The Nested Worlds

Chapter 25: Breaking the Noose



Interlude: Contact with the Enemy

Peniel, the Heighlands, Enerlend 09.06.03.13.07

The first actual combat of Jung-Shu's career began with the sound of a sharp crack as a bullet missed him by what sounded like inches, followed by a wet thud and a scream as another bullet hit the man next to him. Sho-Jei flopped out of his saddle, and Jung-Shu knew his comrade was, if not already dead, then there was nothing that could be done for him.

Nono squealed in terror and bucked wildly, but Jung-Shu had ridden her since she was a yearling: he had no difficulty staying in the saddle even as she wheeled and shied. His mind was already thinking in a way faster than thought, clicking back into drills and training they had performed so many times before, and he knew this drill—an ambush by archers—very well indeed.

By luck or overconfidence on the enemy's part, they'd sprung their trap too early. Jung-Shu and his men weren't properly encircled. Men were spilling out from the woods on either side of the road to try and cut off their retreat, but it was too late and improperly timed. He pulled Nono around, spurred her, and the frantic horse did as she always did once she was past the first surge of fright: she trusted him.

His surviving men followed suit. They were outrider scouts, their role was not to stand and fight; their response in the face of attack was a speedy retreat, to report where they had encountered the enemy and in what force.

Even so, they had to cut their way out of this one. There was a young man in Jung-Shu's way, his hands shaking and fumbling as he tried to remember what to do with his rifle in the face of a tonne of horse and armored warrior barreling down on him.

Jung-Shu's sword flicked out. A slight jolt through his wrist and arm, and the inexperienced soldier fell dead. His first kill.

He cut twice more, felled two more, and then he and his riders were free and bent low over their steeds as they pounded away back the way they had come. Jung-Shu took stock as they galloped, and saw that in total he'd lost four men, and that two more were wounded but still in the saddle. One of the horses was tossing his head and fretting over a wound, too.

A few desultory shots chased after them, but none hit their mark. Then they were around a bend in the road and out of line of sight, and they slowed their pace to a canter.

Sergeant Bei-Ji came up beside him. "I think we just used up all our luck…" he commented in a voice long since made harsh and coarse by years of shouting.

"I know. Those were inexperienced men." Jung-Shu stretched in the saddle to look back and shook his head. A better prepared unit would have held its fire a few seconds longer, and likely slaughtered them all.

"We have escaped to report their position, and we punished them three times for every man we lost," Bei-Ji said. "We could not ask for a better outcome."

"We'll celebrate the dead later. For now…is that horse fit to run?"

The wounded animal's rider had pulled his glove off and was holding it between his teeth as he pressed his palm to the horse's wound and worked healing magic. He contrived to gesture with his face and off hand that his steed would be fine. On the other side of the formation, the two wounded men were receiving similar aid from their comrades.

"You should let me tend you, captain." Bei-Ji added.

"I'm wounded?" Jung-Shu honestly didn't feel a thing. Bei-Ji gestured with a glance, and when Jung-Shu glanced down—

…Two of his fingers were gone. He stared at the ugly landscape where his left little and ring fingers had been and wondered in a dazed way when and how they had come off. He had no memory of it happening, not even a guess.

Bei-Ji gripped his hand tight and cast, and then the pain came, as if it had been waiting for him to notice and understand his wound. He grunted, grit his teeth and growled until it faded under the sergeant's practiced spellwork. When Bei-Ji released his grip, the stubs of his knuckles were still smeared with blood, but…

"…Thank you, sergeant."

"Like I said. I think we used up all our luck."

"We shall just have to rely on our superior skill and training next time," Jung-Shu replied, starting to feel a sort of shaky elation coming on as it struck him just how narrow a margin he'd lived by. He was alive, and men who'd tried to kill him were dead! The throb in his hand and the knowledge that he'd bear the mark for the rest of his life just made it more real, somehow.

The sergeant grinned at him. "As the noble captain says," he agreed, with humorous formality.

They rode on for a minute or two more before Jung-Shu's thoughts fell back into proper order. That had been no scouting party they'd run into, that had been a real hostile force, for all their inexperience. The enemy were closing around them, now, and the cordon grew tighter every day. Everyone knew it.

The question was, what would they do next? Would they march in and fight directly? Or would they encircle the city, cut off its supplies, and starve out the defenders?

Probably the latter, he reflected, and his mood dispersed into gloom and serious forethought. No intelligent general would fail to lay siege, unless there as some pressing urgent reason not to…and if such a reason existed, Jung-Shu was unaware of it.

The idea of being besieged did not sit well with him. Short rations, tight confines, perhaps disease, and no open field for running over in Nono's saddle? No, he disliked that thought immensely. But what would come would come, as his Lord General ordered and the progress of the war demanded.

He just hoped there was something he didn't know that would change their future…

Notice of rationing.

In response to the anticipated siege of the city by Oneist forces, food rationing is now in effect. Ration cards and information pamphlets will be distributed at city hall. Each card will grant access to a weekly supply of essential provisions.

Rationing ensures everyone gets their fair share

Attempts to bypass the rationing system or hoard food will be met with harsh penalties.

Tighten your belts and hold your nerve: the siege will not last long —notices distributed in Auldenheigh circa 09.06.03.13

The War Room

Ducal Palace, Auldenheigh 09.06.03.13.07

There had been a change in roles, now that the command center was no longer in Pickler's Lane. There, and in the other safehouses, Skinner had been one of many spiders among a tangled colony, each of their webs drunkly interwoven with each other's, each aware of the others by the thrummings and pluckings of certain strands…but never actually meeting.

That was how resistance movements had to work, of course. Compartmentalization, and the assumption—the *fact—*that every cell would be uncovered eventually. Do it right though, and no one loss tore down the whole network, and each cell could scatter, regroup and form new cells.

But now the rightful duchess was in residence at the palace. Now, the Blackdrakes were official again, as the proper intelligence-gathering organ of Ellaenie's state and government. It was a retun to the old days. Maybe they'd even smuggle Lord Drevin into the city, but…no. The old man deserved his retirement.

Besides. Adrey was filling his shoes beautifully.

She had claimed one of the ballrooms for her office. The end quarter furthest from the door had been marked off with some relocated bookshelves as being her office specifically, but the rest of the ballroom was not empty, oh no. Former resistance cell leaders had met for the first time, and now their people were ensconced at rows and rows of mismatched tables, each parsing and sorting information from their various sources, filtering out duplicates, compiling the pertinent, trimming away the irrelevant and redundant, and assembling them into brief reports, which then went up the row to Countess Mossjoy's desk, where she would skim-read it, and move little models on a map, pin new notes to the board, or dictate a terse message to Sadie.

And Skinner had been so proud of his own pins and string. Comparing that to what Adrey was doing was like comparing a sketch to an oil landscape.

'Course…she had a Word of Creation, didn't she?

She looked up at him and gave him a thin, tense but genuine smile as he approached. She had the look Skinner knew all too well from the mirror that said sleep was an infrequent and too-brief companion right now.

"Back from the training fields, eh? How are they doing out there?"

Skinner flopped down in a chair. "You've read my pigeon reports."

"Well, yes, but I'd like to hear a fuller assessment."

Skinner shrugged, and helped himself to a cup of coffee from the pot on her desk's corner. "Language barrier or no, them Yunei buggers're some damn fine soldiers. I've only gotta show 'em owt once. Then they do it until they get it right. There's not a man among 'em can't already 'andle 'is rifle an' reload it wi' the best of 'em."

She nodded. "And…actually shooting them?"

"Aye, well. If we 'ad more ammo to spare for target practice…"

"We don't."

"'Xactly. You can't train a man 'ow to shoot properly on jus' ten bullets. But…" Skinner shrugged. "Th' 'ard work's done. They're soldiers, through-an'-through. If I 'ad to choose between good, solid men who can't shoot straight, or th' best marksmen in th'worlds wi' no discipline…"

Adrey nodded. "Good."

"'Sides. They've still got their bows an' arrers," Skinner added. "An' they're bloody good wi' those."

"Yes. I briefly considered asking the city's workshops to start producing arrows for them, but…" Adrey shook her head. "We can't produce as many, and we can't produce them as quickly, and in any case the rest of our troops need rifle ammunition. Overall, we'll do better with the Yunei using rifles and falling back on their bows."

"'Ow long d'we 'ave before we start shootin' at the enemy?" Skinner asked.

"Days, now. Captain Jung-Shu's scout riders were ambushed on the river road out near Peniel."

"Lived to tell about it, though?"

She nodded. "They broke out with only four losses and some wounds."

Skinner rasped his fingers thoughtfully through his stubble. "Sloppy ambush, then."

"The captain thinks they were quite green. Which fits the general pattern." Adrey swept a hand across her map, indicating some of the red pieces. "I don't think Civorage actually has much in the way of seasoned, well-trained troops at his disposal."

"'Ow come?"

Adrey poured herself a coffee. "It's a combination of factors. Garanhir has been largely peaceful ever since the last king, of course. In fact, there's only been one major conflict in living memory."

"My education weren't that big on 'istory lessons, Countess," Skinner reminded her.

"The Oderan Pretender? It was about, oh, forty years ago, before the late Duke Einharth even was Duke."

"Not exactly recent history, then," Skinner noted.

"Exactly. Everyone who fought in that conflict is an old man, now, if he's still alive at all. And the first thing Civorage did when he Encircled all the dukes was, he quietly got rid of all their loyal senior officers."

"Riiight. So no veterans anywhere in th' whole army."

"In any army. The fact is, Garanhir has been so peaceful for so long that the traditions of warfare got rather forgotten. And given that Civorage thought he had the whole earthmote neatly sewn up and he could focus his efforts elsewhere…"

Skinner nodded. "…All 'e 'as are raw recruits."

"More or less." Adrey smiled tightly. "So in that regard, we are much better off than him. Our Yunei troops are either veterans themselves, or trained by veterans. The problem is, he has sheer numbers, he has some small units of Encircled…and of course, he has the Hag Elves."

"I thought you killed most of 'em?" Skinner suppressed a shudder. He'd seen what she did to the ones on the bridge. The word 'killed' fell short.

Her grimace said she didn't relish the memory either. "Only a handful. There's a whole Set of them. They're…probably the most deadly tool at his disposal right now. Honestly, I'm a little surprised he hasn't tried to use them to assassinate General Liung. It would be his best move…At least, so far as I know."

"So what is 'e doin'?"

"Bottling us up, starving us, and I suspect bringing in more seasoned troops from his campaigns elsewhere. My guess is Alakbir: the mountain tribes on that mote have been defying him ever since he took over Long Drop City."

"And what're we doin'?"

Adrey knocked nervously on the desk for a moment, then drained her coffee and stood. "The Duchess' ambition is to liberate all of Garanhir. To do that, she needs to liberate the dukes."

"That potion of 'ers," Skinner guessed.

"Exactly."

"Good in theory…'m'not clear on 'ow exactly she means to pull it off, though."

