text: "It's a small town," Zezili said, watching the wispy smoke of the village's fires waft over the dense woodland below them, "and we've got a lot of mouths to feed."
  
  "It'll keep us until the supply line catches up," Storm said. He stood at the top of a low rise beside Zezili. The new runner told them the town was called Mordid, and had a massive church at the center and about three hundred residents. No fortifications to speak of. Her force was large enough that they likely knew the Dorinahs were nearby, even if they didn't anticipate an attack. After going south for over a week, they were turning east now, to the circular landmark indicated on Storm's maps. What exactly they were meant to uncover in it, Zezili still didn't know, but it looked like a graveyard to her, staring up at them from the map like a great glaring eye. Trouble was, they were short on supplies, their supply lines mired in the tangled wood. The little village would give them enough supplies for the final push.
  
  "I'd like to burn it down," Zezili said of the little town. Destroying something would feel useful, at least. Weeks of traveling through mud, pulling thorny plants from her boots, scrubbing lice from her hair, was like some nightmare.
  
  "And I'd like a new pup," Storm said. "But this is the task. It's best you lead the charge into town. They have no defenses. Should be easy to get in and out."
  
  "You don't want to lead it?"
  
  "You know I cannot."
  
  It took her a moment to remember. She'd gotten so used to him the last couple of weeks she'd forgotten he was a man. "Yeah, sorry."
  
  "Men invest in armor, not weapons," he said. "And this, of course." He tapped his head.
  
  Zezili called up forty of her women – which she thought might be a little much – and began the march down into the valley. She broke them into four groups, ten women across, who hacked at vegetation as they went. She came up with the left flank. Their instructions were to subdue and pillage, taking down as many runners as they could. The King of Tordin would know they had crossed the mountains soon enough. Zezili had to hope that the people the Empress had tasked them to find were going to make up for the fifty thousand men Saradyn was said to be able to call at will.
  
  Her squad leaders communicated with whistles. In deep forest like this, it was more practical than semaphore. She drew her sword and called for the strike. Forty softly padding bears and dogs took off at a swift pace through the brambled woodland. Zezili saw three young women bolt from the edge of a nearby stream. She whistled and gestured for archers. Four arrows snarled toward the running women. Only one found its mark. The woman dropped.
  
  They broke into the clearing outside the village. A few stragglers were still running for cover or breaking for the trees. Zezili shouted at the archers to take a woman hitching her cart to a mangy dog. They had smaller dogs here, yapping things no taller than Zezili's knee that snapped at her army's mounts. The bears made short order of them, but the dogs, including Zezili's, were more skittish about eating their own kind.
  
  A vortex of air exploded on the other side of the village. Zezili saw six of the riders ahead of her tossed upward. They careened into the woods, landing on roofs, smacking into trees.
  
  "Parajista!" she yelled. "Take it out!"
  
  The archers at the back kindled flaming brands. Zezili didn't want the fire to spread too fast or they'd lose the supply stores, but she needed something to distract the jistas' concentration. A sloppy vortex like that in a nowhere village like this meant there weren't more than one or two, and they weren't very skilled. She had not expected a jista way out here. But she had contained a few on her own.
  
  She whistled and gestured for a flanking fire. The arrows zipped off. "Let's clear out these supplies!" she said. Her women had gutted a few of the bolder villagers, but most lay in the dirt now, prostrating themselves. She wondered how often bandits came through here, or perhaps even the king himself, raiding like the petty lord she was.
  
  The roofs around the vortex were aflame now. Zezili dismounted. She would be less of a target on foot. She kept her sword out and menaced forward, encountering no resistance. She grabbed the hair of one of the men on the ground, yanked his head back.
  
  "Jasoi! Ask him where the meat is. We need rice, too."
  
  Jasoi slid off her bear and snapped off something mushy in Tordinian.
  
  The man babbled and pointed to a great building at the center of town that bore a shining eye on its face, not dissimilar to the eye of Rhea.
  
  "Cellar's under the church," Jasoi said.
  
  Zezili called for the nearest dozen of her women, leaving six behind to rummage through personal stores and ensure the pacified natives didn't get bold.
  
