Pale Lights

Chapter 155 28

In the early hours of the morning, Izel Coyac sat by the last smoldering embers of the campfire and poked them with a stick. He stirred the fading red, eyes on it yet unseeing, and if asked he would say there was no greater purpose to it. It was to keep the hand busy while his mind was away.

But the gods disagreed.

Among the pit of gray ash and black coal there lay lines of glowing red, and when watched from the corner of his eye they came together in shapes. Canoes, he thought. He picked out ten before he ceased counting, for the number did not truly matter. Not as much as the way they were all made of bones. His lips thinned at the haziness of what his ken implied.

"Doom or deliverance?" he asked the embers.

They had no answers for him. Perhaps the ambiguity, he thought, made this a truer touch of the god than most. The Bone Thief ever grasped good in one hand and evil in the other, that was his nature. Lost in thought as he was, Izel did not realize he had company until someone sat on the log to his left. He nearly jumped out of his skin, and did drop his stick. Tristan snorted, bending down to pick it up and return it. Izel took the slightly charred wood, clearing his throat.

"Good morning," he said.

Tristan nodded, gray eyes lingering on the ash. The Mask's face was fuller than when they had first met, when Izel remembered having noticed traces of hollowness in his cheeks that he'd recognized. You saw in serfs that weren't fed enough, or worked too hard. It had faded over the months, but that fullness was now being eaten into by something different – rings around his eyes, which seemed to get deeper by the week. He didn't act exhausted, but that was only more worrisome.

It had the look of a burning wick to it.

"Did you know," Tristan suddenly said, "that even Krypteia records don't go in detail about the 'ken' of Scholomance students?"

The thief rolled his shoulder.

"Only their existence, and a mark of one to five on how likely they are to drive the Umuthi in question mad," he said.

"Not an unreasonable precaution," Izel conceded. "I have heard of some kens that seem... difficult to live with."

Like that senior in Mazu who heard aether currents as the wails of her dead children, or that infamous case on the Emerald Coast who saw densities as colors and couldn't leave still zones without getting sick. Izel bit at the inside of his cheek, mustering up the courage.

"Is it allowed," he finally said, "to ask what my numbers is?"

Tristan chuckled.

"Not really," he said. "So keep it quiet. You're a two, but besides it there is an asterisk."

Izel eyed him sideways.

"And that means?"

"That you're an anomaly," he said. "Not a lot of details, like I said, but there's a note that your ken is unusually broad in scope and can function as limited-scale predictive boon."

Izel smiled mirthlessly.

"I imagine," he said, "that there is some debate among higher ups as to whether the signs I see are omens or omens."

"The traditional Sacromonte street-witch dilemma," Tristan amusedly said. "Was I told my fortune, or am I stretching circumstance to match babble? Soothsaying is a decent racket, Izel. Maybe you should open a stall."

"I'll keep that in mind should I wash out of the Umuthi Society," he replied, lips twitching. "Coyac fortunes, gods. My mother might actually put a price on my head if she hears of it."

Her house was not particularly wealthy or powerful, but they were very proud in the way that bloodlines without anything to boast of beyond lineage tended to be. Tristan eyed him from the side.

"Not your father?"

Izel softly laughed.

"My father paid for his first suit of armor by selling soldiers 'sacred Kantusuyu amulets' that would protect a man from bullets and gangrene," he drily replied. "He'd never so much as stepped foot in Kantusuyu and the prayers were painted by a Tianxi serf."

Society warriors from the Seven Valleys hadn't been able to tell the difference between an Aztlan from the Great Aniam Desert and one from Kingdom of Kantusuyu, or cared enough to try. He'd made the claim because the Kantusuyu were held in higher respect than most Aztlan for their fierceness and the supposed ability of their priests to call back the spirits of the violently dead. It meant 'their' amulets sold for more, enough that Father had eventually been able to afford the helmet and breastplate he needed to enroll as a tlanixucatl auxiliary.

"Well, your own soothsaying sounds like less of a trick than your old man's," Tristan noted.

Though Izel himself noted that the former street rat did not sound all that disapproving of someone playing tricks.

"Unless you think you're just seeing things," the Mask continued. "But it doesn't sound it. Doom or deliverance, was it?"

So he had heard that. Izel had been wondering. He poked at the embers again, sending the fleet of canoes scattering into the dark.

"What do you know about Izcalli religion?" he finally asked.

"You got beat with the Orthodoxy stick same as the rest of the Second Empire," Tristan replied. "But your people kept their old ways tacked on to Liergan's and the emperors were content to let that sleeping dog lie."

