Mulaghesh wakes and immediately regrets it. Her brain feels like one giant bruise. She groans and lifts her left hand to touch her brow, and remembers only too late that her hand is made of metal. It clunks into her face, causing her injury to flare up furiously. She moans pitifully and shakes her head. The back of her scalp grinds on a stone floor.
She frowns and opens her eyes. She’s in a jail cell, lit with an electric light. There’s only one place in Voortyashtan she knows of that has electricity….
It all comes back to her like a dream.
The swords.
“Hey!” she says. “Hey, somebody!”
Silence.
She forces herself to sit up. It feels like something in her head is sloshing around uncomfortably, a dense fluid that might break through her skull’s fragile walls. She feels her brow—with the correct hand this time—and finds her face is crusty with blood. Biswal must have nearly cracked her head open.
There’s not much to see through the bars of her cell door: there’s just a blank stone wall on the other side, dark and molded, with a fluttering electric light above it. Mulaghesh stands—this takes a lot longer than she expected—walks to the door, and leans on it.
She checks her pockets. Her holster is gone, of course, as is the rest of her gear. So is the sword of Voortya, she realizes. It could be very bad if someone threw that away, not knowing what it is.
She puts as much of her face as she can through the bars and looks down the hallway. There are just more cells to her left, but to her right about twenty yards down is a private in a dark red beret standing at attention, hands behind her back. She’s too far away for Mulaghesh to see her name, but she can see the chevrons on her uniform, so she knows her rank. The door beside her is thick iron with a small glass window in its center. This must be an old part of the fortress, because none of the doors or bars look at all modern to Mulaghesh.
“Hey,” says Mulaghesh. Her voice hasn’t been used in some time, so she has to clear her throat. “Hey, Private! Listen. Listen, I’ve…Damn, my head hurts…I’ve got to speak to Biswal! I’ve got to! I don’t know what he thinks is going on, but he’s wrong, he’s…he’s wrong!”
The private is completely still. She barely blinks.
“Listen,” says Mulaghesh. “It sounds crazy, Private, but…But we’re about to be under attack. Another Divine attack is about to happen! I swear it’s true, and we’ve got to act now! I wouldn’t believe it, either, but…”
The private slowly blinks again, staring into space.
Mulaghesh summons up all of her air and bellows, “Damn it all, Private! I might be in a jail cell but I am still your superior officer, so you had damned well better hop to an order when it’s given to you! A critical threat is imminent and it is both my duty and yours to respond!”
Nothing. It’s as if the woman’s deaf.
“Ah, hells,” says Mulaghesh. “You’re not going to listen to me no matter what I say, are you?”
The private blinks again.
“Well, shit,” says Mulaghesh, and she sits down on the ground and tries to think.
***
Captain Sakthi sits in the large conference room of Fort Thinadeshi, trying to stay awake. They’ve been riding nearly all day and all night, so it’s a struggle just to sit upright, let alone remain conscious. He glances around at Major Hukkeri and the other senior officers and can tell right away that they feel the same. They’re already briefed on the new Dreyling threat. What could General Biswal’s meeting possibly be about that could be so important?
The door opens and Biswal walks in, hands thoughtfully clasped behind his back. There is a strange pride and energy to him: his back is a little too straight, his stride a little too jaunty. It’s hard to tell if he’s pleased or furious.
He takes the podium and turns to his officers. “Thank you for being here with me tonight,” he says quietly. “I know the past days have not been easy on you. We do not have much time, so I will cut to the point. We have recently discovered a long-running plot by the Dreylings to conceal Divine Voortyashtani artifacts collected from the ocean floor. My suspicion is that they did so because they feared that we would shut down the harbor project to prevent any unknown side effects. However, their duplicity has had grave effects—for, due to their actions, we are about to witness another Divine attack on our way of life. And it is our duty to defend these shores.”
The room is dead silent.
“General Mulaghesh, I have discovered, was part of the Dreylings’ conspiracy,” says Biswal. “She and CTO Harkvaldsson plotted to assassinate Polis Governor Rada Smolisk, who had deduced their crime. I am grieved now to tell you that General Mulaghesh succeeded in this. And, as there is no honor among thieves or traitors, she also murdered CTO Harkvaldsson in order to cover up her actions. We have apprehended the general, and now have her in holding in the prison.
“Justice will be done. But first, we must fight. The traitorous general confessed that the Divine attack would be coming in by sea, an invasion of Voortyashtan itself. We now have the upper hand, my proud officers of Saypur. We are aware of the attack before it comes. And if we fight, and fight nobly, we will be the victors—and we will be heroes the likes of which will never be forgotten. And all the foolishness our nation has become involved in here on the Continent, all the waste and the stupidity, all of that will end after tonight.”
Sakthi glances around at the other officers. Some stare at the general in naked horror, others in teary-eyed admiration.
“Now, go,” says Biswal. “Go and man the walls, prepare our defenses, and ready your troops. By morning, we will be legends.”
***
Seventy miles south of the city of Voortyashtan, the cargo ship Heggelund makes its final leg of the trip to the newborn harbor. Captain Skjelstad has made this trip several times in his career, shipping raw goods back and forth between Voortyashtan and Ahanashtan, but this is the largest shipment he’s piloted yet: ten thousand tons of Ahanashtani cement, to be used in the overhaul of the Solda River. By his calculations the Heggelund is set to arrive before 0200, just in time for SDC to begin its work.
At least, that’s what his calculations say. But tonight, something…is not right. As he stands in the bridge, consulting his countless nautical maps and timetables, he tries to prove that the impossible has not happened, even though all of his metrics and equipment says it most definitely has.
He checks the maps again.
Then he checks the barometer and the speed gauges and the fuel supply.
He pushes his hat back and scratches his head. “What in all the hells…”
They’re consuming fuel at an incredibly high rate, but they shouldn’t be—they should be on the Great Western Current, the oceanic current that not only keeps Voortyashtan’s bay warm, but also moves along the coast at a great speed, making it an excellent channel for shipping, meaning they’d use less fuel.
But they aren’t. Over the past two hours they’ve used an absurd amount of fuel, and have been going well under speed.