1
The city, the mushroom fields, the decrepit factories latched onto the boundary walls like steel tumours – the pyromancers burned them all.
Thirty miles they must have walked, from one end of the Floor to the other. The pyros each carried fuel harnesses that weighed sixty pounds empty; Sam carried only the crest of the House of Dawn. The golden sunrise glittered on her coat, her gloves, her plague mask, asserting that she, as a necromantic apprentice, was superior to them. She tried to wipe her sweat-fogged lenses and tripped. The pyros let her.
The canal overflowed with blue-fire. The advance team had set up an ejector across the viaduct. They waited until all have crossed, then waited some more as Sam stumbled over the abutment, heat-dazed and barely conscious. She managed to crawl behind cover, gasping. The pyros waited, and waited. She waved.
Blue-fire poured out in a viscous torrent, so hot the windblast set her sleeves on fire. The viaduct softened, collapsed, and disintegrated into viscous rubble. Sam scratched out its designation on her clipboard, the last on her list. The pyros were already packed up and waiting. “Well done, everyone,” she said. No one looked at her.
The Hill of Nine loomed, five miles away. Sam shuffled toward it in a daze, her eyes trained on the summit, where a yellow light endlessly blinked. Yellow meant the purging was over. For the next phase, she only needed to sit and watch.
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A farmhouse appeared over the ridge. Twenty pyros in white robes patrolled its perimeter. An apprentice in a bright-orange suit stood at the door, his gaze fixed on the three faces in the second-floor window: a woman with two young girls.
It was too late to look away. The apprentice was waving at her; ignoring his request would precipitate a formal complaint against her conduct.
The apprentice had the posture of a corpse. His trousers were tattered, as if chewed through. His hair hung limp with a coat of ash. He shook Sam’s hand with the strength of a windblown leaf.
“Help me,” he muttered. “I was on the palisade. Had a long day.”
Pyros watched the house from every approach. The woman was yelling, but the wind would not let her speak.
“Maestro Finley said no witnesses,” the apprentice added, mostly to himself.
“You don’t need me,” said Sam.
“Where are you from? Please, you do it. I need a break.”
“I was also on the palisade.”
“I don’t care.”
His orders arrived by courtesy of an ambler. It sprinted into the courtyard, faster than any runner. Its neck was broken; its head dangled and bounced with every step. The left half of its face was putrefied; chunks of rotten flesh had fallen away, revealing a mess of tendon and bone. Jittering in its eye sockets were two pieces of quartz, one twice the size of the other. There was a cut on its hip. Purple infusion gushed out in spurts, drenching its orange overalls. Dehydrated intestines slapped at its calves.
The ambler held out a red slip. The apprentice ignored it, mouthing words in silence. The woman and her children disappeared into the house. A pyro took the slip, gave it a long look, then gestured their colleagues. Two of them still had fuel. They stepped up, fuses lit. Waiting.
Sam looked away, and looked away, and looked away. After an eternity, the apprentice spoke.
“Burn them.”