Pale Lights - Book 1: Chapter 19

It was a long and narrow road.

Past the woods, where the crags met the mountains, a tunnel dove into the rock. Angharad was too bone-tired to do more than stumble forward through it. There were lanterns and stairs, the winding of the road taking them back outside – on the side of the mountain, with only a ramshackle wooden railing in the way of the precipitous drop below – before going up in a jagged zig-zag. In the distance she saw an island darkened, a realm of monsters and darklings with the stars fixed far above in firmament’s crown. The wind moaned plaintively, shaking the railing, and never had she felt more like she’d reached some edge of the world.

Was that what it had felt like, for Mother?

No, it couldn’t be. Angharad felt no wonder, no joy. Only blood drying on her face, the cut on her scalp itching and the smell of the filth and dirt she’d squirmed against. Her limbs were made of lead, her head spun around like a weathervane. There had been no discovery here, no horizon reclaimed from the Gloam. She had just cut and been cut until she was made to crawl through shame and corpses. She had won in honour, or as close as her saber had been able to reach to that, but now it felt like such a passing thing. Angharad forced herself up the stairs, their hypnotic back and forth of angles going up the mountainside, but time slipped through her fingers like sand.

How long had she been walking?

Every lantern, every step felt the same and there was no sign of the promised sanctuary. Had Song not promised to wait for her? Yet here she stood alone. Angharad licked dry lips, but all it did was salt the bloody cracks. One more step, she told herself. Always one more step, until she reached the yellow lanterns and their promise of safety. She slipped, landing on her knees, but was too exhausted to let out more than a moan of pain. The wind echoed her, mocking. She turned to chide it, to let out something of the scream stills tuck in her throat, but her vision swam.

She felt her knees give and there was a burst of pain, then nothing.

—

Warmth and cool. A blanket above, but beneath her was stone digging at her back.

“- should be fine, she hasn’t lost so much blood she would die from it.”

Eyes fluttering open, Angharad let out a hiss of pain at the bright burn of the lanterns. She shaded her vision with her hand, finding her hand slow – as if she’d just gone through a great exertion. In many ways, she had.

“Ah,” a voice she recognized said. “Back with us, Lady Tredegar.”

Grey eyes looked down at her, the apprentice physician – if he was truly that – Tristan meeting her gaze as he wiped his hands with a dirty rag. He had, she noticed, a swollen black eye.

“I-” Angharad tried, but found her mouth felt full of cotton.

She swallowed, which helped a little.

“Where are we?” she got out.

“On the stairs to sanctuary,” Tristan informed her. “Where you fell unconscious. I had a look at you, however, and there is nothing to worry about. That cut on your head could do with stitches, but your wounds are rather minor.”

He paused.

“I assume your state comes from lack of sleep or contract overuse,” the Sacromontan said. “Either way, given some rest you should be back on your feet after a day or two.”

I do not have a day or two, she thought. The longer she gave Augusto Cerdan, the better the chances he would somehow wriggle away out of this. And what if he tried to call their duel while she was unfit to fight? None of this, though, was Tristan’s concern.

“Thank you,” Angharad croaked. “For the help.”

“Thank Yong,” Tristan shrugged. “It’s his herbero I used to disinfect your wounds and wash your face. It’s the cheap stuff from Estebra District, so it’s halfway to grain alcohol.”

The Pereduri sniffed at the air, brow knotting. Was that peppermint she smelled?

“Foul stuff,” Tristan sympathized. “But I’d recommend a swallow or two from the flask to get you fit to walk anyway.”

Angharad was beginning to reconsider her assumption that he was a physician. Or at least a proper one. He might have been like one of those shipboard doctors she’d heard about, whose only two remedies were maize beer and rum. Smiling, the man withdrew and was replaced by a familiar face: Lady Ferranda Villazur, looking ragged and red-eyed. The noblewoman offered her a hand.

