A Magic of Dawn

The Storm’s Fury

In the late afternoon, the sun hung low in the west, but where there had been clear sky before, a storm had birthed itself across the River Infante. Thunderheads rose high in the sky, though these were clouds that lurked impossibly close to the ground. Underneath them, the army of the Tehuantin was cloaked in shadow, and the storm walked itself forward on jagged legs of flickering lightning. The black, roiling clouds stretched off southward along the front the Tehuantin had established. Jan’s horse shifted uneasily under him, nostrils flaring as low thunder growled like some great beast. There was a sharp odor in the air that wrinkled Jan’s nostrils.

“War-storm,” one of the chevarittai near Jan muttered. “The cowards-they won’t even give us a chance for honorable single combat first.” Jan nodded-he’d heard of the Tehuantin war-storms, called up by their spellcasters: a cooperative spell. The Westlanders had used them to great effectiveness when they’d last been here, as well as during their battles with the Holdings in the Hellins, but Jan had never seen one himself. He doubted he was going to enjoy the firsthand experience.

“Alert the war-teni,” he said, patting his horse’s neck to calm it. “We’re going to need them. The attack’s starting.”

Jan, with several companies of Firenzcian troops and chevarittai, was on the western side of the River Infante just below the village of Certendi. The bridge over the river was at their backs. On the eastern side of the river, he could see the earthen ramparts they’d built; he had little hope that they would be able to keep the western bank for long. Starkkapitan ca’Damont was farther downriver, with the remainder of the Firenzcian army; Commandant ca’Talin, with the Holdings’ Garde Civile, at the southern end of their line, near where the Infante joined with the A’Sele.

“Tell your men they must hold,” Jan told the chevarittai. He yanked on his horse’s reins, riding up and down just between the lines of infantry and archers. “Hold!” he told them all. “We need to hold here.” As the war-storm stalked forward, the rumbling of the great cloud growing louder and more ominous, the war-teni came up to the front. He gestured to the green robes. “Here’s where you begin to earn your forgiveness,” he told them. “There-that storm must come down.”

The storm lurched nearer with every breath. The air smelled of the lightning strikes but not of rain. Ahead of the troops, in what had formerly been a field planted with wheat and grain, Jan had placed entrapments for the Tehuantin warriors: sharpened iron spikes set in the ground, covered pits whose bottoms were festooned with wooden stakes, packets of black sand that Varina and her Numetodo had enchanted so that they would explode when someone stepped near them. But the storm was marching across the field, not yet the Westlander warriors. The lightning strikes tore at the ground, uprooting the stakes and exposing the pits, tossing earth everywhere and causing the black sand packets to explode harmlessly.

Jan cursed at the war-teni. “Now!” he shouted at them. “Now!”

The war-teni began their chants, sending the energy of the Ilmodo surging outward toward the false storm. With each spell that was released, the storm began to fall apart, and underneath, they could see the Tehuantin warriors hidden below, marching steadily toward them. “Archers!” Jan shouted, and behind him, bows creaked under tension, then a thin flurry of arrows arched upward, curving back down to rain upon the Westlanders. They snapped up shields. Jan saw several of the warriors fall despite the protection, though wherever one fell, another took up his place. To the south, the war-storm loomed over the ranks of the Holdings, and Jan heard cries of pain and alarm as the lightning tore at the soldiers there. But the storm was already falling apart-the power behind it released. Now, he heard the guttural shouts of the Westlander spellcasters; fireballs shrieked like angry Moitidi in their direction. The war-teni chanted their counter-spells; Jan saw several of the fireballs explode harmlessly above, but others came through, slamming into the ranks and spewing their fiery, terrible destruction and gouging holes in the lines. His horse reared in terror. “Move the lines forward! Fill the gaps!” Jan shouted as he tried to calm his mount. The offiziers shouted directions; signal flags waved.

Then, with a great shout, the warriors charged, and there was little time for thought at all. Jan unsheathed his sword and kicked his horse forward. The chevarittai gave a cry of fury and followed him, the gardai infantry rising in a black-and-silver wave to meet the Westlanders.

They crashed together in a flurry of swords, spears, and pikes.

Jan had fought the legions of Tennshah. These Westlanders were equally ferocious as fighters, but they were also far more disciplined. He could hear their own offiziers calling out crisp orders in their language, and their spellcasters were embedded in their midst, wielding staffs that crackled and flared with spells. He remembered that much from the last time. Jan hacked with his sword at a sea of brown faces painted in red and black, and wherever one fell to him, another sprang up to take his place. They were being pushed slowly back, and still the Westlanders kept coming. Jan realized that they couldn’t hold here on this side of the river-if they were pushed much closer to the river, there could be no orderly retreat; they’d be slaughtered.

“Back!” he shouted. “To the bridge! To the bridge!”

The offiziers took up the cry; the flag-bearers waved their signal flags, the cornets shrilled their call. The Firenzcian troops, disciplined and precise as always, gave ground grudgingly and as they had been trained to do, allowing the archers and war-teni to cover their retreat and carrying away their wounded wherever possible.

The dead they left.

Here, there were two bridges crossing the Infante, a half-mile apart. The northern bridge, along the Avi a’Nostrosei, had already been destroyed. The one over the Avi a’Certendi still remained. The Infante could be forded but not easily, since its current was swift and there were deep pools that only the locals knew. The archers and war-teni were first over the bridge as the foot troops and chevarittai held back the Westlanders, the offiziers hurrying them across toward ramparts that had been erected on the far side. Jan stayed with his men, his armor blood-splattered and dented, the gray Firenzcian steel of his sword stained with gore, until the bridge was cleared and the archers had re-formed on the far side.

“Break away!” he called finally when he heard the horns from the far side of the Infante, and they rushed toward the bridge. Jan turned again there, keeping back the warriors who pursued them, howling. The ground was thick with bodies around him and the chevarittai. A spellcaster gestured with his stick, and the chevaritt alongside Jan went down with a scream and the smell of brimstone, but the spellcaster was cut down himself in the next moment. Most of the infantry was across. “Across!” Jan shouted. “Chevarittai, across!” They turned their horses; they fled. The hooves of the war-steeds pounded on the planks of the bridge, and Jan gestured to the war-teni who were waiting on the far side. The Tehuantin pursued, too closely. Already, the warriors were on the western end of the bridge.

“Now!” Jan cried as he reached ground on the far side. “Take it down!”

“Hirzg, not before we’re behind the ramparts,” someone said, and Jan stood up in his stirrups, furious, and roared.

“Take it down now!”

The war-teni chanted; fire began to crawl the wooden support beams. The flames licked at the paper that wrapped the black sand lashed there.

The explosions flung pieces of the bridge high in the air, huge, rough-cut beams tumbling end over end, the bricks and stones of the pilings slicing through the air. Warriors and gardai alike were struck. One of the bricks slammed into Jan, the impact unhorsing him. He heard his horse scream as well, an awful sound. As he fell, he saw the center of the bridge collapse, falling into the Infante with a huge splash, taking a mass of Westlander warriors with it.

