\hypertarget{chapter-62-impulse}{%
\section{Chapter 62: Impulse}\label{chapter-62-impulse}}

\begin{quote}
\emph{``I don't care if they've been training, it's only been two
months. What could they possibly have learned that would threaten me?''}

-- Dread Empress Sinistra IV, the Erroneous
\end{quote}

``The Mighty Berelun is willing to allow passage, but only for a
tithe,'' Ivah translated.

The Mighty Berelun was full of shit, I decided. That it had accepted an
envoy instead of sending a warband the moment we entered its territory
had been an auspicious start, especially when it'd proposed one of the
large caverns of the region as a meeting place. The Mighty, I had
learned, preferred to lay their ambushes in small passages where they
could best leverage their superior speed and reflexes without the risk
of being swarmed by `lesser' drow. Sadly, it looked like this was going
to be a repeat of our aborted talks with the Purka Sigil. The cavern
surrounding us might have been broad and high-ceilinged, but there were
discreet little paths on an upper level where I could hear drow
scuttling around like rats. Berelun had been smart enough to listen to
the rumours already making their way through the outer ring but not
quite smart enough to decide picking a fight wouldn't be in its favour.
I was almost insulted by how few it had mobilized for the ambush: by the
sounds of it, there couldn't be more than twenty.

Most of those would be ispe, the lowest rung of the Mighty. In practice,
those were fighters with a handful of interesting tricks but none of the
dangerous Secrets out there. As dangerous in melee as your average fae
soldier, if much less mobile for the lack of wings. They were the kind
of enterprising souls that joined up with a sigil as much for the
protection as because the quickest way for them to grow in power was to
slay and harvest other ispe -- either those of an enemy sigil or that of
their own. Mighty Berelun itself had prudently shown up with an escort,
a pair of rylleh. Ivah's old rank, and one I'd begun to understand was
higher up the ladder than my guide had previously implied. Rylleh were
the drow just beneath whatever drow the sigil was named after, called
the sigil-holder, and considered the most likely contenders to
eventually run through their leader and take the clan for themselves.
They were also usually the heavy hitters in a sigil apart from the
chief, which meant Berelun was taking us seriously. It would not have
brought both its most dangerous rivals and strongest fighters to meet
with us on the ground floor otherwise.

That \emph{had} seemed promising, until I'd heard the ambush setting up.

``What kind of tithe?'' I asked.

I had no intention of paying anything of the sort, but stringing this
out a little longer would allow for a cleaner resolution. As if prompted
by my thought, my ears caught the sound of a blade slicing open a
throat. There was a muted gurgle and a body was quietly lowered to the
ground. One down. Ivah addressed the Mighty in Crepuscular and I kept my
eyes on its own. Deep, perfect silver set in a dark grey face that
looked like it'd been carved with a knife. Berelun was larger than most
drow I'd seen, broad-shouldered and heavily muscled. The obsidian blade
strapped to its back could not be called anything but a greatsword.

``One in ten of your sigil, my queen,'' Ivah said. ``With no fewer than
six ispe among them.''

My sigil, huh. That was one way to call the gathering throng of the
desperate and the ambitious Akua was keeping an eye on. Two thousand, by
now, though we were still thin on Mighty. Few of those were willing to
take my bargain when it was extended. I'd already made my peace with the
fact that we'd have to grow our own pack through harvest, and truth be
told that might make them slightly more reliable in the long term.
Another gurgle above, another drop. Berelun had dispersed its ambushers
to make sure they'd be able to fire from all angles, looked like. It
would have been decent tactics if I hadn't seen it coming. But I had,
and their isolation meant they were easy prey for my own hunter on the
prowl.

``Ivah,'' I said. ``Ask the Mighty Berelun if it heard what took place
between us and the Purka.''

My guide's deep blue eyes crinkled in amusement, but it nodded. The
exchange of words was swift, but not so swift that I did not hear
another two throats cut.

