She left it there untouched. Talking to the Lady Temple this morning was not meant to be social, or even comfortable. She didn't so much as offer Delphie a chair. The Predictamancer stood, her hands folded in front of her and her lip buttoned tightly.

"We have Duties to perform this turn," said Wanda, "so I'll make this brief. I just spoke to Clay. I...had a question, and didn't much like his answer."

Delphie watched her face and remained silent, betraying nothing.

"It's a question that's been keeping me awake for several nights. What I don't understand," said Wanda, "is how Luck and Fate can coexist. If I am Fated to live, then I must be immune to Luckamancy. Cast any misfortune upon me, put me in any battle against any foe, and I will live until my Fate is fulfilled. Is that correct?"

Delphie cleared her throat and spoke in a low, careful tone. "Essentially, Lady."

"Then where is the Luck? Where is choice? And...what you would call my will?"

Delphie shrugged. "Choice is the path you pick to your Fate. Luck is mainly about how hard or easy you have it along the way."

Which is just what Clay had said, and Wanda didn't like it any better coming from Delphie's mouth. She knew that if she asked Delphie what would happen if she jumped from the tower, Delphie would only say, "You won't."

Wanda absently felt the lace trim of her boots with a gloved hand, trying to put her thoughts into words. She glanced at mirror-Wanda for strength. Oh, she did like this outfit, yes. It made Delphie nervous. It gave her new power.

...But no new clarity. Like Tommy and Father, Wanda refused to believe Delphie's philosophy that there was an inescapable destination simply waiting for her to get there. Each of the last few nights she had lain in bed, trying to frame her objections to it and failing.

She sighed. "Tell me about Olive," she said, taking a different tack. "What did you hope to accomplish? Why not just leave it to Fate to bring me to her?"

Delphie put her hand to her forehead, and smiled wistfully at the floor. "Oh, dear. I was making a choice of my own, I suppose. To ease your way into Olive's service." She looked up at Wanda with eyes resigned and sad, yet still accusing. "But your choices undid the effects of mine. You should have trusted me."

"Why," challenged Wanda. "What difference would it have made?"

Delphie looked beaten. She shook her head just slightly. "All the difference, Lady."

Wanda stepped toward Delphie, talking closely to her face. "My brother is gone, Predictamancer. His Fate has run its course. Everything that was to become of him is known to us." Delphie looked as if she wanted to speak, but Wanda kept her momentum. "So we know that all along, Tommy's Fate was to be croaked by Olive. And if we had taken the peace offer, then we would have been making the path to his Fate longer and more difficult, while making mine easier. Now where is the sense in that?"

Delphie glared at her. "No. You don't understand. Chief Tommy carried no such Fate."

"How can you say that? It was his Fate! We've seen it."

"It was his end, Lady," said Delphie. She looked pained. "Clay would say, his 'final outcome.' It was never his Fate. It could have been avoided. If we'd only signed the treaty and sent you to Haffaton, Tommy would probably be alive now."

Wanda clamped down on a sudden, deep need to slap the woman. For a moment, not striking Delphie's round face was all she could manage to do.

The Predictamancer, looking distressed, took it as a chance to continue. "I told you once. Not everyone walking these halls has a purpose. I cannot make Predictions about every unit, or commander, or even every ruler. Don't you see?" She looked at Wanda with tears starting to well on her lower lids. "You were to pop. And you were to be passed on. And once I saw Olive in the Magic Kingdom, I Predicted where you were to go. So, I told her. She understood. That's why they were so generous with their offer."

Wanda's clamp slipped. She hit Delphie in the cheek with an open, gloved hand. The caster cried out, and stumbled backward, landing on her rump upon the foot of Wanda's bed.

"She knew?!"

Delphie sat on the bed, stunned for a moment, then began to bawl. Wanda stood over her and yelled. "You approached the enemy, you let them know we had popped a caster, and you gave them more information about my Fate than you would share with your own side? Are you that disloyal?"

"I'm Loyal!" sobbed Delphie into her hands. "I'm ever so Loyal!"

"You lying ditch witch!" Wanda turned and stomped across the room, yelling to the air. "Loyal to what? To Fate? Not to Goodminton!"

"Yes! To Goodminton! It was the only way Goodminton could survive you," said Delphie, tears flowing freely down her face.

"You don't know that," Wanda said, pointing at her. "You never Predicted that."

Delphie kept sobbing into her lap. Her words were muffled by her hands. "No. I can't. Fate doesn't care about us. That's the terror of it; we have no Fate. The world doesn't care if we live or not. Only about you."

Wanda paced around. "It doesn't work that way, it doesn't work that way, it can't work that way, Delphie!" Tommy should be alive? She was trapped, while they were lost? Father was lost? No. "I could...buy some poison and drink it! What would Fate do, then? Huh? I could jump off this tower right now!"

Delphie looked at Wanda and shook her head. "Yes, you could. But you won't."

Just what Wanda had Predicted she would say.

She stopped in front of the mirror again. Mirror-Wanda and she both knew Delphie was right. Wanda was defiant. She would break her Fate somehow. But, she supposed, not today. Not that way. She took in a deep breath to calm herself.

"No," she said, with deep resignation, "not in this outfit."

Rob's Other Comic Project: Duel In The Somme--Read it from the beginning!

Wanda and Clay trudged up them in silence. All Wanda could think to say about Clay's confession-under-duress was, "That is likely something you should keep to yourself, Luckamancer." It wasn't what he had wanted to hear.

Un-Tommy was waiting for Wanda at the base of the tower, having been recalled from the outer walls by her silent order. Her former brother stood motionless on the cobblestones beside her equally motionless former snow golem. Together, staring dumbly at nothing, the two made quite a pair.

Or was it three of them? Slouching there, indifferent to the cold wind, Clay looked almost as lifeless.

Was this what she did to people? Perhaps she should order un-Larry to report here, to complete this set of empty shells she was creating.

"Continue on up to your quarters," she ordered Clay. "Order the Lady Temple to meet me at my suite in one hour."

"Yes, Chief," said Clay. As shame-faced and longingly as he looked at her, he seemed relieved to be leaving her side.

She had animated him well, but un-Tommy was beginning to show small signs of decay. They'd seen no action here, and sought none afield since the air battle that ended their alliance. She knew that unlike Tommy, un-Tommy would be perfectly willing to stand there for all his remaining turns, then blow away to dust.

She put the uncroaked unit through some paces, to see what his capabilities were, and to give Clay time to get a few floors ahead of her. Then she ordered un-Tommy back to his post, and climbed up the stairs, stairs, stairs. Each dull step was a small moment lived, unremarkable and meaningless, but necessary to the progression of the climb.