"Yes. We're…still figuring out how best to execute the plan." Adrey gently adjusted the position of one piece on the map. "In theory, we can move a small team of chosen men around via the Paths Between. It's not clear whether Civorage knows those exist, although he must have figured out we have some means of miraculously bringing a Yunei army to Enerlend without airships. Hopefully, that one's got him scratching his head."

Another small adjustment. "With the Encirlcled dukes having sent their armies here, the protection around them should be reduced. But here's the problem: using the Paths requires either a powerful witch, or the direct aid of a Herald. And persuading a duke to call his men off and join the cause…well, that requires somebody with the authority to speak on Ellaenie's behalf."

Skinner saw where she was driving. "Or, it requires 'er Grace 'erself."

"She is the only powerful witch we have…" Adrey said.

"But if she's captured—"

"Yes." The piece on Adrey's map representing Ellaenie was the Thaighn from a chess set. She reached out and tipped it over. "Mate."

"Don't s'pose we 'ave a Herald tucked away around 'ere somewhere, do we?" Skinner asked as she righted it again.

"In theory, both Dragon and Rheannach are on our side and have already helped us," Adrey said. "In practice…"

She stood up straighter at the same moment as the room went quiet aside from a scraping of chairs and shuffling of feet as everyone stood. The Duchess had just walked in.

Ellaenie waved the staff to sit down again, and strode up the room with a determined set to her face. Skinner had never yet met a woman who routinely wore trousers, and certainly not the tight cavalry jodhpurs the Duchess had donned today. Even in training, Adrey had favored baggy things that could conceal her training knives. But Her Grace seemed not to think there was anything immodest about form-hugging clothes.

Or maybe it was just that practicality trumped all other concerns right now. She was busy riding around the city boosting morale and pitching in wherever she could, lately. A bounty of big skirts would only have slowed her down, as would riding side-saddle, so…she rode like a cavalry officer. More than a few of the men across the room were clumsily trying to pretend they weren't admiring her figure. One got cuffed upside the head for openly ogling.

If Ellaenie noticed, she ignored it. She put her riding crop down and started tugging her gloves off. "Mister Skinner. It's good to see you again."

"And you, y'Grace," Skinner tugged his forelock. "Th' Countess were jus' fillin' me in on the plan."

"Such as it is," Ellaenie grumbled. "We need me to do it, but it would be insane for me to leave the city. And I don't have anything like the time it would take me to find a Maiden, initiate her, and teach her everything she needs to walk the Paths Between."

"I imagine that takes…years?" Skinner guessed.

"You imagine correctly…thank you, Sadie." Ellaenie smiled as the girl handed her a drink. "And one doesn't just pick a random girl and say 'You're my Maiden now.' It's a relationship."

"Thaighn Saoirse seemed to take you under her wing pretty much instantly, as I recall," Adrey pointed out.

"Some relationships are born quickly." Ellaenie shrugged. "But I don't have anyone like that, yet. Except my daughter, of course. But she's not even six years old, and…covens aren't usually so literal as to keep it in the family."

Skinnner sucked thoughtfully on his teeth. "Y'Grace…'owever good an' idea freein' th' dukes might be, if we lose you this is all over."

"And how will this go if I don't do it?" Ellaenie asked.

They both looked to Adrey, who frowned down at the map in concentration for a second. "…Your Word grants us the biggest tactical advantage we have. Wherever you go, not only will your militia be inspired by your presence, but you can shield and protect them. You're the single most potent force multiplier we have in this city, if it comes to open battle. Superior numbers of unseasoned troops might win the day against just our forces, but with you in the picture, it'll be an unwinnable meatgrinder for them."

She gestured vaguely toward the gardens, where the lawns were still littered with flat, trodden-in bullets. "But…Civorage will know about your power now, after you retook the palace. That's another reason for his slow starvation approach. He wants to weaken our forces by deprivation until your presence won't be enough. But if you leave the city and he notices, he might roll the dice and come storming in."

"So, you're saying I have to stay here as a deterrent?" the Duchess summarized.

"That's the scenario which holds off his assault for longest, I think," Adrey said. "But the status quo is that he will starve us out, and quite quickly. We have millions of mouths to feed, after all, and he's already choked off our supply lines. I'd say we have…sixty or seventy days before we run out of food, if we implement strict rationing right now. If there's an ally coming to our rescue inside that window, I don't know about them."

"That settles that, then," Skinner said.

Ellaenie nodded slowly. "Yes. I either take a gamble on victory that might result in a swift defeat, or I take the guarantee of a long, slow defeat."

"Fortunately, we have a fallback in the form of Jerl Holten," Adrey pointed out.

Skinner frowned. "Who?"

"He's an airship captain. A freelance trader. Also, happily, a Wordspeaker like myself and Ellaenie."

"His word is Time," Ellaenie explained. "He has the power to, as he puts it, 'reel it in,' to go back to a previous moment in his life and try again with foreknowledge of what will happen. If things go catastrophically wrong, he can set them right."

Skinner's frown deepened. "I don't think I much like th' sound o' that…" he mused.

"It means we're guaranteed to win in the end."

"All due respect, y'Grace, it mean's 'e's guaranteed to win. Glad 'e's on our side an' that, but, uh…"

"I take your point. But you haven't met him, Skinner. He's one of the good ones."

Skinner had no reply to that, so he fell back on the old 'Serjant's Standby' that Bothroyd was so fond of. "Yes ma'am. So…you'll be wantin' a crew o' Particulars, aye?"

Ellaenie nodded. "The best you can find."

"I'll 'ave 'em for you by end o' day, y'Grace."

"Thank you, Skinner." Gave him a smile that revealed, just for a second, exactly how much stress she was under, but Skinner knew when it was time for him to take his leave. He tugged his forelock again, turned, and strode out of the room thinking about who he was going to call on for this.

A name occurred to him, and he grinned to himself. Yeah. If anyone could give the Duchess her best odds of success…

He'd just have to hope the bastard was sober.

"Ah, Mister Calderon," I said, feigning to keep my voice as smooth as silk, "You misunderstand. I was simply entertaining your lovely wife with my recollections of the flower festival in Louisette!" Bad timing, very bad timing. Behind the indignant young blowhard's shoulder, I saw the signal mirror flashing in the window across the street. The exchange was about to happen, and I was being accosted by a jealous husband! The fact his suspicions were (for once) entirely unwarranted and I had absolutely no ungentlemanly interest in the admittedly very comely Mrs. Thalia Calderon, only made them more inconvenient. I had to leave, immediately and discreetly, or the only lead we had would slip through our fingers and we'd never get to the bottom of Colonel Joraire's murder. But before I could think of a suitable exit, the sound of Mister Calderon's glove striking me in the face turned every eye in the room toward us. —Excerpt from A Duel in Dumontel by Wullem de Tredleck

Enjoying a drink

The Keystone Club, Auldenheigh 09.06.03.13.07

It was entirely characteristic of the gentlemen who spent their evenings at the Keystone Club on Flamhammer Lane that the mere fact a quarter of the building's roof had been scalped off by a cannonade had not damaged business. If anything, the Keystone was busier than usual, with old and new members alike dropping in to enjoy what had instantly been dubbed "the new veranda."

For several days, the conversation had revolved around how the repairs might best be designed to make a feature of the missing corner. There was the small contingent of stuffy old boys who insisted it ought to be put back as it was, but most members were divided between turning it into a real open-air terrace, or roofing it with glass.

In the meantime, it provided Wullem de Tredleck, the thirteenth and last Lord de Tredleck, with an excellent place to sit and smoke on a clear day. Generations of club members had drunk and smoke and pontificated indoors with no real inkling of just how splendid a vew the club had of the Elven Barbican and the river.

He as staying out of the roof conversation, on the whole. He'd stuck his oar in on day one to suggest a hybrid solution of glass-roofing the upper floors and leaving an open terrace around the club's lower floor (or vice versa) but it had instantly become clear the other chaps just weren't interested in such a reasonable compromise solution. One side wanted to win and for the other to lose, and that was the end of it.

That too was entirely characteristic of Keystone gentlemen.

Still, the debate was diverting, and formed a not unpleasant background noise against which to enjoy an afternoon cigar. He was just contemplating whether or not to buy a hideously expensive snifter of brandy (prices had shot up given the siege) when one of the club's men, Evins, slipped up to him in respectful silence.

"Sir, there is a rather frightful man asking after you at the street door," he said.

Wullem looked up and arched an eyebrow. "Frightful?"

"Yes sir. Well dressed enough, I suppose, and he knows his manners at least, but he has far too few teeth and far too many tattoos, sir."

Wullem hummed thoughtfully. "…What did he have inked on his knuckles, Evins?"

"I did not deign to read it, sir. He gave his name as 'Skinner,' sir."

Wullem burst out laughing and rose from his chair. "For Crowns' sakes, I can't have him come up!" he said. "The chaps'll keel over dead!"

"Indeed, sir."

"I'll go down to him." He pressed a brass into Evins' hand. "Thank you, Evins."

"Enjoy your afternoon, sir."

If the stuffy fool only knew what kind of circles Skinner moved in and served, Wullem thought as he trotted down the spiral stair to street level. An eager sort of tingle was washing over his arms and shoulders, a feeling he always got when excitement was afoot. He collected his hat and coat from the cloakroom attendant, and checked them in the mirror as he put them on.

There had been a vogue in the keystone club for wearing leather vests, the last couple of years. Most had been exquisite examples of craftsmanship, oiled and dyed, rubbed and worked, and impressed with elaborate patterns of stamping or (ideally) fully hand-imprinted designs. Wullem had taken some pleasure in puncturing the whole silly affair by turning up in one crafted from the skin of an albino crocodile he'd shot on safari, along with a matching ascot cap donated by the same animal. The vests had quietly vanished from fashion soon thereafter, but Wullem continued to wear his. It was a trophy of two beasts.

Satisfied with his appearance, he strolled insouciantly out the door with his thumbs in his vest pockets. "Skinner! So the high and mighty deign to come down and shake hands with us plebs, eh?"

Skinner's sllightly-too-few teeth gleamed yellowly in the afternoon sunlight as he grinned. "Sober, are ye, y'Lordship?"

"At the prices the club's charging right now? I'd need a mountain of silver just to get tiddly. Rationing, you know."

They fell into step and started strolling along down Flamhammer lane.

"That'd be why I'm 'ere."

"Oh yes? Why, do the enemy have some secret stash of brandy you want me to liberate?"

"More like th' 'ole city." Skinner shot him a knowing look. "An' if I know you, you're itchin' 'fer an adventure right now."

"It has been getting dull sitting around and waiting for the shoe to drop, yes," Wullem conceded. "Things were quite interesting for a day or two there, and then…an awful lot of waiting and ever-tighter belts. You're damn right I'm itching to do something."

"Thought so." Skinner grinned again. "C'mon. Carriage is waitin'."

"Oh? Do I get to meet the Duchess?"

"That you do." Skinner prodded him in the chest. "Be'ave yourself. She's married."

