I told Veretil what I’d seen, heard, and done as soon as I returned to the camp. I left out the details of how I got so close to my victims without causing any alarm, and he didn’t pry. If I could tell them that the Happarans expected significant reinforcements in two weeks, and that they had planned a major push in the next few days, they weren’t going to ask how I’d gotten that information. The fact that this offensive now may or may not happen thanks to me didn’t hurt, either.

  After drinking a barrel of water and before going to sleep, I tried to check in on my humans. It being something like two or three in the morning, though, I could only reach Zabra, and she was extremely busy in a way that was none of my business and had me pulling back in severe embarrassment. At least both she and the girl she was with seemed to be enjoying themselves, so good on them, I supposed.

  It took a hot minute to get to sleep after that, but I managed. I made sure to check in with Herald as soon as I woke, and she confirmed that all was well, and that Mother had indeed come to watch over them as they slept. Which was a hell of a thing for most of them at the best of times, and doubly so when I wasn’t around, but they’d just have to get used to it.

  The effect of my night’s amusements were as immediate as anything could be in a world without radio. It wasn’t yet midday when Tribune Veretil came to tell me in person that probing attacks across the Grayrun had all but stopped, and that the enemy seemed unsure what to do. When I went out with Darim she confirmed what the tribune had said. The Happaran presence had increased along some parts of the river, while they had pulled back entirely in others. It was almost like lower-level commanders were acting on their own, with no one to keep them to a cohesive higher level strategy. I couldn’t imagine why. The large number of solo riders driving hard between camps, far more than the previous day, suggested the same thing.

  I made sure to fly lower over the camps that day, whenever it felt safe. I wanted to remind them of what had preceded the night’s carnage, and make sure they put two and two together. I wanted my silhouette to be an omen of disaster. Where the Karakani saw me as a symbol of hope and victory, I wanted the Happarans to associate the sight of me with death and terror in the dark.

  The following night I worked hard to cement that association.

  I took off again after midnight. This time I’d had some preparations made, courtesy of General Sarvalian. At regular intervals a few miles behind the front, piles of timbers had been stacked up, ready for me to use. And use them, I did. After picking up half a ton of wood, it took me anywhere between five to ten minutes to reach the nearest Happaran camp, at which point I’d simply erase one of their tents. The largest, the fanciest, or just one at random; I didn’t stick to a pattern. Having effectively ruined that night’s sleep for anyone lucky enough to not have been inside that tent — or the ones behind it — I’d turn back to rearm. Then I did the same to the next camp along the line, and the next, and the next.

  By the time I reached the mountains, I’d been at it for hours and hours. I was getting a bit tired, to be honest — lugging that much timber around was a workout and a half, even for me. I decided that my night of bombing was over, and contented myself with flying low over the camps — some still panicking, some having managed to settle in the hours since I struck — and roaring at the top of my lungs as I passed. I couldn’t imagine that the sound of a massive predator passing right above their heads did much good for their already fragile peace of mind.

  The next night I left the logs where they lay, except for a pair of quick reminders to the command camps that I was there, and there was nothing they could do to protect themselves from me. Instead I made it my goal to snatch one isolated sentry from each camp. I’d take them on a little flying tour around their camp, low enough that their comrades could hear them screaming, and then leave them alive with a very simple message: Retreat. Fall back. Go home, and this can all be over. Stay, and the logs come back, and worse.

  The ones I took flying with me were, to a one, all too eager to listen. It remained to be seen what their officers would decide.

  During my reconnaissance flight with Darim that day she cackled with glee as we found about a third of the camps either already gone and falling back, or in the process of packing up. At the remaining camps she was sure that it looked like there were fewer of both horses and men at practically every one; she very helpfully marked the ones where there was no large-scale desertion on a map for me.

