by Kat Ross
Yet he was also a man of boundless humanity, their captain. Every one of them would have died for him.
“Bryce, you’re with me,” he said.
Alexei stood, sheathing his blade. He picked up his own helm but didn’t put it on yet. Too fogging hot. He suspected Vilmos wore hers more to repel the bugs than the mages.
“Parsa and Degermark, leave the radio for now. Lieutenant Serikev, you’re in charge until we return.”
The captain’s second was a slightly built woman with a mild demeanor that masked utter fearlessness. “Yes, sir.” She went back to studying the map, which was marked by a series of X’s representing the stelae. Two teams of four were inspecting them. The rest manned a perimeter line around the camp.
In three more weeks, the knights would withdraw from the Void, never to return. The Tenth Pontifical Council would deem the expense of maintaining garrisons far outside the Blue Zone to be profligate in both lives and treasure, and not worth the effort. But none of them knew that yet, and it would change nothing in terms of what was about to happen.
“How old was the fire?” the captain asked as they left the chapel and crossed the quad. The dogs took point, noses to the ground.
“Hard to say,” Vilmos replied, flipping her visor up. “The spot is sheltered from the rain. But it wasn’t there when we first came through, I’m sure of it. Kortier and Tann stayed behind to keep watch.”
“Could it be Perditae?”
“It’s possible.” She sounded doubtful. “But you know as well as I do that they avoid the ruins.”
Perditae were a byproduct of the civil war, humans grown corrupted by the psychic degradation of the ley in the Morho Sarpanitum, the jungle at the heart of the continent where the twin cities of Bal Agnar and Bal Kirith once stood. The word meant degenerate or morally depraved, but also abandoned, hopeless, lost. Alexei had heard the mages hunted them for sport but didn’t know if it was true. He’d only encountered a band once. It was enough to hope he never did again.
“They fear the nihilim,” the captain agreed. “Perditae are bloodthirsty but not stupid.”
Alexei raised a hand to block out the slanting late afternoon sun. The shattered dome of the basilica gleamed in the distance. It was inside the cordon, which troubled him. How did they get through? Markhounds had combed every meter of the Arx a week ago.
“Care to guess how many?” the captain asked.
“Judging from the animal bones, no more than two or three, which also argues against Perditae. Their bands are usually larger. At least a dozen.”
They passed the scorched skeleton of a Curia automobile. Moss colonized the wreckage, carpeting the interior in a thick green sponge. The raven had been sawed from the bonnet and dangled upside-down from the rearview mirror, a wire noose twisted around its feet. Alexei tore his gaze away.
“Most of the Wards are back,” the captain said. “If it was nihilim, they’re probably outside the perimeter by now, but we’ll tighten it up.”
Alexei shared a quick look with Parsa and Degermark. Probably outside the perimeter? There was a reason they had the lowest casualty rate of any company. Every risk was calculated and their captain never, ever assumed the mages would behave rationally. The opposite, in fact.
But in the last year, he had changed. On the surface, he was the same confident, calm leader, but Alexei sensed darkness lurking beneath. A detached coldness that saw his knights as game pieces and didn’t really care if they lived or died. This was so far from the man he had been that it was hard to comprehend.
A pair of sentries stood on the steps of the brick post office.
“Lux, Veritas, Virtus,” one shouted, saluting.
The captain waved a hand in greeting. “Helms on and gloves off,” he ordered the rest of them.
Alexei pulled his helm on, but left the visor raised. It was a relief to discard the leather gloves. He sank down and pressed a palm to the scraggly grass, testing the ley. His Marks barely flickered—yet it wasn’t entirely gone, a fact that heightened his uneasiness. He looked at the hounds trotting twenty paces ahead. No raised hackles, no barking. The dogs were the first and best defense. Now he wondered how the ebbing ley might affect their instincts.
He hurried to catch up with the others, who were almost at the edge of the quad. The basilica lay just ahead. Even the bright sunlight failed to illuminate the interior.
“Captain?” Alexei said. “May I have a quick word?”
“Of course.”