Wullem chuckled. "What do you take me for?"

"A charmin' 'andsome bastard who's proud to've broken 'earts on ev'ry earthmote under th' sun," replied, drily.

Wullem flapped a dismissive hand. "Please, that's just the character in the novels. The real me is far more tactful! I've never knowingly cuckolded a chap in my life," he said, before mentally acknowleding that he hadn't let the suspicion stop him in the absence of, say, a currently-worn ring…

"Good."

"News to me that she's taken, though…hard to think who it could be."

Skinner just grinned enigmatically and held the carriage door for him to step up. Wullem settled into the upholstered bench seat with his usual casual sprawl, but his mind was calculating very seriously.

He'd been puzzling over the Duchess ever since her return. There were several things about it that didn't add up at all to his thinking, not least of which was how she'd persuaded the Yunei Empire of all places to loan her some troops…and for that matter, how in the Red Lady's name she'd managed to get them to Auldenheigh.

Marriage, though. Well, marriage was the political tool. But…marrying a Yunei noble?

…No. The Empire was notoriously far too insular and xenophobic to even speak with foreigners, never mind intermarry with them. Arranging such a marriage would probably require even more political clout than arranging for the loan of soldiers. But who did have political clout in the Empire?

The names he could think of comprised a very short list. And only one of the names on it was known for marrying rare and exceptional individuals.

He became aware that Skinner's nonchalant watching-out-the-window routine had a certain air of interested expectation. Was he certain? Was he about to make a fool of himself?

Fuck it. He'd made a fool of himself far too often in his career for it to hold any terror. "So our Duchess is a crownspouse," he said.

Skinner's grin blossomed like cordial dropped in a glass of tonic water. "Well done, that man."

"Well, you aren't bringing me along on this escapade just for my witty persiflage and handsome countenance, are you?"

"Nope. I'm bringin' you 'cuz I know that fancy automatic pistol wi' the pearl grip in't just for show." Skinner gestured vaguely to the weapon holstered under Wullem's arm. "Under th' fancy clothes an' nobby accent, you're an even blacker bastard'n me."

Wullem grinned. "Oh good," he said. "It's that sort of caper, is it?"

Skinner just grinned.

"The gangs pride themselves on operating by a code of honour. They dress well, speak softly and respectfully, and call themselves "businessmen," and in fairness they do prefer negotiation before violence. Don't be fooled though: when the negotiations break down, the shit they'll do to each other would make an elf blanch. It takes a hard and intelligent man to thrive in that life…" —Inspector Erwin Black, overheard at the Fishhook Inn.

Inspecting the troops

Ducal Palace, Auldenheigh 09.06.03.13.08

Elllaenie surveyed her Particulars with a degree of deja vu. Three of them were men she recognized from Lisze's rescue, and she graced them with smiles of familiar welcome. Two more were young lads with bright, lively eyes: soldiers, she guessed, of the especially troublesome but useful sort whose disciplinary records were a finely judged inch on the right side of getting them dishonorably discharged or worse.

And then there was Wullem de Tredleck. She knew him by reputation, by society connections, and of course by his books, but this was her first time meeting him in person, and…

He smiled and toasted her with a stolen glass of her own brandy, and that, Ellaenie judged, was going to prove very typical of his character. Every man had his caged demon, though in the case of the Particulars their cages weren't terribly thick-barred and the demons were used to being let out on a leash when it was useful.

Wullem's demon smirked at her from behind the figurative equivalent of a bead curtain. And it was a disturbingly sexy smirk, at that. Behind his neatly groomed beard and well-calculated smouldering gaze was a cad and a killer.

His attention was not on her, however, beyond the necessary minimum demanded by courtesy and station. His real attention was on Adrey.

Well, Adrey was smart and dangerous enough to handle him. And the fact was, he really did seem to be exactly the sort of man they needed.

"Thank you all for coming," she said aloud, having completed her survey of the men. "Here's a hard fact, gentlemen: right now, we're going to lose the war for this city. The enemy outnumber us enough to control the land all about Auldenheigh and starve us into submission. If we sit here waiting for them to come to us, we'll die."

A few small nods said they'd all figured as much for themselves.

"So we're not going to sit put. We're going to begin by opening a wedge in the ring around us and scaring Civorage into withdrawing some of his troops. And the way we're going to do that is by robbing him of some of his forces."

"How're we going to do that, your Grace?" one of the bright-eyed lads asked, tilting his head slightly to one side curiously.

"This fact is widely suspected by the general public but has never been officially confirmed: Nils Civorage has the power to dominate minds and wills. That's what the Circles are, and we call those under his direct influnce the Encircled. He's used this power on a strategic level to dominate my peers the Dukes, as well as several other prominent nobility and wealthy businessmen. With them under his control, he can have them exercise their legitimate powers to muster men to his cause, and through them he Encircles officers and select non-commissioned officers to ensure discipline and compliance."

She paused to let them consider her words. "Fortunately, I have an antidote. Unfortunately, it comes in the form of a medicine that must be forced down the victim's throat."

"Is it true you're a witch, your Grace?" de Tredleck asked.

Ellaenie gave him a steady look. "It is. My coven's beldame was the late Thaighn Saoirse Crow-Sight. My coven mother is Lady Rheannach, and I was inducted into the deepest mysteries of the Craft by King Eärrach himself."

De Tredleck's eyebrows flickered up and down, he pursed his lips, then nodded, drained the brandy, set it aside and straightened his posture.

"Apologies for the interruption, ma'am."

Ellaenie gave him a don't-do-that-again look, then turned to the others. "…As Lord de Tredleck just guessed, my 'medicine' is a witch's brew. We are fighting deep and ancient magic here, so we are using deep and ancient magic of our own to counter it. I trust everyone is comfortable with this?"

There were nods, not that she'd expected less. The three fellows from Lisze's rescue had seen her power before of course, and the two younger lads seemed keen for an adventure.

"Good. Adrey?"

Adrey nodded and took over the briefing. She beckoned the men to follow them over to a table where a map of Enerlend was laid out.

"There are basically three kinds of people working for Civorage," she said. "There are the Encircled, who have fallen under his direct power. There are free collaborators," only Ellaenie noticed her very brief pause as terrible memory stung her, "and there are the unwitting majority of ordinary soldiers and officials who are simply following orders, unaware that their leaders are Encircled puppets. Our objective is to free a few of the strategically vital Encircled, who can then call off and redirect the unwitting soldiers."

"Unfortunately," she continued, "we can't rely on guesswork in doing this. It's likely that the Encircled dukes are all at their respective palaces in the provincial capitols, but it's not guaranteed. Fortunately, the extended spy network has identified one good target: Eckard, the Earl of Lendwick. He's known to be at home at the Banmor Manor in Lendwick as we speak, and more to the point he is the commander of one of the battalions blockading our lines of communication and supply to trailwards."

She looked around at the attentive faces. "In other words, gentlemen, if we free him from Encirclement, we get to keep eating."

De Tredleck raised a hand slightly, from pocket-height to belt-height.

"Yes?" Adrey asked him.

"As I recall, the Earl is the Duchess' second cousin…" Wullem said, slowly. "What do we do if he can't be liberated, Your Grace?"

Ellaenie bit down a swell of anger. It was a good question, and he was right to ask it, but damn him for asking it anyway.

"…I love Uncle Eckard dearly," she said carefully. "I will fight tooth and nail to save him and Aunty Bren, and my cousins. But I cannot put personal love ahead of the fate of Enerlend and all free folk. If they cannot be released from Civorage's grip, we will do whatever is necessary to save the city."

"That being said," Adrey put in while the men nodded grimly, "killing them would be counterproductive. We need them alive, free, and in a position to countermand the orders they gave while Encircled. Their deaths would make their troops a more solid asset for Civorage, not less."

De Tredleck stroked his beard thoughtfully. "Understood."

Adrey nodded at him. "Now…save any further questions until I ask for them."

"Yes ma'am."

Ellaenie blinked. The Sight was second nature to her nowadays, just a facet of who she was and how she saw the world. But for a moment, she doubted it. She couldn't really have seen the brief, hot spark that passed between Adrey and De Tredleck, could she?

If she had, it was gone quicker than a blink. Adrey launched into her briefing, detailing how they were to arrive in Lendwick through Ellaenie's magic and the Paths Between, how they would breach the walls, sneak in, and take the Earl and Lady Lendwick unaware in their beds.

She'd thought of everything. Who would be where, what they would carry, what they would do and be responsible for. It was a tight, controlled plan and the Particulars were quickly nodding along, completely convinced and pleased by it.

Mostly. One of the younger lads, Derrow, looked skeptical, and when the time for questions finally came around, he gave Adrey an uncertain look. "I understand the Duchess herself has powers that mean she's comin' with," he said. "But…you've said you're coming too, Countess, and—"

He stopped. There was a blade in Adrey's hand, one of her 'hatpins' held with nonchalant ease as though its presence as as natural as breathing. Ellaenie hadn't even seen her draw it.

"Your concern is appreciated," Adrey told him, quietly. She even seemed to mean it.

"…No further questions, ma'am."

The hatpin vanished. "Actually it was a fair question, as I haven't mentioned my abilities yet. But I do have magic of my own. I trust a demonstration will not be in order?"

The men glanced at each other.

"…No ma'am," de Tredleck said, quietly. He was smiling faintly.

"Good. You have two hours to procure the things I've suggested, and whatever else you think you might want. Just don't clank as you walk. Dismissed."

Ellaenie gave her friend a curious look as the Particulars filed out of the room. "You made an impression," she observed, once they were gone.

Adrey busied herself tidying up with a shrug. "I've been dealing with rough men for the last eight years, Ellie. It's a skill I had to learn."

"Why not tell them what you can do?"

Adrey shrugged again. "If every man of you tried to kill me right now, I would walk out of the room covered in your blood,' That sort of thing? How do you think they'd interpret it?"

"Ah. Yes. Bravado."

"Exactly." Adrey finished locking her maps and notes away. "They'll find out soon enough anyway."

Ellaenie nodded slowly. "Be honest with me, Addie. How good are our chances of pulling this off, really?"

Adrey shrugged. "Better than zero is the best I can do, for now. I'll be able to give you a better guess when we're in Lendwick. But I can say, if we can't pull this off with those six and our powers, we can't do it at all."

Ellaenie nodded. She'd been afraid the answer would be something like that. She turned and looked into the corner of the room, where a shadow that had gone unnoticed or ignored by everyone until now unfurled her wings. "Are you sure you can't come?"

Rheannach shook her head regretfully. "I can. But do you really want me to when Nimico is sniffing around?"

"You think she'll try something while we're away?"

"I think she might do anything, anywhere at any time," Rheannach replied. "She's the very definition of unpredictable. One second she hands Adrey a Word, the next…who knows? So long as it gives her even a moment's diversion, she's capable of anything. And given that she even had a Word to give…"

"She was made mortal though. There are limits to her power…right?"

