60

The walled city of Wulfstead was too far off to see with the naked eye, but Alyce had gotten her hands on a spyglass, and through it was everything in precision. It was a truly impressive settlement, each white tower and turret immaculate, sporting banners of Bonesteel gray. Rooted to its perilous coast, the simple vastness spoke for itself, conveying a tall and impenetrable force.

Alyce let the spyglass fall. Clouds were growing thick over their position on the headland, hinting at rain or heavier things, but Peter didn't seem deterred. She watched him as he described the city layout to Una and the fleet's captaining members, hands gesticulating as he went about answering questions or concerns. Tritan stood absurdly over the large group, stroking his beard in strenuous thought— which for him was clearly a challenging task. They were to launch the attack promptly at dawn, jump right into the open bailey and coerce its nightmen into submission. No blood would spill if all went to plan. 

Her stomach turned. She should hide, she thought. 

"You look nervous."

Alyce jumped. Arngeir had joined her at the front lines, footsteps hushed by the five thousand Flintmen tramping forward in columns of tens. She swallowed hard and nodded.

Arn smiled for her. "You can't dwell on it," he said. "You can't dwell on any of it. The more you start thinking that things could go sideways, the more you're likely to make mistakes."

"I can't help it," she replied. "There's nothing else to think about."

He gazed at the ocean for a long, sober moment. "Time to time, I sail the high seas," he said. "To find what there is to find, I suppose. The blue yonder. I sometimes fear the craft might split, the way the timbers grind together. What's worse is the men." He glanced back, no longer smiling. "Tempers wear thin on long voyages. Fights break out. I've seen good friends do terrible things to one another, and I've done some terrible things myself."

She crinkled her nose. "Sounds miserable."

He shrugged as if to agree, and then produced a pipe and bag of tobacco. "So when I start dwelling on all the bad, I make an endless mental list of what I'll eat when I get home," he said. "I'll start with baked gurnard this time. Garlic. Breadcrumbs."

"Is that a fish?"

"Or maybe a minnow pie."

She scowled. "That's not a thing."

Arngeir peered at her, a gleam of mischief in his eyes. "And you?" he asked. "Surely you eat more than just cheese."

Alyce stuck her chin out. "I like boiled peanuts."

He lit his pipe with a quiet laugh. "Boiled peanuts, is it."

"And fritters. And they'd sometimes have pressed duck in Oldden."

"The cooks in Flint make grand oyster soup."

"And prairie chickens."

"And custard pudding." He said the last whilst breathing out smoke. But then he suddenly smirked down at her and said, "Sakes alive, you're a tiny thing."

Alyce ignored him, sulking a bit since he'd brightened her mood. Her eyes returned to Wulfstead, and then out to sea. Reminded, she asked, "What are you hoping to find?"

He grunted, sourly. "Land, maybe."

"Any luck?"

Arngeir didn't answer her question. Instead, he waved arbitrarily at the offing, as if it represented the world. "We came from out there."

Alyce thought back to that terrible dawn, when Eadric had come to take her and Ethos. The look in his eyes as he'd told them the tale of how he'd come by Karna. She doubted she'd ever learn if it was true, or if it was just a story he'd made up. Ethos would probably take it to the grave.

"I don't care where it started," she said. "The legend of Redbeard is much more exciting than what the reality turned out to be. The truth is a big black hole. It's got no message. It's got no moral. It's mean and it's dark and it can keep its stupid homeland."

Arn had been drawing on his pipe; he lowered it now, taken aback. Wind caught the smoke. "You know some things," he guessed. "Shame, that."

"Nobody would've stayed here if the old world was so great."

He snorted at her. "Aye, and if my aunt had clackers she'd be my uncle."

"You don't get it, Arngeir." Alyce folded her arms, feeling a chill. "It's the way he talks about this place, like there's something special about it. He'll do anything to protect it."

"So you think his land is a place much worse."

"Stupid. It must be."

"I'm surprised you never asked."

"He's always smiling and good at avoiding my questions."

"You're one of them, I see," he mused, and he scoffed at the look on her face. "Like the midlander, Bagley, thinking that Eadric walks among us. Hoping for it, even."

She glared. "He's not evil," she said. "He's not."

But Arngeir hadn't been making fun of her. He nodded understandingly, nursing his pipe. "You've got to chart your own course and stick to it," he agreed. "As Calaster Goforth said. It's something you need to determine yourself."

It was nice to hear that from someone new. Her attention shifted to Peter, who'd cleared out while Tanis and Tritan directed the men into ready positions. "I wish everyone were as open as you, Arngeir," she grumbled. "Peter's set in his ways."

"Terrible things, remember. I've done some terrible things."

She watched him puff. "Ever break somebody's arm?"

"Aye. More than once, in fact."

"What's it feel like?"

"Not very nice."

"But was it difficult?"

He smiled down at her. "No."

Peter joined them. The Battlefrost duds looked nice on him. "Just about ready," he greeted, and he fished a small flask from an inner coat pocket. "Most will still be sleeping, I wager, so all we'll need to subdue are the nightmen."

