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The side of the length of dead yew caught the creature in its distended belly, but it let out a high-pitched screech and spat out a yellow tongue that looked like a muscle. I saw something like bone at the end of the absurd length and threw myself to the side, but a legionary had come too close and he was in the way. Heavier than me. It was luck that got a fold of the Mantle of the Woe just close enough I was able to pull it closer to my body, covering my side in time for the bonelike stinger to slide off the enchanted cloth. I snarled, as much about the legionary who’d almost just gotten me killed trying to protect me as in anger. Night cascaded down the length of my staff in strings that crisscrossed the creature’s entire body in the span of a heartbeat before turning sharp.

Chunks of flesh and gore splattered the grass and I breathed out, eyes scanning for other threats.

The assassins that’d thrown darts at me had been tackled down but there seemed to be no more of the creature, which – shit, the corpse was dissolving into the ground. Ichor. That thing had been a devil. What the fuck was going on with our wards? I spared a look for the phalange that’d take a dart for me, grimacing as a hand over her mouth told me she was dead.

“Take them alive,” I shouted.

It was no good, though, I saw moments later. The assassins – garbed in regular’s armour – had stopped moving because they were dead. Poison, most likely. I’d be getting no answers out of them save through necromancy, and maybe not even that. There were alchemies that made corpses near-impossible to raise, and though they were expensive I somehow doubted that whoever had arranged this was lacking in funds. I rose back to my feet, closing the orc’s eyes. She’d taken that dart for me without hesitation, and if she hadn’t I would most likely be dead. Fuck, I thought breathing out. This wasn’t the first attempt on my life, but it’d been a while one had come so close to succeeding. If that tongue stinger hadn’t been meant to deliver a particularly nasty poison, I’d eat my shoes.

I got my people moving to cover the security breaches, because there was no way a devil should have been able to cross our wards. Before the hour was out the phalanges had caught most of our traitors alive, two trying to pull a runner towards Ater before being shot in the back. Enough confessed without need for… firm interrogation that I got a picture of what had happened. A few of my soldiers had been turned either by threats to their families or petty bribery, which had allowed a pair of mfuasa mage infiltrators in through our defences. They’d used illusions and murder to let in a summoned devil through the wards and make their attempt before being put down.

“They went for enlisted, not officers,” Vivienne said. “Not all of them Praesi, either. Two of the flipped soldiers were from Summerholm.”

I grimaced.

“This one wasn’t a warning shot,” I said. “They meant business.”

“It won’t be the last either,” the Princess said. “You’ve provoked the High Lords enough a single failure won’t put them off.”

“You don’t think this is Malicia?” I asked.

“It could be the Eyes,” she conceded, “but I have my doubts. They don’t usually use either devils or mfuasa.”

Which might be the point, putting us off the trail, but I wouldn’t argue the point. I’d certainly angered enough of the Wasteland’s aristocracy that they were as likely of an author for this nasty little surprise. I clenched my fingers. Time to make a point of my own, then. I’d need to speak with Scribe, and Archer as soon as she got back. She was a day late, at this point, but I wasn’t worried: I could still feel her star and the way it was moving towards us. She’d be there by noon.

“We’ll retaliate,” I said. “

“I expected as much,” Vivienne said. “And our traitors?”

“We have a punishment for aiding the enemy in our regulations,” I said.

My successor made a face but she did not disagree. It might have been a Legion regulation, originally, but Callowans were not much softer on treachery.

They’d be stoned.

Archer dragged her carcass back into camp an hour past Noon Bell, immediately heading for my tent when she did. She stank of dust and sweat but I still poured her a glass of lemon water when she dropped into a seat with a sigh, sending one of the phalanges to get her warm food. Indrani drank greedily, emptying the whole cup before letting out a sigh.

“Gods, the things you send me to do,” she said.

I dropped into a seat across from her own, lowering myself slowly so my leg wouldn’t ache too much.

“Thought you were all about travelling,” I said.

“Ater was damned interesting,” Indrani admitted. “Wouldn’t have minded staying a little longer to see the sights. There were… complications, though.”

“Ominous,” I praised. “You’ve been working on your pauses, I see.”

She preened.

“I have,” Indrani said. “I keep using them in random sentences, it drives Zeze crazy.”

I swallowed a grin. Amusing as that sounded, I had sent her out on an important errand.