Rheannach shrugged. "The Crowns were mortal once. The only thing standing between a mortal and that degree of power is time and knowledge. The Words were locked off from the Forsaken, but…"

Adrey and Ellaenie nodded their understanding. "But there are other sources of power," Ellaenie finished.

"Exactly. I don't know what Nimico's limits are, yet. Iaka seems to have to act through proxies, but Nimico…I very much doubt we've seen the first of her tricks yet. So it's best if I stay here, in case she decides Auldenheigh is still an amusing place to relieve her boredom."

She smiled at them both. "You don't need me, in any case."

"I hope you're right," Ellaenie said.

"Maidens have to step out from under their mother's wing eventually, love. Now is the time."

Silence, filled by nods. Eventually, Adrey broke it.

"We should go get ready," she said.

Ellaenie took a deep breath. "Right. Yes."

She traded hugs with Rheannach again, followed Adrey out the room, and focused on the task ahead of them.

They were off to rescue her aunt and uncle.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

"Enerlish wine? Oh, certainly, if one enjoys the taste of damp cellars and regret. My good sir, the only merit of Enerlish wine is that it makes Enerlish vinegar, and there is no finer substance for cleaning windows. No, no, take the glass away. I will have the Cote de L'Opale, thank you." —Laurent di Castagne, overheard in the Staghorn Club, Auldenheigh.

Breaking open a wine barrel

De Tredleck family home, Elven City, Auldenheigh 09.06.03.13.08

Once upon a time, the Tredleck estate had sprawled over beautiful uplands in the near side of the Valai Mountains, and encompassed dozens of farms and several hamlets. The de Tredlecks had been fabulously wealthy in no small part due to the excellent deer hunting in the Redrock and Clearwater valleys, where they had maintained a string of holiday lodges for wealthy vacationers.

But the capitol's exploding population had demanded more drinking water than the river Heigh could provide without further development. Five great dams now caged the Redrock and Clearwater rivers, and deep beneath the reservoirs' waves lay the village of Tredleck and the family manor, as well as the ancient "road of the dead" from which both took their name.

The duke, Ellaenie's great-grandfather, had of course been kind enough to compensate the de Tredlecks for the loss of their estates, and the family had moved into a grand townhouse in the Elven City. Try as he might, Wullem had not been able to discover whether any similar courtesy was extended to the displaced lodgers and working families. He presumed not.

There was something deeply unfair about that. Thousands of people had been forced out of their homes to build new lives where the could, but because his grandfathers had been the rich ones who owned the land they lived on, they got bought off.

It was this sort of attitude which explained why he was determined to be the last Lord de Tredleck. There was nothing to be proud of in the family name, really. He was just…accidentally lucky to have inherited more wealth than a man could spend in a lifetime even if he actively tried to. And Red Lady's arse, he'd tried.

The barrels in his wine cellar were proof of that.

He levered the lid off one and stood back with a grin. "There you are, chaps. Drink your fill."

An appreciative low whistle went up, and Derrow dipped into the barrel to withdraw what it contained. "Winter's tits! How did you keep all of this from the Duke's men?" he asked.

Wullem shrugged. "I didn't. This is just what they missed."

Actually, they'd 'missed' the contents of these particular barrels thanks to some swift label-swapping, some daring misdirection, and a healthy cupful of sheer dumb luck, but that was the sort of detail his editors made him remove from the books because they 'stretched belief.'

Derrow aimed the weapon and opened the bolt with a frown. "This is one of the new Keeghan and Sons semi-automatic carbines," he said. "They only released this two years ago! How—?"

"A magician never reveals his tricks, dear boy." Wullem claimed one of the rifles out of the barrel with a grin and flipped it over in his hands. He'd paid handsomely for the shipment, and doubly so for the smuggler. He grabbed a clip and thumbed it down into the weapon's core with a satisfying series of rippling clicks. "Don't be timid as you load it. Press down firmly on the top round or—yes, that. Exactly," he said, to general chuckles as Connar failed to heed his advice in time and shoved a squashed thumbnail into his mouth with a grunt of pain.

"What other toys d'you 'ave?" Jenks asked, looking around at the barrels.

Wullem shrugged. "What do you want?"

"I'm more've a shotgun man, y'lordship."

"That one up there."

The eager chatter as they armed up was music to Wullem's ears. They'd tried their luck with the armory at the palace, but frankly the pickings there were slim and the quartermaster was stingy. So, Wullem had decided there was no sense in having a stash of the very best modern weapons and refusing to use them, especially when they might just get his own hide out of the fire.

"Don't forget your cutlery, gents," he added, pulling a crate out from behind a false panel in the wall. "Remember, the fish knife goes outside the meat knife and salad knife…"

There were more chuckles as the men crowded in. "And where does a sticker like this go?" Connar asked, flipping one experimentally in his palm.

"Just ask Countess Mossjoy," Derrow quipped.

"Oh, hers don't belong on the table. They live in the sewing box…" Connar replied with a snicker. Derrow joined in, but the three older men, Wullem noted, didn't join in.

"I wouldn't laugh too loud, gents," Jenks cautioned, taking a blade for himself. "She'll 'ave that sewin' needle through 'yer eye and into thy brain before y'even know ye'r dead."

"You can't be serious? A pretty piece of skirt like her?" Connar scoffed.

"You haven't sized her up properly, old thing," Wullem advised him. He unfastened his belt to thread it through the sheath of a kukri. "Stop staring at her figure next time, and take a proper look."

"She trained under Skinner," Trapper Takes said, quietly choosing a slim bayonet very similar to the Countess' needle-thin stilletos. "An' 'e says she's best pupil 'e ever 'ad."

"Summer's balls, really?" Connar blinked.

"Why'd you think she's comin' with?"

"I don't know. I…suppose I just assumed the Duchess never goes anywhere without her."

Takes shook his head. "On't contrary, lad. She's been 'ere in't city th' 'ole time Duchess were in exile. She's fought this fight eight years, an' rumor 'as it she suffered for it, oh aye. So I'd 'ave a bit more respect, were I thee."

Connar looked around and, finding that everyone was broadly in agreement with Coleson, nodded his head slowly. "Understood."

There was a chuckle from the last of the old guard, "Blaster" Barriman. "Can't exactly blame ye," he offered consolingly. "Yon Countess is a beauty, right enough. But when we broke the Circle at Riverside, she were part of it. Think on that, lads." He eyed both Connar and Derrow, who both nodded.

"I will," Derrow said.

"Good man," Wullem told him. "Anyway, we're not being paid to gossip like fishwives. Everyone happy? Got what you need?"

"Well, t'ain't one o' them rotary jobs," Jenks commented, hefting his new shotgun. "But I reckon she'll do."

There were similar sentiments all round. Takes had kept his familiar old rifle, but otherwise the Particulars were thoroughly outfitted with the very latest in expensive armament and quite happy about it. They quickly finished filling their belts, pouches and bandoliers with ammo, returned what they hadn't claimed to the barrels, restored the barrels on their racks, and a minute later the de Tredleck wine cellar was as clean and empty as if it had never been touched.

As far as Wullem was concerned, it was an investment finally paying off.

Interlude: Headquarters

Crow Vale, the Heighlands, Enerlend 09.06.03.13.08

Lord General Liung had the look of a man who had grabbed perhaps an hour or two of sleep in the last few days.

Normally, he was the very picture of Proper dignity, always well-groomed and straight-backed in his bearing. Now, the lines on his face seemed to have doubled in number and depth, and his eyes were sunken behind puffy, dark bags in a face going grey with fatigue. Still, they glinted sharply enough at Jung-Shu as he entered and saluted, albeit a little gingerly rather than slamming his fist against his armor the Proper way. Such small breaches were forgivable, in the circumstances.

"How is your wound, captain?"

"The healer says it is perfect, my lord." Jung-Shu considered his hand. In fact it still itched terribly under his bandage, nd he couldn't shake the feeling that the missing digits were still there in some way. He could feel nothing with them, of course, but he could still feel where they ought to be.

He didn't let how much the sensation troubled him show, though. He just stepped smartly up to the map table to receive his orders.

The General nodded, then drew his attention to the map. "Our enemy is tying a noose around our throats," he said. "His latest move in doing so is to fortify this town here." He didn't bother trying to pronounce the foreign name.

Jung-Shu leaned over to look at what he was tapping, and frowned. "Where did he find the troops?"

"He did not. He has relocated a company from here." Liung tapped the map in a different spot. "Which has had two effects. It has opened a hole in the cordon here… but it also means the company's supplies must move as well. I have intelligence that it is moving along this road here, but it was delayed by local saboteurs and will not reach its destination until early tomorrow morning."

"…You wish my outriders to burn the supplies, lord?"

"I wish for you to capture them if possible." Liung straightened. "Destroy them only if you must. The tighter the noose closes, the more we will need them. Oh-Dan-Hie will begin to starve in a week or two. Have you ever seen a city starving under siege, captain?"

"No, Lord."

"They eat their pets first. Then they eat the vermin. Then they eat each other." Liung's tired face twisted in an image of disgust and worry. "If we reach that point, I promise you, you will never again be able to enjoy the smell of cooking pork."

"Surely a company's worth of rations will do little to feed a city of millions, lord?" Jung-Shu asked.

"It will feed us for a time," Liung told him. "And its absence will weaken the cordon, allowing us, perhaps, to raid again, and again. A temporary measure…but a permanent solution is simply a repeated series of temporary measures done Properly."

"I shall remember that aphorism, lord."

Liung nodded, stifled a yawn, then indicated a route with his stylus. "This would seem the obvious route for your outriders to take in raiding the wagon. For this reason, I mistrust it. It would be all to easy to set a second, more competent ambush here."

"Yes, lord."

"Indulge me, captain: what approach would you choose instead?" Liung asked.

Jung-Shu considered the map a moment, then reached out and indicated a small hamlet. "There is a garrison here, but if they are from the same unit as ambushed me, they are inexperienced and poorly disciplined; a fatal flaw in sentries," he said. "We can go in at night and cut them down swiftly, before they send up their signal. That gives us a route to bring the captured wagons back by."

Liung smiled. "I approve."

"Is it what you would have done, lord?"

Liung's smile widened, and for a moment he did not appear weary. "I have already sent a squad of Shin Yi."

"The Lord General is foresighted," Jung-Shu bowed formally.

"And the outrider captain has a good tactical mind," the general repaid the polite compliment in kind. "Gather your men in the woods here: the Shin Yi will signal with a blue lantern. Ride in hard when they do."

"Yes, lord."

"Good luck, captain. Please do try not to donate any more of your fingers to the enemy's stewpot."

Jung-Shu grunted firmly. "I will repay them fifty-fold for my loss, lord."

Liung's smile returned, grim and wicked this time. Then he put it away and stepped back from the table. "You may go."

Jung-Shu saluted, bowed, and exited.

He was eager for some payback.

