The climb down was worse than coming up, in Oskar’s opinion. And it wasn’t just because the massive chains were more awkward sliding down on, but that he had two half-conscious people to look after, not to mention a scattering of injuries from their clashes with the Dead. He bore a mean bruise or two, and his head ached from the bloody tunnel. It wasn’t real. He knew that. But still, those visions… Oskar shook his head and worked his way down the last massive chain link, hopping onto land with a big sigh and a grin.

  I’m done with floating cities and the Dead, damn it, he thought, untying his rope and spooling it back up over his forearm. That’s enough for a lifetime. But the weight of the jewels was heavy in his side pouch. Real heavy. Made him doubt his own conviction the moment he imagined more of those beautiful bits of gemstone. Besides, wouldn’t the standard jobs get boring? That’s right, he’d run back to the old horrors and mystery the first chance he got, and not just because they paid best. Like an old whore trying to quit her trade. His grin turned into something rueful as he looked over the others, working their way down the last few links. It isn’t the woman’s choice when the customers stop coming, though. Then he grimaced, remembering he’d lost two good spearmen. Nothing was ever free, after all. At least no one died on the venture down. There was always a price and nothing more to it than that.

  Daecinus was next, moving with care and caution. Though he wore long robes like some sort of ancient priest, the man’s Corrupted half peeked out from the sleeve and neck holes. It was clear enough to tell he’d dabbled a bit too much in matters of Sorcery. Maybe that was why they locked him away. Or maybe he’d gained all that as a result of whatever he was doing for Rotaalan. Either way, as soon as they had gotten near the edge of Rotaalan, Oskar realized that the city was sinking with far greater speed than before. Not a free fall, thankfully, but fast enough that it wouldn’t remain in the sky longer than the coming night. Daecinus had held it up, somehow, and that was a real frightening thing. That little thought had been repeating in the back of his mind ever since he’d faced down the two Column women.

  How much power did this one man hold? And more importantly, how could Oskar use it?

  “Dark omens, all this,” Nifont muttered beside him.

  “I don’t know about omens. But I’d hesitate to call it any of it particularly good.”

  “Mh.”

  Oskar chewed at his lips, looking from Daecinus to the two women further back. “I know I agreed to hear them out, but even if we do go along with their little offer, we’re gonna keep an eye on those two. The one with the saber especially. I don’t trust fanatics.”

  “Want to protect the grey one, do you?”

  “He could be a fine tool, if used right.”

  “A tool or a weapon?”

  He gave his old friend a look with a raised brow. “Does it matter?”

  “It might,” Nifont said. “You know how things go.”

  Oskar wanted to reply, but the man in question had slid off the last chain link, so he just patted Nifont on the shoulder and walked past. “Survived the climb down, did you? Woulda been a shame to die after all that time holding the damn thing in the sky!”

  Daecinus dropped to a knee, wincing, holding his side. “What utility did such a grand waste produce?” He glared over his shoulder at the falling city, massive chains drooping further into the ocean. Well, all but the one they left on, which was bolted onto a stone foundation on a desolate cliffside, old ruins smashed to rubble all around.

  “Knowing the Vasians, it was probably just a show of supreme authority or some such.” Oskar stopped close and offered a hand. “Touching you won’t kill me, will it?”

  “No.” He took it, standing with visible effort and a shaking leg.

  “All that Sorcery did a number on you, eh?”

  “Most certainly.” Daecinus bent over with his hands on his knees and took a few deep breaths. After a moment, he looked up, those oddly red eyes hesitant as he asked, “What is the year?”

  The priestess Emalia strode up to them, casually coiling her rope over her shoulder as if she hadn’t just crawled down a quarter-mile chain. Bloody annoyance of youth. “Imperial or Ekhenistic?”

  “What?”

  “Ah, let me explain: Imperial is the date since the official founding of Nova, though there is much debate about the accuracy. Ehkenistic is when Deus is said to have originally walked our lands, estimated some four hundred years ago,” she said with a twist of disgust to her face. “Their faith is a blatant appeal to the weak’s ego and lack of devotion. Their religion is far newer. Merely a century or so, in fact.”

  “Imperial then.”

  “Eight twenty-nine.”

  “What?” He blinked, eyes narrowing. “Eight hundred?”