“Up, Lady Angharad,” Ferranda said. “The faster we reach sanctuary, the faster we can rest.”

She took the hand but wriggled around to keep the blanket on her, adjusting it over her shoulders after Ferranda hoisted her up. Though clothed, she felt cold. Her vision swam for a moment, but a long breath later she was fine. Enough so that she could take in the sight of the people gathered further down the stairs. A ragged pair of middle age were the furthest down, the man of the pair holding up an old woman with a mangled leg on his back. Above them an old man leaned against the wall, and then there were a few she knew by name: Lan, the remaining twin with blue lips, and Yong, the soldier who she must thank for the use of his drink.

There was no sign of Sanale, an absence that had her heart squeezing in sympathy for Ferranda, and the last then should be – Angharad froze, then began reaching for a saber she no longer had. A hollow, they had a hollow among them. Had they made a pact with the cultists like Tupoc? Half the others immediately pointed weapons at her.

“She is not a darkling,” Yong said, tone even.

“She can speak for herself,” Sarai – for it could only be her – firmly told the Tianxi. “I believe your family are seafarers, Lady Tredegar, so you ought to know the name of Triglau.”

Angharad’s shoulders lost some of their tension.

“The northern colonies,” she slowly said. “You are of the peoples below the Broken Gates.”

“Not so broken, before your people came,” Sarai coldly replied. “Like many other things.”

Angharad coughed into her hand, embarrassed. In truth she knew little of the Triglau, for her mother’s travels had been to the east and not the north, but she did know a few things. For one, Triglau was the name for the endless petty chiefdoms of that land as well as the people themselves. Unlike the people of Malan, they had never grown past their tribal roots.

“I apologize for the discourtesy,” Angharad awkwardly said. “I assure you, not all of the Isles believe slavery without evil.”

“Splendid news,” Sarai replied with a politely savage smile. “Why, near half the Malani I’ve ever met have assured me the same. No doubt the slave trade will be ending any day now.”

There was a long, barren stretch of silence. Then Tristan snorted out a laugh, which was shoddily turned into a cough.

“I’ve just seen to her wounds, Sarai, don’t murder her right afterwards,” he said. “It’s very inconsiderate of my time.”

“Time we are wasting,” Lady Ferranda mildly said. “Shall we get moving instead of chattering like magpies?”

“Fucking finally,” the middle-aged man below bit out. “How light to do you think she is?”

He gestured at the old woman on his back, who Angharad only now noticed had a bandage-covered eye under broken spectacles.

“Felis,” the woman by him chided.

“I have been eating a lot of croquetas,” the old woman admitted.

Amusement spread, the earlier unpleasantness thinning. Tristan and Sarai took the lead – she only now noticed that the Sacromontan was limping, and one of his boots was wrapped with bandages – to begin the climb. Angharad was tugged forward by Lady Ferranda. The other woman leaned close.

“Stay on Sarai’s good side,” she murmured. “She’s joined to the hip with Tristan and he was Yong’s favorite even before we all came to owe him.”

Angharad slowly nodded. She then hesitated, not sure whether she should ask. Ferranda noticed and her face tightened.

“Sanale was caught by the airavatan,” she curtly said. “We nearly all died to it as well.”

“My condolences,” the dark-skinned noblewoman said.

A platitude, but she meant every word. Retainers that had been with you for long were as family, and Lady Ferranda was obviously taking his loss hard. Ferranda nodded, a tad shortly.

“What happened for you to end up alone and unconscious on the stairs?” she asked. “I thought you were to stay with the others.”

“Augusto Cerdan murdered his valet to flee from lupines faster,” Angharad flatly said. “Naturally, I challenged him to an honour duel.”

Ferranda’s eyes widened.

“Naturally,” she repeated, though her voice was a little strange.

“As a consequence, when we later encountered an ambush by Tupoc Xical and the cult of the Red Eye he betrayed us in an attempt to rid himself of me while running away,” she continued. “In doing so, he also threw away the lives of Isabel, Master Cozme and his own brother.”