"The Auld Forest is a place of thresholds—where the known world frays at the edges, and the wild creeps in. Its outer reaches are well-trodden, dotted with charcoal burners' camps and the winding tracks of hunters, but deeper in, the trees grow vast and gnarled, their roots drinking from springs that no map has charted. Here, the air is thick with the scent of moss and damp earth, and the calls of unseen creatures weave strange music through the canopy. Stags with antlers like woven thickets watch from the glades, and river otters ply the nameless streams that feed the mighty Heigh. There are whispers, too—of the footsteps of King Eärrach himself, of the hidden monuments of forgotten peoples, and of wanderers who followed the wrong path and never returned. But if you have a keen eye and a steady heart, the Auld Forest will reward you well: with the sight of a kingfisher flashing over a silent pool, the taste of wild berries on your tongue, and the feeling of a world that breathes, deep and ancient, all around you." —Foreword to The Wanderer's Almanac: A Rambling Account of the Auld Forest and its Inhabitants by Edred Cole

The Auld Forest

Enerlend, Garanhir Earthmote 09.06.03.13.09

General Liung had, at Ellaenie's request, devoted a small force of men to keeping a clear line of communication open to the edge of the Auld Forest. She was glad for that: although she was sure there were stands of trees and small patches of woodland near the city that could suffice in a pinch, the Auld Forest was a different beast altogether.

The Paths Between had their own rules, but weren't always constant. When Thaighn Saoirse had first told Ellaenie about them, she'd likened it to playing a game of chance with a sleepy, grumpy dealer. Skill was paramount, but luck played a role, and sometimes the Paths just weren't in any mood to cooperate.

…If "mood" was the right word.

Today, they were uncooperative. Perhaps forcing one so wide and bringing so many people through so recently had come with a cost. In any case, they had to go deep into the forest, and force their way through brush and wild growth for a couple of hours before Ellaenie finally found one that was willing to yield to her in the way she wanted.

Even so, its entrance was awkward. She had to duck under a small aperture where two trees had tangled their lower branches and were now merging, in the faintly unnerving way of trees. The inosculated flesh of their trunks and limbs created a dense knot, and a narrow space where a big man would have to hold his breath to fit. Having done so, the explorer would find themselves in a sort of short woody canyon between two trunks, and it was only after pushing through this and emerging into the wider space beyond that it became apparent all the nearby trees were different.

De Tredleck actually aimed his gun back at the trees they'd passed between, his expression one of almost comical confusion.

"…Faun fuck me drunk," he muttered. "My editors'll never let me put that in the book."

"How—?" Derrow asked.

"Witchcraft," Ellaenie said, simply. "Now hush, gentlemen. We're in hostile territory."

They spread out in a watchful patrol line without a further word. After a minute, though, Takes fell in at Ellaenie's side.

"I know 'xactly where we are, y'Grace," he murmured.

"You do?"

"Oh aye. Used to, uh, do a spot o' poachin' in these woods, when I were a lad. I know 'em like I'd know me childhood 'ome, if it were still standin'."

"Good. You know the way to Banmor Manor?"

"Reckon I can get us right up to kitchen door wi'out bein' seen, y'Grace."

Ellaenie glanced at Adrey, who nodded. "Lead the way, then," she said.

Sure enough, Takes seemed to know every hillock, root and brook. He kept them to the low ground, using the rolling ground and the thick old trunks to keep them invisible from afar, and stuck to water as much as possible. "Throws 'ounds off our scent, if'n there's any patrols usin' 'em," he explained.

They made far better time than Ellaenie had estimated. She'd ridden in these woods a few times as a girl, but Takes took strange side routes that Ellaenie would never have even noticed, only for them to circle around a thicket or a knot of undergrowth that would have slowed them down. The end result was that they reached the fence marking the edge of the forest and the start of the Banmor House paddocks while the sun was still out. Adrey, Takes and de Tredleck skulked forward along the line of the fence, staying low in the ditch to spy out the house; the rest of them waited.

Ellaenie took in the view down the hill and out over Lendwick County in an unexpectedly pained mood. It hadn't actually occurred to her before, but the last time she'd been here on the grounds of this house had been…

Crowns, she'd been riding in that very paddock when the news reached her from Auldenheigh. She'd been sitting on a horse's back…there. Even then, she'd had the perspicacity to know something was terribly amiss, and had dismounted before the messengers could reach her.

Which meant she'd fainted…right there.

A reasonable thing for a sixteen-year-old girl to do on learning both her parents had been murdered, she supposed.

The view was largely unchanged, except for the distant moving trailer of white vapor on a far hillside where a locomotive was working its way along the new railway. And the airships, of course. There were two of them, liveried in blue and white and moored to a mast which had to be at the very edge of Lendwick town itself.

She didn't like the look of them one bit. Even from this distance, she could see their guns gleaming in the sunlight.

The gleam vanished a second after darkness swept the land around her. Nightfall, as sudden and shocking as ever. She watched the last of the daylight race away across the distant hills, then returned her attention to the manor, where the lanterns were being lit for the evening.

De Tredleck returned out of the ditch after a few more minutes, folding a telescope into its case on his belt.

"How does it look?" Ellaenie asked them.

"The Countess was worried Civorage may have figured out something about how the Paths Between work and set a watch on this side of the house, but it doesn't seem he has, yet," he told her. "There's a patrol which she thinks passes this way every five minutes or so, but security is almost nonexistent. Just a couple of men at the front gate to pick up visitors and business coming from town…"

"Where are Adrey and Takes?"

He gestured off toward the woods to their right. "Checking for sharpshooters. There's a whole forest of chimneys up on the roof, plus, well, the rather more literal forest around two sides of the grounds, what? One alert man in a hide would cause us all sorts of trouble," he said. "Takes said if there is such a man, he'd find him. The Countess said if they found him, she'd kill him quietly."

He grinned wolfishly. "Pity I can't be there to watch her work," he added.

"For the novels?" Ellaenie asked.

He laughed quietly. "Oh goodness no. My editors would never let me write in a character like her. They'd complain she was far too unladylike."

Ellaenie snorted. "Your editors sound like the bane of your life," she commented, noting the admiration in his voice. Adrey, it seemed, had rather made an impression.

"Hmm…yes and no. I daresay the books are rather better for their attentions." He shrugged. "I'm a dreadful hack, really. Far better at the gunslinging and derring-do than the authoring. Have you read my books, your Grace?"

"No, but I do know somebody who adores them."

"How gratifying! Who should I make the signed copy out to?"

"His name's Lander. Lander Sayfschild."

"Summer's balls, really?"

"By my husband's balls, yes," Ellaenie snorted, and was delighted to realize she'd scored an actual hit and briefly scandalized him. He rallied magnificently—anyone without a witch's Sight would never have noticed—but Ellaenie counted it as a solid victory.

"You're…a mother yourself, your Grace?"

"I am, yes…" A faint change in the substance of the quiet gloom around them caught her attention. "But now isn't the time."

Sure enough, Adrey and Takes rejoined them a moment later.

"There are two hides," Adrey reported, simply.

We'll clear 'em out jus' afore we make our move, y'Grace," Takes added, in quiet tones. "'Fer now, reckon it's best t'wait 'til midnight. Let th' 'ouse go to sleep."

"Agreed," Adrey nodded.

"What about the airships?" De Tredleck asked.

"It's a fair question," Adrey agreed. "Once we free your aunt and uncle, Civorage will know. He'll probably have the airships flatten the manor rather than let them start issuing orders…"

"Airships're no bother," Barriman commented. "I got what I need 'fer dealin' wi' 'em."

"What's our best move?" Ellaenie asked her.

Adrey looked down the valley and Ellaenie watched her calculate, running through the options in her mind, evaluating the possible outcomes. It was quite fascinating to watch as the power of her Word guided her inexorably toward one conclusion.

"…If I take De Tredleck and Barriman, we can sabotage the ships," she said. "Meanwhile, the rest of you should be able to slip in during the night. If you head in at sixteenth hour, it should only take you five to seven minutes to reach the Earl and Lady Lendwick. Meaning, if we time our strike to take the ships out at, hmm, ten past? …Yes, ten past."

"I'll get blastin' charges ready," Barriman nodded.

"Alright." Ellaenie looked around at the Particulars. "Everyone take your medicine, then get some rest. We'll move in four hours."

She watched them all pull out the vials she'd given them and take a swig. One by one, their minds became opaque, like a fog rolling in outside the window.

They withdrew from the fence and ditch, pulling back into a spot in the woods Takes knew where a natural depression and an up-thrust rock offered shelter from the breeze and from observation. The Particulars posted a couple of sentries unprompted, and the rest of them settled down on whatever comfortably bit of ground they could find. Takes put his chin to his chest and seemed to be asleep in moments, while Barriman withdrew a selection of paper-wrapped parcels from his bag that looked for all the world like sacks of flour, and started doing arcane things to them with fuses and detonators.

Ellaenie settled down herself, and took a deep breath. She was trying not to be scared. She had her own powers to get her out of trouble, she knew. And Adrey's to help them find the right course. But some foreboding still hung over her, and no amount of rational thought would quite dispel it. Something would go wrong. Something always went wrong.

But without knowing what it was, there was no point in doing anything but settling in to wait. So she swigged her own potion, and did just that.

She managed to wait…but she never managed to relax.

Interlude: Waiting for a signal

Woods outside Torden, the Heighlands, Enerlend 09.06.03.13.09

"Rrrgh….ugh."

"Is something the matter, captain?"

Jung-Shu looked over at Bei-Ji and stopped fidgeting with his hand. "How does something that no longer exists manage to itch?" he asked.

"One of the many deep mysteries on which it would be Improper for this humble soldier to venture an opinion, sir."

Jung-shu stifled the urge to laugh. It was a still night, slightly overcast but cool and quiet. The sound would carry. Already, he rather felt they were close enough that if one of the horses whinnied loudly at something, the sentries in the hamlet ahead would notice.

Then again…he hadn't seen any sign of movement over there for some time.

He'd never actually seen Shin Yi in action. They were, in theory, scouts. Or at least, their main role was to slip through enemy lines and bring back intelligence. No doubt it was their efforts which had brough this wagon train to the lord general's attention.

But a man who could sneak through a garrisoned town unnoticed could do a lot more than just that.

"Blue lantern, sir," Bei-Ji said, tearing him out of his thoughts.

"Go. Go!"

They spurred their horses into action. Nono made an unhappy noise in protest, but hit an obedient gallop that covered the distance across the fields to the hamlet's outermost fence in a matter of seconds.

She jumped the fence, too. Skittish as she was, she was the fleetest and most sure-footed animal Jung-Shu had ever ridden.

The Shin Yi were already laying the dead sentries out in neat rows outside the tall structure at the hamlet's heart. The architecture was foreign to Jung-Shu, but the likenesses of the Crowns carved around the wide wooden doors hinted that these people venerated them rather more than the Four preferred.

To a man, the infiltrators were dressed in cloth of a neutral hue that might have been grey or might have been green, with their heads cowled and faces masked. Even their eyes were invisible behind a gauzy mesh of cheesecloth, or something similar. Their weapons had been blued to betray no glint or reflection, and Jung-Shu saw even their feet were bare save for paint.