Then he hit the ground. For a moment, everything went black around him. When he came back to consciousness, he saw faces above him and hands. “Hirzg, are you hurt?”

Jan let them pull him to his feet. His chest ached as if his horse had fallen on him, and the armor was heavily indented where the brick had struck him. His chest burned with every inhale; he had to sip the air as he shook off the hands. His horse was thrashing on the ground, a plank embedded in the creature’s side.

The bridge was down. The sun was already sinking to the level of the trees, throwing long shadows over the battlefield. The Westlanders had retreated back from the water’s edge to be out of arrow range. Jan limped to his horse. One of the stallion’s front legs was broken, and blood gushed from the long wound along its flank. “My sword?” he asked, and someone handed it to him. Kneeling down alongside the horse, he patted its neck. “Rest,” he said. “You’ve served well.” Grunting with pain, he raised the sword high and brought it down hard, slicing deep into the neck. The horse tried to stand one last time, then went still. The world seemed to dance around Jan, the edges of his vision darkening again. He forced himself to stand, leaning on the sword.

“Get the lines formed behind the ramparts,” he said to those around him. “Tend to the wounded and set the watches. Send the a’offiziers to me, and get word to the Starkkapitan and the Commandant of what’s…” Happened here… The words were in his mind, but they didn’t seem to come out. The darkness was moving too fast even though the sun was still visible in the sky.

He felt himself falling.

There weren’t enough nahualli with Niente to create a war-storm. Ahead of them, in the golden light of late afternoon, they could see the Easterner troops arrayed on the hillsides on either side of the road. Their own numbers appeared to be significantly greater than that of the Easterners unless they had troops hidden in reserve on the far slope.

Tototl sniffed in disdain.

“This is all they bring against us?” he said, and the warriors closest to them chuckled. “Uchben Nahual, it’s time to do as we’ve discussed.”

Niente inclined his head to Tototl and turned his horse, riding back to where the other nahualli were sheltered in the midst of the warriors. He’d had them fill their spell-staffs the night before as usual, so that they could perform this spell at need and still be rested for the battle. They could not create the war-storm, but they could create cloud enough to mask them. That was what they did now, their mass chant pulling power from the X’in Ka, the energy rising into the air and becoming visible. Wisps of cloud began to sway in front of the warriors, from the road to nearly the banks of the river, a fog that thickened and became dense, a wall shaped by the nahualli so that the Easterners could no longer see them. This wall would not need to move with the troops, nor would it need to generate the lightnings of the war-storm. Niente gestured when he could no longer see the Easterner troops ahead of them nor the hills on which they stood, and the nahualli stopped their chant.

Niente swayed on his feet, as if he’d run from here to the river and back: the payment for the chant and his channeling of the energy, but he forced himself to stay upright, even though a few of the younger nahualli collapsed, panting. Using the X’in Ka this way-creating the spell without giving yourself time to recover from the effort-was costly; Niente didn’t understand why the Easterner spellcasters usually performed their magic this way, rather than storing the spells to be released later. “Get up,” he told them. “Take up your spell-staffs. There’s still a battle to be fought.”

With the fog-wall shutting off sight of the Easterner troops, Tototl shouted his orders, gesturing to the lesser warriors and the High Warriors in charge of them. Two companies slid away to the left, toward the river-they would outflank the Easterners and come upon them from the side and rear. Tototl waited as the flanking arm moved away and Niente rode back to him. “If this is all that is between us and the city, we’ll be there by evening, Uchben Nahual,” Tototl said. “It would seem that your son has seen well-sending us across the river was the path to victory. They weren’t prepared for this. We will push through their city and come upon the rest of their army from the rear as Citlali and Nahual Atl attack them from the front. We will crush them between us like a shelled nut between stones.”

The comment only made Niente scowl. He’d tried to use the scrying bowl the night before: everything was confusing, and powers moved on the side of the Easterners that he could not clearly see while the Long Path eluded him entirely. Tototl seemed to find Niente’s irritation amusing-he laughed. “Don’t worry, Uchben Nahual,” he said. “I still have faith in you. Is your spell-staff full?”

Niente lifted the staff, the ebony hardwood he’d carved so carefully decades ago with the symbols of power. His hands over the long years had polished the knobbed end and the middle of the staff to a gleaming satiny finish. The staff felt like part of him; he could feel the energy within, waiting for the release words to burst forth in fury and death. Yet even as he displayed the staff to Tototl and the warriors and nahualli around him gave a shout of affirmation, Niente felt little but despair.

There was no life in this victory, if victory it was to be. No joy. Not if it were to lead to the place he’d once glimpsed.

Tototl unsheathed his sword. He lifted it with Niente’s staff as the shouts redoubled. “It is time for blood!” Tototl declared. “It is time for death or glory!” He pointed the sword toward the cloudbank. “For Sakal!” he roared, and they shouted with him as they charged forward. Niente was carried along with the flood, but he was silent.

They entered the cold, gray blankness of the cloud, and emerged into sun and heat and battle.

Brie had positioned the troops on the two hillsides that flanked the road, with only a single company on the road itself, and the archers in position on either side-they would at least have the high ground to begin this battle. The Westlanders would have to charge uphill if they wished to engage them.

If they had chevarittai, they could have come charging down at terrible speed, like a gigantic spear thrusting into the Westlanders’ midst. But they had no chevarittai and too few archers, only three of the Numetodo-of whom Brie was rather suspicious, there being no Numetodo in Firenzcia at all; at least none who openly showed themselves-and no war-teni at all.

Allesandra had arrived a turn earlier, dressed in her own armor, and Brie had ceded field command to her, as was proper given that the Garde Kralji was hers. The Kraljica had given her approval of Brie’s placement of the gardai. “I see you’ve been taught well,” she said. “I expected no less.” Brie and the Kraljica, along with Sergei and Commandant cu’Ingres, watched the approach of the Westlander troops, under the banner of a winged snake. Brie was sobered by the frightening size of their force; she was even more concerned as they watched their spellcasters-safely out of the range of the archers they had-place a fog-wall between them to mask their formation.

Brie had not been able to conceal a shudder at the sight. “Kraljica, Ambassador, is there some better and more defensible ground between here and Sutegate? Perhaps we should try to harry them rather than stop them? We could send smaller groups against their flanks, create a defensive wall at the city…”

Allesandra had glanced at Sergei and cu’Ingres, neither of whom spoke. “It’s too late for that, Hirzgin,” Allesandra said. “We must stand here, we must hold them as long as we can, and we must make them pay for every stride of ground they take.”

Brie clenched her hands around the reins of her warhorse. “Then I’ll stand with you, Kraljica, at the front.”

“No.” Allesandra shook her head. “That’s my place and responsibility,” she said, “and Jan would never forgive me if you were hurt here. I want you to take the river flank with Talbot’s sparkwheelers,” she said. “They’ll need a steady heart and commander to guide them. Talbot can stay with you, but I need the other Numetodo here-we have too few of them, since most went with Commandant ca’Talin.”

