He looked out over the district. Then his hand settled on her shoulder.
"Let's go, Miss Lan."
One hour earlier. Eastern District, the defensive positions along the river.
Seven hours.
Marcus Hale sat beneath a sheet of canvas tied between four wooden poles.
Outside its shade, the sun was merciless. Light struck the pale ground so hard that he had to narrow his eyes whenever he looked toward the road.
He was looking at the roof instead.
A seam in the canvas. A frayed cord. A patch someone had sewn over an old tear.
His eyes rested on them without taking anything in.
The entire front has collapsed.
The fighting had grown quieter since they closed the canal gates into Central. Quieter still after the RMO battalions finally listened to him and used their catalysts to boil away most of the river.
Magic. Catalyst Essence. Whatever they call it.
Orenthel did not even have a state-issued textbook for catalysts. Every instructor taught the subject differently. He supposed it was hardly surprising that people gave him different explanations.
The river had gone down. That was what mattered.
Beyond the shelter, someone coughed. An officer sitting on the ground tried to open a flask with both hands and gave up.
Marcus kept staring upward.
Nearly twenty percent of our personnel in seven hours.
And theirs? Have we even eliminated five percent? Six? of them..?
The troops had been whispering about mounted scouts. Enemy outriders sent around their positions before dawn, waiting somewhere behind them for a retreat.
Rumors. No one had brought him a report he could verify.
But no one had brought him proof that the way back was clear, either.
Why can't I find something better for these people?
His hands lay loose between his knees.
This is why I never got past Deputy. Someone better would have—
"Deputy."
A hand settled on his shoulder.
Marcus lowered his head.
Rafael stood beside him, his brown hair dusty and his coat hanging open at the throat. Around them, soldiers sat curled against the poles or hunched over their rifles on the ground.
"Oh. It's you." Marcus tried to focus. "What is it?"
"Emil… still hasn't come back?"
Marcus's mouth opened.
"I saw him go up to support the front," Rafael continued. "His unit got back with the RMO at five this morning. So where did he go?"
Marcus had no answer.
It was a simple question. It should have required a simple answer: another position, another assignment, a place they could send someone to look.
Instead, he saw the wounded men outside the shelter. The empty spaces in the squads. The people sitting here, too tired to ask how much longer they had to hold.
Army. Military Police. RMO.
Every one of them seemed to be waiting for something he had failed to give.
"Deputy?"
"O-oh."
He brought a hand over his face.
Slowly. Casually. As though he only needed to rub the tiredness from his eyes.
We've been fighting since three in the morning. It's ten now. Being tired would be perfectly reasonable.
He held that explanation ready in case anyone asked.
He was the only senior officer left here.
Even the RMO had run out of leaders. Their section commanders had been assassinated in their sleep before the wall fell. Most of their captains had used their speed-enhancing equipment to escape into Central. The commanders above them had all been ordered back to protect the capital.
The rank and file remained.
The Army soldiers, the Military Police officers, the RMO recruits who had worked so hard to get into the most coveted service in Orenthel—all of them needed someone with the authority to tell them what came next.
Someone who might have an order that led somewhere.
At this point, perhaps anyone who could give an order at all.
And he was the one sitting in front of them.
I can't let them see.
"Are you all right, Deputy?"
"Yes. Yes, I'm fine."
Marcus lowered his hand just enough to look at Rafael.
"Bright today, isn't it? Hurts the eyes. Just resting them."
"Right."
Rafael waited a moment.
"Then what do we do next?"
Marcus went still.
Outside the shelter, a crate scraped against the ground.
An RMO officer climbed onto it.
Redcoat, Marcus thought vaguely. That was probably his rank.
"What the hell are we waiting for?"
Heads turned.
"Nobody's attacking us! Stop being afraid of some stupid rumor. What do we get out of sitting here?"
The man pointed toward Central.
"Come with me. We're going back. That story about them sending something behind us from the start—how does that even make sense? You think they're that fast?"
"He's right!"
"Yeah!"
The answers came slowly at first.
Then more of them.
RMO personnel began getting to their feet. A soldier reached for his pack. Another slung his rifle and hurried over before the group could leave without him.
The man on the crate had offered no evidence.
He had offered a direction.
For people who had spent hours waiting for a better one, that was enough.
"Deputy," Rafael said quietly. "Should we try it?"
Marcus looked toward the gathering group.
"Hey! MP!" someone called. "Are you coming or not? What do you get out of sitting there all curled up?"
Several of his officers turned toward him.
They were asking permission with their eyes.
Marcus lowered his head.
"Please…"
He could not finish it.
He had nothing to put after the word. No promise. No plan he could ask them to stay for.
"I won't force you to remain," he said. "You can go."
About three in ten of the Military Police stood and joined the others. Most of them were young.
Marcus watched their boots pass beyond the edge of the canvas.
The Redcoat jumped down from his crate.
"We're leaving! If you want to rot here, that's your choice!"
He directed the words toward the shelter.
Then he faced his followers.
"We move as quietly as possible. Once we're near the gate, we'll shout up to the wall. There should still be people stationed there. They'll open it when they see us."
A short time earlier. On the wall.
"Hey!"
Two men in Palace Affairs Special Ops uniforms stood on the battlement.
The guards turned toward them.
"Shit. Palace Affairs," one officer muttered to the man beside him.
"An order from Her Majesty," said the red-haired man. "Everyone off the wall."
He smiled.
"And if you won't climb down, she said I can kick your asses over the edge. Ha!"
A guard glanced toward the Eastern District below.
"But at a time like this, sir, shouldn't we stay at our posts? We can monitor the situation. If another attack comes, we could give warning before—"
"Yes, sir," another added. "And we haven't received any written orders."
The red-haired man's smile faded.
"You want it in writing?"
