Tanhkmet ground his wad of spitleaf between his molars, working it down to the last grainy shreds.

  The briefing room before him was a battlefield of vicious quarreling. And they were all going nowhere.

  But not even merely ‘going nowhere.’ He was losing ground, he knew, the higher emotions rose. He needed a decisive blow to reestablish control, before the building sentiment opposed to surrender could take root, and threaten the safety of so many more.

  A veteran of his company shouted spittle at Lycera, stomping forward inside her guard. Tanhkmet watched as she rehashed a calm rebuttal, neither yielding ground nor matching his escalation. But all elsewhere the fighting only continued to broil.

  He shouldn’t have allowed Iumatar to disrespect him as she had, he knew. His failure to stop her unauthorized departure from the meeting, and issue some reprimand — to a rookie, non-commissioned patrol officer, who’d departed his summons without dismissal — had demonstrated a critical weakness. Just that wordless act of protest had been the spark to inflame the others officers’ discontent, fueling their present rebellion beyond what could be quelled with just a few stern words.

  Under any other circumstances, he knew he would’ve acted sooner to maintain control. Until a few weeks ago, the exercise of authority had been effortless for him.

  Another of his elites pushed through the mix, demanding an answer to some outraged, half-caught question. Tanhkmet faced the furious rant, not hearing a word, before Junius broke away from his own engagement to intercept the officer and reprimand him.

  There was still great suffering in his power to avert. Tanhkmet closed his eyes and repeated that mantra to himself, as Junius pulled the man away by the shoulder of his uniform jacket.

  Hot-blooded soldiers with wounded prides didn’t know better. However noble their intentions, and however much he sympathized with them, the risk to so many innocents was simply too great. Setet was unequipped at the societal level to wage war, even before considering the destruction of Atum-Ra.

  Up you go. One last rally.

  He’d explain the facts one last time, with the proper degree of violent emphasis. And his word would be final. If they wanted an open mutiny, after that, they could go ahead and try.

  He’d fight every one of them to preserve what remained of Setet and its people.

  A patrol officer burst into the room.

  The noise of argumentation softened by half, in surprise. It was one of Lycera’s direct reports, from the squad operating as their easternmost picket. The officer saluted Tanhkmet from the doorway, and hesitated before the strange atmosphere. But then plunged into the crowd toward him.

  “Soldiers in strange uniforms, sighted less than three miles east of here,” she said, leaning into his ear. “About a century, approaching in formation. Not Patrol Corps or regulars.”

  “Just one century?” he asked. “They aren’t scouting for some larger force?”

  “There was a small transport airship moored behind them. But nothing more. Just one century, give or take ten rifles, maybe. Our thinking was that they had to be somehow lost…?”

  None of the other pickets had reported anything in particular, he knew, beyond those that first recovered the leaflets.

  “Could you have been spotted?”

  “We don’t think so,” said the scout. “We can’t be certain, but we don’t think so.”

  The room’s attention had fallen on him. The quarreling had died to embers.

  His forces numbered almost three centuries, with forty elite Imperial Guards among them, garrisoning a strong defensive position. It wouldn’t even be close.

  He stood and cleared his throat, his armor shifting.

  “A hostile force approaches,” he said to the fresh quiet. “Our discussion here — however necessary it may be, tomorrow — can wait. Just for now.”

  He surveyed the room with a stern glare.

  “To arms.”

  The chamber erupted in a roar of acclaim, though far distant from anything called a cheer. Both relief and a vengeful bloodlust overpowered all else.

  “Find your squads. We’ll mobilize in the basin outside the passage. Dismissed.”

  He stood aside while eager soldiers filed past him, each then impatient to follow at least those orders of his.

  What luck, he thought, as the chamber drained of its former occupants — still altogether abuzz with passion of one kind or another.

  Perhaps he was about to play into some enemy’s stratagem. Some trap.

  Then they would perish. But then at least, so too would perish the sentiment favoring broader resistance, and the possibility of its terrible consequences.

  And perhaps it wasn’t some such trap. Then he could at least grant even the youngest blood a taste of victory before surrender.

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  Before they never would taste it again.

  * * *

  Roskvir’s briefings had claimed the enemy garrison would be no more than a platoon in strength.

  But by then a company and a half had emerged from the underground stronghold, taking up positions in overlapping fields of fire around the battlefield. A force three times greater than reported. His own forces were already committed to their positions, still faithfully preparing to give battle, even while only ever more of the enemy appeared atop the low hills, and it was far beyond obvious that something had gone terribly wrong.

  “Send a rider back to the encampment,” he ordered his attendant uhlan. “Have the swift fly out to us immediately. Stealth is no longer a concern.”

  The uhlan officer cuffed the reins, and his great canine mount bounded away.

  He sensed his words inspire unease in the man. But if there had been some terrible error, then it was no time to pretend a facade of bravery for his subordinates. Each time he surveyed the enemy in the hills ahead, he saw shrink the margin of error he’d be afforded in the coming hours. They would need to coordinate with perfect honesty.

  His own forces were well-established, at least. The earthen defilades of their entrenchments provided much better cover than one might otherwise expect on a savanna.