Their conversation was interrupted by Tristan butting in, abandoning Sarai at the front as he slowed to stay just ahead of them.

“All these were caught by the cultists?” he asked, sounding surprised.

Though Angharad was miffed at both the presumption he could force his way into the conversation and the tacit admission he had been eavesdropping, she bit down on a sharp reply. She owed a debt for his treatment.

“No,” she replied. “As far as I know only Briceida, one of Lady Isabel’s handmaids, was captured. I fought to slow down the enemy before shaking them off but took some wounds in doing so. The others fled ahead and I lost blood. You then found me in the stairs.”

It was not reasonable, Angharad reminded herself, to feel abandoned by this. She had good as ordered them to leave her behind. And yet. Don’t be childish, she ordered herself. Both Tristan and Ferranda looked skeptical at the implication of her minor wounds having undone her so, but as both deduced the fuller truth had to do with a contract neither pressed the matter.

“You are not the only one who fought Tupoc and his men,” Lady Ferranda told her. “Lady Inyoni lost one of her own to him as well.”

That was sad news, but not without a silver lining. She would not be short on allies when she urged for them to string up the traitor and his brood.

“He betrayed one of his own subordinates,” Angharad said with open disgust. “He sold out Leander Galatas to the hollows when they complained too few had been delivered into their hands.”

Tristan’s brow knotted at the news. Had he been friends with the man?

“He is burning too many bridges,” the scruffy Sacromontan said. “He must still have something up his sleeve to think he’d get away with it.”

“Then let us end him before that,” Angharad said. “He should be made to stand before a tribunal of the rest of us the moment he steps out of sanctuary, do you not agree?”

The reactions were the opposite of what she had expected: Tristan’s face displayed some enthusiasm at the notion while Ferranda’s closed. She had thought the infanzona bolder than this and the man more cowardly. Why else would he have only browbeaten those weaker than him?

“It may not be that easy,” Lady Ferranda said. “The Trial of Ruins may well force our hand otherwise.”

I look forward to working with you in the second trial, Lady Tredegar, the pale-eyed traitor had smiled down at her. Angharad’s belly clenched in rage. Had he done it all knowing he would be able to wriggle his way out of consequences?

“How?” she asked.

How was he to trick his way out, and how could she make him choke on his trickery instead?

“That is a conversation that can wait until we reach sanctuary,” Ferranda firmly replied. “The next step can wait until this one is taken.”

Angharad grimaced but did not contradict her. Tristan returned to the fore, and after the Pereduri saw the look of grief Ferranda’s face when she asked about how their company had crossed the river she let the matter drop. Instead she inquired as to what still lay between them and the yellow lanterns, a change of subject the infanzona eagerly seized upon. It turned out, embarrassingly enough, that that Angharad had collapsed less than an hour away from the end of the trial. They went up the jagged stairs, then into another tunnel of bare stone that headed deep into the mountain.

The supports keeping the ceiling from collapse were made of wood or iron, but unlike the earlier railing they were in a fine state. The Watch kept them in good order.

“The maze is within a cavern, then?” Angharad asked.

“It is that in the same way that Vesper is a cavern,” Ferranda said. “You will see.”

Before long, Angharad did. The tunnel ended abruptly into a precipitous flight of carved stairs, but she hardly spared a look for those. Blowing wind threatened to put out their lanterns, but there was no need of those to see: from the ceiling of the gargantuan underground chamber hung great pieces of gold giving out a ghostly glow, slowly moving as if the world’s greatest crib mobile. Below it – and them -was spread out the Trial of Ruins in all its glory.

First a fort surrounded by yellow lanterns, dilapidated bastions guarding over a massive iron gate set in pillar of stone that rose all the way to the ceiling. But it was what lay beyond that had her breath catching in her throat: a city of broken shrines. It was as if some mad spirit had stolen a thousand ancient temples and mausoleums and tossed them into a haphazard pile that filled the entire chamber, making a mountain-maze of the lost and sacred. Angharad could see no path above, no more than if she were trying to climb a mountain within the mountain. They would have to go through the labyrinth to get on the other end of the chamber, not around it.

