Pale Lights

Chapter 172 45

Tristan did not like Marshal de la Tavarin.

It was not a judgment born of any particular moral objection to his callousness or even of distaste for the ostentatiousness of his clothes but because of a simpler, more personal reason: the old man was hard to get a read on. Not in the way that a schooled face or a skilled liar would be, hiding or feigning. No, if anything de la Tavarin's emotions were quite openly worn. It was more that Tristan struggled to grasp the mindset, the code.

Getting the Marshal to come along to the Battle of the Barrels had been child's play, a single conversation's worth of effort, but this time it took several days of study on the man's part for him to even consider acquiescing. Tristan was absent for most of the meetings – it was above his pay grade, to stand up there with Song, Camaron and Chapul – but for the final briefing his captain had seen fit to drag him along to stand as part of the scenery. Every 'captain' in their forcefully welded alliance had brought two spares, so at least he had Angharad for company.

He was amused to see the others had also brought along their Skiritai – Jeronimo de Aznarez for Chapul, their old friend Musa for Camaron – as if the Militants were some kind of mandatory fashion accessory, standing there very lethal and very bored. Chapul had also brought along Awonke Bokang, sensibly enough given the importance of his work to the planned strategy, while interestingly Camaron had brought Ruo Xuan.

Tristan was at least two-thirds certain the captain of the Ninth had not done it because he knew the Mask grated Song something fierce, but no doubt it was an ancillary benefit. Sebastian was still quite miffed not to be the undisputed king of their arrangement and kept taking small digs at his fellow captains through deniable means like this.

On the other side of the cramped table, sharing pots of cheap tea and several plates of pastries, were the Marshal and three more officers of the Watch. To Tristan's surprise, Commander Salimata Bouare was one of them. The odds were low a commander was going to be boots on the ground, so more likely she was here on behalf of Colonel Azocar to decide how much Garrison support this offensive should get.

For once, Tristan believed Watch politics would be leaning their way: Azocar should be interested in getting the hunt over the line while the Cao's own delve was still spinning its wheels. Getting visible Garrison involvement in the win would be a boon for him, too, enough that he might be moved to cough up more than the mandatory minimum of resources.

The two officers to the left of the table required introduction. The first was Lieutenant Navpreet, a heavily pierced woman wearing a silver pin on her collar that marked her as an artillery officer, and the second was a scarecrow tall-and-thin man by the name Captain Hernando Shange with obvious mixed looks. He got an utterly startled look from Musa when he mentioned his surname, but did not spare the Skiritai so much as a second glance.

They'd gathered in a small Regnant Street bakery called Acallar Pastries, which had a delightfully appalling sign outside displaying a painted spice cookie in the shape of a man getting eaten by a dark wolf monster. The baker sold actual cookies in this shape, and the Marshal was already on his fifth when finally he cut through the chatter and got to business. No doubt Song was slowly going mad trying to ignore the crumbs in the old man's admittedly splendid mustache.

"Choose one of you to speak," Marshal de la Tavarin ordered. "Then kindly convince these fine fellows from the Garrison that your fancy plan isn't going to piss away the lives of their soldiers."

Tristan barely paid attention to the byplay between the brigade captains, already knowing how it would end. Camaron would speak, since when Awonke Bokang was called up to speak it would propel the Third to the front. Song would diplomatically cede the opportunity to speak as a favor, carving out a role as the head of the scouts that would let her shine when discussing the state of the terrain they were to march through.

But that was not Tristan's business beyond allowing himself a sliver of admiration at how his captain had seen that decision coming from miles away – last night he'd overheard her practicing the scouting presentation in front of a mirror. He had not been brought here to talk tactics but to serve as Song's eyes while she had to maintain appearances.

So, how was their roster of Garrison officers looking?

Lieutenant Navpreet kept fidgeting. Crossing her arms, leaning back into her seat, toying with her half-full cup of tea. Nervous, he assessed. But not just that. Every time there was a mention of fighting from Sebastian Camaron as he sold the officers the same plan Song had sold him, she tensed and clenched her fingers against the arms she'd crossed. She doesn't want to be part of this, but she was ordered to be.

Which was fair, Tristan conceded, considering the artillerymen would be quite vulnerable to being overrun by the beast. The cannons were their best shot at killing the Lord of Teeth, but they were also massively heavy pieces of metal manned by lightly armed specialists.

Captain Hernando Shange was visibly interested, and contrary to the lieutenant tended to lean in when there was talk of fighting. It was when Camaron spoke of the planned disposition of Garrison troops that his expression darkened. Tristan cocked his head to the side. Reluctance at his troops being split, or was it from their role in general? Given his visible eagerness for the fight, the Mask would bet that his greater concern was that the Garrison troops would not be playing a decisive role. He wants a notch on his belt.

But not so much, Tristan saw, that he forgot his place in the pecking order. The captain kept sneaking looks at Commander Bouare, as if to gauge her opinion of what was being said. That told Tristan everything he needed to know about who must be sold: if Navpreet believed herself of too low a rank to influence the decision and Captain Hernando would defer to his superior officer, then the only one they really needed to get to buy in was Salimata Bouare.

He pretended to adjust his collar, learning close enough to pitch a whisper at Song's ear.

"Marshal lied, only Bouare matters," he murmured, then straightened.

From the corner of his eye he saw Song slowly nod in acknowledgement even as Angharad shot him a curious look. He shook his head – he'd explain later. Besides, his job wasn't quite over yet: there was still one person at the table he was supposed to get a read on.

The Marshal had already heard it all, most of it twice, but did not behave like a man bored out of his mind the way Tristan might have expected. Even the earlier meetings had been taken seriously, with little of the nonchalance he'd displayed before the Battle of the Barrels – men or creatures, like the difference hardly mattered. De la Tavarin had asked about the roads, about supplies, about retreat paths and second-string plans. It had seemed quite at odds with his usual Militant swagger, the maverick boast that one did not need planning when you could kill anything in every room you were ever in. Was it because there were Garrison lives on the line?

It shouldn't be, considering that the permanent presence in the Lamb Hill camp was also soldiers from the Allazei garrison and the Marshal took no real interest in running the place beyond the occasional public ruling over student squabbles. Despite the alleged rank he had retired at, the Marshal ran Lamb Hill more like a captain of the farfanes, the Old Liergan mercenaries whose taste for garish colors he still kept.

Tristan watched the old man, who was listening to Camaron's words attentively and did not distract or posture beyond his outlandish clothes, and wondered if it was that simple. That this part of the hunt was, to him, like a mercenary contract and so finally worth taking seriously. It seemed absurd at first glance, considering the deadliness that lay under every other paving stone of Port Allazei. But then what does deadly mean to a man who was a Skiritai for decades?

It made a twisted sort of sense for the habits of a lifetime to lead Marshal de la Tavarin to treat a beast-hunting contract with attentive respect but refuse to spare death anything more than a smirk. It was, Tristan thought, a feasible read of the man. One that'd even give him a keystone when bargaining with the Marshal in the future. So why was it that he kept feeling like he'd missed something?

