Sakthi paces back over the walls. He has a few other soldiers monitoring the horizon with binoculars and telescopes, but, as Burdar so accurately put it, without knowing exactly what they’re looking for, it’s a little hard to adequately prepare.
Sakthi doesn’t want to admit it—he is, like nearly every Saypur officer, a patriot to the core—but he’s been feeling increasingly ambivalent about his service here in Voortyashtan. From the instant Saint Zhurgut surfaced in the Solda Bay, everything has gone to hells. General Biswal seemed so confident when he led the expedition out into the highlands to pursue the insurgents, but what they met was anything but conventional combat: it was ambush after ambush, and when they began to prepare for the ambushers they found it increasingly difficult to separate civilian from insurgent. And when Sakthi returned with Biswal’s few elite officers, he found it impossible to determine if they were close to fulfilling their primary objective: Had the people they’d driven out of the highlands really been the planners of the attacks? Or had they been just a handful of shepherds with riflings in the wrong place at the wrong time? Either way, Biswal seemed content to treat it as a victory.
But now, to come back and discover some kind of invasion has been brewing on their very doorsteps…It’s unthinkable.
And if all that wasn’t bad enough, what in the world is wrong with Sergeant Major Pandey? Ever since the news spread of the polis governor’s assassination, the man has been in a melancholy fury. Burdar even reported he’d stumbled across the sergeant sitting on the edge of the coastal walls, weeping.
Burdar speaks up: “Sir? Sir!”
Sakthi paces over to him. “Do you have something, Sergeant?”
“Things, sir,” says Burdar, squinting into the telescope.
“What?”
“I have somethings, sir,” says Burdar. “Many, ah…Many things…” He positions the telescope just right, then backs away so Sakthi can take his place.
Captain Sakthi crouches down and puts his eye to the telescope. It takes a minute for the optics to make sense to him. At first he thinks he’s seeing a strand of electric lights, dangling out there on the waves, but then he realizes he can see forms in the light.
They’re not lights. They’re ships. Glowing ships, ancient ships with sails and oars and pointed prows, but still ships.
He tries to count their number. His eye flexes in and out of focus. It seems like he’s seeing the night sky, with a million twinkling stars before him.
Sakthi clears his throat. “Sound the alarm,” he says hoarsely. “Now.”
***
Mulaghesh flips the dead guard over and strips her of her uniform. It feels deeply dishonest to do such a thing, and the uniform is bloodied, but it’s better than running around with her fatigues stained an unearthly red from the City of Blades. And she may have need of the pistol and sword.
Sigrud sits still and placid as Mulaghesh describes what she discovered, what she saw in Rada Smolisk’s house, what Biswal did and said. Sigrud is no longer weeping, but an awful, cold stillness has seeped through him, as if he’s stepped behind a veil of ice and she can no longer see the man behind it.
“So we must destroy these swords,” he says softly.
“Yeah. Biswal has them here, or so he told me. He’ll either have them in his quarters, or he’ll have them in the thinadeskite labs, down below.”
“You’re sure?”
“As sure as I can be. We need to split up. I don’t like it, but time is of the essence—if we even have any left. I might be able to make this uniform work until I get to him. Do you think you can sneak down to the labs on your own?”
Sigrud nods, not a trace of doubt in his face. “Many of the lower parts of the fortress are deserted. Everyone is on the walls, manning the coastal batteries.”
She shakes her head. “By the seas, he’s serious about trying to fight them. Let’s go. If you don’t find the swords, come to Biswal’s quarters. If I don’t, I’ll do the same and come to the labs. Does that work?”
He nods. “Then let’s go. The main stairway is this way.”
They walk down the hallway. Mulaghesh keeps her carousel up and quietly opens the door.
She stares at what lies beyond, turning pale. “By the seas…”
“What?” says Sigrud, behind her. “What is it?”
She looks at him. “You don’t know?”
“Should I?”
She grimaces and pushes the door open. There at the foot of the stairs are four corpses, all Saypuri soldiers, all abominably ravaged and mutilated. One man has been disemboweled, another dismembered. One soldier sits in the corner with a rifling bayonet thrust up into his abdomen. On one, a woman, she sees teeth marks on her face and neck.
Sigrud stares at the carnage. “I…I did this?”
Mulaghesh doesn’t bother answering. They’ll kill him for this, she thinks. There must have been witnesses. They’ll never forgive him, never let this go. Hells, I’m not even sure if I can.
Then the sirens start to wail: a low, rising note of alarm that echoes throughout the hallways of the fortress. The very sound of it makes all of Mulaghesh’s hair stand up on end.
Sigrud looks up at the ceiling. “What is that?”
Mulaghesh listens as more and more sirens begin to join until it’s a shrieking chorus. “Oh, no,” she says quietly. “Oh, no, no no.”
“What is it?”
“Damn! Damn it all! It means the ships must have been spotted!”
“The…Voortyashtani ships?”
“Yes, damn it! It means that even if we did destroy the swords, it’s too late!”
“What options do we have now?”
Mulaghesh is about to say nothing: the invasion is here and there’s nothing they can do about it save fight, and lose. But then she recalls one of the last things Thinadeshi said to her: It’s a token, a symbol. It can be unlocked, unfolded, interpreted to be many things. You can do many deeds with it if you use it the right way, if you think about it the right way.
“Our hand’s all played out,” she says quietly. “Except for one thing. But I’m not sure what I’m even supposed to do with it.”
“Do with what?” says Sigrud.
She looks at him, jaw set. “The sword of Voortya.” She describes what it looks like to him.
“And what will you do with this sword?”
“I’m not sure—but I know it’s a weapon of terrific power. I just don’t know how to activate it….Maybe you have to get close to the sentinels for it to work—it’s almost powered by them, in a way. But if Biswal took it, odds are it’s wherever the swords are, too. So, again—the labs and Biswal’s quarters.”
“The plan hasn’t changed, then.”
“Oh, hells, yes it’s changed,” says Mulaghesh. “It means we need to book it twice as fast! Come on!”
***
Mulaghesh looks behind her as she trots up the stairs to Biswal’s quarters. It’s hard to sneak about with these sirens wailing all around her, as she can’t hear if anyone’s ahead of or behind her, but so far these areas are deserted. Everyone’s manned the walls, as Sigrud claimed.