antiscians (n.) people from opposite sides of the world, whose shadows at noon are cast in opposite directions.

Rakel was at his heels the very second he exited the infirmary; her boots echoed on the polished wooden floorboards as she walked in his shadow. He was too grateful to see that she could walk to bother feeling suffocated by the immediacy with which she began to speak. Her voice was low and urgent. "Captain, if I could speak respectfully..."

He wasn't entirely sure that she could – this was Rakel, after all – but he was happy enough to watch her try. "Are you going to tell me to go back to bed, soldier?"

"Respectfully," Rakel said again. "I was going to tell you respectfully. To consider it."

"Your respect is noted, Sjöberg." He almost smiled. The excubitors were a tightly-bound lot; he appreciated her concern. "How is Chlebek?" Truth be told, he was a little surprised to see that the red-haired excubitor was not at her comrade's bedside; the situation, then, was either very dire indeed, or not at all. He doubted very much that it was the latter.

"Alive."

It hadn't come as a surprise, but nonetheless Kane found himself relaxing; he had not even realised that he was tensed. Good. He hadn't lost another man. That was something to be celebrated, when the time for celebrations came. But first – the mourning. Grief must be given time to sink its roots deep. Many had died in defence of Mag Mell, certainly more than had fled their responsibilities; Kane wondered if their families had been notified yet, which soldiers had been sent out for the uncomfortable task, if they had used kind words. He had always, in a way, treasured that role when he was sent out as a young private to announce deaths and carry back personal belongings, and moreso again when the families had turned on him, blamed him, lashed out. It had felt like an external acknowledgement, confirmation and validation of that which Kane felt deep: that there was no reason for him to survive while others perished, that he had not earned this, that luck alone had separated him from those now in the ground. "I suppose that's the least we could hope for."

Down the stairs. He took them slowly; Lorencio had tried to keep him in bed, instructing him in clipped tones from the chair beside the bed, but Kane knew that the scholar had never truly expected him to listen. His injuries were not so serious as they might have been – as they should, in right, have been. Drawing his breath was difficult, more difficult than he had expected; his lungs ached as though scorched. He had to take the steps one-at-a-time, but take them he did. If Rakel noticed the stilted quality of his moments then she, for once, said nothing.

"What's the toll?"

Silence, for a moment.

"Sjöberg. Who's left?"

And then, quietly, "just us."

He didn't allow his voice to betray whatever he might have felt in that moment. "You and I?"

A firm nod, her eyes cast downward, shadowed with bruises that suggested a shattered nose. She had adjusted her pace, so that she remained at his heels no matter how slowly he moved. Or maybe this suited her better as well; around her clavicle, white bandages peeked over the edge of her shirt in the unmistakeable mark of one with broken ribs. The fingers on one hand had been similarly splinted; she was walking wounded, but she had still shined her boots before coming to see him. It was, Kane thought wryly, only a matter of time before the palace started to make propaganda posters about her. "Plus... some of the cadets."

"Müller?"

"Alive." He could hear a grimace in her voice. "But he'll never walk again."

Torsten had dived into the fray with them, despite his age, despite his inexperience. Should Kane have told him not to? He had chosen a soldier's path – the survival of their kingdom sometimes demanded sacrifice, and he had known that in advance. Kane had been ready to follow Torsten down, Jooa, Carlu, Oktawia, Xye, Kostas, ready to do his duty. After all, he had always imagined that it would be a druj that got him in the end.

In that final moment, before darkness had enveloped him, he had thought of the soldiers he was leaving behind and he had wished that he had the sense to die earlier in the day, out beyond the walls – where he could die looking at the sky unfettered by brick and stone.

So close. That had been his closest call yet.

"I suppose that's the least we could hope for," he said, and sensed it would not be the last time. Not the worst person to have it happen to, he supposed – Torsten had never been the lightest on his feet.

He expressed this sentiment aloud, and was rewarded with Rakel's soft response, rippling with dark humour: "it'll make for a nice conversation starter someday"

"Make him look like a veteran. A hero."

"Mark my words," Rakel said, "he'll get laid because of this."

"You said that about my last scar as well, Sjöberg."

"Mmm. But that's always been more of a personality issue, sir."

Her voice bounced softly around the foyer as the stairs – blessedly – sloped to an end, and deposited the excubitors into another wood-panelled corridor, the end of which tailed out into a stone-paved courtyard. The headquarters of the Mag Mell tagma had been spared the worst of the attack, nestled as it was along the eastern length of Wall Szymański, separated from the residential areas which tended to attract the greatest numbers of druj.