``The Mighty knows of the destruction that was delivered unto the
Purka,'' Ivah said. ``It cautions you not to believe the Berelun to be
weak or lacking in cunning. It says tithe will be paid, one way or
another, and that pretending otherwise is foolish.''

``So it thinks I'm speaking a threat,'' I mused. ``When I was, in fact,
delivering a warning. They might have been sloppier about their ambush,
but the plan was quite similar.''

Fifth death, then a pause. The sixth and seventh were nearly
simultaneous. She was having fun with it, if she was getting that fancy.

``Is there to be fighting then, my queen?'' Ivah asked, sounding less
than worried.

``Eventually,'' I agreed. ``Let's keep stringing them along for a bit
longer. Quibble over the numbers, make it look like I'm considering the
offer.''

``By your will,'' the drow agreed, head inclining in deference.

By my final count, there were eighteen ispe who'd been hiding upstairs.
My eyes remained on Berelun all the while, and I saw it getting
increasingly impatient as moments passed. Not because of the
negotiations, I thought. We both knew those were going nowhere. Most
likely it was awaiting a signal before attacking and growing restless
because it wasn't coming. After thirty heartbeats passed without another
throat being cut, I elected to call down the curtains on the farce. Ivah
was in the middle of a sentence, but paused when I raised my hand.

``I will offer them the same terms I offered the Purka,'' I said. ``And
the Trovod, and the Hilaron. They can kneel and take oaths, be granted
power as you have been. Their forces will be folded into mine. Or they
can be unmade. There will be no middle ground.''

``They will refuse,'' Ivah said.

``I expect they will,'' I replied. ``So here's a gift to help them
understand the situation -- Archer!''

My voice sounded loud and clear in the cavern. A moment later there was
a mocking cackle and Indrani kicked down a drow's corpse from the upper
levels. The throat was still bleeding, and after the cadaver landed with
a dull thump blood pooled around it. Berelun and its bodyguards stilled,
eyes moving back and forth. Ivah spoke to them, slow and cadenced. I'd
heard enough Crepuscular I could begin to make out individual words, and
knew the meaning of a few, but even spoken so slowly the language was
difficult. Unlike any other I'd been taught on the surface. No matter:
I'd set Diabolist to learning it, and when she was done I'd rip the
knowledge out of her mind.

``The Mighty Berelun refuses your offer,'' Ivah said. ``And demands your
submission. I've also been offered admittance as fourth under the Sigil,
should I turn on you.''

``Well, it's a tempting offer,'' I drawled. ``Have you duly considered
it?''

``Alas for the Mighty Berelun,'' the drow said, ``I much prefer being
your Lord of Silent Steps.''

The title rippled in the air, after being spoken, and Ivah no longer
seemed to be Ivah at all. I could feel the shard of Winter in its soul,
the way it spread through its veins with every breath and intertwined
with the Night. It was not fae, but oh how close it had become. And all
it'd taken was will and oaths, traded in the dark. Berelun caught on to
the fact that negotiations had come to an end, ripping its obsidian
greatsword free from leather bindings, and the attending rylleh followed
suit. A steel-tipped spear to the left, a long ornate stone knife to the
right.

``The usual arrangement stands,'' I calmly said. ``Anything you kill is
yours. The rest goes to auction.''

The curved obsidian sword the Lord of Silent Steps had wrested from the
corpse of the Mighty Trovod left its sheath with a pretty little
flourish.

``May my hunt be fruitful, then,'' Ivah grinned. ``I yet hunger.''

Without another word, it vanished. Glamour, which of all the fae arts
the drow seemed to take to the easiest. There were ways to use the Night
not too dissimilar. I turned my eyes to the Berelun, whose earlier
condifence had been shaken by the open use of power they did not
recognize. It would be the least of their surprises today, I thought.
They opened the dance with what I'd come to call the Hunter's Triangle.
It was a tactic Mighty seemed to favour when facing an entity they
suspected to be stronger than themselves but not by too broad a margin.
Berelun itself advanced fluidly, greatsword raised above its head, while
the other two flickered and dissolved into shadow. They would slither
across the ground to flank me on both sides from the back while their
chief kept my attention, all going for crippling blows instead of an
outright kill. It was a tactic meant to get me slow and bleeding, not
take my head. Drow fighting tactics were heavily influenced by the fact
that the one amongst them to make the kill had the best claim to the
body and Night therein. In single combat they immediately went for the
kill, but when in a group they tended to go for the legs or the arms
first.

