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“Did she use the word primordial?”

“Yes.”

“Recently?”

“What does that mean?”

“Did she say it the last time you talked to her?”

“Say what?”

“Did she say the word primordial in the last few conversations you had with her?”

“I don’t know.”

I bit my lip.

“Did she use the word plague, when she didn’t mean the red plague?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t paying attention to that kind of thing.”

“Did she say the word superweapon a lot?”

“Some. But she says a lot of things some.”

I gripped the railing ahead of me. “Right.”

Wendy turned to look starboard.

“Listen,” I said. “Um. Did she use the words ‘Radham superweapon’?”

“Some,” Wendy said, looking back at me.

“Some,” I said. “Was she talking about wild, uncontrolled? Or controlled chaos, or…”

Wendy looked at me, lost.

“Okay. Was she being exceedingly careful?” I asked.

“No, I don’t think so,” Wendy said. “No more than usual.”

That rules out some grim possibilities, I thought. At the same time, it left me at a loss.

Our initial attempt at getting moving had failed. The craft had started to move, then faltered when some of the legs proved too damaged to drag us forward.

I stood at the railing and watched as teams lashed Fray’s pet Tangle to the front. Wendy stood beside me, holding an umbrella to keep the worst of the rain from soaking her.

Our means of locomotion was macabre, but it gave us a way forward. Some of the warbeasts were being gathered nearby, a share of our rebels were wrapping up a discussion about them. I couldn’t see nearly well enough to read much more than broader body language, the simplest gestures, like a pointing finger, and who was speaking, but it wasn’t too hard to figure out.

They divided the warbeasts up, one group more injured, another not, and led the injured within range of the Tangle. Chains and ropes were distributed, so the beasts were lashed to the same rigging that was attaching the Tangle to the front of the Infante’s ship.

When the crews had tied everything down and retreated far enough away from the warbeasts, orders were called out. The warbeasts were lunging, pulling at the rigging while the greater Tangle remained still. They didn’t like their proximity to this strange thing, especially when they were hurt and tired.

They liked it even less when chemicals were cast out over them.

It was an indication for the Tangle to go on the offense. It reached out for the warbeasts, gripped the rigging and the beasts themselves, and then set to work attaching them to itself, while harvesters swarmed down its limbs to do the stitching work. The beasts fought a futile tooth and nail battle against the attacker.

I was a considerable distance above the ground, standing at the very highest point of the ship, and I could still hear the sounds they made.

“The Lady Gloria is dead,” Duncan said.

“Oh no,” Wendy said. “What a shame. Who is she?”

“She’s a noble.”

“Was she a good noble?” Wendy asked.

“She wasn’t one of the worst,” I said.

“Oh no,” Wendy said, again.

“Alright,” I said.

He approached from behind and came to stand beside me at the railing.

Pawing at the ground where some of the chemical had landed, the Tangle tugged on the restraints that bound it. The crew of rebels hurried to get out of the way in case it made any headway.

“You really see a way forward?” Duncan asked.

“Yes,” I said.

The people who were still in view below were looking up, trying to see me through the rain. I waved my arm, the motion exaggerated, then extended my arm forward.

A horn blew. I recognized the pattern as the de-facto call for retreat. Ironic, when we weren’t running.

“I’m in a weird place in the Lambs,” Duncan said. “I’m the newest member, in a way, discounting the pseudo-Lambs. I actually have outside attachments.”

“Having doubts?” I asked.

“No. No, there isn’t much room for doubt, is there?”

I shook my head. I looked at the devastated terrain and the shattered city before us.

“I know Lillian and you do your thing, you negotiate. You and she figure out where you’re at.”

“We do.”

“And I don’t mean to disparage her at all when I say that she’s emotionally entangled.”

I looked over at him. His hood was down, his hair wet. Water streamed down his face and into his collar. It was that kind of day, though. We’d been out and active in the rain for so long that being drenched was something we’d resigned ourselves to.

The Tangle hauled forward, hard, making us stumble into the railing. One of our rebels had taken off on a warbeast, the others presumably onboard or soon to be onboard. The rider had something held aloft, and gas was streaming from it, tinted so it was clearly visible.

