In Your Heart Shall Burn [Tyran or TG]

[Esperance International]

Westfield Refugee Camp
Ayrum Village
Nalaya

Ildan said that eternity had spoken, and Eric gritted his teeth. Ildan said that he didn’t have a choice; he had to fight, to defend his whole universe - and Parouhi closed her eyes sadly. Ildan said that he would leave and go south to fight the militis’iayi there, and Ari shook his head in blank incomprehension. But Madteos nodded once, a curt gesture of understanding.

“Fine,” Mayda said flatly.

“What?” Ari demanded. “No. Not fine. I’m sorry, yathallar, but that’s bullshit. The kun’al will not die if you stay, they will hide, and they will live, because we put our asses on the line with the people here to convince them that you deserve their help and shelter and protection, and where the hell do you get off by turning your back on their generosity and their sacrifice and riding off into the fucking sunset to get your people killed? And – “

Ari paused for breath and Parouhi grabbed him, wrapped her arms around his thin shoulders. The Menassan’s fury turned into a sob that caught in his throat, and he made a low disgusted sound and shook off Parouhi and stalked off, scrubbing at his eyes with the back of his sleeve.

Mayda’s hands were clasped behind her back, but Parouhi could see them clench and unclench. The doctor studied the pebbles at her feet for several seconds, and then looked back up at Ildan.

“I cannot stop you,” Mayda said plainly, “if you want to leave. I cannot even stop you if you want to fight. You have the guns. That is how it is.” Parouhi watched her sister take a deep breath. “But there are people with you – kun’al – who are no use to you as fighters.”

“You have children with you. You have wounded. You have sick and malnourished people who can barely hold a rifle.” Mayda’s voice was very level, very reasonable, and yet not at all calm. “And you have people who have seen too much of death already – and although they would follow if you bade them, it would be wrong to ask more of them when they have already given you their souls to be broken.”

“If you want to go, go. Those who can fight and who want to fight, let them go with you.” Mayda’s eyes searched Ildan’s tattooed face. “But leave us the others: the young and old, the sick and wounded, the broken-hearted. Let them stay. Let us care for them, and hide them from Karagozian. Let them make their own choice. Let them live.”

“You can stay too,” Parouhi said quietly. “You can. Still, you can.”

Mayda’s eyes were riveted to Ildan’s face, and she nodded once, nostrils flaring slightly. “But you won’t. So: if you are determined to fight, then go.” Mayda shook her head sharply. “We do not know when Karagozian will arrive. You must not be here when his men find us; if there is fighting, everyone here will be caught in the crossfire, and hundreds will die.”

“Thousands,” Madteos murmured.

Mayda glanced up at the moon. “It’s too late for you to leave tonight. Stay; rest. Eat breakfast tomorrow. We can offer that much help.” The doctor raised her eyebrows. “But tomorrow morning, before noon, anyone who is determined to fight instead of hide needs to leave. The longer you stay, the more danger you create for these thousands of civilians.” Mayda squared her shoulders. “If you will not live in peace, then there can be no place for you here. I hope that you can understand that.”

“Good night, Most Revered,” Parouhi finished sadly. “I hope you find whatever you are looking for.”

One by one, the Esperancers turned back toward the old stone building that served as their living quarters. Ari walked with angry exhaustion, his feet sometimes dragging and sometimes kicking at pebbles in helpless frustration. Parouhi’s head was bowed, and her lips moved soundlessly as she tried to puzzle out some impossible riddle. Mayda walked steadily, robotically, but her left hand had a spastic tremble to it as she moved. Eric put his head down and let his long legs carried him back to the house at the next thing to a run, like a man seeking shelter in a storm. All around them, the refugees spread blankets underneath tarpaulins or roofed-in alleys, or crowded into the cellars and barns offered by hospitable villagers.

Madteos lingered a minute more by the medical tent, glancing between Ildan and Nanar. He chewed on the inside of his cheek for a moment, and then said quietly: “You two want to die. Fine. A good death is a precious thing. And the likes of you never change your minds.” The sergeant jerked his chin in the direction of Medzarents. “But the likes of him change their minds all the time. If I were you, I’d let him stay, him and those like him. He’s burned out. You bring him along, and you won’t have a good death. You’ll be just another pack of warlords sending unwilling boys to the meat grinder.” Madteos shrugged his rifle tighter into the crook of his arm, and smiled bleakly. “Think about how you want to die, Most Revered. You only get one shot at it.”

And with that, Madteos turned, and vanished into the night.

Back at the Esperancers’ house, Eric strode straight into his room, and Parouhi heard his big body thump into his mattress without even a pause for Eric to unlace his boots. Ari grabbed the satellite phone and began talking quietly into it, setting up the airlift of food and supplies from Sevan and Tatev; the skinny Menassan’s face was hollow with fatigue, but his fingers still drummed the tabletop with angry, nervous energy. Mayda mechanically sat down, and poured four fingers of mulberry moonshine into a smudged glass and took a long drink; her breathing turned ragged, but her body stayed absolutely still.

Parouhi knew she had to say something. “We did a good job today,” she offered.

Ari didn’t look up from the sat-phone. Mayda stared deep into her glass and then muttered: “Yeah.”

“We were never going to be able to save everyone. We knew that.”

Mayda didn’t look up. “Yeah.”

Parouhi gently squeezed her sister’s shoulder. “Get some sleep, Mayda. Okay? Get some sleep.”

“Yeah.”

And that was the end of the first day.

[Esperance International]

”The Old Chapel”
Headquarters, Tatev Office, Esperance International
Tatev, Nalaya

When Kapriel explained the situation in Armavir, Ada’s response was immediate: “We need to get them out of there.” Xuan didn’t think that was such a bad idea; an office building filled with hidden civilians in the middle of a massive urban battle seemed like a refugee for disaster.

But Aileen sat bolt upright and shook her head sharply. “No. Absolutely not. They’re safer where they are. We’ve explored every option for evacuating them. There’s no way to do it without unacceptable risk to the civilians or unacceptable reliance on outside help, which violates our neutrality.” The Security Force commander shook her head again. “They’ve held out there for more than a month. Until government forces reach Armavir, the greater risk lies in attempting a rescue than in trusting our people’s discretion.”

More practically, Ada vowed to do everything she could to help the refugees at Ayrum; she volunteered the handful of aircraft at her disposal, and suggested that Colonel Rikker might be able to provide even more support. She even offered to find volunteers from the Diplomatic Corps to help provide for the refugees themselves. When Ada was finished speaking, Kapriel turned to Lerato; his scarred face was hard to read, but Xuan thought she could detect a smile of satisfaction, as if a private theory of Kapriel’s had just been confirmed.

Lerato nodded to Kapriel, as if yielding a point. Then she turned to Ada. “That’s exactly what we need,” the refugee specialist stated. “For diplomatic reasons, it’s important that the aircraft making the final deliveries to Ayrum be owned and operated by Esperance International – that way, we’re not justifying incursions by government forces into disputed territory. So medevac flights are not a good idea. But if you can drum up volunteers, we can slap EI armbands on them and put them on the ground without issue.”

Lerato steepled her fingers. “As to the airlift, here is what I’d like: talk to your people, talk to Rikker, and get every aircraft you can spare doing a run from Tatev to Sevan and Massis. We’ve been stockpiling supplies at those two ports since fighting began. With your help, we can move those stockpiles here, allowing our own aircraft to make much shorter, more frequent round-trip flights from Tatev to Ayrum. If you can help us shorten our supply lines, it will be much easier for us to keep Ayrum fed - without provoking Karagozian by sending government aircraft into what he believes to be his territory.”

Lerato raised her eyebrows. “If we are agreed on this plan, I’d like to start airlift operations within the next forty-eight hours. I’m told that the food situation in Ayrum is fairly critical.”

With that settled, Xuan actually flinched at Ada’s reaction to the notion of persuading Nalaya’s three leaders to agree to a peacekeeping mission. Aileen chuckled blackly and nodded at Ada’s description of Lledrith, Karagozian, and Khavar T’avish. But Kapriel just cocked his head and waited expectantly, somehow sensing that Ada had more to say.

And sure enough, once she had finished laughing Xuan’s idea to scorn, the Nalayan immediately began thinking of ways to make it a reality. Diplomatic pressure could be enough at least to get the Protector to the table. Contacting Nava’ai elders could bring pressure to bear on Karagozian from within his own movement; Xuan noted down the names of Gurgen Messerlian and Sivard Izanian on the blackboard. And apparently, Ada had some way of getting a message to the Dread Wolf herself – though this mysterious line of communication could only be regarded as a weapon of last resort. Aileen raised her eyebrows and Hera’s jaw actually dropped at that revelation, but all of the Esperancers knew better than to ask unnecessary questions.

“All right, then,” Kapriel reviewed. “I will tell Raz – Bureau Chief Danayan – to talk to the Protector herself about this. And we’ll give the names of Messerlian and Izanian to Chief Meghrouni in Armavir. Maybe she can talk the elders around.” Xuan nodded eagerly at that. “When and if we have the government and the Nava’ai on board,” Kapriel concluded, “we can try your ‘weapon of last resort,’ Hramatar. I will keep you updated on our progress.”

“Given the way this war is shaping up,” Lerato added grimly, “I think it’s fair to say that the chance to establish a safe zone is worth almost any price.”

Nibbling on an olive, Hera squirmed a little, uncomfortable with that conclusion; talk about goals worth “any price” had a bad history in Nalaya.

For her part, Xuan turned to Ada. “You’ve been more helpful than I dared to hope,” she told the Nalayan honestly. “We’ll try to set all of these negotiations in motion as soon as we can. But Hramatar, given our neutrality, is there anything that we can do in return? If it would take pressure off your people, we’d be glad to take more responsibility for the refugees who have come here from Vayots Dzor, for example. Just tell us if there's anything we can do.”

---

Residence of Kachazor Shareshian
Near the Cathedral of Our Lady of Sorrows
Tatev, Nalaya

Shareshian ripped the door open after Drada knocked, and immediately spat a half-dozen reasons why, whatever Drada wanted at this time of night, it obviously had nothing to do with him and so she should just leave him alone. Drada looked over the old man, and smiled. Shareshian was tough; you didn’t get to be that old in Nalaya by being soft. And if he was ugly and spiteful and petty – and from Drada’s first look at his instinctive sneer she knew that he was all three – then Shareshian had also lived. He was a survivor. Drada could respect that.

Behind Drada, Arnold remained resolutely professional: he loomed imposingly, politely explained the reason for the late-night visit, and courteously thanked Shareshian for his hospitality as he ducked inside the old man’s front door. Drada’s grin just got bigger. The contrast between Shareshian’s prickliness and Arnold’s smooth professionalism was unintentionally but undeniably hilarious.

The Shalumi crowded into Shareshian’s living room, squeezing into his too-small furniture. Drada followed. She smelled bread baking in the kitchen. Shareshian lived alone, she guessed. Everything about his home seemed consistent with his personality; nothing revealed the countervailing influence of a wife or children. He was a man who had spent his life working for peace in a time of war, and who had nothing to show for it but an empty home. No wonder the old man was angry all the time.

But Shareshian still didn’t seem like the killer. He didn’t even seem like a diplomat. The killer had used poison; he – or she – was subtle, deceitful, capable of premeditation, highly self-controlled. But Shareshian wore everything on his sleeve. He spoke his mind, seemingly unfiltered, and he had made no effort to conceal or excuse the pitiable state of his home. He had lived too long to care what others thought, Drada supposed. So he didn’t seem like the sort of man to be mixed up in this web of secrets and lies.

As Drada settled on the arm of Shareshian’s couch, the old diplomat continued snapping: Tsavagian’s death was one among many, Shareshian’s job didn’t include dead people, the investigators should talk to Avedisian, the medical examiner. Arnold replied that they would talk to Avedisian, “sooner or later,” and Drada blinked – for the Shalumi had already spoken to the ME. After a moment’s reflection, Drada decided that Arnold was probably just confused by Nalayan names.

As if to confirm that suspicion, Arnold looked significantly at Drada, prompting her to take the lead. For her part, Drada turned to Shareshian, and gave a slightly predatory smile as she considered her approach.

This is not a man who values deception. This is not a man who values etiquette. This is a man who values cunning and toughness. Drada leaned forward slightly. So that’s what I’ll give him.

“You’re right,” she said. “Your job doesn’t include dead people. On the other hand, your job doesn’t include Unkndirnei agents either. But one came to your office this morning, just the same.” Drada raised her eyebrows. “So please, Paron, don’t give me this ‘a-man-is-dead-not-my-business’ act. You spoke with Tsavagian right before he died. You knew his name before we came here. You even shouted at him, although” – Drada chuckled dryly – “now that I’ve met you, I realize that that last probably means less than I thought.”

Drada sat back a little. “So let’s dispense with the bullshit and lay our cards on the table, shall we? Or else we’ll be here all night, paron, and I’m not so enamored of your company as to care much for that idea.” Drada smiled. “Here’s what I’m interested in. Tsavagian came to your office with information, information important enough to make him leave Vayots Dzor during the height of the fighting. Someone killed him for it.” The investigator shrugged. “So when Tsavagian came to your office, what did you talk about? Tell me that, and I’ll get out of your house and never come back.”

[Esperance International]

Maldorian Encampment
13th Shalumite Expeditionary Force
Near Sissak, Nalaya

Gamal fell silent. And before his eyes, the girl imploded. She crumpled in on herself, hands balled in her faded jersey, sobbing brokenly, her face contorted in a grimace of emotions so agonizingly complex that Gamal could not even guess at them. The older of the two slaves attending the girl bent over her, cradling her like a child.

I am damned, Gamal thought distantly, and picked up his camera and snapped five good photos of the tableau. They were good shots, maybe prize-winning shots, shots that could stop the world in its tracks and make it look, make it see.

They were also a callous blasphemy.

The younger of the two slaves glared at Gamal and snapped: “You’re causing more harm than you are good. The people here need immediate help, not promises of your return tomorrow, or next week. Every day that goes by, they are hurt even more, and the chance of danger just increases.” The young man stepped between Gamal and the Arusai girl, and his voice burned with anger. “Maldorians are enslaving Nalayans. Not the Shalumi, as you so accuse them. They’re why women disappear out of thin air in villages. They are the ones taking slaves and abusing them. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

“Yes,” Gamal replied tonelessly. He picked up his recorder, turned it off, and pocketed it. “Yes, paron, that is exactly what I wanted to hear.”

Gamal stepped away from the Arusai girl. He raised his camera one more time and shot a panorama of the prefab, capturing the women with their telltale marks, the wash-stations, the faces filled with recrimination and betrayal. And Gamal understood: his own sin reflected the world’s sin. His inability to act was a microcosm of the world’s refusal to act. The betrayal captured by his camera applied to millions just as it applied to Gamal. It was appropriate, perhaps even inevitable, that he should be made to feel the same guilt that he sought to inspire. It was, in some ultimate sense, what Gamal had come looking for.

Gamal put his camera back in his pocket. Some investigators, he thought, would not use these photos. They would have concerns about professional ethics, about protecting privacy, about the consent of those photographed. But Gamal already knew that he would use all the information he had gathered, not because it was the right thing to do, but because it was the necessary thing. Because in the end, there could be no greater sin than inaction.

So Gamal glanced around the prefab one last time, and managed a final, jerky nod, and said: “Thank you.”

And then he left. As Gamal passed the kid at the door, his gait was once more a drunken shamble. He paused to lock the prefab door behind him, like a good slaver. And he stumbled off into the night, dodging patrols, working his way back toward Sissak, trudging down the highway beside Shalumite armored vehicles and Esperance cargo trucks until the first light of dawn crept over the horizon.

Gamal’s apartment was in a building that had been hammered by mortars. The ground-floor windows were blasted out, and the lobby was pockmarked by shrapnel, and the elevator was broken. Gamal hauled himself up six flights of stairs, his boots crunching over broken glass. It took him three tries to get his door unlocked. His hands felt like they belonged to someone else.

Inside the apartment, Gamal mechanically ate some cured beef and a stale flatbread. He transferred his photographs to his laptop, and scrolled through them. There was Dzia’s face, screwed up with pain and shame. There were the older slave’s hands, cradling her with helpless gentleness. There were the faces. The stares. The eyes.

Gamal grabbed his head as if he were trying to hold his skull together, and sucked in deep breaths, and knew that he should cry, and didn’t.

Nothing got better.

So in the end, Gamal bin Rashin gave up on redemption, and wrote his report. And he prayed that it had not all been for nothing.

[Esperance International]

Esperance International Office
Armavir
Nalaya

The Mak’ur girl watched Nyah for a long moment; then she nodded hesitantly and sat down on the step next to the Esperancer. For a long moment, woman and girl sat in silence. Nyah stared out across the basement: a dark ocean of slumbering bodies, over which the slow breath of hundreds of sleepers hissed softly. Next to her, the girl wrung her hands until the knuckles showed white in the darkness, and twisted a ring on her finger. The steel bands of the ring formed swirling designs that reminded Nyah of the tattoos on her young companion’s face.

Nyah thought of the ritual scarification that she had seen from time to time, back in her childhood village in Mubata. It had looked a little similar to Mak’ur tattoos – or was that just wishful thinking? Perhaps it was just a way of searching for home in an alien and hostile land.

When she had departed Mubata to work for Esperance International, Nyah Ekwensi had been thrilled to leave behind the oppression and tribalism of her homeland. In nine years away, she had never felt homesick. But in that darkened basement, Nyah missed the wet heat, and the smell of fufu cooking in a big pot, and the feeling of community. She missed the feeling that things made sense, that she understood the rules that governed life. The feeling that she wasn’t completely lost, completely in the dark.

“I hate being stuck down here,” the Mak’ur girl said quietly, knees hugged to her chest. The girl told Nyah that time had no meaning down in the basement; that she might have been there for one day, or for a thousand years. Nyah nodded, uncertain whether the gesture could be seen in the dark.

The girl looked over at Nyah; the Esperancer saw her pale eyes glitter in the dark. She was young, so young. “What’s it like up there?” the Mak’ur asked.

Nyah never even considered lying. She was far too tired to think of sparing the girl’s feelings. Besides, what kindness would there be in telling her companion a story that the girl already knew to be false?

“It’s bad,” Nyah replied simply. “I haven’t left the building in weeks, so I don’t know how bad. But it’s bad. You can hear them outside now, all the time. But they’ve never tried to come in here.”

Nyah studied her companion’s face. There was anger there, claustrophobic panicked rage, and fear too – but it wasn’t the kind of fear that Nyah felt, the churning paranoid fear of men with guns. It was deeper, more desperate somehow. Inwardly directed.

Hesitantly, Nyah reached out and put one arm around the girl’s shoulders. Yasrena was warm to the touch, and so full of repressed energy that she seemed almost to vibrate under Nyah’s hand; the Esperancer thought of a colt, so full of life that it could run for miles without tiring.

“This won’t last forever,” Nyah said softly. “The government will take the city. Or there will be a ceasefire. Or we’ll find a way to sneak you out. Or we will all die here.” Nyah shrugged a little. “I don’t know. But you will see the sun again. I promise.”

There was a long moment of silence. Nyah didn’t know just how long; the girl was right, time had no meaning in the basement. But when the moment was over, the Esperancer smiled slightly and said: “I’m Nyah, by the way. Nyah Ekwensi. I probably should have started with that. What’s your name?”

---

At the gate of the Esperance International compound, the Nava’ai man who had brought Kishargal to the headquarters pulled his hat low on his head, and fixed Sergeant Eli Brosh with a look full of meaning that the Shalumite Security Force trooper could not remotely understand. “I wasn’t here,” the man told Eli. “You do right.”

Then he was gone. Eli watched the local scoop up his toolbox and vanish into the night. Almost out of a sense of propriety, the trooper contemplated imponderables: Who was that man? Why did he do what he did? What will happen to him now? Eli already knew that there were no answers, but it seemed right to ask himself the questions even so.

You do right.

“God,” Eli muttered, “I hope so.”

In the lobby’s break room, Kishargal flinched away from Vartan’s touch on her arm. Her fingers closed around the canteen, seemingly more on reflex than anything else, and she hugged it to her chest. She didn’t drink. Vartan frowned a little at that, concerned about dehydration.

The Imanalov’ was muttering to herself in her own tongue. Ansgar glanced at Vartan. “What is she saying?”

“’No’,” Vartan replied briefly. "She's just saying 'no.'"

Ansgar’s big jaw clenched and his hands bunched into fists. Vartan thought that the captain looked like he was about to weep, or punch through a wall, or maybe just explode. The Nalayan took a deep breath, and then said: “Ansgar, I can handle things from here.”

Ansgar shook his head.

“You’re too close to this. You’re worrying me, captain, and you need to go do your job and let me do mine. Okay?”

“Of course I’m too close to this,” Ansgar growled.

“Ansgar.”

“Fuck.” Ansgar’s shoulders sagged, and he nodded. “Okay. Fine. Let me know if she – if there’s – if something changes. All right?”

Vartan nodded. “Of course.”

Ansgar cast one last look at Kishargal, and then he closed his eyes, and shook his head, and turned to the door, and left.

Vartan sighed, and studied what he could see of Kishargal’s injuries. Shallow lacerations – an infection risk if untreated for too long, but not immediately dangerous. Extensive bruising; Vartan forced himself not to linger on the purple imprints of fingers on the Imanalov’s fragile neck. There was no bloating that Vartan could see, no lividity, no sign of internal bleeding.

The Anur would last the night, in other words. The psychological damage done was greater than the physical harm. Better to give the woman time to recover emotionally than to force her into an emergency room right away.

Vartan gently closed the door behind Ansgar. He walked over to a cabinet and found a drinking straw; slowly, without taking the canteen from Kishargal’s hands, Vartan unscrewed the canteen’s cap and put the straw in the vessel. “You’ll be thirsty soon,” he told the Imanalov’ quietly.

For another moment, Vartan stood awkwardly over the couch. Then he reached out, and as delicately as he could, he drew the blanket up over Kishargal’s shoulder, tucking her in like a parent with a child. “I’ll stay,” Vartan said softly, as much to himself as to Kishargal. “I’ll stay.”

Vartan settled into an armchair next to the couch. He had every intention of remaining awake, keeping an eye on Kishargal, making sure that nothing went wrong. But it was almost midnight, and Vartan’s eyelids felt like they were made of lead. And soon his chin fell onto his chest, and the office was silent at last.

[Esperance International]

Esperance News Network

---

SPECIAL REPORT: NALAYAN CIVIL WAR

By: Leo Meghrouni
Undercommissioner of Inquiry for Nalaya

26 March 2016

This Special Report is based upon information collected by hundreds of Esperance International personnel across Nalaya. In most cases, the names of these personnel and their sources have been withheld or changed in order to protect them from retaliation. Please note that this report contains firsthand accounts of crimes against humanity, and may be very emotionally distressing for some readers.

SEVAN – The Nalayan Civil War, marked from its onset by war crimes and by international indifference – if not harmful meddling – has now escalated into the greatest humanitarian crisis Tyran has seen in almost a decade.

This is far from the first time Nalaya has fallen into civil strife. Marked by deep ethnic and religious divides, the nation endured centuries of anarchy, warlordism, and atrocity, culminating in a series of genocidal campaigns during the first decade of the twenty-first century. Most Nalayans still bear physical and mental scars from that time, which came to an end only when an ethnic-Arusai warlord named Anahid Vaneni brought Nalaya peace and unity through force in 2010. Vaneni became the first Protector of Nalaya; though her rule was autocratic, it was generally peaceful, and her regime protected many human rights. After Vaneni’s assassination in 2013, another former warlord named Khavar T’avish became Protector. Lacking both Vaneni’s ability to generate consensus and Vaneni’s respect for human rights, Protector T’avish’s rule has been marked by mounting ethno-religious instability between two groups: the Nava’ai and the Mak’ur.

Reports indicate that Nava'ai forces in Armavir have committed hundreds of war
crimes.

That instability boiled over last year with the bombing of the Hin K’are Hotel in Armavir, Nalaya’s largest city. The blast killed hundreds, including most of the Nava’ai tribal elders, who were assembled at the hotel for a meeting. In the immediate aftermath of the catastrophe, a surviving Nava’ai leader named Zhirayr Karagozian blamed the attack on the Mak’ur supreme religious leader, or Quarval-sharess: Lledrith A’Daragon. The Quarval-sharess responded by declaring holy war, apparently on both Ter Karagozian and the Nalayan government. Within days of the bombing, most of northern Nalaya had become engulfed in three-way fighting between government forces, Ter Karagozian’s militia (known as the militis’iayi), and the followers of the Quarval-sharess (known as the kun’al.)

This initial period witnessed the war’s first crimes against humanity, which were committed by militis’iayi in Armavir. The city’s Mak’ur quarter, known as the Shrjani Nshanneri, became the scene of an indiscriminate slaughter of Mak’ur men, women, and children. Photographic evidence and eyewitness testimony compiled by Commission of Inquiry investigators suggest that more than a thousand civilians were murdered within twenty-four hours of the bombing, and that hundreds of homes were destroyed. One eyewitness recalled:

When I ran away, I went through the neighbor’s house. It was already on fire. Everyone was dead inside. They had been beaten to death. Their heads, their faces, were all crushed in…there was blood all over the room, and little bits of bone sticking to the walls. There was a baby too. It didn’t have a head anymore.

In the weeks since, with Armavir under the direct control of Ter Karagozian, crimes against humanity have continued; any citizen who is not ethnically Nava’ai and a follower of the traditional Nava’ai religion of Voghjuyn is a target for robbery, arson, rape, and murder. As recently as last week, one Esperance employee in Armavir reported:

It was right across the street from our office headquarters, but we couldn’t do anything. We saw a group of militis’iayi grab this Imanalov’ woman. She was an Anur, a religious leader; they are ritually blinded, so she couldn’t see the soldiers coming. She was tiny. They put her up against the wall and cut her clothes off with a knife. She was bleeding all over when they were done. Then they raped her. And then they dropped her on the street, and kicked her, trying to get her to move. It went on for hours like that.

Ter Karagozian has made no effort to stop such attacks, at least a dozen of which are estimated to occur every day. In fact, it is generally felt in Armavir that the Nava’ai leader tacitly condones his soldiers’ actions.

Shalumite bombardment of Vayots Dzor left the city in ruins.

Within weeks of the bombing of the Hin K’are Hotel, the Empire of Shalum entered the war on behalf of the government of Protector T’avish, deploying an expeditionary force of more than twenty thousand soldiers. Shalumite forces also include heavy artillery, bomber aircraft, and other highly destructive weapons. These weapons were put to use in the city of Vayots Dzor, which was being contested between all three warring factions, with disastrous consequences. Baben Ferhadian, an Esperance aid worker who survived the siege, testified:

First came the drones. They were overhead all the time, with missiles and cannons, and they would just destroy entire buildings: you’d hear the explosions come out of nowhere, and then the air was filled with dust and fire, and six stories of concrete just collapsed, just folded like cardboard, and anyone nearby was crushed. Some people choked to death on the dust. I had to bury them, still covered in the dust. You couldn't get the bodies clean of it.

But Shalumite firepower caused far more damage on the last day of the battle for Vayots Dzor. In order to cover the retreat of government and Shalumite forces from the city, Shalumite Colonel Johanna Carter ordered a massive bombardment of Vayots Dzor by howitzers, heavy mortars, and ultimately rocket artillery. Thousands of high-explosive shells, shrapnel shells, submunitions, and rockets pounded residential areas, causing immense damage and mass carnage. Paron (Mr.) Ferhadian recalled:

It was the end of the world. It was hell on earth. It was the apocalypse. I saw buildings ripple, like they had turned to liquid, and collapse – one after another, for blocks, east to west, like a tsunami had washed them away. The air turned to fire; all I could see was flame. The ground heaved; I was knocked off my feet, and then as I lay there the earth jumped beneath me and threw me into the air again. I saw a wave of fire hit a man, and he just disappeared; he just didn’t exist anymore. There was nothing left. A shockwave would turn your insides to liquid, and when I tried to move those people, they just burst and leaked like water balloons. People hid in their basements to escape the noise, and then their homes were hit and collapsed on top of them, and you could hear them screaming, begging, underneath the rubble.

And when it was all over, there was nothing left. Nothing: not the hospital, not the schools, not a single home. Nothing. Everything was destroyed. I don’t know who won the battle, but I can tell you who lost: thirty thousand civilians, whose only crime was being in the Shalumi’s way.

Shalumite forces have been guilty of more systematic war crimes as well. An Esperance International Commission of Inquiry investigator infiltrated a Shalumite encampment near the city of Sissak. The camp belonged to a Maldorian unit: troops drawn from a culturally distinct, semi-autonomous region of Shalum. The Esperance investigator, whose name has been withheld in order to prevent reprisals, discovered that Maldorian forces had kidnapped dozens of Nalayans for use as slaves. Their victims were mostly young women, who were gang-raped repeatedly by Maldorian soldiers – a practice that is traditional and that may be widespread in Maldorian units. One slave told the investigator:

The people here need immediate help…every day that goes by, they are hurt even more, and the chance of danger just increases. Maldorians are enslaving Nalayans…they’re why women disappear out of thin air in villages. They are the ones taking slaves and abusing them.

Acrean forces sent to aid Ter Karagozian include armored vehicles described by
experts as "massacre machines".

International responses to the Nalayan Civil War have ranged from the lackluster to the counterproductive. The government of Gylias declared its intention to accept “as many refugees as we possibly can,” allocated revenues to this purpose, and organized refugee housing facilities. However, it made no effort to transport refugees from conflict zones in Nalaya to Gylias – and since most displaced persons in Nalaya are unable to flee the areas of conflict due to unsafe travel conditions, this has rendered the Gylian government’s program little more than a gesture.

Similarly, the Schottic government declared its intention to accept “a significant number of refugees,” and actually dispatched a flotilla of military and civilian vessels to the Nalayan coast, with the intention of evacuating refugees by sea. However, coastal areas are currently under solid government control; the vast majority of displaced persons are trapped in the rugged northern interior. As a result, the Schottic effort at evacuation appears to have foundered.

The government of Cacerta, for its part, has moved steadily toward intervention on the side of Protector T’avish. Cacerta recently organized a major multinational naval exercise in waters near Nalaya, and representatives of the paramilitary Cacertan Organization of the Zodiac have made official visits to Sevan to meet with the Protector. The Cacertan government has admitted that its troops have been present in Nalaya for some time, supposedly “strictly to observe the ongoing conflict.” But last week, six Cacertan warships left their staging areas in Andria and set sail toward the Nalayan coast, and ground troops of the Organization of the Zodiac have been reported near the contested city of Siunik.

Should Cacerta become actively involved in the war, warns Nalaya Bureau chief Razmouhi Danayan, the results could be disastrous: “Foreign military assistance only inflates unrealistic hopes for an outright military victory, and those hopes can keep leaders fighting long after they would otherwise have accepted a negotiated settlement. Cacertan involvement has the potential to discourage negotiation, prolong the war, and bring untold additional suffering to the people of Nalaya.”

Shalum and Cacerta are not the only foreign nations to have become involved in Nalaya’s civil war. At great personal risk, an Esperance International investigator acquired photographic evidence of covert Acrean military aid to Ter Karagozian and his militis’iayi forces – forces that have been guilty of systematic ethnic cleansing. These photographs show that several Antonov An-225 cargo aircraft bearing the insignia of the Acrean Red Cross landed at the Armavir airport, and then unloaded BMPT armored fighting vehicles under close militis’iayi supervision.

Impersonating aid workers in order to provide military assistance is widely considered a breach of international law in and of itself. And supplying covert aid to Ter Karagozian, Siruhi (Ms.) Danayan warns, has the potential “to facilitate the slaughter of thousands of Nalayan civilians across the northern Highlands.”

According to Isaac ben Eli, a weapons analyst for the Conflict Management Taskforce, Acrea’s decision to provide Ter Karagozian with the BMPT is particularly ominous. “This is an armored fighting vehicle designed specifically to engage infantry, not other armored vehicles,” Mr. ben Eli told ENN. “It is a weapon for use against people who do not have tanks of their own. In effect, the BMPT is a massacre machine. Given Ter Karagozian’s record of human rights abuses, it seems plausible that he intends to use it as such.”

In the last two days, hundreds of Acrean troops and armored vehicles have been seen on the streets of Armavir, suggesting increasingly blatant and powerful Acrean support for Ter Karagozian, in spite of the human rights violations committed by his troops. In the event of a battle for Armavir, Siruhi Danayan warns, the addition of Acrean firepower could prove “absolutely devastating” for the city’s huge civilian population.

As fighting continues, Nalaya faces a refugee crisis of vast proportions.

In the midst of war crimes at home and ineffective or counterproductive responses abroad, many Nalayans have found themselves displaced from dwellings destroyed by fighting. Much of the population of Vayots Dzor and the surrounding area has fled the now-uninhabitable city into the surrounding countryside, which is rocky, sparsely populated, and inhospitable. Thousands of the displaced are believed to lack access to food, water, or shelter, and casualties from exposure and starvation are expected to grow in number over the coming weeks. Continued fighting means that evacuation of these refugees is impossible, as is the case across most of the conflict area; it is also impossible to supply them with food or water by road, requiring Esperance International to undertake expensive and dangerous airlifts of humanitarian aid into the heart of the conflict zone.

One of the largest concentrations of refugees in Nalaya is currently located in a village in the northern Highlands whose pre-war population was just five hundred; the village’s population is now more than seven times that number, and more refugees arrive with every passing day. Five Esperance International aid workers have been attempting to care for the massive influx of displaced persons; one, Doctor Mayda Kenosian, told ENN by email:

We can’t think more than a few days ahead. We’re improvising constantly. I do triage based on what I can heal; I don’t have a hospital. We’ve got people coming in with gunshot wounds, internal hemorrhaging, third-degree burns, and a lot of the time all I can do is just put them in a quiet place and let them die with a little dignity. We’re feeding people by mixing wheat and yoghurt, wrapping it in burlap, and burying it in coals to cook – and we’re going to be all out of food within a week unless an airlift of rations arrives. We’ve roofed over alleyways to provide a little shelter for people to sleep under. We have virtually no ability to defend ourselves, and we have no idea what’s going to happen if the war reaches us.

And this is only going to get worse as more and more people arrive, because everybody here thinks that the world has abandoned them, and right now it’s kind of hard to argue with that conclusion. Unless something changes, there is going to come a point where this situation is beyond our help – and maybe beyond anybody’s help. We are looking at the worst refugee crisis Tyran has seen in years.

Nalaya Bureau chief Razmouhi Danayan agrees that the humanitarian situation in Nalaya is likely to deteriorate further. Protector T’avish has made no secret of her intention, with Shalumite help, to capture Armavir – the largest city in Nalaya. “A siege of Armavir,” Siruhi Danayan warns, “would cause a humanitarian catastrophe on an immense scale. Hundreds of thousands of people would be rendered homeless; tens of thousands would be killed or wounded. The humanitarian infrastructure of the Highlands would be devastated, rendering it impossible to deal adequately with the level of human suffering that the fighting would cause. And in the end, all that would be achieved is the creation of a Nava’ai insurgency that would continue to cripple the Highlands for years to come, causing an enduring humanitarian crisis in an area where the delivery of aid has always been extremely challenging.”

Hamid al-Amin, director of the Mediation and Diplomacy Commission, advised the international community on Wednesday to focus its efforts on facilitating negotiations. “Since active fighting prevents most displaced persons in Nalaya from taking advantage of international hospitality,” Mr. al-Amin counseled, “the first priority for the international community must be not to accommodate refugees, but to contribute to a negotiated settlement of the conflict that has produced those refugees in the first place.” Mr. al-Amin suggested that the governments of Tyran could do this by refraining from direct military involvement, by refusing to supply military aid to any of the warring factions, and by supporting Esperance International efforts at mediation. More forcefully, Mr. al-Amin suggested that the international community should also “bring economic, diplomatic, and political pressure to bear on all sides - and on their foreign backers – to accept a peaceful settlement of their differences.”