The two rylleh flickered back into silhouettes with admirable timing. It
was easy to see the three of them had fought opponents together before:
the coordination was impeccable. The spear, knife and greatsword struck
within a heartbeat of each other. They passed through mist, dispersing
chunks of my body, and only then did I act. I returned to entirely solid
form and my hand snatched the extended arm of the spear-wielder. My
physical strength might have grown beyond natural boundaries but laws of
momentum still applied to my action, which had required an adjustment I
was only now beginning to get a handle on. My footing shifted, my torso
pivoted and I swung the drow at Berelun's head. Silver eyes widened in
surprise and I merely clenched my fingers before releasing the rylleh's
wrist, crushing the bones in my grip. The last drow had kept its wits,
and flickered back into a pool of shadow before I could strike it.
Scoffing, I shaped and released a spike of ice that nailed the tendrils
and forced the drow to flicker back into a silhouette. Wounded to boot,
as the spike had gone through its leg, but Night flowed into the wound
and the ice was forced out as the flesh beneath reformed. Neat trick,
that one, but I'd seen it before. I backhanded the rylleh and sent it
tumbling away, turning in time to see the other two drow extricate
themselves and rise to their feet.

``Come now,'' I said. ``Show me a few Secrets worth stealing.''

Berelun snarled something in Crepuscular, the other grimly nodding. The
Night pulsed and a supernatural darkness fell over me.

``Disappointing,'' I said. ``Hilaron did it right at the start and it
was much more effective.''

The working was anchored around my neck, not a veil of darkness but a
bubble meant entirely to blind me. It required flesh to be anchored to,
however. I stepped back, feeling myself\ldots{} slip. Grow vague and
muted. The mist thickened back into myself one step removed from the
now-pointless bubble, revealing the sight of the two of them slithering
along the floor in shadow-form. Irritated, I smashed my boot down. The
ground shook, stone splintered and the two of them were thrown out in
drow-shape. I saw fear in the rylleh's silvery eyes as it realized what
its chief had not. This was not a fight, not for me. It was a spar
through which I was mastering the use my mantle. This entire cursed ruin
of an empire was. The last drow had already gotten back on its feet, but
it had other troubles. The Lord of Silent Steps had cut through the
muscles on the back of its knee, and was now weaving one glamour after
another to keep it striking at illusions while it methodically ruined
its arms and legs.

The Night, it had once told me, felt deeper when taken with an enemy's
last breath.

Berelun snarled once more and I rolled my eyes. It had yet to impress
me. Six tendrils of shadow rose from its back, each forming a few
fingers at the end that took obsidian knives to wield, and with its
sword raised high it came for me again. The other drow actually bothered
to be interesting, flickering into shadow-form but remaining a
silhouette. That was a new one, and worth exploring. I formed a blade of
ice and set out against the rylleh, ignoring Berelun. The shadowed drow
shot forward, and only then did I notice the shadow had extended to its
spear as well. Promising. I ducked under the tip of the spear and
scythed through its ankles, but parted only shadow that reformed anew
the moment my blade passed. It spun and smashed the butt of its spear
against my armour, hitting above where my spine was. An exertion of will
had frost keeping it stuck and when I turned the weapon was snatched out
of its grasp. Curious, I plunged my sword through its throat and left it
there. The drow panicked, wrenching it out, and my brow rose. Behind me
I heard Berelun howl in pain when Archer's arrow took him in the back of
the knee. Simply because she hadn't deigned to come down did not mean
she was not keeping an eye on the proceedings.