  She pushed open the door of the church. A young girl knelt in front of a massive bronze edifice of some large jowled man in a wasp-waisted corset a lot like the one the Empress wore. His feet were not visible beneath his long flowing gown, and he had a strange, beatific expression on his face, as if he were taking a long-held shit while basking in the sun.
  
  Jasoi asked the girl something.
  
  The girl did not look startled at all, which Zezili thought odd, but people did all sorts of weird things while in religious ecstasy.
  
  "Tell her we're not after more death," Zezili said. "Just the supplies."
  
  "People like you always say that," the girl said, in heavily accented Dorinah.
  
  Jasoi kept a hand on her weapon.
  
  "You the parajista?" Zezili asked. If the air turned to mud, she could flatten herself on the ground and crawl under the pews, hoping to evade the girl's line of sight. Without line of sight, it was harder for jistas to hit what they were aiming for. She tensed, ready to drop.
  
  "No," the girl said. She narrowed her eyes. "Is one of you Zezili Hasaria?"
  
  Jasoi tensed, waiting for direction. Zezili scanned the rest of the church, looking for the trap. "We're just after supplies, girl," Zezili said. "We're happy to leave you intact."
  
  "To starve, then?" the girl said. "You say you'll let us live, but the crops aren't even in the ground."
  
  "Plenty of crawling stuff out there to sustain you."
  
  "Zezili Hasaria?" the girl said, nodding. "Yes, that's you. I have word of your husband."
  
  Zezili's heart clenched. "Who the fuck are you?"
  
  "Rosh," she said. "And you're Zezili Hasaria. I know where to find your husband."
  
  "Where is he?"
  
  "South of here," Rosh said. "A week, in Gasira. It's a big stronghold, though. You have a lot of women here, but you won't be able to take it."
  
  "We'll decide what we can and can't take," Zezili said. "How was he? Was he hurt?"
  
  "Hurt? No, he was fine." Rosh's expression got sly. "I could take you there, if you like."
  
  "Just tell me where he is," Zezili said.
  
  "You want Saradyn dead? That's why you're here, isn't it, raiding this village? Well, I want to learn more about Saradyn too. I can take you there."
  
  "Out of the goodness of your little roguish heart?" Zezili said.
  
  "Hardly," Rosh said. "You get Gasira, and your husband. I just need… something else. Just some information. It won't harm you. I won't get in your way."
  
  Zezili eyed Rosh. She stood with hands in pockets, spine straight, fully confident. Just a girl, yes, but Zezili had killed the Kai of the Dhai when she was her age, hadn't she? Saradyn must hate her to pieces. A ruckus came from the doors. Three legionnaires pushed in, Storm at their head.
  
  "Decided to make a showing of it?" Zezili asked.
  
  "There was little resistance," Storm said. "Most are fled by now. Who's this, some priest? Does she know where the cellar is?"
  
  "She knows where Saradyn is," Zezili said. "And my husband."
  
  "What does your husband have to do with this campaign?"
  
  Zezili motioned him over. "A word. Jasoi, you and the others find the cellar. Rosh, you show them? Some good faith, yes?"
  
  Rosh jerked her head toward the rear of the church.
  
  Storm folded his arms. "We can't go marching to take some fortified hold for no reason. We don't have the women for it."
  
  "I can take Anavha back."
  
  "Listen to yourself," Storm said. "What, is he dying?"
  
  "Held hostage, most likely."
  
  "He's worth more to them alive than dead. He'll be fine to wait until we're done. We'll take Gasira eventually."
  
  "You can guarantee me that's so?" Zezili said. "He belongs to me and he's been stolen."
  
  Storm shook his head. "Something's not right with this. You just happen to run into a woman who says she knows who you are, and who your husband is? In a backwater in Tordin?"
  
  "I know, but–"
  
  "Syre!" Storm's page ran into the church, waving her arms like a woman on fire. "There's an army out there!"
  
  Storm said, "What, pitchforks?"
  
  "That parajista was one of Saradyn's!" the page said. "Saradyn's got an army in those woods, and they're coming this way."