03



Kastor’s mouth flooded sour, then went dry. His palms were slick on his swords’ hilts. Shivers crawled across his skin, and he was dizzy, hyperventilating.

The mule dashed suddenly past him, eyes rolling, its hooves throwing clods of earth against his ankles. The demon’s head swung to watch the mule -- never pausing in its babbling -- and then swung back, bobbed side to side as if looking for something. It stopped, grabbed fistfuls of earth, hopped. All at once, it dashed toward the trunk of books and Magda’s blanket.

That sudden movement closer was the last straw. From somewhere deep and unreachable, Kastor felt that familiar little snap, and then he was a dim passenger on the whirlwind of the ruagh feaheledd, the blood madness.

A wordless shriek of rage trailed him as he leapt atop the trunk of books to kick the demon in the nearest oversized eye. Then down, low, stabbing for legs and groin, block-slice the reaching arm and behind, both blades stab -- something off balance there -- whirling blade-flower defense -- an ear off, it can bleed, it bleeds white like a beetle -- tail, jump, where did the tail come from? -- twist cut and -- teeth -- through the shiny black hand, rip -- rip -- ruin -- now -- now --

“Kastor! Kastor! Kastor, please! Please, Kastor, it’s done, please stop!” Magda’s voice entered him like drops into a water clock until they finally tipped the balance and brought him home. He fumbled to a halt like a mechanical toy running down.

He stood in the middle of a circle of demon parts ten feet broad. Its shiny black flesh and milky blood dripped from his hands, his blades, his face, his armor, the trees, the book box, and the nearest two transfixed soldiers. There was not a piece of the thing left large enough to name a hand or an eye. It was exploded.

Magda was weeping. From left-over fear, from relief, from horror at what he had done -- he didn’t know. She had her hands over her mouth, but now took them down, clasped them to still their shaking. She managed a quivering smile. “I think it’s quite banished now.”

One of the engineers gave a bark of disbelieving laughter. Kastor blinked at the others, trying to make them make sense. That armored, shine-helmeted one coming nearer in long strides was Tanner. No threat, he told himself firmly -- a friend.

“Nessa’s tits,” Tanner said wonderingly. “That is one dead demon.”

“Uh -- yeah.” Kastor took a long breath, acrid with the chemical reek of demon’s blood. “I got a little carried away. Sorry.” Then something occurred to him and he looked at the sergeant sharply. “Are there more of them? Time for honesty, Tanner.”

“Honestly, we don’t know. There might be. And if they can do that fear thing...” She grimaced. “We were useless. What would it take to get you to stay until Marsdale gets here?”

“Where’s your party of Specials? Aren’t they equipped to deal with this?”

“Dead. That’s what the red signal meant.”

Frowning, he glanced at Magda. She was still pale, but had calmed herself admirably. She gave him an encouraging nod. “You were the only one who dared go near it, Kastor. If you hadn’t been here, Sergeant Tanner’s people would have been in a great deal of trouble.”

“I’m getting paid to guard you. That doesn’t include keeping you here in harm’s way.”

“If you want to put it that way,” she said wryly, “I’m your employer, so you have to do as I tell you. We can’t leave these people to the mercy of whatever cryptofauna happen to wander by.”

“Well, but --”

“I’m staying. If you want to guard me, you have to do it here.”

He sighed. “Fine. We’re staying.”

Tanner clapped him on the shoulder. “Glad to have you.” She turned away to take a head count.

Magda offered him a handkerchief, and pointed. “The stream is that way.”



In cleaning the demon’s strange gore from himself, he discovered injuries. Plenty of bruises, which ached quietly and didn’t slow him down. More troubling were a pair of claw-scratches down the back of his hand and a gouge on his thigh -- it had stopped on a strap of his armor, or it might have been much deeper -- which were bathed in that sharp-smelling white blood, and didn’t hurt at all. They were quite numb. He wasn’t sure what to make of that. He washed them until his blood flowed clean, then limped back to camp to look for bandages.

Before he finished binding the deepest scratch, one of the treetop lookouts called down. “Movement in the north, on the road! Got to be the enemy, sarge!”

“Keep us posted!” called Tanner. She turned to her troops, who were subdued and shamefaced in the wake of the demon’s fear-attack. “Everybody get a pole and make ready to fend off. Axes ready, but don’t use ‘em unless they get over the barricade. There aren’t enough of us. We’re just here to keep them on that side until Marsdale can move up.”

“Sarge,” someone said, “how long?”

“Won’t be earlier than morning, even if he takes a short list to come up here doubletime. Midday or later if he moves everybody. So we’re not engaging, you got that? We’re just going to tip ‘em over like turtles. Line up.” She beckoned to Kastor. “Come do that over here, mate. I want you to hold this end. If they come around, you do your sawmill impression on them. I’ll hold down the other end. Sister, if you don’t mind helping, you could take charge of the water and bandages, free up one of my men.”

“Gladly,” said Magda, and her voice was firm, but her face was very white.

