“The evening before a battle is like an entire nation breathing in. Only morning will tell if what comes out is acclaim or lamentation.”

– King Albert Fairfax of Callow, the Thrice-Invaded

“Liability almost seems like too mild a word,” Hakram said.

The words were not voiced as blame or complaint, but as a simple statement of fact. Adjutant was assessing a weakness, nothing more. I’d known him for long enough by now to take it was it was, and in truth Indrani probably had as well. It didn’t stop her from snatching his handless arm and twisting it behind his back, forcing a heavily muscled orc over a foot taller than her to bend over in pain. The sight of it was rather absurd: Hakram was on the tall side even for his kind, and his shoulders were broader than any human I’d met. Between the set of plate he wore like it was made of feathers, the knife-like fangs and the bone hand Adjutant looked like he should be able to snap her in half. And yet I wasn’t even sure he was faking it, when he struggled against Archer’s tight and sudden grip.

“I think you meant to say ‘Archer, you peerless beauty whose appeal is known even to orcs, thank you for bringing me this nice army and saving my whinging orc ass’,” Indrani said.

There was a pause.

“I guess Cat helped,” she conceded. “And Akua was there, probably.”

“Such lavish praise,” Diabolist drawled. “Do cease, Archer, or I will be most terribly embarrassed.”

The shade’s night-black dress rippled down to her feet, legs crossed elegantly as she ignored the laws of Creation and somehow managed to lounge gracefully in a Legion-issue folding chair. The neckline was low, though not overly revealing of the curves below, and held up only on one shoulder by some sort of cloth strap circling around her neck. The saffron yellow trim along it stretched down casually, bringing attention to the long slit revealing a portion of her leg. Now and then I could feel Akua’s amused golden eyes on me, almost daring me to look. Diabolist looked like sin, which I was not unconvinced might be what she was actually metaphysically made of these days. Still, this was a great deal les subtle than usual: she usually only resorted to this kind of jabbing when she was irritated, so clearly being cut out of the happenings in Sarcella so she could concentrate on building my well still had her ticked off. She’d get over it, I decided, and did not look at the smooth dark skin a dainty twitch of her foot was further revealing.

“You’re not going to let my arm go unless I repeat it, are you?” Adjutant sighed.

“Guess,” Indrani smiled, all batting her eyelashes with a coquettish smile.

Being a merciful woman by nature, I allowed Hakram the dignity of pretending not to hear while he offered his full surrender. I was still looking at the same thing he’d been, the fifty thousand drow outside that dawn had chased back into their tents for exhausted slumber. General Rumena had agreed that we needed to keep at least a tenth of the warriors awake during the daybreak exhaustion, as relying entirely on the Army of Callow for protection would be risky, but the logistics of that were proving tricky. We had to put up full sigils for the duty, as mixing warriors from different ones would cause no end of trouble, but it was seen as a punishment duty. Sigil-holders were duelling each other to make other drow’s sigils hold watch instead, and though the Sisters had long backed my order that drow were not to kill each other over Night while in my army ‘first blood’ was another story. The sigil-holder for the Kuresnik was the weakest of their kind in the southern expedition, and its sigil had been forced to hold watch seven days in a row before the matter was brought to me.

The Kuresnik Sigil had been quite literally falling apart under the strain, the first proof we’d had that keeping drow awake through the early hours repeatedly would have physical consequences. Many of the dzulu had taken sick, becoming extremely sensitive to light, and some of the Mighty had found their powers weakened even after nightfall. Dawn-sickness, the Firstborn were calling it now. Rumena had stepped in to handle the problem, but ending the duelling entirely had proved impossible even for it. Though respected, the Tomb-Maker remained a first among equals and not someone wielding the kind of largely uncontested authority a general would in the Legions or the Army of Callow. I’d eventually lost my patience and told sigil-holders that if they intended on pursuing this, it would be by my rules. Matches were now arranged by random draw between pairs of sigil-holders, and I’d informed them I would personally rip the Night out of anyone who tried to further debate the outcome after it was settled. And of anyone trying to pull this shit over watches when there were enemy within marching distance. Mighty Radenbog had seemed dubious of my ability to enforce this, when I made the announcement, so I left it to spend three days without so much as a speck of Night to call on.

