\hypertarget{chapter-6-equivalent}{%
\chapter{Equivalent}\label{chapter-6-equivalent}}



\epigraph{``Fairness is the refrain of the lazy, the inept, the heroic.
Anyone unwilling to stack the deck and murder the judge to seize victory
has no place wielding any real power.''}{Dread Emperor Callous}



I'd seen enough presage boxes by now I could tell who it was from the
Workshop that'd made them. The Blind Maker's carved enchantments were in
beautifully fluid cursive, like the High Tyrian they derived from, and
they felt warm to the touch. The Bitter Blacksmith -- the heroine, not
her villain brother at the Morgentor -- chiselled in hers with swift,
impersonal precision while avoiding flourishes. She had little taste for
such work and always sought to finish it as quickly as was possible
without compromising quality. The Hunted Magician, whose work was being
held up in front of me right now, took to the craft with the same amount
of cryptic paranoia that was his signature in everything else. Though
the symbols he used were some sort of ancient Mavii runes and like much
of that ancient people's work they were as much art as function, within
them the villain carved entirely unnecessary and unrelated symbols.
Masego had told me that carving those signs in any order but what it
must have originally been done in would make the box fail to function,
sounding about as impressed by this as he'd been miffed.

The runes on the side, which I fancied to look like a wheel woven from
winds when taken in all at once, remained inert even when brought close
to me. The mage from the Third Army -- a lieutenant, by the stripes --
tested Akua as well before drawing back with a sharp nod at the rest of
the force surrounding us. She saluted me, pointedly not looking at Akua
more than she needed to. Blonde, that woman, I noted. Liessen did tend
to be fair-haired.

``Your Majesty,'' she greeted me in Chantant. ``Lieutenant Eve Baldry,
tenth company. I'm currently under loan to Captain Raphael Twice-Drowned
of the Ardeni Guard.''

Fantassins, then, not proper Volignac foot. The ten soldiers who'd come
along with the Lanterns and the lieutenant had undeniably had that look
about them, it must be said. It wasn't a question of equipment, not
anymore, as Cordelia had with my enthusiastic blessing begun offering to
pay the mercenary companies with good steel the moment trade with the
Kingdom Under opened again. Nowadays fantassins were not significantly
better or worse off in equipment than Proceran regulars, though the
personal armies of the princes and princesses still boasted superior
arms as well as training. But where regulars and sworn men wore the
colours of some royalty or another, fantassins wore marks just as garish
as the names of their leaders and companies. As a rule, the more
outlandish the names and colours the longer they'd been in the mercenary
trade, which meant the eye-watering shades of orange and green on their
feathered helms were a good sign.

Any soldiers wearing colours that bright in a war against Black's
legions would get a goblin arrow in the throat before the campaign's
first night was over, but the Principate had fought a different sort of
wars in the days before the Dead King. The Ardeni Guard was not familiar
to me as I knew only the most distinguished of the companies in Hainaut,
like the Grands Routiers and Hermosa Foxes. I'd taken Klaus Papenheim's
solid advice and left Princess Beatrice Volignac to handle the
fantassins along with southern Procer process as a whole, which meant I
was not forced to entertain half a hundred swaggering captains for meals
regularly but also that I was only passingly knowledgeable about that
particular slice of our forces. I cast a curious glance at the Lanterns
-- faces painted white and gold and built like they'd spent the better
part of their lives in a shield wall instead of a temple -- but got no
introduction out of them, only respectful nods. The formal priesthood
the Dominion answered to only the Gods Above, in principle, and not even
the Holy Seljun could command something of them should they be
disciplined. In practice they tended to be receptive to requests from
the Blood, though not to the point of outright subservience. The only
person I'd ever seen the warrior-priests take a knee for was the Grey
Pilgrim.

To me they offered respect but no great deference, and to use them on
the field I usually needed to pass the order down to them through
Aquiline or Razin. Inconvenient, but given how brutally effective they'd
proved against undead I'd keep my complaining down to a pittance.

