City of Blades

15. The Shadow of Oblivion

“It won’t be easy getting up there,” says Signe. “Biswal’s forces are returning, and I’ve had reports they’re flooding the harbor works. They’ll be here any minute.”

Mulaghesh grimaces as she performs a gear check. She’s still stained red from head to toe, though it does seem to be sloughing off, a little. She hasn’t bothered to tell Signe everything—there isn’t enough time to describe how Thinadeshi became the stand-in for the goddess of warfare—but she’s given her the details on how the City of Blades is waking up again. “And unfortunately Rada’s house is between the Galleries and the fortress,” says Mulaghesh. “There’ll be lots of exposure between here and there.”

“It’s in a little copse of trees, though,” says Signe. “Perhaps that can give us some cover.”

“If we can get to the trees, that is. If Biswal’s troops are entering the harbor works, that means the roads away from this place are going to be watched.”

“Are you sure it’s her?”

“It must have been. She quoted Petrenko to my face, and the Watcher over there said they’d been visited by a student of his. And Rada would know which families were isolated enough for her to test her swords on—one of the dead boys in Poshok had some kind of horrible rash, and they said in Ghevalyev that the man was always fretting over his wife’s health….She must have visited each of their homes.”

Signe shakes her head, disgusted. “I can’t believe this.”

“And Petrenko was the saint who invented the method of making Voortyashtani swords,” says Mulaghesh. “Rada must have gone to the Teeth of the World, found the tomb…”

“Which must have been Petrenko’s tomb.”

“Right. Petrenko’s sword acts as a blueprint for how to make more. And now here we are.”

Mulaghesh checks the sword of Voortya, though currently it’s still more like a handle. She has it stuffed in the belt of her pants for easy access, though she still has no idea what she’d need it for. Once she’s confirmed it’s secure, she scans the walls. “You got any rope around here?”

“I’m sure I can find some somewhere, bu—”

“And you’re a pretty good climber, right?”

“What are you suggesting?”

“I’m suggesting that that arch over there,” she says, pointing at a spectral sculpture designed to look like the bones of a whale, “rises almost to the top of the wall. Meaning we wouldn’t have to use the door. Rada’s house is just up the slope from this yard, provided we go over the wall.”

Signe sighs as she takes in the scale of the arch. “You do have a knack for getting other people to stick their necks out for you.”

“Recall, please, that I just plummeted into the afterlife to save the necks of this city.”

“Good point, I suppose.” Signe fetches a few lengths of rope from a storage area in the statue yard, and the two begin to run over.

“After you get me over the wall,” says Mulaghesh, “what next?”

“What next? Why, I’m coming with you, of course. You’re making me climb up on a damn wall, I might as well go all the way.”

It’s the answer Mulaghesh wanted to hear, though she didn’t want to ask the direct question: to guilt others into your dirty business is bad sport, in her opinion. “Are you sure?”

“You’ll need the backup, won’t you?”

“Yes. But I want to make sure that you’re sure. You could see some fighting. I can’t guarantee that it won’t be dangerous.”

“General, this woman apparently wishes to destroy everything I’ve made so far,” says Signe. “Though frankly I’ve no idea why. I intend to stop her, at the very least, and then find out her reasoning.” Signe begins to deftly climb up the arch. “She isn’t even a true Voortyashtani. She’s from Bulikov, for the seas’ sakes!”

“Feel like you’d be decent with a rifling tonight?”

Signe vaults up and straddles the edge of the wall. She sighs, bowing her head. “I do despise combat, you know.”

“Yeah. I know how you feel.”

She begins uncoiling the rope, lowering it down. “But I’m still willing to do it.”

“Yeah,” says Mulaghesh, grasping the rope. “I know how you feel.”

As they rappel down the wall Mulaghesh looks out and sees the dark cityscape littered with beams of lights, the roving torches of soldiers on a search. She does a quick count and gauges their number at fifty or so. She can tell by the way the lights are bobbing up and down that they’re running, and it looks like a lot of them are running for the statue yard.

“Hurry up and get down!” says Signe.

They slide down the rest of the wall and lurk in its shadows, watching the search beams.

“Oh my,” whispers Signe. “There’s rather a lot of them, isn’t there?”

“On my mark we run to the fence ahead, all right?” Mulaghesh points across the industrial yard to a chain-link fence about ten feet high.

“We’re not climbing that, too, are we? There’s razor wire at the top.”

“I have wire cutters. But it’ll take time.”

“Why do you have wire cutters?”

“Because every damn soldier worth their salt has wire cutters!” snaps Mulaghesh. “Anything else you want to know?”

Signe cranes her head forward. “I don’t think anyone’s coming. On the count of three?”

“Works for me.” She counts off with her fingers and then they bolt forward. They dart around a stack of rebar, then through piles of soil and pulped wood until finally they come to the chain-link fence.

They squat and look behind them: bright beams of light are slashing through the night air. “Not torches,” says Mulaghesh quietly as she pulls out her wire cutters. “Spotlights. They’re really looking for us.”

Signe takes the wire cutters and goes to work, snipping through the fence. “Will they shoot us?”

“They might if we run. Likely they expect we’re armed. And you do have a rifling strapped to your back.”

“And what if we succeed tonight? What if we get to Rada and stop what she’s doing? Do you think Biswal would forgive us?”

“If we got Rada to tell him the story, maybe,” says Mulaghesh.

“Would she do that?”

“She might if I beat the shit out of her a little.”

Signe looks at her, shocked. “Would you do that?”