"Keep your temper, Third."
The other man spoke coolly, with the measured courtesy of an officer conducting routine business.
Black hair brushed the back of his collar as he reached inside his coat.
"Here. Her Majesty's order."
He unrolled a document.
The nearest guard leaned forward.
The paper rolled shut again.
"Could I have another moment to—"
"What the hell else do you want? He showed you!"
The guard recoiled at Third's voice. His heel struck the stone behind him.
"My apologies, sir!"
"Then get moving—"
"A moment, gentlemen."
An RMO captain stepped out from beside the watch post.
He looked from one visitor to the other.
"I am responsible for this watch. Is there a problem?"
The black-haired man opened the document again.
He held it out.
Then took it back before the captain reached the end.
"Let me examine it properly, please."
"You've seen enough."
"Give it to me."
"No."
"For verification—"
"Third."
The spear went through the captain before he could finish.
For a moment, the men behind him did not understand what they were seeing.
Third pulled his weapon free.
"Could've done that from the start, Second."
He threw the captain over the Eastern parapet.
Someone screamed.
A guard fumbled his rifle upward. Another backed toward the stairs and collided with the man behind him.
"Fire! They're—"
Three shots cracked across the battlement.
Then came the sound of a rifle striking stone.
Another voice broke off.
By the time the wall fell quiet, no one remained to challenge the order.
The bodies went over the parapet.
Every one of them.
Into the Eastern District.
Below the wall. Eastern District.
The departing group slipped into a narrow street.
It was the shortest route they had found to Central, a passage between buildings where they hoped they could move without attracting notice.
Back at the shelter, the empty spaces were easy to count.
Only two in ten of the RMO personnel had stayed. Three in ten of the Army soldiers.
Seven in ten of the Military Police remained.
Marcus looked at them.
"Why didn't you go?"
An officer shifted his rifle across his knees.
"How long have we worked with you, Deputy?" Rafael replied.
"We trust you," a woman beside him said. "If anyone can find the best way through this, you can."
Marcus could not meet her eyes.
A young RMO officer approached the shelter.
"I think so, too, sir."
Marcus looked up.
"Your order to lower the water was a good one. If the river were still there, their main force might already be taking boats into Central."
The young man glanced toward the riverbed.
"We destroyed a route they wanted to use. That's probably part of why it's so quiet now. They'll have to rethink a few things with most of the river gone."
"And most of our catalysts are nearly spent," an RMO woman added.
She held hers loosely in her lap.
"Boiling off that much water took a lot out of us. Resting until we recover is safer."
She gave him a tired smile.
"We think you've led us well."
Marcus stared at her.
These young people trust an MP officer?
Me?
The young man drew a breath.
"Mr. Hale. If you can…"
He straightened.
"Could we have an order?"
Rafael's hand was still on Marcus's shoulder.
"Deputy. Anything."
Marcus looked at him.
"I trust you."
"Anything, sir," another officer said.
"Just tell us what to do."
Marcus raised his hand to his face again.
For a moment, he could not stop the tears.
He wiped them quickly with the heel of his palm, keeping his head lowered until he was certain his voice would hold.
Then he stood.
"Find a tall building. We'll go there."
"Understood!"
They rose with him.
A factory stood a short distance from the river.
A nameplate above its entrance read ORENTHEL LEAP.
Marcus led them through the door.
Inside, enormous pipes crossed the walls and disappeared through the ceiling. Some were wide enough that Rafael could have stood upright inside them.
A faint glow ran along their joints.
"Those are huge," he said. "Gas pipes? But why are they glowing?"
"I don't know. Keep moving. Upstairs."
They climbed past darkened windows and silent machinery.
On the roof, the sun struck them again.
Marcus moved to the edge and looked down between the neighboring buildings.
The departing column was still visible.
"Lie flat," he ordered. "Rifles toward that group."
The officers dropped behind the low rooftop wall.
Rafael settled beside him, brought his rifle forward, and glanced at Marcus.
"Why are we pointing our guns at them?"
"I didn't order you to fire at them. Just be ready."
The Redcoat's group was making good progress.
The lane was barely wide enough for two people abreast. They moved between blank walls and shuttered windows, stepping over debris and squeezing past an overturned cart.
Nothing had come after them.
Nothing had appeared ahead.
Someone near the middle of the column began to laugh.
"Good thing we came."
"Right? We're halfway there already."
"We're going home!"
The words traveled backward through the group.
A soldier raised his fist. Another answered him, louder.
For a few moments, the narrow street filled with cheers.
"Hey. Keep it down—"
A shadow crossed the lane.
Above them, a huge Omen beast launched itself from a roof.
Its forelimbs spread wide. Violet distortions crawled over its body as it dropped toward the crowded street.
The nearest soldiers looked up.
There was nowhere to scatter.
"Fire."
Marcus's order was clear and immediate.
The rifles answered together.
The beast twisted in the air.
Its leap broke sideways under the volley. It struck the wall, crashed into the lane ahead of the column, and lay still.
No one beneath it had been hit.
For a heartbeat, the soldiers simply stared.
Then the shouting began.
"Back! Get back!"
"Who's firing?"
"Move! You're blocking—"
Another shape crawled over a roof.
Then another.
The column buckled as the people at its front tried to retreat into those still pushing forward. Rifles caught on straps. Someone fell, and two others hauled him upright before he disappeared under their feet.
An RMO officer thrust his catalyst upward.
The blast left his hand too high.
It burst over the rooftops, bright enough to be seen across the district.
The light had barely begun to fade when two figures appeared above the lane.
"There you are."
A red-haired man stood on the roofline beside a man with black hair.
Both wore Palace Affairs uniforms.
Below them, someone stopped shouting.
The red-haired man looked down at the packed street.
"Our little mice."
Second and Third.
The defectors.