``Well met, lieutenant,'' I replied in Lower Miezan. ``I don't suppose
you could tell me what the lights above are about?''

``Above my paygrade I'm afraid, ma'am,'' the blonde mage said. ``I heard
there was a scuffle, but my orders didn't come with a briefing attached.
Captain Raphael might know, though, they're in charge of the gate for
the first night rotation.''

I frowned. I was more inclined to head directly to the heart of the camp
and interrogate someone in charge than stop by for a chat with a
fantassin captain, but the casualness of the mage's reply was surprising
me. She did not seem concern in the slightest.

``Muster wasn't sounded?'' I asked.

``It wasn't,'' Lieutenant Baldry confirmed.

Akua hummed out in amusement.

``The White Knight has returned, hasn't he?'' she asked.

The Callowan lieutenant turned a cold glare to the shade, long enough to
acknowledge a question had been asked before turning to me to answer it.

``Lord White returned about half a bell ago, ma'am,'' Lieutenant Baldry
agreed. ``He's got another two Named with him, though I can't say I
recognized either.''

I could have said I was warned of another's coming by the sound of
footsteps, but that would almost have been untrue. The sound of boots on
earth was a small thing compared to the almost aggressive loudness of
what the approaching soldier was wearing: there was a good coat of mail
somewhere under there, and a cuirass, but it was almost hard to see
under the green-and-orange striped vest that went down to their thigh,
which were in turn covered by bouffant pants going down to the knees
that added bright blue to the palette. None of the\ldots{} frills,
though, seemed to hinder movement: the pants were tucked into good steel
greaves, and the vest was close enough to the body it shouldn't get
caught in anything when a sword was being swung. The long dyed hair,
half orange and half green with two small stripes of blue, was the
finishing touch to the ensemble, framing an almost comically
unremarkable face. The fantassins parted for them, which allowed me an
easy guess.

``Captain Raphael?'' I asked in Chantant.

Gods, let them be the captain. I was not sure my eyes could physically
take the amount of garishness it would take for the captain to
out-peacock this one.

``We meet once more, Black Queen,'' the Proceran boldly replied. ``A
strange turn of fate, that would see us fight side by side when we were
once enemies.''

I smiled blandly, wondering if I was meant to have any clue at all who
this was beyond some mercenary captain. Still, it wouldn't do to let
anyone know I was confused.

``Yes,'' I gallantly tried. ``That is true.''

At my side Akua's stance stiffened the slightest bit, which was the
Sahelian equivalent of uproarious laughter at my expense. All right, so
maybe it'd not been the finest of my illusions.

``Twice-Drowned?'' I prodded, cocking my head to the side.

``When the grounds collapsed at the Battle of Trifelin, I fell into an
underground well,'' Captain Raphael smiled. ``Along with a few hundred
pounds of stone. Yet it was still more pleasant an evening than being
subjected to your tender mercies at the Battle of the Camps, Your
Majesty.''

Trifelin was, from what I recalled, a major defeat that Princess Rozala
had been inflicted in the early months of her defence of Cleves the
first time she'd been charged with the defence of the principality. It'd
been a hard setback that could have turned into a proper disaster had
heroes not held the rearguard of the retreat. Impressive they'd survived
that mess when standing in the thick of it, much less the implication
they'd been on the field at the Camps when I'd opened the gate into
Arcadia and dropped a lake on the crusaders. \emph{Someone to keep an
eye on}, I decided. Survive enough scraps by the skin of your teeth,
these days, and a Name might not be too far ahead.

``You may rest assured, captain, that when lakes next fall you'll be on
the side welcoming it,'' I said, tone droll. ``And as it happens, I've
questions you might have the answer to.''

``It would be my pleasure, Your Majesty,'' the captain replied with a
sweeping bow.

I took a step forward, Akua falling in behind, only to found Captain
Raphael had offered me their arm. \emph{How long has it been since
someone tried that?} I wondered, baffled and just a little charmed. I
took the offered courtesy and we walked towards the closest watchtower,
where a brazier was being used to roast meat in a way that would have
seen a legionary of my armies harshly reprimanded for. Fantassins,
though, had different standards of discipline.