The other knights stepped aside, taking the opportunity to test the ley themselves. Alexei lowered his voice. Neither of them acknowledged their blood ties, not in the field, and he’d never had cause to question orders before, but he’d rather speak up than regret it later.
“This feels like a trap,” he said. “And we’re walking straight into it.”
“It’s an old campfire,” his brother said dryly. “Are you suggesting we don’t investigate?”
“No. But it might be better to go in with reinforcements.”
“There’s five of us, plus Kortier and Tann. I can’t pull the sentries off duty.”
“We could take one of the units inspecting the stelae.”
Misha stared back, untroubled. “The Wards are our first priority.”
“Are they?” The words were out before Alexei could take them back. He knew he skated dangerously close to insubordination, yet Mikhail didn’t take offense.
He clapped Alexei’s shoulder. They had the same light eyes and dark hair, though Misha was a little taller. No one bothered shaving in the Void and both men wore scruffy beards. “Trust me on this, brother.”
“You know I do. That’s not it.”
“If it was a trap, do you think they would have let Vilmos walk out?”
“Maybe it isn’t Vilmos they want,” Alexei said.
His brother glanced at the hounds, who’d flopped down to wait in the shade of an orange tree, tongues panting. “The dogs would have warned us by now if mages were near.”
“Not if the ley is too weak.”
Mikhail laughed, white teeth flashing. “Then it’s weak for the mages, too. And they’re not stupid. My guess is that they baited us so I’ll do exactly what you’re suggesting. Concentrate resources on the basilica, thus wasting time.”
“For what purpose?” Alexei wondered.
“Sow confusion. Create a dilemma.” He paused. “Now, why do you think they’d do that, Alyosha?”
Mikhail had often posed such questions to him when they were half-feral boys left to run wild on a sprawling forested estate. Their father paid for tutors, but the most important lessons came from Misha, who’d devoured philosophy and strategy from the moment he learned to read. Alexei had worshipped his brother, and still did. Misha never imparted knowledge by rote, preferring to ask questions and force him to think it through for himself.
“To buy time?”
“Good.” His brother nodded. “Time for what?”
Only one possibility made sense. “Their own reinforcements to come?”
The spark of pride in Misha’s eyes warmed him, though it felt false somehow, as if his brother was simulating an emotion he didn’t truly feel.
“You perceive the correct question then. Which is the greater risk? To finish our mission and withdraw as planned, with the slim chance of an ambush, or to delay out of caution and potentially face superior forces in the future?”
He wants to get us out of here, Alexei realized. Quickly.
“The second,” Alexei said. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have doubted you.”
“Never be sorry for doing what you think is right, Alyosha,” his brother said seriously. “As long as you don’t disobey a direct order in the midst of a fight.”
Misha’s lips quirked and for a brief instant, he looked like the eleven-year-old boy who’d climbed up to the roof to pee down the chimney one memorable evening when their father had his banker friends over for dinner. Misha had been whipped for it, but that act
of rebellion cemented his godlike status in Alexei’s eyes. They still laughed about it sometimes.
Alexei forced himself to grin back. “Let’s have a look before it gets dark.”
Their captain whistled and the Markhounds leapt up. Misha put his helm on, dropping the visor. It would be the last time Alexei saw his brother smile.
The doors to the basilica had been torn from their hinges decades before, leaving a gaping black hole. Vines clung to the stonework, slowly prising it apart, though the structure still stood. Alexei could see a little way inside, but the rest was lost to shadows. He drew his sword. So did the others. The hounds loped ahead. A hot breeze riffled the stalks of high grass, bearing the loamy, animal smell of the forest.
Once there had been an Arx in each of the six cities of the Via Sancta. They were known fas the Arxes Invicta, the Unconquered Citadels, built after the Second Dark Age to be beacons of sanity in a world gone mad. For nearly a millennium, they’d lived up to this promise. Then the slow decline began.
Bal Kirith and Bal Agnar became cesspools of sin and greed, necessitating the collective excommunication of their inhabitants. The “unconquered” part was dropped. Keeping it seemed an insult to the dead. The inner cities of the Curia were now known simply as the Arx. Bal Kirith and Bal Agnar were outside the ley lines and thus had been left to rot and ruin.
