glimpses of Agnus Dei tossed across a second mimic's shoulder. She kept trying to meet her sister's eyes, but only caught glimpses of the girl's flopping, dusty hair.
Are Mother and Kyrie dead? Or are they captured too? Worry for them gnawed on her, worse than her pain. The entire tunnel seemed to have collapsed behind her. It seemed unlikely that Mother and Kyrie could have survived.
"You will be my slave," hissed the mimic who carried her. Its hand grabbed her thigh and squeezed. "I will take you deep, and break you."
Gloriae glared down at its chest, the only part she could see. Oozing wounds stretched across that chest, slapping against her cheek as it ran. Gloriae closed her eyes and tried to ignore the stench and pain.
If Mother and Kyrie are dead, so is Requiem, she thought. Kyrie is our last male. Unless... unless his child truly quickened within me, and is a boy, and can still survive. That too seemed unlikely to Gloriae. She had not bled since lying with Kyrie two moons ago, or was it three now? But she had also barely eaten, barely slept, barely rested from battle. Those more likely dried her blood than any life within her. Tied and gagged across a mimic's back, Gloriae lowered her head, and her soul seemed to sink into her belly.
So it's over. We lost the war. And soon... soon I and my twin will be mimics too, maggot-ridden and cursed for eternity.
Gloriae wanted to find hope. She struggled to grasp any ray of it she could find. But how could she? How could she escape death yet again?
A bird cawed.
A second bird, across the road, answered it.
Whistles cut the air.
With thuds, flaming arrows slammed into a dozen mimics.
"The Earthen." Dies Irae spat the word in disgust. "Mimics! Find them."
More flaming arrows flew. Gloriae grimaced. One arrow flew so close, it singed her hair. She stared through narrowed eyelids, but saw only shadows in green cloaks darting between the trees. Green cloaks. Earth God priests.
Twenty mimics raced into the woods, firing their own arrows and swinging their swords.
"Bring me their heads!" Dies Irae shouted. "A hundred slaves to any mimic who brings me Silva."
Gloriae sucked in her breath. Silva the Elder? She had heard his name whispered in the halls of Flammis Palace. Dies Irae had called him an outlaw, a crazy old man, a disgraced follower of a false god. He had killed Silva's siblings, toppled his temples, hunted him across the land. Did the priest still live?
More arrows flew. Three mimics fell dead. The battle raged through the forest, mimics and Earthen clashing swords and firing arrows.
Green shadows leaped from the burned trees, racing toward Gloriae with raised swords. Will they free me from the mimics? Or will they kill Gloriae the Gilded, she who had hunted and killed so many of their number? She remembered the tavern last summer, where she had hunted Kyrie; she had killed an Earth God priest there, one Tilas, or Talis, or Taras. She had forgotten his name, but would these Earthen remember her crime?
Bladehand grunted and tossed her down. She landed with a grimace, banging her elbow against a rock. Warts tossed Agnus Dei down; her sister slammed against her, yelping. The two mimics snarled and clashed blades with the Earthen.
She lay, Agnus Dei atop her, watching the fight. It only lasted minutes. Growling, Bladehand tore into an Earthen's face, then stabbed his chest. Warts sliced off a woman's arm, grabbed her throat, and clawed out her eyes. Soon they were feasting on Earthen entrails. The other mimics came walking back from the forest, carrying severed heads, chewing on human organs.
Dies Irae nodded. Blood covered his mace and splashed his armor.
"Good, lovelies, good," he said. "Now grab the weredragons. Our camp lies just ahead. Soon the weredragons will taste needle and stitch."
They began to march again. Dawn rose around them, spilling red stains across the sky. The burned trees creaked in the wind, their icicles glimmering red. A dawn of blood, Gloriae thought and closed her eyes. Perhaps the last dawn of my life.
The mimics crested a hill and began to descend. They grunted and howled around her, and Agnus Dei screamed into her gag. Gloriae opened her eyes to see a camp sprawled across a valley below. Stench rose from it like steam. A palisade of sharpened logs surrounded the camp, protecting dozens of huts. Chained humans shuffled between those huts, mimics howling and whipping them.
Dies Irae led