This man who captained the garrison at The Last Fort of Flame Eternal had come up through the ranks of the kingsmen and had earned his barony by his battlefield prowess and not by birth. He was narrowly read and was a student of war and of human exceptionalism. It was he who seconded the armiger during Glad Nizam's uprising, and it was he who was left in command when the armiger embarked for the sea of suns and the black heart of the world and the forge of creation.

  When the baron approached Uhquah’s company outside the bathhouse he had with him a corked jug of wine and only one bodyman and it would have been nothing at all for any one of the company to sweep off his head at a stroke. As the kingsmen on the walls repelled the risen with fire the cavaliers drank the jug empty and the baron sent the bodyman off for another. With his own cup the baron toasted the men and pointedly ignored the gathered orckin. That was when Mym noticed the longhorn wasn’t there. She looked about the yard of the fort and saw no sign of him.

  She leaned over to Orc. "The otaur's gone."

  "Good eye."

  "Did ye see where he got te?"

  “No.” He looked at her. "I've not seen him since before we got inside."

  "He wasn’t at the wash?"

  "No."

  She considered this. "Maybe he fell into one of the vents."

  "You mean the smokers outside?"

  "Aye."

  He nodded. "Back down to the hell he came from."

  "There's coal deposits down there, been burnin ten thousand years and will keep burnin for ten thousand more yet."

  "The stones tell you that?"

  "Aye."

  He nodded. "They're heeding you."

  "Not all of em. Some though." She gestured at his calf. "Like the malachite."

  "Can they lead us to her?"

  "If we find the right ones te ask."

  He took off his hat and looked up at the walls and over at the gatehouse. "Well. Let's figure out a way to get going."

  "Yer leg could use a rest."

  He shook his head. "I’d like to be gone before the longhorn shows up."

  As they spoke the cavaliers had begun to gather around Uhquah and the baron for a third jug of wine. After it was empty the baron, now red-faced, invited them to dine with his officers. Not the orckin though. They were directed toward the soldiers' mess. As the others departed Mym saw Orc lag behind and look back as if he wanted to tell her something. With a look she indicated he better get going.

  The baron's eyes drifted to Orc. He looked at the sidebutton trousers and the tunic, now rinsed of the caked on grime and dust and blood. He turned to Uhquah and with his outstretched arm gathered them toward the great hall. Mym followed close.

  "Is that grayback with the marshal?" said the baron.

  Uhquah spat. "Aye we all were."

  "But not anymore."

  "Not since the risen offed him." The dwarf waved in the direction of the besieged gatehouse. "He's lek te be out there among em now."

  "Where was that?"

  "Makin the crossin. Some six days south of the Thumb."

  "I see," said the baron in a tone that suggested he didn't. "Orcs and dwarves riding with the marshal. I suppose in this fight of living against the dead we're all allies."

  "Aye sure."

  "Excepting the brigadier."

  Uhquah drew out his long-stemmed pipe. "Aye that's what the marshal said."

  "You know she's who freed the orcs that follow you."

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  The dwarf kept his eyes on his pipe as he packed it. "Is she?"

  "I took a great risk allowing you all within the fort. She's in league with the risen queen."

  "Well we’re grateful fer yer hospitalities."

  The baron nodded back at where the orckin had gone. "You're certain none of them are hers?"

  Now Uhquah licked his fingers and plucked a burning coal from a brazier they passed and he pressed it to the bowl. His cheeks sunk and his beard wagged as he pulled air through the stem. The herb in the bowl began to smolder and he tossed the coal back where he'd found it and he shook out his hand. In a great cloud of exhaled smoke he said, "You want te go and ask em?"

  The baron's step slowed somewhat. Mym saw his hand resting on the pommel of his longsword. "Did you come across any sign of her on your way north?" said the man.

  Uhquah blew his second draw directly in the baron's face. "Not as I can recall."

  The baron frowned deeply like a man entering a well used latrine. "Direct that elsewhere."

  Uhquah withdrew the stem as if to say something and then replaced it.

  "You didn't hear anything from the rocks."

  Uhquah shrugged.

  "Can't your kind commune with rock?"

  "Some can."

  "Can you?"

  Uhquah shrugged again.

