Oh no. Corva can feel Zeke’s entire body stiffen. He’s on her back again, but she can feel his paws dig into her shoulder through her go-bag’s straps. An overwhelming sense of dread—Zeke’s dread—floods the back of her mind. She leans forward, her knee digging into the debris of the rooftop.

“What? Are you hurt?”

Zeke shudders. This is bad. Really bad.

“Well, could you worry without moving so much? You’re not making it any easier to get out of this hole.” She tries to reach up with her second pair of arms and realizes they’re no longer there. All that remains of them are some smudges of ash and blood along a pair of tears in her shirt. They must have puffed away when they fell. Her concentration lapsed and her new arms were no more.

With some effort, though, she’s able to push herself up to more stable footing on the roof. Standing, she lets out a heavy breath, half in celebration of not dying, half in surprise—also of not dying.

Zeke’s attention is somewhere else entirely. We’re out of reach of the closest militia station. And you don’t have any comms on you.

“What are you talking about, Zeke? You’re not making any sense.” To Corva’s right, she hears the first Umbrati grunt begin to scramble amongst the rubble near where she stands. So much for having time to celebrate.

She sidesteps the charging grunt. As it brushes by, she reaches out across its face. The moment her fingertips find the edge of the steel plate on its face, she grips down and yanks toward herself. There’s a cracking snap in the grunt’s neck as its head twists completely backward.

Watching the grunt’s collapsed body skid to a stop in front of her, she sees the little monkey’s hand break her peripheral vision, pointing through their fog of dust at a rough form on another rooftop in front of them. He’s there. He must be desperate.

“Who?”

Another grunt scrambles over the edge of the roof behind them. It carries a heavy club on its back. A steel plate covers its entire face.

Thegn. Thegn is desperate.

“Good! That means he’s scared. We can beat him and he knows it.” The dust around them starts to settle and Corva gets a clearer view of Thegn as he lowers himself to rest on his knees. The rat on his shoulder looks to be gently swaying from side to side.

Corva notices the club-carrying grunt. It’s reaching over the edge of the rooftop to help pull another one up. If she’s not careful, there’s going to be a whole swarm of them. She gets an idea. It’ll be hard to concentrate while still talking to Zeke, but she thinks she can do it.

You don’t understand. Zeke’s arm pulls back out of view and Corva gets the feeling that he’s buried his face in his palms. I’d hoped that our training would’ve awakened more of your latent memories. It seems that’s not the case.

She feels his hand reach out and pull her chin to the right so she can see him on her shoulder. His face is right up close to hers; it’s almost startling. Something has really gotten to him. It shows in his eyes. Their vertical slitting always made him look a little strange, a little difficult to read. But now, now it’s clear. Zeke is worried. He—Thegn is going to mark Bule.

“What does that mean?” As she says this, her attention shifts fully to the club grunt. She can see what it sees. Well, it’s not seeing, exactly. For one, that steel plate is covering its eyes. But all of its other senses are amplified. It can sense the world around it. And so can she. It’s almost better than seeing. She has total control. Halfway through pulling its comrade to the roof, the grunt reaches up and grabs the heavy club off its back, swinging with full force at the other’s head, flattening it against the grunt’s own shoulders. Corva can’t help but smile a little.

Having fun?

“Hey, I’m buying you time to explain what’s going on. Don’t change the subject.” She has the heavy club grunt pace at the roof’s edge, periodically swinging at any other grunt close enough to climb over.

Zeke gives his little monkey version of a sigh. Alright. You know that streak of white in Jack’s hair? He waits for her to nod slowly. Do you remember how he said he got it?

Corva works her way to the edge of the roof, keeping an eye on Thegn. He just seems to be sitting on his knees, not doing anything. But wait, Zeke just asked a question. Something about Jack’s hair. That white streak. “Yeah, he said he got it when he and Lyia escaped the Shadowfold. Said it was Death’s Mark—oh.”

It suddenly dawns on her what’s going on. “He’s going to kill everyone in town?”

Exactly that. Did Jack ever tell you how the Shadowfold was defeated?

“He didn’t have to. Everyone knows that. It was the only time the Karui and Umbrati worked together to take out a common enemy.” WHAM. Another grunt gets a club to the head.

Not quite. It wasn’t the only time. But more importantly, it wasn’t the joint attack that got them. The Shadowfold was actually weathering the siege successfully. No. It ultimately took Thegn’s ability to defeat them. He marked everyone in their compound. Anyone who carried his mark was killed.

“Except for Jack and Lyia. How’d they get out of it?” Thunk!

That part is unclear. Jack doesn’t seem to remember and Lyia hasn’t told anyone who’s asked.

“So you’re saying we need to take him out before he gets those marks on everyone? I can handle that.”

No!

But it’s too late. Corva is already moving. She feels Zeke’s grip tighten on her pack’s straps to avoid falling off. It only takes a few fast steps and a couple long jumps for her to leap to the rooftop Thegn is kneeling upon.