``I have heard that the White Knight returned,'' I began.

``Indeed,'' the captain agreed. ``Along with the Valiant Champion and a
girl from parts unknown.''

I forced my face to remain calm, my fingers to remain unclenched. The
Valiant Champion, huh. Hanno was usually cleverer than this when
bringing strays home -- that I'd not skinned that so-called
\emph{heroine} alive and made a cloak out of the leather was already
showing great restraint, as far as I was concerned. The Champion was an
ally in the fight against Keter, and so would be extended all courtesies
and privileges that the Truce and Terms required of me. Yet I'd rather
eat my own hand than offer a thimble more to that woman, and that was
not an enmity that would ever be buried.

``And it was Lord Hanno who ordered the use of the warding array?'' I
asked.

Raphael nodded and leaned in close, lowering their voice.

``I am told there was some manner of infiltration by the Dead King,''
the captain said. ``It was quickly dealt with through use of the sorcery
that lies at the heart of the camps, though that section still remains
closed.''

``Casualties?'' I bluntly asked.

It wasn't that Neshamah wasn't capable of subtlety: he was, and often
the costs of missing his quieter schemes were the stuff nightmares were
made of. On the other hand, even if Hanno had ridden in with providence
at his back to unmask the Hidden Horror's latest ploy this seemed too
sloppy of an attempt to feasibly have lasted on the long term. Which
meant this wasn't an infiltration attempt, it was strapping goblinfire
to a sapper's back and sending him running at a gate. The Dead King was
always willing to trade lives or resources for corpses, even at
seemingly ruinous rates.

``I know not, Your Majesty,'' Captain Raphael said. ``Though I was told
the central camp was closed by the Deadhand's order, so your man ought
to have the answers you seek.''

He usually did, truth be told. I'd come to sincerely believe that the
Empire's occupation of my homeland might have led to widespread chaos
and rebellion within a few years, if Scribe hadn't been at my father's
side. Like Black, who'd never settled in a Callowan city to rule the
kingdom from, I'd been forced to discharge a great many responsibilities
from a glum succession of army camps, small towns and fortresses --
without Hakram keeping everything organized even as we moved, it would
have all gone to shit with remarkable haste. Even now, he tended to know
more about what was going on in the camp than I did.

``Then I will seek him in turn,'' I said. ``I thank you for the
conversation, Captain Raphael.''

Taking the hint, they adroitly extricated their arm from mine and
offered another gallant bow.

``Until fate deigns to reunite us, Black Queen,'' the mercenary smoothly
replied.

While I wasn't always the, uh, sharpest when it came to picking up on
this sort of thing I was pretty sure I was being flirted with. One hand,
well, \emph{Alamans}. They'd try to seduce the Choir of Contrition, if
the angels showed enough leg. On the other hand, it was kind of
flattering. It'd been a while since someone without a Name had tried
their hand at that with me, even so superficially. It put the slightest
of springs to my step as I left the fantassin captain behind. Akua did
not say a word, though she did begin walking at my side instead of
remaining a step behind as we headed deeper into camp.

``Hakram's on board with whatever the White Knight pulled, sounds
like,'' I murmured.

Reassuring, that. I'd come to put a surprising degree of trust onto
Hanno's shoulders, since the Peace of Salia, but it was not the kind of
trust that went without questioning or disagreement. Adjutant, though, I
trusted implicitly. I might as well begin questioning my own limbs,
should I not. If he'd backed this there was a good reason it for it.

``The Sword of Judgement has proved a capable ally,'' Akua conceded.
``And unlike some of his more rambunctious colleagues, he is not one to
resort to collateral damage when there are other approaches to be had.''

That'd been a pleasant surprise, since while heroes tended to be careful
with the lives of others they tended to be a great deal less so with
equipment. Even when that equipment was very, very valuable. It was a
cold hard truth that there were artefacts and siege machinery in this
camp that were worth more than soldiers, and though that was an ugly
thing to face it came with being a professional soldier. I could send
for reinforcements, if what was lost was lives, but there were only so
many wardstones to distribute across all the fronts and they were not
easily replaced.

