“Ho there!” Virgil called to the newcomers.

  Kera would’ve been nervous anyway at the sight of strangers. But something she heard then in Virgil's demeanor put her on edge all its own. The apparent leader of the strangers’ patrol, who’d already dismounted at the shore of the oasis, acknowledged Virgil’s greeting with a curt wave.

  Their squadron had come from the north, heading south, she realized, noting the heading of the long and rising dust cloud that still lingered in their wake.

  Unless they’d taken a significant detour from a westerly course, they hadn’t been following Tanhkmet’s order.

  Reglus came up beside Virgil and Decia, where the two had been resting in the shade, making an effort to seem casual and inconspicuous. But Decia, for her part, simply stared out across the water at the soldiers of the other patrol.

  “Well, I’m one to give people the benefit of the doubt,” Virgil whispered. “But we’d be doing Captain Tanhkmet a great disservice if we didn’t at least ask them a few questions.”

  “Assuming the transmission was no ruse,” muttered Reglus.

  The leader of the stranger patrol looked up at Virgil as he approached.

  “Well there… lieutenant,” said Virgil, nodding to the officer’s chevrons. “Glad to see other sectors are still well-monitored, during all this. What’s your name, there?”

  All the other strangers wore expressions of stone, while they seemed to busy themselves with maintenance of random items of equipment.

  “Thymius — Lieutenant Thymius… Yours?”

  “Captain Virgil. And in which town are you based, lieutenant?”

  A unique jurisdictional patch beneath the lieutenant’s rank insignia. But Thymius hesitated before responding.

  “…Kria Thoe, sir,” he answered, quieter than before..

  “You come from the north,” said Virgil flatly. “Have we missed some new orders since our departure? Or a second report from the capital?”

  A handful of the officers from the other patrol came alert, at that. Thymus squinted into the sunlight Kera felt warming the back of her neck.

  “It’s been… it's been destroyed, sir,” he said, swallowing. “The city was… was…”

  “I have heard that as well, Lieutenant,” said Virgil. “But you come from the north, going south. Have you not heard the orders?”

  “...No, I haven’t. Which orders? All we’ve seen is… the city.”

  Even just the cadence of his speech sounded false, even to Kera, who knew she wasn’t talented at reading such things. And Virgil hadn’t missed it.

  But she also knew Virgil could say nothing, then.

  Two more of the stranger patrol had spread themselves along the far side of the watering hole, rifles slung over their shoulders. They were only barely attempting to hide their effort to reposition.

  She couldn’t help but rehearse in her imagination how it would feel to unbuckle her holster’s clasp, then draw her revolver. But she resisted the urge to creep fingers toward her belt.

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  “Captain Tanhkmet telegraphed all Patrol Corps in the eastern provinces,” said Virgil. “Whatever happened to the city, he’s survived. Orders are to rendezvous at an underground stronghold on the outskirts.”

  “That… that can’t be right. There’s no way anyone could still be alive there.”

  Virgil bristled.

  “How could you know?”

  “We— we saw the city. Any message from a survivor must be deception. Some sort of trap.”

  His shame was almost palpable. Seconds lengthened, as Kera considered his cowardice. Desertion was a very serious offense. In any other circumstance, Virgil would’ve had them arrested.

  Kera felt a flicker on the plane of sense, and saw an orange spark fall from a brief flash of Decia’s crown.

  “If you’d come from the capital, then you’d have approached from the east. Not the north,” Decia ground out.

  Kera’s heart skipped a beat. She allowed her hand to fall to her waist, as if to scratch an itch, and saw as much mirrored in similar subtle moves among perhaps a dozen others.

  “We… doubled back northwest to Kria Thoe, after seeing the city, before learning of the danger from Hilomnos, to the west, as well. That’s when we resolved that… the best course would be to regroup with anyone we could find south… away from both dangers.”

  “You couldn’t have rode within sight of the city, then back to Kria Thoe, then come this far south since the first reports,” Decia grit. “Your birds aren’t even tired, let alone run ragged.”

  “When… the disaster struck, we were already on our way toward the city on our routine patrol route… we had a head start.”

  Kera knew that sector was covered by Iomea’s patrol. She could only hope Decia didn’t know as much.

  “What did you say your name was?” asked Decia.

  Silence stretched on between them all.

  If the lieutenant had forgotten the false name he’d provided, Decia’s question would constitute an accusation she couldn’t retract.

  The two deserters across the water had hands on the straps of their rifles, ready to be swung down and shouldered at a moment’s notice. Reglus had angled down the sheath of his saber ever so slightly, pressing his left thumb ready against its guard. Even Virgil crept his hand down to his own belt, as he continued struggling to conjure a diplomatic way out.

  Kera knew she had to do something.

  Decia was in arm’s reach. She leaned toward her ear.

  Before faltering, recoiling at just the thought of speaking. Even just as a whisper, even just to someone so familiar.

  “On three sides,” Kera could only manage to rasp to Virgil, instead. Decia didn’t even seem to hear.

  She was a hypocrite, to call those deserters ‘cowards,’ she berated herself.

  “Thymius, I believe it was, Decia. Lieutenant Thymius. Common name, that,” Virgil said at last.

  He made a point of moving his hand away from his holster as he reached over to clasp his lieutenant’s shoulder. “Think,” he hissed to her, from the corner of his lips.

  An appropriate amount of fear finally colored Decia’s features.

  “Well, I think we better be on our way,” said Virgil, pointedly splaying both open palms. “I won’t dispute that things are certainly… confused, right now. I can see you are attempting to do your duty in the manner you think best.”

  He took a probing step sideways. Reaching out again to Decia under the pretense of patting her on the back, in reality he pulled her along by the waist.

  The deserters only watched as he mounted the saddle of his riding bird Luna, then started her away from the oasis at a slow and easy walk. Showing the strangers his back, putting himself at their mercy.

  “We really did… we really did see the fire. We felt the shockwave. Windows shattered, miles and miles away.” The lieutenant finally looked sincere, almost as if by saying as much he could clear his conscience. “Nothing could’ve survived, in the city itself… And right before, too… I can’t explain it— there was this… this…”

  Virgil turned back in the saddle with a glint of hardened contempt, for the first time betraying real sincerity himself.

  “Yes. We all felt it. Even all the way back in Dromos, on the coast.”

  The deserter lieutenant’s eyes went wide.

  “As for the city…“

  Virgil cuffed the reins, turning his mount back north.

  “…We’ll see it for ourselves.”

  "If Almighty God gives a man a cowardly pair of legs how can he help their running away with him?"

  Abraham Lincoln