After losing two toes to frostbite it was duly humbled when I returned its power.

“Now that Archer has ceased browbeating the Lord Adjutant, perhaps we could attend to more pressing matters?” Akua suggested in a sweet voice.

“That’s Lady Archer to you, Bad Faith Wraith,” Indrani replied, tone amused instead of heated.

That detail hadn’t escaped Hakram’s notice, I saw when I turned back to my informal council. I could almost hear the readjustments taking place behind that calm face, the questions the orc would keep a lid on until it was just the two of us.

“Akua’s not wrong,” I said. “We have a few hours until the drow can resume march, and at least two of them will have to be spent with the generals of the Third and Fourth getting everything in order. I want us with a clear course of action before that.”

Letting the tent’s flaps drop, I retreated back into the warmth and claimed a folding chair for myself. My staff remained propped up the cloth wall, its surface seemingly hazy for the closeness with the coal brazier close to hit. I accepted a cup of wine when Akua offered it, pleasantly surprised to find it Vale summer wine at the first sip. I inclined my head at her in thanks and she smirked back, raising her own cup. Indrani preferred plopping herself down atop the table to her folding chair, predictably, and Hakram remained standing. Like an officer giving report, I couldn’t help but think.

“We’re moving to link up with Juniper’s columns,” I said. “That much is not up to debate. But I need some context.”

I met Hakram’s gaze with a raised eyebrow.

“As in, specifically, what the Hells you and Vivienne were thinking marching most the Army of Callow into this mess,” I said. “Why not just you and the Hunt, Hakram? You don’t need forty thousand legionaries for an extraction.”

“We had situations on our hands,” Adjutant said. “We were going to have to come for the stranded Legions regardless, but complications grew quickly.”

That they’d come for the legionaries Black had led into Procer I had no true issue with, as he’d well know. Aside from the utter waste of lives involved in letting the Dominion and the Principate run down some of the finest soldiers and commanders on Calernia on the eve of all-out war with Keter, there’d been other considerations. Like the fact that the Army of Callow had brought into its fold two of the old school Legions after Second Liesse, and that many of those officers had friends and kin in the stranded army. At the very least, mass discontent and desertions would have come of us doing nothing. Add to that the fact I’d personally given my word to Juniper that I’d intervene if it went bad for them, and it would have potentially made for a very ugly brew if Vivienne and Hakram had left Marshal Grem and his armies to die. On the other hand, there was a difference between putting together a rescue operation and fielding what had to be the majority of the Army of Callow in the middle of Proceran territory.

“Malicia is on the move,” Akua softly said, “is she not?”

It did not sound like a guess, but then it never did with her.

“Indirectly,” Hakram said. “High Lady Abreha of Aksum has been named the Imperial Governess of the Blessed Isle, and tasked with handling the refugee situation.”

I frowned. I’d spoken with this particular highborn once before, after First Liesse. She’s offered to back my petition to establish a ruling council over Callow if I killed the other Trueblood hostages I’d taken from then-Heiress Akua, immediately turning on her supposed allies when it became clear I had the upper hand. She’d later become the head of the so-called ‘Moderates’, after Malicia began methodically dismantling the Truebloods. The old Soninke was treacherous and no doubt just as dangerous as anyone capable of claiming a High Ladyship of Praes but I’d not considered her anything to be truly worried about. The Empress should be stepping on her as hard as she could, and while Aksum would still have mostly untouched household troops the High Lady Abreha did not have a reputation for military talent.

“Thalassina was vaporized, which means the Kebdana are done as a political entity in Praes for at least one generation,” Akua mused. “Yet that would not be enough to make Abreha Mirembe a true threat. Which has fallen, Okoro or Foramen?”

There was a slight twitch to Hakram’s jaw, the only visible hint coming through that he was impressed. He shouldn’t be so surprised, I thought. Diabolist had been raised to drink and breathe Wasteland politics at the very highest level from the moment her monster of a mother had her set down in a cradle. It wasn’t something anyone else on our side would be able to ever truly understand, at least not the way she did. Behind the golden eyes there were decades of learning about the tapestry of enmities and alliances that tied together the Dread Empire’s aristocracy, pieces of knowledge that no one but those born to that hallowed birth would ever be made privy too. Adjutant would have to face the same truth I had, about Akua Sahelian: damned as she was beyond all redemption, she was terrifyingly useful.