The Tangle was trying to chase, clearly interested in the gas.

“Just the way it is,” Duncan continued. “You’ve all known each other for a long time. You were introduced early on. Lillian aside, you’ll probably die in each other’s arms.”

“Oh no,” Wendy said.

“Dark thoughts,” I said.

“But not wrong, am I?”

“No,” I said.

The intact legs of the ship began clawing at the ground. They were strong, and they provided the initial forward momentum. The Tangle compensated, providing power the weaker legs couldn’t.

We started moving.

“The Lambs have their roles. You were conceived of as a gestalt. It’s part of the whole plan, y’know? And I’m not part of that.”

“You’ve found a place.”

“As a secondary Doctor. As oversight for the little ones. Lillian fields you, Jessie, and Mary in large part. I’ve immersed myself in the workings behind the vat-grown ones. There’s a division of labor.”

“Sure,” I said.

“As attached as I am to Ashton and Helen, I wouldn’t say I’m as tied into things. I hope I don’t sound arrogant or too forward if I say maybe I have another role. I’m… about as objective as you guys are going to get, without actually being an outsider.”

“Yeah,” I said. “And outsiders don’t get it.”

“They don’t,” Duncan said.

“What’s the objective take?” I asked.

“Not a take. A question.”

“Sure.”

We were picking up speed now. Once something was in motion, it was easy to keep in motion. We had momentum. We charged toward Radham.

“How worried do I need to be?”

“That depends on Fray,” I said.

More people were ascending to the upper deck. The windows below didn’t afford the same view of things. The Lambs were among the people ascending. A stitched carried Jessie, and Lillian and Mary walked on either side of it. The stream of people was disrupted with a pause – people had given a wide berth to the younger Lambs, in large part because of Nora.

“But you’re not asking about Fray,” I said.

“No.”

“I could tell you the same thing I told Mary,” I said. “That when push comes to shove… just about any of you could beat me in a fight.”

“You could tell me that,” Duncan said. “It doesn’t really answer the question. You picking a fight is a non-concern. You have a wealth of ways to do damage.”

I remained silent, watching the city.

“Yeah,” Duncan said.

He reached out, both hands. One hand shielded the other, so rain wouldn’t fall on what it held.

A single pill.

He closed his hand around the pill.

“Ah,” I said. “You’re that suspicious.”

“I would appreciate it if you took this. Right here. In the time before the others get here.”

The pull of the Tangle and the fact that the legs were stronger on one side made the craft tilt slightly. The Tangle corrected to stay on course, and we tilted the other way. Everyone on the deck that wasn’t holding the railing slid or stumbled on the wet deck. It was wood textured to make slipping a little harder, but the acid rain had done a number on that texture, and the degraded wood had a way of filling in the gaps and making everything a little more slick.

It slowed them down a fraction, but not enough time to really let me dwell on the topic.

Duncan might have intended that, to give him some credit.

“What is it?”

“Reassurance,” he said, without hesitation. He’d anticipated the question.

“Vague,” I said. I held out a hand.

He closed his mouth into a grim line, clearly not intent on saying any more.

Saying more would have given me a chance to divine what he was up to. He was intending to keep this a secret. It could be a leash, something to ensure I wouldn’t last very long after going rogue, or it could be a placebo, something that would have a minor or obvious effect like turning my mouth blue, which would reassure him that I was cooperating enough to take the pill instead of palming it.

Or both. I couldn’t rule out both.

Or, the voice echoed. The most distant, least connected Lamb could be a traitor. A poison pill at the pivotal confrontation.

I held out my hand. Duncan gave me the pill.

The others were close enough to see, now. I popped the pill into my mouth, then held it in my teeth so Duncan could see.

“It’s a suppository,” Duncan said, dry.

“Ha ha,” I said, pill still held in my teeth. I winced as I sucked it back, snorting. I stuck out my tongue, waggling it to show my mouth was empty. “You’re a funny guy, Duncan. You don’t get enough credit for that.”

“And you’re a charmer. Believe it or not, I was considered one of the best jokers of the year.”

“What’s this?” Lillian asked, as she joined us.

“Duncan says people thought he was the funniest guy around.”