  I went back to the logs that night, along with nets full of fist-sized rocks that I could spill over half a camp — that had been one of Val’s ideas, and it worked terribly well. Any camp Darim had marked as especially stubborn got two trips. Then, in the aftermath, while the camps boiled with frantic activity, I took some extra time to terrify their horses to the point that I sent whole herds of them scattering across the countryside.

  I felt a little bad for the poor creatures, but I couldn’t deny that I was having a grand old time. Frankly, I felt a healthy dose of both guilt and regret that I hadn’t done this sooner. I could have saved a lot of suffering on the Karakani side, while entertaining myself!

  I’d just have to try to learn from my mistake. There was nothing else for it.

  That morning — or rather, close to noon the following day — I spoke with Herald.

  “We need you,” she told me, speaking to the others as they stopped on their path. There was no fear or urgency in her voice, so I didn’t worry too much, but she wouldn’t say that unless she meant it.

  “Embers told us before leaving this morning that we are less than ten miles from Malyon. We should reach it tomorrow, and I think we all would be more comfortable having you with us when we do.”

  “We really would,” Mak agreed. “We’ve had a few encounters—”

  “What?!” I blurted, Herald speaking to them with my voice.

  “Nothing to worry about!” Mak said quickly — and a little guiltily, if I was any judge. They’d had plenty of opportunity to tell me over the past few days, but all Herald had said was that everything was fine. “We came across a troll, but it ran off rather than try to take us on. And we’ve had to kill a few monstrous animals that weren’t quite as smart as that troll. That’s all! No one’s suffered worse than a few scratches or a bruise, I promise!”

  “You told me everything was fine! For days, every time I asked—!”

  Herald wrested back control of her own mouth mid-sentence. “And everything is fine!”

  “You should have told me!” I scolded them.

  “Karakan needs you,” Herald replied gently. “And so do we, but the city needed you more. Until now.”

  “Well, I’ve made a bloody good start of sending the Happarans back home,” I grumbled. “I’m taking a turn around the front with Darim, and then I’m coming straight to you! The army can hold the line for a while.”

  The last thing I heard before leaving Herald’s head was Tam’s muttered, “Gods and Mercies, Kitten, but that’s freaky,” and Herald and Mak’s answering laughter.

  I didn’t need to go looking for Darim. We had a routine. By the time I woke up, Darim would be waiting by my side with a light pack, a barrel of water, and a couple pounds of meat. I’d eat and drink, which only took a minute or two, and then we’d take off on a reconnaissance flight. That morning was no different.

  “Hold on tight!” I told her as we circled the camp. “I’m going fast today. I’ll be leaving for a while, and I want to see if there are any enemy reinforcements on their way.”

  “You’re the one doing the flying!” she called back by way of agreement, and with that, we were off.

  Starting at the coast, I covered the full forty mile length of the Grayrun — discounting the way it meandered across the landscape; I was flying, after all — in no more than half an hour. Darim clung to my neck for dear life, but she was as silent as ever; more so, since she was rarely the one to speak first, and I didn’t see the point of yelling over the wind.

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  Once we reached the mountains I turned south-east, angling for the major north-south road. I’d zig-zag my way back north, but any major groups of soldiers, on horseback or not, would have to come up the road if they wanted to make any real progress.

  It took less than an hour before I sensed that something was wrong.

  One of the strangest things about the established border between Karakan and Happar was how many Rifts — or Nest Hearts, in human parlance — there were on the Happaran side. On the northern side of the river Divide, which marked the border, there was not a single Rift to be found; on the southern, there was one every few miles. I’d wondered why the Happarans tolerated them, especially considering that whole villages had obviously been abandoned due to them. I’d wondered if they had been there as some kind of deterrent against scouts or raiders crossing the river, but when the invasion started I thought I’d gotten my answer.

  The Happarans, it seemed, had some limited control over the monsters spawned from these Rifts. They used them as auxiliaries; trolls devastated small groups of encamped soldiers, goblins stole and spoiled and murdered in the dark, and valkin caused all kinds of mischief behind Karakani lines, up to and including one confirmed case of them using one of their cursed dragon bone staffs to hypnotize a small company of soldiers and attempt to lead them into captivity.