And why wouldn't they, Izel thought, when Izcalli had been all too willing to cross the Straying Sea to die by the legion in Liergan's name? Enough of his people had died conquering Malan for the Second Empire that a bridge across that dark sea could have been made of their bones.

"Most of our greater gods became part of the Orthodoxy," Izel told him. "Many of them still are, and see no dishonor in it. Death and defeat are writ in the bones of what it means to be Izcalli, since we consider ourselves the children of the Fifth Loss."

"And that Fifth Loss is the destruction of your great kingdom in the Old World," Tristan said. "The disaster that drove you down into Vesper."

Izel smiled mirthlessly.

"Not just of our ancient home," he said. "Of us all. When the Old World died, so did all the Izcalli."

"And yet here you all are, kicking about," Tristan said. "So what's the catch?"

"The Bone Thief cheated our doom, or so goes the tale," Izel said. "He stole our bones from the Grave-Given and made from them a fleet of ships to carry their souls below, giving most of them back after reaching the Seven Valleys."

Where the story grew complicated, as by most tales there hadn't been a Seven Valleys until the Night King made it out of the Cipactli's corpse.

"Most?" Tristan amusedly asked, cocking an eyebrow.

"With the bones he kept back he made the first plow, jar and flute," Izel said. "Teaching the first of the reborn Izcalli to raise crops, ferment beer and make music. For this were yet revere him as the god of crops, art and craftsmanship, but above all these he is the god of wisdom."

Tristan stared at him, almost frowning. A moment passed.

"Is that why Izcalli stick skulls on everything?" he finally asked.

Izel blinked. Everyone added- it was only natural that- huh. Admittedly he had seen fewer of those since leaving home. He'd assumed it was a Watch tendency, since they dyed everything black they could get away with.

"It is considered good luck to add a skull or some sort of bone when crafting something with one's hands," Izel conceded. "It invites the Bone Thief to take an interest, and perhaps aid in the endeavor."

"You have just unmade a deep-seated assumption in me," Tristan informed him, "for which I thank you."

Izel did not quite dare ask what it had been, though it felt same to assume it was less than flattering.

"Still, I expect you had a point when asking what I knew of your people's religion."

The tinker nodded.

"My ken," Izel said, "doesn't make me an oracle. All it does is let me feel where my gods intersect with the world. My mind, though, cannot... grasp that, not truly. Only recognize it. So it fills the gap how it can."

"With omens," Tristan slowly said. "Symbols."

Shapes. That was the truest word for them, cursed as it was. I name you shape-giver, shape-finder, the god with the coyote's head had laughed. You will find them everywhere your feet take you, Izel Coyac, Tlat- he grit his teeth and pushed down the anger. The fear.

"I tell you of the Bone Thief," Izel made himself say evenly, "because it is him I found among the embers. A fleet of ships made of bone."

"And it could be a warning of doom," Tristan thoughtfully completed, "or deliverance. We because we don't know if we're behind the ships or ahead of them."

We are the ships, Izel thought. Our bones all bundled together, sailing into the dark. And there is no guarantee we will find a shore waiting on the other side. That this was a dark of Tristan's own choosing was proving to be of a little comfort.

"It is a risky game we are playing," the Mask eventually acknowledged.

"It was a risky game," Izel said. "Then you brought de Tovar and Yaotl into it. Now, now it is something else entirely."

"They were already in it, like it or not," Tristan replied. "The Second was sniffing at our heels and so was the princess. The only difference is now we know the role they're going to play."

For the Second Brigade, that was the role of allies. For the Nineteenth, though? Tristan was treating them like the same tlanixucatl Izel's father had once served as. Front teeth, the first men to bite. The first to chip, too, if the enemy proved hard chewing. And Yaotl would know it, too. He had not been subtle in assigning them their roles. Only Yaotl would see it as an opportunity, a chance to crush him. Where could she score more kills than where the fighting was thickest?

Not that it would help her, no matter how well she swung her sawsword.

"She'll contest the count, even if you get your way," Izel warned him.

"That's what the Marshal is for," Tristan said.

Izel closed his eyes, sighed.

"I know what you're doing, Tristan," he said. "I am not blind."

"Oh?" the Mask smiled. "And what would that be?"

"You had yourself publicly struck in camp, then you put up your flesh as a wager to put further weight on the scales. Whatever the outcome of the contest, most of Scholomance will consider the matter with the girl you shot settled. You're cornering them."

Because if the Nineteenth was seen as the aggressor twice in a row, they would go from pariahs to a disturbance of the peace. If the authorities of Scholomance did not step in then, they were in danger of losing legitimacy in the same way they would have had they done nothing when Tristan poisoned Ahuic. The thief hummed, expression unreadable, and did not answer.