Up in her small suite near the top of Minnow Tower, Wanda unpacked her new raiment and laid it out upon the bed. Teddy Clothespin, the Dollamancer who had sold it to her, had helped her create something out of the depths of her own desires and imagination. She looked at it, wondering if she even dared to put it on.

"Olay," she said, casting the minor Dollamancy spell that Teddy had taught her. The wrinkles in each piece went smooth, as the garment was restored to its new-turn condition.

Double-checking that her door was locked, Wanda stripped out of the suit she had worn since Goodfinger. She still loved the outfit for its elegance, and for its utter lack of resemblance to Goodminton's sombre raiment style. But it had been Olive's. And once she had it off, Wanda was sure she would never again put it next to her skin. Perhaps Teddy would buy it from her.

She pulled the white tights on first. Then she slipped the light, airy chemise over her head. The Dollamancer had modified her old riding gloves into long, chamois evening gloves with stealthy riding grips sewn into the palms. Her clunky boots he'd turned into shiny black thigh-highs topped with lace, but still reinforced in the feet and ankles for combat riding.

The entire outfit followed this philosophy of applying maximum possible style before function started to suffer. The slate blue jacket was cropped in length, with sleeves short enough to let her swing a staff in a fight. The bodice (which she now laced and pulled into a tight cinch around her waist) would keep her straight in the saddle. Even the decorative chain around her waist could be used as a bolo weapon if needed.

She stepped to the mirror to have a look.

The Wanda in the mirror needed a comb. Her hair seemed to have fallen limp after the warmth and humidity of the Magic Kingdom. No, better than a comb: a hat. Teddy had urgently wanted to add some headgear to the ensemble, but she had already spent more than was justifiable. Father had granted her a favor after they'd won the battle, and she'd asked for new raiment. But the treasury was dwindling. Shmuckers were tight.

She felt through her satchel, looking for a clip or tie-back. Her hand fell on the message hat, shrunken down as small as it would go. Hm. She took it out and resized it to fit her head, and it looked much worse than nothing. A top hat with this dress took all the femininity out of it, and made the whole outfit absurd. The obnoxious Foolamancer she'd met in the Magic Kingdom couldn't have picked a worse match to wear. She threw the hat on the bed, and looked at mirror-Wanda ruefully.

But a weird thought emerged out of her frustration. She picked the hat back up, resized it to the dimensions of a teacup and saucer, and stuck it to her head at a jaunty angle.

It worked. Mirror-Wanda knew it worked. The hat even knew it worked. It stayed right in place via the natural Dollamancy (or was it natural Hat Magic?) of just belonging there.

Mirror-Wanda turned her head with a sly, approving smile, and Wanda felt she had taken one further step toward becoming that woman. Yes, her brother was lost, and her side was still friendless and desperate. The fact that she had acquired new clothing was unremarkable and meaningless. But it was another small, necessary moment lived in the progression of the climb.

There was a knock upon her door.

NOTE! My friend since college Barb Fischer is the writer for the roller-derby webcomic Sledgebunny. She's also done costuming. I had to bring her in to help with this update because I am clueless about women's clothing.

Xin came up with a Gothic Loli outfit for Wanda, but neither of us knew how to describe it. Xin drew the exploded diagram above for Barb, who wrote me a paragraph describing this outfit. I almost completely rewrote the paragraph, but I couldn't have done this update without her help. Xin will probably kill me for posting the sketch here, because it definitely wasn't drawn for the public. But I had to split this update and I didn't want to tease the outfit too much. The next update will be the conversation with Delphie that this one was supposed to be, with the illustration that was supposed to go with it.

Rob's Other Comic Project: Duel In The Somme--Read it from the beginning!

I also want to apologize for a week with no update. I got fairly sick right after the SOPA blackout, and didn't feel up to doing anything until Sunday.

OOTS Kickstarter

Well, they've already met the goal about 2 days in, but check out Giant in the Playground's Kickstarter fundraiser, if you haven't. That's pretty encouraging for our hopes and goals for our own Kickstarter, coming soon!

Rob's Other Comic Project: Duel In The Somme--Read it from the beginning!

"Hey. I had a thought, Chief," he said, rising with an ear-splitting scrape of wooden chair legs on the stone floor. He didn't look up at her, but gathered up his small figurines and dice, chalk sticks and little slate tablet.

Wanda stood and waited for him to elaborate. She had left him with orders to boost three scouts and then hang spells on the tower again, but also to see if he could come up with anything else to do. Since the air battle, she hadn't had any new bright ideas, and the situation was still grim. Delphie had turned moody and uncooperative. It would be good if he had thought of something new.

"Okay," said Clay, stepping around the table, "it's about falling." He stepped up to her and stood a little too close. His face was red, and he was breathing excitedly and...pungently, through his grinning mouth. "You know how when a unit falls, it can croak, or be incapacitated, or just be plain wounded and lose some hits?"

"Yes?" She was interested in what he had to say, but she took a step back from him. He immediately stepped forward and closed the gap, out of unconscious excitement rather than disrespect.

"Well, that's Luckamancy, too. And I'm thinking f'we get into another airspace fight we can first cast against the enemy to make 'em more likely to croak in a fall. Then we can go for dismounting attacks. And there's not a lot of, um, downside to that. Less backlash from borrowing Numbers, right? Because we don't use air mounts. We do a lot less falling. See?"

Wanda did. They still had prisoners from the air battle who had survived the fall, and hadn't turned. Considering their strategic desperation, she would've preferred to have the uncroaked units on hand.

"That's good," she said, and stepped around him to evade his breath attack. She headed out of the room, with him following closely behind. "Do you want to make scrolls, then? Or can you hang those spells on the tower?"

"I think I'll just wait to cast if we're attacked, if that's okay," he said. "More flexible that way, and it's not like I'm goin' anywhere."

If that was meant to be a jab at her recent orders, Wanda ignored it. After the air battle, she had relocated herself, Delphie and Clay to the tower, and told the other two casters they were not to travel to the Magic Kingdom without permission. Delphie was taking it as if Wanda had ordered her summary execution.

"That sounds fine," said Wanda, taking to the first of many stairs out of the Dungeon area. "Keep me informed."

They took three flights of steps in silence, with Clay huffing a bit, but staying close behind her. He probably thought she'd ignored his suggestion, but she was giving it deep, deliberate consideration. Something had been bothering her lately: a disconnect she saw between Clay's explanation of Luckamancy and what she understood of Predictamancy. Meeting the Predictamancer in the Magic Kingdom had been tantalizing, and had brought it to her mind once more.