“Hells yeah I’d do that. If it keeps me from ducking a firing line, I’d beat her ass like a drum. Keep cutting.”

Mulaghesh keeps watch. The metallic walls of the statue yard reflect the light a little too well for her tastes, bouncing off and sending rays scattered around the yard. Both of them keep ducking down as beams strafe over their heads. Mulaghesh turns and looks up through the fence and up the slope to where Rada Smolisk’s house sits in the trees below the cliffs. It’s about five hundred yards up, by her guess. She can see one cheery yellow window burning among the trunks, and the chimney, of course, is belching up merry gray smoke. But it’s not your average wood fire, is it? thinks Mulaghesh.

Then she spots a few sparks of light to the right at the same elevation as Rada’s house. She shields her eyes against the other strobe lights to see a band of soldiers, perhaps five or so, walking along the road to the polis governor’s house.

“Shit,” says Mulaghesh. “We’ve got company. Soldiers on their way to Rada’s house.”

“I’m almost done here. How much time?”

“Twenty, ten minutes away. Maybe.”

“Then we’ll have to book i—”

She’s cut short as Mulaghesh drops down and clamps a hand over her mouth. Signe’s eyes widen and look at her, surprised. Then Mulaghesh shakes her head and nods backward, behind the mounds of earth.

At first it’s quiet. Then they hear it: footsteps, slow and uncertain.

Mulaghesh takes her hand off of Signe’s face and pulls out her carousel. She squats down low and readies her aim.

For a moment, nothing. Then a beam of light surges out of the darkness and falls on them.

Mulaghesh almost shoots. It takes a lot of training not to, but she’s more worried about giving away her position than anything. She waits for the owner of the light to say something, anything, identifying themselves—but they don’t. There’s just a long pause.

Then a voice: “Uh…CTO Harkvaldsson?”

Signe lets out a breath. “Damn it all, Knordstrom!” she says. “You almost gave me a heart attack!”

The beam lowers. Mulaghesh blinks until she can make out a thickset Dreyling guard with the SDC insignia on his breast standing among the dirt mounds. “Oh. Uh. Sorry, ma’am. I didn’t realize you’d be here.”

“Well, obviously, I am!”

“I see. Can I ask…Uh, what’s going on? I’m hearing reports of Saypuri troops storming the harbor….”

“Yes,” says Signe grimly. “It seems General Biswal has gone mad with power. He’s looking to arrest me. This will be a serious diplomatic incident, I’m afraid. Do not report back that you saw us, and I recommend you usher all Saypuri troops away from this part of the yard. Am I clear?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And one more thing. Find my father and tell him to meet us up at Rada Smolisk’s house, up the hill.” She points through the chain-link fence.

Knordstrom looks where she’s pointing. “The, uh…the polis governor’s house?”

“Yes. We’re to have an emergency rendezvous to discuss the situation. Tell him that. Understand?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Excellent. Now hop to it.”

Knordstrom, despite his ample bulk, hurries away through the piles of dirt.

“That was smartly done,” says Mulaghesh. “I hope like hells he gets Sigrud over here.”

“Me, too.” Signe clips through the last of the chain-link fence, and Mulaghesh kicks it open. The two crawl through, the bits of wire biting at their shoulders and backsides, then stand and sprint away.

The hill stops being a hill and starts being more like a cliff, with Rada’s house sitting above. “Why are soldiers coming in the first place?” asks Signe as they begin to climb.

“Standard protocol,” says Mulaghesh, breathing hard. “First thing you do during a security threat as regional governor is secure the safety of all other Ministry officials. I just never thought that I’d be the threat to the polis governor.”

Signe looks up along the cliff. “It’s a straight climb up the rest of the way,” she says. “Do you need any help?”

“I’ll manage,” says Mulaghesh. Then, quieter: “Maybe.”

They climb, and climb, and climb. Mulaghesh doesn’t say so, but it’s extraordinarily difficult for her, trying to compensate for her left arm. More than once she’s certain she’s going to topple over and plummet down to the streets below. She’s so focused on not falling that she’s shocked when something soft strikes her shoulder. It takes her a moment to realize it’s a rope.

She looks up and sees it dangling from Signe’s dark form above. “Tie that to your belt,” she says. “I’ve got it tied to mine. I’ll steady you.”

“So I can pull you to your death, too?”

“I’m bigger than you,” says Signe. “I’ll be fine.”

Tying the rope to her belt on the side of a cliff one-handed is a tall order for Mulaghesh, but after a few minutes of fumbling around in her pants she manages it. She gives Signe a thumbs-up and the two of them start their ascent again. She has to hand it to her: Signe is bigger than her and much better at this than she thought.

Finally they get to the top of the cliff. Signe vaults over it, then turns, lies down, and reaches down to Mulaghesh. “Here. Give me your hand.”

Mulaghesh looks up to see a beam of light shoot through the air just above Signe. They’re close, she thinks. Too close. We were too damned slow!

She hurriedly begins untying her end of the rope. “Signe! Get away! Get down, they’ll see you!”

“Just jump up and grab my hand!”

“Signe, you—”

“Just do it already!”

Mulaghesh jumps up. Her entire body fills with terror as she’s suspended over a precipitous drop for one blistering moment.

Her fingers touch Signe’s. At first she’s convinced it won’t work, that her grip will pass through and she’ll go tumbling down the slope. But then Signe’s fingers clutch together, seizing Mulaghesh’s hand. She then leans down and hooks her elbow into Mulaghesh’s left arm, above her false hand.

