“I suppose if I have any advice for writers of history it would be to emphasize the uncertainty. In a book like this it all hopefully appears very clear and organized, but in the moment? We didn’t even know the right way to look.”

- Tasjadre Ra Novo, Jesa Sagoja: Zhetam Asade

Little had changed in the workshop since Arjun and Jackie’s abortive attempt to leave through the gateway, although Sjogydhu and his men seemed to find reasons to stand around more often than before. It was enough to discourage any future attempts, since it seemed unlikely to either that they would be able to dart through an unwatched connection to Idran Saal. Instead they watched - and waited.

Vumo did not reappear. They inquired - surreptitiously at first, but it quickly became clear that it was a topic of active interest among the majority of those in the workshop. Only a few were said to know the eventual goal of their work. Those in the know were invariably those tasked with logistics, supervision and personnel - and those scriptsmiths seemed frankly terrified to be seen talking to either of the tall foreigners in their midst.

Arjun sighed as another of the workshop managers made a hasty excuse and busied themselves elsewhere. He had made a circuit of the entire floor with no success. There were none left that were likely to know anything they could use - or, rather, almost none.

“Jackie,” he said, walking up behind her. “Come on. We’re not going to get anywhere with the low-level scribes. We need to talk to Sjogydhu directly.”

She frowned, setting down the focusing assembly she had been tinkering with. “He’s not going to help us out,” she said.

“He’s also not scared to say hello to us, which makes conversation with him a better option than everyone else we’ve tried.” He shrugged. “It’s either that or get to work and rely on their goodwill.”

Jackie made a face. “I guess we’re talking to Sjogydhu, then,” she sighed. “Come on. I think I saw him wandering around near the elevators.” The pair picked their way through the assorted scrap and worktables until they caught sight of the guard captain’s armor. Sjogydhu was deep in conversation with one of the supervising scriptsmiths, although that didn’t prevent him from turning to mark their presence almost as soon as they began moving his way.

“He’s way too good at that,” Jackie muttered, clearing her throat before she raised her hand to wave in his direction. “Hey, Sjogydhu - can we talk?”

He nodded and said something quietly to the supervisor before motioning them closer. As they approached him they could see his face looked strained and pallid.

“What do you need?” he asked. “If this is about the gateway-”

“I don’t expect that you’ll let us through,” Arjun said. “You made your position on that clear. I was hoping to get a sense of the broader picture, so that we could better direct our efforts to assist.” He crossed his arms in front of his chest and let out a sigh, perhaps a touch theatrically. “Whether we like it or not, I suppose we’re in this together.”

Sjogydhu gave him a bemused look. “Right now the most important thing we can do is to secure our defenses. Your input has been invaluable, but we need to continue working until all of the components are restored.”

“Components,” Jackie said, cocking her head. “I’ve been meaning to ask about that. There’s a whole lot of scrap scattered around here, but none of it makes sense. Everything is too big to fit a lens like we were using in Idran Saal, and the make of the components is a lot more refined - but they’re just focusing arrays. There’s no power assemblies, no crystals, no central lens.”

Sjogydhu shifted his stance. “The repaired components are being assembled on-site,” he said. “It wasn’t necessary or feasible to move the entire device here.”

Arjun quirked an eyebrow upward. “This is all part of one device?” he asked, provoking a wince from Sjogydhu. “Never mind, I think you’ve just answered my question. This must be the largest lens in all Tinem Sjocel, then.”

“You really should focus on your work,” Sjogydhu said. “Vumo Ra was adamant that we finish the restoration as soon as possible. If Ce Raedhil falls there is no third line of defense.”

“Come on, Sjogydhu,” Jackie wheedled, leaning in closer. “You’ve made certain that we’re not going anywhere. If you want good data from us we need to know the context for the problem. Give us a little more information on what we’re really working on, and we’ll see what we can come up with in exchange.”

Sjogydhu gave her a flat look. “One would think that the severity of the current situation would be motivation enough for your full efforts,” he said, “but if that is what it takes then so be it.” He walked briskly over to one of the high windows that ringed the workshop, peering through for a moment before stepping aside. “Do you see the mountains, there?”