“That says as much about the the classmates we had as it does about Duncan,” Lillian said.

“Ow, my pride,” Duncan said.

“You were and are quick-witted and fast with a retort. Especially when you’re in your element. It’s part of the reason I nominated you. And there’s something to be said for the fact that just about everyone else was struggling to get to the top of the class rankings, and didn’t have it in them to crack a joke. You were doing well enough in your classes that you could joke around.”

“Feels like a horrifyingly long time ago,” Duncan said. “I can’t remember the last time I made a joke.”

“I’m supposed to be the one with the memory problem. You made one about a minute ago, you know.”

“Ha ha,” he said, without humor.

The Lambs had gathered all around. It was nice, having them close. Even if Helen was in dire shape and Jessie was sleeping through this. They were near, they weren’t all touching me, but I could feel the warmth of them. I was familiar with them, the smells, the ways they thought, many of the ways they moved.

It was more like being home than returning to Radham was.

I took in the scene. Fray was one of my gods to slay for a reason. She was so hard to predict.

I couldn’t ask what I’d do, because she operated on a different level, for reasons I didn’t know. I had inklings, but I didn’t know how to use those inklings, and I wasn’t wholly sure I could trust them.

“Hi Wendy,” Ashton said.

“Hi.”

“Are you well?”

“Yes. I’m enjoying a very strange view.”

“Yes,” Ashton said, sounding very pleased. “I’m going to commit it to memory and describe it to Helen later. She doesn’t have eyes right now.”

“How nice of you.”

Some of the rest of us exchanged glances.

“We should get away from the foredeck before we make impact,” Mary said.

“We’ve got a little ways to go before we do,” I said, staring at the scene.

“Did Wendy have any ideas about what Fray is doing?”

“Nothing concrete. Superweapon, maybe. As much as I keep thinking it has to be something really wild and uncontrolled, that the Crown can’t control or get a handle on, much like the plague, nothing Wendy says suggests that’s the case.”

“Primordials?” Lillian asked.

“They might have factored in. She used the word. It’s a casualty of Wendy being Wendy, as exceptional as she is for a stitched.”

“Thank you,” Wendy said. “But I don’t really have stitches. I’m sealed together properly.”

“All the same,” I said. “We can pick up on sentiment, but if she was capable of divulging anything too concrete, I suspect Fray wouldn’t have…”

I gestured to finish the statement. Left her behind.

“Yeah,” Duncan said. “Maybe.”

“It’s not as wild a thing as I thought it might be, but she might still be using the calamities as a kind of reverse effort to turn Radham and other strategic areas into an oasis in the midst of a desert storm,” I said.

“You might be thinking she should be using chaos and storms because that’s how you work,” Mary said.

“Might,” I admitted.

“We’re close,” she said. “We should start preparing.”

“On that note, Lillian, Duncan, if you had to, could you quickly, cleanly kill that Tangle down there?”

“Kill?” Lillian asked.

“It’s ours,” Ashton said.

“No,” I said. “It’s Fray’s. We just happen to be using it. So I have to ask, could you kill it?”

“No,” Duncan said.

“I could pull something together if you gave me an hour.”

“Okay, that wouldn’t be fast enough,” I said. I turned around, and I made my way through the Lambs, leaving them at the very front of the ship. I faced the group that had come up to the top deck. “Beattle Rebels and other Academy-educated types!”

My voice carried. I immediately had everyone’s attention.

“I need a quick answer! Who can devise a solution to kill the Tangle down there before we actually get to Radham?”

A few people looked bewildered.

“Blow it up?” somone asked. One of our soldiers, but not Academy-educated. He’d been a thug, once. We’d rounded out his training with guns, explosives, and other things. He would be one of the last of Archie’s people, maybe?

“Wouldn’t work unless we had a big enough explosive,” I said. “Anyone else?”

I saw a hand go up.

Junior. Head of the Rank, our master poisoner.

“Good man. Get to it, get what you need,” I said.

He rounded up his people, and they hurried below deck.

I was getting strange looks. Including from the Lambs.

“It’ll be good to have if we need it,” I told them.

Nobody answered.