Then everything goes bright as a beam of light falls on them. “Halt!” cries a voice. “Freeze!”

Neither of them speaks. Signe pulls Mulaghesh up, though their progress feels agonizingly slow.

“I said freeze!” cries the voice. He sounds worried, agitated. Mulaghesh can see that Signe’s rifling is very visibly strapped to her back. That’s bad, thinks Mulaghesh.

Mulaghesh kicks at the cliffside and pushes herself up and over. She tumbles over the edge and rolls away from the light. Signe tries to follow her, but she’s still recovering and moves just a little too slow.

A shot. Mulaghesh hears Signe cry out. Mulaghesh rises up onto a knee and draws her carousel.

Even in this moment, when she’s being fired on and she’s aware her comrade has been hit, she’s still painfully aware that these are her own soldiers, her own colleagues and brothers and sisters—and, as an officer, her own responsibility. So she fires three shots up into the trees above them, high but not too high—just enough that they seek cover, fast.

It works: the beams of light go skittering through the trees, fleeing the shots. Mulaghesh hooks one arm around Signe and hauls her up, not bothering to look for where she’s hit.

The two of them limp along through the trees, Mulaghesh stumbling and flailing and trying not to fall. Shots ring out, but none of them come close.

“Where did you catch it?” she says as they run.

“My calf,” says Signe. “It’s…It’s not too bad….” But she’s talking through gritted teeth, suggesting it definitely feels quite bad.

Mulaghesh turns, takes cover behind a tree, and looks for motion. She spies three of them lurching up through the ferns and the bracken toward her. She takes careful aim at the tree above them, then fires. The bark erupts just above their heads, and they dive for cover again.

“They must not be the cream of the crop,” says Mulaghesh, hauling Signe up toward Rada’s house. “Otherwise you’d be dead.”

“Put me down,” whispers Signe.

“What?”

“Put me down and leave me here,” she says. “I’m just slowing you down!”

“I’m not leaving you, damn it!”

“And you won’t make it to Rada’s house with me!” says Signe. “They’ll catch up to you and either shoot us or arrest us both! Either way, we’re dead. If we get arrested and the sentinels invade, we’re dead, Turyin. You know that!”

Mulaghesh slows to a stop. She looks around and finds a large clump of bracken underneath one of the pines. “Do you think you can tend to your own wound if I give you the supplies?”

“I can deal with a wounded leg,” says Signe, though she’s wincing. “Give me the rifling, and I’ll give you more cover fire and buy you some time.”

“I won’t have you killing a Saypuri soldier on account of my dumb ass. Don’t use it unless you have to.” She sets Signe down and sees her face is twisted in pain. She takes a look at the wound and immediately assesses that it was almost a clean shoot, though it looks like it might have nicked the bone a little. She reaches around and pulls out her med kit. “I’d see to you myself if I could.”

“I know,” says Signe, taking the kit. “Now go! Get out of here and stop her!”

Mulaghesh turns and sprints up through the trees.

Mulaghesh darts up the hillside to the other side of the house, to Rada’s living quarters entrance. She dives into the bracken and peers through the leaves, watching, waiting. She can hear the soldiers calling out to one another, signaling their positions as they comb the forest. None of them seem to be near her, and she doesn’t think any of them can see her.

She starts creeping toward the house. It’s dark, but not dark enough for her to feel safe. Finally she comes to the base of the house, where a large bay window spills golden light across the trees. She can see the door, but she’ll be plainly visible if she moves toward it. She rises to a squat, reloads the carousel, watches the trees, and, seeing nothing, sprints for the door.

She makes it. There’s no sound of a shot or a shout. But she can hear something coming from the base of the house: a soft ping! ping! sound, like metal on metal.

I know what that is, she thinks grimly.

She reaches down and tests the knob. It’s locked. She feels around for the door frame and confirms that the hinges are on the other side. Then she steps out from the cover of the wall, squares herself with the door, and delivers a powerful kick just beside the knob.

The door cracks open. One of the soldiers out front shouts, “What was that?” But Mulaghesh is already charging into the house, carousel ready.

The lights are on inside, but she doesn’t hear movement. She shuts the door and shoves a cabinet in front of it, knowing it won’t stop them. Then she quietly begins to move throughout the house, searching from room to room.

Rada Smolisk is not home, or so it seems: no one in the kitchen, the living room, or any of the clinic’s quarters. Mulaghesh walks to the fireplace and feels the ashes there. They’re quite cold, as are the stones. Yet she just saw smoke pouring out of the chimney, and heard that sound below….

Mulaghesh inspects the chimney and the fireplace. She knows that her time is limited, but Rada must be hiding around here somewhere. She doesn’t see any cracks or paneling in the walls around the fireplace, but as she paces over the carpet she suddenly stops, thinks, and looks down.

One corner of the carpet is strangely askew, as if someone tried to pull it into place from an awkward angle.

She grabs a corner of the carpet and hauls it up.

Set in the wooden floor underneath is a wide trapdoor with a metal handle set in its side.

She holsters her carousel and lifts the trapdoor. Below is a set of winding, curving stairs down.

There’s a pounding at the door she came in through. She can hear the cabinet she tipped in front of the door creaking and cracking. Mulaghesh glances around, grabs a fire poker from the fireplace, and enters the staircase. She shuts the trapdoor and slides the fire poker through the handle, locking it. She wipes sweat from her brow, draws her carousel, and continues down.