Arngeir waited for Peter to finish drinking. "How do you feel?"

"Excited," Peter said, albeit with a tired smile. "I'm feeling excited. How about you?"

"It's a good cause. I welcome good causes." He accepted the flask when it was offered, looked at it, and then at Peter. "Enjoy the excitement while it lasts," he suggested. "One day you'll change."

Peter returned the favor of waiting for Arn to finish drinking. "If things don't go our way in there, I'll need you to look after her," he said. "Promise me."

Arngeir eyed Alyce. "This one?"

"Aye, that one."

Alyce glowered up at them. "I don't need looking after."

"Yes, you do," Peter said, and he held her eyes to sell the idea— something he'd tried to pick up from Ethos. "I know you're smart, Alyce. I know you're tough. I just want you safe."

"I helped kill Norita. I tore out a clump of her hair."

"This is different," Peter insisted. "This is thousands of men who aren't looking at their feet. This is battle if people resist. It's not a catfight where Ethos steps in and saves the day."

Alyce irritably blew at the hair in her face. "He didn't save the day," she muttered. "There was nothing he could've done to improve it."

Tanis shouted for Peter's return, but he didn't look away from Alyce until she rolled her eyes and nodded. "Thank you," he said, and he stashed his flask when Arn extended it. "I'll be back in a few."

Alyce sullenly watched him off, feeling stormy. 

"This is it," Arn sighed. "Best not wander and get me in trouble."

Countless Flintmen were watching them from their positions, either silent or carrying on with their neighbors. Alyce wondered what they thought of her. "I've never seen this many people gathered in one place," she said. "Do you know them all?"

"Some, aye." He pointed out a beast of a man. "That there's little Tomas," he said. "As a tyke he'd steal the apple pies that Susie Swann put out to cool."

"Little!"

Peter began to address the once-tykes, inviting their gazes away. Alyce surprised Arn by holding the hand he'd let hang free. "I could go for apple pie," she admitted. "The crust is my favorite. How it crumbles and tastes completely of butter."

Arngeir didn't take his hand back. "Minnow pie."

She sent him a pointed, vertical glare. "I'm not falling for that."

"Come back to Flint when this is all over." He blandly puffed at his pipe, eyes on Peter. "Marcie's pies are the finest high north."

"Who's Marcie?"

"My wife."

Alyce hadn't imagined he'd be married. He came across as a hard sort of man, resigned to a life on the seas or in action. "Doesn't she fear for you on your journeys?" 

"She does."

"But you still go."

"Not as much as I once did." Arngeir squeezed her hand and drew her in, sensing, perhaps, that she hadn't quite calmed. "She'll like you," he promised. "She'll sit you down and bring you a piece of the grandest pie in Karna."

"I thought it was just the finest high north."

"Aye, but she's improved as we were speaking just now."

Alyce smiled for only a second. She'd never been fond of the smell of tobacco, but it suddenly seemed like a comforting fragrance. The first glare of sunlight shot out from the wintry horizon. "She sounds nice," she said. "I'd have liked to meet her."

"You will." But then he caught a glimpse of her face. "What's wrong?"

Peter chose then to return from his men. He was annoyed, she could tell; he'd probably spotted them talking during his stupid speech. "Come here, both of you," he cut in. "It's time."

So they joined the murmuring, heaving formation, Alyce dragging her feet to that end. The crunch of snow underfoot was deafening.

Peter took her other hand on approach. "You remember the plan?"

"Course I do," she retorted, embraced by the confine of lumbering soldiers. "Stupid."

He took a knee to see her square. His eyes were getting better at seeing through her. "Nothing bad is going to happen," he said. "Concentrate."

A glance at Arngeir yielded a nod, and Alyce felt just once for Ethos. If he noticed her looking, she couldn't tell. He was busy up in the clouds somewhere, tackling his own sort of struggle. Alyce knew then to tackle hers.

 CRACK!

A plunging sensation, and, like a thrown switch, the great walls of Wulfstead entombed the five thousand men come to storm them. Darkness fell. Silence stretched.

Alyce had known what to expect, but nothing could have prepared her for that first awful sight of the slaughter: sentries mangled on frosty battlements, flies making noise and swarming about like a low, black, gruesome fog. The raw stench of flesh, dulled by the cold, had broiled enough in a week's worth of sun to pervade and pollute the air. 

A lone packhorse clopped through the bailey. Somebody puked. A strange urge to laugh bubbled up from the pit of Alyce's stomach, but a nearby soldier beat her to it, and the laughter spread to the rest of the men until the sound had surrounded her. It reminded her of when Eadric had died, how he and his copy had laughed in the darkness, as if there were no alternative.

Peter tore his gaze from the scene and looked back at Alyce, still on a knee. Those eyes that had learned sometimes to see through her were wide, too wide, and full of confusion. 

Alyce shoved him away and immediately took off into the formation. For once she was pleased to be so small; it was easy to duck and snake around men who'd been instructed to stand very still, and despite the extent of the infantry spread, she was out the back end in a matter of minutes, causing a yelp or two on the way.

