The whole building shook, and Corina had to hold on tightly so that she wasn't thrown to the ground. Then, when the rumbling and the ripping noises faded from her ears, she knew the building had freed itself from its foundations. The balcony tilted underneath her, first one way and then the next, and when it leveled itself, Corina opened her eyes and saw that the building was rising. As it lifted itself higher into the air, she caught her first glimpses of its newly grown, flesh and bone legs.

  They'd grown in the dirt underneath the building and there had been no way to check on their progress, but when she turned her head from side to side and saw them extending, poking out on all sides from the bottom of the dome like fifty-foot-long spider's legs, she knew they were a success. Great clumps of blackened dirt fell from their pale blue skin as Baba Yaga took her first steps.

  There was a moment of resistance. Then, the lab ripped itself free of the underground arteries grown into its base, and Corina heard them spray water and sugar sap against the bottom of the building's bone shell. Baba Yaga stepped away from her foundations and began to walk across the enclave.

  The Stitchlife Corina paid no attention to the bronze-skinned giants she saw in far-off manor-house windows gawking at the strange sight. Her eyes were fixed on her path to where the golem's stolen sands waited for her eight-legged arrival.

  The Guard scattered as Baba Yaga approached, and the fifty-foot-tall creature settled itself over the fallen golem's sands. The blackened automata was now entangled and bound to Corina's wreath; after the golem's collapse, it was hers to command. She closed her eyes, took control of it all, and grain by grain, it flowed up the walking lab's flesh and bone legs. The automata coated and covered them like armor before what was left of it formed a thick protective shell over the lab's underside.

  Mei Corina held on tight and laughed with triumph as Baba Yaga walked out the enclave's gate on her eight legs and ran North with astonishing speed.

  Chapter Six

  Hunting Hales

  They picked their way through the wooded wilds, and where sunlight shafts pierced the canopy, bright-lit patches speckled the half-rot mulch before them. Molly lead from her high perch on Juan Chang's saddle, and the General pointed her in the direction of the Hales.

  Teddy Da had vanished as Molly slept, but after shadowing them for several miles, he came closer and closer until he stepped out and walked alongside Juan Chang's horse.

  “What does it mean – 'Snicker-Snack'?” the giantess Lula asked him from behind. “I've heard you say it more than once, fur-belly. You say it when your claws come out. Why do you say it? Is it your battle cry?”

  “I say it,” the bear answered over the dusty brown fur of his shoulder, “because Kitty Hawk wrote me to say it. It's a reflex tied to my claws. I have no choice. The words are irresistible to me. When the claws come out, my voice must dance with them.”

  “But whatever does it mean?” she asked.

  The fur-covered shoulders rose and then fell in a surprisingly human gesture. “Judging from my experience, the words are a warning. They mean, 'You Are About To Die'.”

  Molly lifted her arm and guided them in the direction of a wide, crumbled blackstone path just visible through the woods, down a gentle-sloping hill. “What compass does the girl follow?” Antoine asked his brother. “How does she smell the Hales?”

  “She wears a Stitchlife's wreath,” Obin answered. “Perhaps she's guided by copper-blooded eyes or a polymorph avatar that spies the approaching column. But,” he reconsidered, “those take skill to control and training beyond her years, so perhaps she is guided by a construct too – a recreation of a human mind trapped inside the wreath – a mind-ghost.”

  “Is that true, Molly?” Juan Chang asked. “Can you or your mind-ghost see the Hales through some creature?” Molly didn't answer. Her wide-open eyes stared straight ahead like a corpse because the constructs had decided to share with her what they saw.

  It was dizzying.

  The view floated up and down, shifted left and right. Molly saw the Waltons' purple silk backs. Beyond them was the fur-belly and Juan Chang on his horse. As the view zipped past them, Molly shivered to hear wasp wings hum-beating in her ear. She caught a glimpse of herself before the wasp flew through the woods in front of her. The world tilted to either side as Vora Mbuntu's creature slalomed around trees, down the hill in front of them, and towards the ancient, blackstone scar running through the wilds.

