Sun-Beak circled in the night sky over the Adalaantian encampment at the edge of the Gaar, north of the river that watered the land and its laborers. He was plainly visible in the moonlight; there were no suns to blind any would-be observers. He did not belong to the soldiers below. This caused no alarm; there was supposed to be a red-tail falcon in the sky right now. That bird, however, was currently being ground up in Sun-Beak's gizzard.

  Sun-Beak's focus alternated between his master, in the midst of Timoor’s encampment, and a company of cavalry riding east across the sand. The horsemen were pursuing a group of silhouetted figures into a chasm between two hills. Sun-Beak's sharp little brain didn't know why the board was arranged as it was, but he knew his job. Once those horsemen reached the distant figures, he needed to return to his master. It was a simple instruction, and every time he stuck to those, he got a snack.

  Sun-Beak's master started taking subtler routes the closer he drew to his target building. The young man knew how to switch between the kind of stealth that involved confidently striding in as if he owned the place, and the kind of stealth that got him mistaken for a ghost by the people who never saw or heard him. Sun-Beak’s bird eyes carefully noted which buildings he entered and exited. He would be ready to descend when the time came.

  Sun-Beak turned again in the air, glancing at the advancing cavalry force. The figures they were approaching stopped fleeing, turned, and leaned down. Then they arose with long pikes in their hands. It was too late for the cavalry to stop, and when they reached the figures moments later, Sun-Beak's sharp ears picked up the sounds of surprised horses and their riders being skewered. Blood sprayed on the sand. Men and beasts screamed and died. A less disciplined bird may have zeroed in on the opportunity, securing early pickings, but not Sun-Beak. Sun-Beak didn't let the tantalizing carnage distract him from the final building his master swung up and into the window of.

  Folding his wings, Sun-Beak dove from the sky toward a loft near the structure his master entered. The encampment stirred beneath him. His absence confused his master's enemies, and signaled the forces lying in wait that now was the time to pounce. Scuffles broke out at the edges of camp. The fortification, deprived of its main body of Ochre soldiers, and with its leader occupied by Sun-Beak's master, started to crumble.

  Sun-Beak lifted his talon. It still held a piece of meat from the encampment's scout bird. He tore at it while he waited. In the sky, a pair of waxing moons looked down in his place, one silver and one pink.

  ***

  Heemlik stepped silently across the wood floor, with the practice of any child of strict parents. The dim pink light of Hepa, the largest moon currently in the sky, spilled across the room from its angle just over the western horizon. It glinted off Heemlik's rapier when he drew it. He was nearly to the occupied bed.

  He'd made this stroke many times before, on far more helpless targets. There was no hesitation. Heemlik was not raised to hesitate.

  Something knocked the rapier away from the target with a sharp clang. Heemlik recovered in time to avoid a retaliatory thrust at his neck. There was another sudden movement from the bed, and in moments, Heemlik was slowly circling the room with a man who slept in his armor and with one eye open. His name was Staff Officer Timoor.

  Since the insurrection, Timoor had grown far more disciplined since Heemlik started the Steppe Hounds. He no longer drank. He returned to the same training regimen he ingrained in his son. His body was fit and dangerous, his mind sharp to match his well-maintained rapier.

  "Son," Timoor said, smacking the sleep from his lips and rubbing it from his eyes. "You nearly had me that time. I expect nobody would answer if I called?"

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  Heemlik didn't answer either. The noise and chaos outside was answer enough. Heemlik was looking for an opening in the defenses of a man who taught him everything he knew about a rapier. A fight with someone like this would last either seconds or half an hour. There was no longer a guarantee of victory.

  It dawned on him that there never had been.

  "How did you get past my bird?" his daamel went on, yawning into his hand. "He's Sun-Beak's father, you know."

  "Then Sun-Beak's in good company with me," Heemlik said.

  Timoor snorted. "I can see why. Here you are, trying to defeat a man who helped teach you everything you know."

  "Makes good practice."

  "Aha!" Timoor laughed.

  The sounds of battle were rising beyond the walls of the officer quarters. People from the same cities and villages, wearing almost the same uniforms, killing each other for the same gods.

  Despite caskerwol sparing Heemlik from either sun’s heat, beads of sweat emerged on his forehead. Heemlik tried to kill his daamel in his sleep for a reason. It is hard to match the man who taught you from the same young age he was instructed. It had been some time since he'd had reason to fear a one-to-one confrontation. That meant that there were exactly two perople in the world who could frighten him with the prospect. Now, one of them circled with him in a tight room.

  A good sword fight lasts seconds. In those seconds, Heemlik's life could end, taking his freshly beheaded rebellion with him. All his practice, all his training, and all the guts it had taken to stand against Abadir would be worth nothing. If he lost, Heemlik knew better than to expect mercy from a man who had taught him to kill opponents in their sleep.

  Heemlik tightened his grip on the rapier. That was no way to think. There were far worse threats than Timoor out in the world. Heemlik knew a weak man when he saw one, and Timoor had been tipping his hand for years. No last-minute clean-up of his act would save him from Heemlik now.

  Timoor made a feint. Heemlik met it before it could turn real. There was a pair of clangs in the dark. Heemlik kicked over a chest beside the bed, spilling coins across the floor.

  "Now why'd you go and – "

  Heemlik dashed forward. His father spun the first thrust aside with ease. It had been bait for both of them.

  The very short hourglass timer started. The time for thinking had passed. There was only instinct, training, and above all, luck.

  There was a blur of swords. The clang of thin blade on thin blade rang throughout the officer quarters. There were a few grunts through teeth. There was a stab. A shout of pain. More stabs. Clothing tearing. Blood spilling. Like a slow-moving woodpecker, a rapier transformed a defeated opponent into a dead one. There was a crash on the wood as a body hit the floor, and a clean sword clattered away on the ground.

  And just like that, it was over. The Korinti Dialogues had the saying, “it takes half a year to be born, but only half a second to die.” The two combatants had known each other all of the younger one’s life, and in a few minutes, that life together became a life without.

  The winner stared at the corpse, transfixed, breathing heavier than he usually did after a kill. He'd never been so uncertain of the outcome. He didn't even feel like he'd won. Not because of who he had slain; that problem had been ground out of him long ago.

  He didn't feel like he'd won, for the same reason an honest man can't feel victorious for surviving a storm that killed so many others. From this moment on, the winner would remember this fight, and it would drain any sense that it was he who won his battles, and not luck. To take credit would be to insult every other man or woman better than he was, who hadn't survived the same encounter with Timoor.

  There was only one escape from that not-victorious feeling. He had work to do. He crossed to the window, and whistled. Moments later, a loyal bird alighted on his wrist. Around them, the embattled encampment was giving its last spiteful resistance. A man went down to a combined attack from three Steppe Hounds. Archers locked down chokepoints between burning tents. Scuffles on watchtowers sent figures falling to their deaths. The Steppe Hounds had all but won. The sentry checkpoint was open, and another of Heemlik’s herds of refugees would make it out of the Gaar.

  "Fine bird," Heemlik said affectionately, stroking Sun-Beak's chin. "Fine bird, you are.”