I am paired with two of the more reliable scouts, a terse, dark-skinned man from the asylum, and a brisk woman from the Yeseg militia. We go ahead, picking the path among the rocks.

By nightfall we traverse the short pass that brings us out onto the slopes above Vscriathjadze’s paltry few lamps. We begin our descent, using a switchback path among boulders. I perk up hearing an unfamiliar sound, like insects, heavy beetles flying by on thick wings that wouldn’t be up here it’s not a kind of place for beetles—a far away pinging noise like tiny metal hammers—Makemin’s voice booms out—

“Under cover!”

—as a bank of shot rolls in over us in the dark. I throw myself on the ground and drag sideways toward the rocks—peering up eyes against brows I see the fleeting shapes of the enemy soldiers sweeping pendulously from side to side. They form a whirlpool around us; Makemin is doing something, calling his men together. A sweet-heavy fatigue is pouring down on me like a stream of sand weighting me to the ground. With effort I get myself under cover and let my head droop against the stone. In among the noise, now compounded by the sound of Makemin’s thunderbolt and the rifles of his sharpshooters, comes a concatenation of raving and sobbing, mournful and mirthless laughter from the asylum soldiers. They are floundering in helpless panic. The noise grates intolerably on me. I try to rouse myself, but even from here I can see the enemy circling, one rank flashing between me and another, space opening and closing between them as they dance past, guns cracking without a single flash, nothing to make anything more than silhouettes out of them.

... A voice repeats the same phrase, moving from place to place. After a while I make out the “All clear” and so out I come, numbly scanning the ground for bodies. I walk neither quickly nor slowly to a crumpled shape—dead. Another, also dead. There are at least a dozen. Who knows how many, if any, lie dead up there and around us, where the enemy were. Our number is patently less again.

Makemin urges us together, to regroup and proceed, get out of the open before another attack. Behind us the asylum soldiers make a terrible sound of lamentation in as many ways as can be imagined; loud prayers, sobs, a motley demoralizing sound. Makemin is earnestly badgering the officers to quiet the noise and calm the asylum men; the noise only begins to ebb and surge as they listen only to break out again, listen and break out again. It isn’t stopping—the sound is nettling Makemin—something serious is happening to his command.

Makemin calls the officers together and we hurry forward to a ledge from which to survey the field. In my rush to catch up with him, my pack slips from my shoulder and tumbles into the bracken fringing the ledge.

“Get it later!” Makemin says impatiently, waving me forward.