Brie had wanted to argue-to her mind, the Garde Kralji would also need strong leadership or they would break, but she grudgingly inclined her head. “As you say, Kraljica…”

Reluctantly, she rode to the western side of the road and up the hill through the Garde Kralji-staring at her worriedly-to the rear flank where the sparkwheelers had been placed. She shook her head at the sight of them: clothed in whatever they already had on their backs. They had no armor at all, except for the few who wore scraps of rusted metal curaisses or ripped and ill-fitting chainmail. Except for the strange-looking devices each of them carried, they were armed only with ancient swords, farm implements, and cudgels. They looked more like a mob than a fighting force-a mob that a bare squadron of Garde Brezno would have been able to rout and send screaming into the streets.

Brie informed Talbot of the Kraljica’s orders; he seemed as distressed by them as she was, but Talbot had hurriedly sent his fellow Numetodo down to where the Kraljica’s banner flew on the eastern side of the road.

“I’m her aide,” he said as he watched the Numetodo moving toward the Kraljica’s banner. “I should be with her. This is madness.”

“Which is why,” Brie said, “she has kept us both back. She knows the odds. Do these sparkwheelers actually have a purpose?”

In answer, Talbot ran them through their drills, forming the sparkwheelers into lines and moving them back in sequence. Brie tried to imagine the the sparkwheels firing, tried to imagine the corps not breaking and fleeing in terror at the sight of the enemy. As Talbot shouted his orders, she also watched the impossible bank of fog that blanketed the road below, sliding off past the side of the hill on which she stood.

The gray wall was silent.

“What happens when they ‘fire’?” she asked.

“The sparkwheels discharge. They’re actually quite effective. Varina invented them.” He cocked his head slightly at Brie. “There’s no magic involved at all, Hirzgin, if that’s your worry. No flaunting of ‘Cenzi’s Gift,’ as you of the Faith might term it.”

She started to retort, then…

“Talbot…” She pointed down the hill.

It began with a muffled roar from behind the cloud: the sound of clashing armor and shouting warriors. From out of the fog, the Tehuantin came rushing toward them, wave upon wave of them, filling the road as well as the fields to either side. Brie, from her vantage point, heard Allesandra call for the archers to fire, and the Numetodo sent fireballs and lightnings crackling toward them. The spells and the arrows cut brief holes in the line that were immediately filled, and now the Westlander spellcasters raised their spell-staffs and sent their own lightnings hurtling toward Allesandra and the troops. There were explosions along both hills, and screams.

The clamor grew louder; the lines came close…

… and collided with a clash of metal. From the heights where the sparkwheelers were set, Brie could see the battle laid out before her, the two armies swarming like a plague of insects over the landscape. Some of the sparkwheelers were visibly frightened by what they saw and some of them stepped backward up the hill-northward, toward the city. Talbot and Brie both shouted at them to hold, and Brie turned her horse to cut them off, like a sheepdog with its herd. “Retreat, and I will cut you down,” Brie shouted at them, her sword held high, her warhorse stamping its feet in response to her agitation.

“Talbot, let’s move them down so we can…” she began, but suddenly clamped her mouth shut.

The battle was already failing below-she could see it. The front line of the Garde Kralji had already buckled, and Allesandra’s banner was moving north along the road, giving ground. The Westlanders were no longer issuing from the fog-wall, and despite their numbers, there seemed to be fewer of them than Brie remembered. Brie looked to Talbot, worried and suddenly suspicious.

“Stay here,” she said. She urged her horse up the slope of the hill toward the ridge, staying in the cover of the trees. When she reached the summit, she peered down. She could see the gray fog-wall arrowing off toward the ribbon of the river. And out in front of it. ..

“Oh, no…” She breathed a curse.

Below her, already ascending the slope below, was the remainder of the Westlander army.

The war-storm was both terrifying and deadly, but it was only a chimera: a ghost from the Second World. Even as Varina tore at it with the Scath Cumhacht, she still had to admire its power, its precision, and its making. She could feel the many individual threads of the storm, how it was woven from the spells of many spellcasters and formed by a single one of them: a particularly strong presence, and one who was close to her.

This was nothing that the teni of the Faith could do, nor the Numetodo-another skill that those of the Eastern world didn’t have. Even as she shredded the clouds and dissipated the spell-threads that held it together, Varina found herself thinking of how she would put together a spell like this herself.

If you live, this is something you should work on, so the Numetodo learn to do it as well.

If you live…

That, she was afraid, was no certainty.

She was with Commandant ca’Talin’s Garde Civile at the southern terminus of the front, in the narrowing triangle between the River Infante and the River A’Sele. Here, the Infante broke into two arms as it joined the A’Sele, and the Avi a’Sele arched over it with two bridges. As with Starkkapitan ca’Damont’s command just to the north, and with Hirzg Jan’s command at the northern end of the front, they had placed themselves on the western side of the Infante. The Tehuantin were set in a long, curving front that stretched from the Avi a’Sele to the Avi a’Nostrosei, somewhat over two miles long.

The war-storm, from what she could see, may have covered their entire length.

The other Numetodo were also ripping into the war-storm with her. The lightning was fading, the black cloud rent and shredded. They could see men moving behind it, charging forward. “Back, back!” Commandant ca’Talin was shouting at her and the others. “Stay behind the line. Archers, fire!” Flags waved; cornets blasted the air, and all along the line flights of arrows rose to meet the war-storm. Varina could see the shields of the warriors flick up, saw the arrows fall mostly to embed themselves in the shields. Swords hacked at the arrows stuck on the shields, shearing them off, and an answering hail of arrows came from the Tehuantin. Varina heard Mason cry out near her and go down, an arrow fletched with gray feathers in his chest. Another arrow thudded into the ground at her feet. “Back!” ca’Talin shouted again, and this time they obeyed, Johannes and Niels dragging Mason with them.

Varina could see little of the battle other than the bodies jostling around her, but she could hear it: the clash of steel against steel, the cries from the soldiers on both sides, the shrill calls of the horns. She could smell it as well: the smoke from the spell-fires, the scent of blood, the nosewrinkling stench of brimstone. But ahead of her there was only a writhing mass of soldiers. Ca’Talin, on his horse, surrounded by chevarittai, went hurtling into that chaos, and for a moment Varina and the others were alone. They sent fire-spells arcing over their gardai into the Tehuantin lines beyond; they used counter-spells to blast away the fire hurled at them by the Westlander spellcasters. Black sand exploded to Varina’s right, sending dirt and body parts hurtling through the air and half-deafening her.

Varina could feel the terrible exhaustion of using the Scath Cumhacht this way. All the spells she’d stored the night before were gone, and her mind was too tired and confused to create new spells easily. She was done; she was empty.

If you live…

She was less certain of that now than ever.

The cornets had altered their call. Varina saw the Commandant and chevarittai emerge from the smoke and confusion of the battle. Behind them, gardai were turning and fleeing eastward. “To the bridges!” ca’Talin shouted as he passed them. “To the bridges!”