``He's a solid one,'' I grunted in agreement.

I wouldn't have been able to pull off the Terms and Truce without him,
that much couldn't be denied. There'd been heroes that simply would not
have been willing to deal with a villain if he'd not leant me the weight
of his seal of approval, and that would have led to deaths. Even just a
few of those would have made it seem like I was trying to conscript
Named into my service, which would have gone\ldots{} badly. Tariq still
had a lot of pull with heroes he'd helped or saved when they were
younger, that much couldn't be denied, but as word of my raising him
from the dead at the Graveyard had spread so had rumours that he was
somehow under my influence. He was no longer the unquestioned
grandfatherly fount of wisdom he'd once been to his side, though his
record over the last two years had certainly begun redeeming the dip in
his reputation.

The avenue leading to the heart of the camp was guarded by checkpoints
at regular intervals and it was not long before we found our first one,
along with a proper company of my soldiers. The captain commanding it
knew about as much as Captain Raphael had, which wasn't much, but she
sent a runner ahead of us along before providing us with a full line in
escort. I did not need more defending inside my own camp, but twenty
legionaries at your back did tend to expedite most conversations. We
continued deeper in, the sparse conversation I'd shared with Akua
petering out entirely. I spoke with my soldiers instead, learning with
pleasure that the line's lieutenant was an old hand from the Fifteenth.
He'd been from the second wave of Callowan recruits, after Three Hills
and Marchford -- when Black had essentially emptied the Legion training
camps in the kingdom and tossed all those green men my way.

``Lost a finger at Dormer,'' Lieutenant Oliver told me almost eagerly.
``From one of them Immortals critters, after the Hellhound sent us up
the hill.''

``They were hard bastards, even for fae,'' I said. ``Summer's finest.''

``Shit name though, no offence Your Majesty,'' the veteran snorted, and
I grinned back. ``After Lady Dartwick nicked those banners, they were
pretty moral when the gobbos from ninth company unloaded. Finger got
fixed up good anyway, one of them Soninke wizards from Afolabi's legion
put it right back on.''

``Not even a scar?'' I teased. ``All the best war stories have scars to
go with them.''

``Aye,'' Lieutenant Oliver mourned. ``It tingles a little when there's
magic in the air, I know it, but these fresh pups from after the Folly
don't believe me. Say it's all in my head.''

``Tell them you have me convinced, next time,'' I suggested.

``That ought to make a few of the little pricks piss their armour,''
Lieutenant Oliver gleefully said, then remembered who he was speaking
to. ``Um, Your Majesty.''

I snorted, clapped the man's shoulder.

``I've spent more time on a saddle than a throne, soldier,'' I reminded
him amusedly. ``By all means, make the little pricks piss their
armour.''

That got a howl of laughter out of the lot of them, and it was in a
better mood that I hit the second checkpoint. Where, looming tall above
Osena sworn swords, I found the key to getting answers about what had
happened in the camp tonight. No amount of polish would ever remove the
scorch marks Summer flame had left on Adjutant's plate, though as time
passed he'd come to like the look. It was distinctive, as was his height
even among his own kind. The black, fur-like hair nowadays going down to
his jaw on the sides was another distinction, as it was far longer than
either Legion or Army regulations would allow. Still, there was a reason
he was not known as the Blacksteel: the most distinctive part of all was
the fleshless hands, one of sheer bone and the other cast in pale
spectral light. Hakram Deadhand had earned his sobriquet twice over, and
\emph{Dead the Hand} remained a favourite to sing among my soldiers.

A few lines had even been added after his scrap with the Baron of
Thorns, as his brutal dismantling of the Revenant while reciting orc
poetry had made something of an impression. Hakram strode through the
Levantine armsmen, either not noticing or caring how a few of them had
to hastily move out of the way or been bowled over. His broad face
looked relieved.

