hope you and the children are well - I’m sure they’re large now, and by the time the caravan reaches you with this letter they’ll be larger still. Here things are not so good - the soil grows dryer by the day, and our cerein ails. I was looking in the old texts for answers but find that much of what they discuss is beyond my grasp. I know you have made a study of the old writings, so I have transcribed a passage below and would cherish your thoughts on it, as I believe it relates to the health of living things and may contain some wisdom we have lost.

The first few lines are gone, but the readable text begins: “studies find that organic deployments are more likely to succeed when either the medium or the inscription [the page is torn here] activity - if both do, dissonance will render the weaker of the pair progressively less stable until [the next five words are too faint to read] or an equilibrium is

- Unattributed fragment, early Aejha script on unknown material. Not handwritten. Royal archives, Ce Raedhil.

The fine hairs on Tesvaji’s arm stood up. He straightened up to bellow a quick warning to the line, cutting through the noise of the battle. As one they stepped back to gain distance from the horde. Jesse stepped past them, standing forward with his sword raised high. The scent of ozone was everywhere, falling over them as the wind died - and a jagged bolt of lightning spidered down towards them.

For Jesse, time seemed to slow. He could see the trail of plasma descending, fat and orange in the dim evening sun. Through Jes he could taste the feel of the storm around them, get a sense of the mind that directed the wind and the masses of bodies swarming them. There was hunger and rage there, but underneath the animal madness that pressed her forward there was a growing undercurrent of frustration. Between Tesvaji’s coordination and the pinpoint intervention of Mark and Jesse, they had somehow managed to hold their lines against the endless onslaught.

He focused down the length of his sword at the falling bolt of light, feeling Jes lay her hands over his. The sword was pockmarked up and down its length with splotches of light where the metal had met dead flesh and siphoned ruud from it, but now the light dimmed - and the lightning swerved, pulled inexorably toward the blade.

Jesse did not grimace as the thunderbolt struck the bare metal. It was over too fast for even an eyeblink. The lightning made contact and hung frozen in the air for the barest of seconds before he felt Jes heave through his arms. The air went dark around them as the plasma trail dimmed to a dull glow of particles hanging overhead, immediately blown away by the echoing burst of light and noise that slammed out from the sword.

Heat traced up Jesse’s arms, and as time slipped back to normal he indulged in a wince of pain - this was the third time that the impostor had tried to break their lines with lightning, and his skin had not escaped the previous strike unburnt. The first time he was caught out of position, and the lightning lanced into the Cereinem’s flank. The second strike had come soon after, seeking to attack those who had leapt in to fill the hole over their comrades’ smoking corpses.

It was half-luck that he had caught that bolt on the sword rather than through the chest, but Jes had the trick of it down now. Sheets of rippling white flame cascaded from the blade as he leveled it forward and swung. The air itself seemed to burn, and he watched bodies drop in charred segments for as far as he had a clear view through the curtains of dust.

Sound returned. He slipped to his knees in the bloody dust, vision swimming, and stayed there until Mark rushed forward to clap a hand on his shoulder - immediately pulling back as a vicious spark of static singed his fingers.

“Goddamn it,” Mark spat, rubbing his hand and blinking against the flash of lensfire as the scriptsmiths adjusted their aim to the new front. “Holy shit, dude, are you okay? You look like you got a little toasty.”

Jesse looked down. His armor was intact, even if the leather had begun to smoke in places. He could smell scorched hair, and everywhere his skin was exposed he felt like he had been badly sunburnt.

“I’ll live,” he said, accepting Mark’s proffered hand and rising unsteadily to his feet. “Let’s just hope she gives up on the lightning sooner rather than later, I’m not sure how many more of those I have in me.”

“I don’t think she’ll be too quick to try that one again,” Mark said, gesturing to the field of bisected corpses in front of them. The lightning had contained a truly staggering amount of energy, and while the sword drank its fill there had been plenty left over for Jes to make use of the fragments within. The enemy’s front line had receded to the point that they were hard to make out amid the dust, a collection of vague shapes occasionally showing through where the emplacements burnt away the occluding screen of grit.

“They’re coming back slower, now,” Gusje said, seeming to materialize from the swirling dust. She was breathing hard, having run up and down the lines offering literal fire support for the entirety of the battle. “She’s either growing cautious or running out of bodies.”

Jesse shook his head. “I don’t think she can be cautious,” he said. “She’s too far to tell now, but just before the lightning hit Jes got a sense of - frustration, maybe, or annoyance. She’s throwing everything she’s got at us and we’re still here.”

