> Insular as the Yunei Empire may be, much can be gleaned of their culture from speaking with their exiled diaspora outside the Gate, or in cities abroad such as Auldenheigh or Long Drop. One thing I can attest to is this: they are a gentle people who prefer poetry, art, and the cultivation of Proper living in all things…but they know perfectly well that war has its Proper place. And they pursue it with the same dilligent precision as they do any other endeavor. —Prince Ruber of Valai, My Travels

FOREIGN LAND

The Auld Forest, Enerlend, Garanhir 09.06.03.13.01

Jung-Shu, outrider captain of General Liu’s third scout cohort, had been waiting for his horse to spook, and with good reason. Nono was about the most skittish mare he’d ever ridden, a beast whose unmatched fleetness over rough terrain was perhaps explained by her jittery nerves. She’d been known to bolt at falling leaves, light gusts, and the squeak of her stable door that she heard a dozen times a day, every day.

The sight of an entire forest yawning wide to present them with a wide road into its depths ought to have had her rearing and bucking, but instead she placidly shook her head and swished her tail, as though absolutely nothing had changed.

Horns blew. Around them, the infantry shouted in unison and advanced. Nono tossed her head and pranced sideways a little at the sound of male voices raised in a marching song, and Jung-Shu dug his heels slightly, encouraging her forward.

It wasn’t Proper, but he grinned under his helmet and mask as the horse sprang forward. A coward she might be, but Nono only needed a direction to aim her nervous energy in, and she was the fastest thing on four legs. They were the fastest thing on four legs, scout and steed with a purpose.

The third scout cohort followed him up the wide avenue this Dutsess El-ai-a-nee had opened for them. As they swept past, he got a good look of the woman herself: her foreign clothes and Yunei makeup, her poise as she held up a length of antler, the solemn concentration and slight scowl around her closed eyes as she held the way open for them.

Jung-Shu knew nothing of magic. He had no idea what went into creating or holding open such a path. In his bones, he felt it must be a fearsome strugle, but the Dutsess showed almost nothing of it. The rumor among the troops was that she was wed to Lord Sayf himself. Jung-Shu could believe it: even the brief, blurry glimpse he got of her as he galloped past was enough to fill him with the certainty that here was a woman of frightening power.

Then he was among the trees, and Nono was cantering easily up the gentle slope of the foothills. It may as well have been rolling steppe, for there were no roots or stones to trip her, no ruck or mark in the ground to suggest hundreds of trees had just been magically pushed aside. It was as if this easy path had always been there, hidden to mortal eyes.

…Perhaps it had been.

Up ahead, a great spirit gate stood across the path. Short pillars of stone, barely more than mossy pillars with long-faded carvings, ran up either side of the bare greenway. Each pair was a little taller than the ones in front, so that they seemed to sweep up on either side of Jung-Shu like the waves on lake Biho during a storm. The last set had a crossbeam, as thick as a horse’s body and as curved as a scabbard. The runes carved upon it were in no language Jung-Shu could read, and yet they were somehow familiar…

No matter. No time to think about it. Nono cantered under the crossbeam, and—

—and they were somewhere else. The change in the air’s texture was immediate and obvious. New and unfamiliar scents, foreign shades of green and brown, plants he didn’t know. An instant ago they had been cantering uphill along a green sward: now, with neither warning nor jolt, their path led downhill alongside a bubbling, leaping stream.

This change really ought to have upset Nono, but the horse just trotted down the slope as though everything was perfectly normal. Behind and around them, Jung-Shu’s fellow scout outriders emerged from among the trees, their heads swivelling in an echo of his own astonishment even while their steeds continued as though nothing was amiss.

“Great Crowns…” Jo-Gu commented.

“Come on,” Jung-Shu told him, rather more stoically than he felt. “We have our mission.”

They picked up the pace. Down the stream’s bouncing course they rode while trees of a very alien sort creaked and leaned around them as though taking an interest in these strange newcomers. Some of their limbs bent downwards, and Jung-Shu was struck by an irrational fear that they were reaching down to pluck one of the scounts off his horse for interrogationg. The trees were old, huge, dark and craggy, and their skirts were impenetrable thorny tangles of vegetation. There was only one way forward a horse could take, which felt uncomfortably like being channeled.

It ended soon enough, though. A bend in the stream’s course spat them out into open sunlight, and Jung-Shu blinked at the world revealed before him.

It was far more orderly than he’d always imagined foreign lands must be. The fields were divided up with trimmed hedges, rows of coppiced trees and walls of loose-stacked stone. The lanes and ways running between them were packed earth, no different to those he might ride on at home. The houses were different, built from stone and brick with thatched and tiled roofs, but they were not the mud hovels he’d imagined.

They were all on the far side of the river, though. The stream the outriders had come down merged into a larger flow, the near side of which going upstream was choked with undergrowth right to the edge of the bank. Downstream, though, the land had been cleared for grazing. A herd of brown cattle raised their heads to stare at Jung-Shu, then lumbered away as he spurred Nono into jumping over the stone wall and galloped downriver.

He had been given a copy of a map, and shown where on it the army would first arrive on Garanese soil. He hadn’t understood how they would arrive in a forest, and he still didn’t understand, but it wasn’t Jung-Shu’s place to understand such things. The map was accurate, as was the predicted arrival. He very quickly confirmed that much by identifying landmarks, and once he had that confirmation, the real work of an outrider began.

He led his men downriver. Their first target was a bridge, wide enough for men to cross four or five abreast. This he scouted and captured, then left two men to guard while he led the rest of the outriders onwards. There were many farms and noble houses in the area, and they all needed investigating.

The Enerlish weren’t cowards, at least. At each farm they inspected, the men stood in a nervous line with tools in hand while the women and girls were nowhere to be seen. A few of the bolder and more impudent farmers waved Jung-Shu and his men away, but that was tolerable, especially in light of the language barrier.

It was as they rode through a hamlet about two miles from the bridge that they found the first major deviation from the map. It was little more than a collection of houses at the meeting of three roads, and the occupants retreated indoors as the outrider thundered through…but there was something strange at the far end of the vilage, something not marked on the map at all. A yard of some kind had been cleared, and stacks of timber waited at the foot of some kind of crane. But the feature that puzzled Jung-Shu was a parallel pair of matched steel beams laid on the ground, fastened together by regular large boards and resting on a sturdy bed of coarse gravel. Their purpose was utterly opaque to him, but the assemblage was not marked on the map.

He sent one of his riders back to report, and continued onwards.

For the next two hours, their patrol was largely uneventful. Farmstead and village rolled by without incident, and every so often they rose high enough to see past the intervening hills to the sprawl of the city they had come to liberate.

Jung-Shu paused to allow Nono to drink from a stream, and gazed at it, while his last outriders came up around him.

“What happened?” One of the men asked, in soft tones. There was a haze of smoke over Oh-Dan-Hai, fed by hazy pillars that suggested large fires that had been left to burn down to smouldering rubble rather than damped. “IS everyone dead? Why would they leave fires to burn?”

“A city of stone and brick may not burn so easily,” Jung-Shu mused. “But look: we were told to count the enemy’s air-ships. Where are they?”

Sure enough, the sky was vacant of the fat gourd-shapes they’d been told to look for. There were towers along the river that matched what they had been told about, but of the airships themselves…perhaps the burning rubble accounted for them.

Jung-Shu produced his telescope and took a closer look. Some of the bridges were down, and he made note of which ones. And again, another feature caught his eye that was not on the map. The near side of the city was pierced by a broad brownish ribbon of some sort which, when he focused on it, turned out to be more of those pairs of metal beams. They came together like merging streams, or perhaps like copulating snakes, and the districts around them were dominated by large sheds, warehouses, and other such buildings.

As he watched, a wagon of some kind rolled out of the city. It seemed to move by itself in a flurry of venting steam and smoke, but it rolled easily along the steel and soon was moving with astonishing speed as it headed downriver.

Stranger and stranger. He wrote that all down in his report as well.

Scout Mu-Bei sniffed the air. “…Scout captain! Do you smell that?”

Jung-Shu looked around and sniffed the air. It took him a moment to catch the scent, and a moment longer to place it: corpse. It was a smell never forgotten once learned.

“Spread out,” he ordered.

The search didn’t take long. The smell was coming from a fanciful little building, made of irregular stones that had nevertheless been cunningly cemented together and roofed with thatch. There was a garden of sorts out front, clearly well-groomed and decorated with many flowers, but the door and gate were both hanging open. A horse whickered and grumbled at them from its stable, and Mu-Bei dismounted to tend to it.

“…Starved!” he called. “Left tied up, and she has drunk all the water. Had we come tomorrow, she would be dead.”

“I imagine I know why…” Jung-Shu commented grimly. He took a deep breath of comparatively clean air, covered his nose, and marched into the cottage’s stinking interior.

The two murder victims were in a foul state. Between the carpet of flies and maggots writhing over both bodies, and the fact that some scavenger had clearly broken in and made off with what it could take, there was little to say whether they were men, women, or a couple. Whoever had slain them had simply left them to rot, and that had been…what? Ten days ago? Perhaps eight. Plenty of time for the decomposition to reach and pass its most disgusting stage. Jung-Shu clenched his core muscle to quiet the gagging heave that wanted to start in his stomach.

“Bandits?” Scout Hon-Li asked, in the strained tones of one also holding back nausea. “Enemy soldiers?”

“…Nothing seems to have been stolen,” Jung-Shu pointed out, pointing out a hanging cut of smoked bacon and various other food items that bandits, deserters or fleeing soldiers would have stolen. He indicated a narrow door with stairs leading down. “Search that. I will look upstairs.”

The mystery only deepened from there. The only sign of ransack upstairs was an open cabinet full of clothes, some of which had been pulled out and thrown carelessly across the floor. And the scouts who went down to the cellar reported it contained a most strange tableau.

Jung-Shu went and considered it for himself. He puzzled for a few minutes over the implications of a bed with shackles, a frame with shackles, and a mannequin clad in women’s clothing and a table with several knives upon it. He especially pondered the meaning of the stained bedsheets, and the pattern of dark brown spots around the frame. None of the scenarios his imagination could design were at all pleasant.