"If you get everything your way," Izel said, "she will be enraged. She won't care that opinion runs against her. She will do anything she can to get even."

"I know," the Mask said. "I am, in fact, counting on it."

His jaw tightened.

"Someone will get hurt," Izel said.

"Yes," Tristan agreed, then turn to meet his eyes. "So tell me, Izel, why it should be me?"

Izel breathed out.

"I'm not asking you to-"

"No," Tristan quietly interrupted. "That's exactly what you're doing. You're asking me to continue pulling punches against someone who already wants my head. It won't get worse, Izel. There is no way for her to escalate that doesn't involve her ending up in front of a firing squad. What will happen is she will get reckless. Sloppy."

He leaned in.

"And you want to avoid that, because it means your old friend will end up dead or disappeared," he said. "And I sympathize, I do. But I'm not putting my neck on the line so you can feel better about the trouble that you brought to our door in the first place. You want me to play nice with Yaotl Acatl?"

Those gray eyes went cold.

"Make her play nice, then," he said. "Or better yet, take care of the problem yourself. Because she's not an old friend of mine, just some slaver princess who picked a fight."

Only Izel had no solution to this, none save swinging his arm and making a truth – fighting for the victory. Harming her, driving her out. And the worst part was that she'd accept that result, he knew. Heed it and respect it, because it would all have followed the shape of the Dialectic of Night and even in losing Yaotl would be upholding the worth of the noose around her neck.

It wasn't winning, driving her out of Scholomance. It was kicking the crate beneath her feet as she stood on the gallows.

"I have no lever to move her," Izel bit back. "You know that."

"I know you could have her banned from the Workshop," Tristan flatly replied. "And that an Ossuary ban would likely ensue. It would send a very clear signal from almost half the covenants on the isle that her behavior is not acceptable."

"That is still cornering her," he insisted. "Attacking her. That is the opposite of what needs to be done. What she needs is a way to save face so she's not forced to take drastic measures to maintain her pride."

"Listen to yourself," Tristan harshly replied. "Just fucking listen to yourself, Izel, still coddling her like she's a child. She needs to have her pride saved? She threatened to run you out of this island so she could physically force you back in Izcalli."

"Not out of cruelty," he said. "She is trying-"

"I don't care about her intentions, Izel," he said. "And neither should you, because they don't change what she's doing. There is being kind and there is being a beaten dog. No one forced her to come to Allazei, or to make the enemies she did, or to be so volcanically unstable that she can only answer defeat with fucking murder."

Rich, coming from a man with an empty bottle of snail venom, but he bit his tongue.

"She's not evil, Tristan," Izel flatly said. "She follows the rules she was taught the world works by. Honor and blood and strife. Selfish, yes, but her life's object has been to lead an errant lodge of the Jaguar Society, to pledge her blade to worthy causes."

He rubbed his forehead.

"She wants to do good, she just doesn't understand that the Calendar Court broke the meaning of that word."

In a way, Izel fitting so poorly the shapes expected of him had helped. Yaotl, though, she had excelled once she found a path. And when you were a child, good what was what crowds clapped at and evil what they denounced. And they had clapped for Yaotl a great deal, once she began winning duels.

"It's beaten into us, back home," he said. "That the world is made up of victory and defeat, truth and lies, and we can only make something true by dying it red. It takes time to unlearn that, and she's been out of Izcalli for mere months."

He caught Tristan's eye.

"You have your own lessons to temper, Tristan," he said. "I wager they were taught to you by your home as well. I only ask the same chances be given to her that you would want given to you. That have been given to you, by others."

"You gave me something of a pass over Ahuic," Tristan acknowledged.

Then the Mask leaned in.

"Only not really. Because you did put me through your little test, didn't you?"

Izel swallowed. Looked for a way to deny it and found his hands empty.

"Where's her test, Izel?" Tristan softly asked. "The line in the sand she has to respect before she's known to be a rabid dog. Because where I'm sitting, it's looking like I'm the only one who has to worry about his footing."

He breathed in. That was... No, that was true. He had not treated them the same. Because her understood Yaotl, the poison in her, while in Tristan he had seen the ghost of Tozi. All smiles and comradery, until things no longer went her way. There was wrong in Yaotl and there was in Tristan, but there was wrong in him as well. More than he had cared to acknowledge.

"You're right," he said, and Tristan's face went blank. "That is unfair."

And he looked for the deliverance, for the perfect solution that was the missing cog in the machine – the one that made it all work without need for the hammer, for the scraps – but there was never one. You had to make it yourself.

But before that, there were scales to even.