Kastor took the position Tanner had pointed out. He spared a moment to look down the road, squinting for signs of whatever was approaching. From the way Tanner was talking about it, Magda’s guess had been right, and they were expecting undead. He set his foot up on a log of the barricade so he could unbuckle his leg plate. The strap was sticky with blood -- his or his enemy’s, he couldn’t tell. At last he fumbled it open. His trouser leg was stuck to the cut. He considered whether to cut it away, possibly releasing a fresh flow of blood, or bandage over it, inviting infection. He’d never had a wound go really septic, but he didn’t think that made him immune.

“Hundred yards,” called the lookout.

“Here they come. Steady, now. Get your poles out.” Tanner was no longer bellowing. She sounded firm and reassuring, the kind of voice you could trust; she wasn’t going to let anyone panic a second time. “Kyri, what’re you messing with down there?”

“Little scratch.” He wrapped the hank of bandaging over his trousers, cinched it tight, and let the extra hang; there wasn’t time to be tidy. He refastened his armor by feel, eyes fixed on the road. “I’m set,” he said, in case Tanner hadn’t noticed.

The men in the center saw them first. Kastor, at the end of the line, could only make out a suggestion of movement through the trees. Then the first of them came past the edge of the ground the engineers had cut clear, and his hands twitched toward his swords.

He’d expected stumbling sleepwalkers, mindless inexorable insects. These were not. The moved like ordinary people, looked like ordinary people, villagers out for a stroll. Their hands swung at their sides. Men, women, a few older children, striding along easily in a loose cluster, seemingly unaware of the gaping wounds that opened their bodies.

Tanner’s men murmured. Tanner quieted them. “Steady. Ready to fend off.”

Kastor was, at first, too confused to be afraid. He was sure these weren’t the sort of undead he’d been told about. Certainly not like the zombie he’d once seen playing servant in a necromancer’s house; that one had stunk of rot and the perfume that was meant to cover the rot. These smelled like fresh death. Slaughterhouse and sewage.

The battlefield smell began to spark his fear. He drew.

The first corpse reached the bit of road before the barrier, where the stream ran through a stone-lined culvert underneath. It -- he, it was impossible not to give these creatures their gender and age and obvious professions -- hesitated, poking with his foot, as if not certain the road was there. Another, a woman with the prints of flour still on her baker’s smock beneath the dried blood from her torn-out throat, reached the same place and began the same action beside him. They lined up at the stream’s path, wavering, bending down to pat the road. It was the most bizarre thing Kastor had ever seen.

Shortly, though, the press behind them grew too thick. They were shoved forward. The ones who had shoved them began the waving-and-groping dance, while the ones who were standing over the stream shoved back at them, dully frantic to get off the blind place. Rank by rank they shoved and tangled each other, while some of the engineers dared to laugh at their bumbling. Inevitably, there came a time when one was shoved all the way past the water and stood on clear ground again. It was a slim adolescent girl, with yellow ribbons in her hair, wearing a pale-green dress. A pit yawned where her guts should be. She patted at the barricade, her face fixed in an expression of deep concentration.

“Climb,” she said clearly. Shivers crawled across Kastor’s scalp.

The dead girl grasped the logs of the barricade and began, laboriously, to haul herself up. The nearest engineer, with a cry of disgust, flailed at her with his pole. The dead girl batted it away, undeterred. Tanner’s shout stopped the frightened man.

“Steady, you big baby! You want to go down there and hand them your pole? Do it like this.” Scrambling to the man’s position, Tanner took his pole and gripped it like a shovel, set it firmly in the middle of the dead girl’s chest and shoved hard. The undead child went backwards off the barricade, landing in a heap at the bottom. It seemed to take her some time to figure out how to stand again. Tanner gave the man his pole back, and he took it with a wry grin, fear abated to something that could be worked through.

Another walking corpse reached the wooden wall. “Climb.”

This slow horror went on and on. Kastor’s disgust never quite turned into fear; he was able to stay on the correct side of the barricade, waiting patiently for a corpse to wander around in a probably inadvertent attempt to flank the engineers. Then he would neatly destroy the man or woman or child with a spare, controlled stroke. Headless or bisected, they groped at themselves for a few stomach-churning moments before they were still. From time to time he glanced over to see Tanner doing the same.

She was good, he noted distantly. Her sword was much heavier. A two-hander. Considering its weight, she was pretty damn fast. Her attacks were simple; simple was all that was needed. Between their two positions, the engineers poled the dead off the wall. There was a time when it became almost comical, and the men began to joke and crow, mocking the creatures they shoved at with their poles. Their laughter turned bleaker when it became clear that the trickle of dead was not slowing. They kept arriving. They piled up at the base of the wall and began climbing on each other. The distance they had to scramble to reach the engineers was getting shorter, which meant more of them at once, and the men were getting tired.

Madga rushed back and forth along the line, tending the torches so the men had light to work by, bringing water to the ones who had a moment between polings to drink it. So far there was no need for bandages, but it was clear that the dead were gaining ground.

