1

The city, the mushroom fields, the decrepit factories latched onto the boundary walls like steel tumours – the pyromancers burned them all.

The canal overflowed with blue-fire. Liquid flame spilled onto the fields, hissing as it seeped into the blackened soil.

Sam wiped at her sweat-fogged lenses and almost fell. Thirty miles they must have walked, from one end of the city to the other. The pyros each carried fuel harnesses that weighed sixty pounds empty; Sam carried only the crest of the House of Dawn. The golden sunrise glittered on her coat, her gloves, her plague mask, telling the pyros that she, as a necromantic apprentice, was better than them. They walked past her, not caring.

Three pyros have already set up on the other end of the viaduct, pooling the last of the fuel into one ejector. They waited until all have crossed, then waited some more as Sam stumbled over the abutment, heat-dazed and barely conscious. She managed to crawl behind an outcrop, gasping. The pyros waited.

She waved.

Blue-fire poured out in a viscous torrent, so hot the windblast set her sleeves on fire. The viaduct softened, collapsed, and disintegrated in the fiery canal, and the last avenue into the city was no more.

Sam scratched out its tag on her clipboard, the last on her list. The pyros were already packed up and waiting. “Good job everyone,” she said. No one looked at her.

The Hill of Nine loomed, five miles away. Sam shuffled along in a daze, her eyes trained on the summit, where a yellow light endlessly blinked. Yellow meant the purging was over. For the next phase, she only needed to sit and watch.

A farmhouse appeared over the ridge. Twenty pyros in white robes patrolled its perimeter. An apprentice in a bright-orange suit stood at the door, his gaze fixed on the second-floor window where three faces were peeking out: a woman with two young girls.

It was too late to look the other way. The apprentice was waving at her; ignoring him will precipitate a formal complaint against her conduct.

The apprentice had the posture of a corpse. His shoulders were slumped, his trousers tattered, as if chewed through. His hair hung limp with a coat of ash. He shook Sam’s hand with the strength of a windblown leaf.

“Help me,” he muttered. “I was on the palisade. Had a long day.”

The pyros watched the house from every approach. The woman was yelling, but the wind would not let her speak.

“Maestro Finley doesn’t allow witnesses,” the apprentice added, mostly to himself.

“You don’t need me,” said Sam.

“Where are you from? Please, you do it. I need a take a break.”

“I was also on the palisade.”

“I don’t care.”

His orders arrived by courtesy of an ambler. It sprinted into the courtyard, faster than any runner. Its neck was broken; its head dangled and bounced with every step. The left half of its face was putrefied; chunks of rotten flesh had fallen away, revealing a mess of tendon and bone. Jittering in its eye sockets were two pieces of quartz, one twice the size of the other. There was a cut on its hip. Purple infusion gushed out in spurts, drenching its orange overalls. Dehydrated intestines slapped at its calves.

The ambler held out a piece of paper. The apprentice ignored it, mouthing words in silence. The woman and her children disappeared into the house. A pyro took the slip, gave it a long look, then gestured at their colleagues. Two of them still had fuel. They stepped up, fuses lit. Waiting.

Sam looked away, and looked away, and looked away. After an eternity, the apprentice spoke.

“Burn them.”