It should be dark here, one would imagine, but it isn’t: though there are no lamps, the winding staircase is lit by a faint orange light that filters up through the cracks in the steps. As she descends Mulaghesh can hear that tinny ping, ping, ping—the sound of pieces of metal striking one another.

Or a hammer on an anvil, she thinks.

It’s only a few steps after that when she starts to hear the voices in her head, whispering and murmuring.

“…chased them down the shallow river, their arrows singing, and we leapt ashore with our blades and hearts glimmering gladly and struck them down like rag dolls, and how cheered we were by their shrieking flight….”

“…fought me day and night, for four days, my teacher and I there upon the hills, for she had said she’d show me the primal beast that lurks at the heart of the world, the pet of the Mother, and when I struck her arm from her body and plunged my sword into her throat she died smiling, for she knew she had taught me all there was to know….”

It’s familiar, she realizes: this is like the chanting and muttering she heard from the sentinels in the City of Blades.

The stairs level out. She sees the wicked blaze of the forge beyond, and the swords in racks before it.

There are dozens of them. Maybe four dozen, maybe five. Only a few approach the terrible, beautiful weapon wielded by Zhurgut, most not half so large nor half so fine. They are perhaps the products of a prentice smith, one still learning the wend and weft of the metal, still grasping what heat and pliability will allow one to do. But they are still swords, still weapons, and though crude she can see there is a primitive utility to them.

And she can hear them. She can hear them talking, whispering. Inside these weapons, she realizes, are the memories and desires of an entire civilization.

A small figure toils before the forge, adorned in a thick leather apron and a wide, blank metal mask with a tinted glass plate. The sight would almost be comical if the person did not carry themselves with an air of such grimness, pumping the bellows with determination and familiarity, indifferent to the sting of the sparks. This creature knows the forge and knows their work, and intends to do it.

“Little Rada Smolisk,” whispers Mulaghesh. “What are you doing?”

She watches as Rada holds a blazing chunk of metal in the teeth of a pair of tongs. She sets it on the face of the anvil and gives it a mighty blow, turning it over and over, her movements assured. Mulaghesh can see that the forge is cunningly crafted: Rada has built her own hearth and firepot and tuyere and bellows, with a vent above that must feed into the chimney. It must have taken her months to construct. There are also air vents built into the corners of the basement in order to allow out the heat. There’s even a draft in the room as the hot, active air circulates out, bringing the cool, wintry air in.

Mulaghesh glances around at the dozens of swords, and reflects that, not for the first time, Rada Smolisk is trapped down here in the dark with the dead.

Mulaghesh paces forward, mindful of the hammer in Rada’s hand. “Stop, Rada.”

Rada pauses for a second, then continues hammering away on the lump of metal.

“I said stop it!”

Rada turns the lump over, examines it, then sets it back in the coals. Her voice is small and soft: “No.”

“Put the hammer down!”

“No.” She takes the piece of metal back out, lays it on the face of the anvil, and pounds away at it again.

“I will shoot you, Rada!”

“Then do so,” says Rada quietly. “Shoot me. Kill me.” Another ringing blow. “I am indifferent to it.”

“I know what you’re doing! I’ve been to the City of Blades, Rada! I’ve seen it!”

The hammering slows. Then she remarks, “So? What difference does that make? How does that stop anything? So you know. So what?” She looks at the hammer, considering it. “This is the most alive I’ve ever felt in my life. Did you know that? All the burdens on my soul and on my tongue…With each blow of the hammer, they fade away.”

Mulaghesh watches as Rada lifts the hammer and begins pounding away again. “The hells with this,” mutters Mulaghesh. She holsters her weapon and strides forward. Rada turns, brandishing the hammer, but Mulaghesh can tell that she’s not sure what she really wants to do with it: she didn’t expect or even really want a confrontation. So Mulaghesh grabs Rada’s wrist with her right hand, forcefully spins her around, and delivers a devastating stomp to the back of her right knee.

Something pops wetly in Rada’s knee. She screams in agony and falls to the ground, her hammer clanging on the anvil. Mulaghesh ignores her. She walks to the swords and starts grabbing them and hurling them onto the coals.

Rada’s shrieks turn into peals of laughter. She lifts her metal mask. Her face is wild and ash-streaked, not at all the timid little thing Mulaghesh has known over the past weeks. “You think that’s going to do anything? You think you’re going to destroy them like that? Maybe if you had a few weeks! It’s too late, General.”

“You went to the Teeth of the World, didn’t you, Rada?” says Mulaghesh, pumping the bellows. The swords glow hot, but not hot enough. “Took a boat, maybe hired one of the tribesmen. You found Petrenko’s sword. He took you to the City of Blades to learn from him directly, projected you there. But the Watcher there gave you the boot because you didn’t deserve to be there.”

“I’m not a killer, no,” says Rada softly. “But I know death. I know it quite well. It is my constant companion, as you know well, General.”

“So what in hells are you doing bringing more of it down on the world?” snarls Mulaghesh. “You tested out your swords on those innocent people in the countryside! You sat and watched as people butchered their own loved ones!”

“I had to know if it worked,” she says, her voice still soft. “I had to know if the swords were true, if they were really connected to the City of Blades. They took so much work to make….”

“Work? I’ll fucking say! You made the tunnel to the thinadeskite mines, you’re the one who’s been stealing it to reforge these weapons! You’re a damned clever creature, Rada, but are you so damned foolish you don’t realize those things will kill Continentals and Saypuris alike?”

“Of course I know that,” says Rada. “Of course I do.”

“Then why are you doing it, for the seas’ sakes?”