Kastor was picking them off, but not fast enough to make life easier for the engineers. Not enough were coming near his position. He called out to Tanner -- the dead were nearly silent, it was easy to be heard over them. “Sergeant! Do you want me to thin them out a bit? I’m half idle over here!”

“Hold the line!” she shouted back. “We’re not here to beat them!”

He shook his head, pitying her. It was the Legion’s way of doing things, and he supposed it was part of what made them so strong, but he was sure it must sting to have to follow such cowardly orders. He was certain that if she hadn’t been told by her superiors to hold the enemy here and not engage, she’d wade out there with him and cut great swaths into the disorderly ranks of the dead.

While he was thinking, a farmer with straw in his hair and his lower jaw torn away had a go at climbing Kastor’s part of the barrier. Kastor dismembered him neatly. This was the most tedious battle he’d ever experienced.

Gradually, he realized that the sky was going blue beyond the glare of the torches. It was nearly dawn. Some unmeasured time after this, a treetop lookout called down: “Dust on the south road, ma’am! It’s got to be Marsdale!”

“Thank you, Will, and keep us posted,” Tanner replied. Her fatigue was beginning to show in her voice and in the heavy movements of her sword. She was not so tired that she’d lost control of the situation, though; she noticed when a section of the barricade was about to be overwhelmed, and called sharply to Kastor to deal with it.

He was still fresh enough. He’d need to give himself a full night’s sleep after this, but for now he had no trouble springing up the woodpile to remove the relevant parts from a handful of dead who’d topped the wall. He cut them back until the engineers could deal with them again, then ran to deal with a pileup at his own position.

As he was doing so, he heard Magda scream his name. He chopped down the last zombie in front of him and turned to see what her problem was. He didn’t feel that fear again, not another demon -- though all demons were different --

But it was just a dead woman who’d got past him in the confusion. It was odd to see an ancient crone striding along like a young girl, but he supposed these creatures’ inability to feel pain would allow a bent old woman to do that. The dead crone moved steadily toward Magda; but when Magda dashed sideways to be closer to Kastor, the crone didn’t turn, but went on in the same direction. Toward the box of books and the nun’s other belongings -- and, he realized, the remains of the demon. He followed, but let the dead woman move ahead just long enough to confirm his guess.

The crone went to the mess where he’d killed the demon, fell to her knees, and began punching and tearing at the stained ground.

Kastor took two strides forward and casually removed her from the equation. As he jogged back to his place in line, he shouted to Tanner. “Sergeant, did you see what happened over here?”

Interested, the engineers stilled their complaints and instructions to each other, and fended silently while their officer replied. “Saw you got a bit behind, is all.”

“One got loose, went straight for what’s left of that demon. Started attacking the -- the bits. Could these things be after that demon? Still chasing its current position?”

“Don’t see why they would be. Doesn’t change anything. On your left, there, mate.”

“Oh, thanks.” He went to deal with the incursion she’d pointed out.

“Reinforcements confirmed!” the lookout called. “Captain Marsdale and about twenty horse!”

“Excellent,” Tanner answered. “I was hoping he’d do that. Who can hold this end while I go talk to him?”

“I got it, Sarge!” That was the female engineer, trying to sound eager despite her fatigue. Kastor could see she was in no shape to do the job, just trying to prove herself in front of the men, but Tanner waved her over.

“Eyes and hands,” said Tanner while the engineer set down her pole and hefted her axe. “Feet if that’s what you can get. Don’t bother with --” a pause while she decapitated a groping enemy -- “the chest, they can keep going as long as they’ve got limbs to do it with.”

“Got it.” The female engineer gripped her axe excitedly. As Tanner left her, she gave a yell and swung hard at the nearest zombie. The axe stuck in its spine, not as sharp as Tanner’s sword. She had to back off for a second swing. The eagerness was gone from her face then, and she retched, but she gamely squared off to chop down the next one.

Hooves sounded on the road. A neat column of cavalry pounded into view, their tunics purple in the dawn light. As they reined in, mounts lathered and blowing, Tanner went to meet them at a businesslike half-run, cleaning her sword as she went. She saluted the leader as he dismounted.

Kastor couldn’t hear their conversation. He had time for a bare glance at the man who must be Captain Marsdale, a barrel-shaped and bowlegged man with an unruly black beard. Then he had to get back to work. After a few minutes, though, he sensed a presence coming up behind him, and from the muffled clank of armor he guessed that it was either Marsdale or Tanner.

“I’ll be with you in a second,” he said, to forestall them climbing up beside him and spoiling his reach.

“Keep at it, son. Don’t stop on my account.” A deep male voice; Marsdale, then. “I’m just watching.”

“Not much to see,” Kastor grunted as he hewed down a pair of dead children. “It’s like fighting furniture. I hope you don’t mind my helping Tanner out -- not being one of your men, and all.”