Tristan really did not like Marshal de la Tavarin.

The meeting did not wrap up quickly, but neither did it spin up into an endless platitude of empty questions and clarifications. Captain Chapul and her powderman were made to answer technical questions as to what they were using by the artillery lieutenant, who seemed satisfied by the answers if slightly appalled by the expense. That makes two of us, lieutenant. War was expensive business, Tristan had learned, he could understand why the Six avoided it so much.

No doubt it was even more costly when you lost, which they had a careless habit of.

When Song was called to the front to answer as to the state of the route to the dantesvara, he noted with approval that she focused on Bouare and gave hard numbers like the severe woman preferred. How much weight the wooden passageways could support, estimated time to pass through the brushlands path and then get the forces into position, the minimum necessary number of powder barrels and she even produced the few scouting reports from their crews on the state of the Nests and the western canal bed.

The papers seemed to impress Commander Bouare, so Tristan retroactively retracted the slightly scathing comments he'd made inside his mind when Song insisted that his and Angharad's reports must be inked instead of purely verbal. If it worked, it worked.

Then came the verdict.

"It is a risky operation you propose," Commander Salimata Bouare sternly said, leaning back.

To her left Captain Hernando's face creased while Lieutenant Navpreet looked hopeful.

"But there is no way to beard a Lord of Teeth in its lair without risk, and you have been laudably thorough in your planning," she said, triggering a reversal of the faces to her left. "The estimated costs are high, but the Marshal's involvement means we can recoup funding from the Obscure Committee."

Her lips thinned.

"And I would rather pay in coin than blood to be rid of the beast," she added, then turned to her right. "Marshal, you've faced dantesvara before. You believe the plan will work?"

The old man stroked his mustache, flicking off some stubborn crumbs on the floor in a gesture that had Song suppressing a twitch.

"If this were a regular specimen of the breed, I would give it two in three chances of success," Marshal de la Tavarin said. "This one, though, is different. It ate shrines to heal and nearly collapsed Misery Square into the aether. Moreover, since lairing in the Old Canals it has kept an unusually low profile."

The Marshal drummed his fingers against the table, then twisted his wrist to reveal a thick golden coin, its visible face stamped with a round lake. Rajasarasi, Tristan thought. The Someshwari's most valuable minted coin, the most valuable gold coin in all of Vesper when the latest Raja of Mahabhara wasn't debasing the currency. The old man twirled it across his knuckles and laid it to rest atop his readied thumb, revealing the crown stamped on the other side.

"For this one?" the Marshal continued. "Half-and-half. A flip of the coin, Salimata."

She sighed.

"Not odds I would usually gamble on," Commander Bouare admitted. "But our forces are stretched too thin. Between the defensive line facing the Ashgarden, the ever-increasing Scholomance patrols, your Lamb Hill camp and the ships we had to send to Kofoni we're pushing the limit of our capacity. We need that monster dead."

Marshal de la Tavarin smiled, flipping the coin with a resonant ting then snatching it out of the air quickly enough Tristan never got a glimpse of how it landed.

"Then we have an agreement," he said. "You stand by your stated date, captains?"

"The twenty-ninth is most suitable for our purposes, sir," Sebastian Camaron replied before the others could.

Not that they disagreed, though Nenetl looked irked at having been cut off. It was in five days, on the secondday of next week, and the date had been carefully picked. They wanted to march after the rainy day so that it would wash out the scents for the lemures of the Nests, but some parts of the canals were unusable before they dried – so two days after was best. Setting out during the week also made it harder for other brigades to mobilize and interfere, especially if they managed to keep a lid on their plans this time.

They wouldn't, not entirely. Tristan had personally seen to that. But thinning down the interference was well worth the inconveniences.

"The Garrison will provide all the requested equipment and soldiers for the hunt on the twenty-ninth," Commander Bouare stated, officially stamping her seal of approval. "Gods be with you, blackcloaks. And if they aren't, that's what the silver is for."

She was answered by rigid salutes, the sudden formality then almost immediately collapsing into rather informal chatter as the meeting came to an end. Tristan hung back by the door, letting the Stripes and the Skiritai mingle with the officers, and kept an eye on the crowd instead. He was soon joined by another. Ruo Xuan Liu did not lean against the doorsill as the thief had, ramrod straight even when idling as if unbending even an inch would be a decadent indulgence.

Tristan could see why he set off Song, besides the way he spoke. Instead of the topknots ubiquitous in Tianxia, Ruo wore his hair in a plait pulled into flat bun against the back of his head, secured in place by a square jade hairpin. It was an older style, Tristan been told, and much of the man was old-fashioned – it felt slightly off, as if aside from other Tianxi.

Not that it made Ruo Xuan any less sharp on the uptake.

"Master Abrascal," the other Mask greeted him.

"My lord of Liu," Tristan drily replied.

A moment passed as they watched the chatter.

"Lieutenant Navpreet might be an issue," Ruo Xuan quietly said.

Tristan snorted. Bit of a Republican blinder, there. Their armies were mostly militia and mercenaries, so they had a long history of running when things looked bad. Ruo was predisposed to look for that weakness first.

"She's afraid," Tristan said. "That's just good sense, as far as I'm concerned. But she can't run without killing her career. The good captain, on the other hand? Now he has me worried. That man wants a taste of glory."

"His relation to Musa is unclear," Ruo Xuan provided. "Some stray lineage that ended up in the Watch, presumably. The surname does not seem to have helped his career any, to end up here."

Tolomontera had been a dead-end posting before Scholomance reopened. Not the kind of place a superior officer sent a captain if they intended them for the promotion track.

"House Shange isn't exactly a heavy hitter anyway, from what I've been told," Tristan noted. "They're big and well connected for middle nobility, but they're not in the same league as the Sandile or the Khosa."

Most of his firsthand knowledge of Malani nobility came from admittedly somewhat biased sources – Zenzele had famously pulled a runner on his own house and arranged marriage, Silumko hated most nobles like poison and Angharad had been in a rather odd position within the Malani pecking order – but by triangulating their opinions he liked to think he'd gotten a decent grasp of the larger players.

"Or the Morcant," Ruo Xuan slyly added.

"Or the Morcant," Tristan agreeably replied.

Dark eyes flicked to him, then away. That had been a test, Tristan noted, fishing for a reaction.

"You seem to be doing better," Ruo Xuan suddenly said.

And why wouldn't he? They were less than a week away from finally freeing Fortuna, weeks ahead of even the lowest boundary Andreu Claver had calculated for him. He had good reason to believe his goddess would come out largely unharmed and unchanged. Maryam had, well, forced them to speak out loud some things they'd been leaving silent but it might yet be for the best. And well worth it if it'd been the price for her owning up to how she'd been drowning and dragging them all in with her.

And he was feeling more... comfortable with the Thirteenth, these days. Angharad had proved trustworthy in ways he would never even have considered a year ago and while Izel was burying himself into work to avoid choking on the noose of his own bad decisions, the work was very fine. Admittedly Song had publicly set aflame all her bridges with the most influential Stripe on the island before pivoting to the hunt, but when he had heard Tristan had found he only felt a sort of crooked glee. The barrel had not bent, not for power or advantage. Song Ren would remain Song Ren.