“Why?” says Rada, her voice rising, torn between amusement and hysteria and outrage. “Why? You want to know why?”

“Yes, damn you!”

“Because it is one thing to be conquered and lose one’s land,” screams Rada suddenly, “but it is another to lose eternity!”

Mulaghesh pauses, struck by Rada’s frenzied outburst.

“Can you imagine it, General?” Rada cries. “Can you imagine being trapped with all the corpses of your family for days and days, the stink of their bodies, the leak of their blood? Feeling them grow cold and clammy in the dark beside you? And imagine growing up fearing that whenever the lights go out, they might come back! Imagine going to bed every night not knowing if you might reach out in the night and feel a cool, wet face beside you, and feeling its mustache and eyebrows and knowing it was once your father! Just flesh and bone, and nothing more.”

Rada looks up at Mulaghesh, her face contorted with fury. “Then imagine realizing that once there was more. Discovering that there was an afterlife, a heaven! Once my family could have been safe! Once the dead could have been preserved, loved, respected! When I gripped Petrenko’s sword, I saw it. I saw what once waited for these people, and I realized all at once what had truly been taken away from us—that in one stroke all the afterlives that had been lovingly built for us had come crashing down, collapsing, trapping all those souls in the dark….Do you understand what your country did to us, General? Do you understand that the Blink didn’t merely injure the living, but countless, countless souls in the afterlife? And all the people who died in the Battle of Bulikov died twice—once in this world, and again when they never passed on to the afterlife intended for them!”

“Well, we never got any damned afterlives!” snarls Mulaghesh, pumping the bellows. “When Saypuris were massacred we just rotted in the ground, and if our families knew where we lay then they considered it a blessing! Your tragedy is but a candle flame among a forest fire!”

“I don’t care!” screams Rada. “I don’t care! Damn the world, damn the Continent, and damn Saypur! If the world gives us no reprieve from life then let them destroy it! When I held the sword, it showed me all its broken kin scattered through the hills—and when they first made the mine, I knew what they were digging up, even if they didn’t! When I made my first sword I knew I brought them a little closer, brought the afterlife denied to me just a little closer to reality. Let them come here. Let them do unto us as we deserve!” She bursts into tears, sobbing hysterically. “We deserve it. We all deserve it.”

“Those families you killed, they deserved it? That corpse you butchered to make it look like Choudhry, she deserved it?”

“I don’t even know who that was,” says Rada softly. “I bought the body from a highland peddler….”

“And all those innocents who died when you resurrected Zhurgut, did they deserve it, too?”

She shrugs. “It was necessary. I had to see if my craftsmanship had gotten good enough to bring a sentinel here and keep them here. And you were getting far too close. I thought I could solve two problems at once. But what Zhurgut did will look like a mere bruise in comparison to the Night that is coming….And you can’t stop it, General. It took me years to make the swords. It’ll take far longer than an evening to destroy them, especially by a one-handed old woman with soldiers bearing down on her. I can hear them upstairs—can you?”

Mulaghesh stops pumping the bellows. There’s shouting and a hammering from up above—likely the soldiers trying to hack through the trapdoor.

Rada smiles. “Do you know what’s funny? I brought them here, and they don’t even know it. I broke into the yard of statues; I took the photos and sent them along. They think you betrayed your country, General. I’m sure by now every soldier in Voortyashtan wants your head.”

“Shut the fuck up.” Mulaghesh realizes Rada’s right, of course. The swords glow a little, but she’s far from smelting them down, let alone all of them. The soldiers will break through long before she makes any headway.

“You’re right. I can’t do it with this forge,” she says quietly.

Then she reaches for her belt and pulls out the hilt of the sword of Voortya.

She stares at it. It is dark and glittering, beautiful in a nasty, savage way, and she imagines how its blade flickered with a pale fire, the barest suggestion of something terrible and powerful.

“But perhaps I can with this,” Mulaghesh says softly.

Signe Harkvaldsson lies very still under the bracken as she hears the area flood with soldiers. She’s given up counting their number: at first there were only the five or six of them, but now there’s ten, twenty, even more, all of them surrounding the house. She can hear some of them talking, giving orders, sending signals up to the fort.

“…know I tagged one of them. I know I did. I heard her scream.”

“…blonde, right? The one from the harbor? Or was I imagining things?”

“…no blood on the door. Could be inside, but I doubt it. She’s still here somewhere.”

She shifts slightly to the right to look down at her injury. She didn’t give it the treatment it deserved, but she didn’t have the time for it: she’d hardly applied the tourniquet when she heard Mulaghesh kick in the door, which made all the soldiers come sprinting up. Her calf throbs so much that sometimes it’s all she can do to keep from whimpering. She is also disconcertingly aware that she feels quite faint, no doubt from loss of blood: not only has she just been shot, but she also “donated” to Mulaghesh’s ritual.

She hears screaming from inside the house. The soldiers go quiet. It takes her a moment to recognize that it’s Rada screaming, howling in rage: she only ever heard the woman quietly stutter and stammer through life, so to hear her scream like that is queerly disturbing.

A soldier says, “General Biswal is on his way, correct? Good. But tell him to hurry!”

She groans inwardly. If Biswal is coming it’s almost certain more troops will be coming too. And the more troops that come, she thinks, the higher my chances are of being discovered.

She feels faint, and knows that time is running out.

“And what,” says Rada Smolisk, “is that thing?”

“Shut up,” barks Mulaghesh. She shuts her eyes and tries to concentrate.

“Is that a sculpture? A piece of a sword?”