Behind her there were gasps and she was almost stumbled into, the toothless old man gazing at the sight with open wonder. He looked the most alive she had seen of him yet.

“It is true, then,” Francho breathed out. “Shrines from islands halfway across the Trebian Sea, all drawn here by some god’s hand.”

“This place is known?” Angharad asked.

“In some circles,” the old man evaded. “It has long been said the Watch locks away on the Dominion gods that are too dangerous to let loose, but the rumour is dubious in provenance.”

The old man sucked at his gums thoughtfully. Angharad was polite enough not to wrinkle her nose in distaste.

“The scope of this does seem beyond even them,” Francho said.

Angharad could only agree, for there must be hundreds and hundreds of ruins here: how could any assembly of men bring these inside a hollow mountain through those narrow stairs they had earlier climbed? It would not do to block the way so the Pereduri began her way down the stone stairs. They were mercifully dry, but the slope steep and utterly without railing. Angharad took care in climbing down, until finally she reached flat and solid ground. She waited there with the vanguard until the rest of the company caught up, eyes peeled on the even stretch of stone ahead of them leading straight to the old fort encircled by yellow lanterns.

Sanctuary.

The proceeded only after everyone had gathered, the mood growing buoyant with safety just in sight. The fort was a sprawling thing, shaped as a square of tall walls with pointed bastions peeking out of the corners. It was also half a ruin, parts of the walls collapsed and only two of the bastions still whole. There were lanterns on the ramparts beyond the yellow ones outside, and in their glow the silhouettes of black-cloaked men armed with muskets could be seen. The ‘gate’ was a collapsed wall, guarded by a pair of bored watchmen who betrayed little interest when their company came in sight.

One of the two, a tall woman of Sacromontan look, counted them out loud.

“Ten, huh?” she mused. “Maybe it’ll not be a complete loss this year. With the others inside, you should have the numbers for the maze.”

The other watchman laughed at her words.

“Head in,” he told them. “You are now formally under sanctuary after having completed the Trial of Lines. Congratulations.”

A pause.

“There’s warm food and supplies ahead.”

No amount of rudeness could have prevented a swelling a joy after being told that.

“If you want to withdraw under our protection,” the watchman said, “find Lieutenant Wen.”

“Thank you,” Yong replied.

After a polite nod the Tianxi was the first to take the slender ‘gate’, the rest lining up to follow behind him. Angharad was fifth in line and went with a spring to her step: she was eager to see how her companions had fared without her. Yet as she made to enter the fort the watchwoman of the pair stopped her – laid a hand on her arm. Angharad frowned at her for the presumption.

“Angharad Tredegar?” the tall Sacromontan asked.

“Correct,” she coolly replied.

The watchwoman’s expression brightened.

“Good, we were getting afraid you wouldn’t make it,” she said. “There’s going to be an unreasonably pretty Malani by the cooking pots, Sergeant Mandisa. You’re to go to her.”

Angharad blinked.

“May I ask why?”

“Because we all like brandy,” the other woman drily replied. “Go on, then.”

Mystified at the nonsense reply, Angharad obeyed and caught up to Franchi as he entered a great courtyard. It was, she saw, the beating heart of this ruined fort. A wide open space of cracked paving stones led up to the rampart at the back and the massive iron gate set into it. Most everyone seemed to have made a home there, including the Watch: the blackcloaks had claimed an old barracks on the left side, its windows barred and stripes of dark paint marking it as off-limits. Besides them stairs went up to one of the still still-standing bastions, atop which great lanterns hung and someone appeared to have set up astronomical equipment.