Still…it was an apparently unoccupied property with good views over the city, close to local roads, with facilities for stabling horses and rooms to garrison troops. As forward posts went…

He finished writing his report, and handed it to Hon-Li. As the young scout rode off to reconnect with the main force, he gave orders to bury the unfortunate dead, remove the soiled table, scrub the stone floors, and burn some herbs from the garden to cover the stink. By the time a force arrived to garrison the place, it would be Proper and suitable.

While his men took care of that odious duty, Jung-Shu stood sentry outside and watched the city through his telescope. Another one of those big steaming wagons were leaving the city along their steel roads, and this time the wind carried a distant shrill shrieking sound to his ears. What were they? Was that business as usual? Were they all going in the same direction?

So many questions. And more than likely, he would never learn the answers. Such was the lot of a low-ranking soldier. All he could do was obey his training and his orders. So far, it had been easy, albeit sometimes puzzling.

But it wouldn’t be easy for much longer.

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> If it wasn’t for the Keeghan clan, the world would remain a much more pastoral place. For whatever reason, this particular family of Craenen have consistently turned outthe world’s finest innovators and inventors. From powered looms and steam locomotives to lift gas and the ethanol engine, they have led the charge for generations. One wonders what their secret is…and how we can get some of it. —Memo to the Outer Worlds Exports board of directors, author unknown.

MAKING HAVOC, HOPEFULLY

Auldenheigh rail yards, Enerlend 09.06.03.13.01

“Alright! Send ‘er out!”

Konar Parvel nodded nervously and disengaged the engine’s break. There was the familiar jolt and rattle, then the accelerating rhythm of traction and gathering speed, and he fidgeted nervously as the yard began to roll past.

He wasn’t quite sure where the plan had come from or who had given the order. Nobody seemed to know who was in charge in Auldenheigh right now, though somebody was giving instructions, and folks were listening. And why the fuck not? So long as it wasn’t the fucking Oneists or Guild men…and people were fairly confident it wasn’t. Konar’s friend Gujta said it was spies and agents of Duchess Ellaenie who’d been hard at work in the city ever since the coup.

Somebody else had said it was Lady Rheannach herself. Konar believed that one. Something beautiful and terrible had smashed all those airships out of the sky at least, he’d seen the tiny brilliant figure in the midst of those devastating halos of energy. He was pretty sure mortal magic wasn’t that powerful, so that just left the Heralds and the Crowns themselves.

If the orders were coming from them, then he was more than glad to follow.

The engine settled into a steady pace, rattling along the brick-walled embankments at the back of the airdocks. It was the first time Konar had been out in the open since the shooting started, and for a brief second the exposure made his skin crawl. If an airship came down on him now, his engine on its rails would be an easy target for cannon.

But, if there was an airship in the sky, the bells would have been ringing the alarm, he reminded himself. He was safe.

Up ahead, a lad in the green vest of the railway company threw a switch for him, and the engine rattled sideways across the parallel rails before straightening out again. He was on C line, just as planned. Nothing to do but sit back and drive for an hour or so…and try not to think about the packet of burning explosive death wrapped securely in a leather satchel and woollen fireproof cloth at the back of the cab. Or what a shame it was to do this to a faithful, reliable, and relatively new engine.

The plan was simple: the Oneists and Clear Skies Guild had airships, but they also had big stakes in the rail companies. The airships probably wouldn’t brave the city’s skies now, but that just meant they’d land in Cantre and Urstoin and offload their troops there…and the fastest way to get to Auldenheigh from Cantre was by rail.

So they were blocking the rails. The city needed those rails for its food, its fuel and its animal fodder, but right now it needed to keep out the avenging armies of the false dukes even more. So Konar’s orders were to follow the C line out of the city, head up the King’s Pass line as far as Shepperley, then place the parcels of powder he’d been given and set light to them.

He didn’t rightly know what they were made of, but he’d seen what they did. They burned brighter than the sun, and made steel flow like candlewax. A couple parcels of that in the right spots would ensure this poor engine wouldn’t ever run again no matter what anyone did. Another couple would weld the wheels to the track, as well as warping the rails beyond use.

Good luck getting a troop train past that obstacle. And his wasn’t the only such roadblock. If all went to plan, there’d be a wrecked engine every couple of miles all the way to Passgate, and along the other major lines, too. In the grand scheme of things, a nuisance that’d be fixed in a week.

But may a week was all Auldenheigh needed.

He held his breath and half-closed his eyes to protect himself from the smoke and fume as he rattled under the road bridge and out into the city outskirts, where it was all workshops and factories to his left and pasture to his right. So far so good. The line had supposedly been inspected all the way out, everything should be fine, but…

…Huh.

He leaned out the cab window slightly to try and get a better look at the mounted men he could see a ways off. They were galloping parallel to his course along one of the small farm lanes on the far side of the grazing pasture. There was something odd about them, or reallly lots of things odd about them. The way they rode was his first hint, but the bigger hint was the banner one of them carried. He’d never seen one like it, just two squares of colored cloth on high poles that jutted from the rider’s back. And he was wearing armor. Nobody wore armor, nowadays. There wasn’t much point, from what Konar had heard, it just weighed a man down and didn’t do shit to save him from rifle fire.

But these guys were wearing armor.

He didn’t get a good look. The engine was up to speed now, rolling along faster than a horse at a full gallop, and a row of trees swept up to hide the riders from view. By the time they were gone again, the track and the road had parted ways again and he saw nothing more of the strange cavalrymen.

But he thought about them all the way to Shepperly.

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> A soldier’s weapon is his spear. An outrider’s weapon is his eyes. A formation captain’s weapon is his voice. And a general’s weapon is his map. —Lord General Hei-Geng Lo, War.

THE LORD GENERAL’S FORWARD COMMAND CENTER

Crowvale, the Heighlands, Enerlend, Garanhir Earthmote 09.06.03.13.01

“What is that smell?”

The outrider captain saluted sharply. “I beg the lord general’s pardon! When we found this house, it contained the remains of two murder victims. They have been given a Proper burial.”

“Murder, you say?”

“So it seems, my lord.”

Lord General O-Jeng Liung looked around the room. He had wondered about the lack of a table or chairs. “How long were they dead?”

“I would estimate eight or nine days, lord general.”

“Curious…” Liung had to give the men credit. They had scrubbed the stone flooring with vinegar, burned herbs to try and cover the scent, and removed everything the rot had touched. What remained was faint, and likely to fade quickly. Had Liung taken a couple more hours to arrive, he never would have smelled it. “And nobody from the village came to investigate or attend the dead?”

“The village is abandoned, lord.”

Liung nodded, perking up. An abandoned village meant pLenty of good solid buildings to garrison his troops and establish his camp. Better yet, he himself would not have to remain within the charnel house.

“Excellent work, captain. Hon-O, make a note. Captain Jung-Shu and his outriders to receive a commendation.”

His aide bowed. “Yes, lord.”

Captain Jung-Shu bowed low as well. “The lord general’s generosity surpasses my ability to properly give thanks.”

“In the meantime, captain, see if you can follow one of these…” Liung glanced at the Duchess, who was wandering the kitchen and scowling thoughtfully. She had explained the concept of a rail road to him during the ride up to this forward post, but now her attention seemed focused entirely on the murder scene. “…These rail wagons. I wish to know what they are doing.”

Jung-Shu’s was only the first of many reports. The Yunei army was pouring into an area known as the Heighlands, a stretch of rolling hills and farmland between the river Heigh and the Auld Forest. So far, there had been no resistance nor any sign of enemy forces, but Liung wasn’t going to enter the city until he was certain his rear was secure. He and his men were in a precarious position for the moment, far from home and with no good line of supply back home. Now was not the time for an overabundance of haste. He intended to be fully consolidated and in control of the Heighlands before he marched into Auldenheigh.

Duchess Ellaenie emerged from the cellar just as he was sending out the latest message riders. Her face was pinched with dreadful worry, and she was holding what appeared to be a garment of some kind.

“I know who was here,” she said. As ever, Liung was disconcerted by the way she spoke in her own language, yet the knowledge of her meaning arrived in his brain as though remembered from a childhood dream. “I know who the homeowners were, who killed them, and why. I must take my leave and go into the city.”

Liung straightened up and bowed. “It is not my place to question your decisions, of course. But if I may counsel patience? Your return to your city should be at the head of the liberating army.”

“The woman this dress belongs to is like a sister to me,” Ellaenie held it up. “And something terrible happened to her in that cellar, I can feel it as clearly as I can hear your voice. I…”

She looked longingly out the window toward the city. “I can enter the city incognito. No bodyguard. I’ll check up on her and come back.”

“If that is what Her Grace the Duchess deems wise,” Liung said, evenly, then lowered his voice. “Does she deem it wise?”

Her face twisted, but it wasn’t in anger. Not at him, anyway. It was a private anguish tearing her between duty and concern for a loved one. After a moment, she gritted her teeth and made a tense noise. “I assume Lord General Liung does not deem it wise.”

“He would never be so rude as to say so, your grace. And he knows that the noble duchess is far from helpless or defenceless. He would, however, suggest to her that our enemies may yet have surprises in store, and plans which take into account her great power. Whatever wound her noble sister has suffered will not be worsened by her patience…and might cut deeper if anything should go wrong.”

Ellaenie almost snarled, but again it wasn’t at him. She cast a terribly sorrowful look at the garment in her hands, then nodded and her face became impassive and focused once more. She bowed. “The wise lord general’s counsel is welcome and valued.”

Liung bowed in turn. “He lives to serve faithfully. And he will do what he may to bring forward the schedule.”

“As he deems wise.” A small, tight smile plucked at the witch-duchess’ lips, and Liung felt the flutter of a wish that he could be half his actual age. He quashed it straight away turned to his map.

“I had planned to send scouts and messengers to the city, to the district of Stone Circles. I gather many exiles from the Children of Yunei live there?”

“Yes.”

“They would have been interpreters. Now, I think, I will send my son O-Shen to represent me more directly. He can create a forward headquarters in the city. That should speed things along.”

“Thank you, lord general.”

“Dust waits in shadowed rooms / to be chased away / by long-awaited return.”

She smiled. He rather got the impression he thought the Yunei noble art of poetic invention bemused her rather than delighting, which was a shame. But she understood his meaning, bowed again, and took her leave.