These were men who knew the Proper way to be stealthy, and to kill without making a noise. From what Jung-Shu had heard, their order focused so completely on silence in fact that they had to justify every word they spoke to their masters, and pay a penance for each one that was deemed unjustified.

Certainly, none of them spoke now. The nearest simply gestured down the road and bowed low. Jung-Shu nodded to him, and beckoned his men onwards.

They rode hard, conscious of being exactly on schedule, but no more than that. The road was an ancient one, twisting and winding between steep earthen banks with high hedges planted atop them, so that they seemed to be galloping through a meandering green trench.

Then, abruptly, it opened out as it crested a hill and turned down it toward the main way, where sure enough the wagon train was exactly in the position the Lord General's intelligence had suggested.

Jung-Shu raised his sword. "Glory for the Students of Yunei!"

His men answered in a roar. "Eternal life!"

They charged.

"Banmor House, the venerable seat of the Earls of Lendwick, stands in quiet majesty upon the gentle rise of Banmor Hill, its windows gazing fondly over the verdant pastures and rolling fields that cradle the city of Lendwick. Held by the Banmor family since its founding twenty generations past, the house is a testament to noble tradition and cultivated grace. Within, scholars will find solace in the estate's renowned library, a trove of rare volumes and learned discourse, while those of a more sporting inclination will delight in the well-stocked woodlands, where the hunt is as fine as any in Enerlend. Whether in pursuit of knowledge or game, the discerning guest will find Banmor House a place most worthy of admiration. The long avenue of oaks leading to the house's front gate is an especially worthy sight which is worth the visit alone, even if one does not intend upon remaining at the house." —A Noble's Compass: The Discerning Traveler's Guide to the Great Houses of Enerlend and Beyond by Sir Edric Fairholm

Familiar rooms and halls.

Banmor Manor grounds, Lendwick, Enerlend 09.06.03.13.09

Ellaenie had visited Banmor Manor many times before, of course. In fact, it was where she and Adrey had first met, as girls of…what? Eleven and nine years old?

Forever ago, now. They'd run around the old house playing hide-and-seek while dodging the attentions, not of the butler Mister Peck, but of the rather more terrifying figure of the housekeeper, Mrs. Siber.

Things were not much changed from how they had been nearly twenty years ago. The kitchen garden was planted differently, with the new gardener apparently going in for plenty of climbing beans and raised beds, but the gate was exactly the same. It even jumped open when kicked in the bottom right corner, just as it had all those years ago.

The lock on the kitchen door itself was new, though. Derrow produced a torsion wrench and a rake and had it open in three seconds. Jenks was first through, followed by Connar and finally Derrow: Takes waited outside, covering their backs. There were no shouts, no shots. A muttered word, and the rest of them slipped in and flitted between the long worktables and past the ovens, which still emitted a fragrant heat even now as they took care of the low-and-slow overnight cooking. Somebody would be waking up in a couple of hours to refuel them and stoke them back up to full heat, but for now they were just a quietly warm radiance. The last time Adrey had crept down here at night, the dogs had loved to sleep in front of them.

Now, there were no dogs, nor even the comfortable mat the kitchen staff had put down for them to sleep on.

Jenks secured to the kitchen doors, scanned the hallway beyond, then beckoned that all was clear. Takes brushed past him and took point. His flat soft-soled boots made no noise as he darted along the corridor outside to the foot of the stairs.

The Manor was built on three levels, Ellaenie remembered, and the front lawns and driveway were a storey higher than the kitchen garden and paddocks at the back. The kitchen, boot room, butler's pantry, servant's hall, housekeeper's sitting room, larders and scullery were a compact warren in the basement, but nobody actually lived down here. Still, it had to be swept and cleared.

Sure enough, the Particulars quickly assessed the rooms and found them empty. As soon as she heard that, Ellaenie set off up the stairs directly behind Takes.

The ground floor was likewise dark and inactive at this time of night. A few banked magestone lanterns here and there combined with the drawn curtains to create meager channels of light between inky dark abysses.

There had been changes in twenty years. Uncle Eckard and Aunty Bren had been very fond of the manor's fine parquet flooring, so it couldn't have been their decision to carpet it. More fool whoever had: it made ghosting noiselessly through the house much easier. Nor had the responsible vulgarian cared to leave out the various artworks, decorations, side tables and incidentals which had leant the manor its former air of history. Which meant, no risk of anyone bumping into a side table or knocking over a vase. Even the family portraits and trophies had all been taken down and replaced by wall tapestries depicting the Oneist steel circle and Civorage's favored colors of white and soothing blue. Their presence deadened sound even further.

Presumably, it was all to keep the place quiet and calm, and impress upon the free collaborators and un-Encircled dupes who their master was and awe them with the authority of Oneism. But Ellaenie couldn't have asked for the place to be better softened and made quiet.

There was a sound from up ahead, and the Particulars expertly withdrew into the smaller ground floor library. Sure enough, no sooner had they closed the door to a crack than there was the sound of somebody muttering to himself as he came down the stairs from the upper floor. Ellaenie couldn't catch much of it, but the man must have been in an argument with somebody earlier, and was going over what he could and should have said if he was wittier.

That, at least, pointed to him not being Encircled. She gestured to Jenks and Connar, who noiselessly slipped out of the room in the man's shadow. There was a brief, soft sound of carefully controlled violence, and the man was borne back into their hiding place, to be tied and gagged and hidden from view behind the reading desk.

Ellaenie knelt in front of him and stared into his eyes for a long second, exerting her will and the Craft. This was what witchcraft was feared and disliked for, she knew: the power to bewitch, bewilder and manipulate. She seldom used it, and never so crudely as this.

But it worked. He stopped struggling and stared into her eyes with an increasingly unfocused expression. Behind Jenks' hand, his jaw went slack.

"I'm going to ask you some questions," Ellaenie told him quietly and calmly, with an absolute certainty that changed her voice, carried on a pluck of magical power. "You are going to answer them. Understand?"

The man's head twitched against Jenks' restraining hand. When Ellaenie looked up at Jenks, he let go. The man didn't draw a deep breath or prepare to shout, but continued to stare mesmerized into Ellaenie's eyes.

"The Earl and Lady Lendwick. They're at home?" she asked.

"…Yes…"

"Their bedroom. Top floor, the big one in the lead-dexter corner?"

"…Yes…"

"Any guards?"

"…Two…"

"Circle members?"

"…Yes…"

"Good boy. Sleep now."

The bewitched man slumped unconscious.

The men looked at each other, clearly a touch unsettled by the witchcraft, but the moment passed in a heartbeat.

"…Go loud?" Derrow suggested, and checked his watch. "It's six past."

"Go loud," Jenks agreed.

"Do it," Ellaenie confirmed.

"You 'eard 'er Grace. 'Ard an' fast, lads."

They moved, moving as swift as shadows might if somebody were to play a searchlight over the curtained windows. Around the corner, up the grand staircase.

Sure enough, there were two guards patrolling the landing at the top. The first looked around in time to go wide-eyed and fumble for his weapon, but the only sound that came out of his mouth was an "Oofff!" as Derrow, who was nearly a head taller than him and built like a bull, rammed him into the wall. The impact stunned the Encircled man and knocked the gun out of his hand, and then Derrow's wide-bladed vicious brute of a knife finished the job with a wet noise and gurgling.

The other sentry didn't even finish turning around before Jenks shot him through the heart. After the stealthy movements and muffled silence of the night, his carbine was punishingly loud.

Connar and Takes rushed past the falling man and exploded into the master bedroom, where they bore the struggling Earl and Lady Lendwick back down onto their mattress and pinned them in place.

Ellaenie followed them, sorry beyond words that the two Encircled sentries were dead. Those were innocent people under Civorage's mind control, not collaborators. But…

…But all that went out of her head when she saw her aunt and uncle, and her heart broke a little more. More than eight and a half years had been stolen from them, and they hardly looked as she remembered. They were fitter, maybe. But that was always true with Encircled: Civorage needed his tools in good physical condition, so he compelled them to exercise properly and eat well. But leaner figures had also come with whitening hair and increasingly lined faces. They'd grown older.

She focused her Word and altered the properties of the bedsheets to make them as rigid and unyielding as cast iron. The Lendwicks' entangled limbs were instantly held secure, better than if she'd tied them up. And from there, dosing them with her potion was a case of avoiding their biting teeth, holding their heads still, tipping it down their throats and forcing them to swallow. Like giving a feral cat its medicine.

Aunty Bren was the first to feel its effects. So stopped wriggling, looked surprise, said "Oh!" faintly, then looked into Ellaenie's face and burst into tears. Uncle Eckard was only a second behind her: he gave a shocked gasp like a man who'd been on the very edge of drowning might as he burst through the water's surface.

Ellaenie released them, flung herself onto the bed between them, and hugged them tight. As she did so there was a distant flash of light. About five seconds later, a muffled and prolonged crump-booom signalled that Adrey, Blaster and De Tredleck had succeeded in taking down the airships.

"What…? What—?" Eckard tried to ask. "It was like—"

"I know." Ellaenie kissed his cheek. "We need your help, Eckard." From elsewhere in the house she could hear shouting: outside the room, Connar and Derrow started yelling instructions at somebody to stay where they were. Whoever it was shouted back a threat about what would happen to them if the Earl was hurt…

Eckard, to his immense credit, got his thoughts in order enough to slip from his bed and dart to the door.

"Is that you, Waring?"

"My Lord! Are you alright? have they—"

"I'm better than alright, man! Stand down!" Eckard gestured to Connar. "You there, let him come forward."

Connar half-turned his head. "Your Grace?"

"Do as he says, Connar."

A man in a long nightgown and floppy nightcap shuffled forward past the Particulars, his hands held carefully out to the side. Even so, there was a sort of butlerishness that shone through. He gawped at Ellaenie as he entered the room. "…M-my Lord? This is—!"

"My niece," Eckard said, firmly. "Whom I love dearly, and whom I fully support as the rightful heir to the Duchy of Enerlend. And yes, I'm aware that's a complete reversal of what I've been saying the last several weeks.

Waring's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Sir…you said yourself she's a witch, known to use mind controlling magic…"

"I was under mind controlling magic, man. Dear Ellaenie here just released us from it."

Ellaenie put a reassuring hand up as Waring gave her another deeply troubled look. "I understand your skepticism. I've been the target of, what? Eight years of propaganda surrounding my disappearance and alleged crimes? Monstrous stories of me disappearing into the woods to go cavort naked with wicked covens, bewitch men, plot the downfall of civilization and suchlike?"

"…It was…somewhat less credulous than that," Waring ventured, stiffly.

"I'm sure. But…see here, Mister Waring, we don't have the luxury of sufficient time for me to earn your trust, and frankly I don't yet know what I can do to earn it. But we don't have long before—"

"INCOMING!!!"