On the opposite side of the courtyard the Watch had built out of old stables a series small ‘rooms’: stalls with planks for roof and curtains hung as doors. It would be a thin illusion of privacy but still more than Angharad had been graced with in weeks – months, even, moving between ships and inns since leaving the Isles. Further back stood what looked like a cross between a lumberyard and smithy, used only by a thick watchman chopping wood, but what drew Angharad’s eye was not at the sides of the courtyard but the very heart. Tables were set in a loose circle around a makeshift kitchen, with a shoddy brick oven and cooking hearth.

And rising from one of the tables to the right, abandoning steaming bowls of stew, were the companions she had parted ways with.

“Angharad!” Isabel called out, running forward.

The dark-haired beauty shot past Tristan and Sarai, barely slowing as she half-leapt into Angharad’s arms. As surprised as she was delighted, she caught the infanzona by the waist and held her up to avoid the both of them being bowled over. Isabel laughed as she was spun and set down, grinning all the while.

“I knew you’d make it,” she said. “I just knew.”

“It was a close-run thing,” Angharad admitted. “Had I not been found by our friends here I might have died on the stairs.”

“Then I must thank them most earnestly,” Isabel said.

She got on the tip of her toes to peek over Angharad’s shoulder, beaming at those standing there – now most of the crew she had arrived with – and noticeably not moving out of being held by the waist. Noticeably to Angharad, anyway. She reluctantly extricated herself from Isabel only to be crowded by the others. Master Cozme shook her hand, complimenting her on a ‘daring escape’ and even Remund spared the sneer to tell her he was glad she was still with them. Brun contained himself to a nod but he was smiling, and Song went around inspecting her and sighing.

“You looked like you’ve crawled through dirt,” the Tianxi complained.

“I did,” Angharad flatly replied.

“I’ll let you take my place in the line for use of the washtub, then,” Song told her. “It would be criminal to do otherwise.”

Recognizing that for the affection it was, Angharad let go of the sliver of irritation that’d been rising. Song was, if perhaps not yet a friend, then at least a good companion. She was not to be begrudged a bit of fussing. Her gaze strayed, for she had yet to see Beatris, and she found the other survivors from the Bluebell arrayed around the tables. Some had risen to greet people she had come with, but other simply looked on with interest. Tupoc and his surviving traitors, Acanthe Phos and Ocotlan, sat away from the others.

As did Augusto Cerdan, who rose to his feet face with an ashen face when she found his eyes.

“All right, all right,” a voice cheerfully called out. “Enough of that, my lambkins. We are no longer feeding the fire under the pot, so that stew’s only going to get colder.”

Angharad wrenched her gaze away from Augusto to the new speaker, finding a woman who must be Sergeant Mandisa. The sergeant’s green eyes were set in high-cheeked face with lustrous dark skin, standing even taller than Angharad -who was taller than most. Neither her black cloak nor the uniform beneath managed to hide the voluptuousness of her curves, which seemed most irrepressible. Unreasonably pretty indeed. Angharad would have expected to see such a beauty at court, not in the depths of this cursed island.

“Sergeant Mandisa?” she asked.

“I am,” she easily replied. “Why do you ask?”

“I was told by the watchwoman at the gate that-”

She was interrupted by a man coming passing her by and brusquely setting a wooden chest on the nearest table, the slamming sound making those closest start in surprise. He then set down a bottle of green grass by the chest and glanced at Sergeant Mandisa. She straightened, then slammed her palm against the table.

“Silence,” she shouted. “Silence for the officer.”

Given her previous air of cheer, the sudden turn had them all settling down within moments. The noblewoman’s eyes moved to the man who must be the officer in question and was taking them all in silently.

He was a big man, Tianxi in looks and nearly of a height with Angharad but with a massive belly barely tucked into his black coat and gilet, distending the fabric over waist-high trousers. Many watchmen bore criss-crossing bandoleers, but he wore his as straps instead. He should have looked comical, a fat man in a tight uniform, but the confidence in the way he held himself smothered that notion in the crib. The officer went fishing through his coat, taking out a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles that he carefully unfolded and put on. His gaze swept through them, more than a few straightening their backs.