  The baron half turned and indicated Mym with his chin. "Can she?"

  "Why don't you ask her."

  The baron looked down his nose at her and she looked right back. To Uhquah he said, "We heard a mixed company set out from the Thumb three weeks ago."

  "That's news te us. We left longer than that and haven't let up since."

  “Under whose command?”

  “Lek I said before the marshal's who took us south of the Thumb. Those who survived answer te me now. I reckon them that died and were raised are still answerin the marshal.”

  “The marshal had a boy who seconded him.”

  “Aye and I saw the risen gobble him up with my own eyes.”

  The baron studied the blue dwarf's face like a delver weighing a stone in their mind.

  "A mixed company of what?" said Mym.

  Uhquah glowered at her for talking but the baron half turned again. "Another of your kind traveling with a woman."

  She sniffed, said nothing.

  "The deadlands are no place for an unaccompanied woman."

  "Ye just said a dwarf was with her."

  "A dwarf's not a man."

  "There's one thing the gods got right."

  The baron frowned again. "Do you know them?"

  "The gods?"

  "The dwarf and the woman."

  She shook her head. Uhquah spat.

  "I dispatched a patrol two weeks ago to collect them."

  "We didn't see them neither," said Uhquah.

  The baron turned back to him. "They ferried with them a six pound gun and they were headed by a man called Wayland."

  “Could’ve been headed by Donnas hisself we still wouldn’t have seen em.”

  As Uhquah spoke they arrived at the heavy doors of the great hall. These were of the black walnut once grown about that place in vast orchards. The baron pushed through and the dwarves and cavaliers followed. Inside was a single room, poorly lit by a solitary hearth halfway down the wall that hissed and spit like an angry viper. A long table and benches of walnut stretched into darkness. Chipped and mismatched porcelain was laid out in settings. The baron’s staff already sat around the head and his place empty, his meal half finished. At center table a garland of pine boughs collected from the grove arranged around a roast of reindeer, potatoes, drippings. As the cavaliers filed in behind Mym she heard their excited murmurs at the smell of rosemary and venison.

  The men and women of the company began to take their seats. Soldiers emerged from another entrance to wait upon them.

  “You eat while your men fight,” said Uhquah.

  “A soldier must eat or else he won’t be fighting long,” said the baron. “Sit here, you sit there. The men will bring you what you need.”

  Uhquah and Mym sat. The baron’s staff who had ceased eating when the doors opened now recommenced with a general chatter and clank of utensils. A great silver platter was brought forth whereupon some sort of pudding quivered in the firelight. The rough cavaliers needed no further invitation. They tucked into their meat with two pronged forks and bone handled knives looted from the old capital like most everything else in that place.

  “Aren’t you besieged?” called Uhquah to the far end of the hall.

  The baron looked up from his food. “Oh that? That’s nothing. They come every fortnight. Reliving some old battle no doubt.”

  “And losing it,” said a lieutenant.

  The baron’s men laughed. Some of the cavaliers joined them.

  The baron held up a spoonful of the pudding. “We do our best not to drive them away too quickly. If they’re attacking us here then they're not harrying his majesty’s subjects elsewhere.”

  Just then Mym heard the door open behind her. She watched a kingsman stride past and down the hall and bend to whisper something in the baron’s ear. She glanced at the blue dwarf who still puffed on his pipe, the spread untouched before him. As the door closed she slid off the end of the bench and snuck out.

  There seemed to be a commotion down where the company’s horses were corralled. Mym strode across the yard toward the soldiers' mess. Coming up from the corral a sergeant and six or seven soldiers and a stable boy leading a horse. It was one of the palominos spoiled off of Wayland’s patrol. The soldiers drew their swords as they passed her and they continued on to the great hall.

  She began to jog.

  The southwestern battlement suddenly exploded in dust and debris and bodies spinning through the air and there was the thunderous crash of stone splitting and the heavy thud of cannonfire rolled after. Men wailed and held their bloody faces and their sopping bellies and those ejected from the wall down onto the grounds moved not at all. Within the grounds the engineers wheeled around the trebuchet. The spotter screamed. The cannon roared again and from the soldiers' mess there came the clap of gunfire and the bellowing of orckin.

  She began to run.