It was silent, eerily, awfully silent; those who had fought were dead, and those who had not were staying far from the wrath of those who had. Survivors would be burying dead, or visiting friends, or recuperating in the infirmary Kane had abandoned as soon as he could cling to consciousness for longer than a moment or two. So quiet; just boots, soft words, his own pulse in his ears. Each step reminded him of the deep-seated ache of muscles pushed beyond their limit, the familiar souvenir of any druj attack even when one succeeded in evading their talons or their teeth. Placing his hand flat against the enormous wooden door to the headquarters, Kane was greeted with pale silver light and still air, the late stage of a dawn which had been far too long in arriving.

The courtyard, also, empty and quiet. The usual bustle of horses and stablehands and soldiers was utterly absent; without the ring of horseshoes on cobbles, the creak of leather, the quiet chatter of people preparing for their day. The sky was pastel and empty of clouds; the sun had risen on a day that was pale and peaceful and perfect.

"Where are they?"

She guided him. The green canvas of the tents which occupied the broad fields behind the courtyard were the same colour as an excubitor's coat; each one could have occupied the same space as the tailor's shop in which Kane had been raised. Their entrances were pinned open, but the light barely managed to penetrate; the space within was gloomy and dark, as though the night had retreated back here to find some kind of refuge, to stage a last stand. Within, campbeds lined the walls, perhaps twenty or thirty in all. It was a similar set-up to that used for cadets in the western corps, although they usually dwelled in warmer wooden cabins; Kane had done the bulk of his training in the south, where they were billeted in civilian houses for basic training. This seemed a little more bare-bones; Kane didn't imagine that mattered much to those who had found shelter here.

Ghjuseppu Mannazzu was upright in his camp-bed with his blankets drawn up around his waist, his arm bandaged from elbow to shoulder; his bare chest and broad shoulders were pockmarked by bruises and welts and the familiar deep-worn lines where his harness had bitten into his skin over many months of training and fighting. The dark-skinned cadet was speaking lazily to the girl sitting cross-legged on the foot of his mattress, hugging her green coat in her arms, hair hanging in gentle damp strands around her face. Kane was unsurprised when Kunegunda Kaasik turned to reveal a face mostly spared that bruises and cuts earned by the rest of his team – her own lack of grace was usually a greater danger to her than the druj could ever dream of being.

On sighting him, both of the refugees from Mønt went to stand and salute, Ghjuseppu grimacing broadly; Kane was quick to wave it off, and indicate that they could remain sitting. He couldn't deny that those were good instincts, no doubt hammered into them by their training commander, Edző; not every captain was so sensible. "At ease," he said, but Kunegunda Kaasik had the air of someone who had never been at ease in all her life, and Ghjuseppu Mannazzu seemed like a man who would tense up further just to spite him. He didn't know them well – he had borrowed them on occasion, when more bodies were required urgently, but it had been a detached knowledge, a distant awareness that Rakel had three shadows rather than one. "A word, Kaasik?"

She set her coat onto her friend's bed, and stood slowly. The one-eyed cadet had a strange, idiosyncratic way of standing – most soldiers stressed a little about what to do with their hands, whether they should salute, but not Kunegunda: arms hanging loosely by her side, fingers loosely curled, the whole world watched from underneath her eyelid. She always swayed slightly; the first few times Kane had encountered her, he had rather wondered whether it was from fear. It hadn't taken long for him to be disabused of that notion.

"Yes," she said, "sir."

They moved a few steps away, a half-dozen lines of beds separating them from Rakel, who stepped forward to replace Kunegunda on the bed and speak softly to Ghjuseppu about his fellow cadets, Sanav and Torsten. She would make a good leader someday, Kane thought, if she lived long enough. Of course, he had thought the same about Xye and Jooa not too long ago.

Though Ghjuseppu smiled as they spoke, Kane could not shake the impression that the younger man was watching Kane and Kunegunda closely. If they had known each other a little bit better, Kane might have told her what a bad idea that was – your colleagues could be your friends, they should be your comrades, but developing anything closer or more intimate was just asking for trouble. On any other day, Rakel would have agreed with him – Kane had rather lost count of the number of times she'd been distracted by Oktawia Chlebek rather than by the situation at hand. Maybe it was a good reason the Mønt refugees were going to be divided between jurisdictions, then. The heart was so often too fickle to survive the duties of war; a few days beyond the wall taught you how to prioritise.

"I understand I owe you my thanks, Kaasik." He cast a glance at her from the corner of his eye. "My sincere thanks."

What did the other cadets call her? Kinga. She regarded him from beneath her eyelid, her thick brow giving her a rather glowering appearance even as she said, her voice low and husky, "you owe me nothing, sir." Her hands were bandaged; Kane knew without asking what had happened. She had held her swords so tightly that her knuckles had split every time her blade struck true. Kane had done precisely the same for much of his first few years in the corps; Reiko had never allowed it to escape her notice, every time it happened.