The crowd was filled with our past enemies. There were enough I couldn’t recognize that it confused my senses. Bea’s followers were into self-modifications, and it didn’t help matters when the physical alterations were often my first cue that someone was a spectre. Horns? Could have been the Brechwell beast, and it could have been someone who’d wanted to look intimidating.

We were drawing nearer. The rider who was painting the trail was at the base of the wall, and was working on scaling it. They’d chosen a warbeast rather than a horse because warbeasts could climb.

The problem was that climbing was slow, even with a warbeast that was good at it.

Mary gestured, and we backed away from the front of the ship. Others retreated as well. I felt some trepidation as I eased my way past Avis and Warren, past the Snake Charmer and Percy. Past Sub Rosa, the Humors, Cynthia, ghosts and soldiers, the Fishmonger, Devil, Primordial Child, and scattered nobles.

At the edge of the Academy closest to us, there was a flash of light. The sound reached us a moment later.

“Brace!” Mary hollered.

The artillery shell hit the side of the ship. Our course shifted, then self corrected as the creatures hauled us forward.

When we’d talked about how we needed to use the craft to assault the city, we’d outlined a path that would place us closer to the Academy. It was closer than the point where the Infante had landed, and now it was becoming clear why he hadn’t chosen to assault the Academy and the walls around it. The Academy had defenses beyond the creatures that guarded it.

At a tower further away, another artillery emplacement fired.

The shot hit somewhere near the prow, detonating on impact. That one would’ve hit one of the metaphorical horses of our metaphorical chariot.

We were damn close now, but every fraction of a mile that we plunged forward put us further into harm’s way. Those who’d ascended to see Radham as we drew nearer were ducking below deck. We were the last in line to descend, because we’d been the furthest forward.

Two more shots came our way. One drifted, hitting field off to the starboard side. Another struck low. Aimed more at the Tangle.

The Lambs started to head below. I clung to the railing, glanced back, and then put one finger to my nostril, blowing out the pill I’d snorted up into my sinus cavity.

The next round included a more distant tower, which apparently saw fit to open fire now that we were closer. Three shots in all.

We were belowdeck before they hit home.

Narrow windows near the front of the ship provided a view of the scene. One of the explosives ripped a hole in the hull, opening a space around where the window had been. Smoke and the seemingly endless rain of water and debris obscured our vision.

We were slowing. The explosions had damaged the rigging the Tangle used to haul us forward, and it had pulled away, only partially attached to us, the leash extended. It clambered up the wall to the best of its ability, after the rider with the smoke. It ascended far faster than the rider did.

The Infante’s craft, however, still had some forward momentum. We slammed into the wall and rode up against the topmost edge. Rubble and sections of wall crumbled down around the deck and around us.

The fluids and blood that flowed down the wall, over the intact window and across the damaged hole suggested we’d collided with the Tangle.

Well. That complicated things.

More artillery fire struck us.

Problematic, that we were close enough for them to shoot at us.

“They’re hitting the rear. I don’t think they have an angle,” Mary said.

More artillery shells struck us. Tail end, again.

“Yeah,” I said. “Unless they’ve got incredibly clever and coordinated people manning the artillery turrets on top of those towers, tricking us into poking our heads out before they obliterate us.”

“I wouldn’t put it past Hayle,” Lillian said. “But I don’t think Hayle would be on those towers.”

We headed for the stairs leading back up to the deck. Junior met us at the base of the stairs, and tossed me a canister.

“Look after Wendy,” I told him. “Or find someone who can and follow.”

“Got it,” he replied.

There was no need for a ramp, with the way the wall had come down. The rubble formed its own access point. The Tangle had divided in two, and the ‘head’ was climbing up onto the top of the wall.

The lower half was groping its way up the wall, toward the hole we wanted to use to pass into the city. The gap between the prow of the ship and the wall was forming a wedge it couldn’t quite force itself past, and it didn’t have the complete senses to figure out a way. It groped blindly, pawing with a limb made of a warbeast and a dozen soldiers.

We passed beneath the groping claw, into the city.

I knew what the others were looking at as we stopped and got our bearings.