“Foramen,” Hakram said, eye on me and not Diabolist. “You tasked me to negotiate access to munitions and goblin steel, Catherine, and I have. The Kingdom of Callow has recognized the sovereignty of the Confederation of the Grey Eyries, including over the formerly Praesi city of Foramen.”

I let out a low whistle.

“So the Matrons actually raised the rebel flag,” I said. “I thought they’d wait until the very end, hedge their bets.”

“We loaned them gold and armaments to incite them,” Adjutant admitted. “Vivienne and I believed it was necessary to implement a containment strategy on Praes, after Malicia’s wave of assassinations last year.”

“The dwarven gold,” I said, coming to the obvious conclusion. “So you did get it.”

“Accounts were made open to us in Mercantis,” he agreed. “We put them to good use. Our loans to the Matrons will be repaid in the good we want from them, namely their steel and munitions.”

I nodded. Risky business, but it made a mess for Malicia to handle instead of the other way around for once. Besides, we needed the munitions if the Army of Callow’s war doctrine – which took much from the Legions of Terror’s own – was to remain fully usable. Without them, my entire sapper corps essentially lost its teeth.

“So why does Foramen falling make High Lady Abreha a problem for us?” I asked, flicking a glance at Akua.

“The goblins will have slaughtered every Banu they could get their hands on, which means two great families of Praes were destroyed in quick succession,” Diabolist elaborated. “That will worry the others. Nok was sacked, and that will shake the faith of its High Lord in the Empress’ authority. With Wolof in the hands of my dear cousin Sargon, which Malicia should own body and soul – perhaps even literally – and High Lady Takisha of Kahtan now sharing a border with the Matrons… Arguably, High Lady Abreha is now the second most powerful woman in Praes. Her holdings are untouched, her troops fresh, and her influence at its very apex. In olden times, this would be enough to make her the Chancellor.”

“So Malicia sent her to the Blessed Isle, hoping she’d be trouble for us instead of her,” I frowned.

“I would wager the intent to be cornering High Lady Abreha into acting against Callow and having her killed by our hand,” Akua said, then dipped her head at Hakram. “I assume she reached out privately to Lady-Regent Dartwick with assurances that any such actions on Abreha’s part would be against her own instructions?”

Hakram bared his fangs.

“And if we kill her, there will be no retribution,” the orc said, tacitly agreeing to all she’d said.

I closed my eyes for a moment, putting it together. Then why had the Army of Callow come west instead of east, given that we now had an ambitious and dangerous High Lady at the eastern border? I didn’t believe Hakram or Vivienne fools enough to strip Summerholm of its garrison for this, or that Juniper would have agreed to them doing so in the first, so at least the gate into central Callow would hold even if it was attacked by surprise. But what was the long-term solution to this mess that would be found in Iserre? They were coming for Grem One-Eye, after all, and – well, that would do it.

“You want to use the Legions of Terror loyal to Black as a bulwark between us and Malicia,” I suddenly said, opening my eyes. “Grem and his legions to be put up on the Blessed Isle, I’m thinking, with a neat supply arrangement the crown would handle the grain part of.”

“And more,” Hakram said. “I have been speaking with the Clans willing to take my envoys. There are some who still remember the Steppes nearly bucked the Tower’s rule, when Nefarious still reigned.”

“Ah,” Akua breathed out, sounding delighted. “Grem One-Eye, the orc who might have become the first Warlord since the Miezan occupation had he not entered the Carrion’s Lord service instead. You mean to encircle the Wasteland with greenskin realms, one of them unified behind the only orc alive that might feasibly be accepted as lord over all the clans.”

It wasn’t, I decide, that she enjoyed the thought of Praes losing such a significant part of its territory. She simply admired the elegant viciousness of the plan, surrounding a foe with a net of allied nations by calling on ties that Malicia had no claim to supersede.

“Vivienne’s notion,” Adjutant said. “She’s working on Marshal Grem, though unless the Black Knight dies we’re unlikely to convince him.”

“So we can settle the entire eastern border, if it goes well,” I said. “Which leaves us free to rebuild Callow in peace, and strike deals with the Grand Alliance. That’s still what puzzles me, Hakram. Why so large a force here?”