``Catherine,'' he greeted me, arm taking arm in a legionary's salute.
``I'd wondered if you were ambushed. Beastmaster knew little, but it
seemed likely.''

``We were,'' I darkly replied.

Good mood gone the way of mist under morning sun, I fixed a calm look on
my face before dismissing my legionary escort with a few kind words. By
the considering look on Hakram's face, he'd picked up on the general
vicinity of how badly my night had gone.

``So were we,'' Adjutant added in a low voice as we passed through the
checkpoint.

He settled at my right side, so naturally I almost didn't notice, while
Akua took my left. Not an unapt summation of the last two years, I
thought.

``What happened?'' I quietly asked. ``Our defences shouldn't allow for
infiltration, Hakram. We've put the stones in every gate, any
enchantment he hits our people with should be disrupted.''

``Ghouls slipped in,'' the tall orc told me. ``A new kind, that can-''

``Shapeshift,'' Akua murmured.

Hakram shot her a considering look and she offered back a slight nod.

``Your escort,'' Adjutant told me, and it was not a question.

``We have the bodies in the Night,'' I said.

A halfwit would have put one and one together, given that much to go on,
and Hakram was the very opposite.

``I'm sorry,'' he said. ``Beastmaster said he was just a boy.''

My finger clenched around my staff until the knuckles turned white.

``Sometimes we just lose,'' I softly replied, through teeth I did not
remember clenching.

It fit, though. I felt like my entire body was clenching every time I
thought of the kid I'd had to put down because of my own sloppiness.

``I'll be seeing what duties I can shake loose, to avoid repeating the
mistakes that led do that loss,'' I forced out.

As if by coincidence, his flank leaned against mine. It was the most
comfort either of us would allow him to give me in public but, trivial
as it might seem, I was shamefully grateful for it.

``The presage boxes should have caught them,'' I said, and if my voice
was a little choked all three of us pretended not to have heard it.

``We've found a weakness in our defences,'' Adjutant gravelled. ``The
Order of Broken Bells.''

Akua caught on before me, somewhat unsurprisingly. Generations of her
forbears had cut their teeth on this very obstacle, after all.

``Their armour,'' the golden-eyed shade said. ``The same hymn carvings
that disrupt active sorcery prevented the ghouls from triggering the
boxes.''

\emph{Fuck}, I thought. The weakness we could fix, the corpses we could
not. I'd lost even more knights, by the sounds of it.

``Talbot?'' I asked.

Losing him would be a setback. Not only was he the highest-ranking noble
officer in my armies, the man had essentially put the Broken Bells
together from scratch. In both politics and war, his death would be a
loss keenly felt.

``Getting his eye fixed by the White Knight's fresh helper,'' Hakram
replied. ``The ghouls were caught out before they could finish what
they'd been sent for.''

My eyes narrowed, relief at the Grandmaster of the Broken Bells
surviving being shoved at the back of my mind.

``Assassinations, but that's nothing new,'' I said. ``Wouldn't have been
worth revealing another breed of ghouls for. They went after the
wardstones.''

``They meant to contaminate the lesser array in the Third Army camp,''
the orc confirmed. ``They were caught out by the White Knight, but the
alarm being rung only made them strike out aggressively.''

``Losses?'' Akua asked.

``Light,'' Adjutant said. ``Twenty dead, half again that wounded. They
aimed for high-ranking officers but got caught before getting to them.
The wardstones from the Third's camp were hit with some sort of sorcery
that Senior Mage Dastardly called `poisonous'. He had some difficulty
elaborating on this, but was adamant it was a problem.''

I felt Akua gaze's fall on me.

``Go,'' I said. ``I'll want a damage assessment as soon as you can
deliver.''

She bowed, more for the eyes peeled on us than anything else, and
without another word melted into the nearest shadows.

``So the array purge was used to flush out the `poison','' I said, then
flicked a glance at the lights in the distance.

It'd take more than one purge to have that much sorcerous aftermath left
behind.

``Whatever shapeshifting trick it is the ghouls use, it is of a nature
similar to enchantment,'' Hakram replied.