High Commissioner Catherine Gladwell has appealed to the international community
to back her plan for a humanitarian safe zone.

Siruhi Danayan, the Nalaya Bureau chief, has more specific recommendations for the belligerents. “The lesson of Vayots Dzor,” she warned journalists, “is that although government and Shalumite forces have access to heavy weapons, they should generally refrain from using them. Rocket artillery, drones, and bombers are indiscriminate weapons that kill and maim as many civilians as soldiers, especially in urban areas. This lesson will be especially important if fighting should reach Armavir.” Moreover, Siruhi Danayan added, all Maldorian troops should be withdrawn from Nalaya immediately in light of their crimes against Nalayan civilians.

Siruhi Danayan also suggested that Acrea should cease its covert military assistance to Ter Karagozian. Failing this, Acrea should at least cease to abuse humanitarian insignia in order to conceal its operations, since this endangers real aid workers who might be mistaken for Acrean spies. For his part, Siruhi Danayan argued, Ter Karagozian should “issue and enforce a blanket prohibition on all violence targeting civilians, regardless of ethnicity or religion. Should he fail to do this, he must be regarded as directly personally complicit in the crimes committed by his troops.”

Finally, in a statement this morning, High Commissioner Catherine Gladwell declared the Nalayan Civil War “the defining humanitarian challenge of our present historical moment,” and unveiled an ambitious plan for expanded Esperance International activity in response to the crisis. At the heart of this plan is the effort to persuade Protector T’avish, Ter Karagozian, and the Quarval-sharess to sanction an Esperance International peacekeeping mission to Nalaya. Should those three leaders accept such a mission, Esperance peacekeepers would be assigned to organize and defend a humanitarian safe zone at the heart of war-torn northern Nalaya, stretching from the city of Vayots Dzor to the city of Tatev. This safe zone would provide a refuge for displaced persons across the conflict zone – persons who, in many cases, are unable to reach safety further afield.

In her statement, High Commissioner Gladwell appealed to the international community to provide support for her plan. “Nalaya’s civil war is not the business of Nalaya alone,” she declared. “Nor is it the business of Esperance International alone. It is a threat to the economic and political stability of Tyran, and to the status of human rights globally. It is the business of all of us. And so I call upon all the governments of this region to endorse our plan to establish a humanitarian safe zone for the victims of this conflict: let your voices be heard, loud and strong and often. And I call upon you also to help us to make those efforts a reality, by bringing pressure to bear upon all the belligerent parties in the Nalayan Civil War. Each of you has unique leverage in Nalaya, leverage whose application could save the lives of millions. Please, for the sake of our common humanity, bring that leverage to bear on behalf of the Nalayan people.”

In a conflict whose brief duration has been distinguished by a horrific level of suffering, the next few months are certain to bring even greater death and destruction for tens of thousands of Nalayans. But if international action proves unified and effective, the future may also hold a glimmer of hope for a country that has suffered more devastation than any other in Tyran.

---

OTHER NEWS

• Conservatives Sweep Azura [ 3795 ]
• Esperance Review Clears Knootoss Bureau in Bribery Scandal [ 1236 ]
• Yolenga or Raithir? Inside Tyran’s Forgotten War [ 13,240 ]
• Cacertan Queen Pregnant; Father Unknown [ 7103 ]
• Sevase’s New GMOs: Pros and Cons [ 12,127 ]

[Shalum]

Co-written with Nalaya

Rikker’s Office
Tatev, Nalaya

The article had hit Valantin Andzevatsi like a ton of bricks. Now she found herself standing outside Rikker’s office door with a brown paper bag full of food in one hand even though her appetite was gone, steeling herself against the churning feeling of conflicted emotions roiling in her chest. She knew that the Dread Wolf was still in seclusion, thank the divine, or else the news might have had her going to Rikker’s office with very different intent. That was what she felt more than anything else: cold, drowning dread. There was so much going wrong right now. She had been in the TRC for a very long time. She knew that the EI, for all their good intentions, had just helpfully dumped kerosene right into the furnace. The word ‘clusterfuck’ wasn’t going to be sufficient for whatever happened next. Her hope was riding more and more on the shoulders of Rikker and Narekatsi. They seemed to be two of the few involved in this scenario who both cared and had some pull.

The crisis and the desire for answers wasn’t exactly what had brought her here to Rikker’s door, however. She knew what had, though she wasn’t comfortable with it by a long shot: she was worried about the Shalumite commander. She told herself it was because she needed him to soldier through and help bring Karagozian to justice. A good man like Rikker wouldn’t be taking it well and someone had to make sure that he didn’t let it knock him out of the saddle before he could drive a lance through the monster’s head. It was the easy, automatic explanation. She just wasn’t certain that it was the correct explanation. She was also worried about what this would all mean for her. If the ku’nal wanted revenge...she was a natural avenue to claim it, particularly with her current instructions. Just a few words, and the already precarious house of cards that she’d built around herself would come crashing down. But would that be such a bad thing? It was literally her purpose in life.

She glanced back towards Rikker’s guards and then knocked on the door to his office before opening it enough that she could poke her head in. “Hey,” she said softly. She kept her internal conflict off her face, but allowed her worry to show. “Can I come in?”

“He’s not in the best of moods,” one of the guards had gently warned her as she passed. The man was an older soldier, wearing the uniform of an alpine infantry officer, and was often among the small group trusted to keep watch over the colonel’s office. Over the last couple of days, he had noticed her coming and going on more than one occasion, perhaps had even heard some things; but he would never comment on them or admit to it. Rikker was his commanding officer, but he was also a man with needs and desires for companionship. And for that, he couldn’t knock the man.

And it was very much true, Rikker was not happy. On his desk, his field laptop was open, and displayed on its screen was the article posted by EI only hours ago. He had read it again and again, perhaps ten times by this point, and was riled up beyond any stretch of the imagination. There were so many things that were wrong going on in Nalaya. The Maldorians were raping and slaving, a practice that they had carried out without fail for hundreds of years. Whoever in the Shalumite High Kommand thought it would be a good idea to send them needed an immediate discharge. Upon that, there was the Acrean issue. They would be responsible for hundreds, if not thousands of dead. And then the Anur...the thought of one of them being taken advantage of almost made him sick in the literal sense.

Rikker had ended up pacing his office, so much so that he could have very well ended up leaving marks on the floor. It was the sound of gentle knocking, the voice of his lover at the door, that managed to break him out of his little spell. “Um, yeah,” he replied quickly. Normally, he would have let her come in under her own power, but today, he opened the door himself. He didn’t quite care to hide the stormy look on his face. “Come in, come in, Siruhi,” he tried to at least sound formal for the sake of the guards outside and anyone else who might have been passing by.

Valantin stepped in and tried to offer him a smile. Her lips refused to cooperate with the idea, settling instead into that same, worried line. “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “You’ve seen it, then?”

She set the bag down on his desk and then returned to be near him. She waited until the door was closed to step in and wrap her arms around him, resting her forehead against his shoulder. She needed it probably more than he did at the moment. Some part of her was incredibly angry the longer she let herself think about it. The mention of slavery ate away at her like a fire, an evil that she considered far worse than death. She couldn’t hold it against Rikker, though: the Maldorians were Shalumites in the same way that Karagozian’s milits’iayi were Nalayan...and the slavers most certainly weren’t under Rikker’s command. She would have known if anything like that was happening anywhere near this part of the north.

With all this evil walking the world, however, some part of her wanted to see and touch something good. So she’d come to Rikker, no matter how unwisely. “It’s bad,” Valantin admitted reluctantly. She wasn’t certain she wanted to tell him how up in arms the yochlol were or how furious the Protector was. It probably didn’t even need to be said. “I don’t know how we’re going to see the end of this.” She wanted to admit she was afraid, but that was another thing that probably didn’t need words. She just wasn’t certain what she was most afraid of: the situation or her future part in it.

“I have, and I can’t stop myself from reading it over and over again,” he replied quietly; resisting the urge to look over at the laptop on his desk. Reaching over, Rikker closed the open door behind her with a little more than was actually necessary, wincing at the sound it made. There was no doubt about the fact that he wanted to be alone with her. She was the one shining light he had at the moment, something that he could hold onto and remind himself that he would be okay.

And that is exactly what he did. The moment that she neared him, and wrapped her arms around his broad form, the colonel returned the favor. He enveloped her in a tight embrace, holding her smaller and delicate body against his own powerful one. While the world's problems wouldn’t be solved like this, he knew that at the very least, he could keep her safe from whatever it had to throw at them. Tentatively, he pressed a kiss to her hair, before he rested his chin atop her head. “I’m sorry,” he found himself murmuring, though there was no real control that he wielded over the situation.

“I don’t either,” he replied after a moment, not appearing as if he was going to budge from his embrace anytime soon. Pulling his head back, he looked down at her, his normally warm eyes now much more nervous and dark than she had likely ever seen them before. “There is...so much fucked up shit going on down south,” he sighed deeply. Normally, it wasn’t like him to curse around women, but he couldn't stop himself this time.

“I’m worried, Valantin. For all of the people down south, there is going to be so much bloodshed,” he bit his bottom lip for a moment. “I’m worried about us,” Rikker finished after a moment. Whether it was about the people and forces in Tatev, or himself and his lover, he did not specify.

“Me too,” she said softly, blue eyes meeting his. She was worried about him, about Tatev, about the ku’nal, about the state of the world in general. It was strange to say anything so honest, to confide anything in anyone. It was probably not a sign of wisdom, but she knew it would at least reinforce whatever trust he’d given her. In that moment, for just a split second, she was simultaneously grateful that he had while wishing that he hadn’t. “I feel like I should have done something more, but I know it’s out of our hands right now. We’ll do our best. That’s all we can do right now.”

She reached up and ran her fingers across his cheek, trying her best to be reassuring. With Rikker’s arms around her, she actually found herself feeling a little bit better. It was comforting, but certainly strange. The ku’nal were definitely going to be out for blood. Part of her wondered if she could keep it from being Rikker’s, but she knew that wasn’t her job, no matter how much she wanted to. It was the TRC representative in her talking, that was all. This is worse than the last time, she realized. Or at least it’s going to be. That was a chilling thought. She tried to push it out of her mind with the feeling of Rikker’s skin under her fingertips.

“My mother always told me to do what I could, and to can the rest.” Rikker chuckled, though was not any humor to the otherwise fond memory. That was about all they could do at the moment. He could only pray that the northerners would not feel the wrath of the Dread Wolf. If she decided it prudent to strike against him and his people with full force, he was uncertain of how long he could withstand her wrath. Their level of defensive readiness had eased a bit since the negotiations with Nadal.

Reaching down, he gently ran his hand along the side of her torso. So many thoughts raced through his mind, and he was having a hell of a time wrangling in. But she was proving to be a good anchor of sorts. Very slowly, he began to speak. “Val...you know I would never hurt you, right?” He couldn’t help but asked. The thought of Maldorians terrified him, especially when he knew it could have very well been her among the group of poor women, had she not been up here in the north.

“I trust you,” she said quietly. “I know you would never hurt me.” She wished she could make the same guarantee. It didn’t take much for her to guess where his thoughts had gone. The Maldorians had been the part of the article that had gotten under her skin probably the most, though all of it had bothered her on a fundamental level. The death or worse of innocents wasn’t what this had been about. It was easier to bury her head in the sand than to write it off as the price of justice, but Unkndirnei reports were nauseatingly thorough. It was the job of the TRC to keep records and statements, and they had always been allied with the intelligence community in times like this. As a consequence, blissful ignorance was not an option. She brushed her thumb across his cheek, studying him. “You’re not them, Dominic. You’re a good man.” She didn’t want to say more than that in case he wanted to keep talking.

For as bad as he may have felt at the moment, the simple statement was all that it took for a soft smile to creep across his lips. The darkness that he felt as if surrounded him did not dissipate, but some of it certainly seemed to retreat, if only for the moment. “You don’t know how much that means to me, Val.” He finally replied, touching his forehead to her own. His brown orbs remained locked with her own cerulean ones, his breathing soft and steady. “You’re too good for me, what did I ever do to get you?” He couldn’t help but murmur, holding her close against him tenderly. After a nervous swallow, he finally asked. “What do we do now?”

You have no idea how wrong you are, Valantin told him silently in her thoughts. Instead of saying so, she kissed him gently on the lips and let it linger for a moment before pulling back. “You say sweet things,” she said, returning his smile. He made it easier. “I brought you food, but...sit with me for a little while?” There was a couch in his office against one of the walls and she knew from experience it was comfortable. She just wanted to be close to him for a while, pressed against his side with her head on his shoulder. She would have rather been lying in bed with him right now, but that wasn’t really an option. Work was waiting for her, even if it could be put off for a little while. Rikker was in high demand these days--and would probably be more so now that this had dropped--so she knew she wouldn’t be able to hold onto him for very long.

That was the moment she realized that someone was going to have to tell the Imanalov’ what had happened to one of their Anur...and that someone was her. Nasaqu, the adorable little monk, was going to be devastated. Most likely, the monk would have to return to Annu and Shiimti with the news. It was going to be heartbreaking. She clung a little more tightly to Rikker and closed her eyes. She could feel a very unfamiliar sensation: the prick of tears. He was making her feel safe, which made it altogether too easy for habitually buried emotions to make themselves known.

Dominic managed to hold his smile, gently rubbing small circles of assurance into the small of her back as he held onto her. “And I mean every word,” he said with a wholly honest and warm tone. Glancing over at the food, there was a flicker in his eyes. “You’re too good to me, I haven’t eaten anything yet today. I’d love to,” he replied in an appreciative tone. There was no doubt about the fact that the Shalumite colonel relished every moment that he got to spend with her, whether it be between the sheets, or having a simple conversation in his office after everyone else had seemingly gone home. They soothed him, made him feel at ease like no one ever had before.

Some part of his mind nagged him to not to get too serious about this. Her. She was a taken woman, cheating husband or not, and he was just a homewrecker waiting to happen. They would never be more than lovers. Yet, he couldn’t say that he would stop himself from falling for her if it happened. He wasn’t one to chase passions often, and when he did, Rikker liked to think that he followed them through until they panned out one way or another. Not that he expected her to leave her husband for him, or anything like that.

While he couldn’t proclaim that he had been around Valantin to know her every working -few men ever learned how their partners operated for that matter- it was not hard for him to tell the way she suddenly grew more serious. He could feel the way she gripped him, see how she closed her eyes. Whatever thought had just crossed her mind surely had to be a bad one. Without thinking, he leaned down and scooped the young woman up, cradling her affectionately as he stepped back and sat down on the couch; more or less resting her in his lap. He kept his arms around her, and pressed a kiss to her cheek. “Val,” he murmured. “What’s wrong? Talk to me, please,” he urged her, concerned, the food all but forgotten in this moment.

“I’m alright,” Valantin said softly. “Just...there’s going to be a lot of bad news for me to break to a lot of people. I could delegate it, but that’d be cowardice on my part. The Igigi and the Imanalov’ don’t exactly get the paper where they live, and even if they did, it wouldn’t be the right way for them to hear what happened to one of their Anur. If the EI had known how much it would hurt, maybe they wouldn’t have published it. I don’t know. I really do respect what they do, even if I don’t always agree with how they do it. It’s not right that the world got to choose who knows what happened rather than the person it happened to. After having all that control stripped away from you...I would be horrified to know that other people told everyone what happened... It’s not like there are a lot of Anur that she can hide among anonymously.”

The more she thought about it, the more it bothered her. She knew exactly who it was: Kishargal. She made a point to keep an eye on the Anur whenever they were in Nalaya, just in case they were needed to help resolve a dispute or handle a problem up in the mountains in their own special way. She knew full well exactly what significance the Anur held. The Igigi would certainly know exactly who it was: they kept better track of their Anur than she did. It was their job. Valantin sighed softly. “Sorry. It’s hard to let go of things, even the ones I can’t do anything about. I’ll be alright. I just wonder if they will be.”

“I’m sorry, Valantin.” That was Rikker’s replied as he held her against his chest, gently stroking her hair as he gazed down at her with concerned eyes. The colonel certainly felt for her, already he had been forced to write numerous letters of condolence to the soldiers who had fallen at Vayots, and he was certain many more would be drawn up by the time Siunik was over and done with. He couldn’t quite bring himself to compare that to her own job, however. The people who he contacted knew that their loved ones very well might not be returning home when they had left. His lover, however, dealt with the innocents of the world, whose persecution was the result of simple existence. “I’m...I’m not good with words, but if there is anything I can do, let me know. At the very least, I’ll be behind you every step of the way,” he promised with sudden conviction as he sought to meet her eyes.

Even though he didn’t know what she was thinking about, he knew it could have only been a limited number of things. The Maldorians. The war crimes. The Anur or the Igigi. They were all very much tragic in their own way, and he was not certain which was the worst of them all. “You don’t have to be sorry for anything, Valantin. You’re only human, and so am I. There is only so much we can control,” he sighed as he went back to rubbing the small of her back. “The world is such a dark place,” he finished glumly, shaking his head for a moment. But at least I have a light like you to hold onto, he thought as he looked at her.

“It’s not all bad,” she said softly, looking up at him through her eyelashes for a moment before glancing away. It was hard to keep eye contact with him sometimes, like she was going to let something slip. It made the center of her chest feel tight, but it was comforting in its own way. It meant she was at least feeling something, which was both better and worse than her once glacial state. “You’re in it.”

A light grin crossed the lips of Rikker, and a feeling of warmth spread through him, originating at his heart and slowly permeating his veins. It was a feeling he could not remember ever experiencing before, but rather comfortable nonetheless. Reaching down, he gently tilted her chin up, so that he could brush his lips against her own. Pulling back, he let out a soft sigh. “You have a point there, milady,” he murmured. “You’re the light that I focus on in all this darkness, you know,” he couldn’t help but admit. “And for the record, your words a lot more sweet than my own ever are,” he did his best to tease.

She laughed softly, a little bit of the heartache easing for a moment. “Agree to disagree, o knight of mine,” Valantin said. “I happen to have a high opinion of your charm.” It was almost hard for her to recognize this more honest part of herself. She had pretended to be so many things to so many people that it was hard to tell what was genuine and what wasn’t. As one of her true coworkers had commented many years ago, if her lips were moving, she was lying. She didn’t want to move from his lap, but she knew they should probably eat. Her time off was ticking away. She kissed him, this time a little more deeply. The flood of warmth it sent through her body reminded her that she was alive, which meant she could still do something.

“Oh yeah?” Rikker asked with a chuckle, suddenly sounding much more amused as his shoulders shook. “Then I guess we’ll just have to disagree as you said, milady. I respect your opinion far too much to counter it with my own,” he teased as he looked at her. Before she could say anything in reply, he pressed another kiss to her lips, letting his tongue slide in as he let the emotions flow. There was a certainly quality of ‘I’m alive, you’re alive’ to it, along with joy and passion. Beyond this office, the feelings wouldn’t last, so he would savor them as long as he could.

Holding his gaze, Rikker couldn’t help but smile. She had mentioned food earlier, and the thought of it did come to mind here and now. More specifically, the idea of an innuendo came to mind. There were other things he would have preferred to eat at the moment, after all. Sadly, time was short, and his stomach rumbled against her flank pressed against his torso. A sheepish grin creased his lips, and he glanced at the paper bag for a moment. “I suppose we should get to it before it gets cold, huh?”

Valantin wasn’t as familiar with Rikker as she wanted to be, but she knew that smile: it did things to her. Her hopes were unfortunately dashed by his stomach. “I suppose,” she said with a playful sigh. She reluctantly slipped out of his lap and stood up, smoothing out her skirt. She wanted to ask if he would be free tonight, but the responsible part of her knew that she would probably be bogged down at the office until late, requesting copies of statements from EI for tribunals after the war, assuming Karagozian didn’t sweep into power and disband her whole organization. She made a mental note to burn her offices to the ground if that did happen, provided she wasn’t caught before the opportunity arose.

The world was an ugly, awful place right now, but it was a little bit easier to take with Rikker around.

[Nalaya]

Command Center
Aragatsotn, Nalaya

Hravad Ardzuni was not generally considered an angry man. He was gruff, growling, and grim—but rationality generally ruled him. That was probably why his officers were so surprised to see him put his fist through the drywall in a display that completely broke with his tradition of keeping a stern, but composed attitude. His face had gone dangerously pale, contorted in anger until it was barely recognizable. He was way, way beyond displeased. The article was the only thing he could think about, though at the moment he was almost literally seeing red. It was Siran who went up to him and put a hand on his back. No matter how much they fought, they were still tried and true friends. “Hravad, we need the Shalumi.”

“I know,” he snarled, yanking his fist out of the hole. The big Arusai man seemed even larger in his towering rage. “That doesn’t mean I have to like it!”

Siran sighed. “I know,” she said as calmly as she could even though her voice had a tremble to it. She was furious herself, but she didn’t feel nearly as betrayed as Hravad did. It was a factor of not trusting most people—it made her harder to stab in the back. She’d already known about Armavir, but there wasn’t a lot she could do. She’d lost contact with half her agents in the city, most of them keeping their heads as down as they could while they smuggled people out. “However bad they are, Karagozian is no better. We need to stop him.”

“What happened to the dream?” Hravad said hoarsely.

She didn’t even have to ask what he meant. She glanced over her shoulder at the waiting, frightened officers. “Give us a few minutes,” she said in a way that was not even a little bit a suggestion. This was something between the Avangardn, not for public consumption. Besides, she had something they needed to talk about that was directly related to that particular question.

“Of course, Tiruhi,” they said, offering her sharp salutes before showing themselves out. One didn’t argue with the head of the Unkndirnei, at least not if one wanted a career—and possibly life—that lasted more than a few minutes. Siran was the kind of woman who could snap her fingers and make someone disappear, which was in many ways even more terrifying than death.

Hravad covered his scarred face with one hand, bits of plaster falling from his uniform sleeve. Every day that went by, everything Anahid had created seemed more and more like some fevered conjuration of Nalaya’s collective imagination. When she was alive, it had felt so real that he could almost touch it. It was easy to see in the way she’d slowly started to heal everything, to coax the country up like a phoenix from the ashes. If she had been alive, Karagozian would have never been able to get a foothold in the minds of anyone. She had believed too strongly in the goodness of humans despite everything she’d seen for evil to take root where she could find it and dig it up. They’d been so close to something amazing for those few, short years. The angels of Nalaya’s better nature had finally felt their time in the sun. But now the darkness was back, drowning their world. Soon people would start to forget that there had ever been a light.

Siran rubbed her hand up and down his back. “We need a new Protector,” she said quietly. “If we found the right person, we could bring it back.”

“The right person doesn’t exist,” Hravad said roughly. “It died when Anahid did.”

“That doesn’t have to be true, Hravad,” Siran said. It was jarring to be the voice of optimism, it really was. “There are other people with actual moral compasses. Not you or I, but someone who could actually get everyone going in the right direction.”

“Khavar won’t step down,” Hravad said. His grim demeanor was coming back rather than the hopeless, lost character to his voice. A part of him really did want to believe it was possible, the part of him that had been in love with Anahid’s dream as much as just Anahid, but too much of him had become pessimistic since the change in power.

“If we can negotiate a settlement with that as a condition, she will. Particularly if you and I don’t back her,” Siran said very quietly. “She needs the Unkndirnei and she needs the military to stay in power. Without us, she doesn’t have a leg to stand on.”

Hravad was quiet for a moment, considering this. Siran was right. They would be playing a dangerous game, but that didn’t need to be said. His real concern would be who they could even put in power. “No one can replace Anahid,” he said quietly.

“You’re right, we can’t replace her. So let’s find her a proper successor,” Siran said quietly. He knew from the way she’d said it that she had been considering this for some time, likely since the war started. It was bold and somewhat unusual, coming from Siran. Normally she was the one who backed Khavar unconditionally, which was the root of their frequent arguments. She’d become so…she would have called it ‘pragmatic’, but he disagreed with the verbiage…since Anahid died, though, that he could see it. “It’ll mean ceding some ground to the others, but Khavar stepping down will go a long way towards pacifying the old guard among the Nava’ai. But no more warlords, no more grudges, no more rubbing salt into old wounds. If Karagozian wants power, he can have it over my cold, dead body. We do it right this time, the way Anahid would have wanted.”

“You have someone in mind,” Hravad said.

“I do,” Siran said softly. She knew what was happening in the country right now, particularly the north and west where things were going so horribly wrong. Names cropped up in her reports repeatedly, from every side in the war. “Anahid had passion. That was what made people believe in her, that’s what Khavar doesn’t have. Maybe we need fire again, instead of ice.”

---

L’Delmah d’Yochlol
Dyvynasshar, Nalaya

Alysstra was the first one to see the article, as she was the most connected with the outside world. The others were startled out of their various tasks and meditations by the sound of her scream, a sound of anguish that rattled the hearts of everyone in the area. The yochlol dropped to her knees, tearing at her hair. The news report lay in tatters all around her, ripped to pieces and cast up into the air. The loss of the Shrjani Nshanneri had pierced her to her core—that was her home. Her family was there, and even though she had cut ties to them when she joined the Yath, she still felt the loss in every fiber of her being. All she had ever wanted was peace. That was why she had agreed to help the Protector in secret. Now? Everything she felt was pain.

Others came running. She felt someone grabbing her, lifting her up off the ground. A hand framed the side of her face. “Alys, what’s wrong?” a concerned, if soothing male voice said as he tried to support her and brush away her tears at the same time. It was Solaufein, her lover and fellow yochlol. She found herself pulled into a deep chest, enveloped in strong arms. A hand stroked her red hair to settle her down, but it was cold comfort to a broken heart.

She found herself shaking her head, weeping and holding onto him tightly. Her whole body was trembling. One of the others—Taldinyon—picked up the damaged paper, piecing it together quickly. As he read, he found his lips pressing together into a thin, furious line. “They’re murdering our people,” he said in a low, rough voice. “The Shrjani Nshanneri…all of them, gone. They’re enslaving people, Solaufein.”

“Not all, surely,” Solaufein said, rocking his lover gently. He knew her parents and a sister Alysstra had only seen as a baby, but still loved, lived—had lived—in the city, even if she hadn’t seen them in years. “They might have gotten away. You don’t know that they’re dead, my heart.”

However, they all knew the odds of survival in such a purge were slim to nothing. It was not a new phenomenon and so they had a wealth of experience to draw upon. Alysstra kept crying, holding onto Solaufein so tightly she was leaving fingernail marks in his back. He didn’t complain in the slightest and kept making soothing sounds. Out of all of the yochlol, his lover had always been the most sensitive. It was what made her good at getting information out of people. The Dread Wolf usually had her mete out punishments for that exact reason as well. Excessive cruelty from yochlol wasn’t healthy for the faith. Alysstra would break people, but she was more merciful than most of them and knew limits. Killing people bothered her less, because it was usually a clean and quick affair at her hands…usually. Solaufein wasn’t certain if this would change her or not. He wanted to go to the Dread Wolf on her behalf and break the Quarval-sharess’s seclusion to demand revenge against the Shalumi no matter what agreement Nasadra had made with Ilharn Rikker, but he knew that his lover likely wouldn’t forgive him for it.

Alysstra’s body shuddered under the assaulting force of grief. None of the others could blame her, nor did they feel any desire to silence her. Passion ran its course in its own time. “Take her to bed, Sol,” one of the others said softly. “She needs to lie down. We’ll make a decision about whether or not to disturb the Dark Mother tonight, when Alysstra is calm and thoughtful again.” It went without saying that Alysstra’s opinion would be one of the most important—she was unquestionably the Quarval-sharess’s favorite, mostly because she was the most adept at reading the moods of Lledrith A’Daragon. It didn’t grate on the others, not with how closely knit they all were.

He nodded and scooped up his lover, carrying her cradled in his arms as he’d done so many times before. Their room wasn’t far away. He laid her down and then joined her in bed, holding her tightly against him as he pulled the sheet and blankets up over him. It made his heart ache to see her like this. He pressed his lips to her forehead. “They could be safe, Alys,” he whispered to her. “There is hope.”

She knew better. She could feel it in the tight ball that had formed at the center of her chest. They were gone, and there was nothing she could do about it. She just pressed her forehead against his shoulder and let the tears flow. In time they would dry and her hollow feeling would turn into a powerful hate. But not now, not yet.

---

With the Ku’nal Forces
Just Outside the Tatev Valley, Nalaya

“This changes nothing,” the Ilharess of Nasadra said calmly, carefully studying herself in the mirror as she began the slow process of concealing her bruises with cosmetics. Her time with Lesaonar was always thoroughly enjoyable, even addictive, but people seeing it would get entirely the wrong impression. Her walk would be slightly less graceful than usual, but then again, people tended not to notice little things like that. Sitting down would also probably be a reminder, but she enjoyed the ache and sting. “Rikker is not the commander of these Maldorians in the south. He is an entirely different animal.”

Lesaonar looked up from the article. He’d read it aloud to her in the relative privacy of the upstairs of the small, abandoned farm house that they’d claimed for use as a rough command center. The owners had probably gone to Tatev to stay with relatives weeks ago, when this whole thing started. The others were all in bed and well asleep on the lower floor despite the fact that morning was dawning. He suspected that someone had probably heard something at some point, but no one was going to dare to mention anything. The scratches down his back itched unpleasantly, but he didn’t want to touch them lest they start bleeding again. He wanted to be able to put on his shirt again at some point. “He is Shalumi,” he said in an unforgiving tone. “An animal cannot change its nature.”

“All lions are cats. That does not make all cats lions,” she said with the same cool, self-assurance. “Karagozian is our chief priority. Rikker is a means to that end. When we finish with one war, then we can move on to the next. Unlike some people, I know the folly of a war on two fronts.”

“We will have to work alongside these vermin if we maintain course. Do you think that will please the Dread Wolf?”

“I would rather endure a little displeasure now for the sake of the highest level of favor than abandon our plans now for the sake of instant gratification,” she said, dabbing concealer over the livid bite-mark that stood out starkly on the juncture of her neck and shoulder. There was a definite chance that her shirt wouldn’t cover that adequately. “Besides, if Malcolmson has a brain, he will surrender the Maldorians to Nalaya. Whether ours or the Tigress’s, they will come to understand the gravity of their error. If we are lucky, they will be given to us, so that justice may run its course rather than law. The Linath is quite explicit in what it demands. However, I suspect they will end up enjoying the Protector’s custody. Unless, of course, Shalum simply pulls them out.”

“The TRC would object strenuously to that.”

“That is what they do, lover mine,” Sabrae said with amusement. “And their objections will continue to be drowned out by the roar of the fire.”

Lesaonar did not share her humor, but then again, he rarely did. He rose and grabbed her wrist, spinning her around to face him. He knew it would hurt her, since her wrists were already bruised, but he also knew she’d probably enjoy it. “You underestimate the anger of the people,” he said roughly. “We do not maintain power by pushing against that current.”

Sabrae leaned into him and whispered, breath hot against his ear, “You are correct. We channel it, to our own purpose. We always have. What are you so afraid of, darling? We will get our way in the end. We always do. All you have to do is trust me.”

“What kind of fool do you take me for, serpent?” he said, voice a low growl. She loved that tone. It always took coaxing to bring the beast out of him, but it was never too far below the surface.

“My favorite kind,” she murmured, smiling when his grip on her wrist tightened. Wearing covering clothes and concealer was always worth it. “We have stayed alive in the game this long. By the time this is over, darling—provided we hold up our end of the bargain—we’ll have a Sulhanate again, a Protector other than the Tigress, and anything we care to ask for from the Dread Wolf. Dead men buy such wonderful treasures.”

Lesaonar didn’t loosen his grip, but she knew he was considering this by the twitch of his lips. “And EI?” he said bluntly.

“They are serving an admirable purpose right now. Khavar is discredited by association, Zhirayr has the rug of international support jerked out from under his feet,” Sabrae said. “By all means, let us allow them to meddle with the south as they please. It will put us in an excellent position to demand concessions.”

“So Rikker keeps Tatev without challenge,” he said in a more measured voice. His hold on her wrist relaxed, which was slightly disappointing. “But we win the war.”

“Precisely,” she said. “And if he causes trouble, I will simply have his new lover cut his throat while he is sleeping. Oh, the Shalumi would quickly replace him, but not with anyone who could keep control against us. Power stems from respect.”

Lesaonar chuckled. “Wicked woman.”

“You love me this way,” Sabrae said with satisfaction. She was going to enjoy meeting Rikker. It would be such a shame if it turned out to be a short association, but she was a woman who could live with disappointment.

[Syara]

Executive Endorses Esperance Plan in Nalaya; Offers Support for Implementation

Zovahr, Syara - Executive Radovan Kostović, elected leader of the Commonality of Syara, announced in a public press conference with Foreign Minister Dubravko Lenković, "unwavering support for the Esperance International proposal" in securing a solution to the humanitarian crisis unfolding in the war torn southern nation of Nalaya. The Executive confirmed that the Syaran Government fully supports and endorses the Esperance plan to convince the leaders of the warring factions to agree to allow Esperance International to deploy peacekeeping forces to Nalaya to create a safe haven for refugees fleeing from the fighting. The Syaran Executive also promised material, logistical, even financial support for such an endeavor, offering the usage of Syran military assets to assist in peacekeeping operations.

"The images were seeing out of Nalaya are horrific and shocking to the very core. The sheer magnitude of destruction and violence we are bearing witness to is nearly unfathomable, even as reports and images filter our from the war torn nation. The civilized nations the regional community have, dare I say, a fundamental moral responsibility, to uphold the tenets of humanitarian causes where they are needed. The Commonality of Syara, as a nation under the Lord and one of moral courage, fully supports the efforts of Esperance International in their quest to ease the human suffering that is all too present across Nalaya. As the leader of the Syaran Commonality, and a fellow human being, I urge Protector T'avish, Ter Karagozian, and the Quarval-sharess to agree to the Esperance proposal."

The Executive also warned the leaders of the Empire of Shalum, the Soviet Federation of Acrea, and the Kingdom of Cacerta that further escalation and destruction would "negatively reflect on the image their respective nations project" and could lead to "reconsidering of the roles they play in regional affairs."

Both the Executive and Foreign Minister agreed that in the event of an acceptance of the terms, the Commonality would be ready to provide logistical, material, and personnel support for the EI mission. "The Commonality stands ready to support the Esperance International mission if allowed, and if the EI offer is not supported, the Commonality will look for other measures to secure the safety and security of the many refugees in need of assistance."

[Shalum]

The Assault
Siunik, Nalaya

“You alright, sir?” Richter called out to Basim as they swept through the second floor of the building, weapons always kept at the ready as he moved through hallways and rooms. The Shalumite warrior had been the one to dispatch the disoriented Nava’ai insurgent, but he had feared that he was a second or two late as he watched the man go down pulling the trigger. In his peripheral vision, he had seen his Vantai ally jerk, and a splatter of blood. Head wounds, in general, bled quite liberally. “Shit, that is going to hurt in the morning,” he grimaced as he eyed the man’s now mangled ear.

A few feet away, a several more gunshots were heard as Ludwig and another Vantai finished off the remaining enemies, none of whom were in fighting shape. In fact, none of them were even standing by the time he got to them. They had either been knocked over during their disorientation, or had simply not been killed by the hail of bullets sent their way. Contrary to the cinema, they didn’t always go down neatly. At the very least, the Shalumite warrior was merciful, putting a single bullet into the head of any survivor as he passed like an avatar of death. In some ways, he was doing the wounded a favor, such as the man who was a lost cause to begin with, doomed to choke on his own blood before anyone could care for him; assuming the Vantai were that kind, of course. When all was said and done, he simply ejected the spent magazine of his rifle, and inserted a fresh one; nodding to his cohorts, ready to move onto the next floor.

