We find Roque at Phobos Tower with Lea, Screwface, Clown, Thistle, Weed, and Pebble. We have eight horses-two stolen at the lake, six stolen in the castle. We add them to our plan Cassius, Sevro, and I cross the bridge that spans the river Metas. An enemy scout bolts north to warn Mustang. Our other stolen horses, led by Antonia, follow once the scout is away, looping north. Roque, horseless, loops south. My horse alone is not covered with mud. She is a bright mare. And I am a bright sight. I carry Minerva's golden standard in my left hand. We could have hidden it. Could have kept it safe. But they need to know we have it, and even though Sevro stole it, he doesn't want to carry it. He likes his curved knives too much. I think he whispers to them. And Cassius we need for other things besides carrying the standard. Plus, if he carried it, then he would look the leader. And that will not do. Dead silence as we ride through our lowlands. Fog seeps around the trees. I cut through it. Cas- sius and Sevro ride to either side. I cannot see or hear them now, but wolves howl somewhere Sevro howls back. I struggle to keep my seat as the mare spooks. I fall off twice. Cassius's laughs come from the darkness. It's hard to remember I'm doing all this for Eo, all this to start a rebel- lion. It feels like a game this night; in a way it is, because I'm finally beginning to have fun. Our castle is taken. Firelight along its ramparts tells me this. The castle stands high above the glen on its hill, its torches making strange halos in the fog-quilted darkness. My horse's hooves thump softly on wet grass as to my right the Metas gurgles like a sick child in the night. Cas- sius rides there but I cannot see him. "Reaper!" Mustang shouts through the mist. Her voice is not playful. She's forty meters off, near the base of the sloped road that leads to the castle. She leans forward, arms crossed over the pommel of her saddle. Six riders flank her. The rest must be garrisoning the castle. Otherwise I'd hear about it. I look at the boys behind her. Pax is so large that his pike looks like a scepter in his huge mitts "LO, Mustang." "So, you didn't drown. That would have been easier." Her quick face is dark. "You are a vile breed, you know that?" She's been inside the keep and she doesn't have words for her anger. "Rape? Mutilation? Murder?" She spits. "I did nothing," I say. "And neither did the Proc- tors." 'Yes. You did nothing. Yet now you have our standard and what? Handsome somewhere out there in the mist? Go ahead, pretend like you're not their leader. Like you're not responsible." "Titus is responsible." "The big bastard? Yes, Pax laid him low." She gestures to the monster of a boy beside her. Pax's hair is shorn short, his eyes small, chin like a heel with a dent in it. Beneath him, his horse looks like a dog. His bare arms are flesh stretched over boulders.
"I didn't come to talk, Mustang." "Come to cut my ear off?" she sneers. "No. Goblin did." Then one of her men slips screaming from his saddle. "What the ...," a rider murmurs. Behind them, knives already dripping, Sevro howls like a maniac. A half dozen other howls join his as Antonia and half her Phobos garrison ride from the north hills on the stolen mudblack steeds. They howl like mentals in the mist. Mus- tang's soldiers wheel about. Sevro takes another one down. He doesn't use stunpikes. MedBots scream through the sky, which is suddenly filled with Proctors. All of them have come to watch. Mercury trails behind the rest, carrying an arm- ful of spirits, which he tosses to his fellows. Each of us peers up to watch their strange appearance; the horses continue to run. Time pauses "To the fray!" dark Apollo mocks from on high His golden robes show he's just risen from bed. "To the fray." Then chaos hits as Mustang shouts orders, strategy. Four more horsemen ride down the sloped road from the gate to support her troop My turn. I slam Minerva's standard upright into the earth and scream bloody murder. I kick my heels into my mare. She lurches forward, almost losing me. My body shudders as she pounds the moist earth with her hooves. My strong left hand grips the reins and I draw my slingBlade. I feel a Helldiver again when I howl. The enemy scatters as they see me raging to- ward them. It is the rage that confuses them. It is the insanity of Sevro, the manic brutality of Mars. The horsemen scatter, except one. Pax jumps from his horse and sprints at me. "Pax au Telemanus' he screams, a titan pos- sessed, foaming at the mouth. I dig my heels into my horse and howl. Then Pax tackles my horse.
His shoulder hits my horse's sternum. The beast screams. My world flips. I fly out of my saddle, over my horse's head, and crash to the ground. Dazed, I stumble to my knee in the hoof- churned field. Madness consumes the field. Antonia's force crashes into Mustang's flank. They have primi- tive weapons, but their horses are shock enough. Several Minervans fly from the saddle. Others kick their mounts toward their abandoned stan- dard, but Cassius appears out of the fog at a gal- lop and swipes the standard away to the south. Two enemies give chase, dividing their force The other six soldiers from Antonia's tower gar- risons are waiting to ambush them in the woods where the horses cannot gallop. Reflexes make me duck as a pike sweeps toward my skull. Im up with my slingBlade. I slash it at a wrist. Too slow. I move as if in a dance, remem- bering the thumping pattern my uncle taught me in the abandoned mines. The Reaping Dance carries my motions into one another like flow- ing water. I swoop the slingBlade into a kneecap. The Aureate bone does not break, but the force knocks the rider from the saddle. I spin sideways and strike again, and again, and sweep the hoof of a horse away, breaking a fetlock. The animal falls. A different stunpike stabs at me. I avoid the point and rip it free with my Red hands and jam the electrocuting tip into another assailant. The boy falls. A mountain pushes it aside and runs at me. Pax. In case I am an idiot, he roars his name at me. His parents bred him to lead Obsid- ian landing parties into hull breaches. "Pax au Telemanus!" He beats his huge pike against his chest and hits puffy-haired Clown so hard, my friend flies back four meters. "Pax au Telemanus." "Is a pricklicker!" I mock.