And the sorcery sent flowing out by a purge screwed with enchantments,
which was why I disliked using those in the first place.

``It unmasked them,'' I mused. ``Clever.''

Sounded like Hanno, too. He preferred helping people help themselves
rather than sweeping in on a white horse and fixing everything before
disappearing into the sunset. Hopefully that hadn't cost us a few months
of vulnerability to the Dead King's tricks, though. Gods, the vermin
wards better be fucking holding at least. The atrocities Neshamah could
commit with undead rats and bugs were not something I ever intended to
suffer through again.

``I ordered the central camp closed as soon as we learned, but they were
already inside,'' Hakram told me. ``They eat and impersonate people at a
distressing rate, Catherine. We think the Barrow Sword and the White
Knight's followers cleared them out, but we're keeping the camp closed
until everyone with access to the stones has been cleared with both
Light and sorcery.''

I grunted in approval.

``Full audit of the ranks come morning,'' I said. ``I don't care if they
grumble, there'll be no risks taken with something that dangerous. And
for the Order-''

``Talbot already offered that every knight should dismount and submit to
testing by Light whenever they enter camp,'' Hakram told me.

``We'll see if something less clumsy can be arranged,'' I replied.

I had clever enough people in my employ, and if nothing else I could
have Razin and Aquiline cut their teeth on the logistics of it. After I
shoved them back into the Pilgrim's tender embrace, they'd hold their
commands without my looking over their shoulder. They needed to be
prepared to deal with situations like this on their own. This deep in
the camp and with Adjutant at my side, we went through the last
checkpoints without anyone trying to stop us. Even though the situation
had, in principle, already been handled I still wanted to at least speak
with Hanno. Besides, since he'd brought in another Named I would prefer
having a look at them before too long. Best not to have one of those
wandering camp without being able to put a Name and face to them, even
if a name wasn't always forthcoming. The last ring of defences was
manned entirely by the Army of Callow, which did tend to end up with
those duties by virtue of both being my personal army and the best
organized of the troops. When the Iron Prince's own troops were around
it was another story, but Prince Klaus was far from here, holding the
northern defence line in our absence.

I got to hit three birds with one stone when the captain in command
informed me that the White Knight was currently in the same tent where
Grandmaster Brandon Talbot was being healed, supervising the work being
done by the healer he'd brought in. It wasn't a long walk from there,
and I knew my way around the camp well: a few moments later I was
parting open the tent flap and passing it to Hakram before slipping into
the tent. Within a heartbeat of that I saw a half-naked Brandon Talbot
try to rise to his feet, to the vocal if inarticulate protest of the two
heroes in the tent, but he only stopped when I sharply gestured for him
to sit.

``Don't blind yourself on my account,'' I said. ``My queenly honour will
withstand your staying seated.''

``Much obliged, Your Majesty,'' Grandmaster Talbot replied.

He was careful not to move his head this time, having been levied a
heavy frown by the healer in front of him.

``The nerves were almost healed,'' said young girl mourned. ``We'll have
to start over, Sir Brandon. Please remain still, if it pleases you.''

The tent flap closed behind Hakram, who had to bend his neck the
slightest bit to avoid his head touching the ceiling of it.

``Catherine,'' the White Knight greeted me with a smile.

``Hanno,'' I replied, feeling my lips quirk the slightest bit.

It really was good to have him back. Even just sitting on a crate in a
leather jerking, keeping an eye on his duckling, the dark-skinned man
felt like an island of calm in a chaotic sea.

``I would greet you properly, Your Majesty, but I cannot stay my hand,''
the young girl apologized without turning.

And she was \emph{young}, I saw. Scrawny and that dirty tunic she wore
had seen better days, but for all that there was no denying the pulsing
potency of the Light she was wielding to help my knight.

``You do me more courtesy by healing Brandon Talbot than a hundred
curtsies would scrape together,'' I said. ``White Knight?''

``Introductions can be seen to when her attention is not elsewhere
demanded,'' Hanno said. ``Though I wager you've other questions. I've
news to give you, regardless.''

