“So you’re the new journeyman?”

“Yes, Lieutenant Caine. Journeyman Victoria Haley at your—”

“Whatever,” muttered Allister. “You’re the one who comes when I shout ‘journeyman.’ Understand?”

“Yes, sirrah.”

Caine struck a match, lit his cigarillo, and flicked the still-burning match aside. He reached one gloved hand to take Haley’s chin and turn it to his face. The rough glove grated on her skin and smelled of stale cordite and tobacco. Allister snorted, and Haley involuntarily gagged on the smoky odor of his breath. “You’re a dreggled urchin,” he said. He turned and started to walk off. “You’ll wash out. Nemo must still be mad about the kitchen incident to saddle me with the likes of you.”

After a brief hesitation, Haley followed. “What are my duties to be, sirrah?” she pressed, ignoring his denigrating remarks.

Caine snorted again. “Duties?” he answered. His cigarillo waggled in his chapped lips as he spoke. “Do what I tell you. Try not to get killed.”

“I don’t fear that,” said Haley bravely.

In a blink Allister Caine vanished. Haley stutter-stepped in surprise, then she felt the cold iron kiss of two inch-wide gun barrels pressed into the soft flesh behind each ear hard enough that she rose onto her toes.

Caine put his lips to one of her ears, and his unshaven face prickled her skin. “You’d best get afraid, little missy,” he hissed. “If you aren’t good and terrified, you’ll be nothing more than blade wash within two minutes of battle’s start.”

He shifted to her other ear. “Out there, there’re two kinds of people: those who are afraid, and those who are dead. One of the big advantages the other side has is that those who are dead… are often still moving.”

* * * * *

“I swear, Brock, you’re amazing.”

Brock Halfshank cracked a slight smile. “Oh, it’s nothing, really,” he said.

“Nothing?” echoed Chaz incredulously. “Look at your pack and kit and regulars! Not five minutes gone, and they’re all primmed up purty, creases sharp as a sword, everything perfectly stowed. Bells, the army ought to plop your grinning pie hole on the enlistment broadsheets!”

“Sure,” said Brock with a chuckle. “Then everyone would think bein’ a Trencher was just a glorified campout. Mornin’, Sarge,” he added as a third soldier walked up to the enlistees’ tent.

“Hey, Sarge, take a gander at Brock’s kit, here!” said Chaz. “It’s so preened I’d swear you could—”

“Come now, Chaz,” said the sergeant, “don’t you know Halfshank’s got a touch of the art?”

“Does he now? Well if that don’t make you a chuffed duck! No wonder you’re so strapped and loaded.”

Brock shrugged. “It makes things easier, sure, but—”

“You going to apply for an apprenticeship?” pressed Chaz. “Huh? Are you?”

Brock shrugged again.

“Leave off, Chaz,” said the sergeant more softly. “He sent his papers in well over a year ago. Ain’t heard a baby’s toot out of it, neither.”

“Well, if that ain’t just a boot in the teeth,” groused Chaz. “Why do you reckon?”

Brock drew a deep breath and let out a long sigh of frustration. “I figger it’s on account of ’cause I ain’t no highborn type. No riches, no status, no history, no family name to speak of at all. I mean… Halfshank, what kind of a family name is that? Sounds like I done lost a leg. That ain’t no heroic highborn type of name.”

“That ain’t fair,” said Chaz. “You deserve a chance, I’d say. You got the art just like anyone else in the school.”

“Talking of which, I have news,” said the sergeant.

“What’s that Sarge?”

“I hear the lieutenant’s got hisself a new journeyman.”

“Really?” said Brock eagerly. “What’s he like?”

“She,” corrected the sergeant.

“She?” echoed Chaz. “Bollocks! Just what we need, some hoity-toity high-born ‘lady’ prancing around like we’re all her butlers. At least the gentlemen know that sometime the stable needs mucking, but those damsels…”

“Worse’n that,” interrupted the sergeant, “I think someone will be humpin’ her pack. I’d dare say she don’t weigh much more than what you’ve got stowed there, Brock.”

Brock scratched his scalp. “So what’s the word, then, Sarge?” he asked.

