Antiphon

Woman’s powders. His arm ached with each passing league, and the air grew colder as they climbed the wooded foothills at the base of those impenetrable mountains.

By the time they arrived, the sun was a white disk veiled in gray and the snow had let up. They left their horses behind with a handful of scouts and slipped into a narrow canyon only marginally hidden by drifts of fallen pines and displaced rock.

The lieutenant whose men had pursued the mechoservitors to this place led the way, with Philemus and Rudolfo close behind. The uneven ground and the patches of ice made it slow going, especially with only one hand to steady himself. Rudolfo noted that the officer was careful to match his pace to that of his king. He smiled at this.

As they made their way deeper into the canyon, the walls narrowed, blocking out the white sky above. The ground sloped downward as they went, and the temperature dropped until Rudolfo saw crystals of ice forming and his feet found slick patches. The narrowing corridor twisted and turned until it finally spilled out into a large cave lost in shadow. One of the scouts lit a watch lantern and unshuttered its light.

Rudolfo didn’t realize he held his breath until he released it and saw it clouding the cold air. In the center of the cave, he saw something out of place, and it took a moment for him to place it.

It was a large, round steel door set into the floor and propped open. Shattered fragments of granite lay around it, and it was obvious to Rudolfo that the hatch had been closed and hidden away beneath the rock floor of this place until recently.

Moving forward on careful feet, he leaned in and let his eyes follow the limited reach of the lantern’s illumination. Stretching below, lost in shadows, a steel-lined well penetrated the cave’s floor. Rudolfo squinted at strange shadows, realizing suddenly that they were rungs set into the side of it, vanishing down into shadows.

“Gods,” he whispered. And the well swallowed his words, the echo of them drifting back to his ears.

He’d wandered these hills since early childhood and had probably stood on this very spot.

Philemus looked from Rudolfo to the scout who had led them in. “You tracked the mechoservitors here?”

The lieutenant nodded, and in the lantern light, Rudolfo noted the blush rising to the man’s cheeks. “We did.” His eyes darted to his king, then looked away. “We could not keep up with them. They were gone by the time we reached the cave.”

Rudolfo nodded, then stooped to pick up a loose chunk of granite. Stretching his hand out over the well, he released the rock and leaned in again, cocking his ear.

Silently he counted the seconds until far below he heard the muffled clatter. Then, he crouched and looked at the rungs set into the side of the shaft.

Philemus crouched beside him. “Does it lead where I think it leads?”

Rudolfo turned to his second captain. “I suspect it does.”

An underground route to the Marshlands. He knew that the Dragon’s Spine was laced with caves, but this was different. Someone had built this passage. Someone had hidden it here beneath the stone long ago. The metalwork of the hatch and walls was of a kind he’d not seen before, and he stretched out to touch it. Warm to the touch and pitted from time.

“This,” Rudolfo said to Philemus, “may be an unexpected gift.”

“It could be,” Philemus agreed. “If they really were bound for the Marshlands.”

But Rudolfo doubted they would lie about that. Even the book they’d given Isaak pointed to the Marshlands. Tertius was the renegade Androfrancine scholar who had educated Winters.

“I’m certain they were.” Rudolfo touched the metal surface once again, surprised that it was so warm despite the cold of the day.

An unexpected gift indeed. But what to do with it?

Suddenly, he remembered the first time he’d discovered one of the many secret passages and rooms scattered throughout the nine forest manors he’d grown up in. He’d been six and playing spymaster with Aedric’s father, Gregoric. He’d leaned against a section of shelves in his father’s library, discovering a knot in the pine that seemed out of place, one that moved to his touch and unlocked a hidden panel in the wall. He’d spent an entire summer finding every door, every passageway, every hidden ladder and stairwell he could find.

Rudolfo smiled at the memory.

This is not so very different. He looked at the men who stood with him. “This remains secret,” he said in a low voice. “I want a perimeter kept at all times and guard stations at and in the cave. Use magicked scouts. Bring Lysias in and show him; I want a training ground for the new army established nearby and two companies of scouts deployed to assist.” He slowly raised himself to his feet, his eyes never leaving the well. “I want couriers to the mines in Rudoheim and Friendslip-five seasoned men from each.”

Philemus raised his eyebrows. “Miners?”

Rudolfo stroked his beard and nodded. “And I want two of Isaak’s mechoservitors brought up. If they do not have cartographic and geological familiarity then Charles should script them for it based on whatever we have in the library catalog.”

The Second Captain nodded, and Rudolfo saw the understanding dawn in his eyes. “Aye, General.”

“I want a half-squad assigned to each miner,” Rudolfo continued, “and I want mapping shifts around the clock. “If this is a gift-if it truly does give access to the Machtvolk Territories-I want to know everything about it.” He paused. “And I want our neighbors to know nothing.”

“I’ll see to it, General,” Philemus said, inclining his head.

The others left first until only he remained, with the scout who bore the lantern.

Rudolfo looked down the well once more, then turned away from it. There was a day, he realized, when he would have stayed and commanded this effort himself. He’d have even climbed down the well and set about exploring what lay below with his men. But something had changed. He wished he could say it was the investigation into the attack on his family, but it would only be partially true.

After half a lifetime of security, I no longer feel safe.

No, he remembered, not quite half a lifetime. He reached back and took hold of that first day he truly felt unsafe, there on the grass as he held his dying father while Fontayne’s mob of insurrectionists shouted curses upon his family.

Even then, he’d laid hold of every resource, every possible tool or weapon to root out the insurrection that House Li Tam had sown among his people. He had not stopped until every last bit of that vile weed was eradicated from his forest. And he’d watched every last one of them find redemption beneath the blades of his father’s Physicians of Penitent Torture. Each penitent named three more, and in the end, peace and order returned to him and to his father’s lands.

Rudolfo had not stopped until he felt safe again.

As he left the cave and started his slow climb back into a snow-flurried day, the Gypsy King knew it would be the same this time as well. Because they’d tried to take his family from him for a second time, and it sparked something deeper than the loss and fear. It sparked anger.

I will not stop until I feel safe again.

And for just a moment, Rudolfo thought he smelled salt and blood upon the wind.

Neb

They ran beneath a crescent moon, its dim blue-green light wavering over ridges of molten glass and gray barren slag. Neb steadied the girl as they forced their legs to carry them, powered by the root they chewed. They’d be out of root soon, he realized. With the two of them chewing it, his supply was running dangerously low.

They ran by night, hiding themselves by day as best they could, finding the ruined pockets in the ground or hills where they slept fitfully before waking to run again.

They pressed westward, zigging and zagging across the landscape.

As they ran in silence, Neb tried not to admire his companion’s graceful stride. He’d tried to bring more conversation out of her, but she’d been close-mouthed since that afternoon they’d set out. He’d not even been able to wrest her name from her.

A pack of kin-wolves howled a league or two north of them, and Neb steered them south. He could feel the strain of the run in his feet and calves, the solid jarring of his lower back as each booted foot found its purchase in a long and stretched-out stride. He glanced to the woman again.

She ran with her head up and moving slightly side to side, and if her shoulder pained her, she didn’t show it.