Jackie and Arjun looked through. The window looked east, and from their vantage point midway up the Archives they could see a sweeping view of Ce Raedhil’s southern districts. The thick stone wall that encircled the inner city was clearly visible, and outside of that the outer districts stretched away into hazy fields. Beyond there the distant snowcapped mountains stretched up over the horizon, marking the furthest extent of Sjocelym territory.

“The enemy may attack Ce Raedhil, but I doubt we will be so lucky,” Sjogydhu said. “Maja is the real prize, and so they will drive towards the garrison abbey of Draatyn Asidram. We are not too far from the garrison abbey, but it is still a fair distance - too far for most of the lenses in our possession. They lack the power and the focusing abilities of the larger arrays.”

Arjun frowned and leaned in closer. “You intend to offer fire support from the city directly?” he asked incredulously. “It’s not as far away as Idran Saal, true, but it’s still quite distant. You’re talking about ranges nearly a hundred times greater than we were using before. Obviously we never tested it out, but I’m not sure any lens can fire that far.”

“As you’ve gathered, this device is not like the others,” Sjogydhu said. “It is larger, more powerful, and according to our histories it was designed to fire at ranges far greater than the distance to Draatyn Asidram. It is unique among all the examples we have discovered.”

Jackie stared out over the plains in consternation, looking at the distant silhouettes of the mountains. “I gotta say, our past experiences with you guys are not making me want to help you with this weapon. It sounds way too powerful.”

“It is purely defensive,” Sjogydhu said, rolling his eyes at Jackie’s derisive snort. “And before you impugn my motivations I will point out that we have no option but to use it defensively; the primary lens is too large to be moved from its position atop the pillar. That is why it’s not here, in the workshop - we lack the means to transport it. It remains fixed in Ce Raedhil, and thus can only reach Sjocelym lands.”

Arjun walked to the window and tilted his head, trying in vain to look up to the vanishingly-high apex of the Archives. “It’s been up there since the beginning?” he asked. “Why are you only restoring it now?”

Sjogydhu grimaced. “The very reaction you just had,” he said. “Where will we aim this weapon? What could we destroy? Its existence would only serve to breed paranoia in the royalist faction about our intentions.” He paused, looking out the window. “I believe Vumo Ra also refrained from rebuilding it because he felt it would antagonize the Setelym.”

“They’ve been poking around,” Jackie said. “We saw Cosvamo in Idran Saal.”

To their surprise, Sjogydhu actually smiled at that. “I’m aware,” he said. “It would be antithetical to the Setelym mind to allow an event of such importance to proceed - unsupervised.” He shook his head ruefully. “They may have our advantage in scriptsmithing, but the Setelym are men just as we are. We are not blind and they are not infallible. Some of them may believe their own lies, but the ones who work in the field, men like Cosvamo Qa - they walk a bit closer to the truth of things.”

“So you don’t believe Cosvamo will interfere to stop you from restoring the lens?” Arjun asked.

“We refrained from any serious work on it until we were sure events at the wall would hold the attention of any uninvited visitors,” Sjogydhu said, sounding more than a little smug. “Our hope is that we’ll be done with our restoration by the time his eyes stray back towards Ce Raedhil. Vumo Ra doesn’t believe that he would destroy the completed weapon after seeing our forces outmatched at Idran Saal - proof of our need for a greater advantage against the enemy.”

Sjogydhu chuckled. “Not that he’ll be inclined to let us keep it afterwards. I believe Vumo Ra will count it as a victory if we are allowed to simply disassemble the lens afterward rather than watch as Cosvamo Qa destroys it.”

“I’m sure the men who die at the wall will be happy to know they were part of such a brilliant distraction,” Jackie said, glowering down at Sjogydhu. “Do you really think it’s worth it?”

“That was never my decision to make,” Sjogydhu said. “Vumo Ra took us down this path because he felt it was the best of all available options.”

