Nightwatch on the Hinterlands

by K. Eason

  Iari’s neck prickled. It felt like Brood back here, that gut-sense that you learned to trust even when your HUD said all clear. That hollow, cold, acid-up-the-back-of-the-throat certainty something was about to go very wrong.

  But there were no Brood. Just twenty-odd riev turning their heads in near unison, all looking at Gaer. Eyes and eyestalks and varying sensory structures, all angling toward him. Riev base-code said protect the Confederation, and vakari had been a threat before there was ever a Weep.

  Iari’s heartbeat kicked up and her syn responded: lightning sheeting under her skin, behind her eyes, as the nanomecha in her blood came online. Those nanomecha, in turn, talked through the needle in the base of her skull to the battle-rig on the other side of that needle, and the arms-turing in her right gauntlet began searching targets. She took a deep breath and locked the syn back down. Sent the arms-turing back to standby.

  Say hello.

  “Hi,” she said. “Ah. Good morning, riev.”

  One of the riev—a big one, built on a tenju frame-core, missing most of a right arm, detached its attention from Gaer. Riev couldn’t help but stand straight. This one seemed to draw itself up even straighter as it squared to face her. “Lieutenant. Good morning.”

  Iari blinked. “Stay here,” she told Gaer, and went over to talk to it. Ptah’s ungentle regard, but it had seen battle. Its plating was scarred, patched, scuffed in places and worn bright in others. Its artificer had remained faithful to its biological source: its features were tenju, stylized into flat planes and sharp edges. Cheekbones, wide jaw, what were clearly meant to be tusks jutting up from the curve of a lower lip. That kind of artistry marked the riev as old, dating from not long after the wichu’s break with the Protectorate. Void and dust, this one might’ve really killed vakari.

  But that arm, gentle Mishka, that was Brood damage. It looked like something had snapped the limb off just above the elbow. Big Brood could do that. The ones with the scythes for hands, the ones with the disproportionate jaws. There were deep gouges above the riev’s arm-break, the metal blackened, pocked and corroded that way polysteel got when exposed to Brood guts and pure void. That would’ve been the riev’s weapon hand. That wound must’ve come late in the last wave, or the artificers would’ve grafted another arm, or grown a replacement from the stump and fused new armor onto that flesh. Instead, they’d capped the damage, a rude patch-weld, and proceeded with its decommission.

  End of the surge. Huh. Iari rode a hunch and jabbed her chin at the stump. “Where did that happen?”

  There was no expression possible on the riev’s features, or in the steady plasma-blue glow of its eyes. But there was something in the deep, machine-sexless voice—coming out of Elements, somewhere between throat and mouth, some hidden speaker—that sounded like shame.

  “The Saichi peninsula.”

  Almost ten years ago, give or take a month. Autumn rains giving way to winter sleet. Mud halfway up a battle-rig’s knees. Tobin—only a knight-captain then—and a newly commissioned Private Iari and the rest of a unit that was all ghosts now. They’d crossed the Rust to go after one of the Brood generals. Twenty against, well. A lot more than twenty.

  Iari blinked the memories back.

  “Saichi,” she said. “I was there. West rim.”

  The one-armed riev looked at her. “Southern shelf,” it said finally. “Fifth Army, Third Battalion, First Company.”

  First Company had taken the brunt of the Brood assault. “And the army didn’t repair you.” Not asking, because void and dust, proof was right there that they hadn’t.

  The riev took a beat too long to answer. “The objective was achieved. The Confederation won the battle. There was no need for repair.”

  Iari ground her teeth together. Tobin had said that same thing, we won, the one time he’d talked about Saichi with her after everyone else had been—not buried, there hadn’t been anything left to bury—but after they’d put up the marker. It had been just the pair of them at the end, once the priests and the families had gone home.

  We won.

  She’d thought then—sure, call it winning. Tobin’s new Knight-Marshal rank on his dress uniform, the long skirt of which hid the casts and the bandages and the hex-and-patch ruin of his hip and thigh. She hadn’t had a name for the feeling, then. That hollow, corrosive heat in her chest. An amalgam of grief and anger and a grim satisfaction. This was the job. This was the price for it.

