The Invasion of the Tearling

“A barricade of old furniture and tents won’t hold up for long.”


“But it has to. Ask the Queen for extra lumber if you need to, but get it done. We’ll meet you there as soon as the evacuation’s complete.”

Griffin turned and strode away. Hall returned his attention to the battlefield and saw that the Tear had already begun to retreat, inching up the gentle slope at the bottom of the knoll. He looked down at Bermond’s corpse and felt sorrow and exhaustion heave up inside him, but there was no time for either. The Mort were slowly creeping up the slope, accelerating the retreat. A deep voice bellowed orders behind the Mort line, and Hall knew, somehow, that it was General Ducarte, close to the battle now. Ducarte wasn’t one to hang back and keep his hands clean. He had come to see blood.

“You.” Hall pointed to the two infantrymen. “Go with Griffin. Take the general’s body back to New London.”

They lifted Bermond’s body and carried it down the other side of the knoll, toward the horses. Hall followed their passage for a moment, then lifted his eyes to the refugee camp. Defenseless people, an entire city.

One more day, he thought, watching the Mort mass at the weakest point of the Tear line and charge, swords and freshly polished armor gleaming in the sunlight. They went through the Tear easily, breaking the line even as Hall’s soldiers scrambled to get back up the hill. Tear soldiers swarmed in, bolstering the gap, but the damage was done; there was a hole in Hall’s formations now, and they would have no time to regroup. The Mort pressed their advantage, massing at the weak point, forcing the Tear to fall backward and accommodate them. Bermond was dead, but Hall could still feel him somewhere, on the next hill perhaps, watching and evaluating, waiting to see what Hall would do next. The sun broke through the clouds and Hall drew his sword, relieved to find new life in the muscles of his arm, to find himself more awake than he had been in a long time. The Mort tore through the Tear line, a black mass that could not be defeated, and General Hall charged down the hill to meet them.





CHAPTER 11


BLUE HORIZON


In the decade before the Crossing, the American Security apparatus took thousands of alleged separatists into custody. The sheer number of detainees convinced the American government, as well as the public, that Security was winning the war on domestic terrorism. But this single-minded focus on demonstrable results also blinded the government to the real issue: an enormous fault beneath the American surface, unseen, that was finally beginning to crack.

—The Dark Night of America, GLEE DELAMERE

DORIAN WAS GONE.

Lily stood in the doorway of her nursery, blinking. Dorian was gone, and so were the medical supplies, the extra clothes that Lily had given her. The nursery was still as always, full of tiny dust motes that floated in the late-morning sun. No one would know that Dorian had ever been there.

Of course Lily hadn’t expected her to say good-bye, but she had thought there would be more time. Now William Tear had come in the night and taken Dorian away. Lily turned and walked back down the hall, all of her pleasure in the morning suddenly evaporated. What was she supposed to do now? She was supposed to play bridge later, with Michele and Christine and Jessa, but she saw now that she would have to call that off. There was no way she could sit there at the table with the three of them, gossiping and drinking whatever cocktail Christine favored this week. Something had shifted, and now there was no way for Lily to return to the world of small things.