Takes, who had been haunting the window and watching the grounds, launched himself at Ellaenie in a flying tackle and bore her to the floor. An instant later, something terrible happened with enough violence to fill the entire world. Half the room vanished in a flurry of sharp wooden shrapnel, pulverized brick and splintered glass. Somebody started shrieking in pain.

Ellaenie couldn't move for a second. Her head was spinning, her ears ringing, and Takes was not a small man. He uttered a plaintive groan and rolled off her, freeing her to rise and take in a scene of carnage.

Waring was dead, torn in half. Derrow was slumped by the door, dying as the blood poured out of him faster than anyone could possibly heal. Jenks was writhing on the ground with his hands over his face, moaning in agony. Takes had a wooden splinter the size of a golf club through his calf.

Uncle Eckard was staring at the mangled meat where his left arm simply ended mid-bicep. Ellaenie squeaked in horror and sprang to her feet, exerting both Word and Craft while fumbling in her pockets for a handful of fetishes. She clamped her fingers over the stump of his arm and healed, blasting energy and willpower into the wound with such fierce desperation that she could actually see patches of skin bloom over the meat and bone with gut-twisting speed.

Aunty Bren rolled out of the bed, whimpering in terror but by some miracle she was unscathed.

Connar was tending to Jenks. "What the bloody hell just happened?!" he demanded, shouting in a way which suggested he was quite deafened. Ellaenie looked up through the ragged hole torn through the manor's wall, and her heart sank as a dark shape blotted out the night-time light from the far earthmotes.

The second airship banked around to aim its other cannonade at them.

And fired.

Skulking

Lendwick, Enerlend, Garanhir Earthmote 09.06.03.13.09

There were times when Adrey was very glad for her height. Being more than six feet tall had often made her feel awkward as a girl, but it also meant she could pass for a clean-shaven young man from a distance, with the aid of the right kind of hat and clothes which disguised her figure. But the most important part of the disguise wasn't the outfit, but the walk. Men—young men, especially—moved a certain way. It wasn't a natural or comfortable gait for a long-legged woman, but she'd practiced it a lot over the years.

Being surrounded by real men helped, too. If she slouched slightly and dragged her feet a bit, she looked like a lad being put upon to help with some task when he'd rather be doing anything else.

Lendwick was one of Enerlend's larger cities, though not even a quarter the size of Auldenheigh. Unlike the capitol, it wasn't on the site of an old Elvish city, but rather had come together in the last two thousand years or so, at one of those natural places where roads, rivers and natural resources combined to hint at people that here was a profitable place to put down roots.

Leadward, the river Fead meandered through rolling hilly farmland down to join the Heigh. To dexter and trailward, more hilly farmland yielded a steady supply of pretty much every native Garanese vegetable, as well as a few imports. To sinisterward the hills were ruled by forest, the skirts of which were haunted by orchards and vinyards.

It was pretty country, made somehow prettier by its modesty. The Heighlands, with the mountains and the Auld Forest towering above them, were more inspiringly grand but Adrey had always found Lendwick County peacefully picturesque.

Now, though…

The damn posters were everywhere, which was a jarring reminder of how far behind enemy lines they were. Back in Auldenheigh, they'd been enthusiastically torn down and used for tinder. On every wall, fence and lamp post, variations on the theme of warning the citizenry to remain alert for saboteurs, spies and witches snarled at them in boxy bold lettering.

It was a stupid, futile effort. In a city this size, three figures in flat caps and long coats were just an ordinary part of the crowd, identical to the hundreds of thousands of people who called Lendwick home. Why should anyone suspect them? If people started reporting ordinary working men to the authorities, then pretty soon they themselves would be mistakenly reported.

Besides. The people living here had probably not even been told about the uprising in Auldenheigh.

It was for this reason that the three of them were able to stroll casually down a side street near the airship yard without attracting attention. Above them, the mast creaked and flexed as a light breeze caught the two moored airships and dragged them over to one side.

That was the vulnerability of mast mooring. You got a stack of airships on the downwind side, one directly above the other with only ten meters or so between bag-back and keel. If one brought down down the top ship..

They found a spot where Adrey's Word told her they could slip over the fence unobserved. De Tredleck boosted Barriman over, followed by Adrey, then scrambled up himself, and they skulked into the cover of the supply store. Stacks of hull planks, coils of rope, crates of bagcloth and pressurized metal barrels full of lift gas gave them plenty of gloom to hide in, but their objective was a pair sturdy stone sheds off in the far corner. They were well lit and guarded, and had the words "GUNPOWDER STORE" and "FUEL STORE" stenciled on their sturdy, brightly painted iron doors.

De Tredleck considered the guard. "Okay. Plan?"

"I need one barrel o' fuel," Blaster told him. "Stick a charge to it, send it up dumbwaiter, bring top ship down on t'other's 'ead."

Adrey nodded. "I've got the one on the right. Wullem—"

"—Left. Aye aye."

They nodded and set off at a low scuttle round to the right, staying low behind the stacked stores. There was a wide stretch of open ground, and Adrey paused at the edge of it to lurk behind a shed. She watched, straining her senses to take in every detail…and trusted her Word. She gestured Wullem forward and sprinted across the gap.

It was highly improbable that the guard on the left would choose that exact moment to sneeze violently, but he did. His colleague turned to crack a joke at him, and for a precious two seconds, both men were facing in the wrong direction.

Two seconds was long enough.They bundled into the scant cover of the stone sheds, almost pressed together, and de Tredleck exhaled a shaky breath that was on the very edge of incredulous laughter. Adrey put a finger to her lips to shush him: he nodded, and drew his knife. She held up a hand to forestall him, waiting for the right moment, waiting for…

Now.

It was a total certainty without basis or reason, but she trusted it. She tapped Wullem's shoulder, spun around the corner of the shed, and sank her hatpin right through the powder guard's heart from behind. He gasped, and fell heavily into her arms. To her right, Wullem's wider fighting knife sunk expertly into the fuel guard's throat with a soft butchering sound. They clamped hands over mouths, arms around chests, and dragged their kills out of the light into the shadows behind the sheds.

Quickly, they borrowed the dead men's hats, coats and weapons, then replaced them to stand guard in front of the sheds.

There was no shouting. No alarm sounded. Nobody called out. A moment later, Barriman joined them and opened the fuel store with its late guard's borrowed keys. He vanished inside, and Adrey stood still and attentive for…what? A minute?

It felt longer. Much longer. Part of her had fancied Barriman might hum or mutter to himself as he worked, but the older man had spent years as a miner, quarryman and demolisher…and several more as a saboteur for the Blackdrake Network. He worked in perfect silence.

When he emerged from the store, he had a barrel over his shoulder. A brown paper parcel with a fuse was stuck to one side, and he flashed a grin at Adrey before jogging over to the mooring mast's base.

The dumbwaiter, fortunately, was already down at ground level. He shoved the barrel into it, lit a match, lit the fuse, closed the door and pulled the lever. With a rattle and a clank, the counterweights began their descent, and the bomb started upwards.

He gave them a thumbs up, then ran.

Adrey remembered the one piece of advice he'd given them before they started this mission: he'd said, "Ye're both young, an' quick-footed. So, if'n thee sees me runnin', run faster."

She ran.

They were going over the fence when somebody started shouting.

"How long did you give it?!" Adrey asked, as Barriman rolled over the top and dropped to the ground. He got up and kept sprinting.

"Long enough so's we won't 'ave two 'undred burnin' tonnes land on us!" he replied. "Now leg it!"

Shit. Scenarios and probability played out in Adrey's head, and she realized they'd made their move a little too late, or something. Up above she could hear a bell ringing and the rising whine of airship engines being cranked up for ignition. the second, lower ship started ringing its bell as well, men were yelling frantically. Some Word-driven instinct made her jink left, and a rifle round cracked off the cobbles by her ankle.

"Left turn!" she yelled at the men. Barriman slipped as he turned, which saved his life: another rifle round whipped through where he would have been had he remained upright. Survival instinct gave new speed to his feet, and he scrambled into the alleyway Adrey had pointed out. Behind her, Wullem cursed and fired off a rapid series of seven pistol shots before scrambling into the alleyway behind her.

The bomb went off.

It was a little too late, Adrey saw immediately. The higher airship had cast off and filled its bags, lifting way from the mast. When the top of the mast evaporated in a mushroom of boiling flame, the burning fuel splashed the ship's belly without reaching the bag, and an instant later it was clear, rising like a champagne cork in a bathtub.

Men shrieked and leapt desperately from the gondola of lower ship as liquid flame spilled all over their gasbag. Some few made it to the comparative safety of the burning mast, but many more didn't and plummeted to the ground in a series of sickening thuds.

Airship bags were made to be flame retardant, but there was only so much that could be done. An entire barrel's worth of flaming ethanol was too much, and the fabric quickly started to char and fail, the rope rigging snapped with a sound like a series of gunshots going off, and then some critical tipping point was reached and the mast was no longer gently restraining a neutrally buoyant vessel from drifting off on the breeze: it was trying to hold up the full weight of a laden airship as the bag peeled open and spilled its internal bladders intot he sky.

It collapsed, dragged down behind the burning tonnes of wood. Sparks and embers blossomed into the sky.

Barriman cursed and started running even faster. "Get away! Get away!"

"Why?!" de Tredleck asked, though he did as Blaster said and put on a burst of speed.

"It came down right atop th' powder—!"

Certainty shot through Adrey's mind, and she flung herself into the small of the two men's backs, dragging them both to the ground.

The instant after she did, the entire world detonated.

Under Fire

Banmor Manor, Lendwick 09.06.03.13.09

Stopping bullets with her Word had been easy.

Stopping cannonballs was something else entirely. There was too much energy, too much force. It all had to go somewhere, and there was enough of it to pulverize a building.

Ellaenie turned most of it into a brilliant flash of blue light that, just for a heartbeat, lit the land for miles around as bright as midday. Even so, enough forced its way through that the floorboards around her boots bent and split. Part of the roof gave way and fell on the bubble of will she'd put up, only to slide off it like oil off a poached egg. The bubble bowed inward and wobbled, but held.

Even so, the strain of it forced her to her knees with a shout of exertion.

The airship straightened its course to loop out and around, and Ellaenie relaxed the incredible power she'd been flexing, somewhat. Now that it had given them a taste of both its broadsides, they had a couple of minutes before it was ready to fire again. Two minutes, if they only loaded up the guns on one side. If they wanted to do a double-pass like before, it'd be closer to five minutes. Which sounded like a lot, but her men were…

She looked around. Derrow was dead. Someone—Connar—had given Jenks a little healing magic, enough to get him back on his feet at least, but the poor man's face would never be the same. The cannonade had taken his nose and left eye. Uncle Eckard had sagged to the bed, holding his arm and woozy from shock and blood loss. Takes was upright but pale, standing with all his weight on one leg: the other was still impaled by a huge splinter, and that was going to need healing magic before he was fit to go anywhere.

In other words, they'd be ready to move at about the same time the ship took another swipe at them. She doubted Civorage would go for the full lengthy process of reloading both broadsides. More likely, the ship would harass them as often as it could.