``Do you now?'' Hakram gravelled from behind me.

``Not so urgent as to need an intermediary, Adjutant,'' the White Knight
told my second, unmoved.

The relationship between those two was best described as cordial
dislike, though I'd never quite managed to put a finger on the source of
it.

``What happened, Hanno?'' I asked, cutting through the tension.

``After stumbling across one of the ghouls, I did what was necessary to
flush out those in hiding before major damage could be done,'' he said.
``Yet this was part of a greater scheme, Catherine. I've been speaking
with Prince Klaus, and before coming here I met with the Peregrine.''

My brow rose.

``Tell me,'' I ordered.

``The Order of the Red Lion confirmed that the dead were massing for an
offensive until an hour ago,'' he said. ``And now I fully understand why
they gathered, and now no longer do.''

``I don't suppose you intend to share at some point?'' I drily replied.

He shot me an amused look.

``I found Pascale here,'' he said, gesturing towards the young girl,
``with the help of the Valiant Champion after following up on a rumour
that Tariq had been seen in the region.''

I'd already made plain my feelings on that woman to the hero, so I saw
no need to belabor the point by expressing the again now. Talk of the
Pilgrim, though, sparked my interest. The Peregrine had lent his hand to
none of the fronts, instead staying true to the roots of his Name and
journeying wherever the Choir of Mercy deemed him to be most needed. If
he'd really come here, then either we'd narrowly avoided a disaster or
we were about to have one on our hands.

``It was a Revenant behind all of this,'' Hanno told me. ``We named her
the Plague-Maker, though besides her Praesi origins and talent in
sorcery we know little of her.''

``You found plague seeds as well,'' I breathed out.

``It was a scheme in two parts, as far as we can tell,'' the White
Knight said. ``First, after slipping through our defensive lines-''

``Which she shouldn't have fucking been able to do, Revenant or not,'' I
bluntly said. ``That's the reason we send the Augur all our oracles, so
that she can warn us about shit like this.''

``There was demonic taint on her,'' he told me. ``Absence, Tariq
believes, which might be why she blindsided us. I do not know when the
Dead King might have found such a Named-''

``I do,'' I replied. ``And if it's from when I believe, she's not the
last one he'll have in store.''

Malicia herself had once told me that Dread Empress Maleficent II had
used demons of absence to avert the disastrous consequences of the three
Secret Wars, for after failed invasions of the Serenity a
counter-invasion of Ater by hellgate had been imminent. I couldn't know
how many people the general who'd later become Dread Empress had throw
to the dogs to avert utter calamity, but considering how ruthless
Maleficent the Second had ended up being as a ruler I doubted that it'd
be a small number. Hells, considering half the continent was fighting
Keter these days and we were still slowly losing I couldn't even blame
her.

``A discussion to be had later, then,'' the White Knight said.
``Regardless, the undead plagues were meant to draw a significant
fighting force south. A large force of zombies was massed around the
Plague-Maker, hidden in the wilds, which I believe was meant to attack
this very camp.''

``The new ghouls were meant to hit our wards and leadership right
before,'' I said.

``Exactly,'' Hanno nodded. ``And, as a precaution, even if we won that
battle handily we would be kept occupied by massive breakouts of the
seeded plague in Brabant.''

``Which we'd have to move to suppress, even as his armies took a swing
at the northern defence line,'' I muttered.

It'd been, I thought, a pretty good plan. And it ought to have scrapped
this summer as a season for an offensive war even if it didn't go
entirely his way, all at the price of at most a single Revenant.

``You caught the Plague-Maker first, I take it,'' I said.

``Tariq found her in a western crossroads town, seeding refugee caravans
passing through,'' Hanno said. ``Rafaella and I caught up with him just
as the confrontation began.''

My eyes flicked to the young girl who was, by the looks of it, checking
on Talbot's eye one last time before declaring him healed.

``That is where we found Pascale,'' Hanno agreed. ``She'd caught on to
the Plague-Maker's work.''