The lord general watched her go, then turned back to his map and reports. “Send for Captain O-Shen Liung,” he instructed. “I have a change of mission for him…”

“Yes, lord.”

“And either tell me another house is ready, or get some incense in here. I can still smell corpse…”

Soon enough, though, he was ignoring the smell altogether. He was far too busy orchestrating a liberation.

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> Every animal species was made by the Crowns alongside us, of course. And this raises some questions. Species like wolves, deer, horses and so on are obviously beautiful, and that alone merits their existence. Bees and other pollinators obviously play an important role in the functioning of the world. Fish are entirely comprehensible as a food source for people. But there are two species whose creation I don’t understand at all: rats, and pigeons. —Jorg Kelson, Nature and Life

TENDING THE PIGEONS.

Pickler’s Lane, Auldenheigh 09.06.03.13.01

Sadie Peason was discovering that she rather liked pigeons. They were warm, and soft, surprisingly cute in fact, and genuinely uncomplicated. All they wanted from life was somewhere safe to sleep with a steady supply of food, and a lady pigeon to inflate their throats at. Give them that, and they’d call that place “home” and fly back to it if somebody rudely took them somewhere else and then let them get away. They even enjoyed being stroked and cuddled!

Crowns, to think she’d ever dismissed them as flying rats.

So, when the bell rang on the bird cage in the window, she was up and trotting over to it before anyone else in the room could react. She’d have been doing that anyway, of course, it being her job now, but the poor cooing darlings were working so hard recently, they deserved a little fuss and affection.

“Shh…come on darling. There’s a good bird. Awww, did somebody tie this nasty thing to your leg? Let me take care of that for you…So inconsiderate of them…”

The message was in code and cyphered, of course. But Sadie had always been a fan of logic puzzles and suchlike. It had taken her two days to crack Skinner’s system, Now, she took the message through to the command post where Addie and the others were still moving things around on the map, giving orders to men who came and went…

“This one’s weird,” she said, approaching them. “Apparently there are armored horsemen in the Heighlands? They’re even scouting the city…”

Addie—after so long knowing her as Adelia, Sadie was having trouble thinking of her as Adrey—gave a satisfied nod as if she’d been expecting it. “Not a moment too soon,” she commented. Skinner merely grunted and placed a chess piece on his map. “Was that the only message?”

“Oh you wouldn’t want to weigh Sir Coosley here down with more than one, would you?” Sadie asked, stroking the pigeon’s head and giving Addie an impudent little smile. Addie snorted and shook her head.

“Sir Coosley, is it? I’m terribly sorry, I had no idea he was a knight of the duchy.”

“Don’t tell me you’ve given ‘em all names like that…” Skinner grumbled.

“Of course I named them! Somebody had to!”

He massaged his forehead. “Winter’s tits…”

Sadie exchanged a grin of secret amusement with Addie, then got serious again. “Are you waiting for anything specific?”

Addie sobered. “I’m expecting the first sighting of Civorage’s counterattack soon. Possibly as soon as today.”

“This isn’t it?” Sadie asked, waving the paper.

“No, armored horsemen are friendly. Probably. What kind of armor?”

“I’m not sure. The report says it’s strange. Painted or lacquered black, but the lead rider’s was red with a banner pole worn fixed to the shoulders, and a mask covering the lower half of the face.”

“That’s friendly,” Adrey said, firmly. “Yunei scouts.”

“Yunei?”

“Mhm. It’s not just your message, it’s a number of other things too. They’ll be sending an embassy into the city before nightfall.”

“Where?” Skinner asked.

“Straight down Cantre Road, I would guess. I’ll be there to say hello. We need to get them into the city quickly.”

“Because the counterattack’s comin’ soon, you say.”

Adrey nodded grimly. “It depends on something I can’t guess at,” she said. “Civorage is too…volatile for my Word to matter much. He’s not the sort to take a defeat gracefully, but does that mean flying into a rage and coming at us as soon as possible, or does it mean icy calculation? Flip a coin.”

“You guess coin flips,” Sadie pointed out.

“…Bad example. Anyway, if it’s the former, the absolute earliest he could reasonably muster forces and get them to Auldenheigh by airship is eighteen hours from now. If it’s the latter, I think he’ll still move swiftly, but he’ll take a little longer to build up a more decisive and coordinated force. That’s three or maybe four days.”

“You figured all that out?”

Adrey nodded again, looking faintly embarrassed. “I wish I could show you the numbers and calculations,” she said. “I’m sure they would line up. I just…know. I don’t know how I know, exactly. I look at things, and see how they’ll fall into place.”

“So far, she’s been right on every count though,” Skinner added. “S’why Jed’s out down Drover’s End right now.”

“Why, what’s going on in Drover’s End?”

Adrey indicated a black chess piece on the city map. “The last Oneists in Auldenheigh,” she said.

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> There ain’t no trick to livin’ through urban fightin’, lad. Ye just keeps lots o’ mates around ye, an’ ye hopes the snipers pick some other bugger. —Overheard in the Bombardier Inn, Auldenheigh

HUNTING BAD GUYS

Drover’s End, Auldenheigh 09.06.03.13.01

The sound of the shot that killed Carver Innman arrived a split second after his brains painted the air.

Jed and his squad of deputized men scattered and dived behind whatever cover was available, which was scant. Once upon a time, Drover’s End had been the livestock market, but then the city had grown like it always did, and the market had moved elsewhere. It had left behind an open plaza ringed by old shops and houses, and the best use the city had come up with for the place was to make it a tram stop. Jed’s “cover” was a wrought iron park bench like metal lacework, offering no concealment at all and only a coin flip as to whether it would stop a bullet. Still, it was better than nothing.

“Fuck! Where is ‘e?” Someone yelled, only to yelp in fear at the crack of a scond rifle shot that zinged off the flagstones nearby.

“We can’t stay ‘ere!” Jed barked. “E’s up dexter end, rush ‘im!”

“Shit, shit…shit!” Men broke cover, put their heads down, and sprinted. Jed squirmed his shotgun around and took aim. A fat old serjant was never going to survive that mad dash for safety, but maybe—

Instinct drew his aim toward a flicker of movement in a window and he squeezed the trigger without conscious thought. Only afterwards did he think to pray it wasn’t some stupid curious kid peeking out…

But no. The battle had taught everyone to keep their heads down, as had the week since. Oneists and Guild marines still roamed the city, taking pot-shots when they thought they could get away with it. Crowns knew, Jed figured he ought to be dead a couple of times over, except somehow he wasn’t. Maybe the buggers just figured an old man was no real danger, cuz they always shot at someone else first.

In any case, there was a long silence after his shotgun had had its say. But there was no more flicker of movement in the windows, nor any glint of light. Either he’d got the bugger, or they were a canny one.

Slowly, he stood up. “We lose anyone else?”

The answer was, not physically. Nobody else was dead, but Carver’s best mate Hogen was cradling his body and sobbing, while being consoled by his brother. One bullet had taken at least two men out of the fight, possibly three.

Odd that it had only been the one shooter, though. Fortunate in the sense that things could have got truly nasty there if the bastards had really given the patrol their all. But the fact they hadn’t made Jed suspicious.

“We’d best check that building, lads. Be wary. Eyes out for tripwires, traps, explosives, owt like that…”

The building in question was a hotel, the Spillway View. Fuck only knew when there had ever been a dam or weir in the area to have a view of, but Jed knew he was only even noticing that little detail because that was what his mind got up to when he was tense. Bloody thing. The interior was unlit, shadowy and cold. Nobody had got a hearth going in days, and the result was shadowy, cool gloom. Jed and his men took every step cautiously, and sure enough they found traps. Or at least, they found the preparations for traps. None were yet actually finished and armed.

They also find a series of rooms that had recently been vacated. The story seemed obvious to Jed: their quarry had moved on and left one man behind to arm the nasty surprises, except the Countess had sent them out on patrol and surprised the bugger.

Sure enough, they found the sniper slumped dead by the window in a front-facing room. Buckshot had made a nasty mess of his face and chest, but he still wore the blood-soaked and unwashed kit of a Clear Skies marine. Jed still had no idea if that made him a mind slave or just a stupid fucker who’d thrown his lot in with the wrong side of his own volition.

The latter, he suspected. The mind-slaved Circle Oneists weren’t really tack-sharp and vicious in the same way as the marines. Jed felt a touch less guilty about killing free collaborators than he did about putting the victims of Civorage’s power out of their misery.

Only a touch, though. The dead marine couldn’t even be twenty years, yet. Just a stupid kid who’d fallen for lies and propaganda, or followed a half-decent wage to his death.

Crowns fuck Civorage when all this was over.

“They can’t ‘ave been gone long, sarge.”

Jed sighed and shook his head. “Gone long enough, though. If we ‘ad a bloody smellhound we could track ‘em, but…” He sighed and looked around out the window. The old livestock market plaza was surrounded by houses on all sides, not to mention ships, bakeries and other business with apartments above them. And while the last few days had certainly been bloody, most of the city’s population were still hanging on, keeping their heads down. “…Time to knock on doors,” he decided.

They did the rounds. Sure enough, there were people lurking in their homes and keeping quiet, and not all of them were willing to talk to the resistance. Jed definitely felt sure there were a few places where their knocking stirred up some stealthy activity behind the doors, but no actual reply.

There were braver souls as well, though. Including one old coot who came to the door brandishing a cavalry sabre, and had to be delicately negotiated with before he got it into his head that Jed and his men were there to protect him.

“Ah, they doesn’t move above ground, see,” he explained, once he’d been persuaded to put the sword down. “They knows if’n they moves about where folks can see ‘em, they’ll ‘ave a fight on their ‘ands! But I saw’d ‘em, I did. They went down t’old tributary!”

“Where’s that, now?” Jed asked. He thought he knew the city quite well, though this section wasn’t part of his regular beat.