“Shut up!” She mentally reaches out to the sword, trying to feel for it. When she saw the sword in Thinadeshi’s hand it seemed to speak to her, to become something in her head, a medley of ideas and sensations and histories. Yet now when she needs it most it’s just a lump of metal in her hand.

“Is that one of Komayd’s trinkets?” says Rada. “I know she had them. Things stolen from the Continent to use against us…It won’t work. None of this is Divine anymore. None of this is fueled by miracles, General. It’s powered by the rage of the dead.”

“Will you shut your mouth?” shouts Mulaghesh.

“No. Why would I? I’ve nothing to lose. I’ve never had anything to lose.” She laughs miserably, massaging her wounded knee. “Don’t you agree with them, General, just a little bit? These forgotten soldiers, furious that their nation and their god didn’t give them what was promised? Haven’t you and thousands of your comrades been abandoned the exact same way?”

Mulaghesh stuffs the sword hilt in her pocket, draws her carousel, and points it at Rada’s head. “By all the damned seas, I’ll do it!” she shouts. “I’ll shoot you, you damned fool!”

Rada doesn’t even blink. Her face is calm and still, eyes watchful and wide. “Do it. I don’t care. In a way I’m an even better soldier than you are, aren’t I, General? The best soldier doesn’t value life, not even their own.”

“You’re no soldier,” says Mulaghesh furiously. “You think yourself a martyr, but you’re the world’s fool, Rada, fulfilling a prophecy no one even wants anymore.”

“This world should have never been,” says Rada calmly, staring up at her along the carousel. “It is accidental. The first thing we should have done after the Blink was line up and calmly walk into the ocean, entering the oblivion from which we no longer had refuge. What is the point of living if there is nothing beyond life?”

“Do you even hear how foolish you sound?” Mulaghesh holsters the carousel. “I’ve lived my life in the shadow of oblivion, Rada. I’ve seen good people go to it and bad. And I’ve always known I’d go there eventually, one way or another.” She looks at Rada. “Maybe I’ll go there now and take you with me.”

She pulls a grenade from her belt. Rada’s eyes grow large as she realizes what she means to do.

“No…,” whispers Rada.

“The sword of Voortya won’t work,” says Mulaghesh calmly. “And the forge won’t work. But what if I detonate four grenades here in this basement with you? What about that?”

“You wouldn’t.”

“I wouldn’t?”

“You’d be killing yourself! You can’t! There’ll be nothing after this!”

“That’s the difference between you and me, Rada,” says Mulaghesh. She wedges the grenade between her left arm and her body and puts her finger in the ring. “You think what you’re doing is a victory over death, in its own way. But I know there’s no beating it. So I’m not afraid.”

She closes her eyes.

Corporal Udit Raghavan grips his rifling as the auto bounces down the path to the polis governor’s house. He listens carefully as General Biswal speaks in the backseat, his voice calm, controlled. Raghavan has been close to Biswal all throughout the excursion into the highlands, and has seen an extraordinary amount of fighting in the past week; but one thing that both calms him and excites him is Biswal’s seemingly impenetrable serenity, which appears to stem from an unshakable belief that what they’re doing is absolutely, unimpeachably right.

Doubt is not a thing that exists for General Lalith Biswal. And this unspoken belief spreads to his soldiers.

And Raghavan, like many of his comrades, has desperately needed this in the past few days. In the mire of the highland settlements, when civilians were almost indistinguishable from insurgents, when a child of fourteen could somehow produce a pistol from within its rags and point it at your friends and comrades and fire away…Raghavan badly needed the shelter of Biswal’s confidence not only to pull the trigger when he needed to, but also to forget the bodies left behind: some of which were quite young, or quite old, and, occasionally, unarmed.

The fog of war is an inevitability, he remembers Biswal saying. We must accept it and move on.

He listens to Biswal now as the polis governor’s house comes into view: “…must make sure to take all necessary precautions. General Mulaghesh might be one-handed, but despite this she is one of the most accomplished soldiers I have ever commanded, and it appears she has lost none of her talent. Remain aware of that—but do not shoot unless the situation is critical.”

“Do we know anything about General Mulaghesh’s motives, sir?” asks a lieutenant.

“We do not,” says Biswal. “But her collusion with the Dreylings is extraordinarily troubling. She knew of threats to our national security, and she chose not to reveal them to us.”

“Are…Are you saying she’s a traitor, sir?” asks the lieutenant.

Biswal is silent for a very long while. “I find that difficult to believe, even now. But she has lied to us since she first came here. And her lies have endangered the souls of everyone in this city, and in Fort Thinadeshi.”

One of the soldiers curses under his breath.

“I am concerned,” says Biswal. “I will say that. I am very concerned.”

The auto comes to a stop before the polis governor’s house. Biswal steps out and discusses the situation with the sergeant who was first on site. Then he says, “I’m going in to talk to her. For now, we need to establish a perimeter. We’re extremely close to the harbor, and the Dreylings are well-armed and highly disciplined. Be on alert.”

Raghavan watches as Biswal and his lieutenant enter the home. Then he takes a forward post, overlooking the cliff that leads down to the harbor.

It’s difficult for Raghavan to come to terms with his disgust, his outrage. He looks back up at the polis governor’s house. It’s traitorous to think so, but he half hopes Biswal will shoot her. It’d be a terrible incident, but then the press might get involved, and they’d see how suspicious her conduct has been, and then perhaps they’d turn their gaze toward Ghaladesh, and the prime minister, and what she’s asking of her soldiers.

Then he frowns. Something’s wrong.