  “Through the eyes of a wasp, Molly,” the General said, “I'll show you where to sting.”

  The world leaned on its side as the wasp broke from the trees and banked to follow the blackstone at the hill's bottom. It rose to show her the rolling, wooded hills on either side and the low mountain ridge ahead. Then, the wasp flew right at the mountain, but instead of climbing over it, Vora's creature sank lower over the crumbled blackstone until it flew only inches off the ground, and Molly saw the half-circle mouth in the mountainside ahead.

  The hole was as wide as the road, and as it swallowed Molly, her eyes fixed on the shining light from a far-away opening at the back of the mountain's throat. The wasp flew through the darkness, and the light grew larger and brighter until the wasp burst out of the dark into the lit world again and climbed. It flew over the blackstone road, through the wooded wilds, passed sparse ruins, and then, after it rose over a humping hill, Molly saw the Hales.

  It was the twenty-foot-tall, black, automata golems that drew Molly's eye first. The stone giants walked in front, three abreast down the road. They weren't as big as the one she'd seen the Stitchlife Fona become, but they were still fearsome. The wasp rose to fly over the shoulder of the middle golem, and then she saw the rest of the column clearly.

  A four-legged war chariot clomped on hoof-footed feet down the blackstone and carried the bronze-skinned figure she'd seen leading the Hales from the enclave. He wore an ornate, witch-bone breastplate and half-pant breeches. He wore a witch-bone helm, too, like the one she'd seen Fin Singh wear to control the Thunderbird.

  “That's Vargas Hale,” the General said. “Behind him and to his right is Cobb Hale, his firstborn son. Kill them both, and there's a chance the Hale family's war-party may turn back.”

  Behind Vargas Hale and his son were the rest of the Hales she'd seen departing their enclave, some on chariots and some on the backs of enormous, witch-grown war horses. They all had spears and sabers at their sides. “The strongest fighters of his family,” the General told her. “They're all witch-sped by Vora's hand, all of them deadly.”

  As the wasp passed over the nobles, Molly saw ranks upon ranks of mounted Guard. “These are not nobles, but natural-born men,” the General advised. “There are enough of them that their weapons make them dangerous to you.” Molly could see they all had some kind of musket slung over their shoulders. “Living rifles,” the General called them. “They spit poison thorns in great quantity.” The riders in the front of their ranks carried standards large enough for Molly to clearly see the image set on the blue flag's field – a man kneeling with a great sphere on his shoulders.

  Molly spied wagons full of food and drink and tents walking behind the Guard before the wasp turned and flew over them all again in reverse – over the Guard, over the nobles and Vargas Hale, over the three golem giants, down the humping, blackstone road and through the mountain tunnel – all the way back until Molly saw her own face in the wasp's view and heard its hum-buzzing wing-beats in front of her.

  Through her own eyes, she saw the bird-sized wasp hang in the air in front of her before it buzzed away and slalomed through the trees. The General walked alongside Juan Chang's horse. He smiled at her, and his black pompadour glinted blue when he passed through sun-lit shafts. “Strike them as they pass through the hole in the mountain, Molly,” he advised. “This is when they'll be most vulnerable. Their tall war-horses and fearsome, four-legged chariots are only for convenience of transport. They ride them on the way to battle in order to save their energy for fighting. And to look glorious.” He laughed at that. “But since their mounts are not witch-sped like they are, fighting atop them would feel like sitting on a statue in the middle of a battle.” The General laughed again. “And the beasts panic, too. They don't have the steadiness of mind and calm strength of true, war-bred steeds. And when they panic,” he said. “They're very hard to dismount. We will use this.”

  Molly nodded.

  “In the tunnel,” he said, “it's too low for their golems to pass, so they will have to be sent over the mountain. The Hale forces will be split there. The tunnel, Molly – that is where you will attack.”

  When Molly told Juan Chang and the rest of them what she'd seen through the wasp's eyes, they wore broad smiles all around. Juan Chang asked, “Obin, are all of the casks on your wagon filled with mead?”

  Obin shook his head, smiled wider, and showed even more of his pointy, Walton teeth.