  All of that might be beyond riev capacity to feel. Or it might not. Iari lifted her chin and saluted, right fist to left shoulder. Riev had no rank. Didn’t get salutes. But soldiers did, should, and what else was this riev if not that?

  Another silence, for long enough Iari’s ears ached. The sun was making some progress on warming the world. It punched a hole through the overcast and cut a blinding swath through the square. Dropped a curtain of watery light behind her and blasted the one-armed riev into harsh relief. Every scar on its armor, every scuff, turned suddenly visible. The Confederate stamp on its breast, almost like a templar’s crest. Almost.

  Then the clouds reasserted themselves, and the riev lifted that ruined right arm and reached the stump for its left shoulder. “Lieutenant. How may Char serve?”

  Iari let her breath go in a plume. Huh. She hadn’t supposed riev would have names. Alphanumerics, for easy record-keeping—but names would make more sense on a battlefield, if you had to shout. She wondered if it was the artificers who named them after their forging, or if there was some bureaucratic office of riev name generation. Didn’t really matter, though, did it? Riev had names.

  “Char,” she repeated. “I’m Lieutenant Iari.” Templars gave up their surnames, their ties to family. Only Iari. Only Char. “I’d like to ask you some questions, if that’s all right.”

  Char’s attitude shifted again, from defense into neutral. Maybe a centimeter’s adjustment, a settling up and back. No one asked riev for permission, either. Bet on that.

  “Please ask, Lieutenant.”

  And now what? Void and dust, she hadn’t thought this far. Like how you ask, Which of you ripped a wichu apart last night?

  So start safe, for some value of that word. A question for which she knew the answer, because she could count. “Is this all of the riev who live in B-town?”

  “No. Three are not present.”

  That matched Iari’s numbers. “And do you know where they are?”

  “Yes. Neru has accepted employment with a caravan which departed this morning to Windscar. Swift Runner has been absent for five days, and Sawtooth has been absent for three. Their locations are unknown.”

  Two riev unaccounted. Elements defend.

  “Do any of you know the artificer Pinjat? Wichu. Workshop in Lowtown.”

  The back of Iari’s neck prickled again, an eyeblink before she heard the riev moving. Converging. Surrounding her in pneumatic whispers of joints worn out of true and the subliminal whine of power cores in want of recalibration.

  “We know the artificer Pinjat,” said Char. It—no, they, because Char had a name, that made them some kind of not-it—seemed like they were about to say something else, but their attention shifted.

  “Excuse me. Coming through.” Gaer drifted into Iari’s periphery. Back and to the left, to leave her weapon arm clear.

  “I told you to stay back in the street, didn’t I?”

  “You did. I chose to ignore you. Odds aren’t good for you, surrounded like that.”

  “Char can remove this vakar.” The big riev’s voice dropped and softened. “Char would be happy to do so.”

  Iari’s heart lurched again. The syn sent plasma-hot fingers along her spine. An offer.

  “No. This vakar is”—a pain in my ass—“with me. He’s an ambassador to Aedis. An ally. Hear me? Not an enemy.”

  The riev tilted just a little bit back toward Iari. “Understood, Lieut
enant.”

  Iari let a little breath go. “Good. Char, this is Ambassador Gaer i’vakat’i Tarsik. Gaer. This is Char.”

  “Hello, Char.” Gaer had his teeth bared. A vakari greeting. A vakari challenge. Hands conspicuously clear of his weapons, but then, he was an arithmancer. He didn’t need weapons.

  Char said nothing. But Char’s remaining hand, which had been curling into a fist, uncurled. “You are Five Tribes.”

  Gaer drew up, straight and startled. “You read vakari cipher?”

  Char did not answer. Their body canted again toward Iari. “Lieutenant. Riev visit artificer Pinjat for repairs. His fees are reasonable.”

  Repairs. Shame twinged in Iari’s chest, and then anger, and then just cold grim. Minor repairs, bet that. Replacing an arm would cost, and how hard would it be to earn enough without that arm in the first place? “Did Sawtooth or Swift Runner visit Pinjat recently?”