And though on other fronts his frustration kept rising – while his captain had skillfully secured him a chance at finding Cao's correspondence, that was not all he was looking for and the rest wouldn't be on the ship – there was an ending on the horizon.

Not that his fellow Cryptic had a right or need to know any of this, so Tristan instead put a smile over his face and a hand over his heart.

"I always do my best, friend," he declared. "Why, I've even-"

"I was asked to assess your stability," Ruo Xuan cut through. "I am pleased I will be able to speak well of it."

His brow rose. Unusually direct of Ruo, which meant this was half a warning.

"Camaron?" Tristan asked.

"Not only him."

And there were only so many people who could have given that order. Hage.

"Well, I wasn't the one to make the mad plan this time," he drawled, hiding the flash of fear and something almost like resentment.

If Hage gave a shit, he could have shown up and seen for himself.

"Izel was due a go at it, if we don't take turns it gets a little stale."

"No doubt," Ruo dismissively replied, then inclined his head. "Can I trust that the Nineteenth Brigade is in hand?"

Tristan blinked in surprise, an innocent lamb afflicted with strategically distributed confusion.

"We're doing this on a secondday, what else is needed to throw them off?" he said. "They're not the most popular sorts these days, Ruo, they're not in anyone's loop."

The Second Brigade had been a concern in that regard, but he'd been assured that hole was plugged.

"One of their members is a Krypteia asset," Ruo Xuan plainly said. "Which you know, Master Abrascal, as the eyes I paid to follow you around town saw you meet with him in secrecy."

Tristan would have been more offended by that if he'd not done the same thing to several people over the last few months. At this rate, by graduation the Krypteia was going to have turned the urchins of Port Allazei into merchant princes. That brat Arabella had already upped her rates twice.

"Fine, I see you won't be fobbed off with the usual distractions and audacious lies," Tristan said. "I'll level with you, Master Liu."

"Must you?" Master Liu asked, deadly serious.

"I went into that bookshop so that I might learn how to read," Tristan told him. "This entire time, I've only been pretending."

"I have seen you read words in several languages, on multiple occasions," Ruo Xuan flatly said.

"I'm a very good liar," Tristan solemnly told him.

"You are," the other Mask said after a slight pause. "Which somehow makes this even more aggravating. Well played."

Behind those steady eyes a recalibration took place, adjusting downwards what could be gained from the conversation.

"Will it put my brigade at risk?" Ruo Xuan asked.

His line in the sand, the thief decided. The least he'd accept leaving with. Tristan hummed.

"Have you ever heard," he asked, "of the tridecan?"

"I have not," Ruo Xuan frowned.

"They're lares," Tristan said. "Frightfully intelligent birds. They're mimics that can change their feathers and the way they sound to pass as other birds, joining their flocks for food and protection."

He wiggled his eyebrows dramatically.

"They then slowly take them over by replacing the eggs of their flockmates with their own and killing off isolated birds – eating them, too - until they grow to make up most of the flock. Then they turn on their benefactors, devour them all in a single night and spread out to find new flocks."

"Clever birds," Ruo approvingly said.

"Aren't they just?" Tristan smiled.

They left it at that.

--

The morning of the hunt, Izel Coyac woke up embracing a skeleton.

The bones were ice cold, phalanges digging into his shoulder and back as the open jaw leered at him in a parody of a lover's kiss. He stayed there for seven long breaths, forcing himself not to scream, and swallowed. After putting a bridle on his panic and horror – the more unsettled he grew, the worst his ken would take – he untangled himself and got dressed while never once glancing at his bed. Afterwards, he had the presence of mind to lift the covers and check the bones.

As he'd thought, several of the leg bones were shattered or missing. This was an omen of the Grave-Given, a herald of death to come. He put the covers back over the skeleton and began bracing himself for what was to come. In a word? Death. To his enemies, his friends, to strangers and brothers: the Lord of Graves did not care who the grave goods were from, only that the dues be paid.

He ate his porridge and egg at the table with the others, smiling at Song's exacting portioning of oats and berries as he pretended not to see the bats crowding the open windowsill, hanging and standing and looking at him unblinkingly. The Grave-Given's heralds were not still, always stirring ever so slightly in a way that quietly drew his eye back.

There was a storm of movement and a dull thump as Sakkas suddenly landed among them, trilling triumphantly as they scattered every which way in fright and the massive magpie began running its talons against the wood in a demand for blueberries – nice windowsill, Captain Ren, it'd be a shame if something... happened to it, Tristan voiced for his ever-greedy familiar. Izel did not laugh along with the others, instead letting out a relieved breath and turning back to his meal. He picked out two berries from his porridge to reward the bird for his favor on the sly.

Scholomance was even worse.

It was as if the god in the walls could tell his ken was burning up, crooning and cradling the omens that were scattered everywhere for him to find. On the way to class he kept glimpsing torn and crushed limbs tucked behind every corner, hanging from the chandeliers and crammed into every alcove. Izel barely heard Professor Iyengar's lecture because of the pulped, shattered head at her feet. It was slowly dripping blood and brains on the floor, a spreading puddle of gore.

These, he eventually realized, were the remains of the Four Hundred Brothers. The gods butchered by the Deathless Bird in a rage after they besieged his second mother – save for the three-hundred-ninety-ninth of them, who instead ran from the god of war and survived to become the god of defeat and cowardice. The Lord of Graves had warned him of death in his own bed and now the Twice-Son promised a great slaughter to come.

A mute dread rose in his stomach and refused to leave, lingering like a sickness.

Scholomance spat them out to seek a grimmer fate and Izel went through the motions as they stopped at the armory on the way to Lamb Hill, every part of him focused on the work save for the sliver that was already flinching away from the last visit he knew was to come. He packed away the three aether spikes he had crafted, and the intricate mechanism of the dispenser. The finished spikes were each in a leather sheath, the percussion caps slid into pouches on his bandolier and the machine securely in his pack.

"Here."

He startled, finding Angharad handing him his usual pack of grenades. He rasped out thanks.

"Slept poorly?" she casually asked.

Izel took two more grenades from his bag and crammed into the pack. He was already past a reasonable weight, but felt naked heading out without at least five.

"More the waking," he admitted.

"Your part will not last long," Angharad encouraged. "And it might be you never see the beast at all."

"There'll be deaths today," he quietly told her. "I can feel it."

"Then let them be those of our enemies," she replied, undaunted.

He simply nodded. She was brave, Angharad. He was not. There could be no bridging that. In an hour's span he found himself standing among the crowd on the slope of Lamb Hill as above them distant gray clouds loomed, a dark canvas for the colors of the Grand Orrery to slide through. A hundred Garrison blackcloaks stood here, along with eighteen students, and Izel's eyes kept looking for it. For him. Where would it show?