Varina was swept up with them, helpless. The retreat was a rout, a confusion. She found herself pushed, stumbling and nearly falling. All around her, people were shoving and she couldn’t stand. It would be easy, she thought, to just lay down here, to let it end. She felt herself starting to fall once again.

A hand went around her waist. “Here, pull yourself up.” Ca’Talin had returned, and he pulled her up onto his warhorse, her arms and shoulders aching. She could see the bridges ahead, clotted with gardai fleeing toward the earthern ramparts on the far side.

“We’ve lost here,” ca’Talin half-shouted to her as they plunged into the press of men. “The Westlanders have this side of the river, all the way north. May Cenzi preserve us for tomorrow.”

Seeing the Tehuantin advancing up the far side of the hill toward them, Brie turned her steed and rode hard down to the sparkwheelers, the horse sending rocks and pebbles cascading down ahead of them.

“Talbot! This way,” she cried. “Bring your people and follow me!” Once she saw Talbot’s acknowledgment, saw him begin to shout orders and shove at the sparkwheelers nearest him, she headed up the slope again until she was on the ridge. The Tehuantin were still ascending the hill, with the obvious intention of flanking the main battle and coming on the Garde Kralji from the side and rear while they were intent on the main assault from along the road. The hill’s summit was flat and mostly treeless; the Westlanders were advancing through a meadow. She’d been seen by them, also; she heard an arrow hiss past her head, and she moved downslope slightly.

Talbot and the sparkwheelers were nearly to the top; she quickly told Talbot what she’d seen. They arranged the lines just below the summit, the sparkwheelers checking their weapons again to make certain they were loaded, and opening the leather pouches they wore that held, Brie had been told, the tiny packets of black sand to reload the weapons. She’d seen the packets; they were hardly impressive-they’d only added to her doubts as to the efficiency of the sparkwheel as a weapon.

But she had no other choice. She had to hope that what Talbot had told her wasn’t an elaborate lie. “All right,” she said. “On my command, we’ll move up to the ridge. Talbot, be ready to fire as soon as you’re there-they have archers, so you’re going to be under attack yourselves.” She saw some of the men blanch at that. “You have the high ground and the advantage. Hit them hard, and the archers will be useless,” she told them, though she didn’t believe that at all. She thought their archers would make a wall of bodies on the summit from the sparkwheelers. “Now-forward!”

Almost grudgingly, the men trudged up to the ridgeline, Brie and Talbot alongside them. She heard the calls in the strange Westlander tongue as they appeared, but Talbot was already shouting out the cadence before the first arrows came. “First line, kneel! First line, fire!”

The racket that ensured made Brie’s horse rear up in terror. White, acrid smoke bloomed along the line, and down the hill… Brie could scarcely believe what she saw: Westlanders went down as if a divine blade had scythed through their ranks. She gave a cry of surprise, almost a laugh. “Second line kneel! Second line, fire!”

Again, the reports from the sparkwheels echoed; again, more Westlanders fell, their bodies tumbling back down the hill or crumpling where they stood. A few arrows were slicing into the sparkwheelers now as well, and she saw three or four of the men go down. “Damn it, stand, you bastardos!” Talbot shouted as the lines wavered and started to dissolve. Brie rode behind them as the line in the rear faltered and tried to break rather than reload their weapons.

“No!” she told them. “Stay and fight, or you’ll face my blade! Stay!”

“Third line, kneel. Third line, fire!” Talbot cried, and this time the volley was a stutter rather than a concerted explosion, but still more Tehuantin were falling. Brie could see the enemy wavering. “Again!” she shouted to Talbot. “Hurry!”

“First line, kneel! First line, fire!” Another stuttering, and some of the men could not fire at all, still clumsily trying to load their pieces with trembling hands. But yet more of the Tehuantin were down and the arrow fire had stopped entirely. Down the hill, injured and dying warriors were screaming in their language, and other painted warriors were shouting in return. “Second line, kneel. Second line, fire!”

Again the sparkwheels gave their roar, and as more warriors fell, the Tehuantin finally broke. The warriors turned and began running back down the hill despite the efforts of their offiziers to hold them, and it was suddenly a panicked retreat. The sparkwheeler corps gave a shout of triumph, and a few, without orders from Talbot, fired their sparkwheels at the retreating backs. At the top of the hill, fists punched the air in triumph.

Brie shouted a huzzah with them, but then she looked behind and the joy died in her throat. Well below, on the road, the Garde Kralji was in full flight. She could see Allesandra’s banner waving and hear the cornets calling retreat. Behind them, the Tehuantin warriors were pursuing: a black wave of them that overspread the road along both hills, a wave that would overwhelm their cadre of sparkwheelers if they stayed. “Talbot!” Brie shouted. “To the Kraljica! We can’t stay here.”

They may have won a small victory in their skirmish, but there would be no greater victory here. She led Talbot and the sparkwheelers down the hill to join the Kraljica in her flight.

Niente had thought that Tototl would chase the Easterners straight back into their city, or even overrun their retreat and slay them here. He might have done exactly that, except one of the High Warriors came gasping back to them raving of a massacre: the group that had been sent to the western flank had been nearly destroyed. Tototl called a halt to the advance, sending only a few squadrons to to pursue the fleeing Easterners. Tototl and Niente had followed the High Warrior around to the far side of the hill. Now Niente was looking up on a terrible carnage on the hillside before him-though he’d seen worse in his long deades of warfare, certainly. He’d witnessed men hacked to pieces, had viewed corpses piled on corpses. But this: there was an eerie quiet here, and the bodies were strangely whole. There was too little blood.

Tototl had leaped down from his horse, going from body to body strewn over the grassy slope. “What magic did this?” he demanded of Niente.

Niente shook his head. “A magic I haven’t seen before,” he said to Tototl.

“Why didn’t you see this?” Tototl raged, and Niente could only continue to shake his head. His hands were trembling. He could smell black sand in the air.

Black sand.

This was no magic… The thought kept coming back to him with the scent. The fact that black sand was not created from the X’in Ka was something Niente had kept from the Tecuhtli and the warriors. He wanted the warriors to believe that black sand was something magical. He hadn’t wanted them to know that anyone could make it if they knew the ingredients, the measures of the formula, and the method of preparation. He and the few nahualli he’d entrusted with the secret kept it so-they all suspected that if the warriors could make black sand themselves, they might decide they had no need of nahualli at all.

This was no magic…

He knew this, but he could not admit it to Tototl.

If Atl is facing this also… Fear ran cold through him, and he nearly reached for the carved bird, nearly spoke the word that would allow him to communicate with his son and warn him. But he would be too late: that battle was undoubtedly also underway. Too late. And while the Easterners had this deadly skill, it still hadn’t made a difference in this battle. They had taken out the flanking troops, but they’d still be routed.

But Tototl was right in one respect: he had not seen this. What would the scrying bowl say now?