“Ee, ‘tis out there under t’old market yard! You can’t ‘ear ‘er most days on account o’ ev’ryone all yammerin’ an’ hallooin’, but ‘tis quiet enough to ‘ear right now, I’ll bet.” The old codger beckoned eagerly and took off across the plaza with a surprising turn of speed for such a loping, geriatric shuffle. He stopped near a drain cover and clapped two long-fingered, leathery hands. “’Ere she is! Th’ol’ girl’s not gone, see, jus’ buried. Used t’be she took away all th’ shite an’ piss from the animal pens, but now she runs clean an’ clear in t’dark…”

Sure enough, the grate came up easily to reveal a brick channel, with a good six inches of slightly cloudy water running smoothly along its floor in the direction of the Heigh. When Jed squeezed down into it with a magestone, its ceiling turned out to be decently high for as far as the light reached. An average man would have to stoop and lower his head uncomfortably, and a tall man would really be crowded, but it was certainly navigable.

“Where’s it come out?” he asked. The old man just shrugged.

For a moment, Jed considered taking his posse and following Civorage’s men into the dark, but he knew it was a stupid idea the second he had it. If they prepared an ambush down there along that tunnel, it’d be the death of them all. With the help of a few of his men, he climbed back out of the buried river, and grabbed a slip of paper from his pocket to write a message. Adrey could chew on the implication that the Oneists knew the city’s underground channels and buried streams well enough to get about. He had a thousand other things to contend with.

He just hoped their reinforcements arrived soon.

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> Civorage and his Oneists did a lot of harm, aye…but one of the good things he did was, he gave us the trains. You mark my words, when all else of him has been washed away, the trains will stay. As well they should. —Overheard in the Steam Whistle public house, Auldenheigh.

SHEPPERLY

The Cantre High Railroad, Enerlend, Garanhir Earthmote 09.06.03.13.01

Shepperly mostly only existed because it was about a day’s comfortable ride from the previous inn town.

The King’s Pass road was like that. Sure, it meandered left and right here and there to pass through bigger cities like Whitcairn, Torgraffe, Eafan and Tineheave, but those were like the big beads on a necklace: the little beads were villages like Shepperly. Just a place where, since time immemorial, there had been an inn, a forge, a general store and a graveyard. Somewhere to eat and sleep, somewhere to get your stuff fixed, somewhere for the locals to buy things from the city, and somewhere for them to go when they died.

The grand Cantre rail line ran alongside the King’s Pass road the whole way up, usually no more than a few yards from the road itself. After all, why cut a different route? Why take the risk that the two teams of surveyors and workmen coming from opposite ends might go awry and wind up half a mile apart rather than meeting in the middle?

Konar had been fascinated by the rail ever since its invention. Airships were majestic and impressive and wonderful, and of course they were the only reliable way to get to other earthmotes., but they didn’t sing to him in quite the same way that an engine and its train of wagons did. He’d known he wanted to be either an engineer or driver from the moment the Clear Skies Guld started expanding Auldenheigh’s railyards and connecting it across all of Garanhire.

Oh, sure, there was a lot to hate them for. The creeping rule of ever-stricter law, the creepy cult you weren’t allowed to speak ill of or else you’d be the next one to unexpectedly vanish and join them, the whole districts they’d seized by Ducal edict to demolish without a rusty steel piece for the people turfed out of their homes…

This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

But they’d made the trains. And right now, for Konar, that meant freedom.

Rolling along faster than a horse could gallop, through the broad rolling country on the leadward bank of the Heigh. The sun shimmering off stately waters to his left, and fluttering gently through treetops to his right. Pastures and crop fields, villages and manors…

Enerlend was beautiful country. He’d been only five or six when his parents had come down here from Prathardesh in search of a richer kind of life. As a boy, he’d wondered what insanity had gripped them, that they were willing to brave eclipse and shades (which never came to Prathardesh) for the sake of a little extra money.

As a man and a father, he understood perfectly. Eclipse was just something you prepared for and lived with. But poverty…

He fished in his pocket and fingered the small keepsake he found there. He’d come far too close to losing Anahi and little Dilhar in the fighting. But that at least would have been quick. His father’s stories of the famine in the old country, of people watching helplessly while their children withered away to skin stretched over skeletons, unable to scrounge even a leaf to feed them…

He smiled and looked around at the countryside again, glad to be here and living the life he haid. The rail carriage company paid well, and his family lived comfortably with good clothes on their backs and a hot meal in their bellies twice a day. What more could a man ask for?

He frowned as he registered movement in the sky ahead, then grimaced and pulled on the brake lever. Far away, he could see a stream of dark dots emerging over the shoulder of Satyr’s Horn. Airships. Dozens of airships.

“Shit….”

The brakes squealed, and the engine shook and rattled as he stopped as quickly as he could make it. Normally, he’d have hated to do that to the poor girl, or to the rails, but of course…wrecking the track was his entire reason for being here. He grabbed the satchel and hopped down out of the cab before the engine had even finished rolling.

It took him just three minutes. One charge at each point where a wheel touched the rail, one more each on the cylinders, and the final charge went into the firebox. He lit each one off with some tinder and a long candle, then stepped back to watch his handiwork. In seconds, he couldn’t look at the blaze any longer as the heat and the light got whiter and more blazing with every passing second. It started to rain molten steel under the locomotive.

More to the point, the wheels and rails melted and flowed like candlewax. By the time it all cooled again, the engine and the track would be a single welded piece of steel.

“Shift that, you bastards,” Konar growled in satisfaction, then took to his heels.

Along with all the other engine drivers, he had been briefed on the best way to escape from his sabotage. Being well clear of the area before anyone arrived to discover it was one part, but another was covering his trail. To that end, he stuck to hard, rocky ground where he could. Wherever a stream presented itself, he took off his shoes and splashed along a ways until he could escape where the bank was stoney. The important part was to leave no footprints, break no foliage, stay below the ridgeline so as to not be given away by his silhouette, and do his best to minimize the scent trail in case the pursuers brought smell-hounds.

A couple of hours of that ought to buy him a clean getaway, after which he would be free to make better time along roads and byways.

By the end of a couple of hours, in fact, he was tired and cold and miserable. The streams running down from the Cantre Mountains in these parts were chilly enough to numb his feet when he waded, and the constant irregular changes in elevation over the foothills had left his legs weak and aching. Eventually, there was nothing for it but to trust he’d done enough and stop for a rest. He found a small copse of three oak trees in a sheltered saddle of the hill, and slumped down among the roots with a grateful groan.

At least he could have a hot drink. He tipped some of the lukewarm tea from his insulated flask into a tin mug, then held the cup in one hand, a charged magestone in the other, and closed his eyes to concentrate. Konar didn’t consider himself any kind of mage, but in his view anyone who couldn’t heat their own tea with a magestone just wasn’t trying very hard.

Soon he had a steaming mug that warmed his hands and his belly beautifully as he stretched out under the trees to rest. He searched the sky and found the airships again: they were moving slowly, he realized. Keeping pace with something on the ground? Had they been going at full pace they would have swept through King’s Pass and out over the lands beyond while he was still scrambling in the brooks and thickets.

Instead they were just drawing level with where he’d left the engine. He risked a look through his binoculars, and realized he could see the stricken machine. Some ember or jumping glead of incandescent steel must have made it into the tender, because the charcoal was still glowing hot enough to see from his present vantage.

A small team of men in dark uniforms were gathered around, investigating and searching the area. Movement further up the road caught his eye and he refocused on it. He braced himself against the bark to steady his hand, and peered carefully.

Sure enough, an army was on the march, with the airships keeping pace above them. The Duke of Cantre’s infantry were famous for their black uniforms, and most infamous of all were their light company, the “Highwaymen.” A few of them were poking around where he’d left the road and vanished into the woods, but the group seemed more concerned about a possible ambush than hunting him down.

He hoped.

Well…okay. So the enemy was marching on foot to Auldenheigh, and keeping its airships close. That was good? Certainly it meant the city had a good three or four days before they arrived. He just wished he had the means to tell them so. He could probably stay ahead of the regiment, but not by much. And if they caught him…

Konar considered his options as he drank his tea, then made up his mind, summoned up his willpower, and staggered to his feet. It wasn’t duty that got him moving, but the fact his family was in the city. And the Shades would take him before he left them to face a second battle without him.

He shouldered his bag, gritted his teeth, and forged on.

It was a long way home.

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> She was beautiful. And, I don’t just mean pretty in the face. I mean, after a week of rubble and blood and bodies and ash and poor food and all the rest of the cleanup after the battle…when she rode down Cantre Road, dressed in white with her head held high like that? It was like waking up from a nightmare. —Overheard in the Weald Mill Inn, Auldenheigh

HOMECOMING

Auldenheigh 09.06.03.13.01

For the first time since the fighting erupted, people were daring to come out into the streets in large numbers.

There was no cheering. But the looks on their faces told Ellaenie there would be, later. Here and now, the grief and shock were still too near, and too many of them didn’t believe they were safe yet. They were probably right in that, too. Auldenheigh was about to stand alone against the armies of the other duchies, and though it was doing so with unexpected support…

Well, that was another reason most of the crowd were silent. The Yunei soldiers were a thoroughly outlandish sight.

Still, there were a few who called out as Ellaenie rode past.

“Crowns keep you, ma’am!”

“Hail the rightful duchess!”

“I knew you’d come back, your Grace! We all knew you would!”

And so on. Ellaenie acknowledged each one with a smile, a nod or sometimes a wave. The adulation was gratifying, but she felt rather more kinship with the ones who stood silently and watched, hopeful but not yet convinced. Their seemed the more sensible attitude, to her.

She was acting against the advice of several people, she knew. Riding openly down the King’s Road atop a horse, wearing her house colors in a position of honor? She was inviting a marksman’s bullet. It would have been an act of insane arrogance for anyone else, but the Word flowed under her skin like the inverse of sweat. Let the sniper take his shot: Ellaenie was bulletproof. The sight of his attack ricocheting from her skin would be a powerful statement.

She did not ride haughtily, though. The people of Auldenheigh needed the same duchess she’d been on the day she knelt in the dirt and healed the victims of a fire. They needed leaders, not overlords.

The Yunei of course had a slightly different philosophy, and General Liung was emphatically not bulletproof, so he was only going to enter the city once the forward elements of his force had confirmed the safety of his route. That was for the best. Ellaenie could tell a good part of the uncertainty here and there in the crowd was the sight of these foreign soldiers marching behind her.