“Best news I’ve heard all day,” Mark coughed, stretching his back. “Not saying I’m tired or anything, but - any of you ever tried swinging a hammer around for a few hours? Even a magic one like this, it kinda works the shoulders-”

Gusje punched him in the leg, gesturing towards the slowly approaching front. “Tell them that,” she said. “At best we’ve-” She broke off, looking up at Jesse. His eyes were wide, and he was looking around the battlefield with a confused expression.

“Jesse?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”

He shook his head, pressing his lips together. “Not sure,” he replied tersely. “Something’s up. Can’t tell what.” He looked around again, finding nothing - then spun to face south a bare moment before the sky came alight. A second sun shone briefly over the horizon, flickering and dying within seconds.

Jesse dropped back to his knees, nerveless. All around them the Cereinem were shivering, dazed, and a handful of the Sjocelym looked sickly. What little Jesse had eaten earlier came up in a rush, leaving him panting on his hands and knees in the settling dust.

“Guys?” Mark asked, looking around. Gusje stumbled to the side, looking pale, and he grabbed her arm to steady her. “What just happened?”

“Don’t know,” she said, her teeth chattering. “Something’s wrong. Feels cold, dry.”

“Maja,” Jesse said, wiping his mouth and looking towards the fading light. “We just lost Maja.”

Mark’s eyes went wide. “What? How? The impostor’s here, she can’t be in two places at once, can she?”

“Talk later. We need to go back,” Gusje said, pointing shakily at the storm. “The silent ones, look-”

There were no more flashes of movement in the stormfront. Lensfire fell on empty ground, striking nothing while the swirling sands pressed closer.

“Oh, fuck me,” Mark spat. He waved his arm frantically at Tesvaji, who was shaking his head as if to clear it. “Tesvaji! Back to the wall!” The chief focused blearily on Mark, then nodded and began urging the lines backwards.

Jesse hauled himself to his feet. “I don’t know if the wall will help,” he said. “With Maja gone, it might be just a wall.”

“I’ll settle for standing on something solid,” Mark shot back, scooping Gusje up in one arm and slinging his hammer on his back. “Let’s fucking go, we don’t want to get caught fighting them in the open without those pillars backing us up.”

They began to pull back, slowly at first. The storm accelerated at their backs, reaching out with tongues of cold sand that snaked over their exposed skin. They moved faster, faster, and by the time they entered the wall’s long shadow they were running towards the doubtful safety of the gatehouse.

The storm was still gaining on them, accelerating to match their pace. The ground rumbled beneath them. The Sjocelym flank was lagging behind as they continued running, too heavily armored to keep their exertion up for long. Men tore off their helmets as they ran and dropped their weapons in the dust, but still they found themselves slipping behind until the air turned opaque with scouring sand. The first screams sounded only moments after the storm caught their trailing edge. The rest ran harder, but the storm went faster still.

The clatter of armor and rush of breath was all around them as they approached the gate. There was only a short stretch of trampled grass left before the perfunctory square of flagstones by the gatehouse. They could see the gate clearly now - could see it closing, as the Sjocelym frantically pushed it shut against the approaching wave of death.

“Oh, fuck you!” Mark bellowed, lowering his head and sprinting hard towards the gate. The doors continued to slide closed - like the gate to the south, the heavy slabs of stone were recessed into the wall itself rather than swinging open. The gap between them narrowed slowly, growing thinner with each footfall.

Their progress jarred to a halt when Mark took a final leap forward and thrust his hammer into the gap, wedging the head between the doors. He ducked and slid through the gap on momentum alone before straightening up to face the row of shocked scriptsmiths and soldiers suddenly unable to budge the heavy stone.

“Too slow,” he said grimly, drawing his pistol. “Back open, come on. All of you push.”

One of the scriptsmiths shook his head violently, running to grab at the hammer only to stumble backwards as Jesse ducked through the gap with his sword bared.

Mark shot the scriptsmith in the abdomen, dropping him to the ground. “Push!” he yelled.

They pushed.

Cereinem began to stream through the widening gap, and Mark reached down to grab his hammer as it fell to the flagstone. He leaned against the wall, breathing hard, and cocked an eyebrow at Jesse. “Sjocelym,” he said.

Jesse coughed out a short laugh, then turned to look through the opening. More men streamed through, including some of the faster Sjocelym - but most of them were lost in the storm, which was bearing down on the gate with frightening speed.

“Close it?” Mark asked. “How long do we want to risk leaving it open?”

“Not going to matter,” Jesse said, shaking his head. “Look.” He reversed his sword and swung the dull back of the blade into the corner of one pillar, chipping it. “Like I said, it’s just a wall now. There’s nothing keeping them back but stone, and that’s not enough to stop them.”