After being massively shelled, of course.
Through the bars of his visor, Alexei saw the Markhounds vanish into the basilica. His breath echoed in the confines of the helm. It smelled sour, but then he hadn’t been clean for weeks.
They approached in a line, Captain Bryce leading. As he neared the doors, Kortier appeared. His sword was in its scabbard and Alexei relaxed a little.
“We searched the ground floor,” he said. “One of them desecrated the altar with his own filth, fogging savages.”
“None of that,” the captain snapped. “The enemy is to be respected, if only so we never underestimate them. It was a message, intended to provoke. Will you give them what they want?”
“No, sir.” Kortier’s helm was tucked under one arm and his ruddy face flushed deeper at the reprimand.
“Good.” The captain’s tone softened. “Where’s Tann?”
“Inside. We searched the upper choir, but it looked undisturbed.”
They entered at the west end of the nave. It enclosed a soaring space, with buttresses supporting the arched roof. The stained glass windows were long gone and the last rays of the sun angled inside, pooling on the stone floor. Alexei caught a foul odor, faint but unmistakable. Anger tightened his jaw. He knew his brother was right, but the sheer childish ugliness of the act was hard to dismiss. We have to be better than they are, he reminded himself. We are better.
But he saw the others felt the same. Sickened and vengeful. That was the problem with deployment to the Void. Their Marks stopped working. Worse, the ley itself was tainted, like a river passing through a toxic dump. Misha was the only one who never seemed affected. Never lost his head. Which was why, Alexei thought ruefully, they’d put him in charge.
“Keep a sharp watch,” Captain Bryce told the radio operators who’d been conscripted. The two men saluted and took up posts at the entrance.
“The fire’s over here,” Vilmos said, leading Alexei and Mikhail to the transept where Tann stood with the two Markhounds. They were circling the ashes, whining low in their throats. The captain studied the scattering of bones and greasy charcoal.
“Looks like rabbit,” Tann said, just before an arrow pierced his right eye.
A second arrow bounced off Alexei’s gorget, centimeters from the juncture with his helm. The force of it knocked him back, the world narrowing to a blurred slit as he crashed into the wall.
“Fall back!” the captain shouted.
Forms rappelled down ropes dropped from the dome above. Alexei got his sword up just in time to parry an overhand blow from a woman with gray-streaked hair and arms corded with muscle. She pivoted away, stabbing at someone just out of sight. He heard the hounds snarling. A very human scream. Blood sprayed his eyes, blinding him. Not his own. Misha’s? Saints, no. . . .
Alexei tore his helm off. Vilmos lay on her back, green eyes staring sightless. The two knights at the door were also down, open helms fletched with arrows. He had witnessed violent death many times, yet it never got easier. He’d served two tours with Vilmos. Laughed and ate with her. She had kids back home. And now, in the space of four heartbeats, she was dead.
In the opposite transept, Kortier and his brother flanked a mage with short black hair. The man wore no mail or armor. In fact, he was stripped to the waist. Sweat glistened on his Marks, but he moved with assurance.
Alexei absorbed all this in the instant before the woman turned back to him. Her sword had been taken from a knight. He recognized the double Raven hilt. With a wordless roar, Alexei leapt forward. Their blades joined. She couldn’t have been less than sixty, but Alexei found himself giving ground.
Were there only two? Or more? He risked a glance around and nearly lost his head for it. But he saw no more nihilim. They must be mad to take on an entire company alone.
Parry. Feint. Thrust.
Maybe his brother was right. They were waiting for more to arrive. But why tip their hand early?
Lunge. Parry. Counter attack.
Their blades rang in the silence. Ley shimmered where her palms met the hilt. Whatever happened, Alexei couldn’t let her touch him. He retreated. Then his boot heel hit something slippery. A patch of moss. Alexei felt his center of gravity shift. He pivoted, desperately seeking a foothold, but it was too late. Stone slammed into his back. His sword skidded away. The mage quickly adjusted her grip for a downward stroke. Alexei knew he was about to die. That his luck had finally run out. He felt no fear, only shame that he’d let his brother down.