Moving to the door that led to the next story of the building, Richter frowned as he watched Basim kick it with no success. If someone was on the others side, then getting it down would likely be an issue. Perhaps if they had explosive charges like Jesse downstairs did, it would be an easier task. A grenade might have worked, but they weren’t meant for assisting in breaching. When Basim moved away, the Shalumite made a grunting sound and readied his weapon, double tapping the trigger of his bullpup rifle as he aimed it at the door. Splinters were sent in multiple directions, but he didn’t check to see if he had penetrated the door, and more importantly; kill whoever was on the other side of it.

“Come on, mate, we’re taking the fire escape,” Ludwig grunted out to his comrade in English as he and the rests of their Vantai team made went out the window, and began to head up the emergency stairs. He spotted the enemies in the street, but made no attempt to take a shot of them, regardless of the favorable angle. It would only draw attention to their current exposed positions, it was not as if the railing providing much in the way of cover. “Another flashbang?” Ludwig asked Basim as they reached the top, motioning towards his bandolier again. He still had one of the disorientation devices left, along with a pair of fragmentation grenades.

Down below, Jesse and his comrades were pulling themselves together, one of them reloading his assault rifle as they waited for the next engagement to occur. They were trying to be conservative with ammunition, even though they had brought plenty of it with them, they had no idea how long it would be until help would arrive. At this rate, the main body of forces had to be nearing their time of attack, which could perhaps draw attention away from them. But in the same hand, if they didn’t disrupt the central hub of communications before the primary assault began, the enemy could be much tougher to fight. Would their mission be considered a failure if that was the case?

With it apparent that more enemies were on their way, Jesse’s expression turned grim, and he gripped his rifle tightly with gloved hands. They were a special operations team, small and meant for surgical strikes like this. If the enemy decided to swarm them, their job was about to get a lot more harder and dangerous. Taking cover, the Shalumite cursed, and looked over at Kaliq as he thought quickly. He still had two other Imperial soldiers with him, who were still in fighting shape. Hopefully, they would be enough to buy the other team more time. “Me and my people can hold the line here, sir, if you want to move up to the second floor and lay down fire from there! If we get overrun, you should be able to turn the stairs into a choke point. Unless you’d prefer we go with you?” He managed to call out over the gunfire all around them.

Meanwhile, one of the Imperial soldiers, whose nametag identified him as Dieter Wolffe, refused to let the injured medic handle the oncoming enemies alone. Crouched down, practically on his haunches, he moved forward to a window not far away from the front door of the building. It had already been shattered in the initial storming of the structure, so he didn’t have to worry about handling it first. Taking a deep breath, he shot up from the ground, turning and acquiring his first target. He pulled the trigger twice in quick succession, sending six bullets downrange towards the nearest insurgent. Whether he hit them or not, he was not certain, but his goal was to provide fire support, and dissuade the Nava’ai from getting any closer.

---

Quellarin Syr’thaeryl
Maerimydra, Nalaya

The first Shalumi to waken from their drunken slumber was Faisal, as it turned out, not dissimilar from Sabal in terms of habits. In his younger years, he had never been a particular fan of early mornings; but ever since he had become a soldier, they were just another part of daily life. The sooner that one rose from bed, the more they would be able to get done during the day, or so the theory stated anyways. It was not the light gently streaming into the common room, however, that roused him. Instead, it was his body’s natural clock, that was good about rousing him around eight in the morning local time whether he liked it or not.

Making displeased mumbling sounds, he reached up and rubbed his eyes, trying to clear the sleep away from them and gather his bearings. This time around, his surroundings were much different than they had been the morning before. Instead of falling asleep in a proper bed, he had spent the night laid out on one of the couches, a pillow tucked under his head. Sabal and Joan had rather thoroughly claimed one room, and Pella and Michael had passed out in the other by the time he managed to stumble to their door. The kaplan had half a mind to kick his brother-in-arms out of it, but couldn’t bring himself to do so, and had in turn ended up here.

As he sat up right, he took a moment to breath in and out, trying to clear his muddied head. This was a reason that he didn’t drink too often, and especially didn’t seek out getting wasted; he always ended up feeling like he had been hit head on by a bus. As he swung his legs off the couch, he looked over to the door that led into their suite of sorts. Faisal would have sworn that he heard the door click, though no movement beyond indicated that someone had entered or left the area.

“What the hell?” He asked himself a few moments later, as he spied his clothes, washed and repaired, sitting not far from where he sat. It was not something he had been expecting, and he quickly reached over to inspect them. He was ready to dress in something he was used to wearing. Not that he disliked the Mak’ur’s sense of style, but it just felt so odd to him.

In another room, it was Michael who came to next, the sounds of Pella’s retching reaching his ears and sending him into action before he knew it. Compared to his friends, he had drank the least amount of liquor, and had eaten the most, so he felt relatively fine. As a mouth breather, he could have gone for a glass or two of water, along with some coffee, but those were things he would have to save for later. His charge was clinging to the wastebin for dear life, and he figured he should assist her. He had been in her place when he was much younger. Swinging his long legs off the bed, he made his way over to her.

“There you go, let it out, Pella.” The justicar murmured sympathetically to the young woman over the sounds of her own vomiting. Reaching up, he gently pulled her hair behind her back so that she wouldn’t get it dirty, and rubbed small circles into her back. Any flashes of memory from the night before were overwhelmed by the noises she was making, funnily enough. When she was finally done, he crouched down beside her curled up body, resting a hand on her leg. “You alright, Pel? Need me to fetch some water?” He asked with a soft smile. “I have no idea what they have for headaches around here…” Michael added a few moments later, lips pressing into a thin line.

Joan was the last to wake, unsurprisingly, the redheaded justicar making soft mewling sounds as her eyes flickered open. The bed was comfortable and warm, the soft comforter underneath welcoming her in the best of ways, and she would have been happy to live in this moment for the rest of the day. There was a comfortable ache to her muscles, one she had not experienced in quite some time.

The feelings of her body instantly sparked memories, replays of the night before practically happening before her very eyes. They were the kinds of thoughts that would have made her blush thinking about, had she not experienced them firsthand. The church would have probably told her that she was sinful for even considering much things, much less acting on them, but she couldn’t find even the smallest hint of guilt in her conscience.

“Sabal?” Joan murmured, suddenly confused as she sat upright, the bed sheets falling down to her waist and exposing her bare chest. Looking around, she was surprised to see that her lover was missing from the room, though the space where she had been sleeping the night before still felt warm. “Where did you run off to?” The justicar asked quietly, wiping the sleep from her eyes, not quite ready to extract herself from the bed yet. Perhaps her partner-in-crime had just run off to use the restroom...

---

Sarkissian Household
Sissak, Nalaya

“Thank you for your hospitality, Paron. The manners that your parents gifted you with are impeccable,” James replied with a soft smile as he looked at the young man. Shifting in his seat, the general did his best to get comfortable, the fabric-wrapped sword resting in his lap. Looking over for a moment at his men, he said. “Men, rest easy, we are welcomed here. Take a seat if you wish,” he instructed them, voice a little more firm. It wasn’t an order, but soldiers often required that certain auditory kick from a superior officer to get them to do something. Some of them had rather thick skulls. “Go with Allah, young one,” James added as Arshag began to head up the stairs.

There was a moment that would could have considered peculiar when Desil emerged from the upper floor of the house. When General Blackburn set his brown eyes upon the woman, he stood up without thinking, gripping the sword in one hand for a moment, before he quickly set it on the couch. Similarly, the other Shalumite soldiers all rose up, falling into a parade rest on instinct. For them, there were two social cues at play. Whenever a higher ranking officer was operating in an official or diplomatic capacity, they were only allowed to occupy seats when he was. On top of that, when there was a civilian in their presence (especially a woman) they were supposed to be ready to offer their chairs to them at any moment. One could say that chivalry was dead all they wanted to, but James and his people were an example of how it wasn’t.

<<That is correct, siruhi. Brigadier General James Tiberius Blackburn at your service,>> he replied as he offered the woman a small bow in greeting. Straightening up, his chocolate eyes took in the sight of her for a moment, surveyed who he was dealing with, before he continued speaking. <<Hopefully my local tongue is passable, ma’am. I have been practicing it quite a bit in recent days,>> he said in the way of explanation. Just thinking about it caused flickers of memories: buying his first Nalayan language book at a local store, him and Ada sharing amused conversations through broken sentences, whispers into his ear that he understood for the first time as he hovered above his love. So many instances that would have brought a smile to his lips, but not now, in this moment. Just reminders that he had a love waiting for him somewhere, and that he had taken Desil’s away with the stroke of a sword.

There was a pause after she posed her question, before he actually managed a reply. The younger man took a breath or two, as if searching for the words. <<Your son-- he will grow up to be a good man. He was very hospitable, yes.>> James assured her, though instead of a smile, he simply nodded in affirmation. <<I --ah-- came to offer my condolences to you, Siruhi Sarkissian. I hope that my presence is not during an improper time,>> his tone was sincere, and it was a bit harder to conceal his regret about the whole matter.

<<I am...I am sorry that your husband is dead because of me, Siruhi. I cannot say that I knew him well, because I did not, but I learned enough from our short acquaintanceship to understand that he was an honorable man. One who would do what he had to in order to protect his family, his people, his country. He passed onto the next life with the most supreme of honors that any man could ask for...but it does not take away from the fact that his passing is one that only hurts this world,>> James’ first thoughts went to her children. And then to Desil herself. He had no real idea where he was going with this, he just felt a need to speak, as if it would make him feel any better.

Very slowly, he reached down, and gently removed the fabric that was wrapped around the sword, setting it aside on the couch. The weapon was not like the last time she had seen it. The blood was gone from it, and the knicks had been repaired. It was oiled up, and practically looked like a new weapon. He hadn't spared expenses in order to make it presentable again. <<This...is another reason for me coming here today. I wanted to return this to your family, it is where it belongs. Not in my own possession or household. A sword belongs with its mate, and a familial weapon its creators,>> he explained. Holding the weapon horizontally, he offered it to Desil. <<I apologize for not returning it sooner, I figured you would have likely wanted to present it to the male of your house with the other. I would have returned it to you had I not been in the hospital,>> James apologized as he met her eyes.

---

Imperatorial Palace
Aragon, Shalum

“Of course, of course. Our dear Tyler has enough on his plate already, doesn’t he?” The blonde haired Imperatrix replied with a mix of amusement and understanding in her tone. Her husband was a hard-working man, and she was certain this would only throw more onto the pile of things he would have to think about, and subsequently have to deal with. Though, there was little doubt in her mind about the fact that he would rather handle Anelyn and a new child, over war-related matters, any day. “I’m really happy for you, Anelyn,” she couldn’t help but finish; knowing this conversation would likely finish on a more serious, Nalaya related note.

Switching into ‘ruler-mode’ as her husband had so aptly called it, Allison listened intently to what the Queen had to say about the troops she was deploying. Some of them were familiar -in the past the Imperial naval infantry had cross trained with Amphibious Assault Divisions- and other groups like OZ troops were a new concept to even her. It was surprising in a way, she liked to think that she at least kept on the ball in terms of friendly military formations.

“That is quite the group you’ve got assembled,” Allison observed. She was silently pleased that the Cacertians were getting into the fight now, the Empire and Federal forces were going to need that kind of assistance if they wanted to wrap this conflict up sooner than later. But on the other hand, she knew the Queen was not the type to send troops out lightly. “I look forward to hearing of their performance on the battlefield. The 5th is going in, aren’t they? I know they’re a tough bunch. I will admit though, OZ troops do not ring a bell with me,” she admitted.

Thinking for a moment, an idea came to mind, and she smiled a bit. “Say, how would you feel about some sort of communications meeting sometime? Our High Kommand and intelligence services with your own? Some sort of effort you increase the efficiency of cooperation, you know?” She proposed as she leaned back into her seat. “We all know that Armavir is the key, but I think it will be a while before it falls, honestly. Cacertian and Shalumite troops will have to work together, with Federal and allied forces of course, if we want any hope of taking it out.”

---

Across the Empire

If one thing for certain, it was that the people of the Shalumite Empire were of a tough breed, and perhaps a little too callous in some aspects when they should have shown compassion. Whenever they went to war, foreign or domestic, they were taught that they needed to be ready to sacrifice themselves for a greater good: mind, body, and spirit, or whatever else it may have taken. Things like collateral damage, the destruction of personal property and loss of innocent lives, were considered to be simple truths of warfare by His Majesty’s Armed Forces. Over the years, some had criticized this mindset as ‘quasi-fascism’ being promoted by the Imperial government, but those kinds of accusations had never been dignified by a response from the executive or any of his legislators.

Overall, the Shalumite people and military had been molded into a superb fighting force over the centuries. The government had never fallen to an enemy invasion force, thanks to a mix of strong doctrines and the willingness of soldiers to lay down their lives for their country, as well as things like the Home Guard who practiced insurgent and guerrilla warfare tactics to irritate the enemy in already occupied zones. Of course, there was always civilian casualties in these kinds of conflicts, and it was a tough pill to swallow for many who were personally affected, but they knew they had to press onwards in order for the deaths to be worthwhile. So, when the news report of war crimes recorded by EI reached the people of Shalum...the public reaction was not exactly what one could have hoped for.

There were a good deal of people who read the article, and simply frowned, or did not even seem all that affected. These crimes were happening half a world away, to those who they did not even identify with. Sure, it was unfortunate, but these kinds of things happened-- only a fool would think that they wouldn’t sooner or later. Some were angered, though not for desirable reasons. They would wonder why the international community had not paid attention to the brutalities committed at the hands of Azzie soldiers only a year earlier, or things like forced servitude enforced by the Azurans during the 1980s. There were many more examples, of course, but those two were the most fresh on the people’s minds.

Looking at the situation, and analyzing it, even Shalumite media had some trouble finding the ability to sympathize. (Not to mention that the largest news provider in the Empire was a state run organization.) Pundits, correspondents, and reporters all zeroed in on the story of course; though their focus seemed to be more on what the implications of these war crimes would be, as opposed to the travesty itself.

Many seemed more worried with how the Nalayan government would view them, and whether or not they would want continued support in the war, or if they would request an Imperial withdrawal. Others questioned why the Imperial military deployed auxiliary troops like the Maldorians in the first place, given their horrid track record with human rights. There was little secret about the fact that they had practiced slavery and brutality on conquered populaces for hundreds of years without fail. Most seemed to come to the consensus that sending the tribal warriors had saved Shalumite lives, but had come at a moral loss.

If it was any consolation, there were those who did find issue with the article and what it revealed, people who were in higher places with the power to hopefully work towards rectifying the situation. The Imperial and National Council to be more exact, also known as the upper and lower houses of the Empire’s parliament. They were both up in arms, decrying the activities of the Maldorians, and all but calling for their blood, to have them pulled off the front lines and put under lockdown until it could be decided what to do with them. Admittedly, not a word was so much as uttered about Vayots Dzor, or the destruction that was caused there. If the international community was looking for any sort of justice, it would not be found here.

From his office in the Imperatorial Palace, the Shalumite executive was in the middle of a joint video conference. One side of the large LCD screen before was taken up by the members of the High Kommand awake at this hour, and on the other side was a displeased looking Malcomson. Perhaps it was because he was quite angry about the article, and how badly his hands-off approach with Blackburn was turning out; or perhaps it was the fact the Imperator had just spent the last twenty-plus minutes bitching him out over the situation.

“Sir, I swear, I knew about none of this. I would have never allowed it to happen if I did, you have my word on that,” General Malcomson reiterated to Holland for what felt like the hundredth time during this conversation so far. Give me some credit, though. They’re Maldorians. What did you expect those tribals to do, hand out candy?

“I don’t give two shits,” Tyler replied with a near growl. It was a tone that his staff members were a bit more accustomed to him using. While it was never directed at them, he had little qualm with bitching out members of the military, his military as he often referred to it. “They’re making us look bad out, and I won’t stand for it. Do whatever the fuck you have to in order to get them under wraps, or I will replace you with someone who can. Do you understand me?”

The 13th’s command all but ground his teeth, and worried little about any damage he may have caused them as he stared back at the Imperator through the screen. Words could not describe how angry he was at the moment. He was catching heat for a problem that was solely on General Blackburn’s head, yet he was being blamed for it. Never was the executive quick to roast his base of supporters. But that was not his issue to handle at the moment, the Maldorians were.

“Yes sir, I understand. They be dealt with shortly.” He slowly got out, not daring to raise his tone at the leader of the Empire.

---

Maldorian Encampment
13th Shalumite Expeditionary Force
Near Sissak, Nalaya

The morning following the release of the EI article was no different than any other in the auxiliary section of the Imperial camp. Soldiers rose, grumbling about one thing or another as they began to don themselves in body armor or simply pulled on their woodland fatigues. Slaves or not, they still have duties that needed to be carried out. The commo operators were complaining about a sudden lack of connection to the internet, but there had yet to be a response from their Shalumite commanding officers, so they simply put the issue aside and went to grab a meal or get a few extra minutes of rest. It was not the first time it had happened before, their tech was about ten years older than what their regular counterparts had at their disposal, and thus less reliable.

While his men got to their daily routines, Colonel Pomerok was already hard at work, if one wanted to call it that. The Maldorian man could not seem to get enough of his conquests, which was why there was a poor Imanalov’ woman in his company at the moment, silent though she had not been given any of the tea in order to comply with whatever he demanded of her. His officers assured him that she was already rather complacent, or at the very least had not resisted any of their advances so far, so there was little need for him to be rough with her; at least anymore than he was with any of the others. He was so lost in the enjoyment he was having, that he didn’t even seem to notice the above average amount of engine noise not far from his own command tent.

Other soldiers, particularly those on guard duty, did however.

It all happened so quickly, that there was little time for the tribal warriors to react, at least at the perimeter. One moment, things were relatively peaceful, and the next Shalumite marines were storming the area, weapons at the ready as they shouted for the ‘dark skinned sonsabitches’ to show them their hands or to get on the ground. If that didn’t want to make the Maldorians comply, there was always the fact that the Imperial soldiers had not come without support. They were backed on the ground by a mix of MRAPs and armored personnel carriers, while a couple of Apache helicopters buzzed by overhead. Malcomson, apparently, didn’t seem to mind allocating the resources to apprehending the nuisances.

For the most part, the auxiliaries were subdued with little resistance. Many of them understood that there was no way they could resist the Shalumites without their armaments, which few of them had on hand at the moment, beyond handguns and edged weapons that would do little good against assault rifles and vehicular-based heavy machine guns. Many sneered or grumbled, jerking when the marines laid hands on them, but knew there was no way they would be avoiding the zip-ties and handcuffs. They could run, but the warriors had itchy trigger fingers, and it was unlikely they would get very far.

Tent by tent, the encampment was secured. Those who tried to hide in vain were, of course, caught and forced out to main areas, where the numbers of arrested were quickly growing. There was some resistance in these areas, where entrances and exits made natural choke points. Weapons were aimed at one another, though rarely fired. When it did happen, it was a Maldorian who was gunned down, shot several more times once he was laid out to ensure he wouldn’t stand up again. Slaves, now free from their collars and chains, were treated much better for understandable reasons. The medical group who was assigned to care for them was made up of mostly women, who the Shalumites thought would be able to handle the rape victims better than men would.

There was an entire squad that was sent to take in Pomerok. Alive. Regardless of the cost. Malcomson wanted to be able to punish this man personally, or better yet, let the Nalayans get their paws on him. He honestly couldn’t care what happened to the man, by all accounts, there was no real punishment that would cover all the wrongs that he had committed.

“Get off her you sack of shit!” One marine bellowed as he stormed into the tent, the first sight filling his eyes being that of Pomerok in the throes of...well, one could not call it passion. As soon as the Maldorian colonel raised his hands and backed away ever so slightly, he was on the ground courtesy of a booted kick. No one cared to dress him, the click-click of handcuffs happening only a few moments later. One soldier grimaced at the sight of the young girl, and slowly placed a blanket over the quivering figure, deciding that it would be best to do no more until medical arrived to handle her.

With all of the commotion going on, no one seemed to notice the fact that a slave tent was deserted, though it should not have been. Similarly, a pair of unconscious guards behind the tent would go unnoticed a while longer, until the men came to in the middle of a precarious situation in fact.

---

Beyond the Maldorian Encampment
Near Sissak, Nalaya

While most seemed to forget it, the two slaves that had been charged with caring for Dzia were people with: names, backgrounds, hopes, and dreams that had long since been dashed by the harsh reality of their situation.

The older of the two of them was Brakis Gorbavan, the one that had often taken the lead in trying to comfort Pella on any number of occasions. He was a serious looking man, with weather hands and a body covered in scars, presumably from beatings and abuse that he had been subjected to over the years he had spent in service to various masters. His eyes were a chocolate brown, with a spark of compassion that rarely surfaced for anyone, except for Dzia and a select few. He was a larger man, stronger than he was tall, though he never seemed to stand quite upright. Always a bit bent over, as if he were someone who had been broken, or at least felt weighed down. For as rough as he was, there was nothing but tenderness whenever he handled his charge.

The younger, half-Azzie slave was a man by the name of Kaleb Sorem. His skin was fairer than his counterpart, and eyes the color green, a mop of brownish-red hair adorning his head. True to his Slavic genetics, he was a strongly built man, something that had proved helpful on numerous occasions, some more recent than others. His mother was one of the unfortunate ones, a ‘breeder’ in the roughest of Maldorian terms. An attractive slave that warmed beds and produced the next generation, regardless of what other tasks she might have been skilled at. Perhaps it was the knowledge that a similar fate would be ahead of Dzia if she remained in the possession of Pomerok that drew Kaleb to her. Someone needed to stand by her, at least as much as possible.

At the moment, both men were rather winded, the former leaning against a tree as he panted heavily; while the latter rested his hands atop his head. They were not dressed like a slave normally would have been expected to be, Brakis wearing fatigues, and so was Kaleb. They did not fit the latter man’s frame all that well, he was bigger than the person who they had been taken from, but he couldn’t complain too much. They both had backpacks with them, which had been hastily stuffed with whatever supplies they could manage. Food, water, a sleep bag, a compass, and a few other odds and ends. An assault rifle was slung across the chest of Brakis, while Kaleb wore a pistol on his hip courtesy of a holter. Neither men actually knew how to handle these weapons, but they figured that they should have taken them at the very least. The means in which they had actually acquired them was perhaps the most interesting part of the whole situation, however.

They had done what many slaves could only dream of: successfully rebel against their masters.

Their actual escape was still something of a blur, the scenes flashing before their eyes as adrenaline flowed through their body. They had not spent much time planning the actual execution, neither of them believed that they had much time to their names until the word of the EI investigator spread, so they wanted to make the most out of every moment. There was a consensus between them that as soon as his story began to take root -and it would sooner or later- they were all as good as dead. Their masters would have little issue with cleaning house and disposing of any evidence there may have been. They cared little about killing, especially slaves given how easily they could be replaced.

Overpowering the guards had been the easiest part of it all, surprisingly enough. Both of the slaves were well known in the camp, and even their overlords paid them little mind as they passed. All they had really needed to do was disappear into the shadows of a tent, and wait till a pair of soldiers got close enough for them to jump. Luck had been on their side, because a couple had stopped to smoke and talk, leaving them completely unaware of their new shadows. The scuffle was brief, Kaleb had managed to get his hands on a wrench along the way, and he had little qualms about using it to bludgeon one soldier; while Brakis strangled the other into a state of unconsciousness. The pair of them wordlessly looted the men of their gear and clothing, before tying them up with spare rope and moving on. They had to move onto the next phase of their plan, and quickly.

Getting their hands on supplies needed for their escape was much trickier. While the soldiers guarding the tent were quite lax, not expecting in the smallest amount of trouble, they were still present; and that created issue for the two men. It became a waiting game, much longer than either of them would have liked. Every moment that went by, and they remained unaccounted for, meant the more likely that they would be discovered.

Thankfully, their patience would pay off, as a couple of guards stepped away to help unload a truck. The two former-slaves dashed forward towards a supply tent, only standing straight up once they had entered, as if they belonged there. No one seemed to pay them any mind as they scrounged up backpacks, and began to fill them. Thank the spirits above for the fact that Maldorian soldiers were much more liberal in how they distributed supplies. For them, when a soldier needed something, he simply went and fetched it. On the other hand, a Shalumite would have needed to fill out a requisition request.

“What do we do now?” Kaleb had questioned as they exited the tent, now with packs and weapons on them, looking as if they were any other soldier about to go on patrol. The minor differences went unnoticed, his lighter skin, and Brakis’ older age respectively. “Do we make a break for one of the gates?” He asked with some anticipation, feeling for the first time as if they could get away with this.

“No,” Brakis replied simply, stopping to look at his friend of many years. The Azzie raised an eyebrow, but remained silent, waiting for a deeper explanation. “You may run if you want to, get out while you still can. Me?” The Maldorian slave paused, and waved his hand as if he were looking for the words. “I’m going back.”

“Back? To the main camp? To do what?” Kaleb asked hurriedly, surprise evident on his face. They were so close to escape now, with enough supplies that they could hide in the countryside for a while, perhaps until their masters moved onto the next location even. Their hope had been possibly merging into Sissak, and going from there as free men.

“The others. Dzia. We cannot leave them. They are doomed otherwise,” Brakis replied with a simple shrug, already turning to walk away.

Kaleb was silent for a moment, before he let out a long sigh, and followed after his friend. “Fine. I’m going with you, though. They’re going to need all the help they can get,” he said in the way of explanation.

Ten minutes later, the pair of slaves stood in the female tent, much smaller than the communal ones that the Maldorian-born slaves all had to share. It was here they found Dzia, and three other Nalayans, all kept in a state of lockdown until they were to be summoned by whoever wanted them. While there was no guard at their tent door necessarily, patrols were roving, so one could not simply escape. Thankfully, those assigned to guarding the women had not recognized either men, and had assumed they were here to collect a slave or two.

Looking around the tent for a moment, Brakis swallowed thickly. They could have all been beautiful women at one time, but their situation had taken that away from them. They were simply garbed, and wore the marks of their abusers. Some had been tattooed even, one of the ways that Maldorians marked which slaves that they owned. He did not even want to imagine what their minds were like at the moment, surely they could only be thinking the worst as two men who looked like soldiers entered their tent.

At this point, Brakis was banking on one thing: that Dzia would recognize him. Slowly and gently, he approached her bed, kneeling down beside it as he looked at her. The Maldorian man didn’t lay a hand on her, nor did he try to smile in reassurance; he simply doubted it would have worked. <<Dzia, we’re leaving. Breaking out of here. Please, come with us. We’ll escape into the wild, get away from this evil. Come with us, convince others to join us. Please,>> he asked of her in a mix of Maldorian and Nalayan tongue. He had not picked up much during his time in Nalayan, but it was better than nothing. Hopefully, she would understand him.

By the grace of the heavens, once again, Dzia did end up understanding him. They managed to get a few others to accompany them, though the group was only a fraction of the total slave force that the Maldorians had either brought with them, or had acquired since their time in Nalaya. It was a grim truth that they could not save everyone, but they did their best, man or woman alike. No one deserved to live in the conditions that were found in the camp.

And that was the situation thus far. The group had managed to escape, flee over a hill and into a wooded area where they rested now. The sun was higher in the sky, and in the distance, they could hear the sounds of vehicular engines rumbling, and the sounds of troops shouting. Brakis and Kaleb both worried if they were already being hunted, or if the Maldorians troops were already being mobilized for their next assignment.

Slowly, Brakis trudged over to Dzia, plopping down beside her and sitting his pack aside. He could only pray that they would have enough supplies to last them and their group long enough to get somewhere safe, if they did not turn towards Sissak. Food would not be an issue, they had gotten a good deal of rations, but drinkable water would be much harder to come by in the wild.

Rummaging around, he pulled out a piece of folded paper. It was a map of Nalaya and its cities, with the location of the Maldorian camp roughly marked on it. According to their compass, they had run to the west before stopping. <<Dzia...what do we do?>> He asked her simply, hoping she would be composed enough to answer, and understand. Brakis did not suspect she would be, but the man could at least pray. Now outside of the camp, he did not have plans. He really had not believed they would make it this far to begin with.

[Nalaya]

Just Outside the City
Siunik, Nalaya

Kella was jolted with surprise when she heard a Cacertan hail over the radio. Khavar had managed to forward a message to her that she could expect some to be in-area, but that had been sort of an abstract idea when compared to the reality. She hadn’t heard from Kaliq yet—which probably meant a firefight or some kind of contact—and so she wasn’t certain what she was going to tell them. Still, better to get them on the same page as everyone else. Mercifully, if they’d worked with Shalumites, they spoke English.

“This is Arzhani bint Diya al Din,” Kella said into the mic after glancing over at the Shalumites. Her commanders had moved out into the field, leaving her with their allies. It was a definite show of trust, but then again, only an idiot would do harm to an ally like Kella bint Diya al Din. “Welcome to Nalaya, Colonel Santarsiero,” she said smoothly. “Good timing. Once you orient yourselves, you would be welcome either here with us or headed into Siunik itself. Our people are about to stir up a hornet’s nest.”

---

The Assault
Siunik, Nalaya

Kaliq barely paused as he considered the situation he was now in. “We will move and give you covering fire so that you can join us on the upper floor,” he called to Jesse. He didn’t want to abandon the Shalumites and end up with them taken out when he needed them the most. The more men he could have, the better he saw their odds as being. He motioned for his little group to take off up the stairs. There were windows that overlooked the street, which allowed them to put a damper on enemy approach. It would hopefully buy Jesse’s people time to catch up with them in the relative security of upstairs. Having a reduced number of choke points would probably do them good, and the nature of the position they were occupying granted them some additional security.

The gunfire, both from Kaliq’s people once they made it up to the second floor and from Jesse’s people on the ground floor, was doing an excellent job of dissuading Nava’ai from using that approach. The milits’iayi didn’t take many casualties before they caught wise. Some hunkered down and fired on the radio station, while others crept around through back alleys to probe the other entrances for defenses or supporting troops.

Upstairs on the fire escape, Basim shook his head at the motion to the bandolier. He didn’t want any damage coming to those radios. A bullet could damage them enough, but at least that was controlled. He didn’t really wait to ready himself or his team before grabbing the fire door and yanking it open—there was a chance they could have been heard coming, even with the gunfire below. By some stroke of luck, that wasn’t the case. He wrenched the door open and immediately, Ruqayyah blew past him, shooting as she moved for cover. The first man dropped like a stone. There was a burst of fire from inside the room, with three men left standing, but the Vatani warriors made it to cover in the nick of time, which was probably for the best considering Basim’s luck. Two of those inside had terrible cover—they’d blocked the door with the room’s heavy table, leaving them largely exposed. The other was crouched behind a set of heavy metal cabinets that he’d pushed over. Full of paper, it would actually be quite good cover.

The radios here were modern and high quality, which might have come as a surprise to the Shalumites, were they not so focused on the people trying to kill them. Currently, they did have some blood and brain spattered across them from Ruqayyah’s kill, but they still appeared very much functional. It was not a large room. The Vatani and their targets were within ten feet of each other. It was close.

Basim crouched down, then rounded the corner and fired. He hit one of the men center-mass, dropping him, and immediately recoiled back behind the door. He wasn’t sure if the man was wearing a vest or not, but he thought he’d seen blood. All that mattered was that the man had dropped down the list of threats to be addressed—not gone, but certainly less threatening than the two men still readily able to fire in his direction.

---

Sarkissian Household
Sissak, Nalaya

Desil smiled faintly—if perhaps sadly—at the sight of the weapon and reached out, gently lifting it from his hands. <<Thank you, Paron Blackburn,>> she said. <<That you returned it at all is a mark of your good character.>>

She paused for just a moment before carefully continuing her response. <<It is true—my Norazn will be missed. Ashes are cold comfort in want of a fire. He was a good man, a good father, a good husband. I have lived in war my whole life, as have women in my family throughout much of history. I know that Norazn is gone, and I know that it hurts me badly, but I know I will see him again. I have faith. I will not tell you not to be sorry, as any such loss should be grieved. I will not tell you that all is forgiven, because that is not for me alone to decide—Norazn touched the lives of many, and it is up to every one of them to feel as they must. What I will tell you is this: your heartbeat cannot cease because his has.>>

Desil set the sword down on the small coffee table. She would take it upstairs in a few minutes, when these soldiers had finished their errand. <<I gave Norazn my consent to tempt fate when perhaps I should have withheld it. But that is the devil, thinking of what might have been or what could have been done. What I know for certain is that wisdom comes of pain, Paron Blackburn. Listen to mine. Guilt has its place, but you cannot let it paralyze you any more than I can allow it to paralyze me. If you truly have someone who is precious to you, you will pick conscience up from the dust and go and live. I will do it for my children. You should do it for your fiancée. Either you do that for your loved ones or you lose them too.>>

She let her fingers trail over the steel of the blade before nodding once, as if making a decision in quiet conference with someone else. She was just thinking to herself, of course, but it was almost like she was listening to her absent husband’s voice. <<Thank you for being respectful, Ter, to my husband’s memory, to his family, and to his people. What the Shalumites have done here will not be forgotten, but neither will what you have done. Men like you will be needed in the days to come. I am very grateful that you returned the sword to us with grace. I would invite you to dinner, but I do not want to upset the children. They are young, and they do not understand. Even Arshag is still just a boy. Go with God and walk forever in the righteous way.>>

---

On the Run
Approaching Alaverdi, Nalaya

It felt like it had been centuries since she had last thought or moved under her own power, but through everything, or perhaps because of everything, Dzia kept moving. She knew exactly what waited for her if she went back: more of the Maldorians. Maybe death was all that awaited them ahead, but even that was preferable. She was under no illusion that the EI worker was going to save them. He’d said quite plainly that he wouldn’t.

It had taken her everything not to scream at Brakis when he tried to talk to her at first, but the meaning had surged in even if she could barely speak to him. She would be forever grateful to him and Kaleb. The others were in no better condition. Dzia tried not to think about it. Not thinking was far, far preferable to thinking. Even now that they’d stopped for a moment, she was moving restlessly, always looking back at the direction they’d come.

They were still in the heart of Nalayan wine country, and she’d cut across more than one vineyard as they moved, winding through orchards and along country lanes. The ground was rockier here, a little drier, but there were plenty of streams and springs to feed agriculture in the area. She’d even picked a few figs from one low-hanging branch as she walked by. It was food she could actually taste for the first time since she’d been grabbed, probably because it was the first spiced with freedom. Besides, now that the drugs were finally starting to clear her system, they were making room for something: pure, unadulterated hatred.

Dzia had lived a very sheltered life for a Nalayan, shut away from the war in Massis where it had never come full force. She hadn’t ever imagined that she could ever feel that powerful, destructive hate that seemed to burn so many Nalayan warlords up. Now she could feel it in her full-force just under the surface. It was intensely comforting, because at least it wasn’t pain or horror. She could do something with this. Her jaw was clenched tightly, but it was hard to see beyond that. Never before in her life had she wanted to genuinely murder another human being, feel them break in her hands, watch them choke on their last breath, but every time she thought of the men who’d taken her…it was there, as vivid as day. It wasn’t fiery, though, like she’d always imagined it would be. It was a bone-deep cold, like the death of summer in midwinter’s grip.

It took her a moment to focus through all the frost. “Alaverdi,” she answered Brakis, poking at what looked like the right town. She couldn’t read the writing to be certain. She could feel her body trembling under the force of the hate, but that could easily be mistaken for fear and exhaustion. She kept her head low, her eyes away from his so he wouldn’t realize it.

Alaverdi was a ways away, but they could make it on foot. If they had to, they could probably take a vehicle. Dzia was far beyond the point about caring whether or not they stole to survive at this point. People were either gone or keeping their heads down—either way, they weren’t her problem. Not that she was stopping long enough to really ask for help from anyone either. She wasn’t far enough away yet.

---

The Refugees
Ayrum, Nalaya

“Well, that was brief,” Nanar said once the Esperancers had gone. She sighed and shrugged her shoulders when she looked at Ildan. “I thought they were actually going to try to persuade us.”