“No, no problem. Tanner says you got the demon.”

“Yeah.”

“Did she promise to pay you?”

“No, I just want the road clear.”

“Fine. Keep it up. When you get tired, let me or Tanner know and we’ll have someone relieve you.”

“Thanks.” He heard Marsdale walk away, and shortly thereafter was able to glance over to see the newly arrived men trading places with the engineers. These men, rather than fending off with poles, began chopping down the dead as they came.

The engineers were given a few minutes’ rest, then set to work hauling away the bits of corpses that fell on their side of the wall. The cavalrymen were destroying the undead at a steady pace, but they weren’t really gaining ground. There were hundreds of animated corpses piled up and clawing at the wall, and more still trickling in by ones and twos.

Kastor took the opportunity of a half hour’s rest once the fresh men were in place. Then he went back to work. His muscles ached now, and his swords felt heavy, but he wasn’t sleepy. He was starting to think maybe he should open the subject of payment after all. Nobody should have to do such a boring, smelly job for free.

When the sun was high, the rest of Marsdale’s men arrived. A full century all told, at Kastor’s best guess, roughly twenty more horse and sixty pikemen. Marsdale and Tanner conferred. A runner came to get Kastor, telling him his work was finished, and he should leave it to the Legion now. He retired to the side of the road a hundred yards back and sat against a tree to watch. Orders were given. Men formed up and marched into the wood on either side.

So they were going to do one of those pincer things the Legion liked to do. It never worked on Kyri -- light cavalry was too mobile -- but it would work just fine on the undead. He wasn’t sure about the choice of pikes, but it wasn’t his decision.

Magda came and sat beside him with a gusty sigh. “I’m so glad it’s over.”

“Over? It’s just finally got started.”

“But our part. I’m sure they’ll make short work of this horrible business. I know I’ll have nightmares for weeks -- I’ve never seen anything so sad.”

“Sad?” He looked at her curiously. Disgusting, yes, but sad?

“Those poor people. They must have come from Merallis, and all around. I wonder who did this to them?”

He was suddenly uncomfortable with himself. He hadn’t thought of the people they’d once been. However placid they looked now, their deaths could not all have been easy. “Yeah, that’s the question, isn’t it?”

She rubbed at a smudge on her cheek. “I suspect, somehow, that Mikah would know.”

Kastor winced. He glanced around warily, as if speaking the Mara’s name might invoke him. For all they knew, it might.

At that moment, a chorus of battle-cries sounded beyond the barrier. The Legion were at work. Magda looked pained, as if the sounds of battle hurt her. Kastor put a reassuring hand on her arm. Something in him came wide awake at that sound, and he wanted to join in, but he didn’t want it too badly. He was tired and smelly and his feet hurt.

“Do you think...” Magda gave a nervous glance in the direction of the barrier, over which they could only see the occasional waving pike-head. “Do you think they’ll let us through right away? Or will we be delayed longer?”

Kastor opened his mouth to give some meaningless reply, but a change in the noise of battle stopped him. There was confusion in it, suddenly, and fear, and the few cries of the wounded had risen to a steady howl.

He didn’t realize he was on his feet until he felt Magda tugging down on his arm. He pulled it out of her grasp. “Be ready to run,” he told her, and went to find out what was going on.

Caution slowed the last few yards of his approach. He joined the engineers peeking over the top of the barrier, all lying low to make themselves less inviting targets. Their expressions were as much perplexed as dismayed, and when he got a clear view he saw why.

There was a man on horseback in the road beyond the scene of battle, a young and beautiful man with a rippling flag of pale-gold hair. Kastor thought at first glance that it was Mikah, but that impression lasted only a split second. This man was taller and broader, his features sharper. His eyes were not amber, but tuquoise. Most telling, his clothes -- a green velvet robe of the sort a merchant might wear, over silk trousers and short boots -- were stained with great slobbers of blood and mud. Mikah would never have allowed himself to become so filthy. The blond man’s mount stood as if exhausted, blowing heavily; its eyes were rolling wild and its hooves planted wide apart, its head hanging. The man’s expression was petulant. He was speaking -- Kastor could see his mouth moving -- but too quietly to be heard.

Before him, the battle surged back and forth. The dead seemed to be moving more purposefully now, but they weren’t the whole source of the Legion’s trouble. Whenever the Legionnaires began to rally, the blond man raised a hand in a languid gesture and made a throwing motion, and everyone in that direction, living and dead alike, were thrown like toys against the trees. The zombies got up again. Many of the others did not.

It didn’t take long for Marsdale to discern the pattern. He called to his nearest men, wading through the flailing undead without bothering to fight them, making an arrowhead toward the blond man. Kastor watched as two men grabbed the bridle of the terrified horse, and the rest attacked with pikes. He watched as the pike heads broke off as if they were stems of straw thrust against a stone. He watched as the blond man snatched Marsdale up by the top of his head and, with his other hand, tore off the captain’s breastplate; then -- Kastor heard himself cry out -- slit him open with a gesture to let his steaming guts unreel into the road.