The captains and the Garrison officers went up by the Marshal's side for speeches and orders, but Izel let the words and cheers wash over him. He'd found the telltale warnings: the way shadows curved and twisted, hinting at fang and claw. The way the light of the fires and lanterns seemed dimmer, as if promising to wink out any moment. These were herald enough that Izel did not startle when the captains began walking down the hill and behind them a great black dog was revealed to have been standing all along.

Large as a man, it was, its teeth bones and its legs twisted. It stood there, watching through those blind-white eyes. Waiting. It had come, the third of the great gods that fed on battlefields. And this one, this one the tinker did not dare ignore.

"O Moon-Eater, god of my father," Izel murmured in temple dialect, tracing the god's sign against his arm.

The seven stalks of the maguey, one twisted the opposite way of the others. Wrong, deformed.

"Lord of Raids, Sheperd of Monsters, you who crafts the war-dusk and guides the lost dead across the rivers, I beseech you. I invoke you not, for you spare none, but beg your disdain for my enemies."

He swallowed.

"I humbly offer ten lights snuffed early, never again lit, and honor to the next beast bearing your mark I lay eyes upon."

The herald of the Moon-Eater did not move, did not react to the prayer or the offering. Izel nearly jumped out of his skin when someone laid a hand on his shoulder, finding a concerned Tristan standing by him. When he glanced again the omen was gone, not a trace of it or its lesser marks, and he almost cursed. No god of his homeland did he dread more than the Moon-Eater: not the Night King and his love of darkness and discord, not the Deathless Bird and his all-consuming rages or even Lady Coldstone with her heartless, implacable judgments.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

It was not to them that Father kept an altar, not their colors he painted on his face or the mark of their favor that had made his sobriquet – Doghead Coyac, the Lord of Raids' beloved bannerman.

"Izel," Tristan repeated. "Are you all right?"

He bit his lip.

"No," he tiredly replied. "But it will stand. Tonight is to be a moonless night, Tristan, a sarabande of monsters."

There was a distinct pause.

"Well, consider me appropriately alarmed," Tristan said. "One of those days, then?"

Izel closed his eyes, forced himself to focus again.

"Yes," he forced out. "One of those days."

"Are you still fit to use the device?" Tristan bluntly asked.

Izel opened his eyes, let out a breath and nodded.

"I am," he said.

"Had to ask," his friend quietly said, the cleared his throat. "Anything we can do to help?"

He hesitated.

"Do you think we have time to get some candles before we leave? I need to do something."

Then he grimaced.

"No, forget it," he said. "It's just superstition, it wouldn't-"

"I'll handle it," Tristan firmly said.

Within five minutes, even as the expedition began arranging itself past the palisade at the bottom of the hill, he was standing by the tent of the Unluckies with a few matches and the company of Tristan and Maryam. He knelt by the canvas, lighting a candle and letting it burn for a few seconds before pressing it into the dirt to kill the flame and snapping the wax. He did it ten times, and only once he'd thoroughly smashed the remains of the candles and dumped them in the brigade's chamber pot did he feel a knot loosen in his shoulders.

It was always better to pay upfront with the Moon-Eater.

"Huh," Maryam said, and for a moment he thought her dead eye was as a bat's – shining, brown, bulging.

Her sister must be in it, and Hooks must count as close enough to dead for the Grave-Given's attention to linger on her.

"I always hate it when you huh at something I can't see," Tristan complained. "It's never good news when you huh like that, Maryam."

"Don't pigeonhole me, you Lierganen yokel," she shot back without missing a beat. "I was going to say that whatever ceremony Izel did stirred the aether a bit."

"The Sheperd of Monsters is always listening," Izel said, rising to his feet.

The old stories said the Moon-Eater had been a lesser god, before the Fifth Loss. Not minor, but beneath many of the great gods of Izcalli. Now, though... How could a god of monsters and the dying of the light not stand more powerful than any other, in Vesper? He had not been surprised to hear that while some debate raged over the strength of several of his people's gods, none across the land thought the Moon-Eater to be anything other than a second-order entity.

He rolled his shoulder, feeling a little better. Like his ken was not reined in, but perhaps had reached a peak and was now headed down the opposite slope.

"I'm out of the reverie, I think," Izel told them, coughing. "Thank you."

"We've all got to pay our dues sometimes," Tristan reassured him. "Candles are better than what some of the Manes hold out for."

Maryam simply nodded. She was not a woman of strong faith, Maryam. Navigators often were not, as they dealt in forces some considered match to that of the gods, but Izel suspected there was more to it than that. He had read how many of the deities of the Izvoric took the field, when the Malani began their campaign to conquer the lowlands. Those gods had fought, and those gods had died. She was a pragmatic woman, Maryam Khaimov. Not the sort to keep praying to a boat already sunk.

Song saw to them before they split up, the Unluckies gathered one last time before the plunge.

"We have trained and planned for today," their captain said, silver eyes flicking from one to another. "It could still go wrong, but we have prepared for that as well."

She straightened.

"Trust your instincts," Song Ren said. "I trusted them as well, and it got me this far."

A half-smile.

"See you on the other side," she ordered.

Smiles all around and Izel was not quite sure whether he should reach out or salute. Nor was he the only one.

"She's been preparing a fancy dinner," Maryam tattled. "If any of you die, I claim your share."

"I will mine to Sakkas," Izel said.

"Oh, if we can will it away then send mine to Professor Kang," Tristan mused. "He'll be convinced it's poisoned so he'll-"

"You cannot will my cooking to people, not even if you die," Song sighed.

"Come, Song, willing only the ingredients would be quite... half-baked," Angharad said, sounding very proud of herself.

"Pun?" Tristan asked her in a whisper.

"Pun," she confirmed.

"Nice."

Song rubbed the bridge of her nose, though Izel saw her lips had twitched.

"I hope the wind doesn't carry and no one heard you," she complained, "else the first casualty of the day will be when I shoot myself out of embarrassment. I order you all to pretend you are reasonable people for a few hours, and that will be all."

They split up smiling after that, though Tristan hung back just a moment. Izel leaned in.

"You remember the word?" Tristan asked, pitching his voice low.

"Instrumentality," Izel replied. "You've drilled me a hundred times, I shall not forget."

"You had better not, it is a magic spell I made just for you," Tristan drawled. "Use it well."

Izel nodded, mustering up most of a smile.

"Thank you," he said.

The thief's brow rose.

"What for?"

"For letting me do it my way," Izel said. "Instead of the way you would have."

Tristan grimaced.

"Not my pack to carry," the Mask finally said. "Fortune smile on you, Izel."

"Soon enough she will," he replied, and that startled a smile out of the other man.

Gods, but he moved so much more lightly these last few days – both on his feet and as a man. Izel had not quite grasped how much Fortuna's fate ate him up from the inside until he saw that wound begin to mend. The ease he was regaining with Maryam was like a second balm, too, taking the thorns out of his humor and making it about laughing again. One more reason to see today through in full.

They clasped wrists and parted ways.

The expedition split up in three companies, though for the initial stretch all three would be walking the same paths. Izel joined the student crew under the command of Captain Nenetl Chapul, along with Zenzele, Andreu Claver and Ritwick Banerjee. They'd be accompanied by twenty Garrison regulars under Lieutenant Acachimal, a tall Izcalli with a shaved head and golden ring through his nose.

