Riva and Giraldi departed. Bernard gave orders to the rest of the command staff to begin the retreat to the tower. Amara moved to stand beside her husband and twined her fingers with his. Bernard stared out at the fields of glowing coals. Grass fires had begun at the edges of the burning coal, where the heat had leached the water from the land nearby.

Beyond the curtains of wavering heat, the vord were massing, moving, flowing like a single being with a million limbs. It was impossible to make out any details, beyond the fact that they were there—and that more and more of them kept coming.

Amara shuddered.

“Shouldn’t we go?” she asked her husband.

“There’s a little time,” Bernard said. “That’s the beauty of this plan. It does two things at once. Kills the vord and gives us time to fall back to a stronger position.”

He fell silent and resumed staring to the west.

Amara said, very quietly, “You’re thinking about Isana.”

“She’s my sister,” Bernard said.

“You heard what Ehren said.”

Bernard’s expression hardened. He clenched his fist and slammed it into one of the low merlons on the wall. A webwork of cracks shot through it. “The Queen has her.”

Amara put her hand on his fist and squeezed gently. Bernard closed his eyes and made a visible effort to relax. His fist came unclenched a moment later.

“I hoped this would draw her out,” he whispered. “She’d run from a confrontation, but she might lead us back to Isana.”

“The vord Queen is anything but stupid,” Amara said. “She must know that we plan to kill her.”

Bernard grunted. “We’ve got to make her come out. Show herself. If we can’t do that, this is over.”

“I know,” Amara said quietly. “But so does she.”

Bernard rubbed at his jaw again. “How’s Masha?”

“According to Olivia, she’s frightened,” Amara said. “She knows that there’s something bad going on.”

“Poor thing,” Bernard said. “Too bright for her own good.”

“For her own peace of mind, perhaps,” Amara said. “Not necessarily the other.”

He grunted an agreement. “Suppose we shouldn’t waste any more time here.” He put two fingers to his lips and let out a sharp whistle. The horses they were riding nickered and came trotting over to the stairs nearest them.

Amara eyed him, smiling a little. “How do you do that?”

“It isn’t hard,” Bernard said. “You just—”

He stopped talking abruptly as a plume of gaseous white vapor suddenly billowed up from the far side of the field of coal. Amara felt her breath catch in her throat as she watched. The plume thickened, doubling in size and doubling again. At its edges, it became translucent.

“Steam,” Amara breathed.

“Watercraft?” Bernard murmured. He looked up. Only a few white, innocent clouds raced across the sky, none of them dropping rain. “How?”