“Yeah, I meant what’s our assault strength. You’re not planning to use—”

Murakami jerked a thumb at the bulk of Impaler.

“Our spiky-minded friends there? I certainly am.”

“Fuck, Tod, they’re a bunch of meth-head kids. The haiduci are going to shred them.”

He gestured dismissively. “Work with the tools to hand, Tak. You know how it is. They’re young and angry and cranked up on meth, just looking for someone to take it out on. They’ll keep Segesvar occupied long enough for us to get in and do the real damage.”

I glanced at my watch. “You planning to do this tonight?”

“Dawn tomorrow. We’re waiting on Aiura, and according to Tanaseda, she won’t get in until the early hours. Oh yeah.” He tipped his head back and nodded at the sky. “And there’s the weather.”

I followed his gaze. Thick, dark battlements of cloud were piled up overhead, toppling steadily westward across a fragmentary, orange-tinged sky where Hotei’s light still struggled to make itself felt. Daikoku had long ago drowned in a muffled glow on the horizon. And now that I noticed, there was a fresh breeze across the Expanse that carried the unmistakable smell of the sea.

“What about the weather?”

“It’s going to change.” Murakami sniffed. “That storm that was supposed to blow itself out in the southern Nurimono? Didn’t. And now it seems it’s picked up a scoop from some freak north-westerly run-on, and it’s hooking. It’s coming back around.”

Ebisu’s Eavesdrop.

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m not sure, Tak. It’s a fucking weather forecast. But even if we don’t catch the full force of it, a bit of hard wind and horizontal rain wouldn’t go amiss, would it? Chaotic systems, just where we need them.”

“That,” I said carefully, “depends very much on how good a pilot your shaky friend Vlad turns out to be. You know what they call a hookback like this down here, don’t you?”

Murakami looked at me blankly.

“No. Rough luck?”

“No, they call it Ebisu’s Eavesdrop. After the fisherman ghost story?”

“Oh, right.”

This far south, Ebisu isn’t himself. In the north and equatorial regions of Harlan’s World, JapAmanglic cultural dominance makes him the folk god of the sea, patron of sailors and, generally speaking, a good-natured deity to have around. Saint Elmo is cheerily co-opted as an analogue or helper god, so as to include and not upset the more Christian-influenced residents. But in Kossuth, where the East European worker heritage that helped build the World is strong, this live and let live approach is not reciprocated. Ebisu emerges as a demonic submarine presence to scare children to bed with, a monster that in legend saints like Elmo must do battle with to protect the faithful.

“You remember how that story ends?” I asked.