The two from the Third took the front while Zenzele stayed back to speak with the Garrison lieutenant, leaving him walking alongside Andreu Claver as the column began marching through the beaten paths and passageways of the brushlands. It was satisfying to actually use the fruit of their labors, and Izel caught himself glancing back at the company behind them to see how the cannons took to the routes. Quite well, he noted with satisfaction. The channels had properly drained the ground, if they were lucky they wouldn't have to change more than a pair of axles.

"Ah, the famous tinker pride," Andreu amusedly said. "All praise the Wednesday Council, every Laurel should be retaught mathematics and become Umuthi."

"You're a Savant with a theoretical specialty," Izel shot back. "There has never been a College budget in the history of the societies where you weren't the first on the block for cuts."

"The trick is being born wealthy," Andreu happily told him. "Well, that and applied theology. The Skiritai may mock, but they still use us to run the numbers on the gods they want to plunge those pretty silver swords into."

The Lierganen's eyes dipped to his bandolier, where the spikes hung in their sheaths.

"Though I hear you went with field measures instead," he added.

"I based the strength of the discharge on the aether density threshold I encountered when in the dantesvara's presence," Izel agreed. "It felt less risky than going off the formulas, given the strangeness of the creature."

Andreu looked fascinated.

"I had never heard of an aether spike being used on a Lord of Teeth before, but in principle it should work," he said. "Sebastian might be interested in commissioning a few from you, if the effect's as strong as you theorized. It would be a fine addition to our arsenal."

Izel inclined his head, implying agreement without ever actually giving it. He was inclined to say yes, but best to check with Song first – the politics might be inconvenient. His courtly escape did not go unnoticed, Claver humming as he looked away. If he was irritated it did not show, as the Savant kept chattering away all through the brushlands crossing. Only when the companies split did he quiet down as Nenetl took them all in hand.

She made it clear to Lieutenant Acachimal that while he was in command of his soldiers she was in overall command of their company, and that he was to follow her orders going forward. The man looked politely skeptical, but agreed as he must have been instructed to. Nenetl then gestured for Izel to join her in front as they made for the central canal bed, the route cleared by the Ninth. He spared a look for the other two companies, headed west, and ignored the pang of fear at the sight before moving by Nenetl's side.

"Ritwick will be looking ahead of us the whole time so odds of ambush are low, but keep your guard up anyway," she instructed them. "Let's hurry, ours is the slowest path – they'll wait until our flare goes up to signal."

Uncomfortable at the vanguard, Izel kept his pistol at the ready and idly wished he could be a little further back where he'd have time to light a grenade instead of in front where the enemy would fall on him instantly. The position, though, looked like it might be temporary. Nenetl Chapul had questions for him.

"By the looks of it, you have three aether spikes," Nenetl said. "How long will they buy?"

"Hard to say for certain," Izel admitted. "At least four seconds each."

Her brow creased.

"And how long to load a new spike after dispensing the last?"

Less than before Song had drilled him.

"About ten to twelve seconds," Izel said.

The brow creased even deeper.

"Are you open to distributing some of your grenades to the Garrison men?" she asked. "I mislike the timing, so ending things in a single volley would be best. Risks increase with every repetition."

Izel hesitated, but he had brought too many grenades. His pack felt on the heavy side, he might have to shed it if he ran.

"I can spread out some of them," he finally said. "But I only brought two packs of matches"

"Not a concern," Nenetl dismissed. "I have a dozen as part of my field kit. Thank you, Izel."

And, blessedly, that saw him relegated to keeping the hooded Ritwick Banerjee company while he was replaced by Andreu Claver up front. Izel had been mildly curious as to what a canal run would look like, compared to the paths his hunting crew had been taking, and the answer was 'largely uneventful'. The canal was road of mud, peat and moss, filled to the brim with twisty mangrove trees and tall tufts of reeds and rushes.

Repeat expeditions by the Ninth and their hirelings had cleared out most of the lemure lairs and driven the rest into hiding, so the worst they had to contend with was flies and mosquitoes coming at them in thick black swarms that had everyone pulling down their hoods and swatting at the air. A path had been cut through the woods and greenery that they padded through dutifully, guns out, and as the hour stretched out Izel began to get glimpses of what animals yet dwelled here. Frogs and quails, rock pigeons and even once a white-headed duck.

They reached the swamp water without incident, called to a halt by the sight of the great lemure the Ninth had killed. Stripped of flesh, the bones of a massive snake had been dragged out of the stagnant water and onto the shore. Izel went to have a closer look as the small barge hidden among the leaves was put to water, noting that the fangs had all been pulled and that what he'd thought to be solid ribs was in fact some sort of cartilage that could easily compress.

That was telling. The beast would have been able to squeeze itself into a crate half its size, or slide between the gap in a palisade. It must have been prone to hiding until its prey went to sleep to then killing them where they thought themselves safe.

"It was a nasty critter," Andreu told him, having drifted close. "Bullets didn't do a damn thing, we had to get chopping."

He tapped his cutlass meaningfully as he spoke the last word. Unlike most Savants, Claver was a fine sword and fought in front ranks.

"I heard you described it as 'wormlike'," Izel said.

"It looked positively horrid, like an earthworm with a snake's head," the Savant agreed, shuddering in disgust. "And we found out the hard way that, like a worm, it would grow back its flesh if we did not kill it."

"Then here's hoping there isn't another waiting below," Izel said, looking at the murky water.

The pool was deep and black, covered with pond scum and brown water lilies. If there was anything lurking below, they would not know until it lunged out.

To his despair, Izel was on the first crossing – the barge only fit ten at a time, so it would take several trips. At least he was with Nenetl and Zenzele as well as four Garrison soldiers. The mangroves grew deeper and thicker in the water, as if drinking eagerly from the silt and wet, and they sprung like a wall on either side. In the pool as well: the two blackcloaks manning the poles had to maneuver the barge around stumps and branches.

His attention waxed and waned, but movement on a half-submerged trunk had him snapping to attention. He lowered his pistol when finding it was just a lares, some manner of snapping turtle whose eyes were stout, patterned mushrooms running up its head and neck and melding with its carapace until they were indistinguishable. What caught his eye, though, was the creature's front legs. The claws on them had grown wrong, twisting up and to the side instead of downwards.

"Stop the boat," Izel anxiously said.

Four guns snapped up immediately, then lowered at the lack of an obvious threat and Nenetl Chapul shot him a look.

"I need to get close to that lares," he told her, pointing at the mushroom-turtle.

"We don't have time to waste," she said.

He hesitated a moment, about to fold, but he'd gotten some practice speaking his mind of late.

"I would not ask if I thought it wasted time," Izel made himself reply.

Nenetl stared him down a moment longer, then ordered the polemen to bring them closer. Izel drew his work knife, shrugging off his cloak and pulling back his sleeve. He chased off biting flies and bloodsuckers as he idly wondered which part of the creature was the actual lares – the mushrooms or the turtle? He suspected the former, it looked too much like a common snapping turtle otherwise.