"Clay?"

"Hhnmph?"

"Could you 'un-boost' me? Could you make it so that I would croak if I took any fall?" She didn't bother pausing in her climb, or turning around. She could hear his steps following laboriously behind her, but he did not answer for half a minute or so.

Just as she was about to prompt him for a response, he asked, "Why would I do that?"

"I didn't say you would," said Wanda. "I asked if you could. Could you cast more risk of a bad outcome upon me?"

"Upon you...specifically?"

"Me, specifically. Yes," said Wanda. She glanced over her shoulder at him. "Do you understand why I am asking?"

Again, he took a long while to respond. "Because of your Fate crap, I guess?" he asked, sounding reluctant to follow this line of questioning.

"According to Delphie, I'm Fated to serve under Olive Branch. So does this mean I cannot fall and be croaked today?" They reached another landing, and continued up yet another drab stone staircase.

"It means that you will not," said Clay. "The difference is...academic, I guess."

"I will not," echoed Wanda. "Even if you curse my Luck, and I leap from a parapet?"

"You wouldn't do that," said Clay. "And I wouldn't curse you. You can't even order me to do that. It hurts the side, and I know it. And I just...I couldn't do it anyway."

"Why not? Don't you have a will?"

"I guess." Clay was starting to sound cranky. "D'zit matter?"

Wanda took a sudden sharp breath, stopped, and spun around.

"My brother," she said, as Clay stumbled clumsily to one knee, "thought it mattered very much! My father and I think it matters. What we decide from now on depends on understanding what we can really do. So how can you have Luck and Fate both? Do our choices matter, Clay?"

Clay stood up, but still slumped like a beaten cur. She knew she was taking out her frustration on him, and it didn't matter. She was only disappointed with herself for losing her composure. "Yes, Lady," he said, looking down, "but...also, no."

Wanda gave out an explosive gasp of annoyance. "Clay! I need to understand. You see? So I don't make any more mistakes like..." Like Tommy "Like Kiloton. Now, I am giving you a direct order to explain this to me as clearly as you can. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"Do we have free will?" she asked him slowly.

"Yes," he said.

"Then how can there be Fate?" she asked in the same slow, pointed tone of voice.

Clay sighed, squinting up at her as if grasping for the words. "You can always do what you want, Lady! You can take any path you choose between here and your Fate. And you can get lucky, or unlucky along the way. But the sum of your choices will always add up to the same outcome, eventually."

Wanda thought about that for a moment. "But you said you couldn't cast a curse on me," she said, frowning. "Not wouldn't, you said 'couldn't.'"

"Yeah. There's no way I could do that."

"Why not?"

He swallowed, looking pained. "Under orders?"

She stamped her boot on the stone step, looking down on him. "Yes! Under orders!"

Clay closed his eyes tightly. "Because I'm in love with you," he said.

In the stonework stairwell, a cold draft blew. Clay's eyes stayed shut, his face turning red. Some bootsteps echoed from several floors below them. Wanda's mouth was hanging open. But she shut her lips tight, as Clay opened his eyes and looked up at her apologetically.

"Love is its own thing," he said, shaking his head in helpless wonderment. "And it, uh, really messes with the dice."

Rob's Other Comic Project: Duel In The Somme--Read it from the beginning!

Still, her first visit here had been breathtaking. Besides being the warmest place she'd ever been, it was overwhelming in all kinds of other ways. Mostly, her head was buzzing with the answers to questions she would never have thought to ask, before losing Tommy to Olive's foul kiss.

She'd learned some important basic lessons about speaking with other casters, too. They were a difficult, eccentric breed, and she wasn't sure she enjoyed their company. They had byzantine etiquette; quite a few of them would not even speak to her at all. Others came to that decision when told her level and/or discipline. She had managed to speak at length only with a Dollamancer, a Thinkamancer, and a Carnymancer, but they'd given more than enough to think about. (And the Dollamancer had sold her new raiment.)

There were birds in the magenta-leafed trees, teal chittering teardrops in the upper branches, and little brown peeping ones on the ground. Wanda followed a large road of granite brick that opened into the grassy park, as naturally as if she'd walked the route all her life.

More than a score of casters stood in her field of view from there, all coming and going. Goodminton's portal was a fair distance across the pathless field of glowing rectangles. No signs stood to point the way, but the Signamancy of a caster's home portal was plainer than writing. It was simply where you were supposed to be. Walk, and your feet led you there.

Wanda followed her feet, holding a small satchel and still looking around with naked curiosity. The styles of garments alone could have held her attention for turns on end. She tried not to stare, but was caught doing so a time or two, earning a frown or a glare in return.

As she neared her home portal, though, she caught someone staring at her. A hefty-looking woman in a green and yellow robe of satin, with a dark brown skin complexion was standing beside a gaunt man with wild black hair. He was talking to her, but she was staring directly at Wanda, and did not turn her deep brown eyes away when contact was made.

Wanda stopped, arrested by this woman's unbroken gaze. She was going to have to return home soon, but...

Her feet led her toward the two casters. The man stopped talking as Wanda approached, and raised an eyebrow at her. The woman's wide-eyed gaze never relented.

"I'm sorry," said Wanda, "was there something you needed?"

"I s'pose I didn't know until just now," said the woman, in an accent musical and strange. She pressed her thick lips together and looked Wanda up and down. Was she...was this a come on?

"I don't understand..." said Wanda. She was not sure she wanted to.

"I don't think you want to," said the woman. "I do undahstand, and I suhtanly don't want to."

The skinny man leaned forward, his eyes shining mischievously. He wore a tunic of purple and green, with exaggerated sleeves and a broad green belt. It was the first outfit Wanda had seen here which made her want to look away. "My ah, companion and I were just discussing how unfair it is that she hasn't the opportunity to use her discipline more. And when she does, she usually can't discuss it. I'm supposing this is one such time."

"No, I can discuss it," the woman said, turning to the man. "It's just that usually? Well, I shouldn't."

"What is your discipline?" Wanda asked. Learning about other magicks was the reason she'd come here, after all.

"Predictamancy," said the man, earning a glare from the woman. He cocked his head at her. "Or was even that something that oughtn't to be disclosed?"

His expression said that he was teasing her, but she was stone-faced. "Possibly," she said, looking guardedly at Wanda.

Wanda was disappointed. She had a Predictamancer to talk to at home, however awkward and difficult things with Delphie had become in the five turns since the air battle. But these two were still intriguing. Odd as they both seemed, there was a kind of familiarity to them, as if they were more real in some way than the other strangers in the park.

