Then it was over. We never felt like we finished, but someone told us to stop. We withdrew to the side of the road and watched. Then in the flickering light of the torches, the Engineers and Legionnaires trooped out, this tremendous ribbon of horses and baggage and soaking people, their helmets and caps and armor glinting in the occasional flash of lightning.
We watched them go in silence. Someone shouted something, some order, but I just stood there. How shattering it felt to realize that the order of all our lives could be dashed to pieces in a few frenzied moments by the rumblings in the east.
Then I felt a hand on my arm, its fingers digging into my flesh, and I spun to find the snarling, soaking face of Captain Thalamis.
“Did you hear me, you half-brained idiot?” he bellowed. “Get to your assignment now in case we need to evacuate!” He shoved me, hard, and I slipped backward in the mud. “In your case, it means your addle-brained bitch of an investigator! Go!”
I felt my blood flash hot then, and I stood up. He saw the look on my face and tapped the hilt of his sword at his side. “Try it, fool. It’ll be faster than failing you out, at least.”
I watched him for a moment. Then I turned and trudged away in the rain.
“I thought so!” he called after me.
* * *
—
BY THE TIME I made it to Ana’s house the rain had dwindled to a soft patter. I didn’t bother knocking, indifferent to what state she was in: I just barged in, fuming and soaking.
“Hello, Din,” she called from the meeting room.
I plodded through the house and found her kneeling before her quake contraption, which was chiming and clanking like mad. It was dark within, and I found her mai-lantern and gave it a shake. The little glowing worms within awoke, and their faint blue light slowly filtered throughout the room.
“Ma’am,” I said dully. “There’s been a breach. We need to get you prepared in case we need to evacuate.”
“Thank you, Din,” she said softly. “I had gathered as such. But there should be no need for an evacuation.”
“What do you mean, ma’am?”
“I have been monitoring the quakes since they began,” she said. She nodded to her contraption. “They’ve grown steadily quieter over the last hour. This indicates that the leviathan has retreated, probably farther to the south, back to the sea walls.” She looked up at me, still blindfolded. “It’s what they were trained to do.”
“Who?”
“The Legion,” she said. “They have armaments capable of distracting the leviathans, drawing them away from the cities and towns, and back to the walls—where all the bombards await. They plan to shoot it to death there, I imagine.” She took off her blindfold and looked up at me. She must have seen the terror and fury in my face, because she tried to smile, and asked, “Why don’t you make me some tea, Din?”
“Pardon, ma’am?” I asked faintly. “Tea?”
“Yes. You make such a good pot of tea, Din. I think that would be quite welcome now.”
I went through the motions thoughtlessly, starting the little fire in her stove, setting the kettle to boil atop it. I pulled pinches of dried leaves from the cotton sacks hanging above, moistened them with a few drops of water, and then carefully ground them in the mortar with slow, twisting movements. As the kettle shrieked, I took a few leaves of mint, broke them apart, and added them to the mix, before packing it all into the infuser, which I slotted into the kettle’s spout. Then I poured two cups and the air filled with a powerful, complex aroma.
“Smells wonderful,” said Ana. She sipped at her cup. “Tastes wonderful.”
I bowed my thanks, still unable to speak.
“And I note,” said Ana, “that you always make it the exact same way. Same twist of the pestle. Same pinches of the leaves. Exactly the same, every time.”
“A friend showed me how,” I said numbly.
We sat in the blue half light, clutching our cups and listening to the rain and the sound of the tocsin bells in the distance.
“Did you have any friends going out tonight?” she asked.
“A few. In Engineering. Haven’t seen much of them recently, since they got their assignments a while ago and I didn’t, but…” I trailed off, not knowing what to say. “I didn’t see them. Didn’t get to say goodbye.”
“If they’re Engineering, they should be safer,” said Ana. “Not safe, of course, but safer. They don’t send the Engineers in until the leviathan itself is dealt with. Then the Engineers take stock of the situation and patch up the fortifications as fast as they can. For that’s when things get trickier. They’ll relocate the bombards to defend the breach point, but…naturally, that makes every other part of the walls harder to defend.”