Ildan chuckled at the joke despite the gravity of the situation. Then he grew a little more serious. “We will leave the wounded and the young,” he said to Nanar. “They are not wrong when they say we have those who are not capable of fighting.”

“Better not leave the old. Shirak would throw a fit,” Nanar said. She sighed and rocked back on her heels, tucking her hands in her pockets. Her rifle was still slung over her shoulder. “Part of me wants to think they’re right, that we can just peacefully ride this out.”

“You know it is not the case,” Ildan said somberly. “The plague will be satisfied with nothing less than our extermination.”

“I know,” she said quietly. “But wouldn’t it be lovely if we could?”

The big yathallar nodded quietly, thinking of his lover. This was a guarantee that he would not see Ryld again in this life. But in the next…he would wait on the sands for his better half, and together they could cross the river. It made him sorrowful, but it was not the end of all things. Love abides..

Away from the main bulk of the refugees, ensconced in his own home, Duagloth shut his bedroom door. His daughter was downstairs finding places for the people they had taken in to sleep. He turned around to look at his wife. “It shouldn’t be you who goes, Elerra,” he said quietly. “Someone has to look after Chal. She’s her mother’s daughter.”

Elerra did not strike most people these days as a warrior. She was willow thin and somber all of the time with an inexpressive face, her eyes so often glazed either from medication or fighting her war with the voices in her head. Malevolent spirits had plagued her since her mid-twenties, upending her whole life the moment they had arrived. It had gotten so bad that Duagloth felt moving her somewhere quieter than Karsoluthiyl would help. It had eased her anxiety, but not cured her of her ailment. Some days were better than others, but she had been worse since the war started. The rest of the town didn’t know, as Elerra generally turned into a shut-in when she was feeling poorly. But even on her good days, she had a reputation for being aloof, because her face never changed and she rarely made eye contact. She knew she was not the favorite person throughout town. She made people uncomfortable, moving and talking just a little bit off somehow. The village did its best to include her, but frequently she drew away and isolated herself so she wouldn’t have to deal with the awkwardness. With the war starting, that sort of unspoken tension only increased.

“We both know I wouldn’t be able to watch her,” Elerra said quietly. “I can hear the river calling to me, Duag. It would be an answer to all of this pain—yours, Chal’s, mine. I know how you both suffer when I am at my worst.” She knew better than anyone that her condition could turn her into a paranoid, shrieking harpy at a moment’s notice. On her bad days, her husband and daughter had to walk very carefully around her.

“Your guilt is not warranted, love,” he said gently, putting his arms around her. Elerra leaned into his shoulder. “Nor should you have to fight anymore. You’ve already fought so long and so hard.”

“It would bring me peace that I will never find in this world,” Elerra said. No matter what he said, she would always feel the crushing guilt, the responsibility for what she was. Besides, some selfish part of her wanted the peace that would be living without the voices. Chalithra was an adult now, even if a young one. “If you loved me, you would let me go.”

“Cruel words,” Duagloth murmured.

“True ones,” she said. “I would rather fight to my last breath to keep you safe than live a moment knowing Zhirayr Karagozian might have the opportunity to hurt you or our daughter. I need this, Duagloth. I need to be a warrior again, not a burden. I can’t live knowing that when everything was at its worst, I hid in a hole.”

He sighed. Convincing her of anything was always a difficult proposition, and doing so now would be a Herculean feat of will, if even possible. “Chalithra will be devastated.” Elerra had dug in her heels like the roots of a mountain. He knew he might have to let her go.

“She’ll understand when she’s older,” Elerra said quietly.

“We’ll talk about this in the morning, with Chal,” Duagloth said. He was holding out hope that his daughter would have more luck—Elerra had been wrapped around her only child’s finger since the moment she was born. If Chalithra made the plea, it was entirely possible that her mother would listen. “Promise me you won’t run off in the night, Elerra.”

She met his eyes for a brief moment, then looked away. He caught a glimpse of exhaustion and that same, sorrowful pain that dogged her every moment of every day. “I promise I won’t,” she said quietly. He knew that a lack of eye contact didn’t generally mean insincerity when it came to her.

Duagloth stroked her hair. Some part of him wanted to scream that she was being selfish, that he should go in her place, that she didn’t know what she was agreeing to, but he knew that her motivations were the exact opposite of selfish intent and that she knew exactly what she was getting into—probably better than him, considering how steeped in tradition her life had always been. She had always felt that she was draining her daughter and her husband of love and energy and light, at least on the days when she was cogent of anything beyond her invisible tormentors. She had always been the pillar of faith in the house. He didn’t want to lose her, but he knew what it meant to her. “Let’s go to bed, then.”

They would deal with everything once the sun was rising, a time fast approaching.

---

Shareshian’s House
Tatev, Nalaya

Shareshian raised an eyebrow at Drada and the Shalumite investigators, leaning back in his chair and running a hand over his remaining white hair. His opinions about the Unkndirnei had always been mixed. Most were creatures who had never been able to turn off the wicked parts of themselves that they had used to survive the dark days, using and abusing people to get whatever they thought they had to, always in the name of duty. He hated many of them, but some part of him couldn’t blame them. Largely, they were what the world made them. A few were good souls, but they were rare and time seemed to have its way of poisoning them.

“Everyone’s business is the Unkndirnei’s business,” he said bluntly. “That said, I am a firm, firm believer in confidentiality. The world is full of death; this one is nothing special. A dog barks, the caravan moves on.”

There were certain people in this world who did bad things for good reason. Far be it from him to judge, considering the number of questionable things he’d had to do himself to survive over the years. Besides, he had people working in his office he wanted to protect. Certain things would be dug up by this line of questioning that were better left buried, for the sake of everything from professional reputations to marriages to identities. Shareshian was a firm believer in protecting the people that he could protect, at least the ones who deserved that protection. Yes, a man had died. Yes, it was vaguely unfortunate in his opinion. But a rat like Tsavagian? Shareshian could live without him.

“Now I suggest you come back with the actual authorities, Siruhi, or find someone else to pick at,” he said in his perpetual growl, lip curling. It was displeasure more than contempt—he did appreciate the forthrightness that Drada was using. He didn’t like dancing around politeness these days. He had people to do that for him at this point. “I have no intention of satisfying the invasive curiosity of our ‘guests’. Some of us have to be at work tomorrow. You can show yourselves out, or I can call the RV to come and collect you. Whichever you prefer.”

As far as he was concerned, this conversation was over.

---

The Old Chapel
Tatev, Nalaya

Ada shook her head slightly. “You’ll have your plate full with Ayrum and this safe zone. I think I can hold down the home fort. I’ve got some old colleagues in Armavir, doctors I went to school with that I haven’t talked to in a while. I’ll ask them to do what they can. I know it’s not much,” she said, rubbing at her eyes with one hand. She was going to sleep like the dead tonight. “If we can do this in the right order, it might even work.”

Her phone chirped and Ada groaned in response. She tapped her password in and pulled up the news article that had just been sent to her email. It was from Hravad Ardzuni, which was somewhat worrisome. He would only send her something if he thought it was really important, and in days like this, that ruled out sunshine and rainbows. “Sorry,” she apologized automatically. “I promise it’s important. Hravad just…”

As she read, the color drained out of Ada’s face like she’d been slapped and her grip on her phone became iron. Her grey eyes flickered closed for a moment and she pulled in a deep breath. She clicked the button on the side that would kill the screen and tucked the phone back in her pocket. She looked up at the Esperancers. She could feel the burn starting, curling up from her stomach, that horrible all-consuming anger that raged like a dragon’s fire, racing up her throat as if it was going to spew forth the moment she parted her lips. She could feel it violently charring her from the inside out, running through her veins like molten metal. It was far, far beyond anger. For a second, she was having trouble seeing straight.

“I’ll see who I can get as far as volunteers go. I should be able to recruit quite a few civilians. People in Tatev and Annu want to help,” Ada said. The inside of her mouth tasted like ashes and her tone came out tightly controlled. She could, and would, keep it together. “Flights to Sevan will be over our territory. Going from Massis from here puts us right in Karagozian’s neighborhood, so I’ll hold off on that. What I can do is see if Malcolmson and the 13th have a secure enough area for your people to move supplies up through Sissak. It’d be dangerous going once you get past Shalumite lines, though. I’d prefer if you moved down from the north. I’ll make sure the flights get started as soon as possible. We needed something to do anyway. Time for me to go become a royal pain in the Protector’s ass. If you need anything from me, my office door is always open, and I’ll try to keep in touch.” She rose, gave them a mechanical salute, and walked out of the room, carefully and gently closing the door behind her.

She kept it together until she was a few streets away, cutting through a dark alley. “Son of a bitch!” she screamed, before covering her face with both hands and taking a deep, shuddering breath. She was going to kill someone. She just wasn’t certain whether she wanted it to be Karagozian or Malcolmson. Maybe it was just a question of who went first. Was this how the bastard that had spawned her felt all the time? No wonder he was a fucking monster. Ada could feel a tremble start to course through her whole body. She was going to need to go for a hell of a run to burn this off before she actually did do someone physical harm. Alternatively, she could turn someone else into a kicked puppy—Johanna was still actively avoiding her, as far as she knew.

No matter how tempting it was, she was not going to take the low road and turn into her father. She wasn’t going to go rant and rave at Rikker or Malcolmson or anyone who crossed her path and made the mistake of making eye contact. She had work to do. She needed to find out exactly what would be entailed in finding and using Shrike, which meant getting her hands on Kethiilys Zornakyan and getting the woman to cooperate at that.

She took in another deep breath and then pulled out her phone, dialing the Unkndirnei agent’s number. “Siruhi Zornakyan, this is Hramatar Ada Narekatsi. I need to talk to you about a little bird,” she said quietly.

“Anything you need, Dragon,” the woman said, startling the hell out of Ada. Last time they’d talked, the Unkndirnei agent had been professional, but distant. Then again, she had been briefing Ada on a security breach. Still, the officer hadn’t been expecting such an accommodating answer. It was also jarring to hear that appellation instead of her name.

Ada took a deep breath. The Tigress was not going to like this use of her resources. She looked around to make certain she was alone in the alleyway. “I need you to pass a message through our friend to her boss, provided the Tigress and Karagozian can be convinced, cajoled, or coerced into talking with each other,” Ada said. Her mouth felt oddly dry. “We want to negotiate for a refugee safe zone in the north.”

“She’s in seclusion,” Kethiilys said after a moment of processing this information. “This could cost us our little bird, Dragon.”

“I know,” Ada said with a sigh. She ran her fingers through her cinnamon colored hair. “Have you seen the news, Siruhi? We can’t let more people die.”

There was another pause from the other end of the line and then, “The Protector will not be pleased.”

“I’ll take the fall for it,” Ada said firmly. She had no problem jumping on that grenade if she got what she wanted out of it: the EI’s refugee corridor.

Kethiilys laughed darkly. “Easy for you to say, Dragon. You’re not in Sevan with her.”

“So point her my way. I’ll fight her all day, every day, until she agrees or she kills me. This is important, Siruhi. More important than me, more important than all of us. I need you to do this for me. Please. If Shrike doesn’t want to do this, I can’t make them. I need to try. I need you to try. A lot is riding on this,” the medical officer said. She found herself balling her hand into a fist and then opening it over and over again, pressing hard enough to make her nails cut into her palm. She had to hope that Keth would listen to her, that the Unkndirnei agent had a soul in her somewhere.

There was a sigh on the other end of the line. “I can guarantee nothing, but I will pass your message on to Shrike when the conditions you have established are met—the Tigress and Karagozian consent to negotiate. I defer to Shrike’s judgment when it comes to the whether or not it is realistic to actually deal with the Quarval-sharess.”

A thought clicked in Ada’s head. “Siruhi Zornakyan, in you professional opinion, would the Protector be more likely to agree if she thought Lledrith were to shoot the whole thing down? It would allow her to keep moral high ground without having to give up her war.”

There was a chuckle from the other end of the line. “Are you suggesting that I misrepresent the situation to the Protector? Because were she to do what you’re suggesting and the Quarval-sharess did agree instead of doing what I implied she would, she would be all but forced to maintain her word by consistency alone.”

Ada shrugged automatically before remembering that the woman couldn’t see her. “If you’re going to drop a match, it might as well be into a powder-keg.”

Kethiilys actually let out a full laugh. “You do have a death wish, don’t you?”

“Have to die of something,” Ada said. “Besides, she can’t actually kill us until the war is over. You’re the only one who knows who Shrike is and Rikker’s going to need me when shit hits the fan with the ku’nal. You’ve read the article. You know better than anyone what that’s going to do to them.”

“I will consider it,” Keth said more seriously, reminded of the gravity of the situation by that simple reminder about the war. “Again, I guarantee nothing.”

“Thank you, Siruhi.”

“Remember the favor I am doing you after the war, Dragon,” the Unkndirnei agent said. “I may call to collect this favor someday, provided we survive.”

Ada knew that meant Kethiilys was agreeing to do this for her. She was more grateful than she would ever be able to express in words, even if it did mean she would be paying the piper down the road. Kethiilys was someone she was a lot more alright with owing than say, the Protector. “Believe me, I’ll remember,” Ada said. “Have a good night.”

“You as well.”

They both hung up and Ada pulled in another deep breath. She’d just set wheels in motion that she didn’t think she would ever be able to stop. If it killed her…well, hopefully James could forgive her for that much. At least she’d done it for a good reason. It didn’t make the ball of anger in her gut go away, but at least it made her feel like she was doing something. She looked down at her phone’s dark screen, contemplating whether or not she should finish reading the EI article.

Fuck it, she thought, stuffing the phone back into her pocket. She could deal with that when her head was clearer. I’m going for a run.

---

Esperance International Headquarters
Armavir, Nalaya

“Dalael Yasrena Hyluan dal Istolil,” Yasrena said quietly when Nyah asked her for her name, still twisting her ring on her finger. She hadn’t meant she wanted to hear about the situation—she wanted to hear about the weather, the gossip, whether or not her team was still playing in Yeraskh. She wanted something, anything normal. She sighed, something wistful and hurt in the tone all at the same time. “I want to feel the wind and the rain. My father said I learned to sing from them, back when I was little and we lived in the Har’oloth by the sea.”

She flashed the Mubatan woman a quick smile even though she barely felt it. “Thank you for what you’re doing, Nyah,” she said softly. “I know it’s not safe for you. But…thank you.” She looked away as quickly as she’d smiled, fidgeting a little bit more. She was certainly a restless creature. She wanted to be at home, locking herself in the bathroom to get a break from Dro, turning the shower onto hot, and standing in the water singing until her friends showed up to drag her out, pounding on the door and laughing. “The movie was good. It made Dro laugh. I think I should probably go check on him and then go to bed. Have a good night and please, take care.”

She rose to her feet and padded down into the darkness, the words to a song forming on her lips but never passing them. She wasn’t certain, but she actually felt like she might sleep now. Talking to someone had made her feel a little less angry, a little less frustrated.

Upstairs, Kishargal felt the blanket tucked around her body. Being covered made her feel safer, even if her hood was gone. She gripped the canteen more tightly. Eventually, after a good hour or so, she sipped from the canteen. The cold was a welcome change, running down her abused throat. She drank a little too much a little too quickly and almost vomited onto the floor, but after a few minutes, she felt better. She pulled the blanket up over her head and curled into a tight ball on the couch. It quickly became too hot and stifling, but it still offered some small comfort. One of her wounds opened up again when she curled up and her abdomen—stiff from bruising—ached viciously. She didn’t make a sound or try to stop the bleeding. She just wanted to be still and quiet again.

At some point, sleep rose from the depths of her mind and claimed her despite all the pain. She let it carry her far away from her body into oblivion, at least for one precious night.

[Nalaya]

Quellarin Syr’thaeryl
Maerimydra, Nalaya

It only took Sabal a few minutes to get ahold of Ryld and relay her plans, though she could hear Faisal moving around when she came back into the guest quarters. She threw a nod in his direction, still smiling a little bit, before easing open the door of the bedroom that she and Joan had claimed last night. She slipped in and closed the door behind herself before she really registered that Joan was awake. Despite her usual unflappable nature, she felt a twinge of anxiety along with the rush of warmth. She wasn’t certain she wanted to talk about everything just yet. Still, the smile came back full force. “Hey,” she said softly, sitting down on the bed. “Sorry, I tried not to wake you.”

She wished she hadn’t gotten dressed--it would have been nice to be able to go back to being naked in bed with the justicar--but that might have made tracking down a phone slightly awkward, at least with Faisal. Sabal’s expression still had that rare softness to it that was just for Joan. She reached out to touch the justicar’s hand with her own. It was almost tentative, since she didn’t really know what Joan was going to say or do next. Hell, Sabal barely knew what she herself was going to say or do next. “You’re beautiful this morning,” she said honestly, the smile lingering. Even if it was just this once, she’d been allowed very close to something very special. She fully intended to hold onto last night’s memories tightly. “Like every morning.”

The smile that stretched across the justicar’s lips was nothing short of angelic, her eyes shining as she looked up at Sabal. If Joan had a mirror on hand, she knew she would have likely called herself a hot mess. Her auburn hair was mussed from a long night of strenuous activities, as well as sleep, not to mention there was not a scrap of clothing on her. When the yathallar woman touched her, she inhaled sharply, eyes closing for a moment as her chest rose and fell.

“Good morning, lover,” she replied with a soft tone and warm smile. Manipulating her thumb, she gently stroked the the yathallar’s skin, before shifting slightly so that she was closer to Sabal. “You look just as good as I do, if you want my opinion,” she chuckled softly. The urge to lean forward and wrap her arms around Sabal was there, but that would have required an excessive amount of leaning, or simply tackling the yath to the bed. While it might have been a good idea the night before, now seemed far too tender for it. “Don’t worry, you didn’t wake me, I was already up. Where did you go?” she asked curiously, putting on a little pout, knowing it would likely get her more information from the normally coarser Mak’ur woman.

Sabal shifted on the bed so she was close enough to pull Joan into her arms. “I had to talk to Ryld,” she murmured, much happier now that she had her lover close. “You’re still cute when you pout.” She touched her forehead to Joan’s, letting her fingers smooth over the justicar’s red hair. She didn’t want to talk about leaving just yet. Savoring the moment was altogether more appealing.

“I hope that it went well,” the Shalumite woman murmured in honest reply. Her hand slid along the yathallar’s arm, looping it around the woman’s back. “I know. And I love seeing the way it affects you,” she admitted with a giggle as she let her forehead touched that of her lover. Joan swallowed quietly as she felt fingers smooth her hair, and she couldn’t help but pull Sabal a little closer, wanting nothing more to cuddle with her and stay in bed for the rest of the day. Of course, she knew that was not possible, but a girl could dream couldn’t she?

Closing the distance, she carefully pressed her lips to her lover’s, the kiss slowly and gentle, but not lacking in passion. That alone caused a pleasant feeling to spread through her. When she broke away, she smiled and let her forehead remain against Sabal’s. “How are you doing?” she asked. There was no doubt about the fact that they needed to talk, but how to go about that was another story altogether.

“I am wonderful,” Sabal said. She’d felt the thrill in her own body in answer to that kiss. She would never get tired of how gentle Joan could be. “Even better if you keep kissing me like that.” She knew she should probably start the conversation about everything that had happened. It was just hard to think about anything besides Joan’s naked body against her own at the moment. Desire was already starting to make itself felt again. Still, it was time to say something. She didn’t want to leave Joan any room to doubt. “Last night was...there are no words.” With the way she was smiling at even just the thought, hopefully Joan would understand she meant it in a good way. She touched the justicar’s face with one hand, brushing her thumb ever so lightly across Joan’s cheekbone. “How are you?” That was the question that almost made her hesitate. Then again, the way the justicar was touching her indicated she was probably in safer territory than she was afraid of.

“I know what you mean,” Joan replied softly, moving her arm and hand again so that she could gently stroke Sabal’s cheek while she looked into the woman’s eyes. This was the kind of moment that she would have given nearly anything for just to preserve in her mind for as long as she lived. Like last night, it was nothing short of perfect, and she would have been happy to revel in it. “Your kisses, they ah, set me on fire. But they calm me too, cool and gentle like streams I would like to lay down next to and rest,” she admitted. “I feel...wonderful. Alive. Fulfilled,” she replied after a moment of thought. There was no real hesitation, but she obviously was having trouble finding words that she thought were fitting. “It was like nothing I have ever experienced. More than I could ever hope to imagine. Still a little sore from it,” she couldn’t help but laugh. Joan then began to nibble on her bottom lip, but finally continued. “I really liked that. Would you, um, ever want to do that again? Be with me,” she asked. There was a lot more that she wanted to say, but it was the first thing that came out of her mouth.

Sabal smiled, relaxing at those words. It was more than she’d expected to hear and she had never been so glad to have underestimated the chances of something. “Nothing would make me happier, d’anthe,” she said, that request making her feel like she was standing on clouds. “You may have to be...patient, with me. People have never asked that I stay and that means sometimes I will not know what to say or do. But now? I want to stay. I want to be with you.” She kissed Joan’s lips, letting it linger for a long moment before pulling back. “Whatever happens, whatever the future brings, you will have me.” Sabal was nothing if not loyal. She genuinely meant it. She wasn’t certain what would happen on the road and definitely not certain of what would happen in Dyvynasshar, but she knew she would do everything in her power to be there for Joan. This was a lot more than she’d ever expected to have and she had every intention of protecting it. It was more of a declaration of feelings in its own way than she’d intended to make. But then again, as Ryld would have immediately pointed out, she didn’t really do things by halves.

“I’ll wait until the time ends and the stars burn out if I must,” Joan said in an affectionate tone; smile growing wider as she looked at Sabal. The Shalumite woman’s mind was a flurry of thoughts, many of them good, and a few pragmatic. Words could not describe how eager she was to give this a shot, how lucky she was to have the Mak’ur woman in her life; but she was also nervous. She had no idea what her people would think of them, but at the very least, she knew Faisal and Michael would not disapprove-- teasing was another matter, however.

Taking some initiative, Joan reached forward with her free arm, and wrapped it around Sabal. It clear that this conversation was going to be a positive one, she would be a little more daring. Gently, she tugged on Sabal, and pulled her down onto the bed; atop Joan to be more exact, with only the sheets between them below the waist. “You’re going to have to be patient with me too,” the Shalumite reminded her lover, gently pressing a kiss to the woman’s cheek. The night before was a perfect example of that. Wonderful, but also a learning experience. “Me--I’m--I haven’t really been in a relationship before, at least with a woman. You’re going to have to be gentle with me,” she chuckled lightly. Slowly, she began to rub circles of reassurance into the small of the yathallar’s back. “I want you. All of you, for as long as you’ll take me,” Joan added with a wide smile. Silently, she worried about the road ahead, but it was easy to forget such matters with her lover atop her and in her arms.

A wiser and more careful woman than Sabal might have been more inclined to put a brake on things no matter the feelings involved, if only to prevent future heartache at Dyvynasshar. Instead, Sabal easily banished those troubling thoughts for the moment as she focused on Joan. After all, they probably weren’t going to get much in the way of alone time on the trail. Yes, she’d promised to meet Ryld in an hour, but that only meant she had thirty minutes to do with as she pleased before they would need to bathe and meet him. Time with Joan would be well spent. “I will most certainly take you,” Sabal said with a grin. It was hard to be too serious with how happy she felt, but she did mean it. In more than one way, granted. When she kissed Joan again, this time it was a little less gentle and definitely deeper. She might have been dressed, but Joan wasn’t, which provided her with a golden opportunity.

She kept the majority of her weight propped up on her arms rather than on Joan’s body, just to make certain the justicar was comfortable, and let her kisses start to wander down Joan’s neck to her shoulder. The way she shifted made it clear she was going to move lower, but for all her shortage of time, she wasn’t in much of a rush. Ryld wouldn’t kill her if she was five...no, ten...no, fifteen minutes late. She’d be careful, though, since Joan had mentioned she was sore. If Michael or Faisal knew what was good for them, they wouldn’t even think about opening that door and interrupting.

It was a while before Sabal was ready to emerge and head for the baths, looking thoroughly pleased with herself and her new lover.

It was clear that, from the sounds of pleasure, and words murmured in a mixture of languages both native to her homeland and Nalaya, that Joan was rather pleased with the time she spent with her lover. Very little guilt weighed upon her about the fact that she had, once again, ended up messing up the Mak’ur woman’s hair in the process. In fact, she was rather proud that she had not ripped any of the woman’s clothing, everything just needed a simple smoothing before the pair of them emerged from the room. As she got dressed, she gently caught Sabal, pulling the yathallar close to her. “That was wonderful, thank you,” she murmured before pressing a quick kiss to her lips. Pulling on her undershirt, and then the longer and thicker combat uniform of the Justicar Order, she smiled at Sabal. “Ready to face the music?” She asked with a chuckle as she moved to open the door, motioning for Sabal to go first.

Outside in the common room, the other justicars were already waiting for them, along with Pella of course. They had gotten dressed as well, pulling on their freshly cleaned and repaired uniforms. All they were lacking now was their weapons. Faisal smirked at the pair, crossing his arms over his chest. Michael couldn’t help but teasingly whistle. “Finally. I thought we were going to have to send a search party out for you two,” he grinned. “Enjoy yourselves?”

The expression ‘like a cat with a canary’ crossed Pella’s mind as she saw the expression on Sabal’s face, somewhere between supremely satisfied, inordinately pleased, and ever so slightly smug. If she hadn’t been nursing a headache she’d thought would kill her, Pella might have laughed.

Sabal looped an arm around Joan’s waist and pulled her in close, unintentionally ruining any plans of immediate escape if the justicar was entertaining any. “Certainly,” she said, grinning right back at Michael. If he and Faisal were expecting blushing and stammering, they were going to have to look to Joan for it.

True to her nature, Joan was rather flush as she looked upon her friends, eyes comically wide as she glanced back and forth between the three of them. She could see acceptance in their eyes, amusement even, but that didn’t mean she was going to simply play it off like Sabal was able to. Honestly, she had been planning to hide behind the yathallar, but hopes of that had been dashed the moment an arm had wrapped around her waist. She stammed a few dark, harmless curses at the three of them, before snuggling up against Sabal, as if it would keep her safe from their teasings and amused expressions.

“It's about damn time,” Faisal couldn’t help but chuckle. Looking back and forth between the pair of women, he really was happy for them, but he didn’t plan to let them off the hook. They were like sisters to him, so there had to be some unspoken rule about that sort of thing. “And here I was thinking I would have to lock you two in a closet…”

“Pretty sure we knew before y’all did,” Michael smirked. While it may have seemed innocent, how much the two of them worked together, he had always figured there was a little more going on between them. This had just reinforced that, assuming there had been a relationship with them already. He really didn’t know. There had been any number of times when they had been alone, however, which was more than enough time for something to have happened.

“A closet?” Sabal said, raising an eyebrow at them. The more proud version of Sabal was back, though still a good deal softer than usual. She definitely couldn’t help looking amused. Joan curling into her side was adorable. It made her want to pull the female justicar back into the room and actually lock the door this time. “Please, I have some class. Besides, in a closet, we might have kept you awake.” She adored the fact that Joan was vocal, but she also appreciated that there was a good degree of sound dampening in their rooms. Otherwise, Faisal and Michael probably would not have been amused after the first fifteen minutes.

Faisal just smirked back at her, strong arms crossed over his broad chest and the red cross emblazoned there. He could have brought up the fact that, from the common room, he had heard them somewhat clearly the night before while sleeping on the couch; but he figured that would be a bit much. They deserved the fun, and there was no reason to rain on parades. Not to mention, after a while, it had become like any other white background noise to him as the need for sleep overtook him. “You really thought we were going to be able to sleep anyways after the show you put on last night?” He teased. “And I would have totally done it. Methinks you would have been too pleased to be vengeful, at least immediately,” he chuckled.

To the side, Michael's smirk softened into a warmer smile. “Seriously though?” There was a pause. “We’re happy for you two.”

“Agreed,” Faisal nodded, and chuckled again.

Sabal felt herself soften ever so slightly at that expression of happiness on their behalf. She’d never admit to it or show it, but she did feel it all the same. “Thank you,” she said, reflexively keeping herself from completely beaming. No matter how well she knew and liked the justicars, there was still that old part of her that wasn’t quite comfortable with being completely soft in front of the whole group. At least until Joan broke her out of it, her lover would probably be the only one who saw the full range of Sabal’s emotions.

She sighed a little bit when she realized that the sun had crept upwards in the sky while she was distracted. It was too early still before Ryld would start to wonder where she was, but it was still time to actually get moving. “I am going to go take a bath,” she said almost reluctantly. The one thing that made it appealing was the hope that Joan would join her. She’d keep her hands to herself, particularly if the others decided to come, but that wouldn’t stop her from admiring. “Ryld has everything ready to go, including your weapons. He mentioned that he had been unable to acquire ammunition for them, as Shalum’s forces in country retain their distance from Maerimydra. We should leave before the Ilharn has time to resume his interrogation. We have some time, but not a great deal of it.”

Faisal dropped his arms, letting them fall to his side again. “That was kind of him,” he replied with an appreciative smile. The news was good. It meant less interference from the local government, who he doubted was keen on them, if the days before had been any indication. They had every right to be wary of foreigners, but it did not make their lives any easier. “I was afraid of that, honestly, so it doesn’t come of much surprise. That kind of stuff is not always the easiest to come by around these parts,” he admitted. Faisal had thought that, at the very least, Joan would be able to get more rounds for her battle rifle. It used a very common type, from what he remembered. But apparently not. Glancing between the yathallar, and the still blushing justicar, he smiled. “So, do you mind if we come along, or would you prefer some privacy?”

“A bath would be nice before we head out, might be the last one we get for some time.” Michael added. He had caught himself before saying it could be the last, as in final, given the road that laid ahead of them. The warrior did not want to think that way. Looking over at Pella, he placed a hand on her shoulder. “Do you know if you’ve made up your mind on coming with us?” He asked more quietly and seriously.

“I think we can share the baths,” Sabal said with amusement. She did have some self control. “Besides, Pella looks like death warmed over still. She could use one.”

Pella groaned dramatically in answer before wincing at the volume of the noise she’d just made. “I could,” she agreed quietly. Michael’s question caught her attention, however. It was a big decision, one that she probably hadn’t given as much thought as she should have, but it was an answer that came easily. “I’m coming with you. You might need a translator, and besides, it’s a test of faith. If ever there were a time that called for one of those, it’d be this one.”

Faisal couldn’t help but laugh, though his expression did turn a little more serious a few moments later. He, like everyone else, had heard the declaration she had just made. She was going to accompany them on the long road to the seat of ku’nal faith. It would not be an easy road by any stretch of the imagination, if anything Sabal had told them was even remotely true. “If you are certain, than I welcome your company, Pella.” He smiled at her. There was pride showing in his eyes that he made no point in hiding. For such a young woman, she was so tough.

“I’ll be with you every step of the way. You’ll be safe,” Michael promised her seriously as he looked down at her, patting her shoulder a few times. The conversation of the night before was not forgotten on his part, but he didn’t let it linger in his mind. Looking back over at Sabal, he smiled. “Lead the way, not-very-quiet yathallar. I think it is time we bathe before they can launch another inquisition regarding our character.”

“At least I don’t tromp through the world in boots, audible to the whole world and its mother,” Sabal said as if miffed at the insinuation that she was loud. Then she laughed and lead the way to the baths again just in case the justicars had forgotten the way. She was going to miss the hot water out on the road. There were places to clean up at the various shrines, or at least some of them, but it was universally cold. As tempting as it was, however, she didn’t linger too long in the baths. There was something that she had to do before she let the justicars out the door, however. Sabal rifled through her clothes and found something that looked like a dark pencil. It was a skin-stain that could be used to leave sacred markings, usually on initiates who had passed their final rites but hadn’t yet been able to receive their full tattoos or on new converts to the faith before they’d chosen their design.

“Hold still,” Sabal told Joan, catching her lover’s chin. “This may be a way to make you stand out a little bit less. Pella, will you help Michael? I will get Faisal as well. These will last through water, sweat, and dirt, though we will have to reapply them every few days.”

The girl nodded and set to work applying a swirling design to Michael’s cheek just beneath his eye with another pencil. Sabal had created a small line of dark blue script from the Linath across the tops of Joan’s cheekbones and the bridge of her nose, the same color as Michael’s. Faisal was the last to get a faux tattoo. Sabal added a few words to the center of his forehead around a traditional, almost eye-like design. She went carefully even though they didn’t have a great deal of time to spare.

Needless to say, the justicars had not been expecting to be tattooed. Eyebrows rose in surprise, or furrowed, but none of them made any protest. The most that happened was Joan squirming for a moment under the touch of her lover, like an unsettled child would, before she finally consented to the strange feeling of the stain moving across her fairer skin. It was so foreign to her, to wear these kinds of markings, but at least it was Sabal who was the administering it. She couldn’t help but close her eyes, lips turned downward in a soft pout as she waited for it to end. Meanwhile, Faisal and Michael had both just snorted. Technically, it was against their religion to have any sort of tattoo, but if this was not permanent, then they did not see issue with it. “Whatever you do, make sure I look pretty,” Michael had even said in a joking tone as he leaned down so that Pella would have an easier time with it.

By the time they made it out the door, Ryld was no doubt wondering where exactly they were. At first, the effects of the markings weren’t immediately apparent, but once they were outside and a few streets away, it almost seemed like a different city. The hostility, the tension, wasn’t there. There was curiosity, but the marks of initiates in the faith smoothed over the natural abrasiveness of the Mak’ur reaction to outsiders.

Walking through the city, they kept closely together, Joan all but glued to her lover’s side, and Michael never more than a few steps away from Pella. Nalayans may have been like elephants, but Shalumites did not forget either. They had seen the way people looked at them the day before, hate in their eyes, or at the very least distrust. It was almost unsettling in its own way, they had all but gotten used to the reactions in other places across the country. “Do these markings really change the way they look at us all that much?” Joan asked her lover softly, hands at her side, though she would have rather been holding Sabal’s hand.

“They are still cautious,” Sabal said. She wasn’t entirely comfortable about the situation herself, as it bordered on deception, but she wanted to keep the justicars alive and well, at least until Dyvynasshar. “But yes. Those marks make it look as though you are zhaunil rather than an og’elend. I did not use any jhunai, any marks of vow, so it is not inappropriate for you to wear them, but it does mean that close scrutiny will prompt questions. My intention was not for this to be a disguise, however, well though it may serve that purpose. Those marks grant protection as much as they ask for divine enlightenment. The Aluin has many spirits on it, but the demons on the path are those that we bring with us. Every heart has its shadows, and in a warrior? They are deep and they are powerful and they will make themselves known. That is why we request aid of the good ones. The only reason you have those markings, that I am taking you to undergo the pilgrimage, is because I think you have already earned z’ress. The Aluin will simply be a way to prove it to the world, and that will draw the Quarval-sharess’s attention to your words.”

She had to hope that the justicars wouldn’t be offended. She was just trying to protect them, both from armed confrontation within the city and the malevolent spirits that would walk on their heels out on the pilgrimage. It was the best and only thing she could do to offer them any kind of armor right now.

“It’s faith that divides us into what we are and what we are not,” Pella said by way of quiet explanation. “All of us are ku’nal first, Mak’ur second, Nalayan third. It is not necessarily right, but it is the way that it is. We look at zhaunil like you would look at someone who has never seen the light before as they first experience a candle’s flame. You don’t want to punish them for not being ready for daylight; you want to share with them the wonder that they’re seeing right before their eyes. Sorry, it’s not a great metaphor, but I stand by it. That’s why they aren’t looking at you the same way: to them, you’re...I guess...seeing us as we are for the first time.”

“The Aluin will be the crucible,” Sabal said. “Many die along it, and not merely from privation. There is a shrine every three days along its length, twelve in total, and they are the only respite from the dangers along the road. If spirits are angry with us, even they will not be enough.”

