“What crowd?” I ask, coming out of my hiding spot.

  Wonda gives a yelp, and Kendall quickly slaps a hand over her mouth. The worshippers laying flowers by Alagai Ka’s statue are looking our way. There’s a whiff of irritation at our disrespect, but no alarm.

  “Darin Bales, what in the core are you doing here?” Wonda demands in a harsh whisper when Kendall takes her hand away.

  “Reckon I could ask you the same thing,” I say.

  Kendall’s eyes scan all around us. She takes both of us by the elbow, steering us out of earshot of the others in the plaza. “Are you alone?”

  “Not exactly,” I say. “Are you? Do you know…”

  Kendall puts a finger to her lips. “Not here. Not now. Let’s get you inside.”

  * * *

  —

  Inside proves to be a small three-room domicile on the shadowed side of the caldera, too high for convenient access from the valley floor, but too low to afford a fine view. Most of the tier is empty.

  “No neighbors to get nosy.” Kendall puts a hand on Wonda’s shoulder. “Wonda and I pretend we’re a couple who moved from the other side of the valley for a place of our own. Isn’t that right, dear?”

  “Ay,” Wonda says. “Kendall speaks enough Ruskan to get by, and I just grunt and act dim. Plenty of space here on the shadow side. Folk here love making babies, but even they can’t keep up with the disappearances.”

  “Disappearances…?” I start to ask, but it’s like picking up a book and starting in the middle. “Who are these people? Why are you here? What happened to Mam and Aunt Leesha? Are they here with you?”

  Wonda shakes her head sadly. “Demons took Leesha in the middle of the fight. One minute she was drawing wards with her wand, smashin’ corelings like she was stompin’ ants. Next minute something hit her and she went down like a chopped tree. Windie swooped in, picked her up, and carried her off. Yer mam took off after them, but somethin’…slapped her out of the sky.”

  I blink. “What?” I seen Mam’s wards flare so bright she burned a pack of demons away just standin’ there. What could have the power to slap her down?

  But it ent what. It’s who. And I know who. “She dead?” Now that the answer’s in front of me, I’m not sure I want it.

  “Don’t know for sure,” Wonda says. “Wind demon came and took her, too. Kendall and I left the battle to go after them.”

  “You tracked ’em all the way here?” I’m more than a little doubtful. The place they were ambushed was on the other side of the river. Hundreds of miles from here. A wind demon might fly that far in a single night, but on foot it would take months.

  Wonda reaches into her robe and pulls out a large locket on a heavy chain. I sniff and catch the scent of electrum, and a bit of Aunt Leesha’s blood in the red gem at its center. The round face is covered in wardwork, etched in the duchess’ flowing script.

  At the click of a release, the locket opens to reveal a compass, a delicate electrum needle floating in a vacuum of warded glass.

  “At night this points to Mistress Leesha,” Wonda says.

  “Or what’s left of her,” Kendall notes.

  Wonda stiffens, and the look she gives Kendall ent somethin’ I ever want fixed on me. “Don’t wanna hear that kind of talk, Kendall.”

  “Ay, sorry, Won.” Kendall smells like she means it.

  “Took us months to follow it all the way here,” Wonda continues. “Got lost more’n once.”

  “So she’s here?” I ask.

  Wonda shrugs. “Compass says she is.”

  I don’t have to guess where. “On the other side of the gate.”

  “Ay,” Wonda agrees. “It’s magicked shut, and only opens once a month. Kendall and I’ve been lookin’ for a way in ever since.”

  “Let me guess.” I feel like I might sick up. “Opens on new moon.”

  “Ay,” Kendall says. “The Jechi Hosta are good folk—kind to one another, honest, hardworking. But once a month they all gather on that plaza and worship the demon statue. Then the gate opens, and folk are marched in like sheep for the shearing.”

  That explains why there’s no old and sick, and why there’s so many empty homes. “Have you tried just marching in with ’em?”