“Word is we’re patrolling the coast. There’s rumors of a pirate ship. I hear the lieutenant is taking the high-falutin’ blades, knights and mages, and leaving us common fightin’ folk with the greener and a couple light ’jacks.”

“Typical,” grunted Chaz. “Caine doesn’t much care for the likes of us.”

“Aye that,” said Brock. “Do you think she’ll throw coat the way the last journeyman did?”

The sergeant looked at the men levelly for a breath then said, “Break camp, boyos. Cygnar is moving out.”

“Right,” said Chaz. He clapped his comrade on the shoulder. “Well, then, Brock, I’ll just let you and your magical art strike the tent then, shall I? I may as well get some use out of your magic if the headquarters don’t want none of it.”

* * * * *

Night had fallen, and without the sun’s rays, the breeze carried a surprising chill. Thin clouds rolled in across the sky, slowly concealed the stars and moons, and left the campfires of Haley’s detachment the only illumination for miles around.

Victoria walked along the edge of the camp looking out into the darkness. Twelve years of nightmares had ensured she couldn’t walk in the night alone. She pulled her greatcoat tighter and looked back across the camp. Reflected in the warm, cheery glow of a score or more fires, the soldiers of her troop gathered to chat. Rather, to grouse, truth be told, for a good grouse was the privilege of the grognard. No one could grouse like an experienced soldier, especially an old Trencher. “Hottest damn snowstorm I ever felt,” the saying went.

She looked their grizzled faces and saw pain and suffering carved into every weatherworn crease of their unshaven faces. Ever since the loss of Gloria she had felt so old as to be withered; here among the soldiers, leading them like Caine’s dancing marionette, she felt no more than a child.

She also never felt more alone.

They were her soldiers. She was to lead them, but she could sense the way they looked at her when they thought she wasn’t paying attention.

Sadly she expanded her consciousness to reach out to the cortex of the nearest warjack. Warjacks were dull creatures, but not for lack of intellect; they were dull because their minds were built for one thing only.

Her mind was different.

She let her consciousness slide into the warjack. It was like diving into a cool pool of alcohol, and it sounded of the fading ring of a great industrial bell. The warjack’s eyes flared briefly as its mind roused to her presence, but she withheld it from making any telltale movements.

She used the warjack to listen to the talk of the soldiers—her soldiers, her responsibility.

Any contact was better than none at all.

“Three weeks,” she heard a soldier say. His voice sounded tinny through the filter of the warjack’s cortex. “Three bloody weeks it’s been that that two-pinch tart’s been trudging this stinking battalion back and forth across and around Cape Mercir chasing the tide.”

“Cor, don’t let the officers hear you call her a tart, righto mucker?”

“What else is she good for, then? Skinny little body like that.”

“Well, if she were a tart, she might have a smile once in a while. You know what I’m saying?”

“Sure, not for the likes of you. You’ve got the face of a thousand-mile boot, you have.”

“Shut your flaps, bumfluff. You’d best be happy we ain’t done naught but march. Time comes for a fight, she’s throwin’ coat and heading for Caspia. If we’re lucky, she’ll get to roust a few bandits or sommat afore she sees real action. Give her a chance to get blooded, maybe grow a few inches so we’s don’t up and step on her in the midst of a scrum.”

“You ain’t even gave her a chance. She done graduated like every other officer. Maybe—”

“Maybe I’d give her a grain if she weren’t so standoffish. Damn aristo ladies are all alike. Never done a hard day’s work in her life.”

Haley snorted and pulled herself out of the warjack. Funny, she thought. They see me as different when I’m much like them. Where I am different they forget the ’jacks are almost a part of me.

She looked up in despair and saw darkness had covered the nighttime sky; the encroaching clouds were smothering the last of the stars overhead. She groaned deep within her throat, turned, and strode into the camp toward the group upon which she had been eavesdropping.

As she walked up to the campfire, her light frame made little noise compared to the crackling fire and grumbling soldiers.