He can see Private Mahajan standing in the trees just before the house; but then Mahajan jumps as if startled, and starts to turn, but he hasn’t lifted his gun.

Raghavan’s mouth falls open as a figure rises out of the bracken. Someone tall with a sheen of gold on their head…Blond hair? A Dreyling?

And is that a rifling she has in her hand, using it as a support?

She lifts the rifling up…

Raghavan hears himself saying stop. He feels himself moving. It’s as if he’s out of his body, reacting completely by instinct, the stock of the rifling hitting his shoulder, the sights swinging to rest on the figure….

And suddenly all the experiences he’s just had out in the highlands come rushing back to him. The children with bolt-shots shooting at them from ditches; the old woman he tried to help stand up trying to cut him with a tiny knife; returning from a patrol to find Private Mishra facedown in the road, a screaming teenage shtani girl stabbing him over and over again, and Raghavan pulled out his pistol and he…

Pop.

The rifling leaps in his hands.

The figure falls to the ground among the bracken.

Raghavan blinks as he looks down the sights.

Did I do that?

Even from here he can see Private Mahajan’s eyes widen in shock. Mahajan shouts, “No! No! Who fired? Who fired!”

Raghavan doesn’t answer. He lowers his rifling and sprints up the hill to Mahajan. Other soldiers are streaming over as well.

Mahajan is stooped in the bracken, screaming, “Who fired? Who the fuck was it who fired? We need a medic over here! We need a fucking medic over here!”

“What happened?” says Raghavan as he nears. “Who was that?”

“She was surrendering!” shouts Mahajan. “I was talking to her! She was surrendering! Who the fuck was it who fired, damn you!”

Raghavan’s stomach goes cold. “They…They had a gun….”

Mahajan looks at him. “Was it you? Was it you, Corporal? She was surrendering, damn it. She was giving me the gun, Corporal! Do you have any idea who you’ve shot? Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

Raghavan looks over Mahajan’s shoulder at the body on the ground.

His hand flies to his mouth.

“Oh, no,” he whispers. “Oh, no, no, no, no, no.”

Mulaghesh can hear boards splintering above her. Her knuckle around the pin on the grenade is white. Her heart is beating so fast her blood is a roar in her ears.

Just do it, she thinks. Just pull already! What are you waiting for? Don’t think; just do it!

But her hand doesn’t move.

“You don’t have the courage for it, do you,” says Rada.

“Like hells I don’t,” says Mulaghesh, sweating.

“Well, if you do…I always thought a Saypuri would kill me,” says Rada. “It only gives me a slight pleasure to know that you’ll die with me.”

The faint voices of the sentinels are still echoing in her head:

“…brought the blade down and I grinned and laughed to feel the blood upon my face…”

“…charged forward and our feet ate up the earth and we howled to the sun above us and made it know fear…”

“…abandoned the children to run from us, but it did not matter, young or old they were our foes…”

“Damn you for making me choose to do this, Rada,” she says. “And damn my own soldiers for saving you in Bulikov, for doing their job.”

“They didn’t save me,” she says softly. “I died in that building. I just didn’t know it then.”

There’s a tremendous smash from above. Then a rough shout—Biswal’s voice—saying, “Turyin? Turyin, are you down there?”

“Get the hells out of here, Lalith!” she shouts. “Get away! I’m…I’m going to blow this whole damn house up!” Her hand begins trembling.

“What? Turyin, don’t be insane! I’m coming down!”

“No! No, get the hells out of here! I mean it! I really do!” She shuts her eyes. Tears spill down her cheeks. “It’s the only choice! You’ve got to get your troops out of here!”

“Don’t do anything! Just…just wait!” The tumble of footsteps.

“No!” screams Mulaghesh. “No, don’t come down! Get away, get away!”

He doesn’t stop. She sees muddy boots, and then Biswal slowly descends the stairs, hands raised.

Even in her state his appearance shocks her: it’s clear General Lalith Biswal has just returned from war. His uniform is covered in spattered mud and ash, and there’s a splash of what Mulaghesh knows is blood on his right sleeve. His face is gray and haggard, and he looks years older than when she saw him last. She looks into his eyes, which are small and faded with fatigue, lost amidst pendulous bags. She isn’t sure who’s more haggard and disheartened: the old man on the steps who looks like he just lost a war, or the old woman by the forge with her finger in the ring of a grenade.

“You’ve got to run, Lalith,” she pleads. “You’ve got to run!”

Rada’s large, dark eyes flick back and forth between the two of them.

“What are those voices?” says Biswal. He looks around the room, confused. “Who is talking, saying those things?”

“It doesn’t matter, Lalith, just get out of here!”

Biswal shakes his head and begins walking forward. “No. I won’t. I don’t know why you’re here, Turyin, or what’s going on or why you think you need to do this. But I know Turyin Mulaghesh, and I know she wouldn’t do something like this.”

“It’s the only way!” she says. “These swords she’s made…Lalith, they’re waking up the Voortyashtani dead! The sentinels, Lalith! That’s who’s talking! They were promised an invasion, a war that would end the world, and now they’re going to do it! I’ve got to destroy these swords, Lalith, I’ve got to!”

Biswal glances around at the swords. “I admit, this…is damned suspicious. But we can talk about this, Turyin. You can explain everything to me. Whatever you’re trying to do, this isn’t the way to do it.”

“I can’t explain because there’s no time! I have to destroy them and destroy them now!”

He keeps walking. “I have soldiers here with plenty of firepower. You don’t need to destroy yourself in order to do it. If you explain all this to me then I’d be happy to do it for you.”