"Offer her a way out, at the end of today," Izel asked. "A chance to settle it in honor that does not harm you."

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Tristan's brow rose. He said nothing.

"And if she refuses again," Izel said, "if she will not tolerate anything but victory in all things, I will do what I should have from the start."

"And what does that mean, exactly?" Tristan asked.

That I'll do the only thing I still can for her to be alive at the end of this, Izel thought.

"I will take care of it myself," Izel said. "I'll run her out of Scholomance."

His face was searched, for a long moment, then Tristan slowly nodded.

"I'll hold you to your word," he said.

"I know you will," Izel tiredly said.

He stirred the embers again. The ships were long gone, swallowed by the dark, and there was no telling if the darkness would ever spit them out. Maybe it hadn't been a choice at all, he thought. Maybe the whole time it had been doom and deliverance both. They just weren't meant for the same people.

"You always take these great gambles," he murmured. "Are you never afraid to lose, Tristan?"

"Every time," Tristan said, looking up at the bleak morning light. "So I only gamble when doing nothing would cost me even more."

"I can understand," Izel decided, "why a goddess of luck would take to you. You are a fitting priest, in that way."

Tristan's face went grim.

"It's only priesthood when I have a goddess," he said. "Without her, that just makes me a gambler."

The Mask blew out a breath.

"And gamblers, they die young."

--

It was nine in the morning when they set out.

Late enough that Angharad struggled to keep her irritation off her face. It was the independents that slowed them, half of them still eating breakfast when the time to depart had come. Were Ferranda officially in charge of them, Angharad would have lodged a complaint with her. As things stood the arrangement was informal, so her displeasure was conveyed by a mere unimpressed look that the other woman pointedly ignored.

Shalini, who occasionally dabbled in mediating, was this time too amused to bother.

Still, though unseasonably late they did eventually set out. Taking to the front with Shalini and Izel, Angharad could not help but glance back at the rest of the column: Tristan had assembled quite a number, in the end. The allied crew of the Thirteenth and Thirty-First made seven, while behind them the Second and the Nineteenth brigades jostled for position while providing another eight.

It was a polite sort of jostling, Guadalupe de Tovar proving surprisingly courteous to someone with prospects as ruined as those of Yaotl Acatl, but the Second's cabalists still spread out across the street to force the Nineteenth towards the back of the column. It made them stand with the six independents, a subtle jab as to their respective standings.

There were also two more souls along. While Angharad had been there to witness it when Tristan cajoled the Marshal into tagging along on the promise of a show and possible loss of fingers, the hired Master of the Akelarre that showed up was a surprise to them all. Not that they would come, that was given since the fee was paid, but who had. Some part of her could not help but feel that the sum demanded should have been higher since it was Captain Yue who showed up, the senior signifier of Tolomontera herself.

The burned Tianxi had spent the whole time chatting with the Marshal, the two occasionally laughing in rather unsettling ways. Angharad had never seen Marshal de la Tavarin take to someone like this before, and suspected it might not be a good omen.

In the end, twenty-one fighters assembled to march down the wormway in array of war, two observers trailing behind. It was the largest movement of men around Lamb Hill since the column first came, the culmination of more than a week of preparations, great sums spent and several gambles on Tristan's part.

Their weapons saw no use on the way, not so much as a lemure's whisker glimpsed. The constant combing through the wormway had turned that avenue into the safest route to the Old Canals by a wide margin, a fact recognized enough that most hunting crews used it as a springboard for deeper pushes nowadays.

Brushing her rifle back over her shoulder, Angharad helped Zenzele move aside one of the crates making up the barricade barring the entrance of the dug-up boar mole burrow. Down they went, the wooden ramp leading into the samir's tunnel creaking slightly under their boots. It had been strong enough to suffer cannons being carried across it, so no matter the noise there was no need to worry of collapse. The Umuthi students they hired did good work.

From there it was a swift march, though they slowed their advance close to the basement entrance to check their gear and put up their guns. A quick sweep through the basement corners confirmed no creature had entered overnight, so their company moved up to the forge floor. When they got there, it was with a note of pride that Angharad beheld their work.

The grounds had been turned into a bastion, the tables bolstered with barricades and even a pair of small cannons the tinkers were to man. For some of those come along it was their first look, and Angharad glanced at the Marshal. But the old man in his most eye-searing finery – today's horror was purple and yellow, all silk – was not looking at the defensive positions but past them. His eyes stayed on the furnace in the back, for a moment, then followed along the wall to the remaining second level balcony.

He'd noticed, then. As expected of Marshal de la Tavarin.