  It made sense. I hated it, and I couldn’t see how anyone could control a troupe of trolls, but it made perfect sense for the Happarans to use monsters in the war effort if they could. They’d started the war outnumbered; it was only logical that they’d do anything to even the odds.

  It hadn’t continued that way, though. As the Karakani retreated they’d faced fewer and fewer monsters. I’d supposed that most of them had simply been killed, but recently I’d seen camps of goblins and valkin in abandoned and ruined Karakani villages. Now, as I flew south with Darim, I got at least an answer to that mystery, too.

  There were Rifts north of the Divide.

  “Mercies be kind!” Darim yelled at the top of her lungs to cut through the wind. “Are those Nest Hearts?!”

  “Yes!” I confirmed grimly. “Yes, they are!”

  “Out in the open?! With goblin or valkin camps around them?!”

  “Nothing says they have to be hidden!”

  There weren’t a lot of Rifts compared to south of the river or the northern forest, but one for every hundred square miles or so, for dozens of miles into Karakani territory, was a bloody lot more than there had been.

  “Why?!” Darim asked, and though her tone was hard to hear with the way we had to yell, I thought she sounded more bewildered than anything. “Why would they do this?!”

  “Don’t know, but I have some guesses! Hang on!”

  I thought I had a fairly good idea of why the Happarans would want the lands north of their border overrun by Rifts and their attendant monsters, but I wasn’t going to have that conversation while flying at eighty miles per hour. And it was only speculation, in any case. We’d have to ask one of the Happaran high-ups to know for sure. I had, unfortunately, made that somewhat tricky by removing the upper floors of the easily reachable Happaran command structure. Despite that minor problem, I intended to find out as much about the situation as I could. Filled with outraged curiosity I continued south, and things became another bit clearer.

  The Rifts on the old border were gone. As best I could tell, not one remained, and I was pretty damn sure that if there was a Rift anywhere nearby, I’d be able to sniff it out. No, it seemed pretty clear that what had happened was that the Happarans had driven the monsters north, allowed them to establish themselves in occupied territory, and then removed the Rifts in their own lands.

  I flew the length of the Divide, confirming that the same was true from the mountains to the sea. Then I flew my zig-zag back north of the Grayrun, landing in Sarvalian’s camp shortly after the sun had fallen behind the mountains.

  “Nest Hearts in our southern lands, you say,” Sarvalian mused. “I must confess, that’s a strategy I’ve not heard of before. It looks like our foe is both confident and playing a long game. I wonder how they’re planning on feeding them… yes, Watch Officer?”

  I looked to Darim, who’d been a silent presence by my side ever since sliding off my back and giving her report. I had no idea why the general would ask her to speak now; on the one previous occasion she’d been with us while I spoke with Sarvalian he’d acknowledged her presence, and that was it. Now she looked stunned to have been called upon, bright red with embarrassment and possibly anxiety, and not much else.

  “Well?” the general said. “Was there a reason you looked so perplexed? Did I miss something obvious? Go ahead, speak up!”

  “I, ah—” Darim stuttered, then tried again. “Apologies, General, I didn’t mean to—”

  “Eyes up here, Watch Officer, not on my sandals, if you please. And do take a breath, woman. I understand you’re quite friendly with the Lady Dragon; I really don’t see why speaking to me would be so much harder.” Then Sarvalian’s tone softened, just a bit, and he said, “If it helps, I was once a junior officer, myself. The first time I had to speak to a tribune, my arse puckered so tight I barely dared to eat for a day or two. I’m quite human. So go on. In your own time.”