  *****

  Vargas Hale's golems stood to the side as he halted his column in front of the tunnel's mouth. As he peered down its throat to the half-circle of light that marked the other side, his son, Cobb Hale rode up alongside him. “What are you waiting for?” Cobb asked. “Surely you're not thinking of going over this mound of rock, father. The tunnel looks perfectly clear.”

  Phoebe Hale walked her horse next to her brother's and peered down the tunnel's throat, too. “Do you smell some danger there?” she asked her father.

  Vargas closed his eyes and commanded his giants to climb over the low mountain and meet them on the other side. He opened his eyes to see the golems batting trees aside as they walked up the steep slope and beat a ragged path. A hundred yards up, it got steeper, and they had to climb on all fours before they could stand and walk again.

  “Our column will meet the golems on the other side,” he said. He drank from a blue-stained bladder skin, and after he wiped his mouth, he added, “It'll take them time to climb over the top and down again. We'll go after they reach the other side.”

  “But they'll drive game in front of them,” Cobb said. “As they crest the mountain and go down the other side, there will be deer running wild with fear. And boar, too. Perhaps even a bear. Let's go to the other side of the mountain before the golems and wait for the forest's bounty to run onto our spears!”

  Vargas Hale couldn't deny his son the sport he loved.

  *****

  “Why are you still here?” Molly whispered to the bear.

  “I told you,” he said. “I'm in your debt. And besides that, I'm getting hungry again.”

  “Tell us what you see, Molly,” Obin Walton said. She and the giant Waltons crouched to the right side of the tunnel mouth with Juan Chang and Teddy Da. They waited and baked in the open sun while the hungry, forest flies buzzed around them.

  Molly stared forward, blank-eyed while the General showed her the wasp's view. “The golems are climbing up the side of the mountain,” she said. “The column is halted. No, wait. They're moving now. They're entering the tunnel.”

  “When the trap is sprung,” Obin said, “we Waltons claim right of revenge. The Hales that exit the tunnel first are ours. And if Vargas Hale is among them,” he said to his siblings, “then he's mine. I'm the eldest, and I will be the one that avenges our sister.”

  “Vargas Hale killed your sister?” Juan asked.

  “His man, Fin Singh did,” Obin growled, “through his treachery and sabotage he buried her alive. Six others, too. His blood belongs on my blade along with Vargas Hale's.”

  “Fin Singh,” the Populist said. “If he's here then I want to kill him myself.” He didn't say why. “Me and Molly and Kitty Hawk's fur-belly will hold the mouth of the tunnel closed as long as we can,” Juan Chang said, “but when it's time to go, we go.”

  The bear sniffed the air and growled.

  *****

  As the Hales rode through the dark towards the half-circle of bright light in front of them, the shade-cooled, tunnel wind blew over them from behind. The hooves of their horses and chariots and wagons echoed around them, and water dripped from stalactites that hung off the cracked ceiling. The blackstone near the far end of the tunnel was wet with it, and the light reflected off the tunnel's floor so that they rode down a narrow, blinding path. It was a cool and calm subterranean road, and Vargas Hale was looking forward to watching his son kill whatever fled the game-beating golems. Cobb, Phoebe, and cousins Winton and Ebin Hale exited the tunnel first, eager for sport, and as they crossed the threshold into the light, Vargas watched them transform from silhouettes into bright-lit, full-volume figures.

  Then, his eye caught something tossed onto the blackstone from aside the tunnel's mouth. The sunlight behind it was too bright to see its little flame clearly, but the wisp of smoke that trailed from it didn't escape his eye. There was only time for a brief twinge of alarm before the last fifteen yards of the tunnel's blackstone ignited into an single, orange flame underneath him.

  Panic and fire and burning horsehair were everywhere.

  The flames rose in luminous, orange sheets while twirling curls of black, swirling smoke hung in the air above them. He glanced to the rear and saw the flame spreading further into the tunnel where the blackstone wasn't wet with water, he now knew, but with oil. Everywhere it spread, his noble blades struggled to dismount their rearing, statue-steeds. He felt his own chariot began to dip and twist underneath him with the pain of the flames that licked at its legs.