"Tell me he's not going to kill it," Andreu Claver muttered. "It's Tianxi who make turtle soup, not Aztlan folk."

"Yes, Claver, that must be the look of man with soup on his mind," Zenzele disdainfully replied. "What are the odds that he's appeasing a spirit instead?"

The lares was unmoved by their approach, save for the patterns on the mushrooms shifting as if they were a thousand small black-spot eyes following them, and Izel licked his dry lips.

"Honor to your shepherd, holy one," he spoke in Centzon before cutting into his arm.

The creature cared not until he dripped blood onto the mossy branch, then it snapped out a mushroom-covered tongue and licked up the red. Izel withdrew, binding his arm with bandages Nenetl handed him before rinsing his knife in the water and sheathing it.

"Thank you," he told her. "We can go now."

Nenetl nodded, then gestured for the polemen to resume the crossing. His arm ached, but the cut had been shallow and was well bound. He'd clean it again tonight and change the bandages. It was a long minute before Nenetl spoke again, lowering her voice and addressing him in slightly stilted Omeyetl. It was the lesser-known of Izcalli's two leading tongues, so she must have picked it in an attempt at discretion.

"I was not raised to the gods of the Seven Valleys," she said. "But that looked like an offering to the Sheperd of Monsters."

Izel nodded.

"Not a god I expected you to keep," she said.

"Either we keep to him," Izel said, "or he keeps to us."

Already he felt less feverish, and belatedly he realized he had not glimpsed an omen since the first half of the offering.

Nenetl did not ask any further. They finished the crossing in silence, hearing only the noise of the water and the poles as all kept an eye on the shapes in the trees. Only birds, so far, but luck only held out for so long. After ten minutes or so they reached a makeshift dock formed by mangrove roots having grown around stone debris, disembarking on the grounds. They put up a defensive perimeter as two of the blackcloaks began making their way back, beginning the second of the three trips.

Nenetl had chosen never to fill up the boat entirely so no group would ever be left dangerously low on numbers. Prudent of her, Izel approved.

The remainder of the march was tense, without so much as a sliver of the earlier easy mood. Every step brought them closer to the Lord of Teeth's lair now, and with that came bone-biting apprehension. They were closer to Rhodon Bay, so the sea wind thinned the swarms of insects. Blessed relief, hoods coming down despite the humidity to widen fields of vision as they pricked their ears for the sound of great lungs breathing.

The edge of forest was where they stopped, staying in the cover of the treeline as they quietly spread out in a firing line facing the bare grounds ahead.

Past grounds strewn with broken trees and stones, the entrance to the dantesvara's lair was within sight of the pile of dead green and mud sloping down into the bay. A great cavern mouth leading into thick darkness, though unlike the entrance their crew had found out west this one was distinctly inland. Its threshold was largely crushed stone, so alas there would be no helpful footprints in the mud to tell them of the Lord of Teeth's recent whereabouts.

In a whisper, Andreu Claver reminded them of the second entrance tucked away in a cove next to the water, currently out of sight. The beast seemed to avoid it, as it was narrow. Izel stood crouched behind a tall fern and opened his pack, surrendering three of his grenades to regulars as he'd promised Nenetl. That got him thankful pats on the back, for they each had two grenades of their own but his were tinker-work using College recipes.

"Ritwick?" Nenetl asked.

"It's not at the entrance," Ritwick Banerjee replied. "I'll look deeper."

"Surong, Decarta," Nenetl said. "With me, we're checking the water."

The same two blackcloaks who'd wielded the poles earlier followed her after a questioning look at their lieutenant, warily approaching the water alongside careful Nenetl. Even on the muddy ground, her clever prosthetic neither stuck nor slowed. It truly was fine work.

Even as the hope that they'd inherited the dud entrance rose, Izel got to his own work. The dispenser was already mostly ready, but it needed to be assembled. He'd greatly departed from the usual shape for his frame, eschewing the traditional mounted telescope-adjacent form for something more practical in the field.

The steel frame was akin to a simplified, overlarge pistol grip with distributed iron rods to lessen recoil, but the chamber with the drum and hammer needed to be screwed in and the open barrel – fist-thick and thirteen inches long – had to secured into the socket with the bolt lever slid back to make room.

It was already heavy, and he'd yet to put either the cap or the spike in.

He took out the first of his three percussion caps, the most expensive part of the device by far. Each had been worth ten ramas, an eye-watering price but one that was only to be expected given that the round cap was iron with a thin layer of high-grade blackpowder at the bottom and then entirely filled with powdered perfect culm twice processed by the Mahabharan method– rolled with aether-rich azirvada sap, dried and then made into powder again from the crystal-like chunks it'd formed into.

Izel slipped the cap into the drum chamber, not yet pulling back the hammer since pulling the trigger early might well result in scrapping the dispenser and his hand along with it.

He looked up, finding Nenetl flanked by raised muskets as she tossed a stone into the calm, almost still waters of Rhodon Bay. It plopped with a small sound and nothing stirred but ripples.

"Clear," she said after a moment.

Behind him Ritwick Banerjee let out a gasp, earning everyone's alarm, but the Navigator shook his head.

"It's not anywhere close on this side of the lair," he called out, not pitching his voice low anymore. "It looks like we have the empty side."

More than a few of the blackcloaks sagged in relief, though Nenetl was not one of them.

"We knew it was a possibility," she said. "Lieutenant Acachimal, please send up the signal."

"Ma'am," the older man saluted, a tad drily.

A scratched match later, the fireworks were lit and shot up in the sky – the flare blew up in a bright blue ball, signaling the other companies that the dantesvara had not been sighted at the eastern entrance of the lair. Another blue flare went up moments later, far to the west. One of the companies out there had seen no sign of it either. Izel would not want to be a member of the third right now, given the implication.

"We still have a role to play," Nenetl reminded them. "Should the dantesvara try to exit our way, we are to drive it back. Get into firing positions to cover the opening."

Izel shook himself, following behind the regulars as they left the cover of the treeline and began spreading out across the open grounds. He ended up besides Zenzele. Not by coincidence – he'd noticed the Laurel moving closer to him. Unusual, considering that by silent agreement they usually avoided each other.

"There might be a situation," Zenzele Duma quietly told him, casting a look at the lair.

Izel's brow rose. If this had been about the hunt, Zenzele would have spoken to everyone. Then he recalled what he'd been told about Zenzele Duma's contract and froze.

"Inside?" he disbelievingly said.

"It is quite bold," Zenzele said.

"It's quite mad," Izel grunted. "But it is also handled."

The man's one good eye conveyed some skepticism over that.

"I know a magic spell," Izel simply told him.

The Laurel sighed deeply.

"This is only the second year," Zenzele complained. "If the Thirteenth continues getting more eccentric at this rate, by graduation you will speak entirely in cryptic gibberish."

"This must be very frustrating for you," Izel happily said.

A glare.

"It's-"

"Oh, shit!"

When Izel turned, the horizon was gone.