“Report,” I ordered.

She leaned back into her seat, grinning in a way that did not bode well for whatever poor bastard I’d make transcribe this later, and only stashed that insolence away long enough to thank the young man that brought her a plate of greens and stew with slices of rye bread on the side. Archer wasted no time dipping her bread and scarfing down an entire slice, almost choking as she slapped her chest twice.

“Right,” she gasped. “So report. Got into their noble camps no trouble, their security is horrendously bad. The outer parts, anyway. They ward to the Hells and back little sections where the important people sleep, couldn’t get in those. Stayed long enough to learn that our buddy Sargon is here now, with a small escort.”

“Good to know,” I grunted. “We’d figured as much, but it’s good to have it confirmed.”

“It shouldn’t be too hard to get a strike force in Ater the same way I went in,” Archer continued. “Lots of servants and peddlers go back and forth through the gates every day, the Legions don’t actually watch them all that closely. The problems start in the city.”

“Heard through sources that Malicia’s pretty much lost grip,” I said.

“Yeah, she’s not real popular at the moments,” Indrani snorted. “The Sentinels followed up massacring rioters by being just as hard with a few attempts by people to get at imperial granaries, which didn’t win her any admirers.”

Unfortunate timing for her, that. I didn’t disagree with taking a hard line over food reserves with a siege possibly looming, but it was becoming clear that the Sentinels weren’t the kind of tool that could be used for delicate work.

“So who’s rising?” I asked.

“Akua,” Indrani frankly said. “She’s the city’s darling at the moment. They’re convinced she’s the only person that can beat you and she’s been making all the right moves – she’d been healing people, setting up hospitals and shelters and organizing the refugees. Even the gangs like her, Cat, it’s ridiculous. They started patrolling the districts the city guard won’t go in anymore after she asked them.”

I let out a low whistle.

“So she’s making a play for the Tower,” I said.

“Maybe,” Archer said, wiggling her hand. “She hasn’t actually gone there since coming to the city, way I hear it. She’s got this mansion that’s become like a second imperial court. There’s already a song about the ‘empress in the tower and the empress in the city’. Whatever she’s up to, though, she hasn’t actually made any moves to depose Malicia. Most people figure she’s either still working on getting the Legions on board or there’s some sort of clever plan afoot.”

“I don’t see the Black Knight flipping her way even if Malicia’s star is waning,” I said. “They get on terribly, by all a reports, and Nim’s a Legion loyalist. Without the army on her side, Akua will need major noble support before she can make a move. Won’t have enough troops otherwise.”

Support that I intended to deliver right into her hands, but was still in the making. It’d have to wait until Abreha and Jaheem Niri arrived.

“Could be,” Indrani shrugged. “Went to have a look at the defences like you asked, and it’s exactly like Juniper figured. They have a skeleton garrison on the walls facing us and the rest of the troops are at barracks in the nearby districts.”

It was the only sensible way to defend a city the size of Ater with forces as small as the Black Knight’s. She couldn’t really afford to man the entire set of walls facing us, not with solid numbers, so she’d post just enough up there and keep her real numbers near streets that could be used to quickly mobilize. That was she could be sure her soldiers were where the fighting was actually happening when we attacked. Against a less seasoned commander the trick would have been drawing those troops out by an attack on the wall and then sending a smaller force to climb an unprotected stretch while the defenders were busy, but that wouldn’t work on Marshal Nim. She’d keep companies in reserve.

No, like Juniper had said the only real way for us to take the city by force was speed. We needed overwhelm the walls before the Legions could fully mobilize, smash them while they were still separated and take up solid defensive positions before the highborn armies could intervene.

“Good,” I said. “Did you get anywhere close to the Tower?”

“Nah, they’ve locked up those districts tight,” Indrani said. “The Sentinels have been moving wagons around, though, so I’d bet Malicia’s opened up the vaults for a few things. Couldn’t get into the Tower itself, though, not even through Scribe’s underground routes. They’re either closed or swarming with guards.”

“Ime knows her trade,” I sighed. “And my father?”

“That,” Indrani grinned, “is where it gets… complicated.”

“Now you’re just overusing it,” I chided.

“Fuck… you, Your Royality,” Indrani eloquently replied. “So, I went around looking for ye ol’ Carrion Lord like my boss – terrible woman, you know, couldn’t recognize a good dramatic pause even if it bit her in the ass – asked. I was prowling rooftops and alleys like a majestic panther, but then I got shot in the shoulder.”