Right when she lands, though, she can tell that something is wrong. Something is off. It’s a familiar feeling, a comfortable one. She’s calm, relaxed. It’s the perfect time to lie down and sleep for a few hours. Maybe even the rest of the day.

CORVA! Zeke screeches through her mind like a million steel pipes dragging across a tin roof. Immediately, Corva snaps out of her daze and leaps back the way she came, landing just one rooftop away from Thegn’s position.

“What was that?”

Your impulsiveness will be the end of you if you’re not careful.

Concentrating, Corva checks her connection to the club grunt. It’s still good. She wills the thing to come to her current rooftop. “You didn’t answer my question, Zeke. What was that? Am I marked?”

No. I’m surprised you don’t recognize it. You were caught in the exact same trap earlier today. It was Caffiel.

“The rat?” Corva paces her rooftop, staring at Thegn as her club grunt works its way over, smashing the heads of other grunts along the way.

Zeke sighs. Yes, the rat. Besides amplifying the capabilities of the horseman we bond to, we sigils each have an innate ability befitting our disposition. Caffiel can selectively reduce inhibitions and sedate unwitting targets.

“He’s the sleepytime sigil?”

That’s a rather reductive way to put it. But yes. He’s manifested a fog of influence around Thegn. If you would’ve gotten any closer, you’d collapse and I wouldn’t be able to reach you at all. We can’t attack Thegn head-on. We can’t stop him from making his marks. We have to go. Now.

Corva thinks for a moment as her grunt finally clambers over the edge of her rooftop. “Hey Zeke, what’s you’re special sigil ability?”

You should hope that you never learn. Now let’s get Jack and get out of here.

“Why? If we can just get through that fog thing, we can beat him. I know we can.” Another grunt works its way to the rooftop in front of Corva. This one has a set of curved blades running along the length of its forearms, a sharpened tip at each end.

This town is lost. We need to make sure we don’t go with it.

“I can’t do that, Zeke.” Corva drops to a knee and picks up a large chunk of rock. “I can’t watch another town fall like Fareburne. Like my home. And—I can’t believe I’m saying this—I don’t think Jack would be too excited about seeing another place fall like the Shadowfold did. Now is where we finally stop the Old Beard.”

She scrunches her face, ducking a swing from the arm-blade grunt. Using the chunk of rock, she smashes the inside of the grunt’s forward knee. Unable to hold its own weight, the grunt collapses. Still holding the rock, Corva stands and swings upward, smashing the rock against the grunt’s lower jaw. The force of the blow straightens the grunt’s back, lifting its head above hers. In that moment, a heavy club swings above Corva and collides with the head of the arm-bladed grunt. A mist of blood puffs from the point of impact.

Face still scrunched, she keeps her eyes locked on Thegn, not bothering to watch the club grunt return to the edge of the roof behind her and resume its task of keeping more from climbing up.

Zeke shifts his weight, grabbing a dreadlock and swinging himself around the front of her face. The risk is too great. I’ve made a promise. Jack must live and I need you to help ensure that.

“What makes him so important?”

Nothing. For a fraction of a second, it seems like Zeke is hesitating, like he’s wrestling with sharing something more. But the expression is gone so fast that Corva thinks she could’ve imagined it. I just have promises to keep. Besides, he took you in. Helped heal you up. In his own way, he even helped you figure out who you really are. Surely that counts for something.

“Yeah, and I took him—and you, I’ll add—to his suicidal friend to heal up. That makes us even.” But as she says the words, her fists relax. The kid did stick out his neck for her more than once, despite trying to sell her out that first day. Her shoulders lower. “Fine. How much time do you think we’ve got?”

The Umbrati are likely to swarm his roof. There’s a chance they’ll break his concentration and slow him down a bit, but they won’t get through Caffiel’s fog. I think it’s best to hope that Jack and Lyia have already made it down to Cliff City through whatever route Jack knows about in Slim’s place.

“What about everyone else in Bule?”

She follows the little monkey’s gaze as he looks around. Most windows and doorways are dark and vacant, abandoned by the crowds holed up in the siege caves. With the exception of the grunts in the horde, Bule already feels empty and desolate. Zeke doesn’t turn back to her. He keeps looking around as he resumes his position on her shoulder. The world’s a horrible place.

Corva stands somewhat in shock, still processing, when she starts to feel a buzzing, burning feeling in her nose and ear canal. That feeling is immediately replaced with a pain unlike any she’s ever felt before. It’s sharp, like a balloon covered with spikes was just inflated inside her skull. Muffling a scream with her hand, she drops to her knees. She pulls her hand from her mouth. It’s covered in blood. She tastes it as it leaks over her lips and in the corners of her mouth. “What—What just happened?”

Corva! Are you okay?

She doesn’t respond. Something else is different. She spins just in time to see the heavy club grunt collapse. What used to be its head is now a meaty stump. All that’s left is its lower jaw. The steel plate that used to cover its face swings from the side, hinged by a single remaining rivet. A little bit farther behind her she hears a voice.

“Yeah-ha! Nanobots!”

Corva spits a small puddle of blood that’d drained into her mouth. “Jack. Idiota. Your timing is horrible.”