Still…

She turned in the saddle to look at them. The troops were in perfect lockstep, shoulder to shoulder, their armor and equipment gleaming and their expressions fierce. They looked every inch the kind of fighting force that Auldenheigh needed right now. She just hoped they had time to prepare properly, or a great many of these young men would be dead soon. Men who had, unlike Enerlish soldiers, never volunteered. The Yunei were changing many things about their society in the face of the Crowns’ coming and sitting and philosophizing with the Emperor and his lords, but Ellaenie doubted their caste system or conscription would go soon…

She turned around and considered the Elven Barbican in front of her. It was, ostensibly, the last piece of elfish masonry left in the city, though in point of fact it had been repaired, patched and rebuilt so many times over the thousands of years since the Ordfey’s fall that it was now a byword for the philosophical problem of identity over time. Was the Barbican still elven when pretty much every cubic foot of it had long since been replaced or repaired by human hand?

Then her attention drifted downward to the arched gate, and the person waiting for her there. And all other thought ceased.

Adrey.

Oh, Crowns.

Witchcraft had its black reputation for a reason, no matter how undeserved. It could, well…bewitch. Beguile. Derange and demoralize. The Sight pierced hearts to reveal who people truly were, and thereby manipulate them. A skilled witch—and with all appropriate modesty, Ellaenie was a very skilled witch—could read a stranger like an open book at little more than a glance. When it was somebody she knew and loved, though…

She saw everything. She knew everything. She even felt it, or an echo of it. The sensation was almost like being tortured herself. For all her training, willpower and sense of necessary dignity, she scrambled off her horse and sprinted to embrace her friend.

“Oh, Adrey!”

Adrey went rigid with surprise at first…then hugged painfully tight. Considering how much taller and more well-built than Ellaenie she was, the effect was suffocating, but that just let Ellaenie see deeper.

She was vividly reminded of something she’d seen just three days ago, while being served breakfast in the Imperial palace. Yunei tradition apparently had it that the Proper color of earthenware for high nobility’s breakfast was a dark grey, but on this occasion Ellaenie had noticed that her teacup was strikingly decorated by a number of blood-red lines.

When asked, the servant had demurely explained that the cup had been broken and repaired: the tea set was more than a hundred years old, and made by a man recognized as the master of his trade. It would have been deeply insulting to the late master’s spirit to throw away his creation for lacking just one broken cup, so instead the pieces had been carefully put back together. But it also would have been insulting to the old master to pretend his work had not suffered any damage, so the repair was made in a vibrant, contrasting color to acknowledge this part of the item’s history.

Ellaenie could see Adrey quite clearly. Could see how completely her friend, her sister, had suffered, and how it had been more than she could bear, how she had been pushed beyond her breaking. And then…she had been put back together with even greater delicacy, care and respect than that teacup.

Talvi’s handiwork. Ellaenie would know her cool, soothing touch anywhere.

“I’m okay,” Adrey said. It wasn’t quite the truth, but it wasn’t quite a lie or a delusion either. It was a resolution, rather than a statement. “I’m…”

“Oh, Adrey. What happened?”

“…I’ll tell you when there’s time.” Adrey took a deep breath and, with a strength of will Ellaenie had never before seen in her or guessed she might possess, she straightened her back and attended to the task at hand. “Your city awaits. Welcome home, Your Grace.”

Right. Yes. Ellaenie drew strength from her friend’s example and stood taller as well. “Is it secure?”

“The usurper duke and his guard still hold the palace, and there are raiding parties of Guild marines at large, but…yes. For the most part, Auldenheigh is secure. Skinner will give you the full details, but your Yunei allies should be able to join us without trouble.”

Ellaenie blinked at her in surprise. “How—?”

“I’m a Wordspeaker now too. Though…” Adrey gestured behind her to the columns of soldiery. “They were rather a heavy hint.”

Adrey couldn’t help but chuff out a small laugh at that, then nodded. She turned to the messenger rider who’d come up beside her, and focused her powers to translate for her as she gave him an order. “To Lord General Liung: it is safe to enter the city, as agreed.”

The man saluted sharply, mounted his horse, and vanished back down the way at a gallop. Ellaenie surveyed the men who’d marched behind her, then made her decision.

“Okay,” she said. “Let’s get to this briefing…and then, if we can, I want my palace back.”

The smile that touched Adrey’s face was smaller and tighter than she remembered ever seeing before, a shadow of her previous mirth…but she also knew it was the biggest she’d given in some time.

“Yes, Your Grace.”

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> They were so convincing. That’s what gave me the shakes afterwards. They were nice people, they sat and talked and they really listened to me and sympathized with my problems, and made me feel welcome. I wanted to go back. I would have, if things had gone different…and then I learned the truth, just in time. So I’m still a free man. But part of me still wants what they offered. —Overheard in a militia barracks, Auldenheigh

IN BED BUT NOT ASLEEP

Airship Infinite Ascent, between earthmotes 09.06.03.13.01

Each airship was its own creature, as every airman knew. No two were quite alike in the rhythm of their sway, the precise timbre of their timbers’ creaking, the exact voice of their engines or the note of air rushing past their hull.

For most of his life, Nils’ ship had been the Make Your Own Fortune, and by an unhappy accident the Infinite Ascent was from the same shipyard and built almost exactly the same. The result was that though she was different, she was subtly different in a pervasive way that allowed Nils to almost be lulled into forgetting…until he noted that the pitch of the engines was just a tiny bit wrong, or that the Ascent’s timbers creaked just a fraction later in the steady sway.

Losing the Fortune had been painful indeed, but at least he hadn’t been aboard her when she was torn apart by the spectacular violence of what could only have been a Word. Death held no fear for him, as he had any number of Encircled bodies waiting for him to move in. It might even be liberating to die.

But he’d rather not, just yet. Not until he must.

Right now, he was just glad to be back aboard a ship, surrounded by the Encircled. After all the stress and the dismay of seeing the battle for Auldenheigh turn around so swiftly and violently, he’d been…tense. Pent up. And the Nornfey were absolutely no use in resolving that particular issue; there was something profoundly unerotic about hag elves.

Strange that a race of lithe, supple, ageless gymnasts who eschewed clothing should be so. It was the eyes, he supposed. Or the total lack of any personality whatsoever. Or the creeping knowledge of what exactly they were, and the connection they shared with Shades. They were an imperfect prototype resulting from a failed plan, and something in the pit of Nils’ soul revolted at them.

The Encircled were much more successful. Oh, yes, they were blindly subservient, adored and worshipped him ,and were blissfully happy with their lot because he’d made it impossible for them not to be…but within that framework their personalities remained reasonably intact. Some were serious and intense, some were light-hearted and irreverent, some sultry, some flirty, some bold, some shy, some thoughtful and some brash. They were perfected versions of themselves, whereas the Nornfey had definitely lost something when Iaka made them.

The Encircled lady he’d chosen for a bedroom companion this voyage wasn’t his usual type at all. Normally, Nils preferred slim, petite, refined, youthful girls. Becka was nearly forty and…what was the word? Zaftig. Pleasantly round and plump and full-figured, with a cascade of ginger curls highlighted by the occasional strand of silver, and warm hazel eyes surrounded by smile lines. Colorful and soft, as unlike a hag elf as possible. And delightfully vocal.

Asleep right now, of course. Nils always made them sleep after he’d had his fun. The sound of gentle contented breathing helped him relax, and relaxation helped him clear his mind to attune it to the more distant of his Encircled and see through their eyes.

There weren’t many left in Auldenheigh, and he’d ordered them to stop fighting for now. The Marines were a lost cause, they’d fight and get picked off one-by-one and thereby keep things tense and uncertain in the city, but the civilian Encircled had shed their robes and symbols and blended back into the crowd to keep an eye on things…though knowing what he did about witches, he kept them well back in the crowd so as to avoid the duchess’ notice.

Funny that she was riding so brazenly, he thought. One man with a rifle could pop that pretty head like a melon, she must know that. So why wasn’t she afraid of it? It was almost like she was daring him to snipe her. She would only do that if the prospect genuinely held no fear.

He tucked his hands behind his head and frowned up at the ceiling as he pondered this conundrum. He considered, and dismissed, the possibility that she was willing to sacrifice herself to power some great magic, as Thaighn Saoirse had done. It didn’t fit what he knew of her…

…What did he know of her? He’d had Lisze, of course—oh, and there had been a wonderful girl! So fresh and sweet and innocent…—but he’d claimed Lisze on the same night Ellaenie lost her mentor, fled Auldenheigh and vanished to…where? The Yunei Empire? They’d changed dramatically if they took her in, but then again here they were marching with her. And Rheannach herself was her mentor. Nils knew full well just how influential such a mentor could be. Lady Iaka had done far more to change the world than Rheannach ever did, certainly.

Still…the Empire was one of the few places his spies had never been able to reach. Certainly, Oneism had gained absolutely no traction. There’d been a tiny circle-house in Gate, and it had recruited fairly well among the outcasts and deadbeats who were stuck in that dead-end town with no other hope, but he’d never managed to get anyone beyond the wall to start a Circle there, and if he had they likely would have ended up executed or exiled.

He’d always assumed she’d gone to one of the Crae. There were hundreds of them after all, and many were openly hostile to Oneism. But, the Craenen were the Craenen, they were a people practically defined by their internal conflicts, endless feuds and the fact that the only thing they fought with more than each other was an outsider who dared to interfere and take a side in their squabbling. He’d infiltrated them fairly well, though not completely.

And…that was it, as far as the list of nations he’d failed to infiltrate and influence went. The Yunei Empire, some of the more insular Craenen…and the Crowns’ courts, of course. Though only Sayf’s was actually worthy of the name. Queen Talvi’s was notoriously empty, Lady Haust supposedly didn’t even have one, and nobody even knew where King Eärrach’s was. The Oasis was open to all, but every time Nils had sent a spy there the Encirclement broke the instant they set foot on the mote.

…Hmm.

…No. Surely not? Somebody like her becoming just another simpering trophy in the Crown’s harem? It would have been an unbearable thought, surely? To fall from the very height of power to being nothing more than a negligent god’s fuck toy?

Surely not. No. Work with the evidence in front of him. She had come to reclaim her city at the head of a Yunei army, which must mean she had gone to the Yunei Empire. And, somehow, persuaded the most isolationist nation in the world to lend her their armies. What kind of promises and trade must she have brokered to secure that deal?

