them at forty to fifty thousand. Eight thousand pure Heshette, with their trade cousins from Dalamoor at twice that number, and a score of Heshban tribes gathered from the northern Deadsands. Then there are camel herders from the steppes, branded nomads caught up in the war, and a small unit of salt mercenaries brought in from the Lowlands, some fifteen hundred men. There haven’t been this many heathens in one place since the Poleman York boasted there was still a virgin in Sanpah. At present, the army is camped four leagues southwest of Blackthrone, here .” He pointed to a spot on the map. “Ten to twelve days away.”
“Salt mercenaries?” the angel asked.
“Herald, the Heshette have paid them with salt from the Pocked Delta.”
Callis boomed a laugh. “Then let’s hope they bring their wages with them to battle. We’re out of salt, are we not?”
“We’re out of a lot of things, luck being one of them.” Balthus squeezed the nape of his neck. “Herald, the army marches quickly. All but these mercenaries are desert men. If we are to have any chance of reaching the Coyle and the shelter of the river towns, we must leave now.”
“Flee, Balthus?” Callis’s eyes glittered. “I will not flee.”
“Herald, we cannot defend Deepgate against such a force. We could construct defensive walls, but…” He left the rest unsaid. Would such fortifications delay their inevitable end by as much as an hour?
“Agreed. It would not be to our advantage to remain in the settlement.”
“Then we retreat to the temple? We might defend the chains, but we don’t have the supplies to outlast a siege. The water pipe to Jakka is incomplete, and less than half our caravans will return before the horde is upon us. We would perish of thirst in a month.”
“That’s true,” Callis said casually.
Balthus waited, but the angel said no more. At last he asked, “Herald, what are your orders?”
“We march against them.”
Balthus almost choked. “Against fifty thousand men?”
“You said yourself, it might be only forty.”
“Still…” But he found Callis’s gaze too difficult to meet. The intensity of those dark grey eyes unnerved Balthus, so he stared down at the map as though a solution to their dilemma might somehow appear there. “We have swords for seventy men,” he said. “Four barrels of blackcake brought from…overseas. And the Ninety-Nine, of course.” He drew a circle around the talisman at his chest and touched his brow. “If, by the will of Ulcis, they will answer your summons.”
“Do you doubt me, Balthus?”
“No, Herald, but one hundred archons, barely two thousand pilgrims…?”
“And a Tooth,” Callis said.
Balthus stared at the Herald for a slow moment, then a grin spread across his face. All this time the solution was—and the pun widened his grin further—right in their faces.
“Herald, I will begin preparations at once.” He left the angel still pondering the map and stepped outside, into the shadow of the Tooth.
The Tooth was a wonder: it towered over the settlement like a citadel carved from bone. Callis had brought the machine into Markeh forty years ago, and it had shaken the earth in more ways than one. The Herald had preached from the Tooth’s high walls: how Ayen, goddess of light and life, furious at the wickedness of men, had sealed Heaven. How she had abandoned earthbound souls to the Maze.
At this there was much consternation among the men in Markeh, for they had no desire to wander Iril’s bloody corridors among the souls of the wicked.
Callis had calmed the crowd. Seven of Ayen’s sons had stood against her; they had raised an army of angels with which to displace the goddess. Their coup had almost succeeded, but at the final hour Ayen’s own forces had proved too strong. The goddess had prevailed and expelled her sons from Heaven for their treachery, casting them down with the last of their defeated armies to join mortal man in his realm below.
Balthus had listened in awe and fear, with the others, and had known it to be true. Last winter had they not seen the night sky blaze with Ayen’s fury? Had they not witnessed seven stars fall?
All was not lost, Callis had then explained. Hope for man now rested with Ayen’s eldest son, Ulcis. The god of chains had fallen to these lands, had been driven deep within the earth. Weakened but not destroyed, the god had sent his Herald forth to build a temple: to proclaim that Ulcis offered salvation in his abyss. Souls sent down to