Antiphon

resurgences. And his family was very involved in this particular resurgence, though obviously with a great deal of help from outside. Help from people who bore the marks of Y’Zir not just upon their hearts but upon their entire bodies. He had no doubt it was faith that drove those blades into their skin.

Mal Li Tam was pacing now and speaking with an impassioned voice. He paused and pointed the knife first at one man and then at another. He even pointed it briefly toward one of the women in the party. But eventually, it was the man Vlad recognized as captain that stepped forward and offered a one-word answer.

Then, he stripped down and stretched himself upon the plank as his men tied his arms and ankles so that he was firmly fixed to the table it formed. Deck buckets were passed forward, and Vlad suddenly felt a stab of tension in his shoulder blades as he watched Mal salt the blade and roll up the sleeves of his robe.

The moonlight danced over the captain’s scarred body. He did not struggle or even cry out as the knife made its first pass. But by the seventh stroke, he wept and screamed and his men wept and screamed with him as his blood dribbled into the buckets through holes drilled in the plank. When Mal finished, he cleaned the captain’s wounds himself and then kissed him on the mouth, uttering a loud proclamation with hands outstretched toward the crew.

Then, lifting the bucket, he pitched its contents over the rail. Afterward, he called out loudly, his voice booming out over the sea and Vlad recognized the word once more. “Behemoth!”

The young man waited, and the deck became silent.

Vlad held his breath. Mal Li Tam tossed back his head and laughed loud. The crew joined him and even the captain, tears streaming down his face. Raising his gospel in one hand and his knife in the other, the Y’Zirite priest launched into another long monologue and at the end of it, laid aside his gospel to take the knife to his own hand. He drew the gash deep and held it out for them to see. Then, he cast his eyes upward, and Vlad followed his gaze. The silver orb eclipsed the moon, and for a moment, it was a globe of blue-green water speckled with stars.

He stretched out his hand beyond the railing and squeezed his blood into the ocean with a cry.

Vlad felt a tickle along the back of his neck and realized when Myr squirmed against him that he held her arm too tightly. He released it.

Could it be so simple?

He heard it rising in the stillness of the wind, felt the faintest vibration of it in the deck beneath him as it moved through the deep waters. As it drew closer, it became a buzz and then a roar, and the sea heaved and bucked from it as it moved in a slow upward spiral toward them.

Already, Mal Li Tam was stripping off his robe and fixing the silver knife between his teeth. Around them, the crew raised a shout, and in the midst of that shout, Vlad made his choice.

With one hand, he slipped Myr’s knife from her belt. With the other, he pressed words into her forearm. See the others to safety. You bear my grace.

It broke the surface off the starboard side of the bow, and he’d never seen anything like it. It was larger than a ship, long and made of a pitted metal that bent and flexed as it twisted through the water, gears grinding and shrieking as it moved. Dozens of jeweled eyes cast back the moonlight as it turned toward their ship.

Mal Li Tam leaped overboard from the prow with a loud cry.

Digging the edge of the knife into his own palm, Vlad Li Tam followed him.

Rudolfo

Rudolfo moved through the forest quietly, savoring the silence once he was far enough away from camp. Twice, he passed guard posts, whistling his intentions to them as he slipped by and into the deeper forest. At last, he reached a clearing with a tree he could lean against while watching the stars.

The meeting with Philemus had not gone well. He’d watched the man’s face redden, and in the end Rudolfo had raised his voice to make his point clear. The second captain would follow his orders, but Rudolfo sensed a breaking point on the close horizon. The Gypsy Scouts were the pride of the Ninefold Forest, a fearsome fighting force, and reducing them to a type of state police did not sit well with anyone. especially among the officers. But word now sped south, and tomorrow, Philemus would follow the birds and return home to the Seventh Forest Manor. Tonight, Rudolfo needed to decide if he would ride with him. There was nothing here for him to do, and his epiphany held, the memory of it as fresh as the memory of the knife jarring his shoulder as he pressed it into the woman’s heart.

We cannot win here. And still, he would find what path he could through what came. He had to. The face of his son, conjured up at each intersection, compelled him to find a way.

The forest was still but for the sound of overweighted branches losing their snow when the wind caught them just right. He stood and watched the moon and thought about the family that strengthened his resolve.

Over the past several months he’d found himself frequently asking himself what Jin Li Tam would do. And he’d grown accustomed to seeking her counsel late at night when they lay whispering in bed. Now, with her and Jakob so far away, he found he missed her words the most. The quiet and careful way she spoke them and the hard edge to those words when his stubbornness required it. Their pairing might have been a manipulation, but it was a formidable partnership nonetheless, and she’d proven this again and again.

We cannot win here.

The real enemy gathered strength and now made forays into the Named Lands with blood-magicked scouts who were capable of surviving the toll those magicks took upon their bodies. They were a hardy stock, well trained, and a brutal fighting force. And while this enemy built its own path, his own kin-clave to the south plotted against his family. His best intelligence couldn’t touch the competence and ferocity of Ria’s network, and his best ambassadors could not persuade even the opening of dialogue with any but Erlund, who was too distracted with political reform in the wake of his civil war to care much for what happened with the Ninefold Forest.

Rudolfo swallowed and wished for a moment he’d brought the firespice with him. He pushed the craving aside, alarmed at how quickly it had become a crutch he could limp along with.

The thought of limping brought Isaak to mind, and he wondered how his metal friend fared. By now, Isaak should be in the Marshlands with the others. Before Jin’s coded note, Rudolfo had worried less. But knowing now that another metal man-this Watcher she spoke of-made his home there raised Rudolfo’s hackles to third alarm. Whoever their enemy was, they did not want the mechanicals dreaming. And, more than that, they didn’t want the Seven Cacophonic Deaths loose in the world. He did not doubt for a second that their call for him to release the mechoservitors into their care would ultimately lead to yet more light gone from the world.

Rudolfo sighed and tried to pull the stillness of the night into himself, tried to conjure images of his sleeping child.

He heard the man in the forest long before he saw him. The crunch of frozen snow, the labored breathing and the whispered curses were like shouts across an open plain.

Rudolfo remembered a time when Gregoric would follow him out into the woods. That first captain and closest friend always gave him plenty of time to think in the quiet, but inevitably, he turned up. That was a loss that still rode him hard.

Lysias broke into the clearing, bundled in furs and panting as he placed his boots in the prints Rudolfo had left behind. The old man looked around, clouds of steam rising from his mouth and nostrils as he caught his breath.

Rudolfo whistled low and the general turned. As the man made his way to him, he noted his posture and stride. Whatever anger he bore had been burned off by the quick-paced walk. He nodded to Rudolfo.

“You’ve found me,” Rudolfo said.

“The snow helps.” Lysias took the tree next to him and leaned against it, still gulping his air.

Rudolfo said nothing, giving the man time to gather his thoughts and slow his heart rate and breathing. He waited for five minutes, and then Lysias finally spoke.

“It is quiet here,” the general said.

Rudolfo nodded. “It is good for thinking.” He’d known since boyhood how to woo a crowd, but it was from the quiet, still places that he drew his strength and found his paths.

Lysias’s eyes narrowed in the moonlight. “And what are you thinking?”

Rudolfo took in a deep breath. “I’m thinking,” he said in a slow voice, “that no matter what we do, we’re damned and buggered. We build our army too late for a hunter that has set his snares and harried his prey too long.” As he released those words, he felt their power on the wind and felt relief from finally having said them. “We cannot win here.”