"Those of you with second muskets, place them at your firing positions," Tristan called out. "Leave your extra powder as well. Tinkers, with me. We need to clear the entrance."

Angharad was not one of them, having preferred not to weigh herself down so, but a significant minority of their fighters disagreed. The entire Second Brigade, for one, and most of the tinkers – Izel not among them, having as usual preferred a sackful of grenades. She even recognized the muskets in use, the Watch's main line of musket: the sturdy Ashvatara-pattern, which was not so accurate or powerful as Tianxi guns but was fiercely reliable and could be plugged with a bayonet.

Angharad did own one, but it was her uncle's rifle she usually drilled with so it was what she had brought. It might be trickier to reload, but it was significantly more accurate – though, strangely enough, it used the same stock as the Ashvatara.

The way most of the room was checking on their guns one last time had her feeling vaguely concerned about her own, so while Tristan and the tinkers got to work dismantling the makeshift barricade that filled the doorway whose door the briarid had smashed she pulled up her Isibankwa rifle. The powder was dry and the tinder fixed in place correctly. An impressed whistle came from her side.

"It pays off to have an uncle in the Umuthi Society, I see," Captain Guadalupe de Tovar mused. "I heard the Rookery's still limiting distribution of Isibankwa rifles to elite Garrison units."

Angharad thought for second the mention of Uncle Osian might be a dig, but on the contrary the captain made it sound like praise. With her shoulder-length dark brown hair and tanned skin, de Tovar looked like the Lierganen princesses from the books – dark eyes and slender brow, sharp cheekbones and the bone-deep arrogance of a people who'd conquered half the world.

"They are from the first workshop run, as I understand it," Angharad told her.

"If they are half as accurate as my aunt claims, we will be seeing quite a few of them in the coming years," Captain Guadalupe said. "A precise, harder-hitting gun is something the free companies have been petitioning the Umuthi for since before I was born."

Angharad nodded, not unaware. The only other power on Vesper that fielded so many firearms in its armies, the Heavenly Republics, had little appetite for rifles despite having been able to make them for longer than the Watch. It was a question of what they were used for. The Tianxi meant their guns for war, so muskets and their superior rate of fire were a better investment. For the Watch, though, which rarely got into field battles but regularly fought monsters with thick hides? Rifles made more sense, in many ways.

"I will endeavor to demonstrate its worth, then," Angharad politely replied.

Not that they would be next to each other on the gunline. After negotiations, the twenty-one students had been divided into four squads. Ferranda and five of the independents made one, the Thirteenth and the rest of the Thirty-First the second, while the Second and the remaining independent made the third. The Nineteenth made up the last, though they would be handling the slope instead of joining the firing line on the ridge. Captain Guadalupe sketched out a smile, and as silence stretched and Angharad began to wonder why she had been approached finally the other woman unveiled the reason.

"Should today be a success," Guadalupe de Tovar said, "it seems wise for our brigades to be more closely associated going forward."

Tristan had read her right, Angharad thought. She wanted Song Ren's cabalists working for her.

"We have already joined hands with the Thirty-First," she noted.

The captain snorted dismissively.

"And anyone can see that despite the pretty Ramayan mellowing out your mood there is enmity between you and Villazur," Captain de Tovar said. "Alliances need not be forever, and there is no shame in trading up."

Angharad smiled in response, committing to nothing, and the other woman left her to 'mull it over'. The part worthiest of consideration, though, was that evidently Guadalupe de Tovar had assessed that a victory today would sufficiently clean up the Thirteenth's reputation for closer ties to be acceptable. Tristan's reckless gamble with Yaotl Acatl was paying off.

If they won, anyway.

She watched as the tinkers that had crossed Rong's trap field through the painted path finished bringing in the planks and crates, bolstering the barricades with them. Angharad, left with little to do but wait, drifted towards an openly bored Captain Yue who was standing in the back.

"We will soon be out, ma'am," she said. "This is the last step before we begin the work."

"I don't mind either way," Yue snorted. "Abrascal only bought an hour and the hourglass flipped the moment I reached Lamb Hill."

It would have been improper to openly disapprove of a superior officer's attitude, so Angharad swiftly found herself something to do instead. It was not hard given that the gates were now open and they could walk out onto the promontory. The heights were well-suited to defense, the northward-facing ridge facing the flat grounds below where the Second Brigade had once attempted to kill a hippogriff. There was only one way up from down there, a narrow slope that hugged the side of the heights and could be held against great numbers if you had the nerve.