“You what now?” I replied, alarm.

“Don’t worry about it, shallow wound, all in good fun,” Archer dismissed. “So since the Lady had said hello, I set fire to the house she was standing on to say hi back and we had a good laugh about it. Only that, uh, drew some invited guests.”

“Sentinels?”

“Please,” Indrani snorted, “like I’d worry about those. No, I was asking her why there was some gray in her hair now like an old granny – there wasn’t, always pisses her off when I ask anyway – but then suddenly there was just this guy there.”

“This guy,” I repeated, skeptical.

“Yeah, just standing there,” Indrani agreed. “So I was all like ‘what gives, did you maybe not notice that building is still on fire, you jackass’ and then he turns to me saying ‘Black Queen vassal. You are spared. The debt is paid. Leave.’ You know, like an asshole.”

“Indrani,” I patiently said, “did you pick a fight with the fucking Emerald Swords?”

She blinked at me, surprise.

“No, of course not,” Archer assured me. “Though that was obvious from the context.”

I narrowed my eyes at her.

“I picked a fight with the Emerald Swords and the Lady,” she proudly told me.

I rubbed the bridge of my nose, feeling the headache coming. I wasn’t even in pain yet, I could just sense its looming person like a fucking storm on the horizon.

“He’d told me to leave, see, so I did the only rational thing a woman can do in that position,” Indrani began. “I-”

“-shot him in the eye,” I finished.

“I did,” she said, pleased, then leaned forward. “Twice. And I’ll level with you here, Catherine, he did not enjoy that.”

“Go figure,” I said. “Ranger?”

“Kicked him into the fire when he was distracted and pulled down the house on him,” Indrani said. “Shot her in the shoulder but she caught it and threw it back – almost took my eye out – but then the rest of the Emerald Swords arrived and it got messy.”

“It got messy?” I drily said.

“Right, ‘cause we drew a bit of attention so the Tower dropped a demon on us,” Archer said. “Beast of Hierarchy, I think. Anyways the air started burning like oil and it spread fucking everywhere – no smoke, though, pretty weird right? – so I stabbed this elf in the back, ‘cuz he was basically asking for it, and I maneuvered backwards from the situation.”

She smiled proudly at me, the horrid wrench.

“You know, like a strategist,” Indrani said. “Which I am.”

“Tell me we don’t have a demon-tainted Emerald Sword to deal with now,” I said.

“Nah, everyone made it out,” Indrani said. “Except for the diabolists Ranger shot, I guess, but if I learned anything in our years together it’s that diabolists don’t really count.”

Yeah, and there it was. The goddamned headache.

“Anything else?” I asked, against my better judgement.

She considered that for a moment.

“I’m hungry,” Indrani shared.

I sighed.

“About your… adventure, I mean,” I said.

“Hey,” Archer complained. “If I can’t do the pauses, then you can’t either. And what happened to us, Catherine? You never ask how my day went anymore.”

I cocked an eyebrow at her.

“How did your day go, Indrani?”

“I don’t wanna talk about it,” she smugly grinned, shovelling a large spoonful of stew and greens into her mouth.

“How is that that I’ve met people who’ve literally eaten the souls of the innocent and somehow you’re still the worst person I know?” I asked, reluctantly impressed.

“Natural talent,” she told me through half-chewed greens.

There was nothing like spending time with my closest friends in the world to make me reconsider my position on people not being born terrible. I hid a smile, though, and drummed my fingers against the sculpted tabletop.

“It’s a good thing that you’re back,” I said. “You can rest now.”

“Sleeping in a bed will be nice,” she agreed.

“You’ll have to do it now, though,” I idly said.

She stopped eating, staring at me.

“I’ve got a job for you,” I pleasantly smiled. “You’re going back into Ater.”

“I was just in Ater,” she whined.

“Yeah, but last time was too easy,” I said. “So this time I’m sending you back with about forty handpicked Dominion warriors.”

She wouldn’t stay with them once they were in the city – anything a Named was involved in the Intercessor would know about – but that was all right, I had a different task in mind for her. Ater was no Wolof, after all, for all its formidable defences. It had fallen more times than I could count through the many centuries of imperial history.

Most of the time, from the inside.

