where they married them off even younger but recommended that they not be used as women before they turned nine.
He could not help a judgmental sneer, which the girl caught and, probably, thought had to do with her.
Nepanthe squeaked, half in surprise, half in distress.
Ragnarson, Ekaterina, and Smyrena al headed her way, the little one clambering into her lap, then having to have her hands restrained so she would not splash in the bowl.
There was the winged horse, airborne, streaking over a vaguely discernable river. Nepanthe had adjusted her bowl to see in limited light, but there was little of that. Ragnarson thought he saw ruins and a substantial wood that had been ripped to kindling.
“That’s right outside Lioantung,” he said. “What’s going on?”
“It’s running from something. It gets away but then when it tries to hide the thing that’s after it always finds it again.
There! That shadow.”
It was dark out there. Ragnarson saw nothing but the night.
“That’s a demon,” Ekaterina said. “One of the… Serving the one we aren’t supposed to name.”
“So,” Ragnarson mused. “He’s lost al patience.”
“Varth was right,” Nepanthe said. “He has a problem with his horse not doing what he wants.” She backed off the point of view. The horse became a white toy flapping desperately toward the shattered forest. The demon, a sprawl detectable only where it masked whatever lay behind it, fol owed. It had trouble staying locked onto its quarry.
A bit of red light, just a point but so intense it hurt the eye, appeared at the edge of the bowl. It moved toward the demon at an absurd speed. A second point, paler but more intense, ripped toward the winged horse.
Ragnarson blurted, “What the…?”
Neither Nepanthe nor Ekaterina managed that much.
The easterners on duty crowded round, excited. They knew what was happening but lacked the language skil s to explain.
...
A startling amount of progress had been made toward restoring Lioantung. Lord Ssu-ma Shih-ka’i, however, had established himself in the worst of what remained unreclaimed. He led a company of specialized artil erists.
They had a dozen transfer portals in support, against a need for hasty redeployment. There was no obvious sign of their presence, from ground level or the air.
A runner approached. “Message from the Empress, Lord.”
“Another one?”
“Yes, Lord. Another one.”
She would drive him crazy if she did not stop. He wished he dared cut communications completely so he need not waste time keeping her reassured.
He had sent one message bluntly asking her to stop.
She had apologized, then had kept right on fussing.
She would be watching now, he knew. She kept sending updates, repeating what his own people had reported already.
His second for the operation, Lord Chu Lo Kuun, announced, “The target has changed course and put on speed, Lord.” It had been drifting lazily, out of range, going nowhere. “It might final y come close enough… Something odd, here. Ah! It isn’t alone!”
Lord Ssu-ma stepped over. “I see.” He saw more than the obvious, in fact. “Sixty miles separating them.”
“But closing fast.”
“Total alert. Stand by for action.” He wanted to step out where he could see the eastern sky but there was no point.
It was dark. He would see nothing but stars and a sliver of moon too slight to dust the ruins with silver. Winged horse and demon both would remain invisible unless right overhead.
A demon, though—and one of considerable power—was after the winged horse. Only the Star Rider was cal ing up devils these days. The horse had been shunning its master.
Must have disappointed him hugely to have generated such a cruel reaction.
Lord Chu saw it, too. “What do you think?” Shih-ka’i’s response would not be popular in some quarters. He removed his boar’s mask so Lo Kuun could read his lips, which he shaded with his right hand. “Target lock them both and calculate their probable closest points of approach.” Unstated, do al that before higher authority intervened. Before the Empress decided to take the Windmjirnerhorn for herself.
Lo Kuun might have some slight ambition, too, though only Old Meddler had ever been able to control the Horn. His body language suggested that he did not like his orders.
Nevertheless, he executed them. Nor did he remind his superior that angles of fire and points of approach would change by the moment as horse and demon maneuvered.
Lord Ssu-ma Shih-ka’i had written the doctrine for extreme range use of this artil ery. He had proven that doctrine against the Great One.
That Lo Kuun would do as instructed was why Lord Ssu-ma had chosen him as his second.
Coming events would be choreographed to serve the empire, not individual ambition. Thus did the pig farmer’s son wil it.
Shortly, from nearby but out of sight, Lord Chu announced,
“Al set, Lord. They are in range, targeted and locked.”
“Launch one on each.”
“Launching now, Lord.”
Came a roar like the combined release of a hundred heavy bal istae in barrage. The ruins shook. Rubble fel .
“One is away,” Lo Kuun announced.
The roar repeated itself. So did the shaking. Somewhere not far off a brick wal groaned and col apsed.
“Two is away. Three and four are targeted and locked.”
“Stand by. Reload one and two.”
“Reloading one and two, Lord.”
Shih-ka’i stepped over to where farseeing specialists were tracking the shafts. They reported both flying true.
He whispered, “She wil be extremely unhappy,” inside his mask, not moving his lips.
She might dismiss him. Though she had not given specific instructions she would expect him to preserve something with the potential of the Windmjirnerhorn. And, as certainly, he knew that this attack would tel Old Meddler a great deal about what he now faced.
The shafts were no secret, though. They had been employed in number against the Great One, then against Matayanga to the extent that any remained in inventory after the struggle in the east. But Shih-ka’i’s ability to target them precisely, against objects in motion… The Empress would rather that neither the Star Rider nor the world know her artil erists were able to do that.
But what point to owning an unknown power never deployed?
Shih-ka’i believed that success tonight would be worth the secret. Loss of his horse and Horn would cripple the Star Rider forever. He would be reduced from demigod status to the level of a Varthlokkur or Magden Norath— except for his command of the iron statues. Which advantage might be lost to him already.
Shih-ka’i watched the fiery points of his shafts cross the scrying bowls at speeds difficult to encompass.
Somewhere, Old Meddler might just now be realizing that something was terribly wrong.
“Shield your eyes!” he barked.
He protected his own as shaft one came on target fifty miles away. The flare overwhelmed that quarter of the world.
Shih-ka’i gave it a half minute before saying, “Targeteers, report.”
