"We have confirmed it," Dimov said, though the words were not his own. "The fiends breached the cordon as much as two days ago."

"How is that even possible?" Kali asked. "An army walked through the cordon, and no one knew?"

Dimov repeated the Sergeant's words as he spoke, then paused briefly before he began his response. "It is not unheard of for scouts, runners, or even entire patrols to go missing during a subjugation, especially a subjugation with complicating factors. When the daily runner did not check in, we sent another. When he failed, I sent a relief force. They found a handful of dead and a few rank II fiends. It was assumed that they'd run foul of the higher rank fiends who we then killed, nothing more."

Alarion heard the defensiveness in Elazi's words, even though Dimov failed to convey it in his tone as he repeated them back to the assembled group. Collaborators or not, what the Captain had just described was a blunder so massive it bordered on dereliction of duty. Elazi had probably responded by the book. After all, the man seemed to do everything by the book, as though he'd never had an original thought in his life—but it wouldn't matter. The Vitrians would come for heads when all of this was over, and his was more than high enough to get cut.

"How c-close are they?" Bergman asked.

"Within a hundred miles. At their current pace, two days unless they choose to outrun the dead, which seems unlikely."

Kali asked the next most obvious question. "How many?"

"We are still gathering estimates. But at least two thousand fiends and hundreds of revenants, as well as most or all of the dead from inside the cordon."

The Sergeant took a deep breath and began pacing, his enormous fists opening and closing at regular intervals. The motion was the only thing keeping the big man from lashing out, and Alarion shifted slightly in his seat to make sure that Kali didn't bump into him as he passed.

"How many p-people live in Ashad-Veldi?" Bergman asked quietly, as though afraid of the answer.

"One Hundred and Ninety-Five Thousand. At last census. So probably more. Evacuation is already underway-"

"They can not fight it?" Alarion blurted out, disregarding the careful back and forth of the conversation and earning a glare from Dimov.

"Use your head, Orphan," Kali scowled. "Most Ashadi have low aptitude. Thirties and forties, not hundreds. I'd be shocked if one in twenty-five was Awakened. Most of those won't be combat classes to begin with, and many of those who are will have been inducted. The city has a guard, but it is hundreds of Awakened. They won't stand up to thousands of fiends."

"I am trying, cousin," Dimov said to his simu, before he snapped his fingers. "You can argue among yourselves later, without wasting the captain's time."

"Sir," Kali replied briskly. "There is a relief force coming, I expect?"

"To us, no." Dimov conveyed. "The 73rd Regulars are on the march to Ashad-Veldi, but they will be there in four days."

"C-can the city hold out?" Bergman asked.

"If they laid siege, perhaps. But they will not. They will storm the city at almost any cost."

"B-because of the Mana Font." Bergman had already elaborated on his fear during the hours they'd waited for confirmation. Everyone knew what he meant and what it meant for the people of the city.

For an infestation to spread beyond its borders, it required two things: food and new places of power. Feeding a boil increased its power and, eventually, its rank. The stronger the boil, the further it could 'supply' its fiends and revenants, allowing them to function normally. A fiend outside of a boil's field of influence weakened dramatically, similar to the starvation Alarion witnessed on the Fiend Isle, but much more rapid in its onset. To counteract this limitation, fiends traveled to other places of power within their sphere of influence and corrupted them with fiendish ichor, essentially feeding themselves to the place of power to poison it and create a new boil.

The plan laid out by the Bones of Ashad was simple enough now that they had all the pieces. They'd located burgeoning places of power, ones stirring beneath great battlefields from the last war, places where large numbers of Awakened had died all at once, suffusing the soil with energy. Through some corrupt means, they brought these places of power to fruition, then poisoned them to create boils. They fed the boils, misled the Vitrians about the scale of the threat, and then launched an all-out attack on Ashad-Veldi. If they captured it, they could feed the new boil every person they'd killed in their conquest of the city. Thousands who stayed behind to defend the city, or could not evacuate in time.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

"The 73rd will have to burn down the city to dislodge them. Even that will take weeks or months. The refugee situation will be catastrophic, and the damage to trade... we must not let this come to pass." Dimov spoke the last words with his best attempt at gravitas. "We have two days to reach the boil and destroy it."

"That won't stop them," Kali said grimly.

"No, it will not," the Captain agreed by proxy. "But if we kill it early, it may weaken them enough for the city to hold out until reinforcements arrive. It is the only thing that we can do."

"I-If the boil is feeding t-them that far away, it is r-rank III. We are mid-rank II, at best," Bergman reminded him.

"And there are twelve of you. Along with nearly two hundred rank I Awakened. We have an artillery section taking up firing positions near the boil as we speak. By the time you arrive, there will be nothing alive or dead for two miles in every direction. At least, above ground."