Pella shivered slightly at that thought. She had heard stories of malevolent, vengeful spirits, but she had never experienced one and would very much prefer for it to remain that way. Supposedly, those along the Aluin were the oldest and most primal outside of the Quarval-sharess herself, the spirits most powerful and most inclined to be implacable in their rage.

While one may not have expected it, the justicars were quite attentive when it came to learning about religions that were not their own. Several of their sutras dictated it, in fact. They were to, at the very least, respect the systems of beliefs and ideologies that others practiced; even if they did not personally approve of them. Protecting other people from persecution simply because they did not practice another religion or another was also part of their code, as had been exemplified when they had rescued Pella and her fellow ku’nal from the thugs and rioters. “That is very interesting,” Joan murmured as she reached up to touch her face; tracing the lines that Sabal had drawn.

“We can always use the goodwill of others on our side, people or spirits alike.” Faisal said quietly as they walked, eyes scanning the area around them now and then. While the people around them may have been observing the group in a new light, he wasn’t quite ready to say that he was trusting of them. “So the journey is going to take a month then, give or take a couple of days? That is a good amount of time.”

“Hopefully those above approve of us. What we’ve done. I really don’t want to die anytime soon,” Michael said quietly. “What kind of dangers are on the road ahead of us? Animals, rough terrain, other people?” He asked curiously. At the very least, he wanted to know what he was going to have to square up against if the situation arose.

“People will be the least of our problems. I doubt we will see anyone. Ryld let the yatharil know that pilgrims were coming, so there should be supplies at the shrines, but they tend to stay off the path itself when they know someone is coming. Some things are better faced without interference,” Sabal said. She knew the dangers better than most, considering how often she’d made the pilgrimage. It was something she did about every other year, as a way of seeing if the lessons the world taught her were sticking. It was grueling and dangerous, but satisfying. “The terrain itself will be challenging. The weather and elements are even more dangerous. And yes, there are animals that may be a danger. The easiest way to minimize danger? Never leave the path. Many things may lead you astray if you let them, and nothing good comes from that straying.”

She stopped her explanation there, greeting Ryld with a tight hug. His eyebrows rose when he looked at the justicars with their marked faces, but he didn’t say anything to them. <<You’re really going to do this, then,>> he said softly to Sabal instead. <<I was hoping it was the afterglow talking.>>

<<You’re sweet,>> she said with something approaching amusement. <<Yes, I am. I’ve made up my mind.>>

<<You are incredibly fortunate that Sorn is asleep still,>> Ryld commented.

<<At this hour?>> Sabal said, surprised. They’d left much later than she’d intended. It had to be almost nine. <<He never drinks to excess. How is he still abed?>>

Ryld had the good grace to look embarrassed. <<He may have had some help,>> he admitted. Drugging Sorn wasn’t exactly his first choice, but he knew it would be necessary after seeing Sabal with Joan. Sorn was a good man, but he could definitely be a jealous one and Sabal with an og’elend would probably be the droplet to break the dam. It was a problem to be dealt with in future. He turned his attention to the justicars. “I have everything you will need here,” he said, gesturing to their packs that were collected beside him. “The water will make it heavy, but you need to drink a great deal on the road. It is very dry. I am sorry I could not find you much in the way of ammunition. Oh, and Sabal, you should know: the holy war has awoken something on the path. The last few pilgrims to leave Maerimydra did not arrive in Dyvynasshar, and the yatharil went looking. They found...pieces.”

“What spirit?” Sabal asked. She felt a surge of anxiety in her stomach at that news. She did not want to have to deal with something unpleasant. She had a feeling she already knew the answer, however. Only one particular entity haunted the stretch of the Aluin close to Dyvynasshar and was active during times of war, at least that she knew of. She was just hoping she was wrong.

“They said they heard the echoes of Kor’inth,” he said. Sabal did not look reassured by hearing that name. It was exactly what she’d been worried about. “Be careful. I do not like the idea of you not reaching the Holy City.” He looked at the justicars and Pella, his worry undisguised. “You as well, all of you. Sabal will do her best, but the Aluin breaks people. That is not a bad thing, necessarily, as it allows the divine to mold you in its own image, but it is not without risk. Sabal, are you still intending to do the ceremonies?”

“Absolutely,” Sabal said. There was no way she was going to skip them with Pella going. The girl deserved to have an actual pilgrimage, and it might help the justicars understand. She kissed Ryld on the cheek. “Thank you for everything, Ryld. I owe you.”

“If the...justicars...can help end the war, we will call it even,” Ryld said, carefully avoiding the word og’elend even though he wanted nothing more than to use it with all its connotations. It wasn’t that he disliked the justicars. It was just that the last time Christian warriors had entered Dyvynasshar, they’d destroyed the Fane and large swaths of the city. “I’ll pray for you. Now I should go, before the Ilharn starts to make inquiries. Someone will have to stall him. The sooner you set out, the better. Once your feet touch that path, not even he can turn you back.”

News of an apparently angry spirit had visibly unsettled the justicars, Joan turning a little pale at the notion of being ripped to pieces, while Michael and Faisal’s lips pressed into thin lines. While they may not have been big into local mythology, even their religion believed in dark spirits that had no good in their nature. Ryld may have said that it was not a necessarily bad thing, but they were not so inclined to believe. Sure, bad events could be used by the Divine to shape people, but negative entities were another matter altogether. “I can’t say that it sounds like a good thing, however you frame it,” Faisal finally replied; shaking his head.

Reaching down, Michael picked up one of the packs, testing the weight of it. The thing was heavy, certainly, but not as horrible as some of the stuff they had made him carry during long-term field missions during his mandatory stint in the Imperial military. Back then, it had been eighty-pounds worth of gear, not to mention his assault rifle. He was used to that kind of weight. Truth be told, he was more worried about Pella handling it, she was a fair bit smaller and more tender than anyone else in the group was. “I travel with the Lord watching over me, as well as the spirits of good, along with the prayers of many good men and women. So long as I have these knuckleheads with me, I think we’ll survive. Mostly intact,” he did his best to smile.

Faisal smiled softly and picked up his own pack, and then slung his rifle across his chest. He had several magazines left, perhaps two hundred rounds total, the most out of his comrades. Joan had the least because of her outing with Sabal, understandably. “I appreciate everything you have done for us, Paron,” he said as he clapped Ryld on the shoulder. “We couldn’t have done this without you. Hopefully my words will carry weight and bring this damn war to a close sooner. Thank you, friend.” He said, and let his arm drop to his side. There was no turning back now, they had gone too far.

[Esperance International]

Westfield Refugee Camp
Ayrum Village
Nalaya

The airlift began the next morning.

Parouhi Kenosian was with a group of the refugees when she first heard it. They were out by the cooking-pits, raking over the coals with branches, trying to estimate how much additional wood they would need to heat the pits back up enough to make breakfast. It was perhaps six-thirty in the morning: the first grey light of dawn was creeping down the mountainside, over the bare rocks and treetops, and Parouhi’s breath smoked in the air as she held thin hands over the coals and gauged their heat.

Parouhi glumly came to the conclusion that it would take a lot of new firewood to reheat the pits, which meant finding Ari and putting together another work party to head uphill into the forest. That was an issue, since Ari had been on the sat-phone until two o’clock in the morning, and was now asleep at the table in the Esperancers’ upstairs living room. Parouhi didn’t want to wake him. He needed his rest. So did Mayda. Only Parouhi and Eric had risen before dawn, to organize work parties to dig latrines and prepare breakfast, respectively.

Which was why it was Parouhi who heard the dull hum in the distance of an aircraft engine. She saw one of her workers look up from the dull coals, his face clenched with anxiety, and stare at the eastern horizon; the sunrise turned the sky to pale rose and burnished bronze. One by one, the other workers ceased their labors, dropped the branches with which they raked the coals, and glanced around for cover. But they didn’t move, not yet.

Parouhi managed a brave smile. “It’s okay,” she said. “It’s one of ours.” The schoolteacher nodded and glanced toward the horizon, folding her hands under her arms to keep warm. “It’s one of ours.”

Please let it be one of ours.

There! Metal gleamed silver against the glowing sunrise. An airplane banked hard up the mountain, flying low – maybe two or three times treetop-height – to minimize long-range visibility and radar signature. Parouhi recognized that protocol, and she let out a breath, and the tension went out of her shoulders, and she grinned at the refugees. “It’s one of ours,” she said, and there was certainty in her voice this time.

The plane was a fifty-year-old C-130, a reliable old warhorse well-suited for short round-trip flights like the one from Tatev to Ayrum. The pilot brought it in low and slow over the western edge of the refugee camp, over the wildflower meadow near where the dead were being buried. The roar of turboprop engines woke the sleeping refugees, bringing hundreds of people rushing out of their tents with fear writ deep upon their faces. But now the aircraft was close enough for the blue flame-and-laurels on its side to be clearly visible from the ground, and Parouhi gave the crowd of people a grin silly with relief, and she cried: “It’s ours! It’s ours!”

The C-130 made one slow, preparatory sweep over the meadow, and then banked to drop its cargo. The plane’s aft ramp lowered in mid-air, and a shower of pink-wrapped packages rained down on the field: thousands of them, pouring out like confetti, innumerable as raindrops. By the time the plane had made two more sweeps, the packages carpeted the meadow, piled two or three deep on top of each other in some places.

Bleary-eyed, Ari and Mayda emerged from the Kenosian house to watch food pour from the sky. There was something surreal about the sight of the big pink packages plummeting to earth, bouncing off the ground, rolling to a stop amid the wildflowers. Ari rubbed at his eyes, and then turned to Mayda. “They remembered us.”

“Yeah,” Mayda said, and she felt herself smiling in spite of everything - even though she knew that in mere hours, Ildan would lead his followers to certain, pointless death.

“Yeah,” Mayda repeated softly, “they did.” As the C-130 flew westward, back toward Tatev, she thought she saw the pilot wave from his cockpit window.

The pink parcels were humanitarian daily rations, or HDRs: tough reinforced retort pouches of food and supplies that could survive being air-dropped without a parachute. They were mass-produced on New Prospect and under Esperance International contract across the region; with a shelf-life of three years, the rations were easily stockpiled, and they were designed to be acceptable to a wide variety of religious groups. Each contained two canned vegetarian entrees: lentil stew, herbed rice, peas in tomato sauce, or a variety of other similarly dull options. Each HDR also included a pudding suitable for infants, some dried fruit leather, a box of vegetable crackers, packages of peanut butter and strawberry jam, and a foil-wrapped dark chocolate bar. An accessory pack offered matches, salt, pepper, sugar, a moist towelette, a napkin, and plastic cutlery. Chemical packs – flameless ration heaters – lay at the bottom of each pouch.

One ration package was enough to meet an adult human’s nutritional needs for a full day. The plane had dropped more than twenty thousand of them - plus a heavily padded crate of basic medical supplies for Mayda’s clinic, plus another crate containing dozens of proper picks and shovels for the work parties. “And this is only the beginning,” Ari chattered, enthusiasm getting the best of his disgust at Ildan’s decision. “There’s another plane coming toward noon with high-efficiency heating stoves. And there’s a helicopter due in at three o’clock with a whole platoon of Security Force guys.”

“Won’t that be nice,” Madteos drawled, appearing seemingly out of nowhere behind Ari and Mayda. “It’ll buy us another few minutes when the shit hits the fan.”

“Does nothing ever cheer you up?” Ari demanded. “This is a good morning, Madteos. Can you imagine if we’d known twenty-four hours ago that this stuff was coming? We’d have fainted from relief!”

“You would have,” Madteos agreed. “I’m not the fainting kind – yesterday, today, tomorrow. Airlift or no airlift.”

“Yes, yes,” Ari muttered. “Very cool, Madty. Very impressive.” Mayda hid her unexpected smile behind one palm.

Out at the cooking pits, Parouhi dropped her stick into the bed of frozen coals with more than a hint of vindictive satisfaction. “We’re done here,” she told her work crew. “Let’s gather those rations and make sure that everyone gets one.” Parouhi did her best to frown fiercely. “One package per person, all right? Any leftovers can go in the basement of the house over there.” Parouhi pointed to the home that she and Mayda had inherited from their aunt.

In a sat-phone conversation the previous evening, Lerato Jakande had warned Ari to expect more refugees to begin pouring into Ayrum - so Parouhi was keen to start stockpiling supplies. But more generally, the Esperancers all knew hoarding was a perpetual problem in refugee camps across the world, one that the aid workers were eager to nip in the bud.

But Parouhi wasn’t so focused on the liabilities of the future that she could keep a smile off her face; the prospect of abandoning the exhausting inefficiency of the cooking pits in favor of air-dropped rations was too enticing. Parouhi waved a hand at the thousands of pink-wrapped packages that littered the meadow. “And now,” she called, “let’s go get our breakfast!”

[Esperance International]

Office of the Bureau Chief
Headquarters, Nalaya Bureau, Esperance International
Central Sevan

“Good to see you, High Commissioner,” Razmouhi Danayan told her boss. She mentally added: Although a little more warning would be nice next time.

But Razmouhi knew that she was expecting, if not the impossible, at least the improbable. High Commissioner Catherine Gladwell, Esperance senior staff sometimes joked, resembled nothing so much as a terrier from the days when those dogs had been sent underground to hunt mongooses. She was utterly fearless, tremendously hard-working, drawn to dark places, and impossible to dislodge once she got her teeth sunk into something. She was also terrier-like in her impatience, excitability, and alarmingly high level of general energy. Flying across the region on twelve hours’ notice was exactly the sort of stunt that Cat Gladwell could be expected to pull.

“Good to see you too, Raz,” Catherine replied cheerfully. The two women had first met when Gladwell was Commissioner of Inquiry; she had made public identification of Nalayan war criminals a top priority for about six months, before a near-genocidal campaign in Syara redirected the Commission’s available resources. But Catherine never forgot a name, or a face; Razmouhi had learned that a long time ago.

“Coffee?” Razmouhi offered. “Kadaif? It must have been a long flight.”

“Ten hours,” Catherine said, and shrugged. “Worth it, I hope, even if only as an indication of our seriousness.” Razmouhi ushered Catherine and her companion, Peacekeeping Corps Commandant David Zhu, into her office. There, the bureau chief produced a silver coffeepot. Esperance leaders tended not to travel with large retinues of staff: Razmouhi poured the coffee herself, and Catherine and David had no aides to join them on Razmouhi’s office sofa. Neither of the Nalayan’s guests commented on the piles of papers that littered the flagstone floor, though David did nod at the open wall behind Razmouhi’s desk and remark on the beauty of the view.

The High Commissioner drank her coffee fast and wolfed down her kadaif, licking honey syrup off her fingers. Razmouhi knew that Catherine would behave with more decorum in public, and she watched the HC’s antics with concealed amusement. Once she had cleaned her plate, Gladwell looked up. “You’ve scheduled an appointment, Raz?”

Razmouhi nodded. “As soon as the special report was released. I updated the Protector’s office to expect your presence as soon as I knew that you were on your way.”

Catherine nodded. “Good. Great. Thank you.” The High Commissioner paused and cocked her head. “How’s your team here, Raz?”

Razmouhi shrugged. “We’re doing as well as can be expected. We’ve started airlifting supplies to the major refugee concentrations.”

“Where are those?” David broke in. “If you’ll pardon the interruption, Chief.”

“Mostly around Vayots Dzor,” Razmouhi replied. “In Sissak, people have largely returned to their homes.”

David nodded.

“And the Conflict and Refugee Management Taskforces have got project managers on the hop all over the place,” Razmouhi continued. “Organizationally, I’m giving the taskforces as much operational control as I can, to try to keep our response focused and consistent.”

Catherine nodded. “Yeah. Yeah. Diplomatically: anything new? Any word from Armavir, Dyvynasshar?”

“Nothing from Dyvynasshar. Kapriel Maksudian says that Tatev Office has a way to get a message through to the Dread Wolf, but it’s risky, and he wants to play this card close to his chest.”

“You trust him?” David asked, in a tone that suggested that he had read Kapriel’s file.

Razmohi bridled a little. “Yes. Implicitly.”

“Okay,” David replied calmly.

“How about Karagozian?” Catherine pressed.

“We’re working on going around him, working through the Nava’ai elders. Tamar Meghrouni and her team are inside the city, starting on that now.”

“Can we really do an end run around Karagozian?” Catherine asked. “Your honest opinion, Raz.”

“I’m not sure,” Razmouhi replied frankly. “But we’ll most likely know in the next forty-eight hours.”

“Even if Karagozian violates the agreement in practice,” David noted quietly, “if he accepts the Corps’ presence even in theory, we will still have met the requirements of neutrality. Better an agreement ignored than no agreement at all.”

“And that leaves us.” Gladwell grabbed the arms of her chair and pushed herself to her feet. “And we have a meeting with the Protector. Anything I should know?”

“She’s strong,” Razmouhi said simply. “Don’t think for a moment that you can bully her.”

Catherine flashed a swift smile. “I never bully, Raz.”

David snorted with affectionate incredulity.

“Fair enough,” Catherine admitted. “Still – point taken, Raz. No bullying. But no fear, either. Sound about right?”

Razmouhi nodded. “Sounds about right, ma’am.”

“All right, then.” Catherine flipped her hair free of her suit collar. “Let’s get going.”

* * *

It was a small delegation that showed up at the office of the Protector of Nalaya later that morning, small enough that its members all fit into one of Esperance International’s trademark, discreetly up-armored white Land Cruisers. The Esperancers undramatically found a parking spot and presented their credentials to the guards, explaining that they had an appointment with the Protector.

Razmouhi Danayan led the way: a grim and harried-looking Arusai woman in her mid-forties, plainly dressed in an ill-fitting blue pantsuit, her red hair worn military-short. She was a frequent sight around the government offices of Nalaya, and her familiarity facilitated the Esperancers’ passage.

With her was Varteni Rashidian, who had returned from another meeting in time to join the group as its diplomatic counsel. Smaller and darker than Razmouhi, she was also more fashionably dressed: in a charcoal suit with a black silk hijab. She was another familiar face.

Then, of course, there were the two visitors from New Prospect. David Zhu was a short, broadly-built man; he was forty-six, but looked something on the order of twenty years older. His features were Eurasian, an obvious mixture of very different ethnicities. He was unarmed, of course, but he wore a plain Peacekeeping Corps field uniform: Multicam, with the unique rank insignia of the Commandant on the chest tab. David radiated an oddly un-soldierly kind of serenity.

And finally, there was Catherine Gladwell: a tall woman in her early fifties, more brawny than slender, dressed in a conservative grey suit and white blouse, her brown hair pulled back in a simple ponytail. Her face was broad, and handsome rather than beautiful; she carried her own briefcase, a battered leather item that looked like it had been hauled through every warzone in Tyran. But Catherine’s brisk step and alertly curious gaze gave away the restless energy beneath her professional veneer.

At the door of the Protector’s office, Catherine abruptly paused and turned to Razmouhi. “How’s your husband, Raz?”

Wrongfooted, Razmouhi stammered: “Fine, ma’am. He’s – fine.”

“Still working in the hospital here?”

“Head of pediatrics.”

Varteni Rashidian glanced meaningfully at her watch, but Gladwell ploughed on. “And the boys?”

“Fine, ma’am. Garo is finishing up his first year of college in Cacerta.”

“Good. That’s good.” Catherine nodded to herself, as if this bit of small talk had revealed some important truth.

Then the High Commissioner turned to face the Protector’s office door, and said: “Here we go.”

[Esperance International]

Residence of Kachazor Shareshian
Near the Cathedral of Our Lady of Sorrows
Tatev, Nalaya

Shareshian was uncooperative.

He dismissed Tsavagian’s death – “a dog barks, the caravan moves on” – with an ease that seemed to Drada to go well beyond crotchetiness. There’s actual animosity there; he’s not sorry Tsavagian is dead.

Then again, if Shareshian had actually been the murderer, Drada reflected, he would probably have been trying harder to hide his lack of concern with Tsavagian’s demise.

Could go either way.

At any rate, Shareshian wasn’t going to talk: he told his guests to get out before he called the RV. He was, he said, a great believer in confidentiality. That was a telling comment: it meant that Shareshian did know something, but that he was determined to keep it to himself. A man with no secrets would have nothing to keep confidential.

There were, Drada supposed, a few possible explanations for why Shareshian had something to hide. It could be, of course, that Shareshian was the killer, and he was trying to cover his own ass. But the longer Drada spent in the old diplomat’s cluttered parlor, the less likely that theory seemed. Shareshian just didn’t have the temperament for espionage, much less for poison. He was far too bullish, impatient, direct.

On the other hand, Shareshian might be protecting the killer. He certainly didn’t seem to have liked Tsavagian or the Unkndirnei, and the murderer was probably one of Tsavagian’s co-workers: cyanide was fast-acting, so Shareshian had likely been poisoned while he was in the Diplomatic Corps offices. Under such circumstances, Shareshian might put a colleague’s freedom above a death that, to him, mattered no more than a dog barking by the side of the caravan.

Finally, Shareshian might have something else to hide, something unrelated to Tsavagian’s death, but which an investigation would inevitably drag into the light of day. Maybe the old man was having an affair. Maybe he was skimming funds off the top of his budget. Maybe the appearance of investigators at his doorstep in the middle of the night was enough to send him running for cover even if he had nothing at all to do with Tsavagian’s death.

There was no way to know. Drada was out of time.

The investigator sighed, and stood. “I’ll go,” she said quietly. “Though I cannot speak for my colleagues in that.” The Mak’ur’s glittering eyes locked on to Shareshian’s face. “But I will say my say first.”

“You may not have cared about Tsavagian. You may have had good reason to shout at him. I cannot say. I did not know the man. I do not know you.”

“I do know this. Tsavagian will not be the last to die. Whatever he knew – whatever I believe that you now know – was cause enough for someone to kill him. People who kill to keep a secret are not the type to take chances. If I know that you met with Tsavagian, then so does the murderer. Your name is on a list, Paron Shareshian, and so are the names of Samuel Hanesian, and Van Kasilian, and Sahak Indgeyan.”

Drada pulled a simple business card from her pocket and laid it on the arm of Shareshian’s chair. “So when you decide that their lives – and yours – matter more than whatever you have to hide, you know how to reach me. I only hope that you come to that decision before I hear that someone else has dropped dead in the middle of your offices.”

And with that, unless Kachazor Shareshian did something to stop her, Drada a’Nadros turned neatly on her heel and – just as her host had suggested – showed herself out.

[Esperance International]

Esperance International Office
Armavir
Nalaya

Frederico Donati’s alarm woke him from his liquor-fueled stupor at seven o’clock in the morning. Blearily, he flailed until the buzzing stopped, and then hauled himself upright in bed and put his head in his hands, and said: “Bleagh.”

Frederico rolled out of bed and walked to the window. He pulled back the curtain, quailing in the face of the grey morning light, and looked down at the street below.

There was an armored vehicle parked on the pavement, all caterpillar treads and gun barrels. A militis’iayi sat on top of the turret, munching on some flatbread.

“Shit,” Frederico muttered. It hadn’t all been a dream.

For lack of anything better to do, Frederico went into the bathroom, took a shower, brushed his teeth, and threw on some clothes: jeans, boots, fleece jacket. The apartment’s heating had turned erratic since the fighting started. Frederico made coffee, boiled an egg, and scraped together some crumbly white cheese, a pot of jam, and a piece of flatbread.

While he ate his breakfast, he booted up his laptop and checked the news. And then he sprayed coffee halfway across his apartment, because there was this article and it was everywhere, and apparently the High Commissioner was talking about peacekeepers and at least two countries had declared their support for the idea.

“I have to get to work,” Frederico told his empty apartment. He grabbed his backpack, and was out the door in three steps, pausing only to lock it securely behind him.

Frederico left the Makarov in his desk drawer. It wasn’t like it was going to do him much good against a tank.

Twenty minutes later, Frederico ran up to the door of Esperance International’s Armavir headquarters. Ansgar waved him through, looking unusually tired and depressed. Frederico found Vartan emerging from a break room adjacent to the lobby; the Nalayan’s clothes were rumpled, and he was rubbing sleep from his eyes. Behind him, asleep on the sofa under a blanket, Frederico could see a tiny woman with very white skin.

Frederico blinked and turned to Vartan. “Is that – “

“Yeah,” Vartan muttered.

Frederico turned to see Nyah Ekwensi emerge from the basement stairwell. While Vartan looked like he had barely slept, Nyah clearly hadn’t slept at all. A tattooed Mak’ur teenager quietly closed the stairwell door behind her.

“I guess everyone’s been making friends,” Frederico quipped. Nyah and Vartan glared at him. Frederico raised his hands in a calming gesture. “Okay, okay. Look: have you seen the news?”

“I have.” Tamar Meghrouni jogged down the main staircase into the lobby, unreadable as ever: she could have slept for nine hours, or she could be entirely caffeine-fueled. The office chief’s brusque efficiency offered no clues. “And I’ve had a call from Sevan.”

“What does Chief Danayan want now?” Vartan asked wearily.

“It wasn’t Chief Danayan,” Tamar replied. “It was the High Commissioner.”

There was a moment of fairly stunned silence, and then Nyah hesitantly asked: “So what are we doing?”

“We’re setting up a peacekeeping mission,” Tamar replied bluntly. “A civilian protection operation, to establish a safe zone north of here. Sevan is talking to the Protector. Kapriel Maksudian thinks he has a way to contact the Dread Wolf.”

Vartan snorted quietly at that, but didn’t interrupt. Frederico said: “I don’t like where this is going.”

“We’re not going to talk to Karagozian, if that’s what you’re worried about.” Tamar cracked her knuckles. “We’re going to RV headquarters to see Gurgen Messerlian and Sivard Izanian. We’re going around the man himself.”

“And we’re going to say – what, exactly?” Nyah asked.

Tamar thrust a sheaf of papers at the Mubatan, just a touch too quickly. “That’s the brief. Came through this morning. Read it on the way. Details enclosed.”

Frederico gave Tamar a long, incredulous look. “Chief, was that excitement I just heard? Because that would make you capable of ordinary human emotions, and – “

“Let’s get to work,” Tamar snapped – and smiled.

* * *

Initially, it was quickly decided, Vartan would do the talking – because Tamar, for all her genius, was decidedly short on social patience, and because Vartan was substantially less likely to become over-emotional than Nyah or to crack wise at an inappropriate moment than Frederico. It was also not a coincidence that Vartan was the only Nava’ai member of the Armavir’s office top leadership team.

The four Esperancers drove with few words through the streets of Armavir; Frederico took the wheel, with Tamar beside him and Vartan with Nyah in the back seat. Once, Tamar asked Vartan about the condition of the Anur in the breakroom; Vartan replied that she would live. Nyah announced that she had spoken to one of the refugees in the basement, and that she now believed that the EI staff should spend more time interacting with their guests on a one-to-one basis. Everyone accepted this recommendation without elaboration, enthusiasm, or argument. Vartan’s lips moved silently as he coached himself in how best to play the role before him, and Frederico watched as the doctor’s spine grew straighter and his jaw grew firmer and his frame grew permeated with steely authority.

Unasked questions hung in the air like pregnant rainclouds. A corpse swung by a rope from a telephone pole as the Esperance Land Cruiser rolled by. At one point Frederico opened his mouth to say something – “This is insane, there’s no way this will work, we probably won’t even walk out of the headquarters alive” – but then he closed his mouth again. The silence in the car was too powerful to be broken.

The Esperancers parked by the side of the road a block from the RV Central Headquarters, and made the rest of their way on foot until they met the guards at the gate. They were a tight-knit group, all but huddled together, but walking with a determined briskness even so. Tamar led the way, a short Arusai woman with a pinched face and cropped yellow hair and unexpected eyes: nearly black, alive with opalescent glints and glimmers. With her was Vartan: a tall, slender Nava’ai man in his fifties, well-dressed, his face handsome and distinguished, his grey hair neatly groomed; he wore a sober tailored suit. Frederico followed behind, a Cacertain with unruly reddish hair and an even more untamed beard; he had thrown on a somewhat threadbare camelhair sports coat. And at his side was Nyah: a short, slender slip of a woman, her skin glossy black, her tightly coiled hair pulled back in a bun, her eyes enormous in her solemn face.

As they approached the headquarters, all four Esperancers produced their distinctive cordovan-bound credentials. Vartan, unsmiling, nodded to the guards with all the calm authority of a man accustomed to leadership. “I am Doctor Vartan Tigranian,” he explained. “My colleagues and I are the senior leadership of the Armavir Office of Esperance International. We would like to speak to Ter Gurgen Messerlian and Tiruhi Sirvard Izanian on a matter of some urgency and great importance to them both, and to the Nava’ai cause as a whole. Soldiers, your help in this would be greatly appreciated.”

[Shalum]

The Assault
Siunik, Nalaya

Truth be told, the Imperial squad leader had been prepared to sacrifice his life here in order to save the Vantai scouts. It was part of his job, of course, to do whatever was needed in order to protect the Empire and her allies. At least it would have been a honorable death, one that had an honorable reason behind it. Not that he had a death wish, of course, which was very much clear as he tilted his head to look over at Kaliq.

“Affirmative, sir!” He hollered over the sounds of gunfire. “We’ll move on you!” Jesse added sharply, nodding seriously, before turning away to take up a defensive position as he brought his rifle to bear on the enemy forces moving through the street. While he might have only been planning to linger here for a few moments, Jesse was fully intent on delivering as much damage as he possibly could to the Nava’ai during this time.

The moments that followed could have been several minutes, or several hours, as far as Jesse was concerned. As he pulled the trigger of his rifle, felt it buck against his shoulder, his vision narrowed into something of a tunnel. His whole being was focused on killing every enemy insurgent that he could. “Mad minute, and then we fall back to the second floor!” Was the most he hollered at the two remaining soldiers of his original team.

The third Imperial scout, Gisela Beckmann, had not played a huge role up until this point. One of the last through the door after Jesse, she had all but missed him and Kaliq gunning down what few enemy soldiers there were on this floor. But in the here and now, she was able to play her part as she took up a position next to Dietier, CAR-11 bullpup rifle rested atop the windowsill.

At the moment, it was fitted with several attachments: a scope, a silencer she had not taken the time to remove amidst the heat of battle, and an AG36 underslung 40mm grenade launcher. It was the latter of these options that she opted to put into service, now that they had gone loud. Tilting the barrel of her weapon up towards the sky, she did her best to guess the range before pulling the trigger. There was a telltale thump as the grenade was ejected from its tube, and the high explosive grenade was sent flying down the street, creating an explosion that would hopefully make the approaching Nava’ai warriors think twice about their assault on the building.

The ‘mad minute’ as Jesse so aptly called it did not actually as long as it may have seemed. Once he was certain that Kaliq and his people had safely made it up the first flight of stairs, he abruptly switched his rifle to full-auto and burned through the rest of his magazine, hoping to keep the enemy suppressed. “Come on, fall back to the second floor! Take up defensive positions once you get there!” He hollered to his soldiers, turning to clamber up the steps at a rapid pace. The two Imperial scouts that remained were quick to follow him up, breathing heavily as they inserted fresh magazines and prepared to fire down on the enemies in the streets.

Up top at the fire escape, the two Shalumite scouts nodded tightly, stacking up against the wall of the building as they reaided their weapons. Their allies would be leading the charge in, there was no way around it, not that they were complaining, of course. Very rarely did you find someone who wanted to be the point-man or door breacher, for that matter. When the door was finally pulled open by Basim, neither of the Imperial soldiers said a word, just grunted as they pushed off the wall and followed their allies into the final floor of the building. There was no time to waste, the clock had to be all but against them now, if the Nava’ai in the streets was any indication.

The moments that followed had to be both the slowest and fastest in either Shalumite soldiers’ lives as they stormed into the room. Their bullpup weapons were at the ready, and even though they were very much able and willing to gun down whoever was in here, they were taken off guard by just how small the space they found themselves in now. Sure, the last floor had not been huge, but this barely qualified as a guest bedroom back home. Richter was almost as worried that he would hit one of his allies, rather than his intended targets, in these tight confines.

Ludwig was the first to fire, the rattle of his submachine gun filling the air as he targeted one of the men who Basim had not been able to eliminate. The Nava’ai man had little in the way of luck on his side, as he was one of the two who had been caught out in the open, more or less. Regardless of the body armor he may have worn, the warrior went down in a hail of bullets as cordite permeated the air.

The final Nava’ai soldier did not have long to live either. Sure, he may have maintained better cover behind the filing cabinets, but the fact of the matter was that he was outnumbered at least four to one. Weapons chattered, and sooner rather than later, he was dead like the rest of his comrades. It did come at a cost, however, as Richter hissed in pain; suddenly slumped against the wall. His armored chestplate had taken shots that would have otherwise killed him, but he hadn’t come out scott-free either. The wind had been knocked out of him, and his armor plate was damaged beyond repair. On top of that, his left arm twitched erratically, it appearing as if he had been shot there.

“That was all of them!” Ludwig called out, moving forward through the room to sweep it. He very much wanted to go back and tend to his comrade, but he had a job to do first and foremost, not to mention he was rather lacking in medical experience. Looking down, he eyed the man Basim had apparently dropped. Placing a foot on the man’s chest, he kept his rifle aimed at the insurgent’s head. He could have sworn he had seen the man move, but he was not certain. “Radio equipment alright over there?” He asked Basim and his people, not looking away from the Nava’ai warrior on the ground. Ludwig was almost tempted to kick him to see if he was alive, but resisted, at least for the moment.

---

Sarkissian Household
Sissak, Nalaya

Though he had been taught how to cope with it -usually with a smile and a pleasant attitude- James had never the most keen on being the center of attention. He had always preferred to work from behind the scenes, doing good deeds and expecting nothing in return. The humble way of living was the one he preferred, regardless of nobility or the wealth that he had to his name.

When Desil smiled at him, he couldn’t help but return the expression, a sudden look of shyness crossing his features as the sword was lifted from his large, strong hands. <<I just wanted to do the right thing, Siruhi Sarkissian. I am happy to see it returned to the hands of whom it rightfully belongs to.>> James replied softly, tone wholly genuine, and laced with some residual regret from when he had been forced to strike down Norazn with this blade.

General Blackburn was silent as the woman spoke, gaze never leaving her own -as much as he may have wanted to look down at his feet, likely in sorrow- while he clung to her every word. In many ways, Desil reminded him of the kind of mother that he had always dreamed of as a child. Someone he was smart, kind, caring, and loving above all else. Not quick to strike him across the back with a belt, or simply act as if he did not exist, like the one had given birth to him had for many years.

By the time Desil was finished, the Shalumite could all but feel his heart hurting. He had taken away this woman’s husband, someone she likely considered a rock in her life, the same way he viewed Ada. Yet...she still found it in herself to forgive him for everything he had done. In her shoes, he was not certain he would have been able to do the same, at least as quickly as she had. Ada was the light in his life, the moon and stars that illuminated his sky in the darkness. He did not want to even consider losing her.

There were a few moments of silence after the Nava’ai woman finished, where James was seemingly lost in thought, ruminating on how to reply to such powerful words. Ones that worked their way to his very heart and soul. <<Thank you, Siruhi.>> James began softly, tone lighter than it had been when he had come into her household. <<You do not know how much this means to me, your words. I will carry them with me for quite some time, I will meditate on them. You are right, I must pick myself and dust myself off. For my fiancée, if not for myself. She is the light of my world, the center of my universe, I cannot lose her.>> There was a conviction to the last statement, not quite a fire in his eyes, but some that was was mostly imperceptible and not far from it either.

Swallowing, James nodded sagely in understanding. While he had never thought himself more special than anyone else, the general was very much certain there were men and women out there much worse than himself. Casimir, the Nava’ai militias at Armavir, slavers from Maldoria, and so on.