It was another six days before High Lady Abreha Mirembe of Aksum – formerly empress-claimant Sepulchral – and High Lord Dakarai Sahel of Nok joined their forces to my own army. Most of their sizeable combine force had marched our way, a solid fourteen thousand. Abreha’s reins on it were nowhere as tight as before though, since the Nok soldiery now had their own liege lord along instead of simple kinsman in command. Within moments of getting them in my tent I saw the tensions between the two of them. High Lord Dakarai, a gracefully aged older man with silvery hair and the most golden eyes I had seen of any Praesi noble, now resented the woman he’d backed for the Tower.

I even knew why. One of the foundations of their alliance had been the marriage between Abreha’s then-heir Isoba and Dakarai’s daughter Hawulti, but from the High Lord of Nok’s perspective he had mismarried his favourite daughter: Isoba’s position as heir to Aksum was now up in the air. Mind you, Dakarai was here instead of talking with High Lady Takisha and the others for a good reason: it was too late for him to move to Malicia’s camp. Even if she accepted his allegiance he’d get nothing out of the switch and he was more than a little likely to get assassinated as an example down the line. Malicia couldn’t accept his return, anyway, not as things stood.

Too many of her ‘loyal’ lords had spent years waging war against Nok in her name, they wouldn’t accept a peaceful return to the Tower’s cause. If the High Seat returned to Malicia, it would be over Dakarai Sahel’s dead body and for obvious reasons that would not be terms acceptable to him.

“Your hospitality remains pleasing, Black Queen, but you asked us here for a reason,” Abreha eventually said.

“The wards against eavesdropping were something of a hint, I imagine,” I snorted. “Fair enough. I want something of you.”

High Lord Dakarai studied me calmly.

“Should you want Nok’s forces to take the vanguard in breaching Ater, there will be a price for it,” he plainly stated.

“Nothing so uncouth,” I said. “On the contrary, I think you’ll actually like this one.”

I explained exactly what I wanted out of them, and they listened with faces like masks.

Afterwards, Dakarai Sahel left my tent in a rage and Abreha Mirembe lingered a little longer before following him out of the camp. I let them go, instead calling my war council together.

We had a battle to prepare for.

I pressed down against Zombie’s back, squinting under the heavy glare of the afternoon sun.

The enemy was moving slower than I’d thought they would, though that was of my own making. Between Assassin, Archer and the Silver Huntress about twenty high-ranking nobles had been killed this morning. Among those we’d even caught two Muraqib and a Niri, the prize of the lot being High Lady Takisha’s husband. Just after that anthill got kicked the Army of Callow had begun marching at a brisk pace, circling Ater to the north and advancing on the camp of the noble private armies. Much as we’d expected it would, though our advance had been almost immediately seen and reported it’d still taken them long to organize. I suspected they’d prepared a makeshift command system in case we did attack them, but the wave of assassinations had upended that arrangement before it could be used. So while the nobles fought over who would lead and who would take the frontlines, the Army of Callow had marched effectively unchallenged.

Juniper didn’t like the plan, but I’d sold her on the necessity of it so she’d put her talents to work making the best of the inevitable risks. While the Army of Callow and the Akusm contingent was moving to the north of the city, about five thousand – all Nok forces – under High Lord Dakarai were circling the city’s belly to the south instead. The route was slightly longer, and I could see from above that the Black Knight had taken the bait. Seeing a smaller force split from our main host, Marshal Nim had ordered one of the southern gates open and sortied against it. The temptation to try to defeat us in detail had been too strong.

Without knowing it, the Black Knight had been courting disaster. The Nok wavemen, the famous archers I’d yet to see prove their worth on the battlefield, were served up exactly the kind of fight they shined most in: flat open fields against slow-moving infantry. Those enchanted bows proved to be brutally effective tools of war at a range at least one time and a half of standard-issue crossbows, arrows touched with magic coming down in a rain that tore through even the testudo formation of the enemy legionaries. Still, there were only a thousand of those elite archers and Nim soon had field scorpions brought out so the slaughter didn’t last forever.

It still cost the Legions a few hundred soldiers for little gain and blunted their sortie. The Nok forces kept moving east towards the nobles with only paltry losses and the Legions did not attempt pursuit. No doubt the Black Knight was wary of getting another mouthful of volleys before Dakarai retreated again and the game began anew.