“My name is Lieutenant Wen,” he said. “I share command of the Old Fort’s garrison with Lieutenant Vasanti, who if you are very lucky you might once see in passing. She’s not particularly interested in people when there’s fleshy bits left on the bones.”

He smiled, though there was little friendliness to it.

“Most of you will have met Sergeant Mandisa,” Lieutenant Wen said, gesturing to the woman at his side. “Remember her face, for she has been charged with seeing to your needs and deciding if any of you need to be shot for breaking our very, very simple rules.”

Sergeant Mandisa, still incongruously pretty in her own black cloak and coat, waved at them with a smile so charming it should make flowers bloom. The Tianxi lieutenant raised three fingers, then slowly folded one.

“One, stay out of left side of the fort. That is to say the barracks, the bastion and the supply depot,” Lieutenant Wen said. “If you do not, you will be immediately…”

“Shot,” Sergeant Mandisa cheerfully finished, branding her fingers like a pistol and shooting it at Tupoc.

The Aztlan had the gall to wink back.

“Two,” Lieutenant Wen continued, folding a second finger, “should any of you contract with a god within the ruins, you must immediately report having done so upon returning to sanctuary. If you do not…”

“Shot,” Sergeant Mandisa helpfully provided, smacking her fist into her palm.

Had they practiced this, Angharad wondered? They must have.

“And three,” the fat lieutenant said, taking his hand away, “there is to be no killing of each other within the bounds of the yellow lanterns. As a particular extension of this, should any of you choose to retire from the trials and come under the Watch’s protection any attempted violence against them will be met with as slow and inventive a death as we can figure out.”

He smiled again, even less friendly.

“We’ve got a tinker from the Umuthi Society around and it does get dreadfully boring out here,” Lieutenant Wen said. “So you can bet it’ll be a spectacle.”

The blackcloak then clapped his hands, startling a few of the faint-hearted among their company, and slid his thumbs into his belt.

“Simple rules, as I said, but let it not be said I am not an accommodating man,” Lieutenant Wen said. “Are there any questions?”

Angharad cleared her throat, unsure whether or not she should raise her hand. The Tianxi turned an amused eye on her, as if able to read her thoughts.

“And you are?” he asked.

“Lady Angharad Tredegar,” she replied.

“Ah,” the lieutenant said, tone turning gregarious, “Captain Osian’s niece! Good, good. I put ten arboles on your reaching the Trial of Weeds, so do try not to die.”

“I will… do my best?” Angharad hesitantly answered.

The man chuckled.

“Go on, girl.”

Rallying, the Pereduri cleared her throat again.

“Am I to understand that the Watch does not care if a killing takes place beyond the lines of sanctuary?” she asked.

“You’re free to butcher each other all you like out there in the maze,” Lieutenant Wen agreed. “I wouldn’t recommend it, given how it works, but we’re not here to hold your hand.”

The Tianxi was only half paying attention by the end of the sentence, popping open the box on the table and riffling within. He produced a cigar, which he brought close and smelled with obvious relish. Angharad hid her distaste – Mother had enjoyed these as well, but she shared her father’s opinion that the smell was simply foul. Someone else cleared their throat. Lord Ishaan, the chubby-cheeked man from the Imperial Someshwar. He looked pale, and his hair sweaty. Neither he nor his companion Shalini had been sitting at the same table as Lady Inyoni and her nephew, even though they had come together.

“Wow does the maze work?” he asked. “We have yet to be told.”

“We sent out a detachment when the first of you arrived to check which passages are open this year,” Lieutenant Wen replied. “They’ll be back sometime during the night, barring disaster. You will all be summoned to an assembly come morning so the practicalities of the trial might be explained.”

Tupoc Xical stepped forward then, drawing many eyes – and few of them friendly.