  The riev did not answer. None of them. That creeping dread feeling returned, like the silence had something waiting on the other side, wanting to rip through.

  Then Char said, with obvious reluctance, “They did.”

  “Were they damaged?”

  Expecting a yes, which would lead to a query about the sorts of damage, and then—

  Except Char did not say yes. Instead, Char said, “No,” closely followed by, “They were attempting to reacquire Oversight.”

  You could hear the capital letter. And you could see that Char expected something for having used the word. Like they thought Iari would punish them, or, or yell at them. Or something.

  Iari felt like an idiot asking, but she hadn’t served with riev. Just near them. “What’s that? What’s Oversight?”

  Char turned their head slightly. Then slowly, every word ground out at the lower limit of their volume, “Oversight made riev we.”

  “You don’t just mean a common comm channel, do you? You mean an actual link. Sss.”

  Iari was about to ask what that even meant, but Gaer held up a finger, hush, wait.

  Vakari faces didn’t have much in the way of expression. Plates open, plates closed, nostrils flat or wide, teeth showing or not. The second set of eyelids, once in a great while. Gaer was expressive, for a vakar, always flapping this or flattening that. But now his face was entirely still, classic vakar. His optic winked as he turned to Iari.

  “A mystery of the war,” he said. “Solved. We always wondered why we couldn’t disrupt riev communications. Yours, we could, but never theirs. And that was because they had their own setatir network. Probably quantum, linked up to those power cores of yours. Am I right, Char? Was Oversight some kind of quantum hex?”

  Void and dust, yes, please, evoke the Expansion in front of riev. Ask them about their own engineering. “Later,” she told him.

  Whatever Oversight was, the Synod, the Parliament, someone had decided riev couldn’t keep it. Riev had lost their armaments after decommission, sure, that made sense. But removing their communication network seemed . . . cruel. Or paranoid. Oversight, capital O, was something like wartime weaponry. Something dangerous. Something proof against arithmancy. Or something that, without small-o oversight, might be dangerous. Riev as we. Riev moving together. Collective intelligence, maybe.

  And whatever the case: “I don’t care about that,” she told Char. “Whatever Swift Runner and Sawtooth were trying to do with Oversight and Pinjat. I just need to know where they might be now. The artificer was murdered last night, and it looks like a riev did it.”

  She paused, waiting for a protest. Riev couldn’t. Riev don’t. A chorus of no, or that is impossible or whatever passed for strenuous objections among beings whose basecode discouraged complaint. Instead, silence. Stillness.

  “I need your help. I need—” Iari pivoted on her heel. “Any information you have. I can ask the Aedis for compensation, usual rates, whatever you usually ask for.”

  A ripple passed through the riev. Then one of the smaller scout-class models worked their way through the ranks, came and stood beside Char. The artificers had replaced the top of their skull with an array of flexible sensor stalks that waved a little bit like grass in a breeze, if grass were a deep pewter-black. Half of the array aimed at Iari’s face, the other half drooped and dipped in what felt a lot like a once-over.

  “Lieutenant,” the riev said. “This one is Brisk Array. Swift Runner finds regular employment in the deep Warren. Two days ago, Swift Runner asked Sawtooth to go with them. Brisk Array saw Swift Runner and Sawtooth meet with an alw.”

  “An alw! Well. There aren’t many of those in B-town, are there?”

  “Gaer. Shut it.—Could you identify that alw again, Brisk Array?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then—”

  “Wait, now.” Gaer put a hand out. “Did Pinjat succeed in restoring Oversight?”

  “Gaer. That doesn’t matter.”

  “It does.” Gaer turned to look at her. Tilted his head in the direction of all the riev. “If they’re on a network, they could be talking right now.”

  “There is no Oversight.” Char’s voice deepened, slowed. Sounded both thoughtful and condemnatory at once.

  “Thank you.” Iari shot a shut up look at Gaer. “Brisk Array. Will you show us where you saw Swift Runner and Sawtooth meet the alw?”

  “Yes.”

