She won’t kill him now. There are finer ways to hurt him than death.

“Run,” she tells him. “Run, sheep man. I hunt your student now. And when I take her I’ll lever your jaws off and pour you full of poison from the sac of her cured womb.”

He smiles sadly. He shakes his hairy head. “You poor, stupid animal,” he says. “You could’ve had the world. Look what you’ve become.”

*   *   *

“AHEM. Hem hem.”

“What?” Yawa snapped.

“Now that I have both of you together,” Apparitor declared, “I’d like to read this letter Baru wrote.”

Baru didn’t realize what he meant until he already had the paper unfolded. The little sneak must’ve pinched it from her mail bag when he shuttled it to Helbride! “Let’s see, hem hem. Here’s what Baru wrote: ‘To the Imperial Jurispotence of Aurdwynn, Her Excellence Xate Yawa. I know your game—’”

Baru’s arms were busy with the oars. She tried to bite the letter out of his grip. He held it away, grinning. “‘I’ve been playing it, too. I suppose I’ve already won, if you can call it victory. You played your part flawlessly, of course—’”

Yawa’s black glove pinched the letter and vanished it into her gown. “Let Baru speak for herself.” Her lens eyes turned to the circle of light ahead.

But of course she didn’t give Baru the letter back.

They broke clear of the underground river and passed among the fat brown mace-headed grasses of the marsh. Sheets and ribbons of seabirds wheeled overhead. Baru gasped the salt air, grateful to be free of the river—imagine being trapped in there at high tide, to drown.…

Tenshy Diminute’s armsmen in the other skiffs hunched low and smeared their faces in mud. “Poles,” Tenshy called, and they all switched to spear-shafts to punt through the marsh. Iraji roused from his faint and, despite Apparitor’s gentle pleas, took up a pole himself.

A clamor from overhead drew Baru’s eyes. A glossy black crow parted the mass of seabirds, diving among shearwaters and gannets. It called out indignantly.

“Shit,” Apparitor hissed. “A scout.”

Xate Yawa’s mask tracked the bird. “Before the treaty, when we still fought against Falcrest, the Vultjag people would train falcons to kill the crows.”

“We,” Apparitor said, mockingly. “Like you ever fought—”

Suddenly: a greasy pop.

One of the skiffs full of armsmen caught screaming fire.

The gel flame fused cloth to flesh and smeared itself purple-white across blistering skin. For a moment the sailors beat at themselves in pure confusion: then the pain came over their battlements and sent them howling into the swamp water. The heads of mace-grass burst like garlic in a pan.

“ARMS!” Apparitor roared. “THEY’RE ON US!”

Iraji poled faster. Baru, stricken, fell out of rhythm.