“The Easterners have learned a spell they’ve never shown us before,” he told Tototl. The wounded bled from deep, jagged, but nearly circular holes. The dead were the worst-it looked as if they been struck by invisible arrows that had-impossibly-torn through metal-and-bamboo armor to plunge deep into the bodies, sometimes lancing entirely through them. And on the top of the hill, where the surviving warriors had said that the terrible barrage had come from, there were no bodies at all, very few signs of blood, though there were a few Tehuantin arrows on the ground. But the ground wasn’t disturbed as it would have been had they needed to drag away bodies. The Easterners had been able to inflict this damage on them without significant loss of their own.

Could they have done this with the main troops? Are they holding this back, waiting for a better place to use this power?

It may not have been magic, but something both awful and unbelievable had happened here. They had used black sand in some way that Niente could not comprehend. “I need to use the scrying bowl again,” he said to Tototl. “Something has changed, something Axat didn’t show me before. This is important. I worry about the Tecuhtli.” The Long Path: could it still be there? Could it have changed, too? Or has everything changed? Has Atl seen this? He had to know. He had to find out. He was missing something that was critical to understanding their situation-he could feel it in the roiling in his gut, a burning. He felt old, used up, useless.

“There isn’t time,” Tototl answered. “The Tecuhtli will take care of himself, and he has the Nahual with him. The city is open to us. All we need to do is chase them. They’re running; I can’t give them time to regroup.”

“Then as soon as we can after we reach the city,” Niente told him. “Look at this! Do you want this to happen to us or to Citlali?”

Tototl scowled. “Pour oil on the bodies and burn them,” he ordered the warriors. “Then rejoin us. Niente, come with me-the city awaits us.”

He spat on the ground. Then, with a final scowl, he remounted. Niente was still staring, still trying to make some sense of this. “Come, Uchben Nahual,” Tototl told him. “The answers you want are running from us as we stand here.”

In that, the warrior was right. Niente sighed, then went to his own horse and-with the help of one of the warriors-pulled himself back into the saddle.

They rode away, Tototl already calling out to resume their advance.

If the day had been terrible, the night was hideous. Varina was huddled with the Garde Civile, pressed between the two earthen ramparts that had been built over the previous few days, and the night rained spark and fire, as if hands were plucking the very stars from the heavens and hurling them to earth. Both sides now used catapults to throw black sand fire into each other’s ranks. The explosions thundered every few breaths: sometimes distant, sometimes distressingly close.

There was no rest this night and no sleep. She watched the fireballs arc overhead to fall westward, and cowered as the return barrage hammered at their ramparts. She tried to blot out the sounds of screams and wails whenever one of the Tehuantin missiles struck.

This was worse than open combat. At least there she had a semblance of control. There was no control in this: her life, and the lives of all of those around her were up to the whims of fate and accident. The next fireball could fall on her and it would be over, or it would miss and take someone else’s life. Varina felt helpless and powerless, cowering with her back against cold dirt and trying to recover as much of her strength as she could so that she could replenish her spells for the attack that would come in the morning.

It would come. They all knew it.

The news from the north had been disheartening. Neither Starkkapitan ca’Damont nor Hirzg Jan, with the Firenzcian troops, had been able to hold the west bank of the Infante. Both had been forced to retreat across the river. Worse, the word had come that Hirzg Jan had been injured during the retreat, as the a’Certendi bridge was destroyed. The rumors were wild and varied: Varina heard that Jan was dying; she heard that he had been carried back to the city to the healers; she heard that he was directing the defense from his tent-bed; she heard that he’d had himself lashed to his horse so that he would appear unhurt to his men as he rode about encouraging them; she’d heard that his injuries were minor and he was fine.

She had no idea which rumors were false and which true. What was apparent was that the battle of the day before had been only a prelude. The Infante would be forded; they all knew that. The Tehuantin would find the shallow places and they would cross as soon as it was light.

She trembled, closing her eyes as another fireball shrieked overhead and exploded well to her left. Had she believed in Cenzi, she would have prayed-there were certainly prayers being mumbled all around her. She almost envied the comfort the soldiers might find in them.

“Varina?” Commandant ca’Damont crouched next to her. In the noise, she hadn’t heard his approach. She started to stand, but he shook his head and motioned to her to stay down.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I was trying to rest.”

He smiled wanly. “There’s not much rest around here. I wanted to tell you-Mason, your Vajiki ce’Fieur: the healers say he’ll recover. They’ve going to evacuate him back to the city.”

“Good. Thank you. I appreciate your telling me that.”

“I want you to go with him,” ca’Damont continued. “This is no place for you.”

An old, frail woman… She could nearly hear the unsaid comment. “No,” she told him. “You need me here. I’m A’Morce Numetodo; this is where I belong.”

“More war-teni have arrived,” he said. “A full double hand. And I have the other Numetodo you brought with you. You proved yourself earlier, Varina. No one could ask more of you. And you have a child to think of.”

She wanted to agree. She wanted to take his offer and go running back to the city-but even there she wouldn’t be safe. She could flee as far as she wanted, she could take Serafina and go east or north, but if they lost here-and she could see no way that they could win-she would always wonder whether she should have stayed, whether her presence might have made a difference.

Karl would not have fled. He would have stayed, even if he thought that the battle was lost. She knew that for a certainty. “Most of the gardai here have children to think of,” she told him firmly. “That’s why they’re here.”

“Still…”

“I’m not leaving,” she told him.

The Commandant nodded. He stood and saluted her. “You’re certain?”

She gave a shuddering laugh as another fireball howled past. Firelight bloomed and shadows moved as it exploded. “No,” she answered. “But I’m staying, and you’re interrupting my rest.”

They heard the low rumble of another explosion somewhere beyond the rampart. “Rest?” the Commandant said. “I doubt any of us will be getting that tonight. But all right. Stay if you want. Cenzi knows that we need all the help we can get.” He seemed to realize what he’d said, giving a wry half-smile. “Forgive me, A’Morce.”

“Don’t apologize,” she told him. “If your Cenzi exists, I hope He’s listening to you.”

It wasn’t supposed to have been this way. Sergei had prayed to Cenzi, but Cenzi hadn’t answered-not that he expected any help from that quarter. The Tehuantin pursued Kraljica Allesandra and the Garde Kralji all the way back into the city. The Kraljica had tried to re-form and stand at Sutegate, but the Tehuantin were moving across too wide a swath now, pouring into the city’s streets from everywhere along the southern reaches. Allesandra didn’t have troops enough to cover the city’s entire southern border. It had become quickly obvious that they couldn’t hold the South Bank: not with the Garde Kralji, not even with the sparkwheelers, who had proved oddly effective during the retreat. They’d pulled back even farther, abandoning the entire South Bank for the Isle A’Kralji.

They could keep the Tehuantin from pouring through the bottlenecks that were the two bridges.

Sergei had urged Allesandra to destroy the Pontica a’Brezi Veste and Pontica a’Brezi Nippoli entirely, to take down the spans so that the Tehuantin couldn’t cross the southern fork of the A’Sele without ships. She refused. “The ponticas stay up,” she said. “I will not just give up half the city. The bridges stay up, we defend them tonight, and tomorrow we’ll go back across them to take back our streets.”

