Even his death did not matter. The fire of jaedun gushed down along the wooden arm. It splashed over the body. Droplets spattered thighs and feet. The wooden war machine smoldered for a moment, then exploded in fire. It burned brilliantly for a heartbeat, then imploded into a cloud of fine black ash that choked the courtyard.

And, swords bared, I strode into that cloud.

Keles backed away from the monster. “You expect me to serve a man who condones my mother’s murder?”

“You’re a grown man. You’re well rid of your mother.” The monster smiled. “You will be compensated.”

Keles’ eyes blazed. “You murdered my mother! How could anything compensate for her death?”

“Get away from him, Keles!” Tyressa burst through the tzaden vines and drove at the monster. Her spear whirled in a great arc. The monster tried to parry, but she slipped the head beneath his sheathed sword and brought it up in a slice. The blade quivered and carved metal from its pelvis. Had the monster been anything but a living skeleton, that single blow would have left him kneeling in his own intestines.

The monster’s tentacles lashed out. She ducked one, but the other caught her right ankle. The monster yanked, pulling her down before the spearhead swept through the tentacle. It parted with a ping. Metal rings flew. Tyressa leaped back, kicking the tentacle from her ankle.

The monster bared both of his swords and bore in on her. Tyressa dodged right and left, letting the swords strike sparks from statuary and paving stones. She lunged, snapping a rib, then ducked beneath a tentacle. She favored her right ankle, but moved quickly enough that the monster couldn’t touch her.

“Keles, go. Flee.”

“No, Tyressa, get away from him.” Keles’ flesh had already begun to tingle from the magic pouring from them. He focused on that, working past the shock of his mother’s death. “Go! I will save you.”

The monster’s tentacle snaked out and snapped against Tyressa’s left thigh. It dented the armor plates and knocked her back. She planted her right foot to steady herself, but her ankle broke. The Keru went down awkwardly, her right ankle twisted beneath her. Her spear came up to bat away one sword.

But the other blade passed beneath her desperate parry. Nelesquin’s monster stabbed straight down, piercing the breastplate and punching out past her spine. The blow drove her back hard against the ground and the blade sank to a third of its length in the earth.

“Tyressa!” Keles crashed to his knees. He couldn’t breathe. Tyressa writhed around the sword and pain twisted through his guts. She can’t die. She can’t.

The monster turned, his face a snarl. “No more games, Keles Anturasi, you’re coming with me.”

The black cloud parted. I stood above Count Linel Vroan. The family crest had bubbled and peeled off his armor. The same thing had happened with much of his face. The fire had blinded him, but he didn’t need eyes to know who I was.

He held a hand up. “Let me stand so I can die like a man.”

“To die like a man, you once had to be one.” I took his head in one stroke. It rolled away. I kicked his body for good measure, then I stalked forward, looking for more men to kill.

A few of them came, imagining themselves to be braver than their master. This does not say much for them. Those were the stupid ones, and they died easily. The smartest had run when my master had engaged the war machines.

I quickly exhausted my foes, but there were screams and the sounds of combat to the northeast. I sprinted over, straight into the ass end of a Ixunite formation. Though the Ixunites were grown men and trained as soldiers, a small group of students drove them back. With their master slain, the students of Serrian Jatan had no reason to grant mercy.

Nor did I. A thrust here, a slash there, and men went down screaming. Suddenly aware of an assault from the rear, the last of Vroan’s soldiers panicked and fled.

“ Serrdin of Serrian Jatan, join me.” I pointed a bloody sword north. “We must cross the river.”

Their leader, Eron Jatan, saluted me and sent his charges toward where Dunos waited. Beyond them lay Ixunite corpses and a few wounded, each feathered by Deshiel Tolo’s archers. I noticed an arrow stuck in a building further along. “Follow those arrows north.”

I ran with the others through streets strewn with the debris of war. Wounded people limped along, sometimes helped by friends and strangers. Others, mostly the elderly, sat beside buildings, heads tucked between their knees, their hands wrapped over their heads, sobbing. Dogs ran free, forming the packs that would feast on the dead. One mongrel even raced past me with Vroan’s head held by an ear.

Things became worse the closer we got to the span of the Tiger Bridge. The Wolf span, parts of which were visible around a shallow curve in the river, wavered and twisted. I couldn’t tell why, but the reason was soon apparent. The whole bridge collapsed much as the first wooden mantis had.

The crowd wailed at the bridge’s failure. People shouted. Fistfights broke out. Men knocked aside children, old women, and pregnant girls. A gang lifted one cart and threw it over the River Road South wall. People surged into the opening, but the crowd barely moved any further.

“Dunos, Eron, with me. We’re going to the bridge.”

I invoked jaedun, reading the crowd as I would an enemy formation. I watched them jostle each other. Where two people bumped together and rebounded, I passed through their point of contact. I slid sideways between ranks, then darted forward. A nudge here, a push there, and I gained the bridge in short order.

I found the problem.

A gang of armed men controlled the bridge’s approach. Bared steel and nocked arrows gave them all the authority they needed. They let a trickle of people through, making sure panic wasn’t going to get anyone crushed.

I would have applauded their efforts, save that they were charging for passage.

I squeezed through and made for their leader. One of his underlings planted a hand in my chest. Dunos emasculated the bandit before I had a chance to take that hand off at the elbow.

I stepped past the screaming man, my eyes hard. “I haven’t the time to draw a circle, so you have a choice. Die where you stand, or follow my orders. Choose. Now.”

The man, whose eyes had widened at the mention of a circle, bowed his head. “How may I serve you, Master?”

“How high can you count?”

He looked at his hands. “Through the Nine Gods and one for me.”

“Good. Pick nine people. They go.” I nodded to Dunos and Eron. “Pick nine and send them. Stagger it.”

Word of what I’d said passed back through the crowd. People took heart and grouped themselves in sets of nine. They started moving quickly over the bridge, which was just as well. Looking back into the city, seeing the smoke rise and the growing crowd heading toward the bridge, getting them all across was going to take a long time.

And we were going to run out of time long before we ran out of people.

TheNewWorld