Instead of making directly for the ridge, Angharad lingered by the doorway to help Izel with the barrel. It was a polished thing of wood, thoroughly waxed so not even a drop would come out. The top of the barrel was secured with two bars that had to be pulled out to ensure the same. While Izel was capable of moving it on his own and had, it would be easier with another pair of hands. Together they moved the barrel to a spot halfway between the doorway and the ridge, waiting as the other moved around them towards the ridge. Tristan soon joined them, as did Captain Yue. No matter where she looked, Angharad could not find the Marshal. Impressive, considering the colors he wore.

"Ferranda," Tristan called out. "Gunline?"

"Ready," Ferranda shouted back.

The students had spread across the ridge. Most were already kneeling or lying down, muskets at the ready. Yaotl Acatl and her brigade had moved towards the slope without need for prompting, setting up in a wedge near the top. She heard Tristan breathe out, then the thief slapped the top of the sealed barrel. She suppressed a wince as she did, even knowing it would do nothing, for pariah's blood was not something one wanted to splash about.

What exactly went in the alchemical recipe was a trade secret of the Watch, but it bore its name well: the liquid drove any lemure that smelled it wild with bloodlust and anger, drawing them to the source in a killing frenzy. A barrel's worth of it would draw creatures from as far as the Nests, if their attention could be drawn, and everything between here and there. Hundreds of lemures, at least.

"Let's get started," Tristan said.

Izel pulled the two bars out, freeing the top of the barrel.

"Ready," he said, stepping away and glancing at her.

Angharad grunted in acknowledgement, then tipped the barrel forward with her full strength. It still barely toppled over, for pariah's blood was thicker and heavier than water. The barrel's rim eventually came to rest against the floor and thick, reddish liquid flowed out. It spread out in a puddle and she helped Izel roll the barrel along the width of the promontory to spread it out, tracing an almost-line along the ground. They were both careful not to get any on their boots or hands, for the substance was sticky as berry juice and took several washings to get off.

"You kids really sprung for a whole barrel," Captain Yue noted. "I know free companies that'd balk at the cost."

"We cannot afford to do it twice," Tristan said. "If we have only one shot, it would be foolish to cut corners."

"A fine attitude," the Navigator praised, startling them all. "You'd be surprised the number of youngblood covenanters who die on their first assignment because they thought their training made them too good for proper equipment."

Captain Yue then glanced at the firing line assembling at the ridge and the Nineteenth on the top of the slope.

"They look ready enough."

Tristan glanced at Angharad, as if seeking permission, and she nodded.

"As you will, ma'am," he said.

"Don't stand too close," Captain Yue idly said, and raised her hand.

None of them were fool enough to ignore that warning, backing away hastily. Just in time to see Yue's hand plunge into thin air and pull out thick, wriggling arc of Gloam. Only she kept pulling and pulling and pulling, until the strands were not an arc but a long, heavy line that she looped and tied up to its own beginning. The circle that formed was a roiling, oily darkness that burned Angharad's eyes to behold – as if the very water in her eyes was souring. It was nothing like Maryam's own wind carding, she thought.

The circle tied to itself began to spin, the sound like spinning top by your ear, and Yue shoved her hand in the middle of the empty space before raising the whole construct above her head. Angharad thought she glimpsed sigils in the twisting band of darkness, signs woven into the Gloam, but she had to blink dust out of her eyes because when the captain's hand had risen a wind began to pick up. It lashed at the ground, kicking up dust and dirt, and like the circle of Gloam the wind spun around.

And among it Angharad saw a fine red mist, bits of pariah's blood stolen up. The wind grew more powerful as seconds passed, until she had to pull down her own cloak and feathered cap while worried shouts came from the gunline, then Yue suddenly ripped a chunk out of the spinning circle with her bare hand.

There was a beat of silent, utter stillness and then the winds broke loose.

They blew every which way in a gale howl, seeding the pariah's blood all around the high grounds. When the chaos ended Captain Yue was standing still at the center of a circle of blackened earth, smiling as she tucked in a strand of hair.

"And now," the Master of the Akelarre announced, "for the second part."

Fingers danced across the air, tracing sigils like the paintbrush of an artist until a broadly triangular chain of Signs burned into being. Captain Yue's finger stayed in the upper corner, tracing the same small circle with the tip of her index again and again as a small noise came to reach Angharad's ear. A small squeak, almost like a rusty door hinge, but that was because she was lucent. The pitch at which the Sign sounded was meant for lemures, creatures touched by Gloam.

And to them that small squeak was a blaring, obnoxious scream that could not be ignored.

The three of them hurried to join the gunline, for now it was only a matter of time until the storm struck.

--

The Orrery shone silver above them, casting the world in metallic light and laying bare the approach of the enemy.

The first to creep in where the lycosi.