<<I am only one man, but I promise you, Siruhi Sarkissian, that I will do everything in my power to make Nalaya a safer place, to end this conflict. Our families, as well as every other: man, woman, and child, deserves peace and the chance to rebuild.>> He replied with a soft, tired-sounding tone. It was going to be one hell of an uphill battle. <<I would not want to impose any longer than I already have, Siruhi, or cause any more inconvenience. However, if you need anything, you are more than welcome to come to me for assistance.>> His offer, like everything else, had no ill-will behind it. At the very least, he figured he should support Norazn’s family if they needed it, though he really did not expect them to take him up on the offer out of principal-- him being a Shalumite who had taken a member of their family away from them, and all of that.

Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a small card with his satellite phone number on it, as well as other means of getting in touch with him such as email and letter address. He set it on the coffee table next to the sword and nodded at her one last time. <<Thank you, Siruhi. May the heavens protect you and your family, and God protect your spirit.>> He replied, using a Shalumite saying in Nalayan tongue. It sounded odd to his own ears, but he hoped she approved of the sentiment.

With that, the Shalumite group said their respectful goodbye, tipping helmets and heads to her as a sign of respect, before they made their way out of her door, and into the city of Sissak once more.

---

On the Run
Approaching Alaverdi, Nalaya

There was a moment where Brakis’ attention wandered away from Dzia and the map that was between them, over to the only other male of the group, Kaleb. The brawny, half-Azzie and half-Maldorian former slave was currently kneeling under another nearby tree, his travel pack open and a few provisions laid out alongside it. In his hand, he clutched a metallic looking cylinder which could only be a canteen. At the moment, it was gently tipped back, so that he could tenderly nurse a pale-skinned woman (presumably Imanalov’) who looked worse for wear at the moment. She had a few scratches from their mad dash through the wilderness, but for the most part, she was bruised and battered. Those kinds of injuries could have only come at the hands of their captors.

Hopefully she isn’t too distrusting. Brakis could only think grimly in that instant, watching for a moment longer as Kaleb did his best to care for her with what resources they had on hand. He knew the younger former-slave rather well, he was practically the father the man had never had, and there was not a doubt in his mind that he would never bring harm to these women who had managed to escape. But he was not certain that they would be able to understand that, not with all the trauma that they had gone through, not to mention the language barrier.

Returning his attention back to the map, Brakis couldn’t help but bite back a groan, feeling his left leg twinge in disagreement. An old injury, courtesy of one of his former owners, had never quite healed right. Going long distances on foot was not easy for him, but it was too late to worry about that now, given he was finally free.

“That is going to be a long walk,” he couldn’t help but reply in his own tongue as he looked up at Dzia. Of course, he didn’t actually know where the hell they were, but the sentiment remained. Assuming they were going in the right direction, he figured it would be a couple more days on foot, several even if they were unlucky and the terrain was rough. “But I figure we can manage it,” he added after a few moments. Like everything else, they were too far gone to turn back now, and at least they had some direction to go on now.

Reaching over, Brakis very gently put is hand on her shoulder, hoping that she would not recoil at his touch. In the past, she had not, but the circumstances had been different then. She had not been given a choice of whether she would allow him to or not. “If you’re tired, we can rest, Dzia. No one will find us here,” he said quietly. Looking around, he couldn’t help but feel sympathy for the others of their party. Surely, they had to be tired as well. Turning his gaze back to the Arusai woman, he knew that she did not understand his words, but hoped that she at least understood the intent behind them.

If they were going to rest, it would not be anytime soon, Brakis assumed with a mental sigh. It made sense, really, the sun was still high in the sky for the time being. They had a few more hours before night caught up with them, time to distance themselves even further from Sissak. The longer the group trudged on, however, Brakis found himself falling further and further behind Dzia, who was all but leading them at this point.

Soon enough, he found a tired looking Kaleb walking beside him, seemingly materializing from out of nowhere. “You alright there, old man?” The Azzie asked, trying to sound teasing, but his tone fell somewhat flat as he battled sleep deprivation. Unlike Dzia and the others, they had been awake for far longer, plotting and executing the escape.

“Doing fine,” Brakis replied. The former slave did his best to hide his discomfort, but his stained yellow teeth were nearly grit in concentration. “Leg is just sore,” he added after a beat, glancing over at Kaleb.

“It is acting up again.” The Azzie stated, glancing down. At another time, it would have been a question, but even he could see why the Maldorian man had moved from the front of the group to the back. “Should we, um, see if they are willing to stop? I don’t think they would mind,” Kaleb stated. Of course, he wouldn’t have exactly been surprised if the group pressed onward either, and he would not have blamed them. They were all free people, able to chose for themselves once more, and he doubted they were too keen on menfolk anymore.

“No, no. We must keep moving. The sooner we get to this Alaverdi, the sooner we can rest.” Brakis said, trying to stay hopeful. His silent fear was what awaited them in the city. Who controlled it, he did not know. Perhaps the ku’nal he had heard of, or perhaps the Nava’ai who his masters had waged war against in Sissak. Looking forward again, he spied Dzia. “That woman is practically on a mission from above, and I am not about to get in her way.”

---

13th Shalumite Expeditionary Force
Sissak, Nalaya

Over the course of seven days, the Imperial military forces in the southern zones of the Military Protectorate had remained at their current defensive positions; recouping their losses from the siege, and consolidating their formations for the inevitable march north towards Armavir. While lacking in any sort of action-packed violence, there was very much a hustle and bustle mood hanging over the Shalumites, as they worked both day and night. Things like the forward operating base and advance airfield were completed in near record time, and combat engineers were even assigned to help rebuild the damaged parts of the city. Their primary motivation for this was to help the people of the city get back on their feet so that they could fully return to their daily lives, but Malcomson also saw the PR opportunities there as well.

Since the railroads had come back online in this zone, the long and boisterous convoys of Shalumite logistical trucks had lessened in number, but it was impossible to eliminate them altogether. It was guaranteed that, whenever a train arrived, that the next few hours would consist of trucks ferrying supplies to the FOB and airfield north of town where they would be unloaded and distributed to whatever units would need them. Following the battle, everything had been demand, from pieces to kit, to large amounts of ammunition and vehicle fuel. Some of these things could be acquired locally, but given that Nalaya was much different from the Empire in terms of equipment, the majority of it still had to be imported.

Of course, it was not only supplies that were being shipped in by the boat and truckload. Reinforcements were being brought in as well, for the upcoming battle of Armavir, which was all but inevitable at this point. Upon replacements to refill depleted units to the full combat strength, an additional light infantry regiment had been pulled away from Army Group Center and had been shipped south, along with several independent companies of infantry that were supposed to stay behind and ensure security in already controlled allied zones. The further the 13th pushed north, the less forces there would be to their rear to protect supply lines and the like, so it would be up to these fresh troops to pick up the slack.

With all of this in mind, it was decided by General Malcomson that the time to continue the Imperial offensive was upon them, regardless of recent controversies regarding certain units that had made up their force. The aging marine general was more than happy to let the public relations department and battlefield media group handle the fallout, while he and his people did their job of bringing the war to a quick end with as few lives lost as possible.

The supreme commander of the 13th Shalumite Expeditionary Force called for his Brigadiers to meet him in the main command tent, where they spent the next few hours drawing up plans of action. While not all of them would have units directly in harm’s way, everyone would certainly play a role in upcoming operations, one way or another. It did take more than just the men at the frontlines to win the war, afterall.

The stratagem for their advance north was as followed. The three combat brigades would form up on the northern side of town, with the 2nd Imperial Expeditionary Armored Combat Team forming the center of the group, with marine and army combat teams on either side of them; protecting the flanks as they advanced. Like they had the approach to Sissak, they would take things nice and slow, methodically eliminating any enemy resistance, and taking over any population centers along the way. This was important more now than ever, given that they would be in the heart of Nava’ai territory.

One glaring issue with the plan was that, at some point along the way, the group would be forced to maneuver through what appeared to be a valley or canyon of some kind. The maps provided by their allies in Sevan appeared to show no quick way around it, much to the displeasure of Malcomson. As a general rule, it was never wise to group up units like they would have to; but unless they wanted to add another day’s worth of marching at the very least to their schedule, than it was their only option. It was decided that the 18th Cavalry Regiment would have the honors of securing the area, along with the 9th Air Assault Calvary. Once they had done that, the brigade combat teams would all move through the canyon, one brigade at a time.

The following morning, the Imperial Force got underway, hundreds of engines roaring to life as the groups formed up across a wide line. Tanks and armored vehicles led the way, vanguards for the artillery and soft-shelled support that followed after them. Overhead, helicopters fresh from the new advance airfield now roamed, loaded out to engage ground targets, though their pilots seemed almost lazy in their flying. They had yet to play any big role in the war, given that they were destroyers, rather than preservers who could limit collateral damage.

For better or for worse, the 13th was underway, steaming north like an unstoppable force. Signals groups broadcast this to Sevan and Aragatsotn, letting the federals know what was going on. As he observed his troops in action, Malcomson hoped that this advance would take some pressure off of Hravad and his forces there so that he could join them more quickly at Armavir. Theoretically, the marines could have been spared to assist the Nalayan general, but that would stretch Imperial lines dangerously thin.

In the meantime, south of Sissak, the 13th had established a makeshift prison camp. With spread out barbed wire to act as a fence, and hastily erected walls, it was not the prettiest of sights; but it served the purpose of keeping the prisoners in. At the moment, its population of just over five-hundred were wholly Maldorian, soldiers that had been rounded up and detained for an alleged slew of war crimes. While many may not have wanted to believe it, a good deal more of them were innocent than guilty, not that their Shalumite wardens cared much as they observed the prisoners with cold eyes.

The lodgings of the average prisoner were not the best, to say the least. They all had to sleep outside on the cold ground, or in small tents that could only hold two or three people at best. The latter had been scrounged up by the Shalumites, and haphazardly thrown into the main prison area. ‘Order’ was maintained at all times by rotating shifts of Imperial soldiers. Things like food were distributed at scheduled intervals, though latrine privileges were one thing left to the Maldorians. They may not have been liked by anyone here, but shit and piss would have only made the place worse, so combat engineers had been assigned to dig them some ditches that could be filled in later.

For the time being, this was where the Maldorians would be left to rot, high ranking people like Pomerok and his direct command staff kept in solitary confinement. No one was quite certain what to do with them, but they suspected that the TRC would want them.

If the ku’nal didn’t get to them first, anyways.

---

Shareshian’s House
Tatev, Nalaya

The trio of Imperial investigators were silently, observing the back and forth between Drada and Shareshian with piqued interest. They were impressed with the Mak’ur woman's abilities to see between the lines, and admittedly embarrassed that they were not nearly on her level of investigational skills.

Even if they were direct action operators, instead of the policemen that they claimed to be, people like Arnold wished that he was able to do more to help further the investigation. At best, he was starting to feel like a spoiler, and at worst a waste of Drada’s time and energy. It was starting to seem that if anyone was going to solve this case, it was going to be her, not the Shalumite Special Tasks Group.

At the mention of the RV being summoned to remove them, Dara couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow, biting her tongue so that she would not say something that she would regret later. If Shareshian had not been suspicious beforehand, he certainly was now, at least in her opinion. People with nothing to hide would have struck her as being more open, even if they were believers in confidentially. But not him. It was clear to her that he wanted them out of his house as quickly as possible, which was understandable in some ways, and suspicious in many others.

When it was clear they had been dismissed, Arnold couldn’t help but sigh, more in frustration than anger. Other than adding a name to the list of people he needed to keep an eye on, they had not gotten much out of this meeting, at least in his opinion. His chocolate colored eyes flickered over to Drada, watching as she stood up and said her peace, before she began to make her way to the door. A moment later, he was on his feet.

Standing now, Arnold took a moment to brush off his pants, though his uniform was as clean as a whistle. His two compatriots followed suit, headed for the exit, while he remained in place for a moment longer. “We are going to find the man or woman who killed Tsavagian, Paron Shareshian.” He said with a certain conviction to his tone. “And until we do, everyone in a suspect, yourself included. Like my colleague said, you’re on the list.” The STG agent paused. “We’ll be in touch, I am certain. Have a nice night, Paron.”

Outside in the clear Tatev air once more, Arnold made a soft grunting sound of displeasure, pleased with himself that he had not slammed the door on the way out. There, he found his two other investigators with Drada, waiting. “That was...interesting,” he said as he glanced at the Mak’ur woman. “I want to say I am surprised with how little he cooperated, but truthfully I am not,” he shrugged. “Any idea where we go from here?”

---

52nd Combat Support Hospital
South of Sissak, Nalaya

Over the last couple of days, things had finally calmed down around the field hospital. Patients were treated and either released back to their units, or sent down to Massis for further care and eventual return to Shalum. Many of those who had come through had seen back shrapnel wounds and burns from improvised explosives, which had ended up more dangerous than the Nava'ai fighters themselves. Where an Imperial soldier could shoot back at an insurgent, there was nothing much he could do against a hidden bomb, except for pray that he or she was not on the receiving end. There had been more ground to cover than explosive experts to go around, and even then, they were not magic. Not every bomb could be identified during the heat of battle, much less disarmed and removed.

So, for the time being, things were much more calm around the hospital. Nursers and workers came and went, trucks occasionally rumbling up to deliver supplies. Now that there wasn't a rush, the health technicians could actually get to work on restocking their inventories, which they knew would be necessary for when moved further north to somewhere south of Armavir. Already, they had been told that they would be moving out sooner than later, and that what patients remained would either be transferred to Sissak's hospital, or further south to Massis or Sevan; depending upon their nationality, and even where the patient wanted to go. Not every request could be filled, of course, but the Imperials would at least try.

The guards around the hospital were relaxed, even if they did patrol, meaning that the unseen Syaran would have had a somewhat easy time getting past. It had been well over seventy years since any Imperial field hospital had been in any sort of danger before, courtesy of modern rules of war, so the guards on duty were not expecting any trouble. When not actively milling about, the majority lingered at the rear of the large tent, where they had a small fire going in a barrel. A radio blared loud music none of them could understand, but they tried to sing along anyways as they ate rations and relaxed.

Inside, the nurses went about as normal, checking up on patients, who were fewer in number now. In fact, the only Nalayan that remained was Yeraz, who was checked by either Sophia or Olivia every half-hour during the day time. At night, the next shift of nurses would look after her, of course. The woman's injuries had been concerning, the victim of an explosion-- without protective gear no less, unlike the Shalumite soldiers who had received similar injuries. The woman was not kept sedated, but she did get drugs to ease the pain. With passing days, she would get less and less, trying to wean her off of them as she got better. It would be likely that she would be transferred to Sevan soon, once the filed hospital was packed up and moved north. Several times lately, she had been checked on by the STG liaison, though no meeting of substance had taken place since the initial one.

[Nalaya]

The Assault
Siunik, Nalaya

“Radio is good,” Basim said in broken English before plopping down in the chair and setting to work. He focused intensely, scanning over the notes on the table beside the mic while Ruqayyah searched for Richter’s wound to apply direct pressure and radioed to Kaliq.

A moment later, there was a knock on the door to the radio room and a shout in Arabic from their leader’s familiar voice. Ruqayyah looked up with relief when Kaliq entered, their medic limping at his heels. <<He is shot,>> she reported. <<Could be worse, of course, but it is not ideal.>>

<<Nor is anything in our situation,>> Kaliq said with a strained chuckle as their medic immediately went over to their downed medic.

The use of the grenade launcher bought them minutes of quiet as the Nava’ai regrouped and started to work on a plan to assault the area. However, most of the forces in the city still didn’t know what was going on. Basim had already started sending in contradicting signals and insisting that the enemy had seized field radios to give false reports. He had also sent a message off to Kella and the Shalumite commanders to tell them now was a good time to advance. He knew his commander would have Captain bin Ghayth headed through Siunik’s back paths towards the enemy’s headquarters. Basim’s job now was to keep things on the ground as chaotic as possible for the milits’iayi.

“Kaliq, what do we do?” Mash’al asked as he treated Richter’s wound. He spoke passable English, though he considered it a clumsy language.

“We dig in,” Kaliq said. He grinned ferociously. “The Lady of Steel will come for us, one way or another. Until then, we are fortunate. We exist in a target-rich environment.”

<<Not enough ammo,>> Ruqayyah observed in Arabic, recognizing that grin.

<<Never is,>> Basim grunted in a brief pause as he listened to the chatter before returning to his task.

“They will make another attempt,” Kaliq said to Jesse. “Perhaps many. This is good. It will keep things from becoming boring, yes?”

Beyond in the city, the true assault started with the sound of rockets and gunfire splitting the early morning hours.

---

On the Run
Alaverdi, Nalaya

Alaverdi was not a large town, but it was surrounded by rich farmland just like Ijevan, albeit a bit more arid with slightly different crops. Vineyards were still very much present, however. Streams irrigated pastureland where sheep and goats grazed. Dzia felt freedom closer and closer with every step as they wove their way down the hill towards the sleepy little town. They were halfway through an orchard when she suddenly became aware that they were not alone. As soon as a tattooed figure emerged from behind a broad oak tree with rifle in hand, the women froze.

Jaelryn was puzzled. She had been watching the group’s progress for a few minutes now. The men were dressed like soldiers, but did not move like them, and the women were not dressed to be running around in the middle of a warzone. They were a mismatched lot. One was the first Imanalov’ she had ever seen without the cowl and wrappings that were integral to their faith. To her, that symbolized something deeply wrong. <<Lay your weapons down and raise your hands,>> the yathallar ordered coolly, leveling her rifle at Brakis and Kaleb. They were the two with weapons, though she was under no illusion that they were the only ones. Numerous other ku’nal, none boasting her black and red tattoos, emerged from the trees.

One of the others, a slender man with an assault rifle, took a step forward. He pointed to the weapons the two men were carrying and then pointed to the ground, something harder to misinterpret than words. He sincerely doubted they would know any Nalayan, and certainly wouldn’t know Mak’ur. He admired Jaelryn, but the woman’s strength wasn’t in foreign languages.

Dzia looked over at Brakis and Kaleb before raising her hands slowly. The other Nalayans mimicked her, their expressions a mix of terrified and relieved. Whatever their faults, the ku’nal were not inclined to behave like the Shalumites. They obeyed different rules, particularly those who felt this war was a holy calling. <<We are not here to cause harm. We are running from the Maldorians. Those men are not soldiers,>> the redhead said, feeling a shiver course through her body when Jaelryn’s eyes focused on her. She’d never even heard of a spider arlathil, but the additional six tattooed eyes on the Mak’ur woman’s face was a clear indication of her nature.

<<Who are these Maldorians? I have never heard of such a people,>> Jaelryn said calmly, lowering her rifle only once Brakis and Kaleb had obeyed.

<<Slavers,>> Dzia said with only a hint of thickness to her tone. She felt like a teacup in a tempest of anger still.

Jaelryn’s expression was difficult to read, but she lowered her weapon. <<Then you will need rest and food,>> she said. The yathallar wasn’t certain whether she believed them or not yet, but she was not going to do harm to them. If anything, hospitality was demanded. In time, the truth would come out one way or another. <<These men have Shalumi uniforms.>>

<<Stolen,>> Dzia said. <<They saved us. Please do not hurt them.>>

Jaelryn nodded and motioned for the small group to follow. <<Welcome to Alaverdi,>> she said before beginning to lead the way into the town.

The other ku’nal formed a sort of guard around them, though one man did stop to retrieve the weapons that Brakis and Kaleb had been carrying. Dzia looked visibly relieved, even if she was starting to tremble a little bit from exhaustion and fear left buried. The urge to cry was coming back as the realization that they were safe, at least from the Maldorians, began to stick. She stayed relatively close to Brakis and Kaleb, though she was also close on Jaelryn’s heels. Part of her was a little bit in awe of a real, living yathallar. They didn’t come to the Heartland cities…ever, as far as Dzia knew. They were escorted through the narrow streets of the town to a large, manor-style house that was currently being used as headquarters.

<<Navasard, these men are your charges. I would like to speak with them later, once they have had time to eat and rest and bathe,>> Jaelryn ordered. <<Lethe and Micarlin can help the women.>>

The Nava’ai man, a yathrin with eagle tattoos, stood up from where he was sitting and cleaning his rifle. The two women he had been chatting with, twins from the looks of it, rose to their feet as well. They were Mak’ur, with bright emerald eyes and swirling tattoos of green script across their body: both were yath’abban. They didn’t move with the careful, minimalist movements of the yathallar—Micarlin and Lethe, like Navasard, were creatures of motion—but instead a sort of enthusiastic energy. There was caution to their eyes, granted.

<<They have been through a great deal,>> Jaelryn said. That much was apparent from their expressions. <<Go gently. Even you, Navasard. Consider it an exercise in the gentler passions. Let me not hear a word of complaint.>>

<<Of course, Most Revered,>> her small group of followers said in a quiet and untidy unison.

---

Along the Zeklet’taune Aluin
The Har’oloth, Nalaya

The world beyond fell away. That was the nature of the Zeklet’taune Aluin. Civilization vanished within the first few hours, land so wild it had barely been penetrated by humans throughout recorded history stretching out in every direction. The ground was harsh as the path moved over the broken bones of the earth, rock jutting up on either side of the road as they advanced into the mountains. Brambles and thorns were the most common sight on the first part of the journey, the occasional copse of trees filled with jagged dark branches reaching high into the sky. Long grasses waved and rippled in the wind like a sea of golden water. Here and there, hawks glided in lazy spirals on hot air thermals, occasionally dropping out of the sky like a stone. The heat of the morning slowly but steadily burned hotter and hotter into midday, lending the distance a shimmering mirage effect. The skies were a deep, rich, sapphire blue that couldn’t be found in more developed areas where pollution had bleached the sky. Tufts of white and silver clouds drifted across the sky, dappling the ground below in intermittent shadow. Trilling songbirds let their voices drift on the slow, but insistent breeze coming in from the sea—a wind that made the unforgiving heat somewhat more bearable.

Any sign of human activity in the area was rare. Every ten miles stood the one of the kyorlen. The seven-foot-tall graven images of spirits were mostly smooth, almost faceless with wear, but still serving to mark the correct way. The Aluin itself wasn’t paved, more a suggestion of a trail than a true road. But people had worn away the stone beneath and cut back brush to create a path. Animals often followed it as well, keeping it maintained even when there were not pilgrims. Sabal kept the justicars on a pace that was purposeful, but not so hasty as to be oblivious to the sights of the trail. She timed their progress well from memory, ending every three days at one of the xorile, the shrines that offered shelter and respite from the elements. They were camped out on the trail more often than not, granted, and exposed to the surprisingly bitter chill of the Har’oloth at night. Fire kept that and the animals far enough away. Most of the creatures that dwelt out in the wilderness were shy of people and their strange smells, but they had their opportunities to see many of the animals: graceful deer and gazelles, wild goats and large-horned sheep, foxes and—in the distance—wolves, jackals and dozens of different birds. As they neared the wetter parts of the Homeland, they passed through almond and evergreen groves. They passed trickling streams and deep grottos, climbed mountains and skirted crystalline lakes that reflected back the azure skies.

The weather was as wild and unrestrained as the earth. They had their chances to see thunder roll in from the sea, deafening and powerful to compliment the roiling skies. Lightning struck in white-purples and blues, frequently not terribly far away. Once, a funnel cloud formed in the distance, but the twister was gone almost as quickly as it appeared. That had been a great relief to Sabal, considering they had no shelter that day.

Sabal’s favorite part of the journey was the stretch across the slopes of the Errdegahr, the Homeland’s most active volcano. The whole section of Nalaya was geologically active to a degree that made some people uncomfortable, but few mountains in the region spewed forth fire as prolifically as the Errdegahr. Its glow could be seen at night, though Sabal kept them well away from the lava and the worst of the ash. She always found the fury of the earth reshaping itself to be fascinating. It brought them near boiling hot springs in brilliant shades and the smell of sulfur, but even in what seemed like it should be inhospitable land, flora and fauna alike were abundant.

The yathallar was very much in her element here, deeply attuned to the nature that surrounded her. She felt at peace again, maybe more than ever before as she showed this part of Nalaya that so few could ever even dream of seeing to people she both respected and cared for. She was never far from Joan’s side even when she stopped to pray every night, particularly under the square roofs of the xorile where she made small offerings of her own blood to the spirits that dwelled in the guardian statues within. Many of the shrines had enough things that people had left to be considered treasure houses. Pilgrims left all kinds of things of value or significance and even though custom was for it to be a single piece at each shrine, thousands of pilgrims each leaving a coin or an earring or a ring or a little carved fetish meant for a great deal of offerings. Even more were buried around each xorile itself by the yatharil when space needed to be cleared. Each of the shrines also had a small fountain that drew from the aquifers or streams nearby, allowing them to refill their water.

Pella was absorbed in their surroundings as well. The walks were grueling, but she found herself adjusting to the constant discomfort of aching muscles, scrapes, and bruises. There was a strange high feeling that came with the constant exertion and occasional privation. It made her feel connected in a way she’d never experienced at home in Armavir. In every xorile, she felt the connection to the history of her faith. She spent the half hour or so before bed reading her copy of the Linath and just thinking, listening to Sabal as she prayed. This might be her only chance to ever take the pilgrimage, so she meant to take it seriously. Not to say she passed up on conversation with the justicars, but the trail was making her more meditative than usual.

Time seemed to act differently on the Aluin. Days and nights seemed to last forever and an instant at the same time, eternities and moments in and of themselves simultaneously. Sabal stopped counting them the moment their first sunset had come in a rainbow of brilliant colors, staining the sky purple and pink as it set clouds on fire in gold, red, and orange shades while blue and indigo crept in from the east. They had to be at least two weeks in, over halfway to the Holy City, when Sabal felt a discordant shiver through her whole body as they approached the next xorile. She couldn’t smell anything wrong or see a threat, but instinct told her she needed to be wary now.

A reason became apparent quickly. The doors of the xorile were standing open inward, huge scoring clawmarks running down the dark hardwood. Sabal took in a sharp hiss of breath. So they had arrived in the domain of the vengeful spirits. “We are not alone in the area,” the yathallar said as she approached the doors. She laid her hand against the wood with fingers spread to measure the dimensions of the animal that had left the mark. The gouges were above her head-height on the door. Sabal was not a short woman, either.

Pella looked a little pale when she took in the marks. “Sabal, is this Kor’inth?” she asked quietly, adjusting one of the shoulder straps on her backpack.

“Yes,” Sabal said as she set her bag down before backpedaling. There, making a circumference around the building—though faded by time and partially obliterated by wind—were pawprints in the dust. She crouched down to examine them. No claws. They were large, too, larger than she’d seen in a long time. But the gait was just a little bit off. If she had to make a guess, the creature bore an old wound that had not healed properly. “This incarnation is an oura, one of my arlathil.” She looked up at the justicars. “A lion, or lioness. I only see one set of tracks, but there might have been others. Still, avatars of the spirits of rage are often solitary creatures.”

It hurt her heart to know that there was a chance they might have to kill one of her arlathil, particularly a creature powerful enough to leave such large prints and such damage to the door. It was probably a spirit, a will, with few equals. But if the creature attacked, it would force her hand. It was not forbidden to kill animals on the Aluin, but it was only permitted in defense of one’s own life. “Hopefully it has fed recently enough that we are not appealing,” Sabal said, standing up. “But if it is truly an expression of Kor’inth, it will at least come and test our mettle in the night. We would be best served preparing ourselves.”

---

The Refugees
Ayrum, Nalaya

Duagloth was at a loss. He wasn’t surprised, but he didn’t know what to do. He’d never seen his girls fight like that. Chalithra and Elerra had always been close, even after his daughter grew into a teenager. They had always been able to talk everything through—but not this. Chalithra had rebuffed any attempts to comfort her, angry tears flooding down her face as she stormed upstairs with the words, “Fine, I hope you get what you deserve!” still resonating in the air. Elerra was no less hurt by the end of it, but she’d walked away with her flat affect hiding whatever emotions were roiling under the surface. He’d always found his daughter a little easier to read than his wife. He wanted to go after both of them, but that wasn’t an option.

Would he see Elerra again if he didn’t follow her? Would Chalithra take it as him favoring her mother’s side? Duagloth was not a happy man. After a long moment of hesitation, he sighed and went after his wife. Chal might be angry with him, but she would at least be safe and she wasn’t going anywhere. The same couldn’t be said for Elerra. He took a wide berth around their Esperancers, knowing full well that if they knew what was going on, they might well try to intervene. He didn’t need anyone inflaming the wound worse than it already was.

He found his wife out with the yathallar and his right hand, listening attentively to Nanar’s plan for battle. “Elerra,” he called to her gently. He recognized the ever so faint tightness at the corners of her mouth: pain.

Before she could say she didn’t want to talk about it, Ildan motioned to him. “Go speak,” the yathallar said calmly.

Elerra bowed her head and then followed Duagloth away from the group. “You can’t change my mind,” she said flatly. He could almost feel it radiating off of her. The recriminations that Chalithra had hit her mother with had done wound, particularly the accusation that Elerra was being selfish and that this was all about her. Duagloth did know that however warped his wife’s mind might be, that would never be her intent.

“She’s just a girl, d’anthe. She didn’t know what she was saying,” he said, catching one of her hands with his own. “She wants you to stay.”

Elerra just looked at him for a long moment before saying softly, “Will you tell her that I love her? She doesn’t want to hear it from me.”

“Maybe she doesn’t want to hear it at the moment, but I can promise you that she will want you to tell her that later,” Duagloth said. He pulled her in close by her hand and then wrapped his arms around her. “It doesn’t have to be this way, d’anthe. I know you’re hurt right now, but there’s a whole world for you if you stay.”

“I can’t,” Elerra whispered. “And I know you can’t take that forever.” She leaned into him, returning the embrace. “This is the best way, maybe the only way. I love you. I love you both. I’m sorry. It will be better in the end.”

All around them, a sort of dimly risen spirits was beginning to set in at the realization that food would be available. For all the struggle and the numbness that set into many, there were still plenty of people willing to help work to improve conditions. Anything to keep their minds off of everything that had happened.

---

The Office of the Protector
Sevan, Nalaya

It was a very, very rare circumstance for Khavar T’avish to be at a loss for words. Her temper, ruled by wafer thin control, had rendered her inarticulate with rage the moment the article crossed her desk. It had been a good twelve hours before she felt composed enough to actually contact the Shalumite ambassador and request a meeting—the casualties taken in those twelve hours including a rather nice vase, a picture frame, her matched pair of crystal tumblers—both half full of whiskey at the time, the marks of repeated attempts by her subordinates to calm her down with alcohol—a glass paperweight, and a window. It had taken a further good two hours for people to come in and clean up the broken glass before Ambassador Isabella Weber had arrived.

Khavar T’avish was not a woman who raised her voice. She didn’t need to, even to communicate displeasure. Perhaps that was why people had jumped when they heard her from down the hallway as she dragged the poor Shalumite ambassador over the coals. Inna Karapetyan was the only one brave enough to venture in and separate them, reports from Aragatsotn held tightly against her side as she entered the Tigress’s den. It had been enough to momentarily distract the enraged woman, just long enough for Weber to escape. As Inna had pointed out, it was probably a long enough conversation for Shalum to understand just how displeased the Protector was about the current state of affairs. Mercifully, she hadn’t gotten on the phone to Tyler Holland, if only because every single member of her inner circle had begged her not to.

It had, however, sparked a vicious row between Khavar and Inna. The latter had returned to her own office to lick her wounds once the Protector’s door had shut her out again. Now, Khavar was back to brooding by her broken window, watching the little birds she fed every day hop around the ledge and trill their song. Her prolonged fit of rage wasn’t evident in her current appearance—as immaculate as ever—but to the people who knew her, the cold fire was obviously still simmering just under the surface. Even without her poise perfected, she still looked almost polished. She was lovely in the way of a statue, beautiful but cold and unfeeling. It was the eyes that gave her nature away: a grey-green that was particularly distant today, but also hard and sharp like flakes of jade. The office was silent. Unlike her predecessor, Khavar didn’t listen to music to ease the stress. After years of solitary confinement, she found the silence more comforting.

An aide was quick to inform the Protector once the Esperancers had been admitted through the gate, because while disturbing her was dangerous, the fallout of her not being informed promised even more unpleasant consequences. Mercifully, he managed to escape without a snap. Khavar had just looked at him thoughtfully, nodded, and waved him away. Not even a frown. It did not bode well.

“She’s expecting you,” the Protector’s secretary said with a small, worried smile at the Esperancers as he motioned them past into her office. Several other doors also lead off from the area behind the desk: Siran Zadian and Hravad Ardzuni’s offices were locked and dark, a sign that there would be no appeals to Khavar’s left and right hands if things went south with the Protector. Both had moved to Aragatsotn to be closer to where everything was happening. It was particularly a shame given that Hravad Ardzuni would likely be charitably disposed towards Esperance International, as the last remnant in power of Anahid Vaneni’s legacy.

Khavar didn’t look over when her office door opened. She was busy feeding the birds. They trusted her enough to come peck the seed out of her hand, despite their wild and cautious nature. It was somewhat calming, at least until the birds scattered at the sound of new people. It was always better to be quiet, to let the airy silence of the many-windowed office envelop one—at least while feeding the birds. The view out over Sevan was a gorgeous one, capturing the many gardens of the city and the great river that bisected it. The great bronze bells of the Yekeghets’in were ringing for a wedding somewhere down in the city, not terribly far away. Great lover of beauty that she was, Anahid had sniped this particular room for her office years ago and so it had passed down to Khavar. The view wasn’t wasted on Protector T’avish—she’d grown to love it. The light and colors and fresh breezes were all peaceful things she had been denied in the past.

“Good afternoon,” she said as she brushed the birdseed off her hand, watching the last bird depart with a trill. “Siruhi Danayan, Siruhi Rashidian, a pleasure to see you—and your associates must be Paron Zhu and the esteemed Tiruhi Gladwell. I imagine this is not a social visit, but there is coffee and water on the side table there if you would care for some. I can have something brought in as well if you require anything else. It would appear we are going to need another two chairs. I seldom have more than a pair of guests at once.”

She turned and studied them with an almost clinical detachment. She liked being exhaustively informed about potential people to meet. This small group matched the briefings she’d been given, which meant she owed her support staff a metaphorical pat on the back. Khavar didn’t generally actually touch people, except in less than friendly ways. Years shut away from the world, away from people, had robbed her of that. She didn’t really miss it, honestly. She hadn’t been comfortable with people in her space since she was a child. Still, she approached Gladwell and extended her hand to shake. “Welcome to Nalaya, High Commissioner, and you as well, Commandant Zhu. Please come in and make yourselves comfortable. I will have Essayan poach some chairs for us.”

She breezed past them and leaned out the door, exchanging quick words with her secretary before returning.

Khavar had left the office largely the same as it had been in Anahid’s day. It wasn’t an over-large room, but it was comfortable enough for a handful of people, so they weren’t all crammed together. The broad mahogany desk at one end was covered with a considerable amount of paper, but it was neatly arranged in tidy stacks or laid out for examination. Currently, she was reading through her Unkndirnei briefs on the situation in the parts of the country that weren’t bitterly at war. The newspaper, however, was resting off to the left. It was flipped to the crossword at the moment, which had been marked up with red ink, but she’d spent a lot of time reading and re-reading the reprinted Esperancer article. The pens that were neatly lined up on her desk were not expensive—they were cheap, disposable, plastic ones. That was less a function of her taste and more a reflection of Inna’s desire to make it slightly harder for Khavar to effectively stab someone with a pen in one of her fits of temper. So far, she had only vented her anger on inanimate objects, but that was no guarantee that it would remain that way.

There were very few personal effects in the office, and no photographs of family or friends. The prints up on the wall were reproductions of impressionist paintings in soft blues and greens and purples, most of them water-lilies or similar scenes of nature. Warm, golden sunlight spilled in through the open windows, allowing the faintest hints of the breezes from the sea to roll in. It wasn’t enough to disturb her papers, but she had the surviving weights on them just in case.