  “I— I just—” Darim stammered. Then she forced her mouth shut, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath through her nose, letting it out through her mouth. “Apologies, General. I just don’t see the point. Ever since we spotted the first Nest Heart, I… I just don’t see why. Once we break them and liberate the occupied territories, we’ll just sweep the monsters away and destroy the nests, so… why? Why put in the effort at all?”

  “A reasonable observation, Watch Officer,” Saravalian said. “The answer is that our enemy does not expect us to reverse their advance. They expect to push us back to the city, then force our surrender by siege and blockade. They’ll no doubt expect to take a fair-sized chunk of land in the peace, with more occupied for a period of some years as a buffer zone. My expectation is that they’ll want to establish Nest Hearts in this buffer zone, allowing it to become overrun with monsters and thus largely uninhabitable until it can be cleared and reclaimed.”

  “But, General,” Darim objected — quite boldly, too. “There just aren’t enough of them to be a problem. Even in ten or twenty years, I don’t see how they could multiply to be more than an annoyance for the army. There’s only, what, one and a half dozen Hearts north of the Divide? Draka?”

  “There are only one and a half dozen Hearts now,” I corrected her. “The Nest Hearts will spawn more monsters. The presence of monsters leads to more Nest Hearts appearing. It’s a cycle that feeds itself.”

  The General nodded. “Bringing us back to the topic of food. Once there are too many monsters for the land to support, they will start roaming, looking for new hunting grounds. All the Happarans need to do is make sure that no monster goes south. And considering they seem to have some way of controlling even trolls, well…”

  “They’ll go north!” Darim finished with dawning horror. “Not just goblins and valkin, but trolls and advanced animals, too! An endless stream of monsters!”

  “Just so,” Sarvalian agreed. “That is, if that is indeed their plan. Not that it matters, since it assumes that we will not break their advance and push them back. Which we most certainly will!” Then Sarvalian sighed and looked up at me. He didn’t bother trying to hide his disappointment as he continued. “This would, of course, be much easier with your continued support, Lady Draka, but I understand that you have other obligations. Know that you have our undying gratitude for the help you’ve given these past few days. I can only hope that you’ll return.”

  I’d told him that I was returning north first thing when we met. He’d asked me to reconsider — of course he had — but very few people wouldn’t take no for an answer from me.

  Not that a no had stopped him from suggesting repeatedly that some direct support on the battlefield would be rewarded by more than their undying gratitude. Skirmishes along the Grayrun had been frequent; first as the Happarans constantly probed our defenses at bridges and fords, and now as we did the same to them. I could have easily decided almost any of those fights if I got stuck in. But I only had so much time, and I needed my sleep — flying around causing mischief all night was hard work. That, and I’d made a promise, one which it would be a terrible, terrible idea to break.

  There was one more reason I was leery of getting too involved in anything Sarvalian planned. It wasn’t anything really solid — more of a hunch, really — but I felt almost like he wouldn’t mind me getting hurt. Not that I thought he wanted me dead or anything, but I’d mentioned offhand at one point that my mother may react extremely unfortunately to me getting injured, and that hadn’t dimmed his enthusiasm for the idea of me getting in there at all. I couldn’t shake the feeling that he wanted my mother to involve herself, and that he didn’t believe me when I told him that she was unlikely to differentiate between the two sides of this conflict if she did.

  Desperate people do desperate things. Up until very recently, the situation had been very desperate indeed. I really couldn’t fault him if he was still stuck in the mindset that they needed some kind of miracle or divine intervention beyond myself. But neither was I going to hand him enough rope to hang himself, his army, and possibly the whole of Karakan along with his enemies. I’d give him what help I thought was safe, and that was it.

  “I won’t promise anything,” I told him. “You should plan your counter-attack without me in mind. But I can tell you that I want you to win almost as much as you do. Make of that what you will.”

  Then I was off, flying hard and fast for the north and stopping only to make a short visit to my hoard. It was time for the rest of my family to follow me and Herald in making history.

  Tomorrow, we were entering Malyon.

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