She could stop the next volley, she knew that. But the one after? Or the one after that? It wasn't effortless. Which would fail first, her own stamina, or that of the gun crews?

Ellaenie wasn't willing to gamble lives on such a contest. She knelt and pulled a bird skull from her pocket. Magical charge still suffused it, tinted and overtoned by lingering traces of the creature's simple life energies, which made it perfect for healing with in her view. River pebbles and crystals were too…sterile.

She drew from it, and took hold of the splinter in Takes' leg, looking up at him. Takes nodded, gritting his teeth. "Do it!"

She yanked it out. He ground out a stoic "Mmmnn!" through closed lips, then sighed in relief as she staunched the bleeding and knit the wound. It was a rush job, far too quick. He'd need more attention later, possibly from a surgeon. But the hole through his calf closed, at least, and he was able to shift some weight onto it.

"Good enough?" Ellaenie asked. In her hand, the little skull crumbled to dust.

Takes winced as he tested it, but nodded. "…Aye."

"Good. Everybody out!"

She cast a sorry look at Derrow and Waring, while gently taking Brenilda's arm and encouraging her out of bed. "Bren, come on. We have to go. We have to—"

…Well, she had no idea what they were going to do next. They could lose the airship in the forest, but the whole point of this mission had been for Eckard to issue orders standing his regiment down and opening a supply line for Auldenheigh. She hadn't come here to rescue them from the Circle only to drag them back to Auldenheigh and starve them!

Eckard was hardly in any condition to give orders anyway. What had gone wrong? Had Adrey failed? How—?

"It's comin' back around!" Connar called. Ellaenie pushed her aunt into his arms and turned back to the ruined scoop of shattered brickwork where the wall had once been. Sure enough, the airship was performing a tight turn back on itself. They'd reloaded in a minute and a half, maybe.

Good Crowns that was fast! Were all Clear Skies gun crews so well trained?

It didn't matter. She braced herself, took a deep breath, cleared her thoughts as best she could, and focused. Air wasn't substantial enough. She needed something with mass, something that was already at least a bit capable of standing up to cannonballs…

She wove her new shield out of brick dust, plaster flakes, splintered beams and ceiling tiles, tightening each of them with her mind until they were iron-hard. The fragments spiralled up out of the debris around her, formed a dome. Behind her, Takes finished escorting Eckard out of the room.

Good. She could push the force sideways now. She could—

The airship fired again. This time, they'd loaded grapeshot. Sparks flashed and flew, split sideways around her, blistered the walls to either side with a hundred ragged holes. Ellaenie sobbed with the effort and fell to both knees, but she held. Not a single hurtling shot made it past her. Nobody was harmed…this time.

Even so, her limbs felt leaden as she swayed to her feet. She couldn't take another of those. Maybe she was doing it wrong? Maybe she could evaporate the shot in flight, or unravel the ship somehow, but…

But no. She vaguely remembered the limits she'd put on herself, for her own sanity. In the full blush of the Word's power, that ship would already be an expanding cloud of sizzling atoms, but she wasn't ready for that yet. She couldn't reach out that far without ceasing to look at the world like a human, in some small but important way.

And nobody mortal had the reaction times to dissolve a hurtling cannonball. That was just fatigue delirium talking.

There was the sharp, deafening crack of rifle shot to her left, and she whirled, only to notice she'd just been plunged into near-darkness. Takes nodded in satisfaction and lowered his gun. "Got the bugger."

"What did you do?"

"Shot out yon searchlight, y'Grace." He worked the weapon's bolt, and slotted a replacement round into it with easy, smooth movements.

Ellaenie looked back up at the ship. Sure enough, the stabbing cone of light emanating from its nose was absent. "…Well done. Let's go."

She staggered toward the door. Jenks was yelling at the million house staff to get downstairs into the basements. Most did as instructed, but one younger maid took a look at his newly mutilated visage and fainted dead away. Jenks sighed, and picked her up.

"Y'Grace?" he asked, turning his remaining good eye her way. Ellaenie distractedly noted that Connar must be a bloody good healer to have got him up and alert so quickly. "What's th' plan?"

"The basements are a good start," Ellaenie agreed. "But we need to take that bloody ship down. Any ideas how we might do that?"

They limped down the stairs together. "Actually not."

"Alright. Well. If we can't, then the only option is to go back to Auldenheigh."

"We'll 'ave to move quick, ma'am. There'll be soldiers on th'way…" Takes pointed out.

"THey'll…they'll be mine," Eckard mumbled. He shook his head slightly and seemed to pull himself together a touch. "My men. Not the…not the bloody Guild."

He turned a hollow smile on Ellaenie. "Not…that there was much difference for a while there."

"Save your strength, Eckard," Ellaenie touched his shoulder as they turned down the stairs toward the basements.

"No, love. No. Now's the time to fight until it's all gone…" he rasped, then stood up a little taller and shrugged of Connar's aid. "Yngmir's beard, it's good to see you though. I don't know how you got us free, but…"

"Don't thank me until we're out of this," Ellaenie told him. "Auldenheigh's under siege. We need your regiment, or we'll starve."

"Then we need to get down into town," Eckard said. He reached out and too Brenilda's hand in his remaining one. "Bren, darling—"

Brenilda nodded, regaining some of her own composure too. "I know. For goodness' sake, stay safe."

"There's no way," Ellaenie said, then ducked as another roaring blast and a series of crashes signalled that the ship had reloaded and fired again. Fortunately, it still seemed to be aiming at the upper floors. Dust and chunks of plaster rained from the ceiling. "…Give me a minute to rest and I can maybe hold off one more of those. But we'd never make it to town."

"We can't stay here," Connar added. "I can smell smoke. I'm sorry My Lord, but it looks like your house is about to burn down."

Eckard shut his eyes in grief for a moment, then took a deep breath. "So, it's back to Auldenheigh where we're uselessly waiting to starve, staying here waiting to burn, or we run for town and take our chances with the airship. I say a faint hope is better than no hope at all."

"'Ow 'bout we split up?" Jenks suggested. "Get outdoors an' leg it. That bloody ship can't chase us all down in't dark."

"True," Connar agreed. "And…they're after the Earl, aren't they? If I put on his nightshirt and robe, I should be able to lure it into chasing me."

"Connar, that's—a very good idea," Ellaenie admitted. "But it's a huge risk you'd be taking!"

The young man nodded gravely. "I know, Your Grace. But it needs taking."

"…Do it."

He nodded, and grabbed one of the house staff. "You. Where's the laundry? His Lordship needs some proper clothes."

They lurked in the basements for an agonizing interval. Twice more, the house shook and the distant sounds of devastation suggested the airship's captain intended to bring it down in a burning pile around their ears if they didn't flee soon. Eventually, Connar returned looking somewhat ridiculous in one of Eckard's dressing gowns and nightcaps, while Eckard looked small and ungainly in the much larger man's coat and flat cap.

"Everyone ready?" the Earl asked.

"I'm scared, sir," the fainting made quavered.

"I know, Hetty. Just get to the woods, quick as you can." Eckard touched the stump of his arm, took a deep breath, made eye contact with Ellaenie, and nodded. "On your word, Your Grace."

Ellaenie took a deep breath, and flung herself out the garden door. She threw her hands into the air above her head as she went, willing another shield to form out of dust motes and air currents. She tried to make it hazy and dark, to bend the light passing through it so the activity beneath might pass unnoticed for a few seconds.

Either it worked, or the airship's captain had been expecting them to go out the front door. Either way, he was slow to react. By the time the ship changed course and banked around to line up another cannonade, the group was out and scattering, fleeing in every direction. Deckard was with Takes, blowing and puffing along as the Particular helped him over the garden fence before sprinting off across toward the decorative avenue of ancient oaks that lined the driveway.

Connar went in exactly the opposite direction, accompanied by Jenks, and Ellaenie's heart leapt as the airship took the bait and altered course.

She shifted her shield out, balancing it precariously at the very limit of her power, and shaped it into a wedge in the hopes that when the shot glanced off it, she'd take less of the sympathetic shock.

It didn't work quite as well as she'd hoped. Another punishing rain of grapeshot turned the fields and fences around the fleeing Particulars into a blizzard of mud and shredded grass. Ellaenie staggered, now too dizzy to stand. But thank fuck she'd bought them two minutes or so.

Was that enough? She hoped so. The important part was, it wasn't going after Eckard.

Brenilda helped her to her feet, and together they fled toward the forest. She'd done all she could, and now the only option left was to pray.

Somebody started shouting: Takes. He was pointing, screaming for her to notice something. She looked up, and her heart dropped right through her belly and into the depths of the earth.

Another airship was coming, banking in and down toward the manor grounds. And this one still had a working searchlight on its nose. THe sight of it nearly robbed her of her remaining vigor, but…

…But it didn't bank down to attack them. Instead, its searchlight stabbed out and skewered the first ship. And as it swooped low overhead, Ellaenie looked up to see the familiar figurehead of a bare-breasted woman with a sabre and tricorn hat.

The Guild airship tried to climb and break off, but had nowhere to go. The Cavalier Queen thundered past with her engines howling, then her port-side battery erupted in a thunderous volley. Grapeshot reduced the Guild airship's bag to confetti. For a moment, the gondola continued upwards through the air on sheer momentum, but its only master now was gravity, and its arc flattened, bent downwards...

Some ancestral Banmor or another had built a folly at that end of the grounds. It was a clocktower, sturdily masoned from solid limestone. The plunging airship demolished it, and was demolished in turn. The sound of their mutual demise rolled on and on for what felt like an hour, until suddenly…silence.

Well. Not quite. The Queen banked her engines, slowed, came around and returned across the manor grounds at a rather more sedate pace. As it came, it shed dark shapes like a sunflower dropping its seeds.

One thumped into the turf a few feet to Ellaenie's right. It was an elf, his skin almost pure black and his equaly dark hair pulled into thick ropy dreadlocks. He ran eyes as red as burning coals across the scene around him, then looked to Ellaenie and bowed deeply.

"Captain Holten's compliments, Your Grace," he said, with a thick accent. "He foresaw your need."

Ellaenie picked herself up and dusted herself off. She hadn't even noticed sagging to the ground. "I…thank you," she said, breathlessly. "Your timing is—"

"A little late, it seems," the elf shook his head.

"Better than never," Ellaenie told him. "We need to get the Earl down to the regimental headquarters in town."

"The Rüwyrdan Set will see to it," the elf assured her. "For now, your Grace, I see you are weary. Please, rest. The battle is won."

Ellaenie nodded faintly, and sank back down to the grass. Fatigue like she'd never known ached in her every muscle. She hadn't even been this drained after healing all those people after the riots, just before her exile. Something about using the Word tired her out in her soul.

But they'd won. They'd done it. Soon, the Lendwick Regiment would switch sides, and they could start getting supplies in to Auldenheigh again. They'd won. They'd—

She blinked, then surged to her feet on a sudden new rush of adrenaline.

In all the desperate action, she'd forgotten about Adrey.


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