“Lalith…Please, you’ve got to run.”

“Put the grenade down, Turyin. Just put it down, nice and easy. There are four soldiers upstairs, and if you pull that pin you won’t just kill me, you’ll kill all of them, too.”

Mulaghesh shuts her eyes. “Damn it…”

“I know you won’t. You’d never kill another soldier. Just drop the grenade. I’m here. This is all over now. Just tell me what’s happening.”

Mulaghesh lets out a long, slow sigh. Her whole body is taut, trembling. Then—very, very slowly—her crooked finger works itself free of the ring.

There’s a thunk as the grenade falls to the floor. Mulaghesh follows shortly after, collapsing to the ground. She sits on the floor with her head between her knees, taking in huge, gasping breaths.

Biswal walks over to her and extends a hand. “Your sidearm, too, Turyin.”

“What?” she says numbly.

“Your carousel. I’ll need it to be sure.”

Without thinking, she unholsters the carousel and hands it over to Biswal. “Now,” he says. “What’s this about these swords?”

“You hear them in your head? Those voices saying those terrible things?”

He nods, his face grim.

“They’re sentinels,” says Mulaghesh. “The voices of sentinels. The sword and the warrior were one, and that’s what ‘thinadeskite’ is—the pulverized swords of sentinels, with traces of their souls still trapped inside. Rada here realized that by remaking the swords she could awaken the dead, lure them into invading and destroying creation, as they were promised so many years ago.”

Biswal stares at her, shocked. “That…That can’t possibly be true. It’s ridiculous! It can’t possibly be true.” He looks at Rada. “Can it?”

Rada’s face is serenely triumphant. “Yes,” she says. “It’s true. And it’s over. I’ve won. You just don’t know it yet.”

“You…You truly believe this?” he asks her.

“I don’t need to believe it,” says Rada. “It’s reality. It’s going to happen, and it’s going to happen soon. A god manifested in Bulikov five years ago, General—but what’s going to happen this evening will make that look like a minor skirmish.”

He looks back at Mulaghesh. There’s a queer light in his eyes. “She…She wants to start another Battle of Bulikov?”

“No. Worse. It’ll be a massive invasion.”

“By sentinels—like Zhurgut?”

“Thousands of them,” says Mulaghesh wearily. “More. They’ll come by ship. Sailing across the sea from the City of Blades. That’s how the stories go, and that’s what they were promised.”

“You can’t fight them,” says Rada. “None of you can. You saw what Zhurgut did to the city. They’ll shred you like ribbons. Even your most advanced weaponry can’t stop them.” She smiles beatifically. “I’ve freed them, you see. Trapped over there in their ruined city…I’ve let them out of the dark.”

Biswal is silent. Then, to Mulaghesh: “It’d be a war, then.”

“War on a level we’ve never seen,” says Mulaghesh. “We have to stop it. We have to.”

“It’s too late,” says Rada. “It’s happening. Somewhere out in the sea, two realities are converging. Soon the seas will be dark with longships, and then this entire era will be over.”

Biswal looks to Mulaghesh. “Be honest with me, Turyin. Speak to me as a soldier, as my equal. You really, truly believe what she’s saying will come to pass?”

“I do,” she says. “I’ve been to the City of Blades; I’ve seen the army of waiting dead. That’s why I’m stained red, Lalith, I…I know it doesn’t make any sense, and I know it seems impossible, but it’s the truth. It’ll be battle and war on a scale we’ve never seen before.”

He holds her gaze for a long time, his eyes small and sad, the eyes of a man who has seen much death recently and expects to see more soon. “Battle and war,” he says to himself, “on a scale we’ve never seen before…” Then something hardens in his gaze, something cold and furious, and he says quietly, “I believe you.”

Then Biswal lifts the carousel, points it at Rada’s face, and pulls the trigger.

The gunshot is deafeningly loud in this confined space. The bullet strikes the inside of Rada’s right eye, just where the tear gland sits, and her right eye sinks in just slightly, giving her face a strangely fabricated look, as if she were a poorly made mannequin. The back of her head erupts, dark purple viscera spattering over the forge, sizzling furiously where it strikes the coals. Then Rada slumps over, a look of dull surprise forever frozen on her pale, round face.

Mulaghesh stares, shocked. Then she looks up into Biswal’s face and sees a stony resolution there that she’s glimpsed only once before, years and years ago outside the gates of Bulikov: the intent to see done what he feels should be done, and the expectation that the world will either comply or get out of the way.

“I’d been wondering how we could wake up Saypur,” he muses quietly. “And another Battle of Bulikov…That is something I would not wish to miss.”

“Lalith,” asks Mulaghesh. “What…What…”

“Lieutenant!” he calls out.

“What…what did you do, Lalith?” she asks faintly. “What are you doing?”

Biswal nonchalantly unloads the carousel, the rounds tinkling on the floor. There’s the rumble of footsteps as someone sprints down the steps. Then Biswal flips the carousel around, grabbing it by its barrels, and swings it toward Mulaghesh….

The world goes bright with pain. Mulaghesh feels herself tumble sideways, the ceiling spinning above her.

A young Saypuri officer trots into the forge, though she slows when she sees Rada’s corpse. “General Mulaghesh has just assassinated Polis Governor Rada Smolisk,” says Biswal calmly. “I have managed to subdue her. Please take her into custody.”

He walks out without glancing back at her. Mulaghesh tries to hold on to consciousness, but then everything goes dark.