I caught the rylleh's left shoulder but the shadows wriggled out of my
grasp and it kicked me in the stomach. My plate took the blow without
trouble and I frowned, punching it in the face. It rocked back, though
with no visible damage. \emph{Shadows are constantly moving and
distributing any impact or cutting force across the entire body, so
anything that doesn't last is ineffective}, I thought. On the flipside
anything that lasted would do a lot more damage than it should. Too
flawed a trick to be worth replicating, I assessed. The ice blade still
in its hand turned to mist and formed again as a collar around its neck,
tightening with but a thought. I left it to choke, returning my
attention to Berelun. The Mighty was bound to have a few Secrets it'd
yet to pull out. Archer's arrow had gone straight through the knee,
steel tip coming out bloody, and it appeared that pain was enough to get
rid of the shadow tendrils it's been wielding earlier. No great loss
there. I could already do the same thing, more or less.

``So,'' I meaningfully said. ``Bleeding and desperate. Now's about time
to pull out the fancy tricks, don't you think?''

It replied in Crepuscular.

``I don't speak that,'' I said, and shot a spear of ice at it to hurry
things along.

It dodged effortlessly. Drow with that much Night swimming around their
bodies had reflexes far beyond anything a human could muster even on
their best day -- even the Watch. I closed the distance, noting it'd
ceased retreating and learning why a heartbeat later. Shadows roiled
across its entire body and sprouted in seemingly solid spikes.

``Seen it before,'' I sighed.

I hardened my hand to be solid as stone and struck at the spikes,
shattering them and sending the drow reeling back. Berelun's face was
the picture of pained surprise, but it gathered its bearings long enough
for one more trick. Night dripped down its body in thick rivulets, then
shot out like arrows. One would have gone through my chest, but that was
seen to with a half-step to the side. Yet the Night was hovering in the
air all around us, I saw, forming some kind of spotty dome. Berelun
smirked and stabbed its sword into the closest spot of Night. To my
surprise, it came out behind me and carved into my plate. I moved
forward, ensuring it wouldn't bite too deep, but that'd been rather
unexpected. I felt it safe to assume a blow could come out of any chunk
of Night, which left him quite a few angles to attack from.
\emph{Interesting}. I wove glamour over myself, leaving my illusion
weaving around blows even as I left the makeshift dome myself, and
reached for Winter. Perfectly reproducing this was probably beyond my
ability. Maybe by using my domain I could do something similar, assuming
the Night really was Sve Noc's own domain manifest, but it would require
too much concentration to be worth it. If I was to wield my domain in
combat there were better alternatives.

Using purely Winter, thought? This was a trick worth stealing.

I went about it methodically, since it was my first time. I formed frost
at regular intervals around it on the ground in a loose circle, slight
marks I could strengthen with barely a thought. Making frost marks that
hung in the air proved trickier, until I started weaving them the same
way I did platforms. Not trying to hang them up on something that did
not exist, but interposing them between layers of Creation. Even then, I
saw with mild irritation that the moment I tried using one of the
hovering marks again it fell. The sound of frost breaking on stone
caught Berelun's attention, and its eyes widened in fear and surprise
when it saw the other marks. Time to wrap this up, then. I let Winter
loose, shunting off the alienation into the others who drew on the stuff
of my mantle -- Diabolist, as always, but now Ivah as well. Spears of
pure ice shot out from over thirty directions, puncturing Mighty
Berelun's body like a rag doll. I withdrew them with a flick of the
wrist, forcing them back into the initial marks, and the drow dropped to
the floor listlessly.

Then an arrow went through the back of its neck, because Archer had a
horrid sense of humour.

``That one was mine,'' she called out from above.

I gestured obscenely at her, earning only laughter in response. A glance
told me that the rylleh I'd left a collar on had choked to death and
Ivah was already harvesting the other's Night, kneeling over the dying
body. Indrani came down, leaping from handhold to handhold on the cavern
wall like some sort of demented grasshopper before landing in an
unnecessarily elaborate roll.

``Diplomacy's a lot simpler than I used to think, Cat,'' Archer noted.
``I'm finally getting the hang of it.''

I sighed.