“I’m tellin’ you know,” said one of the soldiers venting his frustration, “when we hit the scrum, I’d druther have someone like Caine in charge. Even though he doesn’t give a nit for the likes of us, he’s a codger who can stand toe to toe with the likes of me, and—”

Haley walked into the center of the group and stood right next to the fire. The soldiers jumped to attention. She looked around at the group; each one stood taller than she even with the exaggerated heels of her boots.

“I don’t like this cloud cover,” she said. “It stinks of Toruk’s minions. Inform the officers to prepare defensive positions tonight. Understood?”

The soldiers mumbled out a broken chorus of “Yes’m.”

She looked around the group once more. “One other thing. All this marching is wearying, don’t you think? I’d like a sparring partner tomorrow morning. Someone to test myself against.” She shrugged. “I guess you could say this is your chance to go toe to toe and lay into a warcaster without any fear of repercussions. Do I have any volunteers?”

After a few long heartbeats of silence, she dismissed them.

* * * * *

The darkness was near complete such that even an owl could not have seen the two shadows gliding from the surf onto the sandy beach.

“This here’s the final test,” murmured Skarre to her companion, “for both of us. For me, ’tis a test of how well I’ve laid the field for you, dancin’ the brig off the coast.”

“And for me, how much I have learned from Asphyxious,” said Deneghra.

“Wrong,” said Skarre. “For you, ’tis both your test and mine own.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ll not leave your failure to be my failure,” said the Satyxis pirate queen. “If your shore party botches this raid, I’ll make damn sure your failure will see you dancing in the seaweed while I have my acquittal. You might fail—just this once, of course—but I never fail.”

“Neither do I,” said Deneghra. “I guess the only thing left you have to fear is my success beyond your capacity to contain me.”

Skarre laughed long and loud. “You should have been whelped a Satyxis, dearie. I ken your style. Tell me how you will do this.”

“With your maneuvering, we have managed to separate the warcaster Caine from his apprentice. I strike, therefore, at the apprentice to gather material with the greatest efficiency. The attack begins in the predawn light—”

“Why?” asked Skarre.

“Two reasons. First, the growing dawn will conceal the glow of the necrotite furnaces. Second, with the false dawn, they will relax their guard believing the threat of sneak attack has passed.”

* * * * *

For Haley, the dawn broke with the sound of a chain gunner opening fire. She bolted from her bed wearing nothing but her underclothes and rushed for the tent flap. She stuck her head outside. She heard shouts, the sound of a long gun, and the unmistakable keening hiss of necrotite furnaces. It was a terrible sound locked into her every waking and sleeping moment for a dozen years.

Across the tent her handmaid also rose though somewhat more panicked. “What is it?”

“Cryx!” shouted Haley at the top of her lungs. She leapt over to her armor stand.

“Miss, your greatcoat!” called her handmaid, fumbling for the thick garment among Haley’s trunks.

“No time!” said Haley, sliding her arms into the splayed-open armor.

“But the furnace, you’ll burn your back!” said the handmaid, flapping the greatcoat loose as she ran over.

Haley shrugged into the armor and swung her hands around to the small furnace nestled against her spine. She roared her determination as arcane power lanced from her hands into the furnace, igniting the coal with the heat of its energy. Stray bolts spilled out of the armor and cut their way through Haley’s trembling back. “Loosen the cocks,” ordered Haley. Trembling, the handmaid obeyed. Haley reached over her shoulders as best she could, constrained by the bulky armor and the rods holding the heavy plates upright. Gritting her teeth against the forthcoming pain, she touched her fingers to the boiler and sent an even greater surge through the water, heating it up rapidly to the boiling point. She heard her handmaid cry out in pain as she caught just a bit of the arcane bolts.

Gasping, she turned to her assistant. “Get up and pull the rods!” she ordered. “My people are dying out there!”

Somehow the handmaid found the resolve to stand and yank back the bars holding the warcaster armor in place. The heavy metal plates sagged onto Haley’s small frame; the furnace wasn’t yet running hot enough for the arcane field to support the armor entirely on its own, and the young woman groaned with the weight.

She grabbed her mage sword and staggered from her tent into the predawn barefoot and in her bloomers.