  “Iari.” Gaer leaned over and put his mouth near her ear. “That’s all very fascinating. But it might be good to know where Brisk Array wants to take us, before we commit to going. There are parts of this city where I’m, ah, even less welcome.”

  She resisted an urge to prod him back with her elbow. Ducked her shoulder instead, and turned her head to make eyelock. “Parts where I am, too. And probably that’s where we’re going.”

  “There are two of us.”

  “And Brisk Array to lead us. So three. You’re rigged and armed. So’m I.”

  Elements, the look on his face. Every orifice clamped down until she wondered how the hell he was breathing at all. His chromatophores had turned almost black. “Against a possible two riev who have already killed someone. Perhaps we could even those odds.”

  All right. Point. Iari pivoted back to Char. “Will you accompany us? A request, Char. Not an order.”

  Char took a careful step. The ruined left arm drifted up. “Lieutenant. I am—”

  “A veteran of Saichi. Yeah. So you said.” She wondered what it’d cost to get that arm repaired. If there were mecha parts back in the Aedis, or if Tobin knew where to find an artificer licensed for riev repair. “Will you come with us?”

  The riev hesitated. Then, “Yes, Lieutenant.”

  “Good. Then Brisk Array, you’ve got point. Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Gaer opened his mouth, vented his plates, and got a taste of the Lowtown air, which was tabac smoke and urine from at least two species and vomit from three and an eddy of rotting fish off the river. He kept his gaze on the glassless, shutterless holes in the walls that masqueraded as windows in this derelict canyon of buildings. There were people up there. The ambient aura glowed red orange, like embers. Like a fire just waiting to happen. Or a rain of jacta bolts.

  “You might’ve been right,” Iari muttered. “About coming down here.”

  “So we turn around now.”

  “No.”

  Of course, no. Iari had a void-be-damned mission. The street—an alley, really, clearly an artifact of B-town’s rustic origins before, oh, pavement—was empty, except for him, Iari, the riev.

  “It’s too quiet,” she said. “Middle of a workday. Where is everyone?”

  Movement flickered at the next corner. Gaer got a glimpse of someone’s foot and leg as that someone darted across the intersection. “They’re avoiding us.”

  “The gangs don’t run from the templars. Or the PKs. Or anyone. This is their dis
trict.”

  “If you want me to say, then it must be a renegade riev making them run, I’m saying it.”

  “What do you see?”

  He cocked his head, got her square in his optic. “A tenju templar.” With remarkable eyes. The color of strong tea, and clear, flecked with gold near the pupil.

  Those eyes narrowed into viridian slits. “Funny. I mean auras.”

  “I know what you mean. You are a little worried. They—” He whipped a glance forward, at Brisk Array. “Seem unconcerned. The other one—” He glanced over his shoulder at Char. Blinked.

  Riev auras had a greyness to them, all the colors bleached and muted. That had to do with their levels of cross-contamination, how much metal and artifice had permeated their (dead) organic core. Char was the brightest riev Gaer had scanned. Almost alive in their vibrancy.

  “Also worried.” He resisted the urge to reach up and reboot his optic. It was fine. It was Char who was different. And, more importantly, “All the auras I can see—and there are quite a few, glowing up behind those windows—are hostile.”

  Iari cut him a sharp glance. “Huh.”

  They reached the crossroad. Brisk Array paused, as if reorienting, then turned right and starting walking again.

  Gaer pitched his voice to the edge of audible. “Are you sure about our guide? If there are compromised riev, they could be one of them and we’re following them into a trap.”

  “Thought of that.” Iari’s gaze scaled the walls, skipped over the broken teeth of blank windows. She nudged Gaer toward the center of the street, fingertips of her left gauntlet just touching his elbow above the spikes. “That’s why Char’s with us.”

  The one-armed riev, veteran of—what had Iari said? Saichi. The name sounded familiar. Somewhere local to Tanis. Gaer had a skull-full of vakari war stories, battles and generals and victories and oh, yes, so many defeats. This Saichi was not among those stories. It must be a strictly Confederate event, and of sufficient import that Iari trusted Char on the strength of that name alone.