Arjun raised an eyebrow, turning to face Sjogydhu head-on. “Do you think Vumo is in a good state to be making that sort of decision now?” he asked. “He looks delirious, fatigued. He was nearly incoherent earlier. Even seeing him in that condition, you won’t question his commands?”

Sjogydhu gave Arjun a faint smile, then turned to stare out towards the mountains. “As I said, Vumo Ra chooses from the paths laid out before him,” Sjogydhu replied. “So must we all.”

“They’re moving up!” Mark shouted, leveling the head of his hammer at a blurry mass of bodies emerging from the dust. A ripple of unease spread through the loose group of Cereinem and Sjocelym clustered near the gatehouse. The Sjocelym in particular had proved leery about straying too far from the open gate, as if worried that the faceless masses would rush from the storm and trap them against the unyielding outer face of the wall.

It was a fair worry, since that was also more or less the plan Mark and Jesse had put together to protect the wall from lightning strikes. Sturdy as it was they had little confidence that it would weather the focused wrath of the storm better than any of the other structures they had seen not-Eryha tear through. At best it would provide a temporary delay to cover their retreat, a situation that was looking increasingly likely as they watched the ranks of mindless dead slowly emerge from the dust.

Spears of blinding lensfire lashed out over their heads from the surviving wall emplacements to rake through the enemy vanguard. Charred bodies tumbled to the ground five ranks deep, but more trudged forward over the ash to take their place. A second emplacement fired, and a third - good hits, all of them, but insufficient to do more than slow the advance.

The storm advanced with them. Jesse could see it, even without Jes overlaying the flow of ruud - the wall of churning dust held back by the modified draam je qaraivat bowed inward as if collapsing, letting the storm rage nearer to their position.

“This looks grim,” Tesvaji said, sounding utterly unconcerned. He stood with his wooden club resting on one shoulder, its lovingly oiled surface catching highlights from the emplacements broiling the air overhead. Gusje looked over and rolled her eyes at his jaunty pose.

Mark barked out a short laugh. “Sometimes I think I still haven’t picked up the language that well,” he said, “because this looks a hell of a lot worse than ‘grim’ to me.” He looked out towards the storm, then ducked with a muttered curse as an unaimed fusillade of bullets streaked overhead to ricochet off the wall. The lens crew overhead yelled in alarm and jerked their shot wide, scorching a furrow far wide of their target.

“Oh, come on!” Mark yelled, wheeling to glare up at the wall. “They weren’t even close! None of those came-” He lurched forward as an impact slammed into his back, driving him forward to his knees.

“Mark!” Jesse yelled, sprinting over. “You okay?” He knelt down next to Mark, who was rubbing the small of his back with a dazed expression.

“Figures they’d get me when I was making fun of their aim,” he said sourly, running his hand over the tightly-spaced scales on the back of his lamellar coat. “I’m fine. Armor took it. Realizing Vumo just saved my life hurt worse than the shot.”

Jesse stood back up to look back out toward the storm, but no obvious gunman stood out in their brown-on-brown ranks. In all probability the lenses had scoured over that part of the horde already, but there always seemed to be another one of the pilfered rifles ready a few minutes later. It was keeping the lens crews jumpy, slowing their work - and with every second lost the enemy front pressed ever closer.

The nearest were well into what had been cleared ground just minutes ago, dragging the stormfront with them and close enough that Jesse could pick out individual faces. Dark, empty eye sockets gazed out over jaws that hung loose or had fallen off entirely. The air over the horde had grown dusty from the simple movement of so many desiccated feet over the sand and trodden ash, mundane contaminants in the air that the stones couldn’t push back.

It stank. Jesse wrinkled his nose as he watched them draw slowly closer, then turned to extend a hand down to Mark. “Come on, get up,” he said. “Looks like it’s almost time.”

“Oh boy,” Mark grunted, taking it and popping to his feet. “They’re sure taking it easy on the approach.”

“They can stay slow, that’s fine,” Jesse said. “We’re really, really outnumbered here.”