"Seventeen," Alarion said.

Rather than repeat his words, Dimov gave Alarion a look. "Was that a question, specialist?"

"There are seventeen of us. Sixteen who survived the march, and then we added you. But he just said twelve."

Dimov paled. "Captain, the specialist is asking... ah."

"What is, ah, Dimov?" Kali asked.

"The third team is gone," Dimov told them. "Mission silent for the last seven hours. Assumed lost."

That was Higgins and Velcor. Their team had been the closest to Carling Hill. From the sound of things, they'd been wiped out only hours after they'd arrived.

"Had you planned on informing us, sir?" Kali asked scathingly.

"The situation is fluid, Sergeant. And you know as well as I do, losses are inevitable," Dimov had taken on the pallor of a ghost as the conversation evolved, his once clipped and precise tone now shaking and concerned. "You are ordered to collect all relevant intelligence, including the coded library you previously reported. After that, I expect you to proceed with all speed to Carling Hill. That should take you..."

"Twenty-six hours, sir," Kali answered with the sort of sharp professionalism over anger that only a career soldier possessed. "Slightly more if we encounter the dead, though they refused to follow us into the valley."

"I will expect you in no more than thirty."

"Understood, sir."

Dimov waited a moment, and then his shoulders sagged. "He is gone."

"You heard the man," Kali told his subordinates. "Dimov, Bergman, stack everything as quickly as you can so that Orphan's familiar can store what it needs to. I want to be done here in thirty minutes and out of the village within the hour."

Both Alarion and Bergman sprang into action with a well-drilled respect for orders. Dimov did not. He was a stone statue at the heart of the underground chamber, staring at the ground, his face expressionless.

"Is something wrong, soldier?" Kali asked.

"I am not going."

"Pardon? Could you repeat that?"

"He has already lost one squad. He's throwing us to the fiends because of his mistake, hoping we can somehow clean it up. I will not die for provi-"

Kali's first rocked Dimov off his feet like an adult punching a toddler. The teenager hit the ground hard, one tooth scattering off into the corner of the room, his blood joining the pools and stains that the collaborators had left behind in their violent clash with Alarion.

The Sergeant stood over Dimov like a wrathful god, his fists tight and promising more violence if Dimov, or anyone else, made the mistake of so much as moving.

"I understand. You are a kid, and you are green. It is not fair what they do to you, any more than what they did to me or to the Orphan. You are scared. You may even be right, though the next time I hear the word provincial come out of your mouth, I promise it will be the last." Kali squatted down, a posture that did nothing to diminish his physicality but gave him the air of a stern father imparting a lesson. "But none of that matters. It doesn't matter that your cousin can't find his ass with both hands. It doesn't matter that he is throwing us into the fire in the vain hope of salvaging some sort of redemption. If we stay here, thousands of people will die. Innocent people. More innocent than you or I. We are going into that fire, so you either get burned there or die here, sir."

"Y-you'll hang for this!" Dimov said through broken teeth.

"For striking a deserter? No. I think not." Kali put a massive hand on Dimov's shoulder, an act that might have been intended to be reassuring but was anything but in practice. "You're shook. Whatever you're going to say, get it out now. Once you stand up, you're a soldier again."

Dimov looked at him, nostrils flaring in anger and fear. He tried to remain stoic, but eventually, tears began to glimmer in his eyes. "I do not want to die."

"None of us do. All of us will." Kali shrugged. "Mother will guide us when it is our time. And for now? I will guide you. You are in the Auxilia. March to the end; there's no need to ask why."

Somehow, the words struck a chord with Dimov. The tension remained, but his breathing slowed, his wide eyes relaxing as he gave a slow nod.

"Good. Get up, heal yourself, and do what you are told. Mother willing, some of us will make it through this."

Dimov rose without further complaint. He touched his mouth, feeling around for the missing tooth with a wince before a look from Kali sent him scurrying to order the books just as he'd been told.

For his part, Kali remained in his deep, wide-legged squat, one hand on the ground before him, his face a mask of silent contemplation. To Alarion's eyes, he looked less Godborn so much as simply divine, a being wrathful one moment and a merciful the next, an ivory statue no different from the graven idol the villagers worshiped. He'd never respected an officer or even a non-com before. That had suddenly changed.

"Something bothering you as well, specialist?"

Alarion blushed fiercely. He hadn't realized he'd been staring. "No, Sergeant. Just... distracted."

"By what?"

Rather than try to explain the deep, introspective thoughts his mind had been chewing at the edges of, Alarion went for something simpler.

"Why do you get to punch an officer, and I catch six months?"

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