Angharad knew them as quiet, careful hunters who preferred striking from ambush. What came, though, was a pack of rabid hounds. The first arrived alone, from the west, barreling out of the bushes – Ferranda nailed it through the head without missing a beat, beginning to reload before it hit the ground. Then came a pair, howling in anger, and four of them fired. The captains immediately shouted to hold back powder, to shoot in order, but the lycosi lay dead anyway.

Then they came out in swaths, charged towards the slope through the open grounds, and Angharad learned the dreadful strength of massed musketry: not a single one made it anywhere near the slope. She fired once, hitting a shoulder where she had meant a head, but with seventeen muskets firing a single miss meant little.

Their officers policed the shooting carefully to avoid running out of powder too early, and the students were well trained. Targets were called out according to position in the gunline, nailing the running beasts to the dust as they charged, and as the last lycosi lay torn and blackened on the ground a stillness spread while the smoke went up in thick billows.

At least thirty beasts lay dead, two packs' worth, but it was barely a beginning. The pariah's blood drew more, as did Captain Yue's still-singing Sign, while the corpses and the sound of gunshots added a fresh garnish to the bait.

A menagerie of monsters took up the invitation.

Angharad lay in the dirt, rifle steady, and placed her shot at the hog-man's head. The irelxto looked like upright pigs, and her shot took the lead one in the snout. It staggered but kept going with a foul oinking scream. The ugly lemures were not taller than five feet, with curving backs, but their hide was thick and what looked like earflaps covering their eyes was in truth a muscle that pulled back to punch bone stingers through flesh. They used these to spear men, then tore into their flesh with surpassingly strong clawed hands and a lower jaw that could unhinge.

They would be trouble for the Nineteenth if they made it up the slope, but even as Angharad cleaned her rifle's barrel and stuffed it with powder she saw she could not afford to fire at the hogmen again until they were closer: more lemures were swarming in.

The rifle barked and mushroom-headed imp was splattered across the dust. A trenti, vicious little things barely the size of a dog and covered in hoarse hair. They ran in, driven wild by the pariah's blood, and while they were mostly dangerous when attacking by surprise they came in packs.

Reload, fire. After a mess of shades followed silver-quick ramidreju, furred snakes with weasel's limbs and tusks tearing out of the sides of their jowls. They slithered along the floor. The hog-men were stopped cold by volley fire, but more were coming. And worse. Towering over the rest was a lumbering patarico, the onjacanu's lesser cousin. The creature looked like a barrel-bellied bald giant with a shaggy beard, single overlarge eye and feet without legs.

Angharad squeezed the trigger, missing the eye and losing her shot in the thick hide. At least it wasn't fast on the move, as its 'feet' were actually folded-up flippers. It was a creature that dwelled in shallow waters, its beard was some sort of filament that served to amplify smell – which might explain why it had strayed so quickly from its hunting grounds. It shrugged off body shots like hers, the same tightly sealed fat beneath its oily skin that helped it swim serving as armor, and kept a hand over its eye with only a sliver open.

Reload, aim, fire. The rifle was hot enough she could feel the heat wafting up to her cheek, but they could not afford to wait. A blem mad with anger barreled into the mess even as the first creatures reached the Nineteenth, fighting erupting near the top of the slope. Angharad aimed her shot at a mentiroso – a wild-toothed lizard under horse skin – and nailed its skull with a breath of triumph, watching as the things claws' ripped up its horse shell from the inside.

"Do not shoot the patarico," Ferranda shouted. "We need to thin the herd before it hits the slope."

There were, thankfully, means to do that. The press below was so thick, now, that when Izel and Rong Ma began tossing grenades into the horde it was a bloody slaughter. The shrapnel killed as many as the explosion, and one of them spread some sort of black tar that caught fire and incinerated dozens of screaming imps. Dozens of lemures still made it up to reach the Nineteenth, joining the piles of the dead.

"Navigators," Tristan shouted. "Handle the giant."

The two they had along pulled out from the gunline, even as Angharad snapped a shot at a ramidreju using the mounds of corpses as cover. It was short, the creature moving with a foul, unearthly grace. It climbed the ridge's sharp heights in moments, peeking over the edge just in time for Angharad's sword to clear the scabbard and send its head tumbling back down. The body followed a heartbeat behind.

The first to make it up like this, but it would not be the last.

They could barely see anything now, the smoke choking, but the firing line was still clearing the chaff as it was meant to: shades and trenti lay on the ground carpet-thick, another mentiroso now standing a naked and screeching white lizard shed clean of its bait-skin. Only one of the hog-men had made it to the top of the slope and Yaotl Acatl was throwing its sawed-up corpse back down the slope, but the patarico had only been winged a few times and the blem was catching up to it.