Well, she was clearly resourceful and persuasive. She’d shown signs of that sort of charisma as duchess, it was why he’d acted so swiftly to subvert or remove her. She’d been beloved of her people and growing in her power, she alone of all the dukes had posed an actual threat to his plans. In the end, she’d forced him to be quite hasty. And that had been as a teenage girl! The woman he saw riding that horse was far more than she had been eight years ago. He was looking at a formidable adversary, here.

And then, he saw her dismount and run into her friend’s arms almost in tears, and he smiled.

So she still had a weakness after all…

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> Weapons exist to equalize. And nothing makes men more equal than the Keeghan Mark Three patented semi-automatic rifle! As YOUR gunsmith for the Keeghan catalog! —Keeghan & Sons advertisement poster

TARGET PRACTICE

Crowvale, the Heighlands, Enerlend 09.06.03.13.01

“So this is a…’rifle.’”

The young man had no exile brand, but he must surely have been born in exile. Still, his parents had raised him Properly, it seemed. His manners were impeccable, his etiquette flawless. Only his accent gave away that here was a youth who had never set foot on his people’s home earthmote.

“Yes, Lord General. This is the Benne type four lever-action carbine. The weapon of Enerlish cavalry. Other regiments from other Garanese lands use different makes, but this would be quite typical.”

Liung considered the object he’d been handed. In form it seemed quite simple: a long tube attached to a shaped piece of sanded wood, with another, slimmer tube below and some metalwork around the join between them and a loop of metal behind that. It was a little too large for his stature, he felt, but that was surely just because Garanese were so tall. “They use this? They deem it superior to the bow?”

“Perhaps his lordship would care for a demonstration to answer his questions?” the young man asked, formally.

Liung nodded, and returned the weapon. “He would.”

“Lord.” The youth took the device. With deft movements he swept up the half-dozen brass cylinders he had placed on the table and slotted them into the lower tube with a precise click-click-click. That done, he lifted it and tucked the flat end into his shoulder, aiming toward the most distant archery target.

The explosion it made as it fired was deafening. Several horses spooked, and even a few of the soldiers flinched. Liung certainly wanted to, especially when the youth swept his right hand forward and down, operating that loop on the device’s underside…which neatly explained the phrase ‘lever action.’ There were two smooth clicks and then—*Bang!—*it shot again!

It took six heartbeats to shoot six times. And with each shot, Liung saw splintered straw and wood punch out of the target in a decently tight group. Certainly, those were killing hits to a man’s body at a respectable range.

In the same time, Liung calculated, his most skilled bowmen would shoot perhaps twice. And this is what we will face in battle, soon.

The young man bowed as he placed the weapon on a table. “Demonstration complete, Lord.”

“So I see.” Liung mused over the weapon, then picked up another of the brass tubes. He saw that one end was open, with a dome of some other metal recessed within. “It shoots these?”

“Yes, Lord. They are soft lead. The brass jumps out of the weapon when I work the lever, and another shot is readied in the same action.”

“Hmm…” Liung looked around, and identified a nearby soldier. “You. Remove your armor and place it in front of the target.

“Lord!” the man saluted then tore off down the practice range at a sprint. He squirmed out of his armor, placed it on the ground, then raced back to his original position, slapping his chest in a salute once his task was done.

Liung took up the weapon. “I place these…metal arrows in this tube here, yes?”

“Yes, Lord. The end swivels open, and the ‘bullets’ are slid in flat end first.”

Liung nodded, and thumbed them in, appreciating the speed and precision with which the youth had done so. He himself took twice as long. “Now what?”

“My lord would tuck the ‘stock’ into his shoulder, pulling it tight so that it does not bruise him. Then he would work the lever all the way forward and back—just so, yes. To aim it well, my lord would line up the little post on the front so that it is between and level with the two notches at the back. And finally, the little hook makes the weapon shoot. The Proper form for precision is to squeeze smoothly and decisively at the end of an exhalation.”

Liung took a second to adjust his grip and sight as indicated. Now the shape of it made sense: his right hand rested perfectly where it could both work the lever and leave his finger resting on the shooting hook. And his left hand easily found a textured length of wood that let him support it comfortably.

He sighted at the distant armor, exhaled, and squeezed smoothly and decisively.

The jolt through his body was less than he had anticipated, but it did spoil his aim. He corrected, thinking carefully through each step. The lever. All the way forward, then all the way back. Line up post and notch. Exhale. Squeeze.

Having found the rhythm, he shot four more times, then placed the weapon down.

“Fine shooting, My Lord,” the young man said.

“I can see why the Garanese use it. A bow is not nearly so simple to shoot well with.”

“The Lord General is insightful. Shall I fetch the armor?”

“No, let us inspect it where it is.”

They strolled across the grass to where the soldier’s breastplate was waiting for them. Liung stooped, picked it up, dusted it off, and grunted at what he saw. “…And this is typical, you say?”

“If anything, lord, this weapon is slightly weaker than the ones carried by infantry.”

“I see.” Liung turned and marched back to the knot of officers waiting by the table. He handed the punctured breastplate to its former owner. “Quartermaster! Have this man’s armor replaced if it cannot be repaired!”

“Yes, Lord!”

Liung gave the soldier a grateful nod, then formed a quiet conversation with his four most senior officers. “So. The Garanese are all armed thus. Armor provides little protection, they can shoot from the same range as a bow quite easily, they can shoot three volleys for every one of ours, and I daresay a bag of those ‘bullets’ represents far more shots than the same weight of arrows, and far less bulky. We must acquire rifles and start training the men at once.”

Company captain Yen-She nodded. “Fortunately, it seems somebody in the city anticipated our need. They have a great stockpile of rifles and bullets set aside for our use.”

“Enough?” Liung asked.

“No, Lord. But the workshops are making more as fast as they may. In the meantime, we may outfit two companies and the outriders.”

“Good enough. Fortunately, it seems an easy weapon to learn. I want instructors to begin training immediately.” Liung thought carefully for a moment. “…I am reminded of the siege of Genghon. The city had archers in sufficient number to darken the sun, but Lord Mah’s army advanced behind wheeled siege shields and so suffered few losses.”

“My Lord thinks of a fine example,” captain Oh-Gong said. “And in defence of this city where there is much raw material our troops could use…”

Yen-She tilted his head. “However, outside of its inner walls, this Oh-Dan-Hai is a vulgar sprawl where our troops will need to redeploy with speed and agility. Siege shields may hinder their movements.”

“I counsel we consult the Enerlish fighters,” captain Mah-Sung advised. “This is a problem they have faced before.”

Liung nodded at him. “You speak wisely. And we must send men to enter the city to retrieve the stock of weapons and bullets that await us anyway. Have them come back with knowledge as well.”

“Yes, Lord.”

Liung nodded, and dismissed them with a gesture. He turned and watched the young man who had come to demonstrate the weapon for him, observing how he took Proper care of the rifle, cleaning and checking it. There was much to learn here, he could see. And perhaps that was why the Emperor had chosen him for this duty above his fellows. General Liung enjoyed learning new things. He had certainly enjoyed learning war the first time. The chance to learn it a second time filled him with excitement, tinged by just a little dread. What he didn’t know would get a great many men killed, possibly including himself. He must learn swiftly. He must be as open to new concepts as the waters of a lake were to the river’s mouth.

And he must win a game while still learning the rules. At such times, a man was most off-balance…and most alive.

He smiled, and returned to his command post to await new messages. What he found waiting for him only improved his mood

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> “They say the Duchess is a witch, and that’s why she had to leave. I say she’s a witch, and that’s why we need her back!” —Overheard from an agitator on the streets of Auldenheigh.

MEETING AND PLANNING

Pickler’s Lane, Auldenheigh 09.06.03.13.01

“So you can predict the future?”

“It’s…subtler than that.”

They’d retreated to the command post at Pickler’s Lane, where Ellaenie had been given a thorough briefing on all the city’s preparations for war. It was an impressive list, that ran the gamut from consolidating and rationing the food, to sending out locomotives with thermite charges to melt them to the tracks and even ordering the immediate manufacture of as many rifles and rounds of ammunition as the city’s workshops could produce. Adrey couldn’t quite say how she’d known that Ellaenie would come, or that her allies would need arming, but the fact of her prescience was everywhere to see, once Ellaenie knew to look for it.

“Alright, you can accurately deduce the future from scant clues.”

“That’s closer to the mark…” Adrey sighed. “It’s getting old very quickly. Most conversations feel like watching a train: I already know exactly where it’s going to go, because the rail is already there, people just…follow the track.”

“Always?”

“No, not always.”

“…Have I, so far in this conversation?”

Adrey gave her a very tired look. “To the letter. And now you’re going to be sympathetic.”

“Well, you don’t need a fragment of the fundamental nature of reality to deduce that, silly!”

Adrey burst out laughing: clearly, she hadn’t seen that one coming. The laughter faded quickly, though. She was still far too bruised in spirit, and their circumstances far too serious, for her to relax into proper mirth. But it was a moment of levity that Ellaenie could tell she’d needed.

Still, the smile lingered around her eyes. “…Anyway. now we both are Wordspeakers. But I have to ask about yours: didn’t it madden you? When I spoke my word…I don’t even remember exactly. I caught a glimpse of something…terrible. Something I couldn’t accept or bear. It was too much for me! Talvi herself came and helped me forget!”

Ellaenie reached out and squeezed Adrey’s hand. “You were already in a fragile state of mind,” she said, reassuringly.

“I suppose.”

“Anyway, I suspect King Eärrach put the protection on me in advance. Among a great many other blessings.”

Adrey considered that, tilting her head on one side in a gesture that was new to Ellaenie. “They really aren’t as inactive as their critics claim, are they?”

“They really aren’t,” Ellaenie agreed. “But, anyway…the palace.”

“Yes. Sadie? Where’s the—? Oh, thanks.”

Ellaenie was actually struggling somewhat with Sadie Peason. The young lady had the strange quality of…it was as though somehow she had only recently come into focus. Or like she’d just emerged from a cloud. There was a newness to her as though all her life before the present crisis had just been a pink fog of vague middle-class conscientiousness. And then war had come to her city and it turned out there was a deeply intelligent, organized and capable woman buried underneath, like a gold nugget just waiting for the river silt to be washed off. She seemed to have taken on the role of handling all the papers and communications. One second she’d be cooing affectionately over a pigeon, the next she’d be bustling across the room to retrieve a document, which she would hand to the person who needed it just as they realized they wanted it.