Outside the camp, Deneghra laughed in sadistic joy. This was the first time she had truly been allowed to indulge herself and run amok with Cryxian bonejacks. Her mind was fragmented into the cortices of almost a dozen different Deathrippers running pell-mell into the sleepy Cygnaran camp. Her vision swam with disjointed images that her manic mind struggled to knit into a cohesive whole.

It felt like she was a pack of rabid dogs running, charging, biting, savaging, and searching for prey. Every move was instinct, every surge of power was a reflex reaction, and every channeled spell was a spontaneous eruption of hate. With a frenetic energy, her mind guided the chaotic attack, not reining it in but managing to contain the surge so the attack did not explode and disperse all its momentum.

On top of it all, her warcaster’s mind could taste the savor of the necrotite furnaces. The vile taste of anguish and death burning to fuel her desires created an overwhelming sensation of power.

Deep down within her, she realized this was where she’d wanted to be all along, and she would never tire of the feeling until the entrails of the whole world lay splayed open at her feet.

Satisfied with her progress, she cast herself entirely into the cortex of one of her jacks to become it in all but name. She had two powerful legs structured of bone and necrotechnology with no muscles to tire or sinews to snap. She had an alchemically treated prognathous jaw equally equipped for biting and thrusting. She sensed a Cygnaran nearby and lunged forward like a tatzylwurm, buried her fangs into his belly, and ripped upward to shower herself in glorious ichors. She sensed the victim’s blood boiling away on the soul furnace within her monstrous ribcage and felt the heinous, sensual drip of viscera from her powerful teeth. So beautiful, she thought, so close to perfect. Ah, if only the bonejacks had tongues.

Then a strange sound erupted across the camp—a series of double thumps sharp and deep.

“What was that?” she heard Skarre hiss.

Deneghra snapped her mind back to herself and cast out to enter a half dozen bonejacks scattered about. Through the eyes of one, she saw a brief shadow of towering darkness then a flash of yellow in the instant before the bonejack’s cortex shattered.

Thump-thump!

Then another of her bonejacks was destroyed, and another. “Warjacks…” said Deneghra, confused.

“Warjacks?” said Skarre. “He didn’t tell us she had warjacks!” The pirate queen yanked a dagger from her boot. “And he calls himself an informant. Oh, he’ll pay for holding out on me. Me!”

Skarre considered for a moment. “You’ve done well, Deneghra. Regroup your forces, kill as many as you can, and get back to the ship. I have some business to attend to with a certain young man…”

So saying, the Satyxis warcaster slipped away from Deneghra’s side leaving her student to fend for herself.

As she watched her mentor leave, Deneghra wondered if this, too, wasn’t part of the test.

* * * * *

Standing amid the smoldering wreckage of a repulsive bonejack, Haley’s mind stalked the battlefield.

She had linked to each of her Chargers including the annoying one with the intermittent blackouts. However, her mind shared the consciousness of only one Charger’s cortex, the one furthest from her where the fighting was hardest. She was a passenger on the mechanikal creation, an advisor to the enchantment animating the three-ton iron beast. She let the warjack’s cortex maneuver about the battlefield and swing its devastating hammer at the chittering, hissing bonejacks; all she needed was the left arm. This she swung about freely, firing devastating double-barrel volleys at anything in sight.

Once she was certain the warjack was in no imminent danger of loss, she pulled her soul back to herself. Her warcaster armor was running balls out and was nearly weightless on her shoulders. Sweat ran freely down her back, and she felt the first painful itch of burn blisters starting to rise on her fair skin. Pumping arcane energy into the sword she carried, she began to walk the field to rally her people, direct her officers to organize the troops, and return her command to some semblance of order.

Occasionally one of the Chargers would fire off a double round or swing its hammer in an ear-splitting crash, but it did seem she and her people had managed to steal the momentum of battle, if only for the moment. She offered up a silent thanks to her father for the example she’d carried in her heart all those years.

As the dawning sky grew brighter, Haley took a more careful look at the campground-turned-battlefield. Their position was a disaster. It was neither flat nor had it a commanding view. Rather the area had a series of low-lying ridges and slopes that offered ready concealment to the small, fleet bonejacks still prowling the area. They had chosen this spot the previous night for the protection the ridges afforded from the winds crossing the Windward Peninsula; the blood of her command staining the sand attested to the fact that selecting a site for comfort instead of defensibility had been a grave mistake.