Sergei had argued vehemently with her, and Commandant cu’Ingres had agreed with Sergei; neither of their arguments convinced her to change her mind.

And it was on the Pontica a’Brezi Veste and the Pontica a’Brezi Nippoli that the sparkwheelers truly excelled. With Brie and Talbot’s guidance, the corps had controlled the small spaces. Though the Westlanders had thrown wave after wave at them through the late afternoon and into the dusk, they’d left both bridges full of corpses. After several vain attempts and with the sunlight dying, the Westlanders had finally pulled back.

From the roof of the Kraljica’s Palais, Sergei could see fires burning in the South Bank where once the teni had lit the lanterns along the Avi a’Parete. The yellow flames were a mockery. To the west and north, across the A’Sele but still outside the city, there were constant rumbles and the flashes of explosions, as if a rainless, cloudless thunderstorm had taken up residence there. Below, beyond the outer walls of the courtyards and entrance to the palais, in the Avi, Brie was still awake, on foot now. Sergei could hear her voice in the stunned silence of the palais: setting the watches on the bridge and exhorting the sparkwheelers to see to their weapons, get what rest they could, but be ready to respond at need.

Hirzgin Brie had proved to be as valuable as her husband in this fight. Perhaps more so.

Sergei felt Allesandra come alongside him. She was still dressed in her armor, though it was no longer gleaming and polished: in the moonlight, he could see the scratches and scorch marks of the battle. Her graying hair was matted to her head. A sextet of Garde Kralji were with her, as well as the few remaining members of the Council of Ca’ who had not fled the city. “Tomorrow,” she told Sergei, told the councillors, “we will take back the South Bank.”

“We will try as best we can,” Sergei said. His tone betrayed his feeling as to the success they would find.

“We will, ” Allesandra answered sternly. The councillors looked frightened, and Sergei knew that they all believed that as unlikely as he did. A flash, and-belatedly-another rumble came from the west. He could feel the building trembling under his feet with the sound. The councillors looked around as if searching for shelter; the gardai shuffled nervously, clenching their pikes. “A runner’s come from the North Bank,” Allesandra said. “The Tehuantin have the west side of the Infante, and the Garde Civile has pulled back to the earthworks. They’re safe for now. They’ll try to ford the river tomorrow and we will push them back. Let the Infante and then the A’Sele take their bodies back to the sea.”

“We will try, I’m sure,” Sergei answered again. “Have you heard further news of the Hirzg?”

Her face tightened. “I’m told that Hirzg Jan has refused to return to the city. How badly he’s been injured…” She shrugged. “No one is saying. He’s my son, and he’s a soldier. He will continue to fight as long as he can.”

Sergei glanced down again to where Brie was patrolling. “Does she know?”

“I told Brie myself. I offered to let her go to him while she can. She said her place was here for now, and that Cenzi could keep Jan safe better than she could.” Allesandra almost smiled. “I think she’s learned to have a fondness for these sparkwheelers.”

Sergei grunted. “I hope she’s right,” he said. “We can’t hold back the Tehuantin, Kraljica. Soon, they’re going to start bombarding us with black sand until we can’t station the sparkwheelers at the bridgeheads any longer, and once the sparkwheelers have pulled back they’ll come across. We need to take down the ponticas to the South Bank and cut them off. Let them throw what they want at us, but they won’t be able to cross-not until they build boats.”

Alesandra drew back. Her eyes narrowed, her lips pursed. “You’ve said all this too many times already, Sergei. I won’t give up the South Bank. I will not abandon my city. Not while I can draw breath. No.” She took in a breath through her nose, loud in the night. “I’ve asked Commandant ca’Talin or Starkkapitan ca’Damont to send us a company or two of gardai to help.”

“Kraljica, they can’t spare them. Not with the Tehuantin force they’re facing. You can’t ask that of them.”

“The message has already been sent,” she told him. “I said that they needed to make their best judgment as to whether they could spare the troops or not. They’ll send them,” she said firmly.

It was obvious that he wasn’t going to change her mind. He was also certain that whether they had an additional company of gardai or not, the Garde Kralji weren’t going to be sufficient to take back the South Bank. If the bridges continued to stand, they would not even be sufficient to hold the Isle, even with the help of the sparkwheelers. He tapped the tip of his cane on the roof tiles uneasily. In the west, there were more flashes. “If you’ll excuse me, Kraljica, I need to find Talbot…”

He left Allesandra still on the roof with the gardai and the councillors. He found Talbot on the ground floor of the palais, looking frazzled and angry as he snapped orders to a quartet of the palais staff. They scurried off as Sergei approached. “I don’t have enough staff here,” Talbot said. “Thee quarters of them evidently fled the city as soon we left here yesterday.”

“You can’t blame them, my friend. Anyone with more sense than loyalty would leave.”

“I know, but how am I supposed to run the palais without people?” He ran his fingers through his hair. “Listen to me. I’ve just been chased halfway across Nessantico by the Tehuantin; I’ve managed to survive spells and arrows and swords, and I’m worrying about whether the beds are made and meals are served.”

“It’s your job.”

“It doesn’t feel important, given the circumstances. By Cenzi, I’m exhausted.”

“You can sleep later. We can both sleep later. Come with me.”

“Where?”

Sergei rubbed at his nose. “You know where the black sand for the Garde Kralji is kept? You have the keys to that storeroom?”

“Yes, but…”

“Then come along.”

A turn of the glass later, he and Talbot approached the Pontica a’Brezi Veste with several bundles of black sand carried by gardai. Brie greeted them; she glanced at their burdens, and she cocked her head. “I thought that the Kraljica said that the ponticas were to be left intact,” she said.

Sergei glanced up at the roof of the palais, at the balconies studding the southern wall. No one was there. “I’ve managed to convince the Kraljica that we may need to take the bridges down if our attack tomorrow doesn’t go well. We’re to set the black sand on the supports around this side, so that we can set them off at need. That’s all.”

Brie nodded. “Sounds like a good plan to me. I’ll get the sparkwheelers to help,” she said.

Another turn of the glass, and Sergei and Talbot, with the rest of the black sand, came to the Pontica a’Brezi Nippoli. Sergei gave the offizier in charge of the Garde Kralji there the same tale that he’d given Brie. As he’d done at the previous bridge, he supervised the placement of the black sand packets, making certain that they were linked together with black sand-infused oiled cotton ropes so that touching off the length of fuse would cause all the packets to explode at once.

Sergei held the fuse, hefting it in his hand; a lantern burned at his feet in the grass of the riverbank. “We’re done here,” he told Talbot. “Now-go tell everyone to stand back.”

Sergei could not see Talbot’s face as he stood farther up the embankment, the moon almost directly behind him. “Stand back? Sergei, have you gone insane? The Kraljica gave specific orders-”

Sergei leaned down. He tucked his cane under his arm, picked up the lantern and opened the glass front, holding the fuse cord in his other hand. “When a tooth goes bad, you don’t have a choice but to pluck it out,” he said to Talbot. “If you leave it in, it just causes you more pain and misery, and eventually rots all the rest.”