"I'm Lady Wanda Firebaugh," she said. "I'm...a Croakamancer, actually." She was aware that this might end the conversation, as it had with one or two of the casters she'd met. But neither of them was showing signs of instant revulsion.

The man was ignoring her, in fact, still looking at his companion. "Why so serious?"

The woman's mouth formed an exaggerated "o". "Oh, only because it is so serious." She shook her head. "I think I shouldn't have complained about being boahd. I'll have a lot of wuhck to do at home, now." She stepped closer to Wanda and said, "Wanda, you will find your way to us. But we should really not be talking to you right now."

"I see!" said the man, grinning slyly. "Well, if that's the case, who's to say we ever did talk to her? Hm? Why, I'll wager that odious Diversion Beast thinks we never met at all!"

He pointed, looking off beyond Wanda's shoulder. There was a growl, and something huge and threatening was moving at the edge of her vision. Whatever it was, it meant her serious bodily harm. She turned with a start, pulling her staff from its scabbard on her back.

She brought the weapon to bear, but there was nothing there to fight. Her heart thudded in her chest as she looked around.

A few nearby casters stared at her. But the man and woman had completely vanished.

Rob's Other Comic Project: Duel In The Somme--Read it from the beginning!

Wanda nodded. Father had sent them a full roster of Frenemy and Quisling's forces in Goodminton's airspace (though a few more were still trickling in). She and the warlords were poring over it around a tactical table, beneath the fluttering canvas of a dining tarpaulin. A weak sun rose over pine-stubbled, snowy hills. Un-Tommy stood nearby, as blank and unthinking as a golem. But it somehow still seemed right to have him in earshot.

"And what it tells us," Fritz continued, "isn't good. If they attack the city now, that's it. We'll disband in the field, and our shadows will never darken the ground again." Cakes nodded solemnly, and Mack looked down at the list and shook his head at the futility of such a battle. "But let's assume Lord Firebaugh can delay them until we arrive. Then we've got something of a chance. And that's assuming we have to fight at all. The Overlord may elect to pay them off."

Mack groaned, or was that a growl? "He won't do that. He won't empty the treasury just to preserve our alliance with these cheeseweasels."

"He'd be doing it to fight another turn," Cakes said grimly.

"Yeah, and with no treasury, 'another turn' would be about all we'd have," snarled Mack.

"If he does, he does," said Fritz. "It's not your place to say, nor even mine. I'm not Tommy." He glanced respectfully at Un-Tommy, still standing motionless beside the tarp pole. Fritz mashed his index finger down on the map of the capital in front of him. "We're planning a battle here. Now, I believe it's going to be a matter of forcing them to ground in the courtyard."

"They'll want the tower," said Mack.

"Aye, so we put enough men and warlords up there that they'll think the courtyard's softer."

"Meaning the courtyard will be soft," said Cakes.

"Not so soft as they think. We put top leadership and casters down there to meet 'em," said Fritz. "Then we can hit them from above and below all at once. It'll bring our heavies into play early. That should be enough to win out."

In the silence that followed, Wanda cleared her throat. She had a surprise that would change everything about this battle planning session.

"The tower has new spells on it," she said with a sly smile. "I've been having Clay and Delphie spend their juice on air defenses."

"Aye, I'm aware," said Fritz, "but it's nothing like what we'd need to shoot them all down. Not by a quarter, by my gut. Not by a tenth, if I'm honest."

Wanda's face fell. Her cheeks went flush.

The actual effect the new air defense spells might have on an enemy wasn't something she understood well. It was for a warlord to say how useful something might be in battle.

She'd told Tommy about spelling up Minnow Tower, and he'd said it was smart thinking. But he never said what kind of effect the raw Shockmancy they were storing in the tower might have in battle. He had let her believe that it might, in fact, be enough to save the capital. Was he only trying to boost her confidence?

Oh...and he must have also told Fritz just how pathetic those few extra spells really were, because Fritz wasn't even surprised.

She slumped on the camp stool, and tuned the rest of the meeting out. Another branch of magic she knew nothing about. And her assumptions about it had been terrible. Another ignorant misstep.

She looked up at Un-Tommy helplessly. Would there ever be as much time as she needed, simply to learn to do her job?

A little later in the meeting, Wanda took hold of a quill and stray scrap of parchment, and began to write a note.

The Chief Croakamancer held on tightly to the unfamiliar scroll, and followed the others out to the veranda atop Minnow Tower.

In the satchel at her hip, she had a sheaf of scribbled notes: two days' worth of hasty messages from Father, from Delphie, from Clay. She'd swallowed her pride and asked some of the most rudimentary questions about magic. Delphie withheld sarcasm and answered them plainly, if in flourished handwriting.

How much damage would one of their spells deal an enemy flying unit? What was the likelihood of hitting a given enemy? Could the enemy defend against spells? How much bonus did the tower provide to a caster? Could the enemy attack a caster on the tower? On, and on...

Father also seemed to be gaining an education as they went. His aversion to magic wore away a bit, as these basic spellcasting concepts turned clearer. His suggestions were brief, but often incisive. Over a number of hours, the four of them (and then five, as Wanda brought Fritz into the planning process) worked out a strategy which played to the cards in their hand.

The same five of them now stepped out into the gray daylight and the chill breeze. This morning, Father had sent Delphie into the Magic Kingdom to buy the scroll Wanda now unrolled. It was a fairly hefty piece of magic, and it cost 18,000 Shmuckers, or close to a fifth of Goodminton's treasury. It was not offensive; she could cast it before Goodminton broke alliance. She hoped she would not fail.

The opposing (not for moments yet would they be "enemy") forces, seemed to take some notice of this gathering. There were some minor shouts to attention among the two masses of flyers, but no real alarm. They simply hovered in the air, well above the stub of a tower, and awaited some signal.

Wanda squinted, and began to recite the Dirtamancy scroll.

"Dobler," she incanted, "Tatum, Samuelsson, McSorley..." The tower rumbled. "Cobb!" Wanda shouted. "Rose!"

The tower rose indeed, far higher into the sky than it had stood before. Stone blocks and tiles sprang from nothing, widening the platform upon which they stood. The flyers of Quisling and Frenemy seemed to descend until they hovered at even height with the tower top. The opposition forces were milling confusedly, some of them drawing swords and nocking arrows in alarm. A bugle called Quisling to readiness. The memory of the spell faded from Wanda's mind.

