The Mages stepped away from each other, allowing the rock room to move and grow. More flowed from the ground, urged by a simple gesture from S’Hivez, and they molded this around the form already there, thickening the trunk and lengthening limbs. They added more, and more again, and then S’Hivez stepped back and lowered his hands.

He looks tired, Lenora thought. They have this, they have their twisted magic, but they’re not used to using it. S’Hivez looked at her through the heat haze, and she saw the black pits of his eyes. He scowled. She looked away, her skin crawling, scalp tightening as if the old wound there were about to reopen and spill her treacherous brain to the ground. A thought came, and she could do nothing to hold it back: He can hear me. She did not look at the old Shantasi Mystic to see whether this was true.

“Lenora!” Angel called. “A present for you, and it will be ready soon.” She threw a punch at the sea and a huge splash rose in the twilight, glowing silver and yellow in the moons’ contrasting light. Krotes ducked down as the wave crashed against the harbor wall, tumbling over and rumbling across the ground until it broke around the glowing sculpture.

The stone hissed as its superheated framework was suddenly cooled. There were cracks and explosions, and the sounds that came from the thing were almost those of something alive. And if it did have life, it was in pain.

Lenora could not hold back her own accompanying shout.

As the hissing steam died away, Angel appeared by her side. She leaned close to Lenora, and her breath was as warm as the stone she had just cooled. “It’s yours,” she said. “Your machine, your ride, and soon I’ll give it a life.” She turned away from Lenora and surveyed the assembled Krotes. “You’ll all have one!” she said. “Machines of war for you to do what you’ve always been ready to do: take Noreela. Soon the ships will be here, and your fellow Krotes will follow you east and south and west. I name every one of you here a captain, and Lenora is now your Mistress. You answer to her, and she will answer to us. And the rewards at the end of this short war will be beyond imagining.” She turned back to Lenora and smiled. “I’m giving you my army,” she said, “and I ask that you use it well. I know your intentions, Lenora. I know your aims. I know what you hear and what speaks to you, but I ask that you ignore that calling until you have fulfilled your purpose. You’re here for me, and because of me.”

“Yes, Mistress,” Lenora whispered. Not long to wait, she thought. And she hoped that the shade of her dead child heard the promise in those words.