This she had now done to Adrey with the tiniest smirk of satisfaction. “Map of the palace and assault plans.”

“Thank you,” Ellaenie told her. Sadie bobbed a curtsey and then vanished to go retrieve another pigeon.

“The last free military officer in the city is Colonel Sober,” Adrey explained as she spread it out. “He’s been hammering the volunteer militias into a fighting force since the battle, and he put together this assault plan. But it comes with his firm opinion that his men can’t do it. Too inexperienced, too undisciplined. The palace is held by Encircled, including the Duke’s United First of Foot.” She shot Adrey a sorry look. “A force of city lads with a week’s training versus a company of actual soldiers under Civorage’s control. Sober is absolutely correct. What I don’t know is your Yunei regiment…”

“Fanatically loyal, flawlessly disciplined, and highly skilled…with feudal weapons and tactics.”

“Then it’ll be a bloodbath.”

Ellaenie sighed and stared at the familiar layout of the palace gardens and grounds as though her attention would change anything. “…Can we just leave them in there?”

Adrey shook her head. “We’re expecting a major battle as reinforcements from the other duchies come to challenge us, all under Civorage’s closely managed control through the power of his Word. If they still exist when the battle begins, the force in the palace will break out and attack our rear at the worst possible moment, in the worst possible place.”

Both women looked up at the sound of the front door below. “Skinner and Bothroyd,” Adrey predicted. She tilted her head again in that odd new way; Ellaenie guessed it meant she was focusing on her Word’s power. “They…have good news.”

Sure enough, the two men trotted up the stairs into the study and removed their hats in deference to Ellaenie. Skinner straightened his back. “Your Grace. Countess.”

“Good news, Mister Skinner?”

“Might be, your Grace. Think I got the solution to our palace problem.”

Ellaenie glanced at Adrey, who shrugged. “It’s a concern I have worked on all week,” she said. “Did you find some old friends, Skinner?”

“Mhm. Though, uh…” he bobbled his head uncomfortably, glanced at Jed and cleared his throat. “They’re the sort as, uh, could be their reward for their efforts an’ loyalty here would be, as it were, a Ducal pardon for past offenses.”

“…How bad are these past offenses?” Ellaenie asked.

“They were enforcers for the Brick Lads, ma’am.”

Ellaenie sighed. The gangs in Auldenheigh were mostly content to sit inside territorial boundaries that had been established a long time ago and deal in their respective vices—gambling, loan sharking and so forth, mostly—but on those occasions when they did go to war, it got terribly bloody. Given that none of them actually wanted it to get bloody, they tended to enforce order internally with the kind of brutality that would make an elvish torturer smile.

“As were you,” she said.

“Once upon a time, aye.”

“Well, I trust you, Skinner. If you trust these men too—”

“’Trust’ would be a strong word, y’Grace. But they’re not Oneists, I’m sure of that, an’ they’re all gettin’ on in years an’ it’s no life for a man wi’ family. Could be a chance to go straight is all they need.”

Ellaenie smiled at his honesty. “Fair enough. But what can a few gang members do to get into the palace that a militia company couldn’t?”

“We’ll still need the militia company, ma’am,” Bothroyd said. “They’ll serve as a distraction.”

“A feint?”

“Aye, ma’am. An’…if you were any other woman’ wi’out your powers, ma’am, Crowns as my witness I’d never suggest this. But per’aps you should lead ‘em.”

Adrey cocked her head, then nodded. “Agreed. With the Craft you can inspire them, and with your Word you can shield them and remain safe on the battlefield.”

“Shield them? I’ve never…hmm” Ellaenie thought about it, unconsciously cocking her own head in just the same way Adrey did as she considered her Word and the options it granted her. Could she…?

Solid matter was an interesting thing, in that it wasn’t really solid. Nothing ever actually touched as she had once thought of it. It was more like two magnets being placed in opposition so that they pushed each other apart, but on a very small scale that grew incredibly intense over extremely tiny distances. Her trick for hardening her own skin against bullets and blades involved making the tiniest bits of herself stick together with far more strength than usual…

…Was there any particular reason she couldn’t do that to the air?

She thought about it for a second, then turned and extended a hand, concentrating. There was no apparent change, and she frowned and concentrated harder, feeling she really ought to have succeeded and wondering why she had not. Then Sadie, trotting back from the dovecote with another pigeon missive in hand, walked hard into the invisible wall and fell on her rump with a squeak.

“Oh, no!” Ellaenie darted forward to help her up. “I’m sorry!”

“Wha—? Uh, no, no harm done, uh, your Grace. Just…” Sadie waved a hand through the air she’d just walked into. “I could have sworn…?”

“My fault, my fault. A bit of magic I didn’t think through, properly.” And she knew what she’d done wrong, too. This time, when she extended her hand and concentrated she did so with more confidence, and threw in a little bit of fluorescence. This time, a shimmering blue wall of light appeared from floor to ceiling. “Something like that.”

Sadie goggled at it. “Winter’s ti—uh, breath!”

The genteel substitution got a round of chuckles. Then Adrey picked up a pistol and shot the barrier. Ellaenie flinched at the loud noise, but kept her focus, and after a second, Skinner wandered over, bent down, and juggled a hot puck of flattened lead while making little “ooh, hah, ah!” noises.

“Well. That works,” he said.

Ellaenie took the cooling bullet off him. “…So. I wade into the fray at the front of the militia, warding off enemy bullets and inspiring them with voice and Sight…meanwhile, you’re doing what, exactly?”

Skinner grinned, displaying the gaps in his teeth. “Ruinin’ their ammo reserves, y’Grace.”

“Ruining how?”

His grin got wider. “Shortenin’, ma’am.”

“…Explain.”

“Oh, it’s an easy trick. Done it before. We take in tins o’ shortenin’ an’ a magestone. Use magic to melt th’ shortening, tip it in ammo box, get all the rounds coated in fat.”

“After which, if they try to shoot it they’ll foul and jam their weapons…” Adrey mused.

“’xactly. The ammo’s salvageable afterwards, it jus’ takes time an’ elbow grease, but they won’t ’ave th’ time in middle o’ battle.”

“I like it. Anything else?”

“Jus’ that the more ferocious you can make th’ fightin’ at front, the less likely they’ll be to notice me an’ the lads in rear.”

“You’re leading this personally?”

“Somebody else might fuck it up. Beg pardon ‘fer m’language, y’Grace.”

Ellaenie laughed, reflecting that her own vocabulary would probably surprise him, if ever he heard her in a more relaxed setting. Instead of saying so, though, she simply shook his hand. “Good hunting then. Let’s get to it.”

Skinner nodded, and vanished down the stairs. Bothroyd saluted. “Militia’s waitin’ for ye, ma’am. I got horses ready.”

“Good…Sadie?”

The girl was at her elbow in an instant. “Yes, your Grace?”

“Message for Lord General Liung. His command post is in Crowvale. Give him my compliments, and inform him I am taking a militia to recapture the palace. Inform him he may send units to fortify…” Ellaenie glanced at Adrey.

“The barracks at Pond Leadton, the Sinister Gate, and the airdocks,” Adrey said, without even glancing at the map.

Sadie finished scribbling the message, bobbed a curtsey, and vanished. Ellaenie smiled at her departing back, then looked at Adrey, who was giving her a troubled look. “Give us a minute, Serjant.”

“Ma’am.” Bothroyd saluted and marched out.

Ellaenie went and leaned against the table. “Adrey…are…are you alright?”

Adrey shuffled some papers aimlessly. “The general’s staying in Crowvale?”

“Yes. A little cottage just outside the—oh.”

Adrey nodded slowly. “Did…did anyone ever bury the Peltons?”

“The Yunei soldiers did, when they took over the place.” Ellaenie considered her best friend for a second, then reached out and fussed with Adrey’s slightly askew collar. “…She got inside you, didn’t she?”

Adrey sighed, and shrugged. “She was a witch. It’s not all service to the Crowns and the greater good, you know. The Craft has its reputation for a reason.”

“I know.”

“She…” Adrey let out a shaky breath. “She plucked some strings I didn’t really know I had.”

“I know.”

“You could too.”

“I would never.”

“I know.” Adrey screwed up her fists for a moment. “…I have dreams about her. They’re…they’re not the sort of dreams I want to have about her. They’re…the sort of dreams I’d have if she succeeded. the sort of dreams I’d have if I…”

“Adrey.” Ellaenie put a hand gently to her friend’s cheek and turned her face to look into her eyes. “You cannot use the Craft to make somebody love you. It’s impossible. You can use it to confuse them, to derange them, to make them obsessed and dependent on you, but none of those are love. You just have a scar she left on your soul, and it will fade in time. I promise.”

“Fade. But never go away completely.”

“…No.”

Adrey huffed out a huge sigh and nodded. Ellaenie kissed her forehead. “Come on,” she said. “We have a palace to liberate.”

The steel in Adrey’s heart sharpened just a little. It hurt to watch, really. Ellaenie didn’t wish, she knew wishes were largely futile and more often than not would have been harmful if granted. But if she did…Well. If she was going to wish Adrey could live without her wounds, why not everyone else? Take away a person’s suffering, and you took away half of who they were, or more.

But accepting it didn’t mean liking it. The time would have to come to soften some of that steel as well, mend some of those wounds. It couldn’t be today.

But she would make time.

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> The Old Game is known by many names across the Earthmotes—Tess, Qí-Su, Téas, Tsastafl, or the Feydh root *Chas—*but its history is ancient beyond comprehension. Lady Haust is reputed to have taught the game to the human and elven peoples as she moved among them in the First Times, and though the intervening thousands of years have introduced many regional variants, there are few people in the world who do not know the basic structure. The simple geometry of an eight-by-eight grid, two rows of pieces, and their strict sets of movements. It is a game older than Creation, and almost as deep. —Gwidian Learghen, The Old Game.

CONSIDERING THE STATE OF PLAY

Airship Infinite Ascent 09.06.03.13.01

If Nils thought of Auldenheigh and the surrounding country as a game board, then his opponent was thinking two or three moves ahead. Their talent for putting obstacles in his path was both impressive and vexing.