“You can’t do this,” Talbot protested. “The Kraljica said-”

“The Kraljica and I disagree. Be honest, Talbot: do you think we can take back the South Bank from the Westlanders tomorrow? The best defense for the Isle and the entire city is to take down the ponticas and leave the Westlanders stranded.”

“That’s not your decision to make,” Talbot told him.

Sergei grinned up at him, lifting the lantern. “At the moment, it appears that it is,” he answered. He touched the end of the fuse cord to the flame. It hissed and sparked, and fire began to crawl along its length. Sergei dropped the fuse and began to hurry up the riverbank as fast as he could, using his cane for leverage.

“Cenzi’s balls,” Talbot cursed; he stared for a breath as if considering hurrying down the bank after the fuse, then waved to the gardai at the bridge’s abutments. “Back!” he shouted to them. “Get away from the bridge! Take cover!” He half-slid down the embankment and grabbed Sergei’s arm, hauling him up. Together, they fled as the fuse cord hissed and sputtered and the blue glow of its fire slid toward the bridge.

The blast nearly lifted Sergei off his feet. The concussion slammed into him like a falling wall; he could feel the heat scorching his back, and the sound… He could hear timbers snapping as rocks and planking slammed into the ground around them, falling like a hard, dangerous rain. Sergei and Talbot cowered, covering their heads. When it had ended, his ears still ringing, Sergei turned. The bridge had collapsed, the span sloping into the waters of the A’Sele midway across. The stubs of piling and pillars rose from the water like broken teeth.

Sergei grinned. “They won’t be coming across there soon,” he said. “All these men stationed here can get some rest. Now, let’s finish the job…”

Talbot was shaking his head. “Sorry, Sergei, I can’t let you. You lied to me. You disobeyed the Kraljica’s direct orders.”

“I’m trying to save the damned city,” Sergei retorted.

“It’s not your damned city.”

Ah, but it is… He knew Talbot realized the worth of what he’d done. He knew Talbot actually agreed with him. “Talbot, you know I’m right.”

“What I know doesn’t matter,” Talbot told him. “I’m the Kraljica’s aide, not the Kraljiki. Damn you to the soul shredders, Sergei…” He shook his head, glaring at the ruins of the bridge. The Garde Brezno were sidling closer to the edge, staring at the wreckage. Shouts and lanterns were hurrying toward them. “Allesandra’s going to be furious.”

“She’ll be more furious when we take down the other pontica,” Sergei answered, “but she also won’t be able to undo that.” But Talbot wasn’t going to admit that Sergei was right. He knew it before Talbot responded, knew it from the way the aide’s thin face closed up.

“That’s not going to happen,” Talbot said. He looked at the people running toward them. “Sergei, you can still survive this: admit that you disobeyed her and set the black sand packets, but that you were doing it in case we had to retreat tomorrow and there was no other way to stop the Tehuantin from crossing over to the Isle and onto the North Bank. You can tell her that this was an accident; your lamp set off the fuse. She won’t believe you; she’ll be terribly angry at what you’ve done, but she won’t be able to prove anything. I’ll back you that far, Sergei. But no further. The other bridge stays up.”

“Talbot…”

“No,” Talbot said firmly, interrupting Sergei. “It’s either that, or I tell her exactly what happened here and that you intended this all along. She’ll have you executed as a traitor then, Sergei, and I wouldn’t blame her. Which is it to be? You decide.”

Talbot was right. Sergei knew that, knew Allesandra well enough to realize that even if she understood his reasoning, he’d gone beyond the bounds of what she could forgive if she knew the whole truth. Dead, he could do nothing for the city. Dead, he could do nothing more to atone for all he’d done over his life. Dead, he couldn’t take down the other bridge.

“All right,” he told Talbot. “I’ll take your offer.”

She’d followed Nico back into the maze of Oldtown, to another nondescript house in another nondescript narrow lane. There was nobody there, nobody came to Nico’s knock. The door had been locked, but that was no issue-not to Rochelle. She’d picked the lock and they’d gone in. Nico had nearly immediately told her that he needed to pray. She told him that both of them needed to eat-but there had been nothing in the house. She’d gone foraging, finding stale bread in an abandoned bakery, and moldy cheese elsewhere. She’d taken water from the nearest well. When she returned to the house, Nico was in the front room on his knees. He’d paid no attention when she tried to get him to eat, when she tried to force some water between his cracked and bruised lips, when she’d jostled and yelled at him to try to get his attention.

Her brother was lost, mumbling half-intelligible prayers to Cenzi and unresponsive. He ignored her, as if he no longer cared or even knew that she was there. She could get no reaction from him at all. He seemed to be in a trance.

Fine. She was used to madness. She’d dealt with it long enough with their matarh.

She slept a little on the floor next to him, but couldn’t sleep long. She found herself awake in the dark with Nico still praying next to her. By now, she thought, it must be only a few turns before close to First Call. “Nico? Nico-talk to me.”

There was no answer. He was in the same position he’d been in for turn upon turn. So, Nico had abandoned her, too-well, she was used to being alone, to making her own decisions. She couldn’t help Nico, couldn’t go wherever it was he was, but there were still things she could do, that she was supposed to do. She touched the hilt of the knife she’d stolen from her vatarh, stroking the bejeweled hilt.

Promise me you will do what I couldn’t do. Promise me…

“I will,” she told her matarh’s ghost. “I will.”

She went back to Nico, kneeling on the bare wooden floor. His legs must have long ago lost any feeling. His hands were clasped in the sign of Cenzi, his head bowed down toward them, his eyes closed. She could hear him mumbling. “Nico?” she said, touching his shoulder. “Nico, I need you to answer me.”

He did not. The mumbling continued, unabated. She hugged him once. “Then pray for me,” she told him. “Pray for both of us.”

There was no sign he’d heard. She stood, watching him, then finally left the room. She closed the door behind her, and went out into the streets of Oldtown. In the early morning, the streets were dark and deserted. Most of the inhabitants, those who could, had fled eastward out of the city. There were strange flashes in the sky to the west, accompanied by distant thunder, and southward, clouds of smoke were touched underneath with the glow of fires.

South. Rochelle went that way, sliding easily through the shadows cast by the moon.

She had no idea how long it was before she came to the Pontica Kralji, linking the North Bank to the Isle. There were no gardai on the bridge, no traffic at all. The moon was setting and the sky was beginning to lighten in the east, extinguishing the stars at the zenith. The waters of the A’Sele roiled around the pilings, dark and mysterious. The smell of burning wood mingled with the scent of mud and river water.

Something bright flared in the sky ahead of her, trailing sparks and painting the currents of the A’Sele with its bright reflections. The apparition brightened and swelled, descending rapidly. She saw it fall, felt the impact through the soles of her boots, saw the fire of the explosion. Someone shrieked distantly in pain and alarm and the smell of burning grew stronger, overlaid now with a sulfurous stench. Another fireball shrieked into the southern sky; this one exploded high above the Isle, sending black shadows racing.