Up north, the shape of a battle began to fall into place. The enemy commanders were thinking along the same lines as the Black Knight, they too preferring to fight our army split. It’d made them take a gamble: instead of staying in their camp, a decent enough defensive position, the lumbering host of thirty thousand was marching towards the Army of Callow and its auxiliaries. The general facing Juniper had decided to bet that the battle against our main army would be won or lost before High Lord Dakarai finished circling the capital and fell on their backs. From up here I could see another trap, too, this one more subtly laid: at the speed they were advancing, the noble armies would be meeting my own about at the height of one of the northern gates of Ater.

Cheeky, that. They were hoping that Marshal Nim might see an opportunity when the battle had begun to flank us from there. And more than that, I eventually decided. If the Black Knight opened the gates, the nobles could then retreat through it and into the city afterwards. Neither me nor the nobles were interested in fighting to the death while Malicia was watching us from atop the Tower like a waiting vulture. It’d be more sensible to allow whoever got the worst of the fighting to retreat, be it us or they. Even with an army marching towards you, I thought amusedly, you’re more concerned with the Tower than the steel. A shame for them it wouldn’t pan out this way.

An hour before Afternoon Bell the skirmishes began north of the city and I got involved. I made a few passes on Zombie and left trails of blackflame behind, leaving our Levantine skirmishers with a decisive advantage. An hour after that, the skirmishers retreated and battle lines formed. To the south of the city, though, High Lord Dakarai had slowed. It might be taken for resting his men, who had been marching for hours in the sun with enemies nipping at their heels, but it wasn’t. To a practised eye, he was making sure he wouldn’t be there for the battle to the north.

It didn’t matter to the rank and files on both sides, who advanced with shields raised as sorcery and arrows began to fly. Hierophant ripped through enemy rituals – Akua didn’t seem to be out there waiting to match him – so the volleys weren’t too badly against us, and we closed the distance with only slight casualties. That turned into a massacre almost immediately. The nobles had put their levies in front and my legionaries chewed through them like a knife through butter. I was pretty sure the immediacy of that took even the enemy by surprise, because they answered by hammering at where their own lines met mine with rituals and that was hardly standard tactics even for the most wasteful of Wasteland lords.

It was a mistake, anyway. Getting columns of flame and clouds of poisonous smoke tossed at them by their own lords without the protections that my priests afforded the Army of Callow was enough to turn the fear of the levies into terror, which resulted in a small and then general rout. The household troops behind them were made of sterner stuff and tried to keep them in place, but that was like trying to ride a panicked horse: they got kicked for it, and hard. To my dismay, it looked like we were actually going to win this battle. Fuck. I’d badly overestimated the morale of the levies, and so had our enemies. My eyes flicked to the northern gates, waiting for them to open, but while Marshal Nim had reinforced the walls she kept them closed. Malicia’s orders? I could only guess.

It was Abreha Mirembe who salvaged it. She’d been half-heartedly serving on the flank of the Army of Callow, fighting off the Kahtan tribal troops with a suspicious lack of rituals being thrown by both sides, when she saw the rout and ordered a general retreat of the Aksum army. I could see the dismay and fury flicker through the ranks of my men at the sight, High Lady Abreha’s order creating a massive gap that the enemy lines plunged into without hesitation. It was a strange sight, from above: the enemy centre and left were collapsing before the Army of Callow, but my own left had walked off the battlefield just on the eve of victory and so the enemy right was coming hard towards a formation unprepared for it.

I swooped down to stem the tide, carving a wall of blackflame through the Kahtan tribal levies that stopped them cold in their advance. It bought the time for Juniper to do as we’d planned and call a retreat, just as at last the northern gates of Ater began to open. Nim was, unfortunately, too late to the party. The Army of Callow began to pull back, its enemies too far or in no state to pursue, and as Zombie rose back into the sky I breathed out in relief. It might have worked out even better than I’d intended, in the end. Abreha Mirembe had not just turned on me, she’d betrayed me just as I was about to win the battle: it would win her a great deal of esteem. Good. It’d make her betrayal and High Lord Dakarai’s that much more believable.

Neither of them were in a position to go over to Malicia’s side, after all, but it was not to the empress’ banner they had flocked today. Why, they had just announced their support for the cause of Akua Sahelian by saving the entire goddamned capital.

And with that, the fall of Ater could begin.