Take the trains, for instance. Every few miles for hundreds of miles around Auldenheigh, the rails were ruined by sabotage so that his original plan of bringing in troops by train was ruined. Then there was the nature of the sabotage: the huge, melted, burned-out hulks of locomotive engines literally welded to the rails meant either a huge work operation to remove them, or effectively laying an entirely new rail network to bypass them.

The river Heigh was not so easily sabotaged, but it too had been meddled with. Barges from the city loaded with rubble and refuse had been rotated sideways across the river and scuttled at shallower sections, or the rubble dumped. Either way, troop ships from Betlend heading upriver were being defeated by artificial reefs.

And inside the city itself, Nils’ eyes and ears on the ground reported anti-airship defences going up everywhere.

Well…no matter. So a swift, decisive counterattack on Auldenheigh had been thwarted. That still left more than fifty thousand square miles of the rest of Enerlend under his control. Whitcairn, Azurmouth, Tailingham, all the towns and cities along the leading shore of the Blue Sea, the Downs, the Cottagewealds, the Edge Counties…

The Cottagewealds in particular were a good target. If he diverted his forces from Urstlend, then he’d be able to cut the city off from Enerlend’s breadbasket. They’d be forced to rely only on what they could grow in the Heighlands. Which—he consulted the minds and opinions of some of his more learned Encirlced—might suffice to avert starvation, but the city’s population would be on strict rations.

He could work with that. Yes. Slow strangulation was his strategy now. He would form his armies around the Enerlish capitol like a noose, and tighten it slowly. Let the Duchess really feel the trap she had built around herself.

That just left the question of Duke Betrem and his guard in Auldenheigh’s palace. There was no way the Duchess was going to let them remain, of coruse. And try as he might, he hadn’t been able to find a way to smuggle Betrem out of the city. That same skilled game-player had intercepted him at every turn. Which meant it was only a matter of time before Ellaenie’s forces captured him and, most likely, forced that damnable potion down his throat…

He considered the ramifications of that for a moment. Betrem had been installed after Ellaenie’s flight as the most legitimate heir to Duchy. He might have been widely called the “usurper duke” but he was legitimate enough to keep order. Of course, it would have been far better to Encircle Ellaenie herself, for many reasons.

If he was removed from the circle by the witch’s brew now…

The rhetoric Nils had turned to in the held territories was that Ellaenie’s disappearance had been an abdication: she’d run away into the woods to become a witch and practice the dark Craft, and now she was trying to reclaim by aggression and sorcery what she had previously renounced. Betrem, meanwhile, was the man who had stepped in when his people needed him, and deserved their loyalty.

It was flimsy, to say the least. And once Betrem was stolen from the Circle…

Well, Nils still had need of propaganda, for the time being. It would take lifetimes to Encircle everyone in the world, and until he had, the aimless masses needed keeping in line through subtler, weaker means. Propaganda, law and enforcement, politics, the same old tools. The day would come when they were obsolete, but here and now, he needed them.

He considered his options carefully, and made his decision. Ellaenie could have her palace back, after she’d fought and bled for it. Let her lose fighting men in the assault. Let her sleep in her old bedroom again, for nostalgia’s sake.

It wouldn’t do her any good in the long term.

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> Armies comprise of idiots. You find a number of poor idiots who are willing to dress up in bright colors and stand still out in the open while being shot at…and then you find a rich idiot to stand in front of them wearing a special hat to advertise his importance. One would think we ought to have run out of volunteers by now… —overheard in the Rackan Club, Whitcairn

PREPARING TO STORM THE GATES

The Elven City, Auldenheigh 09.06.03.13.01

Ben Handey was sixteen. He’d lied about his age to join the militia, but that just proved how committed he was. He’d seen people—friends, neighbors, ordinary folks—lose everything they had in a single volley of airship cannon. He’d seen the body parts in the rubble. And in the quiet of night afterwards, he’d screwed his hands tight and sent silent thanks to the Crowns that his house, his family, his life hadn’t gone the same way.

What else could he do but join up to fight back? So now here he was, after a week of formation drills and the chance to actually shoot his rifle at a target, and they were about to take back the palace.

And he got to see the actual duchess herself! Once the militia was in place and everyone was formed up ready to march on the palace, she’d got up on a platform in front of them and spoken to them, and…

…And it was a funny thing, but her voice had been so clear, it was like she was standing right next to him. But Ben could hardly remember what she’d said.

What he remembered was the light. She seemed to be full of it, glowing. As pure and clean and bright as the light of the sun bouncing off the distant snows of the Unbroken Mote. But not cold. Every word she said seemed to light a fire in his heart and put warmth in his guts and leave Ben feeling taller and stronger and fiercer than he ever had in his life.

Crowns. He remembered his nan telling him how the Duchess had actually got off her horse and healed people after the riots, just before she supposedly ran away. He’d believed it then, but he really knew it was true now. Looking up at her on that pedestal, it was impossible to imagine her doing less. And she was beautiful enough to make Ben’s young heart hurt.

He’d have followed her right over the edge cliff, if she ordered it.

And then, as though to prove that here was the rightful duchess, here was the woman her people needed…she led the advance personally.

Ben didn’t know any fear from that moment onwards. Not even when the shooting started, as they marched through the wide gates into the palace gardens. First one shot, then three, then a rain of bullets from every window on the palace’s front. And that ought to have been Ben’s end, right there: he and all the others should have been cut down in a withering hail of shots.

But the Duchess simply put out a hand in front of her, and all those bullets slammed into thin air as though it was a steel plate and dropped to the ground.

What happened next was eerie. The shooting continued for perhaps a minute longer, maybe a minute and a half. It walked here and there up the line of militia as they spread out behind the Duchess’ magic, while Her Grace just stood there, arm outstretched and her gaze fixed firmly on the palace facade. She stood tall, her back straight, her face calm and intent, her hand raised an almost delicate gesture, not as though she was holding back hundreds, thousands of bullets by sheer force of will, but more as if she was calming an agitated puppy.

Until the shooting stopped. All at once, it ended as though a serjant had yelled ‘cease firing!’ though no voice was heard. There was a brief pause, then a final volley of gunshots…but no more bullets.

Then silence. And Ben shivered, because somehow he could feel it was no ordinary silence. It wasn’t just the silence of hundreds of people not saying anything…

It was the silence that followed something terrible.

The woman in black who hovered by the duchess’ side, the one with the short crop of red hair, leaned forward and whispered something. The Duchess frowned, then nodded. The woman in black spoke to the old serjant, Bothroyd, who turned and lifted his voice in a stentorian bellow.

“Duchess’ militia! Fix—bayonets!!”

The training took over where Ben’s sense of bewilderment and awe might otherwise have rooted him to the spot. His hands moved on their own, tugging the bayonet out from its sheath and locking it onto the lug with only a slight bit of fumbling.

“Duchess’ militia! Sloooooooow—advance!”

The drums picked up. Ben gulped, and forced his foot forward into motion.

Their advance across the gardens seemed to last an age. The only sounds were the drums, and the crunch of boots on the gravel path. No shots cracked out, no voices called in challenge. Just boots, gravel, the faint clink and rattle of gear and equipment, and the sound of Ben’s own breathing.

By sheer luck, he was almost directly behind the Duchess herself when she reached the palace doors. Without letting her magic shield down, she gestured and the doors simply fell over as though nothing had been holding them up. When Ben glanced at the hinges, he saw that something had cut them so cleanly the bare metal gleamed mirror-bright.

Inside, though…

Inside was a sight that instantly made him regret signing up. Inside, the palace was littered with bodies. The halls and rooms and galleries where men had fortified the windows with furniture and sandbags now had those same men slumped about them, and it was easy to see why.

Every single man had tucked his rifle under his chin and fired up through the top of his head. The ceiling of every room and corridor was sticky and dripped foully.

They did find live men inside the palace. At one point, a group of five in dark clothing with masks over their faces emerged from the back rooms, carrying sacks of…Mrs. Bower’s Best Shortening? Weird. They huddled with the Duchess, and there was a brief conversation, then Serjant Bothroyd turned around.

“You, you, you, you. Come wi’ us. Rest o’ you lot…start cleanin’ this mess up.”

Ben exhaled gratefully at his luck of being among the chosen group. The thought of all these men choosing to blow their own brains out rather than surrender was already making him queasy enough. He nodded hurriedly and fell in behind Bothroyd as the Duchess’ party climbed the grand stairs.

All around him were beautiful rooms, beautiful paintings and expensive furniture. The wallpaper, the carpets, the crystal glass lightstone cages, the very air was richer than anything Ben had ever seen. But the air smelled of blood and gunpowder, and the duchess stormed on at the front of the group in a grim halo that made Ben twitchy.

They reached a study. one of the men in black jimmied the lock in an instant, and burst through with his pistol drawn, but he need not have bothered: the room’s sole occupant was slumped over the desk, the top of his head a bloody mess.

Duke Betrem, of House Tellinger. The usurper Duke, maybe…but also the rightful duchess’ cousin. Ben caught a glimpse of her face, and saw a tear run down her cheek.

He and the others promptly stepped outside to guard the study door. They didn’t look at each other. Somehow…this hadn’t gone how any of them expected. They’d expected…well, a fight. A struggle. Maybe to die in battle, though Ben was powerfully glad he hadn’t. But this? For the enemy to just kill themselves rather than surrender? It left a horrible sick knot in Ben’s stomach that he couldn’t untie. There was something deeply wrong about these Oneists.

The woman in black emerged from the study after a few minutes. “You boys go back to the others,” she said quietly. “And…pass the word. The Usurper Duke is dead.”

The other three nodded and started moving. Ben lingered a moment. “Ma’am…” he tried, then cleared his throat and tried again. “What happens now?”

The woman cocked her head thoughtfully. After a moment, she smiled faintly. “You did well today, gentlemen. But today was easier than we dreamed it would be. The next one won’t. So you go back, you train, and you get ready for the real thing, because it’ll be on us sooner than we’re ready. Okay? We haven’t won yet.”

“Yes’m.”

She smiled at him. It was a terribly sad smile, Ben thought. Cold and brittle. On principle that it rarely hurt to salute, he saluted her as smartly as he knew how then turned and trotted off back toward the rest of the lads.

And he wondered just why he was so upset at having won.