It had been as effective as her effort at Rhyme-o-mancy, but it left her no better understanding of what she had cast. She had meant to pay some attention to the design of the tower as she cast, but it only looked like a bigger version of the old one. She shook her head in wonderment at having cast it at all. Meanwhile, Fritz crouched and raised up a great metal shield. Delphie and Clay stepped behind him.

Delphie's voice was high and quavering. "Lord, you should break with Frenemy. Now."

"Done!" shouted Father from just behind Wanda's shoulder. The flyers from the nearer group ceased to look like allies, and her heart pumped as it always did at first sight of enemy units. But boosted spells were already flying from the newly powerful tower, and Delphie...dottering, vain Delphie, was commanding all of the magic Goodminton could bring to bear.

Even through blinding blasts, Wanda's Croakamancy senses let her know that the first enemy casualties had been struck and were falling. She sensed broken skulls and wings and burst organs inside the bodies that spiraled down through the air toward the courtyard below. Two Buttresses and their mounted warlords were among the plummeting units, as well as half a dozen Moonbats and Wingnuts.

Delphie immediately leveled up to 5, and her spells became that much more potent. From a higher vantage on the tower, the ballista emplacements and archers, led by Cakes and Mack, let loose a volley. Missiles flew and slew. Frenemy had barely yet had time to comprehend that its ally of fifteen score turns was croaking its units mercilessly, let alone to adjust their stacks to their rapidly dwindling leadership and mount a counterattack.

Delphie was simply not missing. Not one single shot.

Wanda watched her work, but it was a blur. Somewhere in those notes in her satchel, there was a brief explanation of how Predictamancy worked in combat. It amounted to the caster using her juice to see things happen a second or two ahead, so that she could aim where the enemy would be, and to move where the enemy's return blows and arrows would not land.

Most importantly to this plan, a Predictamancer could know whether or not a shot or blow she was about to initiate would be a hit. If it wouldn't, then she simply did not take the shot.

And finally, there was Clay's boost.

A Luckamancy boost could have any number of specific effects on a unit's "dice." Defensively, it could affect their chance to be hit, the damage they would take from hits, their chance of receiving a critical hit, their chance of being incapacitated or croaked from a fall, et cetera. Or it could affect the enemy's outcomes: their defenses. This was the boost they decided to give Delphie.

Some return fire was coming in now, from Frenemy only. But Frenemy's forces were weak, in terms of their air to ground capabilities. Their Flying Lotuses were sending some blasts at Delphie. A few Goobirds approached the tower top and were shot down. Only one magic blast struck Fritz's shield. Delphie sidestepped the others as necessary, still casting in a kind of concentration trance. Her eyes and her hands danced.

Breaking alliance only with Frenemy technically allowed Quisling to attack the tower. But by doing so, Goodminton had signaled to Quisling that it still would accept a state of non-aggression with them. Delphie had yet fired no shots their way. The highest-ranking Quisling warlord seemed to want to wait for guidance from their Ruler, which is exactly what Firebaugh had said would happen.

Frenemy units fell by twos and threes, the victims of outrageously high damage outcomes and critical hit rates. Their remaining single warlord, badly burned by a lightning blast to his sword arm, looked up at Quisling's forces. They were hanging there, untouched and unmoving, offering no help.

He must have made a very easy decision. Frenemy escaped Goodminton's airspace with more than half their total units still alive; the battle was decisive mainly for the high-value targets they had lost.

Fritz stood atop the tall new tower, leaving his sword in its sheath. He signaled to Quisling by pointing to the horizon, with Delphie standing at his back, ready to cast. Before ten minutes had passed, they too had withdrawn from Goodminton's airspace.

The five of them, forgetting all ranks, decorum and history, laughed and embraced. For a moment, they were not Overlord, Chiefs and casters. They were a five-unit stack which had just beaten two armies.

Wanda had not cast a single spell in the fight, but that was in the plan as well.

Her juice had been intentionally preserved for the burned and broken spoils littering the courtyard far below.

Rob's Other Comic Project: Duel In The Somme--Read it from the beginning!

But before we can do that, we need to make the video for the Kickstarter, including a demo of what the motion comic will look like. We have chosen to do Page 34 for that. (Just be warned: I think I will probably read for Vinny myself.)

So here's what I need. If you have a decent home recording setup and would like to submit a reading for Prince Ansom and/or Vinny Doombats for that page, please record it and send to: midnytestarr+erfworld@gmail.com no later than this Sunday, January 8.

Additionally, I want to start podcasting Book 0, Inner Peace (Through Superior Firepower) as we go. So we're looking for someone who can commit to reading all the episodes in audio book form. We haven't decided what this pays yet, but we're going to start taking auditions now, and we do want one voice for the entire book. If you're interested, please submit a reading of all of Episode 002 to the same address by January 10.

Rob's Other Comic Project: Duel In The Somme--Read it from the beginning!

The great iron-bound doors parted inward, and Wanda rode home through the city gates.

She was not alone. By unit count, her party was considerably larger than the one that had departed Kiloton. Notably, it included new Chief Warlord Pom Fritz, and a former enemy warlord named Larry Ansell.

But the group's size was no indication of triumph. Hamfurter and Frankburg had both been retaken by Haffaton in the last two turns. They'd lose Goodfinger soon as well, or Father would order it razed. And only Lord Firebaugh's cleverness had kept the capital from falling before now.

Mounted upon the same brontosword as Un-Tommy, Wanda followed Fritz through the cobblestone streets, nodding at occasional salutes from troubled-looking infantry units. Her sawhorse had been lost in a Haffaton raid the morning after she had uncroaked her brother's body.

It had been a fierce and desperate skirmish in the woods. Larry came after them with a vengeance, as if he had something to prove. Olive was not with him in the raiding party. The Haffaton forces would have been strong enough to overwhelm Goodminton's, if not for Un-Tommy (who'd been brilliant in battle), and the bonus provided by Fritz's swift promotion to Chief Warlord.

It was Larry himself who charged Wanda on foot, and slew Uggymug. The mount's fall dropped her to the rocky ground at his feet, incapacitated.

But rather than strike the croaking blow, he sheathed his sword and called her by name. "Lady Wanda," he said, almost mournfully, "you shouldn't run. You should be with us. Come on, now. You're hurting my feelings!"

Reaching into his pack, he produced a capture net and began to resize it.

Wanda had only been winded in the fall, but she could not move and could barely breathe. Lying there beside Uggymug's body, in the ice and snow and jagged rocks, she looked up and saw Larry's hands. The net he held looked like Fate itself, preparing to drag her to Olive's side whichever way she tried to go.