Instead thirty feet of death were standing halfway out of the sea, dripping water down a shaggy mane as three horns were silhouettes cast against the glow of the silver Orrery moon above.

A dantesvara has six lungs, his mind uselessly recalled. It can remain under the water for as many as ten hours at a time.

Ritwick had not found the Lord of Teeth in its lair because it'd been in the water the whole time, waiting for them to drop their guard as it watched them through the aether.

"Pi-vot," Lieutenant Acachimal shouted, accidentally drowning out whatever Nenetl had shouted.

Before even half of the twenty blackcloaks had finished turning their muskets towards the beast it was on them. They scattered every which way, flanked and taken utterly by surprise. Yet even as the dantesvara crushed two under its feet with a wet crack, a few shots went off and Izel was shaken out of his fearful stupor by the sound. Swallowing bile, hands trembling, he reached for an aether spike and wrenched it out of the sheath as he backpedaled.

"Rit, trip it," Nenetl shouted. "Gunline, draw back to the edge of the woods."

The Lord of Teeth roared in hatred at the small smoking wounds it had been peppered with, which might not punch through its thick hide but still stung it painfully – everyone had come loaded with salt munitions. Izel struggled to fit the spike, a long copper cylinder, into the barrel. When he'd inclined the dispenser earlier the lever had slid back down, so he had to tuck the aether spike under his arm and wrench it back up before fitting it in the cylinder and sliding the bolt lever into place with a hard click.

A second flare went up behind them, casting red light and by the time Izel looked back up it was a rout.

Three more dead – maybe more, the limbs were strewn everywhere – and Andreu was on the ground, screaming at the crushed red paste that'd been his right leg. Half the soldiers were still listening to Nenetl and their lieutenant, firing as they retreated towards the treeline, but the rest were just running. The dantesvara had been tripped, buying a moment, but the Gloam around its legs was already dissipating as it slurped down a corpse noisily, snapping that crocodile mouth as it turned cruel eyes on the survivors.

Izel ignored the voice in his head screaming at him to run, ignored the flicker of movement he saw at the entrance of the lair, and stepped closer to death's jaws. The range on the dispenser was limited. He recalled the math of it, even as everything else inside his head dribbled into mindless panic.

"Ready grenades," he shouted, like a fool, and cocked back the hammer as he raised the barrel.

The moment felt eerily clear.

Icy terror running down his veins, eyes too-wide and too-full as the stubble atop his head was drenched in sweat and his hand trembled. The distant silver moon burned bright, showing every inch of the towering monster: the three great curved horns, the open maw past the crocodile jaw with teeth going down into its gullet, the mane of hoarse hair. The way it casually stepped on one of Andreu Claver's arms with a scaled foot as it moved past him, just to make the man suffer, the way those eyes looked at him with hunger.

"My turn," Izel snarled, and pulled the trigger.

The hammer slammed down, the thunder rippled out as it hit the cap and bone-deep Izel Coyac knew he'd just missed the shot. His grip had been too tight, too angry, and as the dispenser bucked-

The silver moon winked out, a firm and invisible hand nudging the barrel back down.

"Steady," the Moon-Eater said, the word like echoing in his mind like a spear punching into a bare belly, like the wail of children cast into the dark.

And then the silver shine was back. The cut on Izel Coyac's arm burned like acid and he knew, somehow, that every drop of blood there was gone and the flesh dead.

But the barrel was aimed back at the dantesvara's head as every ounce of the massive power contained within the percussion cap was channeled through the pattern of stele stone and Idean lead inside the cylinder, shaped like water squeezed tight through a hole to increase pressure. And what was released was a spike of pure aether force, a lance of power concentrated to the exact degree that would be capable of breaking through the measured aether density of the Lord of Teeth and grind its mind to a halt.

From an outside eye it looked only like a mute pulse of power in the air, a ripple around the head of the barrel. Izel lowered the dispenser, hand already reaching for the release bolt that'd let him remove the scrapped spike as he wondered how many seconds the shot would yield. It should - his hand froze when the dantesvara did not stop. He'd not frozen out of fear, though.

The monster was letting out a cry because a chunk of its head had evaporated, along with a jagged hole that went through a part of his neck.

What, Izel thought, the fuck?

That shouldn't be... A heartbeat later a dozen grenades hit the Lord of Teeth, scattered across its head and chest, and the force almost blew Izel off his feet. The dantesvara let out a second scream, even wilder than the last, and Izel watched in wonder as his hand moved on its own to eject the spike and slide in another. The monster's mane was on fire, one of its legs gone at the knee and phosphorescent salt from several explosives was eating through its scales and dermis like acid.

Izel slid the bolt down into place, wrenched out the spent percussion cap from the drum chamber and tossed it away. He could tell when the beast saw it, when its too-clever mind grasped it was the weapon that had wounded it so. When the monster gauged whether it could kill him before he finished reloading.

When it judged it could not, and fled back into the cavern with a howl.

The Lord of Teeth was gone in mere heartbeats, its now-limping stride still so long as to make the whole battlefield's breadth nothing more than two steps. Izel slammed the new cap into the chamber, fingers trembling, and there was moment of stillness in the air. Gods, he thought. The whole skirmish could not have lasted longer than a minute.

Andreu Claver's wail of pain, mingled with the shouts of the other wounded, shattered the stillness.

Even as Nenetl barked orders to secure the wounded and a third flare went up – green, the plan was still on the tracks - he did not let his guard down. Not because he feared it would return, it wouldn't yet, but because for him it was not yet over. He joined the captain, and a hobbling Zenzele – the beast hadn't touched him, he must have fallen – and tried to speak but instead only rasped out a noise. His throat felt like sand.

"Moonless Night, Coyac, what was that shot?" Nenetl asked. "I thought the spike was supposed to jolt its mind, to stun it."

"It should have," Izel said, his own voice sounding distant. "No, it would have, if there was a mind in the aether to affect."

"What are you saying?" she asked.

"That wasn't a creature, Nenetl," he said. "That's a construct. Someone made that Lord of Teeth out of solidified aether and imbued it with a set of instincts."

Like an infernal forge, only with a degree of skill and sophistication that boggled the mind. Maybe the finest devilsmiths of Pandemonium could do something like this, but it would take them years. It must be some ancient Antediluvian experiment, but that made no sense considered the relative youth of dantesvara as a species. They might not even have existed yet during the First Empire!

"And your spike," Nenetl slowly said, "shoots at this solid aether with..."

"Enough force to dispel what holds it together," Izel absent-mindedly said. "I destroyed nothing, only loosened the bonds keeping it compact and solid."

He shook his head, trying to wake up. To focus.

"I have to go in," he said. "Hold the door shut. Everything rests on it."

"Those caverns are a death trap," Zenzele grimly said.

"I just need to find a chokepoint and hold it," Izel said.

"If I send men with you," Nenetl said, "we will lose the wounded. We don't have enough for both a retreat carrying them to the boat and a firing line. Andreu could still make it if-"

"So don't," Izel said, to her visible surprise.