Then a dark blur hit her from behind. The Markhound sank its teeth into her calf, jaws scissoring the flesh. She twisted away and stabbed the hound in its haunch. It whimpered and fell over, sides heaving.
Alexei tried to regain his feet. She slammed the hilt into his temple. The world swam out of focus. He raised a mailed arm to ward off the inevitable killing blow. That’s when Alexei saw his brother in the opposite transept. Mikhail had disarmed the mage and driven him into a corner. Blood streaked the nihilim’s chest from a dozen shallow slashes.
“Beleth!” the mage cried.
The woman limped toward them, spitting on Kortier’s body as she passed. Alexei shouted a slurred warning. Mikhail never turned. He was speaking to the mage, his face contorted in anger, but the words were lost to the buzzing in Alexei’s ears.
The next part happened fast. The woman caught Mikhail’s forearm as he raised his sword to deliver the coup de grace. The bare-chested mage’s Marks lit with red fire. He hurled himself at Mikhail, his weight bearing them both to the ground. Ley flickered between them, dimming and pulsing. Misha screamed. Alexei had never heard such a sound, before or since. His brother stiffened, heels drumming, back arched, and then he stopped, though his eyes remained open. Alexei tried to crawl to him, but only made it a few meters before he turned his head to vomit. Surf pounded in his ears, a hissing roar. The Markhound lay in a pool of blood not far off. He reached out a hand, half mad with grief. She whined and crept closer, dragging her useless hind leg, until he felt fur under his fingers. A rough tongue licked his face.
Later, when the other knights said she had to be put down, that she was too badly hurt, Alexei raged and fought until they gave up and let him carry her back to his tent. He expected her to die on the journey back to Novostopol, but she didn’t. Over the long, dark days that followed, he nursed her back to health, changing the pus-soaked dressing on her wound twice a day and coaxing her to take antibiotic pills pressed into a wedge of soft cheese. He thought she would never walk, but again, she proved everyone wrong. The afternoon he returned her to the kennels, he told her she was a good dog, and then he wept while she sat there, l
ooking grateful but faintly embarrassed for him.
Time passed, but he never forgot, and neither did she.
He named her Alice.
* * *
“Fra Bryce?”
A face peered down at him. It was the chapel’s archpriest. He wore a midnight blue cassock, thinning hair combed over to conceal a bald spot. A small concession to vanity that Alexei had always found endearing in such an otherwise kind and selfless man.
“I came to light the candles and found you on the floor.” He frowned, the riverine network of lines on his face deepening. “Could it have been a seizure? Your eyes were rolled back. You were shaking, brother.”
Alexei sat up, drained and faintly nauseous. He’d been kneeling in contemplation but couldn’t recall what happened after.
“Just a touch of flu,” Alexei said, climbing to his feet. One of his gloves was off. He hurriedly retrieved it. “It’s going around.”
“You must see the doctor,” the archpriest said. “If you have a fever, you ought to be in bed.”
“I will,” Alexei called over his shoulder.
“Fra Bryce—”
“I promise!”
Alexei strode for the door. The rain felt good on his face. Cool and soothing. He fetched the car from outside the Tabularium and drove to the Tower of Saint Dima, parking in the small lot next to the kennels. When he reached his rooms, he sat down at his desk, rolled a sheet of blank paper into the typewriter, and started pecking at the keys.
It was just a fainting spell. He had them sometimes. They came and went quickly, and he often managed to catch some sleep afterward. But he could get a head start on the report in the meantime. He checked his notebook, entering Massot’s address and pertinent details.
“The Markhounds sounded the alarm at 11:17 p.m. Fra Patryk Spassov and Fra Alexei Bryce responded. Due to flooding conditions at the Kopeksin Square Bridge, Bryce was first to arrive at the residence, owned by Dr. Ferran Massot (see biographical note attached). The front door was locked, necessitating a forced entry through the rear garden at approximately 11:39 p.m. Bryce encountered Massot in his study.” Alexei paused, replaying the scene. The insectile jerk of the doctor’s head as he stepped through the door. The darkness in his eyes.