Then she thought out an order, and Un-Tommy disengaged from his melee. As Larry threw the net upon her, Un-Tommy's swift sword struck him a beautiful critical hit.

Re-attaching the head during the uncroaking process had been an interesting new challenge. But if she had made any careless errors in the process, Larry seemed disinclined to complain to her any further.

Between the combat and all of the uncroaking she'd done, Wanda had leveled up to 4 on the journey home. But she considered it less of a personal advancement than the discovery that she could use Rhyme-o-mancy. Her mind was now open to the possibilities of using other magical disciplines. And even though that remained a disturbing (even frightening) idea, she was determined to push herself to try. She would not be blindsided by an enemy this way again.

One of the units in the group, for example, was a snow golem. It was a terribly crude thing, made of only three large balls of snow she had rolled up, with sticks for arms and small black rocks for features. It moved lurchingly forward and was almost useless as a unit. But as abominable as it was, she was quite proud of her first attempt at hat magic.

"I think, perhaps, we're not in need of...him, at this point," said Fritz, indicating Un-Tommy. "He may be, er...a distraction?" The new Chief was a practical man, and if he'd been bothered at all by the presence of an uncroaked version of his old friend, this was the first indication of it. "To the Overlord, I mean," added Fritz.

Wanda, who had just dismounted, looked up at Un-Tommy. Yes, Father would not be so dispassionate about the matter. Fritz was just being practical again. She nodded, and ordered Un-Tommy to lead a stack in the courtyard, in case the enemy broke alliance and landed.

The snow golem she ordered to stand sentry at the base of Minnow Tower. Then she took the silk top hat from its head, reducing it to a mere ornament.

Father ended his parley, and came in from the frigid parapet. His cheeks were rosy, his eyes dour. Two attendants shut the double doors behind him, leaving only the light of blue powerballs, and the fires in the twin hearths.

Wanda, Delphie and Clay rose from their seats upon the fustian couches of the drawing room, and bowed their heads to him. Fritz had never chosen to sit.

"Daughter," said the Overlord, "I'm grateful to see you again."

Wanda wanted very much to embrace him, but Delphie and Clay's presence made her hold fast to decorum. "As am I, Father." She tried to let her smile say it in place of her arms. "What have they said?"

Father removed a pair of thick woolen gloves and handed them to an attendant. He smirked in amusement. "Well, they figured it out. They were almost exactly as dumb as I expected them to be. They've got an agreement, now. So, we've got til turn's end."

Father's stalling gambit was to offer both Frenemy and Quisling an exclusive contract entitling them to two thirds of Goodminton's treasury, payable on the condition that the other broke alliance first.

This had the effect of putting them in a position of being unable to make good on their threat to attack the city. One of them had to be the first to break alliance with Goodminton, which would put the treasure in the other's hands, and mean that they would be fighting in the sky instead of attacking the ground.

In correspondence she'd exchanged with him from the road, Father had indicated to Wanda that he only expected this to work for a few turns. Then Frenemy and Quisling would write their own agreement to automagically split Goodminton's payment to the second side to break alliance.

"They're ready to attack us, but I told them we'll meet their demands," he said. "I take it we are ready now?"

Delphie looked like she wanted to answer, and Wanda nodded her assent. "Yes, Lord," said the Predictamancer. "Spells are on the tower, and I am boosted with Luckamancy." Clay nodded as well. They both looked terribly serious. Wanda reminded herself how little combat they had each seen.

Firebaugh raised his head and looked at Fritz. "I'd like to stack with you, if you can bear the risk of it," he said. "It's been a long time since I've been in a fight."

Fritz simply shrugged and pointed at Delphie. "Don't ask me, Lord. You've a Predictamancer. Will he croak, Lady Temple?"

Delphie looked at her Overlord and squinted a bit, examining him. Wanda could sense that she was using a kind of magical sight like her own Croakamancy senses. She'd asked Delphie a raft of questions about Predictamancy in correspondence from the road, as they'd worked out this plan. She knew Delphie was now intuiting something about Father's near-term outcomes.

She smiled nervously. "No objections, my Lord."

Wanda held the scroll she had sent Delphie to buy this morning. It felt strange and dirty, tingling with a magic she had barely even thought about.

Firebaugh smiled, for once a warm and genuine look of relief. He looked eager to act. "Oh excellent," he said. his voice both soft and intense. "Won't this be interesting?"

Rob's Other Comic Project: Duel In The Somme--Read it from the beginning!

Fritz wailed over Tommy's chest. Mack felled a pine sapling with one stroke of his claymore, screaming out in rage. Cakes turned away, sank to his knees beside his nickelhorse, and wept into a snowbank. Even Tommy's great brontosword hung its head and tried to sniff at his boots.

Wanda only stepped backward and looked up at the snowy tree-tops for a moment, drawing in a deep breath. The cold air was a blade to her lungs. She turned to the nearest knight, who was staring slack-jawed at his fallen leader.

"Encamp," she ordered, snapping his attention to her. "Give priority to my own tent. Pitch it where the Chief has fallen."

Fritz would not leave Tommy's side at first, but Wanda managed to get him to his feet. "There is a war to fight. Stand up. Stand up, Warlord!" He was her superior officer by level, but she said it with the force of an order anyway, and he complied. She took the silk top hat from where it had been folded inside Tommy's coat, and handed it to him. "Get instructions from Father," she said. "He may want to make you Chief."

"Yes Lady," Fritz managed hoarsely.

Wanda assisted with the raising of the tent, then ordered all units away from it. Under the canvas, she rolled out her bedroll on the bare snow. With a drag of his boots and a big heave by the armpits, she laid his body to rest upon it. His face was swollen, his eyelids and bluish lips were closed, but his expression was one of peace.

Peace.

Sitting on the edge of the camp stool, she brushed the snow from the sleeves of his coat, removed her glove and touched his icy cheek with the back of her hand. No wounds was her first thought.

The first thing to determine in uncroaking a body is what took its life, because that was where the most repair and attention would likely be needed. Attention was the key. A simple or a mass uncroaking took no more attention than lighting a candle, with the Matter of the body representing the candle wax. The body would move as it could, and take simple orders until its fuel was exhausted a few turns later.

But the craft of the Croakamancer was to understand the body's condition, its functions, its strengths and weaknesses. The Croakamancer could conserve the fuel of the body by focusing her juice upon the mechanisms of its movement, repairing and augmenting them with magic. An expertly uncroaked unit could function almost as well as it had when alive, and last for perhaps dozens of turns.