Then the Akelarre got involved.

A Sign had the larger of the giants twitching, slapping at the blem, and both blood-wild creatures turned on one another without hesitation. They tore at each other and through the lesser lemures without hesitation, monstrously screeching. We can still hold, Angharad thought. The longer they fought out here, the longer Captain Yue was allowed to run her Sign, the more lemures they would draw.

Steel carved and powder burned, but the tide did not slow. It quickened, thickened. More lycosi, the last of the nearby packs, another blem. Shades by the fistful, skittering spiders the size of dogs and some horror that looked like the bastard of an anglerfish and a wolfhound. Guns were steaming, the rate of the shots slowing and the Nineteenth had strewn their slope thick with the dead.

But it was the harpies that heralded the beginning of the end.

Only two, at first, and when one was winged by Zenzele the other withdrew. But within a minute there were six of the shrieking, human-faced vultures circling around them. Angharad snapped a shot, but caught only feathers. The horrid things were clever, and kept moving around while screeching to ensure they were not ignored – they were used to tricking men over the edge of cliffs or into the territories of other lemures to feed on the remains, so hunting with other monsters was second nature even in a frenzy.

Angharad rose to her feet, cleaning the barrel of her rifle and gritting her teeth. Shalini killed a harpy without missing a beat, but every other shot missed. She aimed at the one whose wing she had clipped, but a blur of movement had her readjusting. Ancestors, was that a-

"Fuck," she cursed, and fired.

The bullet hit the belltower bird in the body, but the monster hardly even noticed. Five times the size of any harpy, the thing was a mass of pitch-black feathers. It had a crest of long, slender ones going down like hair from the top of a face that was little more than strands of flesh fashioned into a pale mask. But that wasn't why Angharad had cursed. That was-

It was a sound like crying children and it raised every hair on Angharad's body. Her heart quickened, her palms turned slick even as she gritted her teeth. The belltower bird's song seeded fear into the hearts of men, and not all could withstand it – two of Ferranda's squad immediately broke and ran.

"First squad, shoot and withdraw," Ferranda shouted over the din, trying to prevent a complete rout.

The rest of her squad did as ordered, emptying their muskets one last time and running for the workshop. The second squad was meant to follow, after which the rearguard on the slope would close the retreat, but fate was not to be so kind – there was a hoarse scream as a shape plunged from the sky. Angharad barely got a glimpse of the hippogriff as it snatched one of the running independents, the Lierganen disappearing a blur of feathers that flew back up sky before it could be shot.

There was a wet snap and the man's screaming stopped abruptly.

The death had everyone retreating regardless of orders, which drove the harpies wild. An informal rearguard formed, Angharad staying back with Alizia and Shalini to keep the harpies away. Her eyes stayed on the belltower bird, though, which was yet circling and looking for prey. But the way it was angling, getting ready for a plunge...

"Nineteenth," she shouted. "Run."

They tried to, until the belltower bird crashed into them. Tall as two men, a tower of feathers and claws wearing an empty-eyed death mask – but they were Skiritai, and the Acallar had trained them well. They scattered every which way, only the Izcalli girl taking a swipe on the shoulder that ripped shallow. The belltower bird wasn't like the briarid, there would be no reading its movements for its plumage was too heavy to see a thing. But that didn't matter, Angharad thought, because it had made a mistake.

It was on the ground.

"Alizia?" she said.

"On it," Alizia Salas replied.

"Pulling," Shalini announced, and fired.

Feathers went flying and it screeched, the shot having hit the side of its head, and Angharad and Alizia advanced side by side as the beast turned its empty eyes on them. Then Angharad darted forward, and the creature eagerly met her – the wing swung like a scythe, strong enough to shatter bone, but she smoothly rolled forward and let it pass her. She could see the curved talons on the ground from here, the almost golden feet pulling back as the belltower bird struck down at her.

The mask lifted, revealing the razor-strew gullet behind it, but Angharad simple rose with her sword at the right angle and the beast screeched as it impaled herself on the point. It withdrew, pained, only for Shalini to hit its shoulder with another shot. It pulled back in haste, but it had forgot to keep an eye on one of them.

Alizia Salas, standing behind it on thin air, pressed the barrel of her Ashvatara-pattern musket against the back of its skull and pulled the trigger.

Angharad stepped away, flicking the ichor off her blade as behind her the belltower bird began to topple forward. Alizia landed besides her, her contract's grasp running out, and they made for the door covering each other in rotation.

They were the last ones in, and behind them a tide of nightmares followed.