung.

For a moment, there was a glimmer in the air, visible even through the evening’s gloom.

For a moment, the four strades heading in for a run on the boy continued in their flight.

Meredith slowed to a walk, breathing deep as the fliers fell into two neat pieces. There was still one rakatha that’d managed to get around the hamstrung pony. Odi was on its side doing its best to defend that idiotically brave boy sprawled on the grass—both alive, even if the kid was unconscious from mana exhaustion. The rakatha thought it was about to change that, and she smiled at it through the gloom—baring her teeth just a little bit at the closest of its four huge, staring eyes—as it lunged.

That weird morphic probability field that still thought it was a dog manifested behind it and to each side of it at the same time. It almost wasn’t enough, even so. The last of the spites dodged one incoming hit, twisted out of the way of another, and couldn’t avoid the third.

The whatever-the-fuck that answered to Shülgam collapsed or resolved into the possibility that didn’t miss, and the rakatha just sort of decohered around the hit. The blood and guts and bits of fur narrowly avoided the kid, and at that, Meredith narrowed her eyes.

There were a lot of things she could have said to the shadow that wasn’t being cast, over by where the boots weren’t leaving an impression in the grass.

She picked up the kid in one hand instead, whistling piercingly. The pony went over her shoulders—the kid had managed to stop the bleeding with those pipes, good on him, and she needed the leverage—and one of the dogs got stacked on top by a probability shift. She grabbed the other downed dog with her off hand, checking to make sure it wasn’t going to die in a hurry, and started walking.

One of these days, Captain Meredith Morei told herself, but not today.

It was another brick in a legend. Another life stolen before it could be taken. Another victory.

Meredith didn’t give a shit about any of that, not in the kind of mood she was in. She didn’t even think about lessons still to learn, tricks yet to beat. Instead, taking one fifteen-foot step after another, she grinned hungrily and thought only of what was waiting for her at home.