Petronus stood with Meirov’s rangers and the half-squad of Gypsy Scouts near the crater where the Great Library once stood. They heard them before they saw them, like a wave of sound across the night, a sound like nothing Petronus had heard before. Bellows chugged, gears hummed and oiled legs pumped. It was as if a room of farmers all worked their shears in perfect time together, low and steady amid the chaotic sounds of combat.

He squinted in the direction of the sound, and saw what could have been the dancing of ghost-lights or fireflies if he hadn’t known better of this part of the world and time of the year. And if they hadn’t flown in thirteen perfect pairs, moving in formation at the same speed.

Petronus watched as they drew near, moving twice the speed of a horse… possibly faster. The moonlight washed them in tones of blue and green, casting an eerie light around them as they moved sure-footed across the snow.

They spilled into the crater before halting, and Petronus raised his hands as the rangers counted them. “Behold,” he said, “I am called Petronus, King of Windwir and Holy See of the Androfrancine Order.”

“Petronus,” one of the mechoservitors started, “sixty-third in succession, was the eighth Pope to be assassinated in the Enlightened History of the Androfrancine Order.”

“A deception,” he said. He held up the ring. “I bear the ring of P’Andro Whym.”

The mechoservitors bowed their heads. Petronus had never seen anything like them. Tall and slender, they stood just half a head higher than a man. Their long arms ended in equally long fingers, and the metal plating that lay over the top of their metallic skeleton shifted and moved with the working bellows underneath. A small grate in the center of their backs emitted gouts of steam.

Back when young Charles had worked on them, Petronus remembered that the power was the biggest challenge. How long had that enormous fire gotten them? Three minutes? Five? He couldn’t remember now, but it was a massive amount of energy just to power the head and torso.

Somehow, they’d solved it. Something inside of these mechoservitors burned hot enough to boil the steam and power them.

Petronus looked out on the crowd of metal faces. “I am commending you to the care of General Rudolfo of the Wandering Army. All that remains of Windwir’s Great Library is housed in your memory scrolls. Rudolfo will take you to Isaak-Mechoservitor Number Three-and you will work with him for the restoration of the library. Do you understand your instructions?” He held up the ring, and their amber eyes followed it.

“Yes,” they said in a single voice.

“Which of you is familiar with the cartography of the Named Lands? Step forward.”

Four of the mechoservitors stepped forward.

“Should trouble arise along the way, you are to rally at the seventh forest manor of the Ninefold Forest Houses. Do you understand?”

They nodded.

“Very well. Until Lord Rudolfo returns, be seated and close your eyes.”

They sat, and the dim light of their eyes went out as they simultaneously brought down their metal shutters.

Petronus turned back to the south, waiting.

Thirty minutes later, the first of the Gypsy Scouts returned. They breathed heavily, coughing into the cold air. Surgeons from the Queen of Pylos did the best they could to wash and wrap wounds they could not see, their hands slick with invisible blood.

Five minutes after, another wave arrived, followed closely by the rear guard.

“We lost three for certain,” one of the lieutenants said after quickly taking inventory with his men. “Five are unaccounted for, including Gregoric and Rudolfo.”

Petronus cursed under his breath and looked toward the south.

Pope Resolute the First had entered the Entrolusian camp just hours before the hostilities broke out. Sethbert had received him coldly, making his displeasure of his cousin’s decision obvious with every word. “You’ve left your people without a leader,” the Overseer said, his jowls shaking with rage.

“I am the Pope,” Resolute said, his own anger flaring. “I will decide what’s best for my people.”

Four days on the road and his nerves had frayed. And the first news he’d heard upon arriving was that someone claiming to be Petronus was this hidden Pope Vlad Li Tam had spoken of.

Initially, he’d laughed it off. He’d attended Petronus’s funeral when he was a younger man. He’d even had a bit of a roll-about with one of the women who had served at the state banquet afterward. Coming back from the dead was not a hallmark of the Androfrancine Papacy.

But when Sethbert assured him that it was true, it had added to his foul mood.

“You may be the Pope,” Sethbert had said, his voice low, “but you have me to thank for that.”

At that point, the alarms had sounded. Not long after, squads of scouts and infantry flooded the Overseer’s tent, and Oriv found himself crowded into the corner with his Gray Guard escort.

“We’ve word from the spies,” Lysias said, out of breath as he ducked into the tent. “Rudolfo’s Gypsy Scouts are on the hunt.”

“On the hunt for what?” Sethbert asked.

Lysias’s reply was nearly a sneer. “You,” he said, through clenched teeth.

Resolute watched the exchange. Sethbert’s command of this man was tenuous at best. It took no expert in statecraft to see that, just as it took no military training to see that the Entrolusian army was divided and growing more so as the winter came on and the pressure increased.

Sethbert bellowed for his sword, and an aide belted it onto him. They heard the sound of fighting grow outside, and Lysias kept himself between Sethbert and the door. A wall of Delta Scouts, magicks shimmering in the lamplight, crouched with ready blades, and Grymlis and the two Gray Guard drew their swords as well. Then, near the back of the tent Resolute heard another sound, and it caught his attention. He’d heard it before, wandering the library, but that seemed impossible to him. Nonetheless, he heard the gears, heard the pumping bellows and the solid sound of metal feet upon the ground.

“Mechoservitors?” He didn’t realize he’d said it aloud until he saw Sethbert staring at him.

“What did you say?” Sethbert’s face went pale, then a deep rose color replaced it.

“It sounds like mechoservitors, but…” Resolute felt the realization of it grip him. Sethbert had told him all had been lost but for the spell-caster.

“They’ve freed the metal men,” a scout said at the door. “They are running north to Windwir.”

“It was never about me,” Sethbert said in a low voice.

Lysias cursed and stormed from the tent, barking orders. Sethbert followed.

As the tent cleared, Resolute looked to Grymlis. The old Gray Guard captain studied him, and still feeling short-tempered, Oriv snapped at him. “If you’ve something to say, Captain, say it.”

Grymlis pulled himself up. “I will say it,” he said. “I know Petronus. If he is truly alive, you will be no match for him.” The captain’s voice dropped. “And I question the viability of a war of succession.”

“I concur,” he said. But Resolute’s doubts went even further than whether or not this war would be viable.

Deeper than that, he questioned whether or not he should fight at all.

Ride to Petronus now, some part of himself said. Do not let this tragedyaet › ‹ become worse than it already is.

But even as the thought crossed his mind, he shoved it aside. It couldn’t be Petronus. Petronus was dead. And if, somehow, it truly was that long-dead Pope miraculously back from the dead, then it would be a matter for the committee to investigate.

Meanwhile, until such time as a committee could be convened to their work, Resolute would perform his duty for the light.