So. If this body had no wounds, then what croaked it? Sensing her way through the architecture of his insides, she could not immediately say. Something about the muscles was familiar, though. She had uncroaked the victims of critical hits before. A crit to the head would cause the muscles to seize at croaking. But one to the heart left the muscles starved out, relaxed and unable to contract. Tommy's were like that.

So she focused on his heart. She tried to make it beat once, and knew something was wrong. One tells a muscle to move by means of the nerves, and reconnecting nerves by magic was one of the trickier parts of an attentive uncroaking.

There were almost no functioning nerves in Tommy's heart. Or...his stomach, or most of the rest of his internal organs. He probably had not been in pain, but he must have known something was very wrong.

She had never seen one before, and she did not understand how it worked, but this was certainly a poisoning. And poisons, both natural and magical, were Flower Power.

Wanda sat up straight on the stool. "I make you no promises about the future," Olive had said. That would have voided her pinky swear not to poison him, wouldn't it? She'd also asked him to kiss her. So she did not initiate an engagement in the city.

He'd done it; he'd kissed her. He trusted her.

Because he loved her, which was probably her doing as well.

Wanda removed her other glove. It was bitterly cold inside the tent, with no fire, and bare snow still beneath her boots. But that was not the reason for her numbness. She could not say why she was not crying for Tommy, but it troubled her. She worried that tears might never come. What would that mean?

"Stupid," she whispered to him. "How could you fall for that?" Tommy's peaceful face was perfectly still. There was unthawed snow in his beard.

But the words sounded hollow to her, because one thing Wanda understood about her own heart was exactly how someone could fall for Olive. She put her hands into the pockets of the suit. Olive must have recognized her raiment, but she never remarked on it. What was this woman? What kind of a monster fights with peace?

Wanda didn't understand. But she realized that it was her job to. In her mind, she saw the Mirror Wanda saying, "You couldn't protect him, because you don't know your magicks. What a terrific Chief Caster. You didn't know what you were up against. Did you? He trusted you, too!"

She reached out and took his cold hand, placed her other hand over his face, and began to cast. No, she did not know enough. She'd waved away Delphie's Predictions. Her eyes had glazed over at Clay's explanations of Luckamancy. And she hadn't seen Hippiemancy as anything but the magic of harmless perversion.

That would change, starting now, starting with this uncroaking. Tommy's body deserved her very best work. She would try Rhyme-o-mancy, the way Olive had used it.

A poetic incantation could settle the mind, focus any caster on their work. Even warlords could use Rhymes in leadership, for morale and focus, and in dance fighting. Those bawdy trail songs of Tommy's were crude, but effective on the units under his command. Her singing along with the knights had likely helped her spot that scout on her first day. Songs and poems held great and mysterious power.

But to use Rhyme-o-mancy in casting, it must be quick and clever, and it must rhyme. If she flubbed the rhyme, the spell would weaken or fail completely. She had yet to try to put two lines together, but she was already casting. It was now or never. She incanted:

Skin, to muscle, to sinew, to bone.
My brother-protector, you've left me alone.

Naughtymance, bodymance, fleshmistress, I
Take this gift you've bequeathed me, in place of good-bye.

The attention of an entire day was collapsed into those few seconds. Wanda reconstructed, reconnected, and reanimated everything inside Tommy's body, undoing all of what Olive's life-draining poison had done to him. He was a huge, strong man. He was a warlord. He would stand again, and fight against the side that had taken his life.

After hours of subjective effort, she felt her work coalesce in him. He was a unit, the most powerful she had ever raised up. The spell faded. She became aware of the tent again, and the cold.

"Stand up," she said. The unit opened its eyes, and obeyed her order. She had never made one so beautifully preserved. The bloating in his face faded, as some slow circulation of the blood was possible in this one. She was overjoyed at the results. Almost everything a living unit could do, this one could...

And then, like the tent coming back into her view, so did Tommy.

This was her brother. Her brother. This was Tommy!

And it was not. Tommy was gone.

She looked at the unit's face, feeling her own grow hot. "Tommy..." Her voice sounded strange. "Put... Put your arms around me."

The beautiful, triumphantly perfect uncroaked unit followed her order. His arms, like tree branches, encircled Wanda. His barrel chest was ice cold at first. But soon it was warm and wet with tears she that worried might never stop.

Rob's Other Comic Project: Duel In The Somme--Read it from the beginning!

They ask me again? My daughter for armistice?
A good ruler would surely accept this offer, but I don't suppose I can claim that distinction.
Time and again, the Lady Temple advises that my decisions cannot affect what has been Predicted.
If this is truly so, then life is ludicrous and without meaning.
If no decision matters, then I shall make no decision.
Let the choice be made between you two.
You each have my trust and my love.
-F

When Tommy requested another day of negotiations in order to "wait for our Overlord's guidance," Olive did not argue.

"Your units may bunk in the east barracks, and the adjacent officers' quarters and stables," she said, rising to her feet and gathering her books. "You should count on having them use their own rations. There will be no festivities this evening."

Tommy and Wanda watched them leave the blockhouse without a further word. Larry glanced back at her as he held the door for Olive, then he walked out and left it ajar.

After a moment's thoughtful silence, Tommy whispered, "I get it."

Wanda looked at him. "What?"

"She doesn't trust Larry. She wants to turn, but she'll wait and do it on our turn, so we can turn around and attack!" Tommy's face was flushed with excitement. "She wants us in the east barracks so we can protect her. Aw, we should never have tried to turn them both. I'm an idiot."

Wanda had taken Olive's sudden coldness very much at face value, but it was hard to be sure. It would make things much nicer if what Tommy thought was true. "What if you're wrong?"

Her brother tilted his head, his smile going crooked. "Back to the original plan then, I guess. Stay here tonight, destroy her instrument if we can. Take the city tomorrow." He looked out the empty doorway. "But I bet she turns. C'mon, let's assemble in the barracks."

Fritz seemed a little more at ease in the barracks. They filled him in on the intent of staying another turn here. He was quiet, but clearly skeptical of the entire matter. Wanda wondered if he regretted staying sober through the previous evening's carousal.

"It's your war, Tommy," he shrugged. "It's not like I've any idea how to fight a Hippiemancer. Love is...well, it's no proper battlefield."

The warlords played cards through the rest of Haffaton's turn, and no news came to them via the hat or any scout observations. Another quiet turn. For the last ten days, the war had barely seemed to be a war at all.

Fritz raised the possibility that they could catch Haffaton off guard and take the city before Olive could play her instrument. "No," said Tommy. "I think she probably won't play, but that will mean she'll be here to turn. We should just be ready for the fight."