We were standing at the edge of a field. A bridge stood a distance ahead of us. Not the bridge, but familiar nonetheless. We were on the same tier of land that Lambsbridge occupied. The road between the Academy and the Orphanage was a little ways ahead of us, stretching from our right to our left, and we were about a third of the way down it.

Artillery fire struck near the Tangle at the walltop. Stone and wood crumbled in equal measure, and the Tangle fell. Behind us, the other Tangle was climbing up.

I pulled the pin and threw the canister at it.

Gas erupted around it. There was a dull moaning sound, as if each of the bodies was making a small sound, and it began to lose strength.

The rebels took the opportunity to come over the deck, where they hadn’t had the confidence to come past the thing. I spotted Junior.

“We need another!” I shouted.

He stopped, made a face, and then reversed direction.

“Was smart,” Lillian said.

“Hm?” I asked, trying to take in the surroundings.

“I was thinking we had to kill it. He was thinking he needed to take it down ten percent, across the entire body, weakening the protein bonds that tie one body to another. That’s all it takes.”

“Wonderful!” I said, not even really paying attention. “Good job, Junior.”

“He’s not here,” Ashton said.

This was deceptively familiar ground. It was a scene I’d seen countless times in my life, enough that it had solidified among my more durable memories, but it was set askew, painted over. The terrain was tilted, and the movements of Tangles and the damage to Tangles had littered the area with a number of bodies that seemed almost ludicrous. Some of those bodies writhed and moved as Harvesters ate or tried puppeteering them. The lower ground and ditches were congealing with bodily fluids, rain, and the plant matter that had disintegrated in the acid rain, forming a black slurry of mud.

We started forward, picking a path that would take us closer to the gates. They were open, too damaged to be closed.

There was more artillery fire, aimed at the Tangle we’d brought with us. It hit the wall or sailed over it.

We were wet, dressed in dark uniforms, crossing a field of blighted crops, blood, and bodies; it meant we were almost camouflaged. We moved with more purpose than the twitching bodies did, however, and we were a more concentrated mass.

The camouflage got us partway to our destination before they took notice.

A tower near the gate fired a shell, the sound echoing.

Aimed at us.

“Right!” Mary shouted. There was a momentary resistance. The way the plume of smoke that pointed skyward looked to be angled, they might have thought she was pushing us into the way of the shot. She spoke with more venom. “Go right!”

The rebels with us moved. I was already weaving through the ones who weren’t moving fast enough.

It hit ground to our left. Wind had carried it a considerable distance. It wasn’t close enough to clip any of us, but loud enough that I lost the ability to hear with my left ear, and the shock of it took the legs out from several people.

“Go, go!” I shouted, leading the way through the ankle-deep soup of acid water, dead organic matter and mud. Each step sucked at my boots.

Broken and dying Tangles roused as they took notice of us. Leeches that protruded from orifices reached yearningly in our direction, and the bodies clumsily followed after. Our rebels shot the ones who were close enough to be dangerous, stabbed at a few who were too feeble to be more than an inconvenience, and ignored the remainder.

There was another shot. Mary called out the direction. We moved to avoid it.

It was a different kind of shot, this time. Three explosions landed near us, and more shrapnel or debris followed, kicking up sprays of mud and dirt everywhere between us and the tower it had originated from.

One of those explosions hit two of our stragglers. Another six near them fell over, the shock of the nearby impact enough to knock them out or kill them.

The shrapnel knocked down one long-legged fellow to my left.

Jessie’s stitched, holding Jessie with one hand, gathered up three of the fallen, slinging all them almost carelessly over one shoulder.

We pushed forward, moving forward because anything else would have meant remaining a target indefinitely.

The tower that had been firing on us changed targets. An order had been communicated. I looked to see why, and I saw that the Tangle we’d brought was moving along the walltop, approaching the walls and towers of Radham. It had its sights on the tower above the Hedge, the training hospital that served the civilians of Radham.

We were clear to make it the last third of the way to Radham itself. We approached the gates, Mary motioning for our squads to hang back. The wall provided cover from the cannons it supported. I gestured for people to keep an eye up.

There were no soldiers guarding the gates. A Tangle crept through the landing area where the checkpoints had been in wartime, ignoring some bodies and absorbing others. Acid water formed pools around and beneath it, diluted enough to only sear and blister the flesh that was being repeatedly smashed into puddle after puddle.