  “Alternative theories posit eight hundred and eleven, eight hundred and two, and then the outlier of eight hundred and ninety-two, though the priest who worked on this claim was found wrapped up in politics, so I wouldn’t err towards his estimation…” she trailed off, for she’d finally seemed to notice Daecinus was staring off, mouth slightly agape, hands coming up to the sides of his hairless grey skull.

  “Four hundred years.”

  Oskar leaned closer, trying to meet the man’s lost gaze. “Hey there, you all right?”

  “Pethya!” he shouted, leaping forward suddenly, grabbing Emalia by her cloak, nearly pulling her off her feet. His eyes, red as they were, seemed to flare like a fire fed an armful of bone-dry underbrush. “What’s happened to Pethya?”

  “I don’t—”

  Sovina leaped off the chain, striding forward with a hand on her saber pommel, but Oskar pivoted and put himself between them, shaking his head. She slowed, eyes scanning, taking in the scene, that martial mind of hers likely working out that this wasn’t a situation a sharp blade could fix. A lesson she needed to learn and learn fast.

  “What’s happened to Pethya?” Daecinus repeated, almost begging now.

  Emalia closed her gaping mouth, then opened it again. “I don’t know.”

  He released her, all energy fading away. “I see.” He sat down on a broken piece of old stone and stared up at Rotalaan. “The eastern coast bordering the Kastalec, northeast of your Nova…”

  “Near Merkenia? Hazek’s Fields? It is… It is a land cursed by ancient Sorcery. It is a desert, taken by Dead.”

  “Hazek’s Fields…” he muttered, voice dead and empty. “Why is it named so? What happened there?”

  “There is a gap in the records I’ve read on pre-imperial control. The Vasian kingdom had waged many wars lost to rumors and passed-down stories. But the story of Hazek’s Fields is an ill-understood one. To my understanding, a cabal of Sorcerers burned it down in battle with the gods long before our time.” She frowned and went slowly as if choosing her words carefully, “Is that where you are from, Daecinus?”

  “We must have lost a war,” he said. “They subdued Maecia and I, stripping Pethya of her greatest weapons… Of course. Then a large scale attack. And what had to follow was a dissolution of any cultural and governmental systems that might propagate resistance, so what is left are a people without unity or the means to act. Perhaps they fled in the wake of Vasia’s attack or hid underground from this Sorcerous disaster. I see. I should… I should go and find them.”

  It had all come out very matter-of-fact like he was reading from a scroll in handing out a superior’s disagreeable orders. Until the end. Then, there was something akin to hope. If he leaves, he won’t make it, not on his own. And besides, I need him. It was a cruel truth, but a truth nonetheless. “I’ve been to Merkenia,” he said. “Been there in the flesh. The coast you speak of is empty. I don’t know where your people are, but they aren’t there.”

  “What if you’re incorrect?”

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  “He’s not,” Emalia said. “There are records of Merkenia’s diverse and ranging population, though what happened to Hazek’s Fields’ original inhabitants is unknown. Perhaps resettlement, but I do not know where.”

  “I see.” His eyes fell. “And how would I find information on this?”

  “The Column. Though they would never allow you access.” She paused, looked away with a wince, and sighed. “But if you come with us to assist in gathering the next necessary relics, I will bring you to Nova where you might learn the answers you seek.”

  “Where you will then kill me.”

  “Perhaps my instructions will change, I will learn some greater truth, or we shall find answers along the way. In Drazivaska, for instance…”

  “Reliable assurances.”

  Sovina stood by Emalia, hands away from her weapons. “Better than any deal you’re going to get otherwise.”

  He looked between them with narrowed eyes, then sighed. “Very well.”

  Oskar clasped his hands together. “Well, now that’s all good and settled, I would say it’s time to return to camp.”

  No one disagreed, so after collecting their climbing gear, he led them from the ruins of the chain’s base and back down the hillside that overlooked the sea below the floating cities. Or the sunken ones, given another day. Hard thing to comprehend, that. Never in all his years did Oskar figure he’d be the man to sink a bloody city. Oh well, that was life, he supposed. Wander around and occasionally fuck up a bit, then die. And if you’re lucky, you might’ve done something once or twice worth mentioning, but if not, well, that was not particularly unexpected. All that matters is pushing out that last day as far as possible and making the ones leading up to it a bit bearable. So, in the end, doesn’t really matter if you sink a city, does it? Someone like Feia might call that shortsighted, while Stanilo might name it selfish. Emalia would definitely have a thing or two to say about it. But fuck ‘em, they haven’t seen what I’ve seen. And wasn’t that the godsdamned truth?