  But they were disconnected from all means of reinforcement. Their intelligence had been faulty in every critical domain. And his swift was exactly the wrong size to conduct an evacuation: even straining at overcapacity, its first trip would leave just over half his forces behind, leaving those who remained to be crushed by a direct assault.

  A less experienced commander in his position might panic and attempt a withdrawal, he knew. But they were just too thoroughly committed to the field, at that point. Any movements across open ground would be harried by the enemy’s bird-riders. And harried withdrawals in such perilous conditions were what became the disorganized, shattered routs that resulted in the most severe losses of botched battles, he knew.

  They were all in.

  But if they stood their ground, his marines could still win the day, he estimated, with their strength augmented by his and Thjali’s battlefield presence. Victory was not yet impossible.

  Victory, or at least survival. With himself, Thjali, and their marines, and maybe more than just a little bit of luck. Worse odds had been defied before.

  “We’re to hold in defensible positions,” he said at last, answering the unspoken question of his nervous staff nearby. “The day isn’t lost, yet. Even if we were up against half again what’s in those hills. When the vizeadmiral comes down from the right, there, it doesn’t matter if they’re more. They won’t know what hit them.”

  He pointed to the heights, smacking his fist into his hand to illustrate his point.

  Trying to make the gesture believable both to his officers, and to himself.

  * * *

  Seeing his forces assemble across the battlefield, Tanhkmet guessed he could say the word, and the day would be won in less than an hour.

  But even with so many eager soldiers awaiting his command, he’d stayed the order to give battle for one final minute.

  He just couldn’t shake his suspicion of the meager enemy before him. He’d fought phraints and anarchists too long not to recognize a trap when he saw one. Surely the enemy commander was not suicidal; surely there had to be some other dimension to their strategy.

  Perhaps the enemy simply possessed incredible confidence in their soldiers’ individual martial prowess, or possessed some superior weaponry or tactics yet unknown to Setet. But Tanhkmet had heard reports from the patrol officers who’d skirmished during their retreats to his stronghold. According to them, the white-coated soldiers were pierced by lead and steel like any other.

  And of course, they wielded powers of vis, unique and unpredictable. But so did he and his soldiers.

  He shifted his great shield down from his back to his arm.

  “Lycera, keep your flank back, in the heights,” he said. “Junius and I will advance immediately to meet the enemy, to dislodge them as quickly as possible.”

  “Perhaps this is obvious,” said Lycera, “But I should say that I find it very peculiar, how lost they seem to be. Suspicious.”

  “Yes. That’s why I’ll need you to keep your wing back, occupying the elevation. If there are any surprises in store for us, we’ll need to be able to count on control of that higher ground. Any flanking maneuver would have to come from behind and to our left, anyway, so you’re to hold the heights against that, if indeed they plan one.”

  Lycera’s expression soured.

  “The squads up there won’t be happy, sir. Being kept away from the action.”

  She’d always been too sharp not to read between the lines, Tanhkmet thought. She knew it was their last dance. There could still be no course but surrender, even after all was said and done that day.

  “Once the enemy line is about to give, I’ll signal,” he said. “Then you can bring your wing down. You’ll miss the first half, maybe, but you’ll be at full strength for the last.”

  She didn’t seem reassured. But she nodded and saluted nonetheless, mounting her riding bird.

  “To be honest... I don’t feel good about this, either” Tanhkmet said to Junius, as Lycera departed.

  “What has felt right, these days?” his lieutenant replied.

  “But I mean it more than that. You know.”

  “Well, sir… I think that if we come down to meet them… we will fight the enemy. And then eventually, one side will be victorious.”

  A thin band of navy-blue fire came to life above his lieutenant’s head. And a navy-blue broadsword formed in his hands, the flame of its blade stoked with what Tanhkmet could then feel was a long-controlled fury.

  Junius looked out over the battlefield one last time. Tanhkmet couldn’t help but share his yearning, as he basked in his presence on the plane of sense.

  The air hummed, as an earthen-red band arose above his own head in turn.

  Tanhkmet had already known just how much they all wanted it. But it was altogether different, with their vis material. That thirst for vengeance was then raw beside him, its strength clarified.

  The same desire had eluded Tanhkmet during those last weeks, when he’d thought a burning vengefulness should come naturally to him. But as he felt Junius’ passion made tangible, at last he found he truly shared it.

  “It's not for us, Jun. It's for them. Remember that,” said Tanhkmet quietly, despite himself. “We’ve had our time. Some of these kids… they’re not more than a few months out of the academy.”

  Junius didn’t look at him.

  “They’ve never felt it,” said Tanhkmet. “They’ve wanted it at least a little bit all their life, probably. And now, because of everything… They want it so damn much. Just like you, I know. But they’ve never had it.”

  Junius sighed, then nodded at last. But the flames of his vis never wavered, as his gaze remained fixed on the savanna that would soon be their battlefield, ahead.

  "Vengeance is not the point; change is. But the trouble is that in most people's minds the thought of victory and the thought of punishing the enemy coincide."

  Barbara Deming