She ordered her subordinates to gather around. “Report,” she demanded.

“As near as we can reckon,” said the first sergeant, “there still may be upwards of a half dozen Deathrippers in the area, and we don’t know what else the Cryxians might be bringing up.”

“Warcaster?” demanded Haley.

“No one’s seen one,” said the first sergeant, “but you have to know he’s out there somewhere. That’s what worries me: why attack with just your ’jacks?”

“I agree,” said a corporal. “We got to get out of here before the Cryxians hit us again.”

Haley’s eyes narrowed. “Everyone present or accounted for?”

“Pshaw,” said the first sergeant. “We’ve gathered all the people who are still around, but there’s no way we can get an accurate casualty count, not with those bonejacks still nigh.”

“You’re sure you have everyone?” asked Haley.

“As sure as I can be in a scrum like this.”

* * * * *

“Bugger me raw, what do we do now, Sarge?” hissed Chaz.

“Shhh,” came the quiet reply. “Lie still.”

A dozen troopers lay in a shallow bowl of earth in the lee of a sharp boulder. They’d dug a few desultory slits when ordered the night before, but now they wished they had dug deeper. They yearned for better concealment from the Cryxian nightmares scurrying around just on the other side of the low rise.

“But I don’t even have my damned forgelock,” said Chaz eyeing the pup tent that stood just under the rise in plain view of the battlefield.

The double thump of a Charger sounded, followed by the lone crack of a long gun.

“The fighting is moving farther away,” whispered Brock.

The crunch of dead grass sounded near at hand, and a sibilant wail grew in volume. The Trenchers pressed themselves even closer to the earth as they heard the irregular footsteps of a group of Deathrippers pass by on the other side of the rise a mere ten yards from their position.

“Stay still, boys,” whispered the sergeant so softly it was all but inaudible. “Our luck is holding.”

Brock looked up at the pup tent he and Chaz shared where their weapons were. It was possible the Cryxians might leave without investigating it; they were not known for plunder as living armies were. Then he looked at the Cygnaran flag flying from the pole planted next to their tent flapping in the steady wind. Would the Cryxians leave such a symbol of defiance to remain unmolested?

Not bloody likely, he thought.

If only I could take it down without being seen, he thought. The simple cantrips he knew wouldn’t make the flag fall naturally. Even if he could bring himself to make the blue-and-gold flag fall into the dirt in the first place, his petty little magic could only make it lay itself out flat.

No wonder the high command doesn’t want to apprentice me, he thought.

* * * * *

“We’re not leaving,” said Haley flatly.

“Pardon?” said the first sergeant.

“I said we’re not leaving. I will not piddle my first engagement, especially not to the Cryxians.” She turned to another trooper nearby. “Soldier, go fetch my boots; I can’t keep fighting this scrum in bare feet.”

The soldier saluted and ran off.

“Why not withdraw, if I may ask?” asked the first sergeant.

“Because I’m not going to let them have the corpses of our people.”

“They’ll have a lot more corpses if we try to hunt them down,” blustered the sergeant. “There’s still plenty of bonejacks out there.”

“I will lose some, but I will leave none,” said Haley. “There may still be survivors out there.”

“Don’t be so proud,” said the first sergeant. “We’ve got all our ’jacks, let’s—”

“I DON’T GIVE A DAMN ABOUT THE JACKS!” yelled Haley.

Silence rang across the battlefield for a few heartbeats.

“Excuse me?”

“I said I don’t give a damn about the jacks, First Sergeant, and if you persist in failing to hear me, I’ll bust you back to latrine duty. Is! That! Clear!”

“Yes’m.”

“In fact, I think I want your wing right now.”

“Excuse me?”

“Your wing! Right now!”

The sergeant hastily pulled his dagger and cut the gold wing-shaped patch off his uniform sleeve and handed it to Victoria. She jammed it into one gauntlet of her armor. “I’ll see if I can’t find someone better to wear these wings,” she muttered.