I felt my hackles raise, though I wasn't quite sure why.

``Hale as you might hope to be, Sir Brandon,'' the girl -- Pascale,
apparently -- smiled. ``I am finished, if it pleases you.''

``You have my most sincere thanks, Lady Apostle,'' the Grandmaster
replied, rising to his feet. ``If there is anything I can do to repay
you-''

``I have already been repaid,'' the girl said, ``in the only way that
matters.''

He bowed to her anyway, for he was a decent man, and offered to give me
a report even as he put on a shirt before I bluntly told him to sleep
off his healing and find me on the morrow. My shoulders were still
tense, and I was not quite sure why. Hakram hovered close behind me,
having picked up on my discomfort but being as confused as to the source
of it as I was.

``I take it the Grey Pilgrim did as the Grey Pilgrim does,'' I said,
getting the conversation going again.

``He stepped in to protect me, when I tried to heal the plague,''
Pascale happily told me. ``My Choosing had already happened, but it is
not suited to strife and I was most distressed.''

``He drove the Revenant off and we caught her as she tried to escape,''
Hanno elaborated. ``She called on the undead she'd been gathering, but
we held them off long enough for the pilgrim's star to shine.''

Meaning Tariq had smote into the ground what must have been at least a
few hundred zombies but most likely had been a few thousand. It was easy
to forget how fucking terrifying Tariq Fleetfoot could be, when he had
the right story had his back.

``Lucky us you'd learned enough of the Light by then to pick up on the
plague,'' I warmly told the girl.

She blushed.

``I had not, Your Majesty,'' she admitted. ``My father was a wizard, who
taught me of the Three Tells and the Seven Essences. Yet even so, magic
would have failed. Yet my prayers were answered by Above, in our hour of
need.''

``You are,'' I slowly said, ``a mage.''

``I was,'' the young girl told me with an elated smile. ``When I became
the Stalwart Apostle the sorcery vanished from my veins, and the Light
finally answered my prayers.''

A crack resounded in the room. It had, I dimly realized, come from my
staff. My grip had been too tight around it.

``Did they listen to you?'' I quietly asked. ``When you warned them
about the plague?''

I felt the White Knight's heavy gaze on me but did not meet in. I looked
only at this slip of a girl, who was so smilingly alive where the boy
was dead.

``They did not,'' Pascale sadly said. ``But the Heavens did, when I
knelt and asked for guidance. And through the Light, I found the way to
dissolve the plague.''

This was, I told myself, nothing I should not have expected. A Named --
or close enough -- in the service of Evil, had been sowing death and
preparing to bring about a great woe. It was only natural for the
Heavens to put together a Named meant to end those designs, as the girl
clearly had been.

``Ninety-nine times out of a hundred,'' I said, voice cold, ``nine
hundred and ninety-nine times out of a thousand, that \emph{act of
faith} would have killed dozens of thousands.''

The girl looked like I'd struck her.

``Catherine,'' the White Knight warned me.

My fingers clenched tighter still around the staff of yew, death made
into a marching stick. He'd been a wretched boy, Tancred, but he'd not
been \emph{wrong}. To act instead of pray, to trust his the ugly work of
his hands rather than the silent Heavens. How many thousands, hundreds
of thousands, \emph{millions} had stood in this girl's place over the
centuries and seen their faith rewarded only by a grisly death? No, the
Scorched Apostate had not been wrong. He'd not been Chosen either, he'd
done his own choosing. And the Heavens had damned him for it, so damn
the presumptuous fucks for that in turn. Hakram's hand warmed my
shoulder and I closed my eyes for a long moment.

``It's been a long day,'' I finally said. ``We'll speak tomorrow.''

There was a reason I was more than halfway fond of Hanno of Arwad: he
looked at me for a heartbeat the nodded.

``Tomorrow,'' the White Knight softly agreed, eyes considering.

I walked out of the tent and into the night, Hakram hastening to catch
up.

Tancred had not been wrong, I thought, shoulders tight and teeth
gritted.

But what did that matter, when he was dead?