The coast was clear?

Mary moved to push forward. I grabbed her arm, stopping her.

The tangle flopped. It clawed its way past apparent civilians and wounded, and absorbed a Crown soldier. It splashed again in the water.

My prey instinct screamed.

High above us, artillery fired on Fray’s tangle. Even bisected, it was large enough to be a threat.

I gestured for the others to wait.

“Why?” Mary hissed. “If they have any acid they could dump on us from the wall-”

“Wait,” I said. “Because I think what’s waiting for us in there is worse.”

“Worse?” Lillian asked.

“The water’s wrong,” I said. “Ask Helen.”

“Helen isn’t communicative,” Ashton said.

“Well, if she could speak, she’d say it sounds off,” I murmured, hoping I wasn’t losing my mind.

I gestured for them to wait again, then ventured forward.

I passed through the gates we’d been lurking by, and crept closer, mindful of the smaller Tangle that could so very easily turn on me. They wouldn’t be easy to kill, and Junior hadn’t caught up to us.

There was an open area that served as a place for visitors to stop and for checkpoints to set up, spacious enough for pallets of supplies or boxes of ammunition to be left to one side while multiple wagons could move freely through the area. Roads branched off from the gate plaza to the rest of Radham. Each fixture was reminiscent of a body part. The tower for the brain, Claret hall for the heart, the dormitories for the ribs, Bowels for the… bowels.

This was the left hand. The roads were the fingers, reaching out and around.

On the other side of the left hand, I could see Fray, standing on a covered bridge that extended between two guard-houses.

Not broken-reflection Fray, not a fractured image. The real Fray, raven haired lipstick red, wearing a coat that wasn’t a Professor’s coat, but might as well have been.

Seeing her like this, odd as it was, solidified the story the phantom images had been telling me for a long, long time. I was almost entirely certain of it.

“Lambs,” I said.

The Lambs advanced. They came to stand behind and to either side of me.

“When the images in my head were trying to communicate something, I didn’t connect the thoughts.”

“Sy?” Lillian asked.

“It took some digesting. Thinking of things from different angles.”

“From the time Avis was freed by an insider, we thought she might be working with Hayle,” Mary said. “We talked about that.”

“Yeah,” I said. I stared at Genevieve Fray. “That’s… definitely possible. More and more likely, the more we see and find out. I’d give it ninety-ten odds at this point. The only other option is that she went rogue late in the game.”

“But it’s not what you’re talking about,” Lillian said.

“Whenever I saw Fray, pictured her in my head, I couldn’t see her face without seeing it broken. But one thing was consistent, almost always.”

“The images don’t mean anything, Sy,” Duncan said.

“She always had Lambs with her,” I said. “She had you with her. Or Evette. She embraced them, she seemed… fond of them. Possessive.”

“They don’t mean anything,” Duncan repeated himself.

“They’re just me holding ideas in my head I’m not sure how to parse or connect, yet. The Lambs are Fray’s project. Not Hayle’s. We were always the primary or a primary focus of what she was doing.”

“Why?” Ashton asked.

I bit my tongue.

I answered a different question, that hadn’t been asked. “She probably did multiple things at a time, every step of the way. She extended our leash when she leashed everyone. It’s why she was so happy to see us, so eager to talk to me. It’s why she was so willing to let us have the Beattle recruits.”

And it’s why we’re not going to stop her, not in every respect. Many of our goals align.

“Fray!” I called out. “Let’s parley!”

She said something. Her voice didn’t reach us over the distance.

What I wouldn’t give for Helen’s ears, now.

She pointed. I couldn’t tell if she was giving direction to one of her pets or if she was warning us.

Whatever it was, it didn’t change our circumstance. Artillery struck, and the Tangle we’d brought with us fell, crashing to the ground below.

It stirred the water, which began to move of its own accord. A low-to-the-ground, camouflaged jellyfish, masquerading as puddles. I’d felt like the ripples were wrong, the sound of the rain against water oddly muted. This would be why.

Fray turned to retreat as two superweapons clashed between her and us. Heading toward Hayle.

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