``Keep an eye on the corpses,'' I said. ``Ivah will stay with you. We're
moving in on the Berelun camp after Akua's people pick up the bodies for
an auction.''

``Sure, sure,'' she dismissed. ``Look on the bright side, this isn't the
kind of neighbourhood where people will ask questions if they run into
us standing over a bunch of corpses.''

I refused to dignify that with a response and left them with dead drow,
beginning the trek back to what their kind had taken to calling my
sigil. The auction would delay us by an hour or two, but no more. We'd
crafted the system with our time constraints in mind.

It'd been Diabolist's idea. There'd been no issue at first, as the first
sigil we'd run into was the Trovod. Ivah, fresh off its title as my
first Lord of Winter, had single-handedly slaughtered the sigil's upper
ranks and harvested all of them. It'd later admitted that even the
sigil-holder would barely have qualified as a rylleh outside of the
outer rings and it'd been more an execution than a battle. The two
hundred meat -- \emph{nisi}, in Crepuscular -- who'd belonged to the
drow of the Trovod had been eager to follow us even before I made clear
that the dwarves would be close behind. Nisi that were not under a sigil
were fair game for any drow looking to accumulate a bit of Night, and
all it would take was a single Mighty coming across them for a massacre
to ensue. At best they might end up taken by another sigil and any among
them with useful skills harvested. But then we'd run into Purka
territory, and those had been tougher meat. Ivah had partaken, but
eventually admitted it no longer gained much out of harvesting Night
from lower rungs of the Mighty like the ispe. To continue feeding it the
corpses would not significantly improve its combat capacity.

That revelation came right on the back of the fact I now had about one
thousand nisi who wanted to follow us on our journey, along with a
smaller contingent of two hundred \emph{dzulu} -- meaning person, more
or less -- which was what drow were called when they had enough Night to
no longer be meat but not enough to qualify as even the lowest of the
Mighty. Most of the dzulu were smart enough to surrender when people
still covered with the blood of their overlords strolled into their
camp, but they tended to be the ones that chafed under my rules the
most. The prohibition on killing each other in particular: now that the
old order was gone, they believed it was their chance to rise. I'd been
inclined to just cut them loose, but Akua had talked me out of it. She'd
pointed out that the nisi were largely incapable of fighting, but that
the dzulu usually knew their way around a weapon. If I was to recruit an
army in the Everdark, it would not be from the Mighty or the nisi. It'd
be from the hungry dzulu, who'd be willing to take oaths in exchange for
enough Night to no longer be arrow fodder. They'd spent long enough near
the corridors of power to be willing to do quite a bit if the deal
allowed them to walk those corridors in their own right.

And so we had created the auction.

We took the corpses of the Mighty and allowed any and all to bid for the
right to harvest their Night. Akua had been inclined to limit bidding
rights to the dzulu so that a warrior class would be created quickly,
but I'd been of a different opinion. The nisi were, in my eyes, the
closest thing to sane people that could be found among the drow. Most of
them had spent their lives being slaves in all but name and while they
paid lip service to the ways of the Everdark their hearts weren't really
in it. It was hard to love customs that saw you used a tools and beasts
of burdens, killed at a whim. I'd rather have slightly less effective
soldiers that \emph{weren't} ardent partisans of methaphysical
cannibalism. What would be bid, however, had never been in doubt. Coin
would be useful, if I could bring it back to Callow, but drow society
ran on barter and somewhat communal slave labour -- nisi were the
property of the sigil as a whole, not individuals, but what they made
was distributed at the discretion of the sigil-holder. There were
precious few easy riches to be had, down here, and unlike the dwarves I
didn't have a legion of workers to mine every shaft full of metals and
precious stones we came across. I'd not come to the Everdark for wealth
anyway. I'd come here for an army, and so the bidding was done with
\emph{oaths}. Years in my service, enforced by blood and Winter. I was
willing to empower the drow if it was on my terms. Two more sigils, I
thought as I made my way through the tunnels, only two more sigils and
we'd have enough numbers.

Then we'd hit the city of Lotow, and the boulder would start rolling
down the hill.