Marsdale didn’t die immediately. He had time amongst his howling to take a blood-slick dagger from his hip and plunge it into the blond man’s side. The blond man dropped his victim with a cry that looked more like annoyance than pain. He pulled the dagger from him and threw it casually over his shoulder. A little blood flowed, but only a little; what should have been a killing blow had hurt him hardly at all.

And Kastor was seeing this in snippets as he ran. He shoved friend and foe alike out of his path as he wove toward the terrifying creature that had just filleted a cavalry officer like a fish. He had just time to think -- here we go again -- before he went blood-mad.

The blond man yelled surprise and then anger as Kastor’s swords cut into him. The blows should have been fatal, but the man’s flesh seemed hardened, like wood, and the blades only opened long gashes across his chest. But these, unlike the hole from Marsdale’s dagger, gushed gore, and the stranger was knocked from his horse. Kastor danced back out of reach, chopping at a hand that grabbed for him.

A stinging slap of force sent him tumbling backward. He got up again, and was again knocked down. His arms jerked taut of their own accord, held together above his head, his swords ripped from his hands. Invisible shackles hauled him kicking into the air; even then, he was thrashing and snarling, snapping teeth. The blond man picked up one of Kastor’s swords and sniffed it. He put the point to the leather plate over Kastor’s heart. He began, slowly, experimentally, to push.

“What on earth are you doing, boy? Can’t you see my mark on him? Put that down this instant.”

In the fugue of hatred that turned him into a beast, Kastor recognized Mikah’s voice only as another element in the chaos, increasing even further the pressure to wreck and wreck until all was quiet. It didn’t matter that the enemy startled and dropped the sword like a guilty child. Kastor hung in the air by the wrists and tried desperately to kick at the stranger, who was out of reach. He was only peripherally aware that he saw Mikah standing atop the barricade, head cocked, lips thin with annoyance.

The man in the blood-drenched velvet robe pouted. “You can’t take my toys. I won’t let you.”

“Ha.” Mikah jumped lightly down. He frowned at the faltering battle around him. He clapped his hands together twice, and every animated corpse dropped like the dead weight it should have been. Freed of the need to defend themselves, the Legionnaires backed slowly away from him.

“I want this,” the strange man said. “I’m going to keep it.”

“No, as a matter of fact, you’re not. Why, look at you, all smirched and stinking. Who made you? This is ridiculous. Didn’t anyone teach you how to play without spoiling your toys?”

The blood fugue was fading. Kastor realized, belatedly, that the strange man was a Mara. Mikah was speaking to him in a tone of condescending irritation, and the other Mara was sulking. “He said I could do what I wanted. He said to have fun.”

“Who did?”

“Stiaan.”

Mikah went suddenly, terrifyingly still; tensely held anger flared his amber eyes. His voice was low. “Oh, he did, did he? Tell me your name, vishira.”

“No.”

“Tell me your name, you thing, or I’ll put you past the use for names! Obey me!”

The stranger cringed back from Mikah. “Nevbelis.”

“Hah.” Mikah’s laugh was without humor. “How very creative. Put down my madman, Nevbelis. I will assume you didn’t know he was mine, and rather than punish you I’ll simply school you. Put him down, newling.”

The invisible grip that held Kastor in the air let go, dropped him sprawling in the dust. He scrambled after his weapons. Nevbelis said, “I didn’t want him anyway. Or his little stingers.”

Mikah sighed. “What a mess you’ve made here. Nevbelis, I bind you. For one hundred years’ time, you may not use shtedtzaar, nor may you kill. Not even a chicken, child. That makes you a vegetarian from now on. I might lift the binding early, if you learn your lessons well.”

“No!” Nevbelis stomped his foot, made fists, face pinking with rage. “No! I reject your binding! You can’t tell me what to do, you’re not my master!”

“Optimistic little nit.”

“I refuse your binding! I refuse you!” Nevbelis raised clawed hands, and sent out a bolt of force so strong that it bent the light where it passed.

Mikah turned his head, hair and clothing snapping with the force’s passing. When he turned back, a trickle of blood spilled from a tiny cut on his cheek. That was all the blast had done to him. He smiled. “You’re much too small a dog for bear-baiting.” He backhanded the air before him, and Nevbelis folded in two with a grunting cry. Mikah stepped closer, poised his hand above the other’s head, and pushed down. “Aluni kamei be seridah.”

Nevbelis began to shrink. His shout of rage shaded into pain, then terror, as he was crushed smaller and smaller, folding into himself in an eye-watering distortion of size and distance. He was child-sized, dog-sized, mouse-sized, and then -- with a sharp small crack like a twig breaking -- gone.

Mikah turned to Kastor, gave him an appraising look. “Not harmed, I hope?”

Kastor labored to his feet. He glared. “No. Is he dead?”