“Are we allowed to begin the trial early if we wish?” the Aztlan asked.

Lieutenant Wen laughed.

“There’s a cliff around here you can jump down from instead,” he said, “that’ll at least save us having to retrieve your corpse. But sure, Izcalli, you can start early.”

He pointed past the walls, to another hole in the rampart.

“Head that way, the Lion Shrine opens almost every year,” Lieutenant Wen said. “And shout for help when you get caught, would you?”

He beamed at the Aztlan, the cheer having a vicious tinge to it.

“We won’t be coming, but it’ll draw other gods so you might die quicker.”

Angharad was beginning to suspect there might be a reason Lieutenant Wen had been assigned to garrison duty under a mountain on a largely inhabited island in the middle of nowhere.

“Thank you,” Tupoc replied, looking entirely unperturbed.

Angharad was learning to hate how nothing shook him. Her hand was itching for a blade to hold.

“Any other questions?” the lieutenant asked.

There were not, so he reminded them they could ask Sergeant Mandisa for supplies and invited them to rest until tomorrow – or had begun the last part, at least, when Angharad moved. The questions were finished, so courtesy had been observed. She brushed past a confused Shalini and a grinning Lan, ignored Ocotlan as he raised his fists in a fighting stance and then Augusto Cerdan was facing her. Not a scratch on the man, save for his broken arm now in a sling.

He sneered, opening his mouth, and Angharad socked him in the stomach.

He folded, letting out a wheeze of pain, and there was a ripple in the crowd as people made room for them. Angharad sought out Remund Cerdan in the crowd and caught his gaze, giving him a slight nod. After a heartbeat of hesitation he returned it. As for Master Cozme, who stood by the younger brother’s side, his face was conflicted. She would have to trust that Remund’s orders and the earlier betrayal tipped the balance of loyalties the correct way.

She chose not to look for Isabel.

“As I did not strike you in the face, you may choose to consider yourself as not having been challenged to a duel,” Angharad told Augusto.

She would not turn down an opportunity to strike him a third time.

“You bitch,” the infanzon hissed.

“Augusto Cerdan, for the betrayal of myself and three others to cultists of the Red Eye I call you to answer blade in hand,” Angharad implacably replied.

She had given her word to Cozme Aflor that she would not pursue her challenge of Augusto until the end of the second trial, but she was following those words exact. Let the Fisher say what he would, Angharad would not bend her neck to the ways of the world: she could survive without carving away at her own principles, and if there were prices to pay for that so be it.

“You don’t even have a sword!” Augusto protested, taking a step back.

There was a snort from behind them.

“She may havbe mine,” Song said.

The infanzon’s eyes dilated with fear as he swept the crowd and found no support there. The Cerdan brothers had made few friends and Augusto burned bridges with even those. He reached for his sword, giving Angharad an excuse to dart forward and hit him in the belly again, catching his wrist and slamming the blade back in the sheath. She caught him by the collar and began dragging him towards the entrance to the Old Fort.

The flat grounds there were not within the span of the yellow lanterns, and so not sanctuary.

Augusto struggled, but his broken arm was in the way and she was stronger than her.

“Watchmen!” Augusto shouted. “This is murder, she breaks the spirit of the rules – you must intervene.”

Angharad paused there, for if the Watch intervened she would have to give way. Lieutenant Wen, still standing by the table, took a look at them and scratched a match on the tabletop. He pressed it against his cigar, pulling at it until the end burned cherry red. The Tianxi then breathed out a stream of smoke, cocking an eyebrow over his spectacles.

“I’m not seeing anything,” the watchman said. “Are you seeing anything, sergeant?”

Sergeant Mandisa, pulling off the cork on the bottle the lieutenant had earlier brought, began pouring herself a cup of the amber liquid within the green glass.

“Not a one, sir,” she prettily smiled. “And I’m trying real hard.”