Tesvaji craned his neck to look up at the storm. “We should stop them at about - half the remaining distance, I think.” He gestured at the advancing stormfront, which had now cut into a significant portion of their clear zone. The lensfire was landing close enough that they could hear the distant popping of bone and sinew as the heat burst through the silent ones. “It will give us a small margin to fall back and still hold, if we need it.”

Jesse nodded. “Something tells me we will,” he said, gesturing for the scribe with the twinplate to come closer. The man did, clutching the twinplate to his chest like an infant as he stared wide-eyed out over the plains.

“Tell the emplacements to shift their fire,” Jesse said. “We’re moving up.”

The message went out, and in moments the shots began falling farther back into the storm, provoking flashes that lit the dust in blasts of red and orange where they hit. Jesse drew his sword. The battle jumped into shades of flickering color, raging and straining against the steady pulse coming from the warding stones as it advanced.

“You going to say something?” Mark asked, grinning.

Jesse shot him a confused look. “What, to call the advance?” he asked, pausing to look around. He cleared his throat.

“Hey, everyone!” he shouted, waving his arm. “Move forward! Keep close, don’t let them surround you and don’t follow them if they pull back.” Jesse let his arm drop to his side, then turned back to Mark.

“I’m almost offended,” Mark groaned. “Here we are, fighting the ancient forces of darkness to save the world.” He leveled a finger at Jesse. “You have a magic sword, you’re standing at the head of the defenders. You raise your blade high in the air, point it towards the enemy. Your troops all turn to listen to the next words you say.”

He grimaced. “And you come up with ‘hey, everyone?’ Come on, dude. That was a wasted opportunity.”

Jesse gave him a flat look. “What do you want me to do, climb up on something and start shouting? I’m pretty sure everyone already knows why we’re here and why we’ve got to win.”

“Yeah, I get it,” Mark said, shaking his head as he began to walk slowly towards the midway point. “If you need me I’ll just be off on the end of the line swinging my hammer around, trying not to crush what’s left of my dreams.”

The grass hissed softly around them in the wind, rippling like muddy water. The growth here had not been trampled by the advancing horde, had not been churned up by blinding rays of fire from the ancestors’ lenses. It was good soil, if a bit dry, and would serve for growing jehan - maybe a few other crops, if the weather was kind.

Tesvaji approved of the land here. There was no cerein to make it fertile, but it persisted. He let his fingers curl tightly around the cerein-wood haft of his club, smooth and shiny from a lifetime of devoted care. The club was a Madi’s weapon, its strikes precisely as forceful as its wielder desired. It demanded strength.

Today he would use it to protect more than just his own, but that was fine. It was not the first time he had fought for non-kin, and if they prevailed it would not be the last. His lips pulled into a grin at the thought, and he squared his shoulders. He felt the other Cereinem around him - his Cereinem. His kinsmen, his blood, and none more so than his daughter stalking beside him with a palm full of ready flame.

She had always been destined to undo the order of things, he reflected ruefully. He had known it from the beginning, even if he had sorely underestimated her capacity. Parents often complained that they barely recognized their children when they came back from journeys alone in the world, but that was not so for Tesvaji - he recognized every step, every motion of the woman who walked beside him. Gusje had gone into the world and taken the parts of it that were for Gusje, brought them into her, and in so doing had become more of herself.

Tesvaji permitted his smile to grow a bit wider still. To be Cereinem was to bind oneself to the path of growing things, from crops and feed to good, strong children. To the cerein, standing tall amidst everything. It should have made him feel the sting of failure, thinking of their lost home, but today - today was for the Madi, and the Madi was meant to face such things.

He readied his club as they drew closer, letting it hang down at his side. He could see the enemy individually now, pressing forward in their slow multitudes. They had been his people once, perhaps, or those who bore them. Here because of a disaster they inflicted upon themselves, and a task that Tesvaji’s people had forgotten long ago. The consequences of that failure loomed over them, dark and thunderous, the light beginning to fade as they walked closer to the storm wall.

“Daughter of mine,” he said, just loudly enough that Gusje could hear him. He looked down briefly to meet her gaze and saw the worry in her eyes, the fear of what they faced. Justified. He smiled a Madi’s smile back at her. “Which of us do you think will take more?”