  The peninsula jutting out into the small north-western section of the Kastalec was a rocky, barren place. It was grazing land, once, but something about unstable Sorcery had the soil bear nothing but harsh, near-dead grass nothing could eat. There was some life, though. A hillfort with crumbling walls and world-weary guards with faraway looks in their eyes named Kresimir’s Folly. Probably after some dumb Vasian bastard who died here attacking Sadovoe. Anyone who serves for long enough learns a number of irrefutable facts of war, and one of those is that you don’t attack the Kingdom of Sadovoe in the winter. Believe it or not, that was how Vasia had gotten so bloody good at the whole empire bit: by fucking up constantly, then eventually learning from it. Took a whole lot to hammer a lesson into the head of the big dumb brute called Vasia. Anyway, the fort was probably a remnant of one of those lessons, and it was still guarded and maintained, more or less. Lucky him.

  Took about an hour’s walk to get there. Which was too long, for the inner bit of his legs burned from all the squeezing during the climb down. He was a limping old fool by the time the small hill’s rise of the fort was underfoot. And, of course, that was a bitch to climb. Daecinus and Feia were hunched together again, not saying much but just helping each other climb. If she wasn’t such a damn hyena of a woman, he’d think the odd grey man had caught her eye. No, it wasn’t that. He grimaced. All her life, she’d never truly met someone who could bend Souls like her. Maybe seen them from afar, but nothing like this. Besides, they were both fucked up from Sorcery. Nasty business. Though it might be less flashy, he preferred a sword any day to all that.

  Atop the hill, dirt was piled up and crowned with old cobble to form something of a curtain wall with rickety ramparts. Wasn’t the prettiest thing in the world, but dammit if it didn’t overlook the Black Bay well enough. There was a reason Sadovoe still had men this far out. Wasn’t just pirates out in the waters, but Dead, too.

  A man with a face like old leather leaned over the wall and scowled down at him, helmet a dull iron, a size too big for his withered head. “I remember you. Missing two, aren’t you?” he grumbled out in a distant cousin tongue of Vasian: Sadovean, eyes moving over each of them. “Got a few more for your troubles. Ah, came back with the young women, pardon me. How’re ya, misses?”

  And, of course, Emalia knew the language, smiling up and saying, “Well enough, Leofric.”

  “Good, good. But you did come back with a stranger, if my eyes don’t deceive me.” He leaned over a bit further and squinted at Daecinus. “He speak Sadovean?”

  Oskar answered before anyone else could fuck it up. “Found him washed up on shore. Just look at him. Got banged up by the looks of it, all deathly pale and some such.”

  “Poor son of a bitch. Well, you’re all good, of course, but just keep an eye on him then, yeah?” He leaned back and shouted to the guards below, then popped his head out again as the gate began to crawl open. “You do anything while you were up there? Rotaalan is falling a bit faster, I’d say.”

  “Nope.” He just shrugged. “Probably one of the other groups. Saw one get chewed up by some Dead, though, so you’ll be a tad emptier tonight.”

  “That’s how it goes for your type, I suppose.” He spit to the side and then gave the wall a slight kick. “Well, get on in then. Got warm food for your men’s help today. You know the business.”

  Oskar did, and he gave the man a nod and eyed the others, speaking in Vasian. “He washed up on shore, poor man. Doesn’t remember his name, yeah?”

  Murmers of agreement. Daecinus just looked at him, silent, red eyes probing. Was probably still in some twisted-up way from earlier. Couldn’t blame him for that. Oh well.

  The gate opened, revealing an old wooden fort standing over a combined barracks and storehouse that resembled a frontier cabin more than anything that could be construed as martial. A small stable nearby with a few heavy-haired rounceys and mules inside. A small courtyard held a handful of tents with their associated fires, each surrounded by a small group of travelers. Most were rough types, by the look of them—the optimistic folk might call them adventurers, but they were just scavengers and looters. They didn’t have the backbone his band did. Not one bit.

