For Reader, none of it was exuberant.

  The moments passed cold and chilling. Reader stood frozen, his hand resting on the last unfired log missile. Pod danced before him, kicking a nasty jig as he watched the battle turn so totally and suddenly.

  “Lad! We’re saved! Old Pod’ll live to see another day! Ya see that! Oooh, he’ll feel that in the morning… ah, nah, never mind, he’s not feeling anything anymore! Ha! Oh! There’ll be loot out of this, lad! We’ll be in Spinner’s tomorrow night living it up. Fucking living it up!”

  Reader couldn’t join him. Yes, somewhere buried deep down was relief. He had very recently believed he was about to die. He had believed that his quest to see his family again would perish here, on this lonely island of earth in the sea of white, nothing blankness. There was an easing in his tension as he watched the new ogres hacking and beating at the attackers. There was peace drowning in his unease as he watched Tiller stab an ogre with his terrible shovel, as he watched Lita shred another, as he watched Tonk and Donk falling to Cutter.

  But the unease was the sea that those positive feelings sank into.

  Reader didn’t mean to speak out loud, but the words tumbled from him. “They’re their… they’re all kin… they’re killing each other because of us. This is so awful.”

  Pod heard nothing at all. He continued his gleeful little dance, heels clicking as he bounced with nothing approaching certain steps. “We’re saved! Fuck you all, you green bastards! We’ll be boozing on the coin from your gear!”

  Reader just stared on, feeling the frost of the emotional storm on his cheeks. “Pod… they’re family. We did the murder that started this. Well… I didn’t… but it’s not like they didn’t have cause to be upset. They came here to get justice. And the battle that caused tore them apart. Now they’re killing each other. I can’t watch this. Are those sisters killing brothers? Cousins? Oh god, husbands and wives? I can’t look at it.”

  Some of the words seemed to filter through Pod’s haze, and he turned slowly to look up at Reader. All around echoed the sounds of the battle — weapon on weapon, the song of steel. More than that, the orchestra of suffering and death. The cries of pain as a life ended, and sometimes the cry of anguish as the killer mourned their victim.

  Pod peered up at Reader with narrow, suspicious eyes, his brow furrowed. “Who the fuck’s side are you on? They came here to see us killed!”

  Reader said, “They came for justice.”

  Pod almost screeched, “Justice? That bastard harassed and bullied me and Maeve forever. He took money from us over n’ over. All so he wouldn’t have a cause to beat me or kill us both. He was a bully and a monster, lad. Best thing Tillever ever did was put out the hit on him. Best thing that gobbie ever did was put the bastard down for the long sleep. We done what we had to do. You forgettin’ that that bastard Tonk came over here with his own daddy’s head on a fucking spike?”

  “N… No…”

  “Then what’s your shit talk about? They came here to kill us for defendin’ ourselves! Worse too, they came on lies. Tonk didn’t see shit when we used the composter.”

  “But the body was there…”

  “Don’t matter. Don’t matter one bit. He didn’t see it, I bet my life on it. He didn’t see it, but he still went on back and told the rest he did. He caused that smoke in the sky, caused ’em all to fight each other and probably burn half the houses down, all for a lie. Ah, stop, stop. The body mighta been there, but he didn’t see it, so it was still a lie.”

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  Reader mumbled, “I still can’t watch family killing family.”

  Pod waved at him and turned back to the fight. With his back to the adept, he spoke flatly. “Did ya think about why they came here? Huh? No? All wrapped up in the drama and the fucking sadness. That’s a bunch of women and one fella. They came over here against poor odds with all the big boys that were here already. Why would they do that? Huh? They came over ’cause they didn’t want Tonk going home after this to rule them. This all part of their fucking politics. And before you start weeping about some other shit, it was their daddy set it all up with his softness.”

  Reader’s pupils flickered as he looked at Pod’s back. The words twisted a knife in him. All at once he hated the sentiment yet was surprised by the insight.

  Pod turned his head a little, catching Reader with a side-eyed glance, flashing a nasty grin. “See? You thought I was nothing but a drunk layabout. Turns out I’m an observant and clever drunk layabout.”

  Pod paused a long moment before returning his gaze to the end of the battle. Right before he did, he said, “Oh, we’ll be toasting this tomorrow night.”

  When Cutter saw the last of the light fade from Tonk’s eyes, he let the body slide from his glaive. He immediately turned to join Huntress and help her fend off the ogres who were attacking her. Before he could take the step, though, he paused. A sliver of light caught his eye. He looked down to his wrist. Before he could react further, the glimmer became a blaze, a beacon in the dim light. The band on his wrist became a crucible for white light. He had to turn away, his pupils constricting. In the darkness, the light was a painful flare. The band became a cycling of luminescence. Then, as suddenly as it flared, the light was gone. Cutter suddenly found himself staring down at a band of iron. It was flawless iron, dull and grey but without scar or tarnish.

  “Well… would you look at that…”

  The fighter sigil winked and suddenly became redder and brighter than it had been before.

  “Cinder… I’ll be damned… holy shit…”

  He stood, a little awed by the sudden transformation. He realized he could feel the changes in his body. He didn’t feel stronger exactly. What he did feel was a certain tension — a pleasant, powerful kind of tension. He felt more dangerous, more capable. He could feel a new lethal power flowing through his veins. He was changed. And he liked it.

  He turned to the crowd of ogres who were flailing hopelessly against Huntress. All around, the tide of the battle was shifting. The attackers were falling. He winced as he watched one of the new ogres, a mid-sized female, fall with the point of a pickaxe spearing her chest. Still, the battle was different now. Tonk, their leader, was dead. Donk, their most prominent fighter, was dead. In the wake of that blow, they might have crumbled. Under the torrent of attacks from the other ogres, they were swept away.

  Cutter raised his glaive, pulsing with his new power, and turned to Huntress and her opponents.

  “HERE I FUCKING COME!”

  Tiller found himself hunched over the dying form of an ogre. He couldn’t know it was the last of them. He just knew it was the second he had killed that awful night.

  He stood, panting, his body racked by the expense of his own respiration. The entire head of the shovel was buried in the ogre’s chest as it lay lifeless on the earth beneath him.

  His mind was swept by the impossibility of this reality. He had killed. He had killed twice. Clay-banded ogres that weren’t fighters, fine. But he’d taken their lives. They weren’t human, but he didn’t think that mattered. They were sapient. They were people. He had killed two people. This was something he had thought would shake him more.

  With a start, he jerked back, yanking the shovel free in a geyser of blood and gore. He spun, eyes hunting for the next attacker.

  He found none.

  All he found with his wide, adrenaline-fueled eyes were faces looking at him. Some of them were sad. Others were relieved. All were somber. All were the big, strange faces of the ogres who had come to their aid.

  Tiller kept looking around. His blood crackled with urgency, with the expectation of violence. None came.

  Finally, his eyes settled on the male who had come with the ogres. This one was looking at him with an expression that was beyond reading. He was a strange-looking ogre, dressed in bright colors and draped with trinkets. His hair was elaborately braided, and the tails hung long over his body.

  The ogre stepped toward Tiller. Tiller found himself unsure as to how to react. He couldn’t read the being’s intentions. He knew the ogre was bigger than him. He also knew, despite the ogre’s actions, that he might be held accountable for the devastation of his clan.

  Suddenly Cutter was at his side, glaive held ready but unthreatening.

  Cutter hissed in his ear, “So what now?”

  Tiller breathed in return, “I have no idea.”