  Wonda shakes her head. “Elders pick some who’re to go in advance. Give them massages and fancy baths and the best food before they’re sent below. Others get picked by the high priest on the spot, and go in weeping. Crowd links hands around ’em. Reckon it’s to keep folk from runnin’, but no one ever does. Serves just as well to keep us out. We were scouting today for a place to hide by the gate so we could dart in when it opens and everyone’s eyes are on the priest and the chosen.”

  It’s a desperate plan. Wonda’s a foot taller than me and twice as wide. I listen to her mighty heart, and the blood it pushes through her body, sensing the vibrations as it passes through muscle to her skin. She’s twice my mass, at least. She can’t just duck behind a plinth like I can.

  “Jechi Hosta.” Even I know Ruskan enough for that. “Children of the Father.” Something clicks in my head, and I hear Aunt Leesha whisper her prophecy again.

  The father waits below in darkness for his progeny to return.

  Night.

  “Ay,” Kendall says. “There’s a lot of them. So many they don’t know every face, and it looks like the demon’s added new blood over the years, so we don’t stand out too much. More than a few are Hollowers carried off in the attack like Mistress Leesha and your mum.”

  “Really?” I ask, wondering if any of the Warded Children survived.

  “Ent what you’re hopin’, Darin,” Wonda says. “Tried talkin’ to ’em. Not a one remembers anything about life before the valley, and they ent lookin’ to leave.”

  I remember Alagai Ka out on the desert, rearranging the minds of Olive’s spear brothers easy as moving chairs around for a party. Said they wouldn’t even remember meeting him, and I don’t reckon that’s something that can be undone.

  “Does…” I swallow the lump in my throat. “Does the demon come out, on new moon? Have you seen him?”

  Kendall shakes her head. “No one has, any more than we’ve seen the Creator. None of these folk have ever laid eyes on a demon, or a ward, apart from the ones on the door. Whole valley’s awash with magic at night, but they don’t even know it’s there.”

  “Told you our side o’ things.” Wonda turns a chair around and sits, leaning toward me with her forearms on the backrest. “Now it’s your turn, Darin. What are you doing out here? Where’s Olive? Said you wern’t exactly alone. Tell me you din’t bring her and Selen along.”

  “Is Micha with you?” Kendall blurts. There’s fear and hope in her scent, and a fierce love. “Has she come for me?”

  “Ay, well.” I rub the back of my neck, looking from Wonda to Kendall. “There’s a lot to catch you up on.”

  “We’ve gone too far.” Rhinebeck snaps his watch shut and puts it back in his breast pocket. “We should rest here and wait for the columns to catch up.”

  “Rest,” I laugh. “I doubt we’ve gone five miles.”

  “Five miles is a long way from the others if we get into trouble,” Rhinebeck says. Used to the control of his grandmother, he is comfortable following my lead, but he isn’t shy about making his feelings known when I lead somewhere unwise.

  Rhinebeck and I have taken to riding ahead of the army with our personal bodyguards. It isn’t responsible. An unnecessary risk, Mother would say. But night, I would rather be buried alive than travel the center of that monstrosity.

  When the passage widens, or when multiple tunnels reach the same destination, the drillmasters and sergeants take full advantage and adjust their marching orders, but more often we pass through tunnels widened recently to the minimum width of four horses. At those times, our column stretches nearly five miles end-to-end, and takes hours to pass any given point.

  I knew the pace would be slow. Fifteen miles on a good day, my generals projected. But I did not appreciate how excruciating that would be.

  “What time is it?” I ask.

  “Quarter hour to high sun,” Rhinebeck says, “if the sun still exists.”

  It’s easy to imagine it doesn’t. That time itself has ceased to exist. We’ve been in complete darkness for a day and a half.

  Every warrior has been issued one helm and one set of spectacles worked with symbols for wardsight. They cost more than the flamework weapons, but without them we would be blind.

  For many, this is their first experience seeing magic’s glow. I learned how to See in the Chamber of Shadows with Favah when I was young, but I remember how overwhelming it was in the beginning.

  Before this journey, even I had never used wardsight exclusively for more than a few hours at a time. After a day and a half, I’m dizzy from all the input. My stomach is trying to decide whether it should sick up.