“How has the day been treating you all?” she inquired politely, pouring her guests small cups of coffee before she poured herself one. There was honey aplenty to go with it, as well as some small cakes and pieces of fruit. They’d been brought up only a minute or two before the Esperancers arrived, everything in the office moving with the precision of clockwork despite the morning’s disruption. Kethiilys had even managed to surmount the obstacle of Khavar’s black temper long enough to report in on the situation in the Homeland. It had proven something of a distraction, though she knew the minute Lledrith found out about Shalumite misconduct, the idea of negotiation would be smoke on the wind—at least, that was the Unkndirnei agent’s assessment. “Unless of course you would prefer to get straight to business. I understand that is something more of a norm outside of Nalaya.”

---

RV Central Headquarters
Armavir, Nalaya

The building that had once been headquarters for the vostikanut’yun in Armavir, now all stayed in their duty of policing the city by death, was a compound of three buildings forming a horse-shoe shape surrounded by a brick wall. It was not heavily fortified, but it was easily defensible by design. Currently, there were guards at the gate who had waved the Esperancers through after a lengthy examination of those credentials and confirmation over the radio that these people were allowed in.

The eyes of the milits’iayi that Vartan addressed at the central building where Gurgen Messerlian had situated his offices were not hostile towards the Esperancers—hostile implied a level of emotion that they were likely no longer capable of experiencing. There was a sort of perpetual indifference that seemed to mark them more than anything else. It wasn’t that they hated, it was that they really frankly didn’t care one way or another so long as something broke up the boredom. These were also a slightly different breed than Karagozian’s milits’iayi: many of them here were older and less well educated, their manners a little more pronounced, but anyone who were to make the mistake of assuming softness due to that courtesy would have been immediately and unpleasantly corrected. The guards at the gate gave no real reaction to the Esperancers, but a few smoking nearby looked over with interest or amusement. Their scrutiny was distracted by the football from a kids’ game nearby soaring over. One of the milits’iayi caught the ball against his broad chest and then tossed it back to an approaching boy with a chuckle.

“Follow me,” one of the gate guards said. His expression was bland, but his eyes were not overfond when he looked at the Esperancers. There were certain people in the world who thought it was their God-given right to meddle, and these fit firmly in that category. They did good work, but the article that had hit everyone wasn’t exactly endearing. More than anything else, though, he didn’t particularly care. He led the way through the courtyard, which was currently busy with people, all of them armed in some fashion or another. Very few people bothered to stop and pay attention to their mismatched guests, though there was the occasional glance in their direction.

Their milits’iayi guide easily navigated through the flow of people to the office where Gurgen and Sirvard were currently meeting, though he wasn’t particularly patient when it came to waiting for his charges to catch up. He stopped at the half-open door and knocked, waiting for the command to enter before pushing the door all the way open.

Gurgen was sitting at the low table, smoking his pipe and filling the air with the smell of fresh tobacco and vanilla. He’d banished Madteos earlier to go see to whatever it was he did—Gurgen’s words—the moment Sirvard had arrived. The notoriously prickly old woman had no patience for the younger man. She was sitting at the table as well, gnarled fingers circled around a coffee cup. Her hair was long and white, braided and draped over one shoulder like an albino python. Her face was wrinkled like the skin of a dried apple from laugh and frown lines in unequal measure, lips currently pressed into a thin line of displeasure at the topic of their conversation: Sissak and Norazn’s death. The interruption did nothing to ameliorate her mood, but then again, she had never been a particularly nice woman. Displeased was almost her default setting, at least away from her family where she was a cooing grandmother to ten children of varying ages who could all do no wrong. She sipped her coffee instead of snapping, however, settling in to listen.

“Welcome,” Gurgen said after an exhale of silver-blue smoke. It was lingering up near the ceiling in a cloud, but they were sitting on the floor, so it wasn’t really too much of a problem. “It is a surprise to be visited by such esteemed people as Esperance International. Please come in and have a seat. We do not bite, on my honor. Would you care for coffee or kadaif? If there is something else we can have fetched for you, please let me know.”

Sirvard made a small murmur of agreement. There was room enough on the floor around the low table for four more people, though they might be sitting a little bit close together. The old woman eyed their guests in a measuring way, trying to gain some measure of grasp on what to expect. She’d read the article just like everyone else in the upper tiers of Nalaya’s hierarchy and was not pleased with the portrait painted on a variety of levels. She’d never directly been in contact with Esperance International before, but she knew they did do good work around the region. Granted, the degree to which she cared or even knew about events tended to terminate at Nalaya’s borders. Everything beyond that could expect a healthy helping of suspicion. Gurgen honestly wasn’t particularly worldly either, his attention and experiences fixed in his own country.

There was a newspaper sitting on the table, carefully folded. The Esperancer article was on the front page. Gurgen picked it up and moved it off to the side to create some room for his guests. Once the gate had radioed in, he had requested four more cups from one of the young men guarding the door, just so he wouldn’t have to move his old bones up and down any more than necessary. “I am Gurgen Messerlian,” the old man said calmly. “And my brilliant companion here is Tiruhi Sirvard Izanian. But I imagine that you know that already. Who do I have the great pleasure of addressing aside from Dr. Tigranian?”

It would take a few minutes to get either Gurgen or Sirvard to move to the question of why the Esperancers had come. Even in days like this, with tension in the air so thick it could be cut by a knife, they moved at a pace that could not be forced faster. It was what it was. A guest had to be met properly, introductions had to be made, and people had to be comfortable. Only then could productive conversations be had, at least as far as Nalayans were concerned.

[Esperance International]

Westfield Refugee Camp
Ayrum Village
Nalaya

Things improved.

Parouhi Kenosian knew that she should not have been surprised by this. After all, it was always theoretically possible for matters to get better. But she had become so accustomed to running from crisis to crisis that the notion that other people in the world cared about Ayrum still came as a shock.

Parouhi and her work-group filled in the cooking pits and distributed one humanitarian daily ration to each refugee and resident of Ayrum. In the process, the Esperancers discovered that the village’s population had swelled to over six thousand; people kept trickling in from all directions in a steady stream. Fourteen thousand spare humanitarian rations were crammed into the basement and barn of the Kenosian family home, and Madteos got his rifle and sat on a pile of pink packages as a glowering discouragement to looters and hoarders.

Meanwhile, Ari collected the work group that had roofed the alleys – with the exception of the kun’al who had chosen to leave for the frontlines – and distributed proper picks and shovels from one of the air-dropped crates. Then they headed downhill from the nascent reservoir, about a hundred meters from the village, and set to work digging basic pit latrines and erecting shelters for the privacy of users. By lunchtime, the work was slightly less than half complete – though Ari warned the others that the latrine would require constant expansion if more refugees continued to arrive.

Eric also re-gathered his work party, distributed the picks and shovels from the other crate, and put the finishing touches on his reservoir. The piles of masonry that had once formed his bridge now formed a deep, solid, clay-mortared wall around a depression just uphill from the village proper. The gully that led downhill to that depression from the mountain stream was deepened and straightened. And the stream itself was painstakingly dammed just below the place where it intersected the gully – though that process was neither simple nor swift.

Twice Eric tried to build a brushwood structure to hold back the water enough for him to construct a proper stone dam; twice the brushwood was washed away. When the sun was at its apex and the refugee-workers were sweating but uncomplaining, the brushwood finally held for long enough that Eric and his team could erect a sturdy stone wall in the streambed. The stream met the wall, and could not overcome it, and so it fled down the prepared gully into the stone-walled reservoir below. Clean, clear mountain water, fed by the snowfields in the Highlands far above, now awaited the use of the village.

Just before noon, another C-130 droned up the valley and dumped another monsoon of packages out onto the meadow west of the village. This time, the packages were swathed in massive amounts of Styrofoam packing and bubble wrap, and when the Esperancers had finally managed to pry them open, they discovered medical supplies: lidocaine and ketamine and morphine, atropine and diazepam, amoxicillin and ethmbutol, and two whole crates of ethanol and rehydration salts and aspirin tablets – plus collapsible cots and several hundred square meters of plastic sheeting. By late afternoon, Mayda’s desperately makeshift clinic had turned into a halfway-credible – if still terribly understaffed – field hospital.

At about three o’clock in the afternoon, the sound of approaching aircraft reached Ayrum again – but this time it was the distant roar of helicopter rotors. Once more, Parouhi saw several refugees look heavenward with fear; the Shalumi had used helicopters in Vayots Dzor, after all, and little remained of that city but rubble. But when the three aircraft came into view, they were painted in the distinctive silvery blue-grey that Esperance International used for its air assets, and they bore the flame-and-laurels on each side.

They were also huge: CH-53E Super Stallions, fully thirty meters from nose to tail fin. The first helicopter touched down in the meadow west of the village, and the noise of it was deafening, and the backwash from its rotors flattened the tall grass. Its rear ramp lowered, and forty Security Force troopers trotted out: tough-looking men and women in combat boots and blue jeans and flannel shirts or fleece jackets. They wore body armor - light plate carriers and high-cut helmets – and carried heavy battle rifles with underbarrel grenade launchers. Five toted light machine guns, and one even had a recoilless rifle.

With quiet efficiency, the reinforcements moved out toward the perimeter of the village, and began setting up observation posts and strongpoints. As they weaved their way through the crowds of refugees, they let their rifles hang from tactical slings, and they kept their hands open, and they spoke confident Nalayan: “We’re with Esperance International. Like the others. We are here to help.”

One of the new arrivals – a tall lean black man in his forties with a hooked beak of a nose – strode over to where Madteos sat on top of a pile of rations. “Sergeant Demirian, I assume?”

Madteos nodded. “You must be Undercommissioner Sadeghi’s mobile reserve, I suppose.”

“Yes. I’m Commander Rashid Samatar. And these are the last forty uncommitted Security Force troopers in Nalaya. Most of our remaining weapons, too.” The tall officer pulled off his helmet and rubbed his shaved scalp. “I hope you’re worth it, Sergeant.”

“You know,” Madteos muttered reluctantly, “I actually think we just might be.”

The other two helicopters – which touched down after the Security Force chopper had departed - held almost a hundred local volunteers from Tatev, most of whom had been recruited by Ada Narekatsi and sworn in at the airport by Lerato Jakande. They had been issued with Esperance armbands and ball caps, and Mayda took charge of directing them as they came off the aircraft. Those with medical training were sent to the hospital tents. Those with educational experience were told to start planning a school for the local children – necessary educational supplies could be airlifted in small quantities. The remainder of the volunteers were split up: some helped to replace the tarpaulins and roofed-in alleys with proper airlifted tents, while others distributed water from the reservoir or helped finish the latrine, and many were told simply to settle in among the refugees and figure out what else they needed.

But, with terrible irony, even as the situation turned from desperate to promising, the Esperancers could see some of the people in their care preparing to leave.

“It’s perverse,” was Ari’s opinion, offered during the latrine team’s lunch break. The little Menassan spooned cold beans from a HDI can directly into his mouth, scorning the ration’s chemical heater. “It’s suicide, and they know it, and they could do so much more good here. They’re throwing their lives away. It’s fucking perverse.”

“It’s their choice,” Mayda said quietly.

“I know that.” Ari stuffed his can back into the pink ration package, and Parouhi thought: We are going to need a better waste disposal system. Ari shook his head. “I’m not saying that we should try to stop them. I’m just saying that it’s messed-up. That’s all.”

“Amen,” Eric muttered.

“It’s their way,” Parouhi offered.

“That’s not an excuse when Karagozian wastes his people’s lives,” Ari snapped. “And it shouldn’t be an excuse for the Most Revered over there.”

Mayda shook her head. “They are going. We may not see them again. I at least want to bid them a proper farewell. Do you think you can manage that, Ari?”

“Frankly?” The Menassan shook his head. “No. Again: this is perverse. I can’t be a part of it.”

“Okay,” Mayda said plainly, and she got to her feet. “Do what you have to do.”

And so it was that the two Kenosian sisters made their way through the crowd to where the kun’al warriors were preparing their departure. Parouhi saw Elerra among their ranks, and she bit her lip hard, but she said nothing. Mayda saw her neighbor too, and her eyes were so, so tired.

The elder sister turned to Ildan. “I wish you would stay,” Mayda said plainly. “But I know that you cannot.” She swallowed back unexpected grief, and gave a solemn nod. “I hope that all of you find what you seek. Farewell, Most Revered.”

[Esperance International]

Residence of Kachazor Shareshian
Near the Cathedral of Our Lady of Sorrows
Tatev, Nalaya

For a long moment, Drada seemed not to notice Arnold’s question. She stood on the doorstep of Shareshian’s house, and methodically tapped out a cigarette from a dog-eared pack, and put it between her lips, and lit it with an old-fashioned wooden match. Then she took a long drag and blew silver smoke up toward the moon.

Where do we go from here? It was a good question, Drada had to admit. The simplest questions were often the hardest to answer.

The simplest questions…

There was something there, but Drada couldn’t put her thumb on it. Revelation lay, maddeningly, just out of reach.

Drada sighed and blew smoke out through her nostrils. “What’s next for me is that I go home,” she said wearily. “This visit was unsatisfying, but not useless. I don’t think Tsavagian is our killer. He’s too direct, too brusque. He doesn’t have the subtlety.”

The investigator gestured vaguely with her cigarette. “A man who kills by poison is ruthless, but he’s also smart, cautious, conservative. It’s a cold weapon, a weapon without anger or remorse. A poisoner would have strung us out, figured out what we knew and why, pumped us for information. Tsavagian didn’t do any of that. He just ran us out like yesterday’s garbage. He doesn’t have the – the people skills – to be our killer.”

“Now, he does know something.” Drada nodded. “That is certain. He may even know who the killer is. And he may tell us, given time. But we’ll get nothing more from him until he’s ready to share what he knows.”

Drada pondered the stars for a long moment, and then looked up at Arnold. “Tomorrow I will speak to Valentin Andzevatsi,” she concluded. “Van Kasilian said that Tsavagian probably spoke to her too. She may be able to tell us what it was that he knew that was worth killing for. And if she does know that, then she needs to know that she is in danger as well.”

Drada’s cigarette was reduced to a single ember. She ground it out under her heel. “But for now, I am going home. I need to sleep on these things. I will meet you back at the Miak Amrots’ tomorrow. Shall we say nine o’clock?” Drada glanced from Arnold to Dara, and nodded. “I am sure you have reports of your own to write. Good night, Paron, Siruhi.”

* * *

Diplomatic Corps Offices
Miak Amrots’
Tatev, Nalaya

Drada slept soundly, yet poorly, for she dreamed.

In her dreams, she stood in an ocean of ebon sand. Tsavagian stood in front of her, a shadowy figure whose face she could not see. He said: “You are too slow.”

“What did you know?” Drada asked.

“That no one,” Tsavagian replied, “is what they seem.” And then the shadows upon his face rippled like water, and a white dove tore itself free from the dark figure and soared heavenward into a pale blue sky.

The dream meant something. Drada had no doubt of that. But she could not imagine what it might indicate. And so when she woke, she still ran through her normal morning routine: two hundred sit-ups, twenty minutes on the heavy bag, a couple hard-boiled eggs, a glass of orange juice. But she could feel herself sluggish, unrested, inflexible. Too slow.

Just before nine o’clock, Drada a’Nadros made her way through the checkpoint at the Miak Amrots’ gate, and back up the steps to the Diplomatic Corps offices. The scene of Tsavagian’s death was still sealed behind police tape. Drada paused next to the scene, and considered the office doors visible from where the victim had died.

Someone behind one of those doors had probably killed him.

“A locked room,” Drada mumbled.

What did you know?

Drada killed time briefly until the Shalumi arrived. Then she nodded to them and said: “Good to see you again.” She waved at Valentin Andzevatsi’s office door. “Shall we?”

[Esperance International]

Office of the Protector
Sevan
Nalaya

Catherine Gladwell smiled. “If there’s one thing that I have learned about Nalaya,” she replied, “it is that norms outside this country have little to do with how things get done within it.”

Razmouhi Danayan glanced around the office. She had been in this room a few times before. It was a beautiful space, she thought, but oddly antiseptic: halfway between an office and a hotel room. There was a stilted artificiality about it, like it belonged to an actor playing a role for which she was but imperfectly suited. The only signs of real passion were the recently broken window and the red ink upon the newspaper.

Razmouhi wondered about that article. It had proved far more powerful than anyone had anticipated. But while it was a catalyst of bloodshed, it might also provide the necessary push to get the Protector to agree to establish a safe zone.

“I cannot speak for my colleagues,” Catherine continued. “But for myself, the day has been long. I came by air from New Prospect last night, to talk to you.” The High Commissioner smiled, and raised her coffee cup. “So as you can imagine, your hospitality is most welcome.”

“I’m also grateful to you for meeting us on such short notice,” David Zhu added softly. “I know that you must be very busy. We are conscious of the honor that you do us by the gift of your time.”

There was an awkward silence. Razmouhi chewed on a strawberry. It was hard to make small talk with someone like the Tigress of Yeraksh. She had no family, no apparent hobbies. There was nothing to talk about.

Eventually, Varteni Rashidian nodded at the window, beyond which lay the gardens and the river and the great bronze bells. “I’m always struck by the view here,” she mused. “It’s beautiful. Ancient. Peaceful. You can see everything that’s best in Sevan from that window.” Varteni shook her head. “I wouldn’t want the responsibility of sitting in this office every day, Protector, but I’m glad that there are some silver linings to it.”



RV Central Headquarters
Armavir
Nalaya

The four Esperancers walked through the headquarters. Nyah stared straight ahead, looking neither left nor right. Vartan was dignified but cordial, offering their guide a nod of thanks when he deposited them at the office of the Nava’ai leaders. Tamar stared about with frank, fearless curiosity. Frederico felt like he had a bulls-eye painted on the back of his head.

Sirvard and Gurgen were intimidating, but hospitable, and the sight of them filled Vartan with hope. They were the old breed: ruthless to the point of cruelty, but honorable. They had a code, and they had loyalties: to their cause and to their people and to their way of life. They could be reasoned with. They were not monsters.

The four Esperancers settled around the low table. Frederico saw the newspaper with the Esperance article on the front page and fought back a nervous gulp. Nyah still seemed vaguely shell-shocked, cradling her coffee cup in both hands.

Tamar nodded at the introductions, and said: “Thank you for your hospitality, Ter and Tiruhi. I am Tamar Meghrouni. I am the head of the Esperance International office here in Armavir. These are my colleagues: Frederico Donati of the Commission of Inquiry, and Nyah Ekwensi of the Commission on Democracy and Civil Society.”

“It is a great honor for us to meet you both,” Vartan added with quiet sincerity. “I grew with stories of your deeds.”

Frederico’s eyes slipped toward the newspaper. And now I’m telling the story of those deeds, he thought, and they don’t look so fine any more, do they?

I will never understand this country.

Tamar’s impatience with the formalities of small talk was obvious, but she was Nalayan born and bred, and she observed the conventions without complaint. Sipping her cup of coffee, she said: “I hope that the day has been good to you so far?”

After all, this meeting could decide the fate of millions, and the Esperancers had only one chance to get it right. Gurgen and Sirvard would invite Tamar and her team to get down to business when the time was right. Until then, Tamar was not going to risk the meeting by inordinate haste.

[Shalum]

The Assault
Siunik, Nalaya

Dead. He is definitely dead. Ludwig thought without emotion as he gazed down at the deceased Nava’ai insurgent who laid at his feet. Slowly, he untrained his weapon, slinging it across his chest as he reached down to turn the enemy over. While he was no medic, he was more than capable of conducting a further investigation. The fatal wounds were apparent, a tight grouping to the neck and lower jaw, which had destroyed the carotid artery and whatever else was adjacent. Perhaps not the cleanest of kills in the history of warriorhood, but a testament of how skilled they were nonetheless.

Turning, Ludwig paused as he watched the scene around him. Richter appeared to be holding on, grimacing in pain as Mash’al went about patching up his damaged, bloody arm. Further back, Jesse was just now appearing, taking advantage in the lull of violence to see what was going on with the radios. “You going to be alright, son?” The Imperial scout leader asked, brows furrowed in concern, and gloved hands shaking slightly as he gripped his assault rifle tightly.

“Just fine, sir. Peachy even.” The wounded Shalumite soldier on the floor chuckled hoarsely, eyeing Mash’al for a moment. He doubted that there was much the medic could really do for him, between limited supplies, and the fact that they were knee deep in enemy territory. “Looks like I may be just down to my sidearm though,” he added more pragmatically after a beat; knowing that his arm simply wouldn’t be able to support the kick of his primary weapon in its current state.

“That’s just fine, trooper. I’ll take whatever I can get right now,” Jesse did his best to joke as he looked down at the injured warrior. The man had served the division well, aided in their mission here to secure the radio station, and the Lance Corporal was certain he would be rewarded; assuming that they lived long enough, of course.

Tilting his head to look at Kaliq, the Shalumite scout leader grinned back at the older man. The situation was somewhat dire, certainly, but at least his Vantai ally was keeping in good spirits for the moment. “Let them come, they will die like everyone else before them has.” He replied with some enthusiasm as he held up his rifle, freshly reloaded. “I think that we will be just fine by the time the Lady of Steel and Stevens arrive. They’re going to get all the attention from the enemy soon enough,” he chuckled.

Over in the corner of the room, Ludwig glanced down at the dead enemy at his feet. He did not smirk or smile as he rustled through the man’s gear, sliding it across the floor to where Kaliq was. “I think that we should practice the old tradition of turning the enemy’s equipment and supplies against them. If anyone needs ammunition or weapons, I am sure we can make something work.” He observed as he looked around at the other Nava’ai corpses, which were still loaded with things like magazines and weapons. To varying degrees, of course.

Looking to the horizon, out the door that led to the fire escape, Jesse’s eyes flickered a bit. He could swear that he heard the telltale thump-thump or heavy mortar batteries, even from here. “Right on time, the main attack is beginning,” he grinned; feeling the adrenaline still flowing through his veins, keeping him in battle mode for the time being.

---

Lieutenant Colonel Stevens swallowed thickly, reaching up to tug nervously at the straps of his helmet, than the velcro of his combat gloves. Around him, Imperial and Vantai warriors alike were streaming forward now, making rapid progress towards the city proper, as well as any cover they could find along the way. Between the darkness, and the gas masks they wore, the formations of soldiers were an eery sight to say the least. Further back, the engines of armored vehicles rumbled to life, their wheels and tracks slowly starting to propel them forward towards the population center under siege. Gunners manned their stations, looking out for hostile foot mobiles through the night vision and infrared scopes of their vehicles.

At the Shalumite encampment north of the city, fire mission confirmations were just coming in, sending the already alert teams into action. Soldiers in their pits scrambled, uncapping canisters that were filled with munitions of varying types. The city had been ‘sighted in’ for hours by now, and unlike with high explosives warheads, they were not concerned about adjusting fire. Their goal was to blanket the city in tear gas, after all.

“Hang in!” One young soldier called out, grunting as he picked up one of the mortar shells, which weighed a good thirty-pounds. Dressed in long-sleeve BDUs which had been rolled up, one could easily see how he was muscular, body built up after several years of hauling around artillery shells. Reaching up, he held the shell above the tube of the Soltam K6 field system, waiting for his order to drop it. Nearby, loaders of other Soltams and HMS-15 Armbrusts were doing the same.

A half-second later, a sergeant called out, binoculars in hand as he observed the city before him. “Fire!” It was a deep, booming command that came straight from his diaphragm. Imperial officers were trained to use their own like this, so that they wouldn’t strain vocal cords, even under duress in the heat of battle.

All at once, every field piece let loose, shaking the ground of the local area, and filling it with high pitched whines as the mortar rounds were suddenly ejected at high speeds from their tubes, soaring through the sky at a high arc, only coming back down to earth as they entered the airspace of Siunik. At the end of their shorter fuses, they exploded over the houses and streets of the city, immediately dispersing clouds of tear gas. The minimum area of effect for each round was advertised by Wolf Armaments as thirty meters, not to mention whatever wind gusts there may have been to disperse the highly concentrated gasses. Every few moments, loud booms echoed over the city, as the mortar batteries opened up in full force, slining out rounds as quickly as possible.

The grand strategy of it all, as a pincer of Shalumite and Vantai soldiers moved on the city, was to smoke the Nava’ai rats out of their defense positions. The hope was that some of them, at the very least, wouldn’t have access to gas masks; or would be caught too off guard to get them on in time. This would leave them either immobilized, or forced out of the city, into the waiting maws of advancing armored vehicles and infantry. If they came in full force, the allied forces could always retreat, back to where more Shalumite armored vehicles laid in wait; ready to open up with their heavier guns, which would otherwise cause great damage to the city and its buildings.

---

On the Run
Alaverdi, Nalaya

<<I never knew there was this much green in the world>> Kaleb murmured; sounding almost reverent as he moved with the rest of the group, eyes wide and filled with wonder as he took in the rich environment that surrounded them now. For years, the only things that he and Brakis had ever really known were the confines of their masters estates, the lifeless mountains of Maldoria and the nightmarish mines deep below, where they could have been sent away to die at any time. Now, however, everything was so different. There was so much life and freedom, to the point that it was almost dizzying for the younger slave.

Not that Brakis was much better off. He looked back and forth rapidly, as if not quite believing his eyes at this very moment. Normally the attentive one, he was much more relaxed for once, not scanning his environment for pursuers or hidden observers. His guard was down so much that it was only when the yathallar emerged from the woodwork, ready to gun him and Kaleb down, did he realize what was happening.

They were surrounded, and outnumbered at least three to one, if not more. Not that they were in fighting shape to begin with, between the current state of the women, and the fact neither him or his now free brother had never handled a gun until their escape. Gazing upon the tatooed woman, his heart sank to the pits of his stomach as he dropped the assault rifle he had been carrying, and slowly raised his hands. In his eyes, she could have easily been a female Maldorian, with all the tattoos that criss-crossed her body. Her face, in particular, was a good bit terrifying, and Kaleb couldn’t bring himself to meet her eyes-- wherever they actually were.

Standing beside Dzia, the older, now free Maldorian man swallowed thickly as he glanced back and forth between the redhead and this new female warrior. The protective urge was flowing through his veins now, wanting to put himself between Dzia and Jaelryn; but he understood that if he did that, there was nothing stopping the woman or her followers from simply gunning him down.

He knew that he looked rather bad as it was, wearing the uniform of a Maldorian soldier, and carrying the stolen rifle of one. <<Please, we mean no harm to you. To anyone>> Brakis said, voice trembling a bit in fear under the gaze of this harsh looking Nalayan woman. The elevation of freedom had suddenly left him, at the realization that it could very well end up being a much shorter experience than he had hoped for. As an older man, he had never expected much, perhaps other than a few years peace, but Dzia and Kaleb were too young to die, or be put back into chains.

The next few moments were perhaps some of the most nerve wracking of both Kaleb and Brakis’ lives. Both men, neither able to really speak or understand the local language, could only hold their hands up in a sign of compliance; nervously glancing back and forth between Dzia and Jaelryn. Both men had literally begun to sweat, their stolen uniforms sticking to their body as they listened, expecting to be gunned down or taken captive at any moment. It was only once weapons were lowered by the yathallar and Mak’ur warriors did the two former slaves breath a sigh of relief.

The men’s steps were tentative, following after the yathallar and the rest of the group with less enthusiasm than others might have. They stayed close -Brakis close to Dzia, while Kaleb near the rest of the free women- eyeing their Mak’ur guards with a mix of nervousness and suspicion. Everything was happening so quickly, and worst of all, they could not really understand one another. All the two men had to go on was the fact that Dzia and the others seemed accepting of the situation, at least for the moment.

<<Who are these people?>> Brakis tried to ask the redhead quietly as they approached the manor house, looking down at her with concerned eyes. His words were a mixture of Nalayan and Maldorian, given it was the best he could manage.

Inside the building, the two men looked around nervously, taking in the sights of it. The designs were so different from what they were used to back home, even if they had never gotten to see any of the living or state room areas of their master’s estate. Really, this was the last place they would have expected to find soldiers, yet here they were; reminiscent of the Maldorian tribal units, though with an air of confidence to them that Brakis had never really experienced.

As the women were led away, Brakis and Kaleb looked wary, concerned about being separated from the rest of the group. Of course, they knew that they were likely safe in these strangers hands, especially if they were being cared for by primarily women, but after days of having only each other to rely on, the former slaves were still on edge. <<What happens now?>> Brakis finally asked, slowly, doing his best to use local words as he looked at Navasard.

---

Along the Zeklet’taune Aluin
The Har’oloth, Nalaya

While most focused on the religious aspect of the Justicar Order, and what ideals they upheld; the fact remained that it was still considered a force of elite knights and crusaders, as well as the oldest continuous military formation in Shalum, if one wanted to look deep into the history books. Because of this, the Council of Christ expected nothing short of the best from the enforcers and guardians of their doctrine, thus their training standards were on par with special operations forces from across the globe. Many of those who made up their ranks were former military, so the transition had not been especially hard, at least physically.

One experience that all three of the Shalumite justicars here shared was that they had all made it through Imperial hellweek. It was the crucible in which soldiers of the Empire, bound for frontline or otherwise dangerous assignments, were put through seven days of intensive physical workouts as well as simulated combat operations in mock-cities made of cinder block and plywood. The opening day was perhaps one of the most daunting challenges, a forty-two kilometer run through the forests of northern Kravola.

No one had ever really admitted to enjoying the grueling trek, not even the toughest of them, but in the here and now as the criss-crossed Mak’ur territory on their journey north, the trio of Shalumite warriors had a certain appreciation for it that that they had never experienced before. For better or worse, those seven days, as well as years of training before and after, had prepared them for journey. At least in the physical sense. There was very little one could do in order to strengthen themselves either emotionally or spiritually for the tests that the forces at work in Nalaya had issued them so far.

Even with all of the hardship that went along with it, there was a certain reverence to the Shalumite warriors as they traveled the Zeklet’taune Aluin, wonder flickering in their eyes as they took in their surroundings. Everything here was so different when compared to what they were used to, jagged hills and rising mountains, so different from the seemingly endless stretches of Shalumite farmland and cities with populations in the millions. It was clear to them that the greed of man had never touched these lands. They were wild and pristine. Even the shrines that they stopped at every three days seemed to naturally fit into the local landscape.

There was a certain hesitation to the justicars whenever they rested at one of the numerous kyorlen, at least when it came to the procedures there. They understood that for their Nalayan companions, this was supposed to be a deeply religious experience, and that was something they respected. Sure, their code dictated that they respect other religions, but they had come to appreciate local Nalayan customs over the past several months as well. It did not, however, mean that Joan did not pale a little as she watched Sabal sacrifice blood of all things to some of the guardian statues.

For the two Shalumite men, observing how the redhead and yathallar interaction was both interesting and heartwarming. The two never seemed far apart, all but attached at the hip at other times. And while she was never a tense person by nature, it was unmistakable how at ease Joan was whenever her lover was around, much less touching her in one way or another. It was why, at night, the two men made sure to face away from the couple as they slept, and gave them as much privacy as could be found in their current situation.

It was a good thing that they did this, because on one cold night twelve days into their trip, as a storm rumbled in the distance; Joan could not longer restrain herself. Once she thought the others were asleep, she wrapped her arms around her lover, rolling them so that Sabal was on her back. “Be quiet my love, I don’t want to wake them,” she murmured into the Mak’ur woman’s ear. Pressing a kiss to her lips gently, a devious little smile creased her lips as she began to make her way down the yathallar’s body, gentle and affectionate with her kisses and caresses.

As they approached the next ku’nal shrine on their journey north, Michael couldn’t help but groan quietly, out of a mix of discomfort and tiredness, as well as relief that the next xorile was in sight. Over the last couple of weeks or so (he could no longer remember how long they had been on the Zeklet’taune Aluin) he had acquired more than a few bumps and bruises, none of which had really been given time to heal due to the fact that they were constantly on the move. Lugging around pounds of gear and supplies did not make him feel much better. Thankfully, Sabal wasn’t pushing them too hard, so it was all manageable.

Reaching the doors of the shrine, the Shalumite justicars all paused, making sounds or wearing expressions of surprise as they eyed the vicious, deep claw marks that adorned the entrance. They had seen many animals on the trail, but none such as what had to have left these markings. “No, definitely not alone,” Faisal agreed quietly as he slowly moved forward, rifle gripped tightly in one hand as he used the other to run his hand along the damaged door. He wanted to shudder at how deep his fingers were able to go. “I can see how it is an incarnation of rage,” he added with a tight lipped expression as he looked over at their resident yathallar.

“A lion?” Joan asked with a startled, nervous tone as she looked around; keeping her battle rifle at the ready. While she had gone toe-to-toe with any number of opponents over the years, an animal such as an apex predator was not one of them. If it got in close, she had the feeling she and her friends would not fare well. Without thinking, she edged a little closer to Sabal.

Michael visibly got closer to Pella, not quite touching her, but hovering alongside the young woman. He had almost puffed up, as if making himself appear larger would improve their situation if a lion was to come out of the woodwork. “Perhaps we should head inside and rest while we still can,” he proposed; looking over their surroundings with intent eyes. While expecting an attack at night was one thing -assuming it happened at all, hopefully it didn’t- he had learned that things rarely went according to expectation or plan. There was nothing really stopping this predator from making itself known at any time, really. Maybe it already had set its sights on them, for that matter, and was simply biding it’s time.

---

Diplomatic Corps Offices
Miak Amrots’
Tatev, Nalaya

Returning to Miak Amrots' after a full day of investigating, the Shalumite investigators had been tired, to say the least. They were all more mentally drained, rather than physically, as they had been forced into an operational mindset that they had never really experienced before. Sure, they were all strong and smart individuals; capable of bring death and destruction to their enemies, but they were not the quick-witted investigator that their fellow Mak'ur investigator was. At this rate, it was looking as if they would be the most successful on the paperwork front, rather than drumming up leads and bringing in new suspects.

While Drada may have not gotten the best sleep the night before, the same couldn't be said for the Shalumites. Not that it was any better than her own, admittedly, but they all managed to get through the night relatively undisturbed. After some of the things they had been forced to do over the years, their dreams were often plagued with much worse than thoughts of a dead man. Sometimes, if they were lucky, their subconscious would simply be blank, allowing them to go to sleep and simply wake up hours later as if little time had actually passed.

The next morning, at nine on the dot, Arnold and Dara were both waiting for Drada. They had crashed in Miak on a few spare cots, so the commute had been on the short side of things. Both of them were dressed as they had the day before, in uniform, with sidearms and handcuffs on their hips; looking like the Shalumite MPs they were supposed to me. "Good morning, Siruhi," the male Imperial greeted her with a polite smile and salute.

"Good to see you too, ma'am." Dara replied with a nod. "Malcolm will be joining us later, our commanding officer Elijah needed to sorry him for a couple of hours," she explained. The size of the group had noticeably shrunken from four to three. "Let's roll," she said as she moved over to knock on the TRC Councillor's door. It was the polite and proper thing to do, rather than simply barge in.

[Nalaya]

Recovering
Alaverdi, Nalaya

“Yath,” Dzia said by way of explanation, using her broken Maldorian. “Safe. Hate…masters.” Her vocabulary and grammar was significantly lacking, but she tried. She offered Brakis and Kaleb a small smile. “Yath good.” At this point, she could absolutely understand the righteous, vengeful anger of the Yath, an emotion she’d never thought she would ever feel before all this had happened to her. Once she’d spoken, she let Lethe and Micarlin gently lead her and the others away. All she could do was hope that Brakis and Kaleb would be polite.

Navasard greeted the men with a faint smile, keeping himself from showing teeth. <<Now you eat and bathe and rest. I am Navasard,>> he said in Nalayan, motioning to himself when he spoke his name. His own anger did not extend to guests off the battlefield, no matter how ruthless he could be on it. He was not certain he trusted these men or their intentions, but he did feel sympathy for them—they looked run ragged. <<Come.>> He motioned for them to follow. The ku’nal had been preparing to eat dinner themselves, so he knew there would be plenty of food waiting in the kitchen.