By the time she was done, the soldier had returned with her boots. She put them on over her bloomers then climbed a low rise and scanned the battlefield. The chitters and venting of the bonejacks cast a threatening aura over the dawning day.

Suddenly she raised one arm and pointed. “Sergeant, what’s that?”

“It’s a Cygnaran flag,” he said. By the time he was done, Haley was already sprinting forward with her chargers thundering at her heels.

She ran pell-mell over the battlefield leaping past startled bonejacks. She kept the only undamaged Charger at her side, leaving the others to clean up the Cryxian mechanika in her wake.

The flag flew from a tall pole planted next to a jagged boulder that stood atop a low rise. As she neared her goal, a swarm of bonejacks rose up from their concealment to rush the slight hill. She heard yells, a single gunshot, and screams.

“Heads down!” she yelled as she unleashed a torrent of lightning upon the small horde of Deathrippers. She aimed the thunderstroke at the densest mass of Cryxian ’jacks, and the electrical power leapt from one to the next fusing metal, blasting bone, and rupturing contemptible necrotite furnaces.

At her command the Charger began firing its cannon while its mechanikal cortex directed its massive hammer to flatten dirt and necrotechnology alike.

As one, the remaining Deathrippers turned on Haley like a swarm of giant mechanikal rats. Her world turned into a desperate fever of activity—a keening song of necrotite hissing punctuated by the thump-thump of the Charger’s dual cannon. She bolstered her armor’s protective field by willing it to withstand the assault of the fangs chewing at her from all quarters. She fell down, overwhelmed by the weight of their numbers. She desperately swung her mage blade, but from her supine position her weak blows had little effect against the steel armor of the bonejacks.

Then a great shadow fell over her like a tombstone. An iron hammer landed just to her right and shook the ground with the sound of thunder. It withdrew just as abruptly, and the rising sun shone through where the hammer had fallen. The darkness of the bonejacks was flattened almost beyond recognition. A handful of Cygnaran Trenchers charged through the gap, grabbed Haley with strong and callused hands, and dragged her free of the Cryxian swarm while her Chargers pounded the evil constructs into shapes that, while no less disgusting, were infinitely more palatable.

* * * * *

Deneghra looked at the unfolding drama and called her remaining bonejacks back to her. They were easily replaced; the loss of a half dozen or more would scarcely merit a mention.

The knowledge she gained by watching this young warcaster, however, was another matter. That was valuable.

“I will have to find out your name, young one,” she said, “because you intrigue me. I want you for my own.”

With a wave of her hand, she vanished.

* * * * *

“Beggin’ your pardon, lady,” said the sergeant, “but you came just in the pinch. A few moments later, and we’d have been ’jack fodder.”

With a hiss of pain, Haley pulled herself out of the warcaster armor. As she staggered free, the gathered soldiers saw that the once-fine material of her nightshirt had been charred from white to the color of dark toast. She rolled her shoulders back to keep the burnt shirt from touching her skin. Her trembling hands stayed raised at her side as if of their own accord.

“If I were a lady, Sergeant,” she said, “I’d never let you see my bloomers. Now send someone to fetch me some balm.”

Half a dozen soldiers dashed to the task.

“If I may be so bold, la—uh, warcaster, how’d you know we was up there?”

Haley swallowed hard, and her face pinched in pain. “It’s not often you see a flag flying stiffly against the breeze, Sergeant. Whose idea was that?”

The sergeant looked confused for a moment. Then his face brightened, and he barked, “Trooper Brock Halfshank, front and center!”

In a matter of seconds, a young trooper had pushed his way through and stood before Haley at attention. As sweat had plastered much of her nightclothes to her svelte body, he judiciously stared into the air over her head.

“That was you?” asked Haley.

“Yes’m!”

“That was brilliant, soldier. You’ve the art, then?”

“Yes’m!”

Haley nodded and smiled in spite of her pain. “That’s what I like. Very clever. I’ll recommend you for warcaster training, soldier.” She tossed him a strip of cloth cut into two arcing wings. “In the meantime, I’d like you to wear these. I think they’d look good on you.”