  The agonized, distorted cries of the horses echoed everywhere.

  In front of the tunnel's flame-toothed mouth, staring back at him through waving and warping air, Vargas Hale saw a common man, the little witch-sped girl from Wrecks' Landing, and a bipedal bear. And behind them was a battle.

  Purple silk-clad nobles lunged and struck at his kin still stuck atop their slow-moving mounts.

  Waltons.

  Cousin Ebin had tried to fight from his perch; he was already skewered on a Walton's lunge-thrust sword. As she withdrew her cutlass from Ebin's belly, Vargas saw the Walton woman's pointy-toothed grin. Ebin's brother, Winton had managed to dismount his useless horse, and he was behind her in mid-swing, but she sensed him in time to spin and block his strike.

  Next to them, his daughter Phoebe slashed at a Walton who shuffled back out of her swinging saber's arc. Behind her, Cobb had engaged a Walton he recognized. Obin Walton – a raider and invader of Hale lands for fifty years and a clever, battle-sharpened blade. Cobb was a good fencer, but not as good as Obin Walton, and Vargas Hale feared for his son.

  He dropped his flagged war-spear and vaulted the bone shell of his chariot to land in fire. On either side he saw kin who'd managed to dismount too, and like him they ran witch-sped through the flames, faster than the fire could burn their noble flesh.

  The queer trio in front of the tunnel's mouth hadn't moved. Eager to help his son, Vargas Hale ran at them, wild for breakthrough. The grinning commoner who blocked his path held a bush knife in one hand and an already firing flintlock pistol in the other. The man must have a death-wish, he thought.

  Vargas rolled to the right to avoid the ball that leaped from the pistol's sparking, vulgar mouth. He'd expected that. He hadn't expected the commoner to be witch-sped and fast enough to draw a second flintlock from his bracer and fire a ball on his other side, too. It was Juan Chang, it had to be. The witch-sped Populist lunged at him with his great-bladed bush knife, and with smoke and spinning ball slow-tearing the air on either side of him, Vargas Hale had nowhere to go. His saber wasn't in position to parry or strike. The Populist was reaching for a third pistol, and Vargas Hale screamed with rage because there was no choice but to retreat back through the flames.

  From inside the tunnel, on the far-side of the fiery no-man's-land, he saw that Tober and Sachi Hale both lay just outside the flames, and their color spread in pools on the ground. The girl's blade and the bear's claws were wet with it.

  Then, the three witch-sped abominations that guarded the tunnel's mouth turned and ran. The Waltons disappeared with them, and in their wake he saw a terrible sight – Ebin and Winton Hale were dead, and Phoebe knelt and lifted her fallen brother from the ground.

  Cobb's head fell back and his sliced-open throat smiled wide at the sky.

  Vargas Hale's cry shook the mountain.

  *****

  Molly heard Vargas Hale's blood cry as the three golems bounded down the mountainside and rushed into the wooded wilds after them, crash-bashing trees out of their path. After a few miles at witch-sped pace, Molly couldn't run any further, and neither could anyone else besides Teddy Da, but Juan Chang said they'd run far enough and had gotten away cleanly.

  Juan Chang had had the forethought to send the Walton's wagon ahead of them with his own horse tethered to it, and when the party caught up to them, they slowed to match their pace. They didn't stop until hours later, when they came across a set of ruins alongside an almost disappeared blackstone path in the woods. And it wasn't until the Walton's pulled their chameleon skin tents from their wagon, wrapped them around the trees, and made a single, large chameleon-skinned blind, that the group finally sat, opened Obin's mead-casks, and celebrated their victory.

  Lula told how she'd stuck a mounted Hale in the belly and how she'd felled another with her cunning blade.

  Juan Chang told of the sweet-tasting surprise on Vargas Hale's face.

  Teddy Da said what a good trick it had been to hold statue-still and hide their speed.

  Molly cleaned the blood from her blade and only smiled when they said they'd seen her fell a noble Hale. Obin said he'd have to kill her now, but not for a long, long while.