  Speaking of them, his people were closest to the fort just in case something nasty got through that gate. He would have smiled at the sight, but the prospect of sharing news of two casualties set his expression to a grim frown. Stanilo was there, keeping an eye on the eleven others. They’d been helping out around the fort during the day. It wasn’t much, but it got everyone fed, which was more than a venture into the sinking cities might’ve got them. He felt the jewels in his pocket. Two big ones. How much were they worth? A good amount, he figured, but split seventeen ways? Oskar grimaced even deeper. Did anyone notice him take the third, hidden in his boot? A bit smaller, sure, but to the right buyer…

  “There you are!” one of his good spearmen named Waker shouted, leaping up. “It was getting dark and we were all getting worried an—”

  “Easy, Waker,” Stanilo muttered, dusting off his legs and standing tall like the tree of a man he was. “We all had faith.”

  Oskar approached and patted Waker on the shoulder, then exchanged a look with Stanilo. “Pamil and Sadoch didn’t make it.”

  All the men were gathered around two fires made close together. They were once wanderers with nowhere to go, thieves and brigands, outcasts, and deserters. People with no homes except the fire here, with this band. Each man accepted the news of the dead in their own way. Waker’s jaw dropped as he sat down hard, head in his hands, while Stanilo whispered a prayer and looked to the sky. Oskar just watched them, feeling like a failure. Not long ago, there were twenty of us. Then nineteen. Then seventeen. He sighed and joined them by the fire, digging out the two rubies. Oskar glanced around and caught Nifont’s eye, who was standing back, unstringing his bow. Maybe expecting a cut. Maybe expecting better of his leader. Hard to say. Oskar cleared his throat and glanced around.

  “The story is a long one, but we did acquire these,” he said, cradling the gems in his lap so only those at the fire could see. There’d be stragglers outside their group listening in, looking for a chance to profit from another’s hard work, after all. Always were. “Keep quiet about it now, but I figure there’s enough here to feed every man here for the next half year.”

  That woke Waker right up. The others too, except Stanilo, whose stoic acceptance of things never seemed to let his expression shift too many steps away from neutral.

  “Now,” Oskar went on, “that ain’t all. We got some guests here for at least the night.” He nodded towards the women from Nova. “Emalia and Sovina: a priestess and her guard. Here for big reasons, you can say. Maybe with a job worth taking. Gonna talk to them tonight, and we’ll see.” He paused, feeling out their reactions. Interest, curiosity, and a guarded suspicion from some of those from Vasia who served. A feeling he felt himself to no small degree.

  “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintances,” Emalia said with a nod and a smile. “These treasures are the first of many, should you choose to assist us.”

  “Er, right.” After a moment, Oskar pointed a thumb to Daecinus. “But that’s not all. This here’s a fellow who ‘washed up on shore’ if you follow me. Named Daecinus. He was, well…”

  “They found me converting the energy of Spirits inside the city you refer to as Rotalaan,” Daecinus said loud enough that only their group could hear, voice cold and raspy like ancient scribblings on a parchment come to life. “I am in your debt for the assistance in this matter. Though my knowledge of this land is little, I will be of use in manners of Sorcery, invention, and war, among other subjects, if you’ll have me.”

  Everyone just stared at him, seemingly noticing the strange grey man for the first time. He was tall, too. Taller than Stanilo by a hand, which was certainly something, though far thinner. And compared to everyone else, he looked… imperial. But not like a Vasian, of course. Like what Oskar imagined a Pethyan Magistros to look like, whatever that was.

  “He saved us in turn,” Feia said, squatting before the fire, her vessel-burst eyes looking sinister and grim. “We wouldn’t have escaped if not for him.”

  Daecinus looked at her, something strange in his expression. Was gratitude just a sharp bone to swallow for the man? Or could it mean more? There was a bit of silence, then conversations began picking up again, and all was well. They’d swallowed worse, weirder news than this and taken it in stride. That was part of the life of a mercenary, after all.

  One of his archers was stirring a big kettle; he took out a carved wooden bowl and filled it, handing it over to Oskar. “Here ya are.” He began handing out more to the others, starting with their own, then Daecinus, and finally the women. Wasn’t hard to note the small servings to the two women even though the cauldron had more in the bottom. More than I feel a few ways about the Column, of course. He watched Emalia accept the food with a smile and a nod of thanks, Sovina with a flat expression of poorly hidden spite. The women weren’t just symbols of Column power. Priests and priestesses were important to the Vasian system of control. They were scholars, researchers, advisors, landholding Boyars, and Sorcerers. The southern world turned because of them. But it also bled and burned, too. Oskar crouched before the fire, feeling the warmth on his skin, listening idly to the men share the details of the day. He rolled the rubies in his hands, felt the small one in his boot. Shit.