“Well, shit,” Mark muttered, looking around. “All right, new plan - we get back to the gateway. The plaza out front is paved, and if we’re lucky we can hold them off long enough to fire it up and leave.”

“And go where?” Gusje said. “With Maja gone, it’s just a matter of time before Tinem Sjocel falls. There’s nowhere left to go.”

Mark gave her an annoyed look. “I’ll settle for ‘not here’ until we come up with a better plan. Now come on. The wall probably isn’t going to slow her down much, if any. Tell your dad, we’re moving out.”

It was a shorter traverse to the plaza, although no less frantic of a flight than their run back to the wall. True to Mark’s prediction the stormfront paused only for a moment as it hit the wall, rippling over the surface as if tasting it - then surging gleefully past the barrier to pour into the streets of Idran Saal.

They paused in the gateway plaza, and Mark cupped his hands in front of his mouth. “All right, new plan!” he bellowed. “Anyone with a weapon, our line is in front of this building!” He turned towards a gaggle of scriptsmiths who were panting from the short run, doubled over in exhaustion.

“You!” he said. One of them paled and fainted. “Anyone here worked a gateway before?”

They stared at him, wide-eyed, then one of them slowly stepped forward. “I have,” he said. “Though only a few times.”

“That’ll do,” Mark grunted, grabbing Gusje’s shoulder and pointing to her. “You go with her. Open the gateway to anywhere you can get it to connect.”

Gusje looked up at Mark, affronted. “I belong out on the line,” she said.

“You belong in there, threatening to torch these slimy bastards if they try to close the gate behind them,” Mark said. “I don’t trust them, I trust you. Grab some of your dad’s men too. Get that gate open and tell us as soon as it’s ready.” He looked at the advancing cloud of dust, nearly to the plaza now. “I don’t think we’re going to be able to hold out for long.”

She looked mutinous for only a moment, then nodded and tore off into building with the scriptsmith in tow, shouting commands to the rear rank of Cereinem. Mark stretched, rolling his shoulder before turning back to Jesse with a grin.

“Ready?” he asked.

Jesse coughed. “No,” he said. “But here she is.”

“Story of our lives,” Mark muttered. The wall of dust swallowed the far side of the plaza and swept towards them. Rumbling intensified from below the flagstones, then passed on - then stopped. The faint noise of shifting earth came from all around them, followed by the dry rasp of footsteps on bare stone. The sunlight had dipped too low to light the storm, and in the twilight murk bodies appeared on all sides.

They charged silently. Dry, rotten hands reached out in their dozens, faster and stronger than they had ever been out on the plains. The onrushing mob moved like a liquid that crashed into their lines - over them, in places, but Tesvaji had kept a few picked squads in reserve and managed to send his men to reinforce the collapsed sections of the line before the break turned into a rout.

They found themselves forced back until they were in a tight semicircle with their backs to the gateway hall. Between wild swings of his hammer, glowing bright in the deepening twilight, Mark cast a glance back towards the yawning doorway. “We need to start moving back,” he yelled.

Tesvaji frowned, casting a glance backwards at the entry hall. “Too narrow,” he shouted back. “No space to swing a weapon.”

“Well, we’re not going to last long out here,” Mark called back. “Options?”

Tesvaji frowned more deeply, then shook his head. “Back, then,” he conceded, raising his hand to issue the command - but then a yell and a burst of fire sounded from behind them, and Gusje came running out of the doorway with a scant handful of Cereinem and a tide of death on her heels. The storm roared around them, circling.

Tesvaji’s reserves rushed to the doorway and were able to stop the silent ones up in the same narrow hall they had meant to use as a refuge, but they were hard pressed to keep them inside the threshold. Gusje stumbled back towards her father, bleeding freely from a wicked scratch above one eye.

“They came in through the upper levels,” she gasped. “Must have found a window or a door. We can’t use the gateway.”

Jesse was a blur in front of their lines, covering a full quarter of the perimeter by himself as his sword swept through rank after rank of the oncoming dead. He set his feet and unleashed a swing that lashed out across the plaza, providing a brief respite - but more rushed in across the fallen bodies of their comrades, and Mark ran forward to join him.

“We’ve got to fight it out,” he yelled. Jesse looked up at him, uncomprehending. Mark shrugged and whipped his hammer through the first of the next wave as they slammed into their lines. “Sorry, I got no more tricks,” he said. “If you’ve got a better idea-”

“No,” Jesse said, his voice quiet but still managing to carry over the sound of the battle. His shoulders sagged, then he straightened up and began to weave his sword through the ranks of the enemy once more. He disappeared into the fray - even so, Mark heard his voice continue. His words were oddly stilted, as if he were speaking them in tandem with another voice. A woman’s voice, quiet under his words.