A rider appeared from the Isle a’Kralji end of the pontica, galloping over the bridge toward her, his cloak billowing behind. Rochelle shrank back against the bridge supports; the rider hurtled past her without a glance, turning sharply left toward the River Market. She could see the leather pouch around his body: a fast-rider carrying a message.

That meant that the Kraljica was most likely on the Isle. Allesandra. Her great-matarh. Her matarh’s voice seemed to whisper in her ears: “Promise me…”

Another fireball played false sun, this one also slamming to earth somewhere on the Isle. She could hear the wind-horns of the Old Temple growling a low alarm.

Rochelle ran across the pontica, half-expecting someone to shout after her, or perhaps for an arrow to find her. Nothing happened. She was on the Avi a’Parete on the Isle. All about her were the Isle’s grand buildings, dominated here by the Kraljica’s Palais, directly ahead on the left. She slid to her left, following a street dominated by government buildings. Farther south, she could hear activity: horns calling, people shouting, She turned the corner, moving southward again; ahead, she could see people far down the street. She hurried to the wall surrounding the palais. A servants’ door was set there to one side. She knocked on it, waited, knocked again. No one answered. She crouched down and took out her lockpick kit. A few breaths later, she pushed the door open and slipped inside the grounds.

She found herself standing in the gardens of the palais. The scent of flowers was strong, and she could hear a fountain trickling water nearby. There was no one in the gardens at all, and few of the palais windows were lit.

Another fireball lifted its bright head over the far wall of the palais grounds. It seemed to be heading directly toward her and the palais, but at the last moment when it seemed to be about to strike the palais itself, it shattered into a thousand fragments, each hissing and glowing as they fell-a counter-spell must have found it. She wondered how many fires the sparks would set, and whether the fire-teni would come to put them out.

Rochelle ran to the nearest palais door. Locked: again, she took out the picks, manipulating them until she heard the snick of the mechanism opening. She opened the door just enough to slide inside.

She found herself in what must have been the servants’ corridor: a plain narrow hallway with cross-corridors opening off to either side and a large door at the end. If this was like Brezno Palais, as she expected it would be, then most of these doors would be unlocked. The servants needed to have access to all parts of the palais to serve their masters and mistresses, and to do so in the most unobtrusive manner possible. Doubtless, the palais was honeycombed with such passages.

But the back corridors of Brezno Palais had also been a bustle of activity. This one was silent, and Rochelle found that strange. She moved quickly to the main door, easing the door open a crack. She glimpsed one of the main public hallways of the palais; she could also hear voices. There were several people walking hurriedly away from another room just farther down. One of the men she recognized immediately: Sergei ca’Rudka, the silver nose gleaming on his wrinkled, pasty face, his cane tapping an erratic rhythm on the tiles. The woman alongside him was talking, in a hurried and angry voice. “. .. don’t care what you were thinking or what your reasons were. I’m furious with you, Sergei. Absolutely furious. And Talbot; why in Cenzi’s name didn’t you check with me? You knew I’d ordered the ponticas to stay up.”

“I must apologize profusely, Kraljica,” Sergei said, though Rochelle thought he sounded more pleased than apologetic. So that was the Kraljica. Great-matarh, I’m here for you… But not now. Not yet. There were too many people around her: Sergei, the one called Talbot, as well as a quartet of gardai.

“Your ‘accident’-if that’s what it really was-may have jeopardized our chance to assault the Tehuantin on the South Bank. Now there’s only one route over, so…”

Their voices drifted into unintelligibility as they walked down the corridor. Rochelle risked opening the door wider. There were two gardai stationed at the door from where the group had come. Rochelle ducked back into the servants’ corridor. She took the corridor that led off in the direction of the room with the gardai, counting her steps to judge when she’d walked the distance. There was another door a few strides farther down the corridor. She opened that door.

She found herself in the Hall of the Sun Throne. The crystalline mass of the Sun Throne itself dominated the hall on its dais. Fine. This would do: the Kraljica must come back here in time, and Rochelle could fulfill her promise.

She saw a flash of light through the high windows of the hall, and the palais itself shook as thunder grumbled. She could smell woodsmoke and the windows of the palais were alight with a dawn of flame.

Rochelle settled herself in to wait.

Niente dusted the water in the scrying bowl with the orange powder and chanted the spell to open his mind to Axat. The green mist began to rise, and he bent his head over the bowl.

They were encamped in the city itself, with warriors securing the streets and plundering the houses and buildings there-for food and supplies, had been Tototl’s orders, but Niente was certain that many of the warriors were also taking whatever treasures they could carry. Others had been set to building a catapult, and Niente had tasked the nahualli with enchanting the bags of black sand that the catapult would hurl onto the island so that they would explode upon impact. The chanting of the nahualli and the hammering of the warrior engineers filled the wide boulevard outside the fortress prison at the river’s edge. From the gates of the edifice, the skull of a horrible, many-toothed creature leered down at Niente-almost as if it could be the head of the winged serpent that flew on the Tecuhtli’s banner. That, Niente thought, was nearly an irony. Axat’s Eye had risen, and it seemed to watch Niente as he performed the ritual, watched him as intently as did Tototl.

The visions came quickly, rushing toward him almost too fast for him to see, the paths of the future twisting and intertwining. Niente could still see victory along the clearest, closest path, but now it was a victory won at terrible cost. There were changes wrought on the landscape, powers rising that hadn’t been glimpsed before, or that had been hinted at only in wisps of possibilities: the king of black-and-silver; the old woman who smelled of black sand; the young man with the wild, strange power. That last one… He was the most difficult of all for Niente to see, wrapped in mist and mystery. Around him, all the possible paths of the future seemed to be coiled. Niente wanted to stay with this one, but the mists kept pushing him away no matter how hard he tried.

In the mist, Niente could also feel Atl, so close that he almost thought that his son was standing beside him, peering into his bowl at the same time. Here. He tried to cast his thoughts toward Atl. See what I see. Let me find the Long Path, and hope you see it also…

But there was no response. He couldn’t show Atl what he had seen, nor could he see what Atl saw. In the mist, they stayed separate.

“Will they take down the other bridge?” Tototl asked. “If they do that…”

“If they do that, then we can’t get across to help Tecuhtli Citlali. I know. Now let me look…”

He’d already seen that: in the primary path, the Easterners inexplicably never destroyed either bridge. He didn’t understand that. With the bridges up, Tototl would win through to the Isle, though at terrible cost. The strange black sand weapons that the Easterners wielded would take down far too many warriors before they could, inevitably, overwhelm them. They would reach Citlali and still crush the Easterners between them, but this was no longer the overwhelming victory that Niente had seen in Tlaxcala. Everything had changed.

Which meant the Long Path had changed as well. If the Long Path were still there at all.

Niente bent his head into the mist again, searching. Please, Axat. Show me…

And She did.