“’cause they’re twisting Cordelia’s arm,” Indrani drawled. “That about right, Deadhand?”

Her casual tone cut through the conversation, a sudden reminder that for all that she’d remained quiet and seemingly bored out of her skull until now she’d been paying attention. And as usual, she cut straight at the heart of the matter.

“You were gonna have to send some soldiers through anyway to get the Legions moving,” Archer continued, “and would you look at that, it was going to be pretty close to Salia. Enough that she’d have to worry about a gate opening right at her doorstep, if you felt like being hard. So you thought, why not lean on the First Prince a bit?”

I stared at Hakram, who looked rather abashed. Or hungry. It’d been a while since I’d had to decipher the nuances of orc expressions.

“Two birds with a single stone,” he conceded in a deep rumble. “It was to be a quick campaign, with perhaps a few skirmishes to blood our fresh recruits. Vivienne would offer a truce to the First Prince, conditional on surrendering the Legions to our custody, and along the implied threat of our presence we’d offer to return Prince Amadis to her. The Grand Alliance’s armies would be free to move north unimpeded, and at your return you would find our borders secure and a blooded army ready to fight against the Dead King. We would have a strong position to push for the Liesse Accords in exchange for our assistance.”

“And Black?” I asked, tone mild.

“Not in Proceran hands, as far as we know,” Adjutant said. “And heroes are not so easily bargained with.”

It’d been a neat, tidy plan that resolved most of Callow’s issues in a single stroke. Malicia would be forced on the backfoot, the border at the Blessed Isle put in the hands of a famous general personally loyal to my father who’d already once ignored formal summons from the Empress and the Army of Callow’s dangerously green soldiers would get a taste of campaigning in preparation for the horror that would be the war against Keter. It’d been even cleverer than they thought, as Cordelia Hasenbach making a truce with Callow would have allowed her to start buying armaments from the dwarves again. The First Prince must be worrying about that, right about now. Given the amount of cheap steel their civil war would had brought to the surface the Proceran armies should be in no danger of running out of armaments anytime soon, but Hasenbach was far-sighted enough she’d realize she could not fight a long-term war against the Dead King without outside forges propping Procer up. She had three choices, broadly speaking: Callow, the League of Free Cities or the Kingdom Under. Given that two of them were barred as long as she was at war with me and the Tyrant was pulling the strings of the third? She’d see the writing on the wall. It’d been a solid plan, I had to give them that.

Only now instead of what they’d planned, the Army of Callow was split in half within Iserre while Proceran and Levantine armies surrounded it, having no way to take a fairy gate out until I got to it. We’d lost soldiers, the Grand Alliance had lost soldiers, and while all this chaos spread the Tyrant of Helike had been orchestrating his own schemes for his still-inscrutable purpose. Somewhere in the countryside my father was in the hands of the Grey Pilgrim, who would be drawn to any decisive battle between my armies and the Alliance’s sure as dusk’s coming. Add to that the way Masego had gone missing after witnessing sorcery horrifying enough to level most a city and a war fleet, promptly gotten his hands on the ruins of Liesse – quite possibly the most dangerous magical weapon of our age – and that he must be too hurt or confused to reach out to any of the Woe. This, I thought, was going to be a bloody mayhem of sprawling death and treachery. The kind that determined the path a continent was going to take in the years that followed.

“Well,” I finally said. “This is going to get a little tricky.”

“This is going to get a little tricky,” Indrani cheerfully repeated. “Now there‘s the title of your memoirs, Cat.”

“I’ve always been partial to ‘it got worse’,” Hakram offered, the filthy traitor.

“Murder ensued,” Akua tastefully suggested.

I glared but she just stared back at me, all smirking and insolence.

“You’re all useless,” I complained.

“Hakram’s memoirs,” Indrani grinned.

I gestured obscenely at her, which only had her chortling harder. Finally remembering I’d had a cup of wine on the table during this entire conversation, I snatched it and watered my parched throat. Gods, I’d missed actually being able to enjoy things.

“All right, then,” I said. “Let’s try to make a plan that doesn’t end up dooming the entire continent.”

“Cheers,” Akua Sahelian smiled, raising her glass in answer.