“Of course he’s not dead, my ravening. I sent him away. He no longer has the power to do this sort of thing.” He gestured around at the dead and wounded and merely frightened. His skin was sheened with sweat, but there was no other evidence of effort. “You can put those away. There’s no one left to fight.”

“There’s you.”

Mikah’s smile faltered for a moment before he could turn it into a smirk. “You mean to harm me? After I’ve just saved you, and with your hands trembling like that? Come, let me see you. I smell demon on you.”

Kastor took half a step back, on principle, but reason conquered at last. He wiped his swords clean and sheathed them. His head ached. He stood still while Mikah examined him, pressing at the claw marks on the back of his hand. The flesh around them was blue-pale, like frostbite.

“Numb, are they?” Mikah spit in his hand and wiped the spit over the cuts. Immediately, tingling pins and needles spread from the edges of the blue flesh inward. By the time Mikah got the bandage on Kastor’s leg undone, the hand was flaming with pain. Mikah threw his leg plate aside, tore the rip in his trouser leg wider. Then, after glancing up with a wicked grin, he fastened his mouth to the wound.

Kastor tried to jerk away. “What are you doing? That’s disgusting! You’re -- that’s embarrassing! Get off! You -- ow!” Sensation was prickling back into the area, and he could feel Mikah’s tongue in the cut, burning. “Get off of me! I swear I’ll hit you -- I’m drawing, I’m going to hit you, I really will.”

With one last sucking kiss at the wound, Mikah let him go and stood. His smile was dribbled with red. “Every time I save your life, you wave your swords at me. Do you mean it as a running joke, or is that accidental?” He wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, looked at the blood there, and licked it clean. “You taste like fury.”

Before Kastor could reply, he bounded away, ignoring the astonished soldiers who stared after him.

Kastor wearily re-bandaged his leg. The dead-white flesh was returning to healthier color; he had to admit that whatever Mikah had been up to, it seemed to have been beneficial. Still -- still. What had Mikah meant about ‘every time’ -- was he pretending he’d been the one to kill those eight bandits on the Garwater road? Kastor couldn’t remember threatening him any other time. “Lunatic,” Kastor muttered. He followed the Mara over the barricade, but only because Magda was on that side.

Mikah was addressing the soldiers. “Who’s in charge now?”

There was some confusion. Eventually one officer answered. “I am. Commander Jan Sutton. Who are you?”

“I’m Mikah. And I’m borrowing Jennet Tanner. Give her orders to follow me.”

“What?” The man stepped forward, frowning. “I can’t do that!”

“You can, you will, you must. Or did you miss seeing that I beat the one who was beating you? I’m trying to be polite, Commander Jan Sutton, but I will be rude if it comes to that.”

Jan Sutton looked around at his men, glared at Tanner as if all this were her fault. He nodded tightly. “Under duress. Don’t think I won’t report this.” He beckoned. “Sergeant. You go with him.”

“Sir.” Tanner saluted, but her face was blotchy. She marched rigidly to where Mikah stood.

Mikah looked her up and down, then beamed at her. “Hello, Jennet Tanner! Now I have my soldier, and we’re three-quarters done.” He grasped her hand and pumped it heartily while she worked her jaw in stifled anger. “Come along, Kastor, Magda. We’re running late.”

Kastor let out a groan. “Not this again. How many times do we have to tell you no?”

“No more times, my violence. I’ve no time for your refusals anymore. Anyway, you’re curious, and I have answers. Come. And don’t forget your books.”



They were a sorry bunch as they headed north. Mikah had taken the other Mara’s horse and put Magda on it, because the young nun was too tired to walk. Kastor limped heavily now that he could feel the cut on his leg. Tanner was unhurt, but she’d been fighting all night and half the day; she trudged, head hanging. They were all too tired to ask questions. Even Mikah seemed oddly subdued. He gave no outward sign of fatigue, but neither bustled nor babbled.

From time to time Magda would offer Kastor the horse, out of consideration for his wound. He would dutifully refuse, insisting that the leg was only stiff and would heal faster if he walked on it. Sometimes Tanner would mutter something about how she couldn’t believe or make sense of anything that had happened. Other than that, they walked in silence.

In early evening, they reached Merallis. Mikah, leading, made no motion to stop, so they went through. It was the corpse of a town. Nothing moved. Even the wind seemed to still itself to crawl between those dark, empty houses.

They went on well into the night. Kastor’s eyes were burning with the need for rest. Magda was dozing in the saddle. The pack mule and the horse both plodded with their heads down, and Tanner was reeling along as if she would fall down any moment.

When Mikah stopped, Kastor ran into him.

The Mara had nothing witty to say about that. He caught his balance, caught Kastor from falling with a hand splayed on his breastplate, and waited until they had all ground to a halt.

“We’re past the death-call,” he said in a subdued tone. “We can rest now.”

He led them into the pines beside the road. With a whispered word, he caused the layered needles to roll back from the rocky ground in a small circle, so they could build a fire. He threw himself on his stomach with a drawn-out groan.