She blinked, then smiled back - a true smile this time. She flexed her gauntlet by way of response, then turned back towards the enemy. They were close, close. Some of his men felt fear, began to lag in their steps. It was natural, men were not made all alike. The ones that feared and fought were just as admirable in their own way as the fools who had forgotten their fear. They would do what they must, when the time came.

And it came.

Tesvaji took the last few strides at a near sprint and charged forward, his muscles rippling as he slammed the hard root-knob of wood at the club’s end into and through a rotting skull. Here, dead kin - meet the cerein once more, and find your peace. Halt the momentum, pull back and swing sideways. Two more bodies with bones reduced to shards, and a gout of fire rushing out beside him to immolate a column eight-deep.

Gusje darted out like a dusk shadow, flicker-fast and trailing flames with nothing but focus in her eyes. Men pushed forward into the void she had made, pressuring the enemy. They followed her by instinct, and Tesvaji could not help but smile again. Briefly. Another strike, another fallen enemy. He could feel the pattern emerging, a threshing-song calling to be sung.

He resisted. They had not yet won the right to levity, while they were freshly rested in the first moments of battle. Other rhythms emerged, the pounding of feet and the drawing of breath, the strain of exertion as they struck down the enemy in their dozens. Screams, from down the line - one of the Sjocelym had stumbled and been dragged forward into the horde. They tore him to shreds and kept pressing forward, driven by the last rhythm, the rhythm of the storm overhead as it surged and ranted in manic fury.

The dust began to lick at their faces, coating their skin and fouling their vision. They had not moved, but the press of their enemy was beginning to erode the protection afforded by the stones. The dead felt it too. They thrived, became faster and more cunning with every second that passed. Tesvaji took a step back from the line, noting the shape of things. Bodies had begun to pile up at the front. Almost all enemy bodies, it was true, but the pile was beginning to afford the abominations a height advantage.

“Withdraw eight paces!” Tesvaji bellowed. The Cereinem, ever used to hearing his commands, obeyed with alacrity. The Sjocelym followed suit a bit more slowly, and at the break in their lines Mark the Traveller kept the enemy from making the fault into an advantage. He paused a moment to admire the effortless swings, the burgeoning explosions of heat from the hammerhead. It was not a Madi’s weapon, as it struck too harshly, but it was a good weapon.

His weighty swings showed a sharp contrast to his companion. Jesse moved almost as fast through the melee as Gusje, despite his height, and where he moved the enemy died. Tesvaji could not help but note the flaws in his movement. His footing was atrocious and his attacks lacked any sort of balance, but at the same time everything simply worked - every blow landed, every foot fell soundly.

Jesse would have been almost hard to notice save for his sword, which seemed to gain a slight glow wherever it touched the enemy’s dead flesh. At first it gave it an oddly patchy look, but after the battle had stretched out and they had performed the dance of stand and retreat twice more, it was shining brightly enough to cast shadows in the storm-murk.

The time came for yet another retreat, but as Tesvaji stood to call it Jesse stepped forward instead.

“Jesse!” Mark called out, his voice heavy with strain. “Buddy, we’re moving back!”

The light, flowing motions that Jesse had shown earlier became suddenly quite still and the storm seemed to flex around him. The press of rotten flesh stilled for a fraction of a heartbeat. He held his sword out to the side, shining with a terrible, cold radiance - then slashed it sideways in an eyeblink. Tesvaji thought unbidden of the motion of a landslide, at once fast and ponderous.

The dread light from the sword winked out, and for one hundred paces around them the enemy fell dead to the ground. The storm recoiled as if scalded. Dust fell listlessly in newly clear wind and the light from the sun shone just a bit brighter.

Tesvaji had lived a long time, and with long life comes a creeping immunity to impressive feats. Nevertheless, he found himself staring dumbfounded as a field’s worth of dead toppled over in two neat pieces - but only for a moment. The man may be left without words on his tongue, but never the Madi.

He stepped forward and called the advance, watching with pride as the line reformed. Perhaps they would sing the threshing-song today after all.