Curious eyes settled on Brakis and Kaleb as they came into the large kitchen, and a few people inquired into it with Navasard. His answer was always, <<They are guests of the Most Revered.>> The food was nothing complicated, just harissa—a porridge made of meat and wheat cooked together for a long time. There was some loaves of warm bread with rich butter to go with it. The yathrin ladled both men a bowl and handed them over before motioning to one of the loaves of bread. <<Please, eat. You are welcome in this place.>> He didn’t expect them to understand the words—they seemed not to know much Nalayan—but he hoped they would understand the sentiment.

Meanwhile, Dzia was trying to relax in the bath, but she stiffened whenever Lethe or Micarlin moved behind her. “Who did this to you?” Lethe asked softly, sitting down by the edge of the tub and handing over a washcloth. She didn’t need to ask what had happened, not when she recognized those kinds of bruises and scrapes. The visible wounds were healing, but not so old from the looks of them. She guessed it had been a few days. As for the invisible ones, well, Lethe was certain it would take a very long time for those to begin to close.

“Pomerok,” Dzia said quietly. “He is…in the Shalumite camp, but he does not seem like them. He and his are different from them.”

“And there were others?” Lethe asked. The yath’abban’s tone was sympathetic and gentle, a reminder that she was no longer in the Maldorian camp.

Dzia nodded, pulling her knees up against her chest. It was hard not to go back to that time and place, to those horrible feelings. The bruises bothered her less than the memories, as they were already fading. She just felt like she would never be clean again. “Please be good to the men we came with,” she said softly. “They brought us out of that hell.”

“I will tell Jaelryn what you told me,” Lethe said. “It is her decision what will become of them…but I do not see her harming anyone who has taken care of you all. Perhaps they could not protect you against this Pomerok, but they did a good thing by freeing you.”

Dzia nodded for a moment before pulling in a deep, shuddering breath. “I want to fight,” she said quietly.

The yath’abban looked at her for a long moment before speaking, as if analyzing her mood and motivations. “Then you will need some training, little sister,” Lethe said. “You may have the heart of a warrior, but you do not have the muscles of one.”

“It does not take many muscles to pull a trigger,” Dzia pointed out.

Lethe smiled faintly. “This is true.” She did not stand up or leave the young woman to inform Jaelryn of what had been said. She knew that none of the women they had just acquired would be ready to be alone. Fortunately for them, the twins were gentler than most of the Yath by far and well accustomed to caring for others.

Navasard was doing his best with Brakis and Kaleb, though. Once the two men had eaten, he showed them to a guest room that was not in use. There was a shower in the adjoining bathroom that they could use and two beds. <<Yours,>> he said, gesturing at the room. <<I will come back when Jaelryn has decided. You may wander the house as pleases you.>> Again, he doubted they would understand the words, but hopefully his softer tone would at least put them at ease. Then, once they were settled, he departed to go find his superior.

Jaelryn was sitting up in the sniper’s roost that had been constructed on the roof. It had a good view of the main road into town, though she wasn’t watching the road at the moment. She was cleaning her rifle. Navasard sat down next to her without needing to be prompted, his eyes focusing on the distance. “They are very uneasy,” he commented.

“Perhaps we would be as well, were we in their position,” Jaelryn said. “I spoke with Micarlin. She gave account of the evils visited upon our guests by the invaders. It is our duty to answer such offenses against nature.”

“I look forward to it, but the soldier in me would note that we are fewer than the Shalumi by a great margin,” he said.

“The main forces will arrive in Tatev soon. All we need do now is be a thorn in their side until they can be scoured from the earth by flame,” Jaelryn said, as serene as ever even in the face of such horrible foes. “These…Maldorians, they are the ones who require the purification of fire.”

“And if the Shalumi withdraw them?” Navasard asked curiously.

“Inaction is complicity,” Jaelryn said. “We will punish the Shalumites for theirs. I will contact the Vatani forces in the area and discuss the matter with them. They seek to hinder the progress of the invaders and are no true friend to the Nava’ai.”

“A dangerous proposition.”

The yathallar glanced up from her weapon for a moment. “It is a dangerous world,” she said. “Who am I to question such things? Besides, eternity calls.”

“Eternity calls,” he echoed in agreement, looking out over the roof. He could hear a group of their soldiers praying as they cleaned their weapons and checked their gear in preparation for battle. It was part of L’istar de’ Thalack, the Tenet of War, that was sung in its haunting way. He found his lips moving of their own volition along with the verses.

...You who have stirred up my fury against you,
Know that no fortress may keep me from your domain.
I will ravage the earth and bring down the sky upon you.
I will turn the sea and wind themselves against your fleets.
Your armies will break like waves upon the rocks,
Your walls will crack and crumble as if founded upon sand:
This is that which your fate has apportioned for you,
For the deeds of the evil are repaid in torrents of fire.
No yawning gulf of distance will divide my retribution forever from you,
No measureless time will purge your iniquity from my memory,
There is no escape from the vengeance that I promise,
For I am embodiment of the primal, the face of deathless Death.

I am become War, eater of worlds, death of the light...

---

Along the Zeklet’taune Aluin
The Har’oloth, Nalaya

Sabal noticed the way Joan edged a little closer to her. She wrapped an arm around the justicar’s waist and pulled her close in a tight hug. “Let’s go inside, yes?” she murmured to her lover before leading the way into the shrine through the already open doors. When she saw the wooden bar used to block the door shut laying broken on the floor, she felt the cold in the pit of her stomach grow more potent. Perhaps it had not been a strong one, but it was still chilling. This creature was stronger than even she had expected. Keeping it out would be a problem, to say nothing of the trail when they would no longer have the protection of the xorile. It was definitely time to pray for protection and come up with a plan.

As far as Pella was concerned, those doors couldn’t have closed behind them fast enough. “We’ll need a way to bar it,” the girl said nervously, doing her best not to look around too hard in case she saw something else she might not like. She almost tripped over the rifle laying on the floor.

“There will be an iron bar here as well, for the storms,” Sabal said quietly. There were streaks of blood across the floor near the fallen weapon where the creature had dragged its victim out of the building. “I doubt the last people here realized that they were being hunted, else they might have used it. I do not know if it will keep Kor’inth at bay, but it may prove more of a frustration than mere wood.”

“I don’t know much about lions,” Pella admitted.

“It will come in the night,” Sabal said. She knew lions better than most, having spent most of her adult life studying and even emulating them. There was no way to overstate the reverence she felt for them, which was probably the main reason her chest was aching. “I do not know if it will attack here or later, on the road where we have little protection. It may be necessary to track it down tomorrow, so we are safe tomorrow night. Provided it does not make itself known tonight, of course.” There was a definite, if faint, strain in her voice.

The yathallar dropped her bundle of supplies and gear just inside the entrance and lay down her rifle as well. She approached the statue surrounded by offerings carefully. This one depicted a particularly ancient spirit: bestial in the way of a cat, but with hawk-like taloned feet, the suggestion of a feathered crest, and human eyes looking down at them. It was probably eight feet tall and carved of white marble, its features safe from weathering here inside the shrine and thus easily distinguishable to its guests. Its expression was pensive and calm rather than snarling and enraged, which Sabal supposed would probably make it a little bit less objectionable to the justicars. She wasn’t ignorant of their occasional discomfort with the rites.

An iron brazier embossed with L'i'dol prayers rested in front of the statue with a small stack of wood and an ancient oil lamp beside it. She set about making a fire, the ritual motions calming and focusing her. The smoke would rise to the roof and waft out through a cut stone chimney that broke out along the apex of the roof. She had no doubt that the smoke would cue the creature to the fact that the xorile was occupied, but at this point, Sabal didn’t believe a confrontation could be avoided.

Meanwhile, Pella set down her own things before going to the trickling fountain at the center of the shrine and filling up her canteen. “We should clean up the blood,” she said. It was tradition for pilgrims to care for the xorile on the path, leaving them better than how they had found them. Besides, she wasn’t certain she would be able to stand the sight of that blood for much longer.

“A good thought,” Sabal said over her shoulder as she coaxed flames to life. She was relieved when they caught. The shrine was much cooler than outside because of the water and the construction, so a fire would be welcome when night fell. She knew the walls would be good insulation to keep the right amount of heat in if she watched the fire, as in every xorile. “There should be a brush here somewhere, probably tucked in a corner.”

Pella found it and a small bucket mostly concealed behind one of the pillars. She set to work on the bloodstains without really stopping to think about it. The sooner it was gone, the better.

Sabal made a small cut on the inside of her left forearm near so many other tiny scars, and let the blood drip into the fire as she offered a quiet prayer for protection. The fire had a bitter-sweet smell as it burned, hints of incense infused into the oil. The prayer and small offering at least made her feel better. It was hard to connect with the divine when she could feel that primal urge towards survival clouding her mind. She blotted away the blood with a cloth and then applied antibiotic ointment and a small bandaid. She wasn’t an idiot. Infection was a risk one didn’t want to run out on the Aluin.

That done, she approached the others again. Pride wouldn’t let her show fear, but she certainly felt it. It wasn’t actually fear for her own life; after all, she had spent a lifetime chasing death in one way or another, with the firm expectation that she would meet it in combat. She was far, far more afraid that something might happen to Joan. A vengeful spirit would have every reason to target Christi on the path, no matter how much Sabal prayed for their protection. Sabal wasn’t certain what she would do if she lost Joan, but she knew it would be nothing good. Soft emotions were fragile things. “We have a few hours before nightfall,” Sabal said, focusing on the practical. “We should probably eat and rest now, just in case it comes with the dark.”

---

The Refugees
Ayrum, Nalaya

“We appreciate your hospitality, and your farewell,” Ildan said, bowing to the two women. “What you have done here will not be forgotten, even beyond the river.” He was sincere in his desire to carry their goodness to the knowing of the powers that influenced the universe. Good deeds begot good deeds, in his experience. “Divine guard you.” He turned his eyes to his second-in-command. <<We depart.>>

Nanar nodded before cupping her hands around her mouth and letting out a fierce whistle that moved up and down in pitch in the direction of their people. The sound carried far—far enough to summon the ku’nal who were still fit to fight, certainly. They rose almost as one, picking up rifles and packs, each one aware that they would be advancing on the enemy. Some unseen force drew them inexorably southward, to where destiny waited.

Duagloth watched them go, stone-faced and dry-eyed. Elerra had not remained with him. He hadn’t expected her to, not really. This was something she had been waiting for as long as he had known her. The only comfort he could really take was that they would not be parted forever. Death was a gulf that Time would one day take him across, and he knew his wife would be waiting on the other side. Part of him wished bitterly that he had gone too, but he knew Chal would need him. Perhaps not as much as she needed Elerra, but what was done was done.

A short distance away, Medzarents watched with the same regret. He wished he was going, but Nanar had all but ordered him to stay with his fallen friend. No one was sure when or if Arshaluys would recover, so someone needed to be there to see that her body was properly treated should the worst come to pass. The same could be said of the other ku’nal injured. Rites were not necessary for the rest of the dead, but they were favored when one fell outside of battle. He would probably follow the others in time, to attend to their bodies if possible. It had been very hard to see them go, but what could he do?

Beyond, in the rest of the camp, life was approaching a new normal. There was always something to be done, be it digging or cleaning or organizing. Many people jumped to it with the energy of the desperate, seeking to deal with their grief through action. Others were paralyzed by it, sitting and watching the north where they had come from, hoping that some sign of hope would reveal itself or that they could return.

The reality was, of course, that no such thing would be possible for a long time with the damage that had been done to Vayots Dzor. Thoughts of the future were far from the minds of the refugees, though. All of them were aware that they were nowhere near out of danger yet. The knowledge that Karagozian would inevitably come north had drifted to the surface of people’s minds. Even the Nava’ai loyalists among the refugees were nervous at that thought, mostly because more men with guns was not terribly reassuring no matter whose side they were on.

---

Valantin Andzevatsi’s Office
Tatev, Nalaya

Valantin Andzevatsi had already been at work for four hours by the time that Drada and the Shalumite STG officers arrived to her door. She was not at her finest, not with the article sitting on her desk still and five hundred different people trying to get ahold of her at once. Her secretary was all but chained to the phone as they tried to coordinate the activities of translators throughout the area to assist Rikker’s people. It would be utter pandemonium at first, particularly with the ku’nal on the approach from the northwest, but eventually things would iron out. At least, that was what Val told herself every time her phone rang in sotto voce tones, as a sort of mantra to keep her from tearing her own hair out. All hopes of getting things done early so she could get lunch with Rikker were cold and dead at this point.

She heard the knock on her door and cursed. It was probably Sahak or possibly even Shareshian. The old man had been looking for an excuse to snarl at someone for a while now, and while they were actually on very good terms—he was the only one she ever confided anything in—Valantin knew she was still a target sometimes. It was at least never malicious, just frustrated. “Come in!” she called once she’d covered the mic on her cellphone, which was trapped awkwardly between her shoulder and her ear as she tried to fight the paperwork on her desk into something resembling order. She used English just in case it was Rikker or some other Shalumite come to coordinate things with her.

Then she returned her attention to her phone conversation, speaking in fluid Mak’ur. <<Yes, I understand. I’ll make sure we have preparations to accommodate the Yath and the C’rintrin here in Tatev. They’ll be arriving tonight?>> She listened for a brief moment, obviously trying not to sigh. She was honestly not looking forward to tangling with either Lesaonar or Sabrae. They were dangerous, more so than she herself. But being the head of the TRC in Tatev, as well as Rikker’s unofficial ambassador at this point, meant doing her best. <<Very well. I’ll make certain my schedule is clear and I’ll pass that on to the Colonel. Please convey our wishes of health to the Ilharn and Ilharess.>> She ended the call and took a deep breath to steady herself.

Who would have thought she would end up working so hard on the Shalumites’ behalf? The irony wasn't lost on Valantin.

When she saw Shalumite military police standing there with an Esperance International investigator, her stomach sank. It wasn’t that she thought they were looking into her—both together was far more likely to mean there had been some kind of incident between a local and a Shalumite. “I suppose this isn’t a social call?” she said, some faint remnants of hope and a bleak humor clinging to the words. She sighed a little bit and combed her fingers through her red-brown hair, blue eyes tired. It had been four hours of constant attention and an early morning start, two things that stole a little of the vibrancy out of her normally glowing exterior. “Good morning, Siruhi A’Nadros. I don’t recognize your friends, but their appearance in conjunction with your own leads me to believe I’m about to have a criminal complaint on my desk to mediate.” She didn’t feel the need to point out exactly how much she did not need that right now. If they couldn’t figure that out from context, they were terrible police. “Would you like some coffee? I’d offer you food, but I haven’t managed to get enough breathing room to obtain that for anyone, myself included.”

Not that you’re inclined to give me a break even if I desperately need one, she thought at her guests wryly. She didn’t have the same good relationship with the Shalumite MPs that she did with the local RV—the locals were usually involved in her investigations and responsible for dealing with those suspects and prisoners, so she got on very well with them. Still, even they tended to be dogged in their pursuit of her aid when it came to their own investigations. She’d had to break the news that confidentiality was a thing very gently on numerous occasions.

Sahak poked his head in. “Your husband is on the phone for you, Siruhi.”

Valantin gestured helplessly at her four guests. “Will you please take a message from him? I’ll call him back,” she said, knowing full well that was probably a lie with her current lack of breathing room. She wasn’t even entirely sure she would make it home tonight, not that she particularly wanted to. Nshan was probably unhappy that she had left for work so early, well aware that the excuse got her out of trying to deal with their argument. He was still in the I am so right mode.

She wasn’t entirely certain why now of all times her marriage was hitting the rocks. She’d managed to keep up the happy wife act even while she was playing Emin like a harp. She’d tried to be no different now, but for some reason, she could feel herself pulling away from Nshan now. She’d always been a little aloof, a little cold—something he called her on every time they got into a fight, which always bothered her—but this was new. It was an added stress that made work seem even more daunting.

The Arusai woman shrugged it off mentally and focused on her current problem. She had always been good at focusing no matter what her personal situation was. “I’m sorry, I’m being unforgivably rude,” Valantin said apologetically to her guests. “But I will have to be objectionably direct. What can I do for you? If this is a dispute between Nalayan and Shalumite troops, I’m going to have to beg you to bring it up with Paron Rikker or Tiruhi Narekatsi. And if it’s a local concern…” She paused, trying to think of who she could foist it off on. Shareshian? No, that would not end well. “...I think Paron Dezirian would be a far better choice. He’s just down the hall.”

Her phone chirped and she had to fight the impulse to pick it up and look. She had guests, but she was also waiting on about ten different people to email her back.

---

The Office of the Protector
Sevan, Nalaya

Khavar’s smile was faint, but its dry humor lingered for a few moments. “How fortunate I am to have such courteous guests,” Khavar said, dipping her head to them. Instead of settling down behind her desk, she sat on the edge of the broad ledge of the window sill. Her questions were rare, pointed, and her eyes unsettlingly focused. The usual disinterest she wore like an impassive mask was absent at the moment, revealing restless energy. She couldn’t sit for long. It became a pace. “Yes, Nalaya does have its little…quirks.”

At Varteni’s comment on Sevan, Khavar nodded her agreement. “I did not like Sevan when I first came,” the Protector said. “Too loud, too crowded. More quiet and pleasant than Yeraskh, but when you compare it to dead air in the middle of the mountains, it is a veritable ocean of sound. The distance makes it livable and my fondness for it grows like a green vine reaching up a trellis.” She was not generally evasive when it came to the fact of her imprisonment, but she knew to keep her references somewhat veiled in foreign company. It wasn’t that they wouldn’t already know—it was just to keep things from becoming awkward, for their sake. “I think my favorite thing about the office is the bookshelves.”

Khavar motioned behind her to the few personal effects she did have in the office: her books. All of them were old poetry—some of it very, very old—not all of it was even Nalayan. She didn’t have Anahid’s ear for music, so her art-starved soul found its expression in a different way. She had no poet’s heart or sensibilities, but perhaps her love of verse sprang out of a knowing absence.

Besides, books were good company when people were absent, on the occasions she had been allowed one. It was difficult to both keep her humanely amused and keep the people around her safe from her temper, when she’d been caged. Now that the bonds were looser, she lashed out less. Most of the copies were paperbacks and tattered ones at that: scorched from those days of fire and blood, annotated and marked in Khavar’s sloping handwriting as she tried to capture every hint of each poem’s essence, and read so often that on some of the volumes, the binding had needed repair numerous times. She could recite them word for word without having to even crack the pages, but she did anyway. Her attention to them was more religious than that of most priests towards their holy scripture.

She sipped her coffee thoughtfully before speaking again. “It is the nature of things,” she said calmly. “But I will do my best to indulge Tiruhi Gladwell by getting to business straightaway. You are here for the refugee zone, yes?” She gestured with her cup towards the desk where the paper was sitting. “Fascinating reading. I am a more agreeable woman than the Dread Wolf, yes, and perhaps more palatable than Ter Karagozian—though not by much, I imagine. I have had about a dozen people in my office over the past few days, talking about the north. So please, by all means, the floor is yours to do with as you will. I will do my best to reserve my judgment until you are finished.”

---

RV Central Headquarters
Armavir, Nalaya

“Any day above ground is a good one at our age,” Gurgen said with a chuckle before sipping his coffee. He was amused Tamar’s impatience—it was a hallmark of youth, or at least relative youth. At his age, one understood that things happened only in the fullness of time. “Welcome, all of you. If you have heard of us, we have most certainly heard of you. In a different way, perhaps, but we are all known by what we do.”

“And what others do in our name,” Sirvard said, taking the snipe at the Protector and Zhirayr both at the same time. She wasn’t a fan of either at the moment, not that she ever had been. Still, she would tolerate Zhirayr for the moment. The alliances in the Nava’ai Highlands were tenuous things at best, ruled by impulsive tempers and personal loyalties rather than codified laws or formal organizations of power. It was still, however, very much divided along ethnic lines and she was far more likely to trust a fellow Nava’ai than any outsider. That was the main reason she favored Zhirayr over the Protector: better the devil she knew. “Still, it is flattering to be graced with the presence of such vivacious young people. I admire your dedication. Most would have fled.” She set her coffee down gingerly and picked up her napkin with gnarled fingers, dabbing at her lips. “Is it bravery or folly, I wonder? One can seldom be sure.” Her tone suggested that she actually had an answer for that question and that it just might not be a flattering one.

“Gently,” Gurgen reminded the legendarily acerbic woman.

Sirvard waved her hand dismissively. “Don’t coddle them like children, Gurgen. If they have thick enough skin to go digging up the maggots in the carcass, they have thick enough skin to endure me.”

“I think you underestimate your own bite,” the male tribal elder said with amusement. “Besides, while I imagine Paron Donati here does plenty of excavation, I doubt the good doctor and the others are so inclined.”

Sirvard made a noise of irritation and gave Gurgen a stern glare that he didn’t seem to feel. She then focused her attention on their guests. “I imagine that you have not come to relax and have coffee,” she said, giving them a piercing and evaluating look.

“Perhaps some relaxation would do them good,” the old man beside her commented. “The tension in the city, it could be cut with a knife. This is why I say so often to the others that it is better to be quiet and still and collect one’s thoughts, lest rashness take hold.”

“Would that some might have listened more closely,” Sirvard said. “Modernity marches to a different drum, however.” There was something of a distaste to her tone. She was very much a creature of the old ways, which admittedly wasn’t unexpected from a woman in her eighties. “Norazn’s impulsiveness is perhaps the most unfortunate. I had hoped that his wife might have talked sense into him before he went and got himself killed.”

“The Samaa’i still stands,” Gurgen said. “That is no small thing.” He cleared his throat and looked at their guests. “Forgive us, it is an ongoing debate. We need such things to keep our minds sharp as age creeps on. Now, what business brings you to us on this beautiful day? I would expect you to have approached Ter Karagozian if you were concerned. He is currently the voice of the Nava’ai.” There was something about that currently that was slightly more emphasized than the rest of the sentence, an unconscious reminder that Zhirayr was uncontested leader of the Nava’ai only because the others had agreed not to contest it—something that could change at any time.

Whether the Esperancers knew it or not, they had entered the political minefield that was the hierarchy of power among the Nava’ai. Their approach to Gurgen and Sirvard was not an empty gesture and not one that would go unnoticed, even by Karagozian, despite his bigger fish to fry.

[Esperance International]

Diplomatic Corps Offices
Miak Amrots’
Tatev, Nalaya

Drada nodded a wordless greeting to Malcolm and Dara, and watched as they knocked on Valentin's office door. When she heard the muffled response from within the office – “Come in!” – the investigator quietly followed the Shalumites inside.

Valentin was on the phone, speaking in Mak’ur. She was discussing accommodations for visiting kun’al dignitaries. She looked tired; her luster was dulled. Drada felt a distant sorrow at the sight of her, like the feeling of seeing a familiar work of art defaced.

Once she put down the phone, Valentin guessed – partially correctly – that Drada had come to her with a criminal complaint. She probably thinks the Shalumi worked someone over again, because of the presence of these police-who-are-not-police. The Arusai woman offered coffee, and Drada accepted with a murmured word of thanks. It was her second cup of the morning, but coffee addiction was as common among Esperancers as it was among Nalayans, and Drada was both.

Before Drada could say anything, Sahak stuck his head into the office and told Valentin that her husband was on the phone for her. Valentin told Sahak to take a message. Then she paused, her face troubled, almost sallow. Drada watched the other woman carefully. This was…strange. Of course, Valentin was overworked. But Valentin was always overworked. This was different, somehow. Something had pushed the woman behind that desk very close to her personal breaking point.

Probably it was just trouble at home. Probably. But Drada suddenly felt a lot more optimistic about the possibility that Valentin might actually know something useful.

The moment passed. Understandably, given the constant buzzing of her cell phone, Valentin didn’t want to talk to Drada and the Shalumites. She asked them to see the diplomatic staff if they had come about a Nalayan-Shalumite dispute, or the local staff if they had come about a local issue. Drada listened calmly and did not correct Valentin’s assumptions.

After the Arusai woman was finished speaking, Drada got up and quietly closed the office door. It was partly a practical gesture, to ensure privacy, but it was also a courtesy: advance warning to Valentin that privacy was about to be necessary.

Then Drada sat back down and said: “I can see that you are busy, Siruhi, and I am sorry to trouble you. But we are here to speak to you in particular.”

“Several days ago, a man named Tsavagian arrived from Vayots Dzor. He came to this building. He died here. We now believe that he died by poison.” Drada deliberately avoided exact details; while Valentin wasn’t exactly a suspect, it was always good investigative procedure not to show a witness your full hand at the outset of an interview.

Drada nodded at the Shalumites. “Our foreign friends here are involved for their own reasons. I am involved because I am nosy, and I smell something rotten in this affair.” Drada managed a small, self-deprecating smile.

“I’d like to ask you if you met with Tsavagian,” Drada concluded simply. “And if so: what did you talk about? Anything you can remember might be useful to us in figuring out what happened to him.”

[Esperance International]

Office of the Protector
Sevan
Nalaya

The four Esperancers sat politely and listened to Khavar reflect on Yeraskh and Sevan and her books. Razmouhi Danayan caught the reference to “dead air in the middle of the mountains.” Her expression did not change, but Razmouhi thought of a line of verse that Cat Gladwell had quoted to her once, years ago when the two women first met while investigating war crimes.

Those to whom evil is done, do evil in return. Auden, Razmouhi thought. My country in summary.

For her part, Catherine Gladwell managed to keep her usual irrepressible energy tamped down to a low burn until Khavar turned to business at last. The High Commissioner smiled ruefully and nodded, happy enough to be used as an excuse to end the small-talk. When the Protector yielded the floor, Catherine clasped her hands in her lap and leaned forward.

“Thank you for seeing us,” she said, and Varteni Rashidian blinked, surprised again by that deep, almost intimate earnestness that Catherine Gladwell could bring to the most trivial of formalities. “You have already promised the only thing that I could reasonably ask of you: a fair hearing, with judgment reserved until we have spoken our piece entire.”

Catherine gazed at her clasped hands for a moment, and then said quietly: “The north is being hurt, Madam Protector. It is being damaged. By the time this war is over, even if you win, the north will be hurt very, very badly. That is a plain reality of our lives now.”

“When this is all over, if Nalaya is ever going to be as strong and peaceful as it was before this war began, the north will have to be rebuilt. It will have to recover.” Catherine nodded to herself. “And we can help with that. Esperance International can rebuild broken bridges and broken houses. We can heal the sick and clear the landmines from the pastures.”

“But there is one thing that we cannot do. We cannot make the dead live again.” Catherine’s words came faster now, more urgently. “And that is the most important thing, because the people are the lifeblood of Nalaya. Without them, none of the rest of it matters. If the north is depopulated by war and famine and massacre, it will be a generation before Nalaya recovers from the blow.”

“So we must preserve the people. And you have a reason to help us do this: because if you do not, your victory will win you only a broken country.”

“The question now is how to do this.” Catherine sat back a little in her chair. “Many would like to try to evacuate refugees to coastal areas, and maybe then to other countries. In principle, this is a good idea – but in practice, it requires moving millions of people overland through a warzone. It’s not practicable on the scale that would be required. It’s a drop in the ocean.”

“What is practicable is what I have come to propose: a neutral, demilitarized refugee zone within the conflict area itself.” Catherine nodded again. “People may not be able to make it all the way to the coast, but most of the at-risk civilians in the north are within a week’s march either of Tatev, or of Vayots Dzor, or at least of the road between them. If we can make that whole area a safe zone, adequately supplied and protected, then we can create a refuge capable of holding hundreds of thousands – maybe millions – of people. And we can make that refuge accessible to the vast majority of civilians within the conflict area.” Catherine leaned forward. “We can save the people, Protector. And with them, we can save this country’s future.”

Catherine let out a deep breath. “Now, I understand that I am asking a great deal of you. I’m asking you to give Esperance International de facto responsibility for security and administration across a substantial area of the north. I’m asking you to withdraw your forces – and Shalumite forces – from some important areas, so that we can guarantee the zone’s neutrality. But in the end, I genuinely believe that this is the best thing for Nalaya, and its people, and this government too. Because it will save countless lives – and without those lives, this country does not have a future, and neither does its government.”

The High Commissioner’s words hung in the air for a long moment. Then Varteni Rashidian raised one finger, and noted quietly: “I’d also like to point out that this zone lies entirely to the north of Armavir. If, perchance, that city were to be your main military objective – then you lose nothing necessary for the campaign against it by agreeing to this proposal.”

Catherine nodded. “So before you make a decision, Madam Protector, please hear out the details of our proposal.” The High Commissioner glanced at David Zhu. “David?”

The commandant of the Peacekeeping Corps produced a manila folder. “Here is the full operational plan, but I’ll provide the executive summary.” David Zhu’s voice was calm, almost soothing: more like the voice of a radio announcer than that of a military commander. “All of this is open to negotiation and subject to revision. Any Esperance peacekeeping mission relies upon the support of local people and local authorities, and remains in constant communication with them.”

“We are asking you to support the creation of a humanitarian safe zone that includes the following areas: first, the cities of Tatev and Vayots Dzor, and all land within a five-kilometer radius of the outer limits of those cities; second, the Tatev-Vayots Dzor highway, and all land within a ten-kilometer radius of its margins.”

“This plan would create a very long, very narrow band of demilitarized territory across the north; it leaves most of the region under Nalayan control. But because the zone is so long, most people in the conflict area are likely to be able to find their way to some point along its length. Control of the highway, in other words, is what will make the zone accessible to the vast majority of displaced persons.”

David steepled his fingers. “The primary legal element of this plan is a transfer of security responsibility from the belligerent parties to Esperance International within this zone. So all government, Shalumite, militis’iayi, and kun’al military and paramilitary forces would agree to withdraw from the zone. In order to preserve the zone’s neutrality, all belligerents would also agree to the suspension of certain administrative functions within the affected area: no taxes would be collected, for example. Government servants who provide services within the zone, like medical personnel and administrators, would either be evacuated or, ideally, transferred to the authority of Esperance International; we would then take responsibility for paying them.”

“The handover of administrative and security responsibilities, and the evacuation of military and paramilitary forces from the safe zone, should occur within one week of the coming-into-effect of the Esperance Peacekeeping Mission in Nalaya, or EPMINAL. That will occur when you, Ter Karagozian, and the Quarval-sharess all agree to a common mandate, of the sort that is outlined here. Even after that point, all belligerent parties are welcome to maintain unarmed liaison offices within the zone, to facilitate communication with EPMINAL. Esperance International will assume full responsibility for the protection of those offices. EPMINAL will be disbanded at the request of the government within one month of the coming-into-effect of a comprehensive, nationwide ceasefire or peace accord, or when the rate of deaths-by-violence in Nalaya falls below one hundred per month.”

David flipped to the next page in the folder. “EPMINAL will include approximately twelve thousand civilian and ten thousand peacekeeping personnel. The initial center of administration will be Tatev, but the major focus of civilian operations will be on restoring Vayots Dzor to a minimum level of habitability. That will allow us to move the inhabitants of Ayrum refugee camp, and the other displaced inhabitants of Vayots Dzor, to a safe area where we can reliably provide aid.”

“The zone will be supplied primarily by air, via the Tatev airport, using an air-bridge of thirty C-5 and C-130 transport planes operating from New Prospect and Sevan. The armed component of EPMINAL will be the Fifth Task Force, which is specialized in peacekeeping operations in mountainous terrain. It will be equipped with light armored vehicles, light artillery, and helicopters; it will not have access to heavy armor, heavy artillery, or any fixed-wing combat aircraft. This means that it cannot challenge the Nalayan military; it is not a threat to this government. It also means that the task force can be transported and resupplied entirely by air.”

“Standard rules of engagement for humanitarian safe zones are as follows: within the zone, peacekeepers are responsible for the security of the population, and can use force either in self-defense or in defense of public order. At the perimeter of the zone, peacekeepers can use force in self-defense, or to prevent the killing of civilians outside the zone but within eyesight of the zone, or – as a last resort – to prevent military or paramilitary forces from entering the zone under arms and in violation of this agreement. Outside the zone, peacekeepers can use force only in self-defense and as a last resort. We expect that peacekeepers will leave the zone only to provide security for evacuation convoys that have already been approved by the local authorities under temporary ceasefire conditions.”

Now it was Razmouhi Danayan’s turn to lean forward. “We expect around half a million displaced persons to reach the safe zone over the first few months of operations. Most of them will arrive on foot or using their own cars. In the most unsafe areas, where people are trapped by fighting, we will try to negotiate twenty-four-hour ceasefires in which we can conduct organized evacuations by road or air from the warzone to the safe area. Those ceasefires will have to be negotiated on a case-by-case basis with local commanders on all sides.”

Catherine Gladwell nodded, her brown eyes fixed on Khavar’s face. “Well,” the High Commissioner concluded, “that’s our proposal. If you have questions, we will certainly try to answer them; and as David said, all of these terms are entirely open to negotiation. You’ve given us a fair hearing, and we’ve said our piece. What do you think?”

[Esperance International]

RV Central Headquarters
Armavir
Nalaya

The Esperance delegation sat and waited as Gurgen and Sirvard sniped at each other, their guests, and the world in general. Tamar chuckled when Sirvard said that the Esperancers were either very brave or very foolish; the office chief nodded in agreement and sipped her coffee. When Frederico heard his name mentioned – as a man who dug up the maggots in the carcass – the investigator thrust his jaw out a bit and sat up a little straighter; he wore the description with pride. Nyah listened with interest to the discussion of Norazn Sarkissian’s death; if she had an opinion, it did not show on her face. And when Gurgen noted that Karagozian was currently the voice of the Nava’ai, Vartan Tigranian inclined his head a fraction of an inch to show that the old man’s subtlety had been understood.

“We have come to you rather than to Ter Karagozian,” Vartan said carefully, “because we have come seeking advice. Ter Karagozian may be the voice of the Nava’ai, but you are their elders. When a man seeks wisdom, he goes to his elders. That is what I am doing today.”

Vartan nodded at the newspaper. “As you have read, the High Commissioner of Esperance International wants to set up a safe zone for refugees within Nalaya: a place where civilians can go, and be provided for, and be protected.”

The Nava'ai Esperancer leaned forward. “I come to you today as one of your own people: raised in our ways, and committed to our future. That is why I support the High Commissioner’s plan to establish a safe zone.” Vartan waved a hand. “Our people have never been bound to cities or defined by buildings. We are who we are because of our heritage: our stories and traditions. Those stories, those traditions, must survive this war: if they survive, we survive.”

“Survival is far from certain,” Tamar said bluntly. “The Tigress comes from the south with a foreign army. We have seen the power of the Shalumi at Vayots Dzor, but that is just a taste of what is to come. Between the foreigners and the kun’al, the Highlands will burn from end to end.”

“The safe zone would be a refuge for our people,” Vartan explained quietly. “A place where those who cannot fight could go, and be safe, and keep our stories alive for the next generation. We need that now. We will need it desperately in another few months. So I have come to you to ask for your counsel: what can we do to make this refuge a reality?”

Tamar handed the elders a manila folder. “Here are the details. This is the same information that the High Commissioner is giving Khavar T’avish as we speak. It explains where the zone would be located, and how it would be supplied and protected, and what the Nava’ai would need to do in order to ensure its neutrality. All of it is open to change; we are prepared to be very flexible.”

“It’s also worth noting,” Frederico observed drily as the elders perused the details, “that a safe zone stretching from Tatev to Vayots Dzor would be a significant obstacle to any effort by the kun’al to advance directly south into the Highlands. That is not without its benefits for you.”

Then there was silence for a while, as the Esperancers waited for Sirvard and Gurgen to finish reviewing the details of the plan. When they finally set the folder down and looked up, Vartan spread his hands. “So those are our hopes. I come asking for your counsel: what can we do to make those hopes a reality?”