“I think we have a chance,” Jesse said. “She’s coming for us hard but she feels diminished, smaller.”

“It’s about damn time!” Mark yelled back, swinging his hammer down and taking out a pair that were standing a bit too close together. “Come on, line ‘em up! Home stretch!” He slammed the glowing hammerhead into the ranks of the dead again and again, carving out a small bubble for the men at his sides. The lines firmed around him, and Jesse danced away to support another stretch of the front.

Behind him Tesvaji’s reserves staggered back from the doorway, and Tesvaji himself waded in with quick, measured swings of his club. Bone shattered and dead skin tore as the bodies crumpled around him. Gusje joined him, darting in to clear the hallway with blasts of flame when the press threatened to overwhelm their tiny section of the front.

Minutes passed and the sky grew darker. A small knot of Sjocelym pikemen, the few that had survived the previous action, collapsed as a corpse flung himself from atop a pile of bodies into their midst. They were pulled screaming into the dust as Mark rushed over with his hammer held high, frantically pushing back the surge. Behind him, the thinly-spread Cereinem spread themselves thinner still to plug the gap.

Slowly things stabilized. Mark’s arms were burning, his breath coming in gasps. He couldn’t remember the last time he had seen Jesse in the battle line. His swings came slower each time, until after one mighty swing he tried to lift the hammerhead - and couldn’t.

A spike of panic jerked through him and he pulled at the haft, but before he could free the hammer a boot slammed down on top of the head, rubber sizzling and melting where it met the red-hot metal. Mark blinked at the boot - standard-issue, U.S. Army - before looking up into the dead eyes of Captain Paul Grande.

Grande reached out and grabbed Mark’s armor, hauling him away from their lines with incredible strength before his arm was severed neatly in two. Mark staggered back as Jesse swept another strike across Grande’s torso, then straightened up wide-eyed. All around them taller shadows emerged from the storm, clad in ragged camouflage and sickly pale.

Grande raised a hand from where he lay on the ground, and Mark saw Jesse’s eyes go wide. The sword flickered out and took Grande’s head just as a gunshot rang out. The noise of battle seemed to pause, and Mark looked towards the door to see Tesvaji staggering to the side, blood dripping from a small hole below his shoulder blade.

Gusje’s anguished scream cut through the silence before the rush of battle came back around them with redoubled force. Bodies poured from the gateway hall to rush at the back of their lines, and there were a few frenzied seconds of pandemonium that passed in flashes of sound and dim light - the crunching of a skull, the panicked screams from somewhere on their flank.

Another rushing noise swept over them as Jesse unleashed a hurried slash that tore into the enemy - but his sword had only a little light built up, and only a few ranks of the enemy fell. In the brief respite they reformed their lines. They needed only seconds, as their party was much smaller than it had been a minute ago. A scant dozen men still stood alongside Mark and Jesse. Gusje, too, had found her way back to their lines, her face tear-streaked and bloody in the white-hot light from her gauntlet.

One of the survivors was grabbed and pulled forward as the dead resumed their assault, disappearing soundlessly into the mass of enemies around them. This one did not have time to scream, only a light gasp before he vanished into the dust. Another volley of gunfire rang out and felled two Cereinem, and all around them rotting flesh pressed inward. Mark and Jesse stood shoulder-to-shoulder, grim-faced and staring at the faces of their dead comrades around them.

There was Correia, half his face torn away to reveal the skull beneath, grinning and etched with whorling patterns. Roth, one arm ending in splintered and protruding bone. Diaz, the jagged shard of metal still stuck in her neck - and, as she staggered forward, a grenade in her outstretched hand.

Jesse’s arm was a blur as he leveled his pistol and fired, the shot punching through the rotten bone of her wrist with preternatural accuracy. The grenade dropped to the ground - and exploded.

The world shifted, and Jesse was on his back. The sky above was almost totally dark but for an odd blue flicker of light that danced in his peripheral vision. It faded, and he saw a silhouette loom over him in the dying light. Fingers grabbed at his armor, pulling at it, and through the ringing in his ears he thought he heard a man’s voice, saying something he couldn’t quite make out. A hand gripped his shoulder and the world shifted once more, but this time there was only darkness.

Jackie came to in a rush, groggily jerking upright and screaming as the motion pulled at burned, blistered skin on her face and neck. She was coated in a thick layer of ash, some of it from her own clothing where the outer layers had been scorched away. Wincing, she clambered to her feet.