“Ah, gods, I’m so hungry, I’m so tired! Is anyone fresh enough to feed me?”

“I will,” said Magda. She was leading the animals. “I slept a little.”

“Since when do you get tired, Mikah?” Kastor grumped, sinking crosslegged beside him. There was just barely light enough to see faces; the overcast sky spread moonlight and made it seem brighter, but here in the shadow of the pines that light was blocked. He couldn’t tell what was on Mikah’s face when the Mara sat up and answered in an emotionless tone.

“Since I leapt two hundred miles to rescue you, my treason. Since I matched strength with one of my kin and threw him half across the world. I should have come along with you. I should have known my soldier would be on your path.”

Tanner had been making herself comfortable against a convenient boulder; now she roused herself a bit. “Do you mean me? Look, I don’t want to piss you off, you being -- I don’t know what -- a god or something, but you seem to let these folks speak plain, so I’m going to as well. Who are you, why do you need me, where are we going, how long will it take, and what are we going to do when we get there?” She scratched her scalp fiercely with both hands for a moment, then recollected another question: “And do I get paid?”

Kastor snorted. “He’s not a god. He’s a Mara.”

“No kidding? How about that.” Tanner was unphased.

Magda had been gathering twigs and piling them up. Now she struck sparks into a nest of needles. In the sudden flare, Kastor saw the shine of tears on her cheeks. He would have said something to her, but Mikah was answering.

“Of course you get paid, Jennet Tanner. Do this for me and you’ll recieve your heart’s desire. Don’t look so skeptical -- why does no one ever believe me?”

“I wonder,” Kastor drawled.

“So do I, my wounding. I truly do. What were your other questions? Ah -- me. I’m Mikah, and that’s all I am, and no less. You, woman, are sane, and take orders well. It will take as long as it takes, and when we get there, we’ll finish what I started long before you were born. Oh little nun, pretty Magda, whatever are you bawling for? You’ll get your fussily symbolic clothes all snotty.”

She didn’t look up from feeding twigs into the tiny blaze she’d started. “You could have saved so many lives. If you’d just come earlier, you could have saved them all. Why didn’t you come earlier, Mikah? All those people. All those people didn’t have to die.”

“That’s true. If I’d come earlier, I’m sure I would have prevented it somehow. Unfortunate.”

She shook her head sharply, as if to dislodge something from her mind. “All that power. Why didn’t you help them?”

Mikah shrugged. He stretched, yawned hugely.

“Hey.” Kastor glared at him. “Don’t you yawn when she’s talking to you seriously. She’s right. I think we all want to hear your excuse.”

“Absolve me, then: I didn’t know.”

“Oh, come on.”

“Am I really a liar? I don’t remember ever lying to you. I knew nothing of any of this until I felt that Nevbelis creature’s power groping at the mark I stamped on you. Had I come any faster, my accusation, I would have arrived rolling.” He yawned again. “Do stop crying and make me some supper, little Magda. I am so very hungry.”

“Damn it, Mikah --”

“I believe him,” Tanner said suddenly.

They all turned to look at her.

She made a throwing motion with one hand. “Shit, people, you think he has to give a damn what we think? Besides, that kind of thing happens. In stories, the cavalry arrives just in the nick of time, sure. But I’ve been with the Legion eighteen years, and I can tell you, rescue either gets there too late to do more than load the wounded-wagon, or it arrives early and has to sit around waiting for something to rescue you from. Kastor, he got there in time to save your ass, and you should be damn glad. Quit picking on him.”

“You don’t know him,” Kastor growled.

“I make my own judgements of people, mate. I don’t need to borrow yours.”

He matched glares with her for a moment, then surrendered with a slow nod. “All right. All right, yes, he saved me. Thank you, Mikah.”

“How lovely of you to express such a dribble of grudging gratitude, my surly one. By the way, are you aware that you smell? You all smell. We must find some way to bathe you.”

“Don’t push it,” Tanner said.



Mikah promised that they were safe, that they could all sleep, and no one had the strength to dispute it. Kastor took the assurance seriously enough that he stripped off his armor. It wasn’t so much that he trusted Mikah, as that he was so very sick of sleeping in armor that he couldn’t bear to do it again. His own reek of demon’s blood and human blood and sweat nauseated him, but nothing could be done about it. He wrapped himself in a blanket, curled into a ball, and slept.

Some time in the night, a tickle crawling on his brow woke him partway. He slapped at it sleepily, and instead of a bug or a leaf he encountered a hand. Prying his eyes open, he glared up into Mikah’s face. The Mara murmured, “Bei jatma, bei malae. Beiyah.” The words’ meaning, dreamlike, flickered just out of his mind’s reach, and he knew it was another twisted endearment, even sicker for being private. Unguarded in half-sleep, he was forced to recognize the pain of loss that tightened his chest before it turned to anger.

“Whaya doin?” he scowled.

“I’m keeping watch, my wretched. Go back to sleep.”

“Quiddit. Touching me.”