Lieutenant Wen rested his hands on his bulging belly, offering a wide friendly smile while beaming at them both.

“Do give Captain Osian our regards when you next see him, Lady Angharad,” the Tianxi mused. “The brandy and cigars have made garrison duty much more tolerable.”

Sergeant Mandisa raised a silent toast to his words. Angharad was split between horror and gratitude. Her uncle’s doing was freeing her to deal out justice, but he had also quite obviously bribed these people. Even back on the Bluebell, he’d had a friend watching out for her in the crew. How many strings had Uncle Osian pulled – and how many of them were crooked?

When it sunk in that no help was coming, Augusto let out a noise that was whimper trying to be a scream.

“How dare you,” he babbled as Angharad dragged him forward. “House Cerdan will-”

He tried to get his blade out again so she twisted his broken arm and forced the steel back into its sheath while he screamed.

“They will hunt you like an animal,” Augusto hissed, “to the ends of the-”

Mere feet to the break in the rampart now, she could already see the yellow glow of the lanterns outside. The entrance to the fort was well-lit, lanterns hanging from the ramparts, so there was no missing it when a shadow caught up to her. Cutting across the floor it slithered, warning her of the arrival before Tupoc Xical ever came to stand before her.

Between Angharad and the way out.

Augusto began struggling again, so she stomped down on his foot.

“What is this, Xical?” she coldly asked.

“I am,” the Aztlan grinned, “defending the weak.”

The sheer absurdity of what he’d just said gave her pause. Enough that Augusto was able to wriggle out of her grasp, and though she kicked him down to his hands and knees she saw Tupoc hefting his segmented spear and she was yet unarmed. She was not, however, alone. Behind her a pistol was cocked as Song came to stand at her left, and to her right Brun pressed something into her hand – a straight sword, Song’s own. The Sacromontan held his hatchet, and tough he smiled reassuringly his eyes were cold. Angharad’s fingers closed around the blade, weighing it.

It was a little lighter than she’d like, but it would do.

“Move,” Angharad Tredegar told her enemy, “or be moved.”

Augusto crawled towards his protector and she let him, for it would not matter. From the corner of her eye, the Pereduri saw that Ocotlan was moving to flank them. The crowd looked reluctant to intervene, but the escalation was losing her support. No one wanted a full-on skirmish.

“Alas, I think we will have to save that dance for another day,” Tupoc wistfully told her.

A heartbeat later there was a sharp crack and stone went flying as a shot was fired on the ground between them. Above them, on all sides, blackcloaks were pointing their muskets. Lieutenant Wen, looking irritated, strode past her and pivoted to turn a glare on everyone. Sergeant Mandisa followed him, levelling their way the largest blunderbuss Angharad had ever seen. It was already cocked and the Malani looked a little too eager to use it for comfort.

“Enough,” he ordered. “Weapons down, all of you, or I’ll have you strung up.”

Angharad gritted her teeth even as Tupoc made a show of dismantling his spear, pale eyes smiling at her all the while. Brun’s hatchet came down, though, and Song’s muzzle dipped.

“It’s over, Angharad,” the silver-eyed Tianxi sighed. “They get away with it for now.”

Lieutenant Wen stared her down until she lowered her sword, then nodded in satisfaction. She watched Augusto offering grovelling thanks to his saviour with disgust. Walking away, the bespectacled lieutenant stopped to clap her shoulder and lean in. His sergeant was but a step behind.

“Sorry, Tredegar, but Xical’s not just yiwu trash come here for bragging rights,” he told her. “He’s to become one of us, like you, so it’s out of my hands. We can only play favourites so much.”

He left her standing there, rooted to the ground and facing the Malani sergeant’s cheerful face.

“Don’t lose heart, lambkin,” Sergeant Mandisa comforted her. “It’s really easy to murder people in the maze, so you’ll still have plenty of chances!”

Angharad wondered what it said about her that the perky madwoman’s words did, in fact, cheer her up a bit.