Klamath knew. Only the worst explanation would be true.

With one part of his mind, he thought, Flisk. Fourteen riflemen. What are they doing?

With another part, he timed the motions of shooting. Pull back the bolt. Eject the spent casing. Push the bolt home to shove another cartridge into the chamber. Find a target. Squeeze the trigger without hesitation or tension, a movement as natural as a breath.

At that instant, he heard two more shots. They were almost simultaneous.

One quick breath later, they were answered by a fusillade. The rapid stutter of rifle fire seemed to come from all sides. Was it an ambush? A melee? It lasted longer than Klamath expected. Then, abruptly, it stopped.

No one fired again.

The consternation of the Magisters demanded his attention. “Calm yourselves!” he ordered them. “We are in no danger. Servants of the enemy have attacked Captain Flisk’s company. He has fourteen riflemen. They have responded. If those servants were still alive, they would shoot again. Since they do not, they must be dead.”

Dead, not fled. I have not seen the other two. They had been listening to Father Skurn when his sorcery was restored. Klamath did not believe that men coerced by the priest’s strange theurgy would have run away.

“Are you sure, General?” croaked one of the Bellegerin Magisters.

Klamath grimaced bitterly. “Ask someone else. I am here, not there.”

He meant, I sent those people to die.

Unwilling to meet the bafflement and fright of the theurgists, he gazed away westward. In clear weather, the encampment was an easy walk behind him. There the snow drifted down softly. But over the bay, fierce winds whipped and harried it. Beyond the cliff-edge, the clouds and their cold burdens writhed like a tormented sea.

He was not surprised at all to see an unsteady glare of silver in the distance. It flickered in the savage swirl of snow, reflected off the storm clouds in bursts like the urgent blinking of a signal-lantern. But he did not need to see it distinctly to recognize it for what it was. When Magister Brighten gasped, “Sorcery! The Decimate of lightning!” she only confirmed what he already knew.

Then he heard wind-muffled thunder. Distant and unmistakable, it sounded like the breaking of the bay’s foundations.

The enemy had resumed his attack on the outer reef. His scouts had only made a breach large enough for one ship. Now he had arrived to renew his attack. The distant reef was only the first barrier. There were other obstacles. And the snowfall would hamper him. He was not close yet. His approach would take time. It might take a long time.

Nevertheless he had come.

For the first time, Klamath acknowledged that the enemy’s name was Rile. Skurn had denied it. Now the truth was plain. Who else could have restored the priest’s sorcery?