The rooftop was shrouded in a thick pall of smoke that was dispersing slowly in the wind - it had calmed to near-stillness from the frigid gale that had greeted them when she and-

Her eyes snapped open, and she frantically hobbled towards the lens emplacement. It emerged from the smoke like the ghost of itself, glass frozen in mid-drop where the immense heat had melted the focal lenses and sent the delicate glasswork running like tar down the side of the device. Metal was twisted and buckled, collapsed in heaps around them; it was under one of these that she saw Arjun’s outstretched arm.

She heaved the wreckage off of him, heedless of the lancing pain in her palms. He was lying face-up. His right side was burnt horribly from the blast, and his unburnt eye stared sightlessly upward until Jackie dropped to her knees beside his body and gently slid a hand over his face to close it.

The rooftop was silent as she sat hunched beside his body, but she found no calm in the quiet. Jackie clenched her fists. Slowly, she reached to her side and plucked a charge crystal from her belt. Her fingers closed around it, feeling its light warmth as searing heat that pulsed in time with her heart.

“I’m going to kill him,” she muttered, tasting the words on her tongue. They felt right. Arjun’s flyaway white hair was nearly singed off, but she brushed what remained gently with the tips of her fingers - then she stood. The dust was clearing enough now that she could see most of the roof, and Vumo was nowhere to be found. Sjogydhu, however, was picking himself up off the ground in a daze.

He seemed uninjured, though his armor bore some discoloration from the blast and Sunshine’s wooden fittings were soot-black. He seemed to be having some trouble breathing, his breath coming in erratic fits. Jackie grabbed the edge of his chestpiece with her left hand and raised her right with the crystal still balled in her fist. “You dumb fuck,” she seethed, slamming him against a piece of debris. “You-”

She broke off as she saw his face, tear-streaked and inconsolable. He barely acknowledged her assault, and sagged bonelessly to the side when she released him.

“I’m going to kill him,” she repeated. “You going to stop me?”

He didn’t reply, and Jackie turned to stalk towards the elevator. The controls still seemed to function, thankfully, and the shaft hummed with the car’s ascent.

“You can’t,” Sjogydhu mumbled behind her. She spun to face him, but he offered no sign of violence.

“Pretty sure your boss just tossed all the rules,” Jackie snapped, “or do you think I won’t do it?”

“Vumo R-” he said, pausing with an anguished look on his face. He seemed to steady himself and gave his head a small shake. “Vumo Vae has faced far worse than either of us and lived. Even as he - as he is, you cannot hope to face him.”

The elevator door slid open, and Jackie stepped in. “Where’d he go?” she asked.

Sjogydhu closed his eyes and shuddered. “The gateway,” he said, almost inaudibly. “He will try to flee the city.”

She punched a control and the doors slid shut, leaving Sjogydhu standing alone on the rooftop. The car began to drop down, and in the solitude Jackie’s knees buckled. Her heart hammered against her ribs, her breath coming in desperate gasps. Raw, screaming hatred thundered through her, and her hand closed tighter around the crystal until its facets drew blood from her palm.

And through the pain, the hatred echoed back. It was jarring enough that it shook her from her reverie, setting her heart pounding anew. “What-” She held up her hand, looking at it with a sudden stab of fear. “No, no, don’t do this,” she groaned. “I have to-”

take from those who took from me

She staggered, her mind spinning. “No,” she said again, clenching her fist. “You don’t get a second swing at me. Not now.”

take from those who took from us

Jackie looked at her hand again, a nervous, manic giggle slipping out. “He was right,” she said. “You do whisper, after all.” She fanned her fingers out, then closed her eyes as the elevator roared downward. She could feel it there, now that she knew what to look for - a pulsing knot of tormented emotions surging back and forth through her, the searing pain of a treasured friend’s loss - drawn out, now, to its twin in her own heart.

“No, no,” she breathed. “Shut up, shut up, shut up.”

It paused, seeming to sense her attention, and she caught the sense of an outstretched hand. An offer - a bargain.

take from those who took from us

“Shit,” Jackie muttered, slumping against the wall of the elevator. “Shit, shit, shit.” The charge crystal slipped from her hand, clattering dull and lightless to the floor of the elevator. The rumbling around them stopped as the car reached the bottom of its shaft and opened onto the mid-level floor.

Her pulse was slow and steady as she stepped off the elevator into the near-total dark of the hallway. She raised her hand and flicked a ball of light casually into the air - then stopped, staring at it in surprise. The light swept forward to hover over the tracks in the dust, chief among them an awkward, dragging trail made by a man with an injured leg.

“Sure,” she said. “Mine first.”