Within the barracks, then, they stayed stacked. They took up positions of readiness by the doors as Haffaton's horns sounded the end of their turn.

But at that very moment, Olive's strumming and singing rained down from the city's tower. Tommy and Wanda stood in the doorway and stared up at her tiny figure on the parapet. As with yesterday, her voice reached them from everywhere and nowhere, sweet and haunting.

Wanda's eyes widened at the final lyric. Wordlessly, Tommy drew his sword. He stepped out into the courtyard and swung it as hard as he could at a Haffaton soldier who was standing in the sunlight, chewing on a dried pear.

The sword stopped in midair, an inch from the man's neck. He looked up, put the rest of the fruit in his mouth, gave Tommy a quick and sarcastic salute, and wandered off.

"Had to try," Tommy called after him.

"Wha'ever," said the soldier, through a mouthful of food.

The Goodminton officers' card game eventually resumed. "What do you think her lyric meant by 'too late?'" said Wanda to the table. She was dealer this hand.

Fritz looked worried. "You're asking us?"

"I took it as a threat of some kind," said Tommy. He'd been quiet since the turn began, and slow to answer his bet. He looked at Wanda seriously. "That's why I confirmed the spell was active. But the fact that she was singing about turning... I don't know what to think at this point. "

Wanda nodded. "Bet's to you," she said.

"Check."

"Check," said Wanda. "I don't know, either. That spell uses Rhyme-o-mancy, but I don't understand it. You want cards, Mack?"

Mack Ramay, a taciturn Level 4 warlord with habitually knitted brows, took two cards from his hand and set them on the table. "Two."

Wanda dealt his cards. "Well, it's bothering me. So if it's just a threat, it's doing a good job. Cakes?"

Rex Cakes, an awkward Level 3 with a pasty face and a large gap between his teeth, took three cards.

"Do you think we should go talk to her?" asked Tommy.

Wanda shrugged. She had a feeling in her gut that Olive was moving on to something else now, and that this meant bad news for Goodminton. "I guess we could. Fritz?"

"I'm fine with these, my Lady," said Fritz.

"Really, now?" said Wanda suspiciously. "Don't spend all of Clay's boost at the poker table. Tommy?" Tommy was looking up at the ceiling. "You want cards, big brother?"

"Sh," he said, holding up the fingers of his empty hand. He put his cards on the table, face down. "Check the hat. Did the hat rumble?"

Olive and Larry came out to speak to Tommy at the fore of the Goodminton column, just inside the main gate of Kiloton. She listened coolly, as he explained that they were withdrawing from the city immediately.

"I see. And are you ready to take our offer?" she asked.

"It's still on the table," said Tommy, matching her tone. "But not this turn. We need our Croakamancer too badly right now."

Olive nodded, her face blank. "Trouble? It's not with us. Maybe it's your allies?"

Tommy's eyes narrowed. "That's not anything I'd care to share with the enemy, Olive."

In fact, the message they had received was dire. A large air armada of mounted heavies from both Quisling and Frenemy had flown into the capital's airspace and would not withdraw. They declared they would break their alliance and attack the city unless given concessions amounting to the rest of Goodminton's treasury. Lord Firebaugh was uncertain the attack could be fought off.

"We don't have to be enemies, Tommy," Olive said, her eyes softening as she stepped closer to him. "With Wanda on our side, we'd be more like family. Like a tribe."

"We had a tribe," said Tommy stiffly. "You helped wipe them out."

Olive shook her head just slightly, as if to say "history doesn't matter."

Larry stepped forward and stared at Wanda. His eyes were longing and sad. "Take the deal," was all he said.

Wanda looked at him, understanding full well that he desired her, but feeling nothing for him. Perhaps what he was feeling was some form of love. Perhaps it was something else.

Then she looked at Olive, and it was like looking into the sun. Wanda considered the possibility of staying here with her, and her heart voted in favor of the idea by knocking on her breastbone from the inside. But was that love, or something else? Was that what Larry felt when he looked at her?

And if so, perhaps Olive was just as indifferent to her.

She touched her brother's arm and looked up at him. "I'll go. If it will save us."

Tommy shook his head, and pulled away almost violently. He scowled at Olive, angry. "No. That shouldn't be necessary! Olive, you should turn! You should've...you should have."

Olive shook her head sadly. "It wouldn't help you now. You have to go, and I'm out of move." She stepped close to Tommy, and took his hand in both of hers . "But if you mean I should have loved you, I did. And I do." She looked up at him. "But I make you no promises about the future. Will you kiss me?"

They looked into one another's eyes, then he put his arms around her waist and locked her in a passionate embrace. Some of the Goodminton knights hooted, but Wanda, Larry and Fritz stared in awkward silence, as the kiss dragged on for many moments.

When they finally drew apart, Tommy looked distant and distracted. He looked at Olive only a moment longer, then shouted the booming command, "Column! March!"

The column split by destination, based upon move. Slower and siege units were sent on their way back to Hamfurter, while their fleetest units and the leadership would take a four-turn overland route straight home to the capital.

They rode hard and fast through the hills, over fields of boulders and snow. Tracks indicated there was game here, but they had no move to spare for hunting. Wanda and Uggymug stayed close beside Tommy's flank. Hunched down in the saddle, he barely spoke a word, but kept his eyes ahead and his teeth bared into the wind.

It was good to be riding with him. Even if the capital should fall and they should all disband in the field, she felt glad not to have stayed with Olive. Every time she looked at her brother she felt that they belonged together, Fate and the Titans disband.

Halfway through their journey, he read a message from his hat and called a halt.

"Leadership, to me," he said. His voice was barely a loud whisper.

The commanders huddled their mounts. Wanda could see by Tommy's grim face that something very serious was happening. "The siege group is gone," he said, his voice low and strained. Wanda watched him closely. He was in deep distress. "Haffaton was waiting for it on the road. We should watch for a second ambush. Let's get scouts ahead as we ride."

There was no second ambush, but the rest of the ride was slower and the mood more desperate. Haffaton was offering no more concessions now. Enemies are enemies. Tommy looked as pained as Wanda had ever seen him, and he said nothing more until the group had spent the move of its slowest units. At that point, he pulled up into a wind-sheltered grove of firs and ordered camp made.

Then he dismounted his brontosword, slid down its side, and collapsed into the snow.

Wanda's head snapped around. The big mount obscured her view of him. "Tommy?"

But before she could even get her boots out of the stirrups, her senses as a Croakamancer told her she would find his lifeless body upon the ground.

Rob's Other Comic Project: Duel In The Somme--Read it from the beginning!