  We have chemic lights and oil lanterns in our stores, but not enough to light five miles of column for more than a few hours. They are impossible to replace and must be used sparingly. With our eyes adjusted to the dark, lighting one for anything other than an emergency will not make you any friends. This morning one of Rhinebeck’s officers struck a match for his pipe and everyone around him hissed in pain and averted their eyes.

  “They will call a halt soon,” Rhinebeck says. “We can enjoy the quiet.”

  That’s welcome news at least. Three thousand cavalry horses, not to mention pack animals and carts of supply, make quite the cacophony, but it’s the rhythmic stomp of eight thousand pairs of boots that resonates in the very stone, heralding my army’s approach. Miles ahead of the columns, it drums in our heads.

  Worse still is the smell. We’re hardly fresh ourselves, but it is nothing like the miasma that precedes our army. Even this far out the air is hot and thick with it. Close up the atmosphere is moist with stink, seeping into and clinging to everything it touches. Krasian and greenlander alike wear veils now to dull the reek. Only Rhinebeck and his officers eschew them. I catch them snuffing scented powders instead to ward off the smell.

  The tunnel is tight. From atop my horse, I can reach up and touch the stone above. Sometimes I think about what the miles of stone above our heads must weigh until it begins to feel like the tunnel is shrinking and I might suffocate.

  I wonder if this is how Darin feels when he has one of his fits over too much sound, or smell, or crowding. I always knew it, but never truly understood. Now I do—at least in part—and realize too late that I should have been kinder.

  It’s not just me. Screams are common in the lines, humans and animals alike unnerved by our unnatural journey.

  There is no hiding our coming anymore, but I hope the sound and stench of our approach strike fear into the black hearts of our enemies. For once, I want to be seen. To draw the demon king’s attention from Darin and the others. Let him send his remaining drones after me, and deplete Safehold of defense.

  Yet in my heart, I know it is a faint hope. Until his neo-queen lays, Alagai Ka is trapped in Safehold, strategically and physically. Even if he wanted to leave, psychic triggers she emits keep him from dissipating, or leaving her side. It will be the same with the new queen, until she is safely ensconced in the hive.

  They are as vulnerable as they will ever be, and I do not think the demon king will allow his bodyguard to venture far until it is time to retake their home. But even if Alagai Ka cannot come after us personally, he will have laid defenses to weaken and hinder us on this path.

  Warriors of decay, Amanvah said. Soul drinkers. Kai’alagai. The names run through my head as we care for the animals, but they don’t mean anything more than they did when she first spoke them.

  I hate the dice. Hate Asome’s sticks as well. They have me jumping at every shadow, worrying at prophecies I can’t understand. Do they make me more cautious, or steal my focus?

  I take my ration and canteen and sit on the tunnel floor with my back to the wall. Rhinebeck joins me, and our soldiers leave us a few paces for privacy before doing the same. I can say it’s our station, but I see the looks thrown our way. Rhinebeck and I are growing closer, and I’m not the only one to notice.

  “Grandmother will be furious, when she hears about this,” Rhiney says, tearing into his ration packet.

  “If we live to tell her, it will mean we’ve won,” I say. “It’s easier to ask forgiveness when bathed in glory.”

  Rhiney nods. “It won’t be the first time. But there’s a difference between hunting demons on the surface and…” he waves a hand at the tunnel walls, “all this.”

  “Ay,” I agree. “That’s why you should stay close, so I can keep you safe.”

  “Is that why?” Rhinebeck’s smile lights up his entire aura. “And here I thought you enjoyed my company.”

  I can’t help but smile in return. I wonder if I light up like him. If he recognizes and takes as much pleasure in the sight as I do.

  Lunch is a two-hour halt for the columns. Grandda Erny has a chiming clock in his wagon, and rings bells when it is time to halt for meals or rest. With no sun to guide them, most simply measure time by the halts.