There were buildings abound, scarred by fire. She ducked down an alley, sidestepping corpses that were just as well black. The child in her was terrified that they'd jump alive at any moment, claw at her heels and drag her down with them. They littered most of the inner channels, picked at by crows that would caw and take flight at her frantic approach.

She crouched low beneath an arched buttress, breathing heavy, hand at her mouth. She'd come to the nearest of the city's white walls, she realized, and its height was easily comparable to the ones that Wyndemere's fall had laid waste to. 

Silence for a time. Sweat beading along her spine.

She couldn't shake the image of Peter. It clearly hadn't occurred to him that she'd keep something so awful to herself. She wondered if he'd put all the pieces together, and feared, if he did, that it might change him. 

It was like he'd heard her say his name. She was violently seized from her hiding spot and face to face with Peter in seconds. He held her to the wall and demanded, "What is this!"

Alyce thought she might cry. He'd never been so furious with her. "You're scaring me."

"Drop the act," he said. "You're not scared. You're a hell of a lot older and smarter than I am."

A part of her was insulted by the fact that he'd called her old, but a significantly larger part was focused upon a chilling shadow in his expression. There was so much resentment in him, and distrust; it shone in his eyes and blamed her for it, blamed the whole north, blamed the whole world.

Ethos had promised to keep her safe, but she sensed nothing from him but stillness and calm. "She slaughtered them all," Alyce whispered. "A week ago, when she spawned in Flint. It was the first thing she did after leaving Ethos."

"Alma? Why?"

"She's crazy. That's why."

"Bullshit," he growled. "He must've told you something."

"All I know is that this place was doomed from the start, Peter." She paused, but he didn't angrily interject. He was watching her very carefully, the dark light in his eyes shining through. "Wulfstead was already gone by the time he asked me to survey it," she told him. "He'd been afraid that something like this would happen since Kacha knew the plan."

Peter's teeth flashed. "Then tell me what I'm doing here!"

"You'd just get in the way, stupid!" Another sudden pause, but this time because she'd surprised herself. Peter looked just as surprised. She calmed. "Alma's pure energy, Peter," she said. "What do you think's gonna happen when he can't contain it all?"

He stared hard, gears moving.

"He dies at sunrise," she said, back aching against the cold wall. "This sunrise. Everyone with him will die as well."

Peter's expression darkened with every word. "Take me to him."

Arngeir appeared from the alley over, footsteps drawing their eyes. "The men are restless," he said, subtly gauging Peter's grip. "You should return before it escalates."

"Arn. How long have you been standing there?"

"I was hoping you'd calm on your own."

Peter bristled. "I am calm."

"You told me to protect her, Peter."

A threat. Peter looked back at Alyce, eyes flashing. "I'm not going to hurt her," he said. "There's no need. She knows I'm right."

Alyce grimaced, under pressure. "Right as a crusty armpit."

Arngeir gave a start, but Peter motioned that it was okay, not once taking his gaze from her. "You will do this for me," he instructed. "You'll do it because you don't want him to die, and because he's asked too much of you this time."

"We can't."

"We can try. We can always try."

"But he doesn't want to be saved," she said, voice rising. "He wants to do this, and he didn't want us to get caught in the crossfire. That's what we're doing here."

Peter's grip eased. "I thought I was in the way."

"That's just what he calls it." Alyce touched his hands, urging release. The grip eased further, but didn't yield. "If we were to go, if he were to see us, he wouldn't want to kill Alma," she said. "Because we'd be in range of the blast. We'd be 'in the way.' "

"But that's good," Peter replied. "Then he wouldn't die, either."

"That's where you're horribly wrong, Peter. The elk always dies. We'd just saddle him with all of our deaths the moment before he meets his own."

His expression degenerated again. "That fucking fable."

Arngeir was suddenly beside them, pulling them apart. It was like he could choose when his feet made noise. At arm's length, he spared them a look. "Now, mark me, the two of you," he said. "You've dragged five thousand men here for nothing. You've left them to stand with the corpses."

Peter slapped his hand away. "They're soldiers. They'll do as their told."

"You're out of line." Arn stepped in. Peter stepped back. "The people here are all here for you," he said, each word very slow and deliberate. "But don't think that makes you better than them. You're just a whelk who's out to prove something. Take proper charge or risk losing all of it."

It began to rain, light at first. But then it fell hard, like it might never stop.

Peter looked like he wanted to protest, but he pressed his lips together and nodded. "I understand," he said. "I'd like a final word with her."

Arn glanced between them. "Don't do anything stupid." 

The rain had greased the tired streets, and Alyce listened to Arngeir's mysterious footsteps until they'd gone. "He's right," she muttered. "Don't do anything stupid, stupid."

Peter bent at the waist to see her. His eyes hadn't lost the dark look to them. "I've had an idea," he told her. "And you'll do as I say, no questions asked."

"You can't stop destiny, Peter."

"Aye, maybe," he agreed. "But we can't just give up, Alyce. That's not how we do things. And I'm prepared to let Una compel you into getting us where we need to go."

Alyce almost laughed. "That's your bright idea?"

He smiled. "Not nearly."