Had she thought him a coward? She wasn't wrong, really. But he was too worn to feel afraid right now, the weave of him too thin to hold any color.

"I'll need the last flare," he said. "I can-"

"I'll stay," Zenzele abruptly volunteered. "I can hold the flare."

Izel's eyes flicked to him, considering, and Zenzele Duma's mismatched stare was unblinking. After a moment, he dipped his head. Nenetl looked like she wanted to argue, but all they knew there was no time.

"Run if you must," she finally told him. "The dead get no second chances."

His lips stretched.

"Neither do we, most of the time," he said. "Wind at your back, Nenetl Chapul."

"And you," she thickly replied.

He was already walking away when she produced the remaining flare and handed it to Zenzele. The tall Malani hobbled after him with a wince, Izel barely slowing his steps to let him catch up. He did take the lantern the man offered him, though, lighting the small Glare-oil light and securing it to his belt as he nodded thanks.

"I can go in with you," Zenzele offered.

"No," Izel replied. "Thank you, Zenzele, but no. I started it, and I will lay it to rest."

"You Unluckies," the man softly cursed, "are all so fucking stubborn."

A smile touched his lips, genuine this time.

"I guess we are," Izel Coyac said, clasping his shoulder. "Keep an eye out, Zenzele. If I die, send out the flare."

Ahead of him the darkness yawned and he stepped into it.

The air was wet and cold, the kind that slunk into your bones past any number of layers. Izel did not look back, for the sight of safety might make him fold, and pushed into the dark. The small lantern's trembling light brushed against the walls, the cracked and uneven stone dug as much by lemures as time and the elements. The ceiling was tall, enough that the light did not reach all the way there, and along the ground Izel found traces of ichor and burnt hair.

Or what looked like them, anyway. What skillful mimicry this was.

He did not have to go far. Past the first chamber was a smaller tunnel, which headed west but also had appended to it the entrance to another-

Even expecting them, he was too slow.

The blow took him on the shoulder, spinning him around, and as he tripped he was caught and slammed against the wall. Groaning, twisting from the pain, he found himself with a knife to his throat.

"Gag him," Yaotl Acatl ordered.

All four of them were here. Hooded with cloaks lined with some sort of shimmering material, smelling of something foul – they must have used it to cover their scent – the Nineteenth Brigade fell on him like wolves. Valentin Mercador, he counted down. Monkey Society. Anayeli of Teskatlan, Kautilyaka informant. Ozoma Chamolin, Krypteia asset. And at their back, hood revealing her red-and-black warpaint, Princess Yaotl of the House of Acatl watched as Valentin brought out a rag to gag him with.

He had no chance against four Skiritai, so he didn't even try to fight.

"That would be a mistake," Izel said.

"It is over, Izel," Yaotl said, sounding almost relieved. "They will think you dead. And we are going home, at long last."

"We aren't," he gently said. "Because the ship Ozoma told you about, the Long View, it doesn't exist."

There was a beat of silence, and when Valentin moved to gag him anyway Yaotl held up her hand.

"How do you know about that name?" she demanded.

"Did it not occur to you," he said, "that it was too lucky a coincidence? That you would have a Monkey Society member in your brigade, that they would have secured a ship for you to leave in? That all the stars would align for today, for here and now?"

Her eyes dilated. He could see the fear and doubt sinking in.

"Ozoma," she said, tone clipped. "Explain."

"He won't," Izel said. "None of them will."

And then he cast the magic spell his friend had taught him.

"Instrumentality."

Surprise on Anayeli's face, but none of the others.

Save for Yaotl's, when Valentin Mercador punched her in the stomach. Izel had rarely seen Skiritai fight each other, but when he had it hadn't been like this – a quick, brutal beatdown turned utterly one-sided by surprise and numbers and being so close none of them could draw or maneuver. She punched Valentin back, though his head snapped along to pull the blow, then Anayeli tripped her and Ozoma piled on, smashing a boot on her wrist and snapping it.

Yaotl swallowed a scream, and just like that the fight was over. It was little more than three people kicking her when she was down afterwards, while Izel brushed himself off. It ended with Yaotl Acatl on her belly, stripped of her cloak and twisting in pain. Izel unclasped the roundhead mace at his side, his father's own. The maker not of truths but of only the one, always the same.

"Go," he ordered the spies.

"Coyac," Valentin Mercador tightly said, the real Monkey Society member on the Nineteenth worrying. "I was assured-"

"Whatever deals were struck with you will be kept," he said. "Now go."

Whatever they saw on his face, they did not argue with it.

He turned away and soon the sound footsteps receded, leaving alone with his oldest friend. For a long time, his only friend. Yaotl turned pain-clouded eyes on him.

"So that's how it ends," she croaked, gesturing her head at the mace. "With the Doghead's own weapon. Not an unworthy death."

He'd not thought there was enough vigor left in him for anger, and yet.

"Gods, you fucking fool," Izel snarled. "What part of this is worthy, Yaotl?"

He gestured around them.

"You are alone in the dark, betrayed and wounded," Izel hissed out. "Thousands of miles away from home, having come here without any idea of what you were doing or what you wanted. You have accomplished nothing here, Yaotl. Nothing but your own miserable, pathetic last croak crawling on your belly."

His fingers tightened around the handle.

"And you dare to call this worthy?"

"Will you not even leave me a last word?" she tiredly asked.

"No," Izel said. "You had every chance to stop, to think again, and at every crossroads you chose violence. You do not get to call on pity after that."

"I chose to try for victory," she bit out. "If you lack the stom-"

"I put a dantesvara to flight today," Izel Coyac coldly replied. "Broke its charge, standing alone. You hid like a coward in the lair of a monster to try and abduct me even as worthier warriors fight it. Which of us, Yaotl, lacks stomach?"

That, he saw, struck her harder than Valantin's surprise blow had. Because it had the ring of truth to it. She moved, tried to drag up her bruised body, and he raised the mace. A single good blow would be enough.

"Would you just en-" she shouted, cut off when his hand came down.

The blow touched her forehead.

And though she flinched it was not in pain, for the touch had been light as a feather's.

"I have killed you, princess of the House of Acatl," Izel said. "You are beaten, and by your own misbegotten code it is for me to choose your truth now. So listen well."

He leaned down, close.

"You will never get to go home," Izel Coyac said. "I strip you of royalty and charge you to live clawing at the dark, to die wearing the black as nothing more than one soldier among many. You will not be famous, or beloved. You are sword that will be swung at the end of days until it breaks."

He bared his teeth.

"That is the truth I give you, Yaotl," he said. "Take it or die – either way, we are finished."

Izel rose to his feet.

There was a thunderous, deafening sound in the distance and the cavern shook like a ship in a storm. A heartbeat later wind blew through the tunnel, almost toppling him, and he laughed a little wildly.

"What in the gods was that?" Yaotl asked, sounding shaken.

"That," Izel Coyac said, as he put away his mace and took the dispenser in hand "is the sound of my plan killing a nightmare."

He stepped past her prone form, into the deeper dark.

"Crawl out of here, through the ruins of your life, listening to it."