“I’ve stopped.”

“Hmf.” Kastor pulled the blanket up over his head.

When he woke again, in bright daylight, he decided he must have dreamed it. The thought that Mikah might really have been caressing him and whispering strange pet names in that Mara language while he slept was too disturbing to believe.



It was a morning of groans and swearing. Even Magda produced a few mild curses as she stretched her aching muscles: “Oh, blast, blast this sleeping on the ground! Blast and bother it! Have I an awful lot of pine needles in my hair?”

Kastor was more colorful, but Tanner outdid him to such an extent that he fell silent to listen. When the soldier was finished cursing at her cramped neck and numb backside, Mikah applauded.

Their breakfast was punishingly small. They had barely enough food to see two people to Corathy; with four, they were on half rations. Kastor considered this as they set off with stomachs still growling, and concluded that it was Mikah’s fault. The Mara had included himself and Tanner without making any plans for their provisioning, and without allowing time for anyone else to think of it. Between that and his aches, and the occasional spearing pain down his leg as he limped along, he wasn’t as diplomatic as he could’ve been when he opened the subject of Mikah’s manipulations.

“Right. Mikah. It’s time we got some goddamn answers from you.”

“Is that so? You’ll have to ask some questions first.”

“Are you going to let us get to Corathy? Or are you going to shove us off on your errand without letting us reprovision, watch us starve?”

“Corathy. Next?”

“What the hell is this all about?”

“Oooh, that’s a good one. Let me try.” He drew his pale-gold braid through his fingers as he pondered, smoothing down the length of it, winding it around his hands. “Ah! I have it! Sibling rivalry! Or -- not quite. The nature of incompleteness? Broken things made whole? Thaumatopoeisis, Sister. And jewelry, cruel jewelry. Can we just say you’re doing me a favor?”

“No,” Kastor snapped, “because I’ve no reason to do you any favors. I’ve done you enough damn favors for one lifetime.”

“Are you still sore about that?” Mikah sounded oddly hopeful.

Tanner said, “About what?” They both ignored her.

“Of course I am, you idiot. And we’re not going to discuss it. The subject is what, by all the lords of light, you’re shoving us into, and what it’s going to cost us.”

“Oh, nothing you can’t spare.”

Kastor exploded. “Talk sense! For once in your worthless mindless hedonistic life, Mikah, talk sense to me! Or else I swear once I see Magda through the gates of Corathy, I’m going to walk away from you and keep walking away until you give up and leave me the hell alone! And if you won’t leave me alone, I’ll find out if these swords can cut you like they cut Nevbelis! You have no place in my life anymore, and every word I let you say to me is on sufferance. Don’t you dare play games now.”

Mikah just raised an eyebrow at him.

Tanner gave a low whistle. “You guys have history. I never saw history like that. I guess you better throw the man a bone, Mikah, or his head’s going to pop.”

“I would, dear fearless trooper, but I haven’t the faintest idea what sort of answer he’s looking for. I’m doing my best, really.”

Kastor spoke through gritted teeth: “Your best isn’t good enough. As usual.”

Magda made a small sound of distress. She patted his shoulder. “Kastor, please. You’re not yourself. Will you let me be the one to ask questions?”

“If you think it’ll do any good.”

“I do. At the very least, it will spare you any more quarreling. Mikah, here are the things that puzzled me. First of all, when you spoke to that evil Mara, you called him ‘newling,’ and you said, ‘Who made you?’ You recognized the name he spoke. Tell me about that.”

“Evil, Sister? You know better than that.”

“I’m not so certain.”

“Haven’t you ever heard us referred to as the neutral angels? What Nevbelis did, he did out of ignorance. It’s why I didn’t punish him. Imagine, if you will, an infant demigod, abandoned and bored, consumed with curiosity. Imagine that no one has told him how such carnage and pain makes the world ugly, and he hasn’t had time to learn it for himself. My quarrel’s not with him, it’s with the one who made him.”

“His -- parent? Parents?”

“No, no, the one who made him. Brought him into being.”

“The scriptures teach us that only the High Gods acting in concert can create a soul.”

“Oh, true, but anyone can section one.”

“Section a soul?”

Mikah shrugged. “We’ve gone all esoteric. The point is -- at least I think the point was -- he’s just a symptom, as are demons in material form doing material harm, and all sorts of unbalancing and randomness and irresponsibility.”

Kastor barked a laugh. “And you’re so responsible.”

“Kastor, hush,” said Magda. “So are you trying to tell us that your goal, the task you want our help to complete, is to end the threat of demons and... irresponsible Mara?”

“No. Not at all.”

“But --”

“It’s what will happen, but it’s not my goal. It’s incidental. Not that I think anyone will mind.”

“But then -- what are you trying to do?”

“That’s between me and Stiaan, and no one’s business but ours.”

“Who is Stiaan?”

“My brother.” He gave them all a brilliant, totally false smile, then charged ahead so they couldn’t question him anymore.