  Every soldier carries rations for the shorter rests, but breakfast, lunch, and supper are a different affair. Our army travels light, trusting in dama’ting magic to keep the army fed. Amanvah and her priestesses trace wards in great vats filled with soil, Drawing ambient magic to transform the dirt into pure water and holy couscous.

  I had only heard tales of the legendary couscous, a secret guarded closely by priestesses of Everam. If done incorrectly, the food is poison, but properly Drawn, they create a food so rich a single mouthful can sustain a warrior for hours.

  The tales are not exaggerated. I had never tasted anything so delicious, and felt almost rested after swallowing for the first time. It pains me that the spell is kept so secret. No doubt Mother would have teams of Warders making couscous for every hungry mouth in Thesa.

  But even magical food must be distributed down the line, and soldiers need time to care for livestock, equipment, and their own necessaries. Each rest is interminable, and when the tunnel slopes down, a river of piss precedes us.

  Unable to bear it, Rhinebeck and I have ranged farther and farther ahead. Despite all the time together, we haven’t run out of things to talk about and stories to tell.

  Rhinebeck takes off his helm with a groan of pleasure. He’s blind without it, but after the chaos of wardsight, there is little more restful than staring into the darkness.

  I am about to do the same when I see movement ahead and tense, snatching up my shield and reaching for my spear. The rest of our company scrambles as well, but it’s only Briar and Jaavi, returning from scouting ahead.

  “We have found the first csar,” Briar says without preamble.

  “Does it still stand?” I ask.

  “Stand? Yes,” Briar says, and the parsing of words puts me further on edge.

  “What is it?” I demand.

  Jaavi’s lip curls in disgust. “Mushrooms.”

  * * *

  —

  Father and Mrs. Bales gave detailed accounts of their journey to the demon hive. They described an ecosystem designed to feed on magic as much as nutrients in soil or prey, with predators even the demons feared.

  Few were as unnerving as the colony of fungus that infected everything it encountered, taking control of the bodies of living hosts and using them to defend the colony until they, too, were consumed.

  Warriors of decay.

  Rhinebeck shows me the waystation through the distance lens on his rifle. The csar sits in a gloriously wide cavern, its walls intact. It would be a perfect place for our forces to rest and sleep, but for the mushrooms covering the cavern floor. There’s no sign of life in the csar, and I don’t have much hope. Nearly every inch of ground is covered, and stepping on or otherwise agitating the mushrooms risks them spraying a cloud of spores that will infect us, too.

  I’ve called a halt and sent for Erny and the dama’ting. We’ll need magic to pass this obstacle.

  We’re still waiting in the tunnels when the colony attacks.

  “Cave demons!” shouts Corporal Taler on watch, looking through the distance lens on his rifle.

  I follow the barrel of the weapon, but it takes a moment to see what it’s pointing at—three cave demons skittering along the tunnel ceiling. Their auras are…wrong. Powerful still, but a flat, even glow rather than the shifting rainbow that surrounds sentient creatures. I can see fungus growing between their scales.

  Two of my spear brothers, Gerges and Razeel, rush to cover Taler as he raises his rifle. Too close.

  “Don’t shoot!” I cry too late, the word drowned in the report of his rifle as the guard fires at the lead demon, punching a hole in its armor.

  Black spores burst from the wound instead of ichor, and the creature is knocked from the ceiling. It hits the ground and simply bursts, sending spores everywhere.

  “Retreat!” I scream. The men turn and run as Rhinebeck and his closest riflemen take aim and pick off their pursuit at a distance. The other demons burst as well, filling the air with spores.

  I pull my night veil tighter and take the lamp from my saddlebags. It takes three attempts to light it, and there are hisses as the light stings the eyes around me. I hurl the lamp at the spore cloud with more panic than I am accustomed to. I am not cowed by enemies I can stab with my spear, but this is something else entirely.

  The lamp breaks on impact, igniting the cloud and filling the tunnel with fire. The flash of heat scorches my face, and I feel a breeze as the air rushes to fill the vacuum.

  Black stinking smoke fills our breath, and we flee before it, praying as we taste it that the infection at least has been neutralized.