She knew that boy. The gray pony beneath him moved dexterously at his urging, as if it were a part of him. In fact, it became quickly clear that the entirety of the column, the entirety of this fearsome army, was simply an extension of his body.

This, of course, was Yehuda Leib.

He had come to retrieve his father.

He had come to overthrow Death.

But something about him had changed.

Around his neck, cinched tight against the cold, was a stained red scarf of wool. He had negotiated its release from Lord High General Dumah as part of their larger arrangement, had listened patiently as its extraordinary qualities had been enumerated by the sniveling Undergeneral Behemoth: it was a very powerful amulet, a protection against harm, stitched painstakingly by a mortal woman for her child, stained with the blood of the child’s father, buried with all the dignities of a mortal man. If one of Lord High General Dumah’s scouts hadn’t recovered it for him in the border cemeteries, it might’ve fetched a very dear price on the demon market—a noble title, a grand estate, or perhaps even more.

Soon Lord High General Dumah himself came cantering up through the column, riding upon his hulking black stallion, and when Yehuda Leib turned to greet him, the old woman in the bushes saw that the scarf had not been given for nothing.

One of the boy’s keen blue eyes was missing, the empty socket covered over with a black patch, and on the lord high general’s chest there was a brand-new trophy, a medallion glistening in the starlight:

One keen blue eye.

It had been a dear price to pay. But there are very old laws that govern the drawing up of covenants and agreements, and nothing binds them tighter than the willful giving of blood.

Yehuda Leib had paid gladly.

By and by, the boy and the lord high general moved through the clearing, leading the enormous torrent of the trooping dead behind them, and the old woman was left alone at the berry bush.

But her appetite was gone now. The vine seemed to bear only dried, dead fruits, small black clots that dangled heavily from their stems.

With a sigh, she rose to her feet.

She had become bored.

Now the old lady began to walk again, going in the opposite direction from the army, but moving toward the same destination: a tall, many-faced tower at the very center of everything.

After all—the direction you go matters less than you think.

—

“They’re moving.”

Lilith let out a low sigh.

Things were growing more complex by the moment.

“Where are they bound?”

The cat shook her head. “I do not know. But the boy rides before them.”

Lilith frowned. “What do you mean, before them? An outrider?”

“No,” said Lilith’s scout. “He rides beside the lord high general.”