"You saved my life."

"I was the closest. Anyone would have done the same."

That wasn't true, and they both knew it. Rakel had been closer – Sanav had been closer – Ghjuseppu had been closer – Edző and the bulk of his men from Nav had been closer. Kinga had been faster, stronger, more sure of herself. Braver? Stupider, perhaps. "Nonetheless," he said, "they didn't."

A curl of her lip indicated that she conceded this point, but she said nothing. Kane hadn't expected her to – but it needed to be said.

He said, "you saved many lives last night – you and Mannazzu, showing up when you did, fighting like you did. Suero has placed a petition to have you both awarded your crests. Third class, if you want it."

There was no reason that she wouldn't – it amounted to bypassing graduation and veritably gliding past two years of training and fighting and slowly advancing the ranks. Men and women could spend their entire time in the corps without ever achieving third class; after so long in Kane's squad, Rakel had only been on the cusping of achieving that status herself, though Kane was sure Lorencio would see to it that she was promoted in accordance with her stellar performance in Mag Mell. Nonetheless, Kane wasn't one to assume anything. Kenta had always call him stubborn for that – his steadfast refusal to take anything for granted. But Kinga was looking over her shoulder, at Ghjuseppu, and he thought he might be able to read his face better than he could read hers.

And Ghjuseppu seemed inclined to say yes. He was a steady sort, slower and more sure than his compatriot; he had the authoritative air of a man who would be easily mistaken for a commander if he found himself wearing the right cloak.

"Regardless," Kane said, "I know Mannazzu has requested to join the Schools – I imagine after last night's display, Suero will fall over himself to snap him up. I wanted to offer you a place in Expeditions."

Something had crossed her face; she abruptly looked uncertain. "In your squad?"

Kane smiled thinly. "If you'll have me."

Kinga said, "and if I wanted to join the Schools as well? Stay with Ghju?"

"You don't strike me as a scholar, Kaasik."

She made a face. Ghjuseppu called, "you're absolutely correct, sir," and she said something under her breath, and said, "if you promise me I never have to see him again..."

They had worked well together, the four of them - Rakel and Kane, Kinga and Ghjuseppu. If Kane hadn't suspected that the Mannazzu boy was absolutely gut-set on life in the Schools, he might have been tempted to try and sway him now. As it was...

"You don't need to give me an answer now," Kane said. "Think about it." Life in expeditions wasn't easy, but he wouldn't have given it up for the whole world. He had been hand-picked by the expeditionary captain before him; leaving the walls behind, crossing a threshold most of his fellow subjects would never cross, had been an exhiliration rivalled only by that of seeing a druj up-close and personal for the first time. Eijin had thought he was crazy; Kenta still did. "There'll be a place for you as long as you want it."

He wasn't inclined to linger; experience taught him that healing often happened quickest when it happened out-of-sight. Besides, he wasn't going to get a more concrete answer for the time being; if he did, he wasn't inclined to accept it. It was a decision to be thought about, and considered carefully.

Rakel said, "come to dinner with us tonight, won't you?"

She was speaking to the two cadets; Kane hadn't even realised that a dinner had been organised. But of course, he thought, Lorencio would no doubt have cobbled something together in lieu of a celebration or thanks. It would all be very tiring and tiresome, and it wouldn't change the fact that the beasts beyond the wall had nearly managed to breach the second wall, or that there was a flying druj on the loose somewhere, or that hundreds of good men and women were dead. It would, in truth, only keep Kane from sleep. But he would attend, nonetheless, if Lorencio asked him to.

Ghjuseppu said, "we'd be delighted."

Kinga sank back down onto his bed, with an expression that suggested he spoke for both of them but that she rather wished he didn't. Her dark eye met Kane's; she didn't smile, but for once it didn't look like she was frowning either. For not the first time, he wondered idly what had happened to her other eye - whether it was an injury earned in the fall of Mønt or a souvenir from the kind of unhappy childhood that taught you how to fight as she fought.

"Until tonight," Rakel said, but Kane had already left her behind and she had to call a goodbye over her shoulder and hasten to catch up with him as he stepped back out into the light of the early day.

Behind them, somewhere in the dark, Kinga was saying, "don't start, Ghju..."

Above them, the sky was bright and empty and huge. The winged druj had vanished from the clamour and melee of the Mag Mell attack, and that alone was enough to put Kane on edge. The one they had brought back for Lorencio's studies had been the first monster with wings that he had ever seen in all of his long years of druj killing; the idea that it had been followed fast by a second was almost enough to panic him. The walls wouldn't mean much, if they were one of a dozen, one of a hundred. A single of its kind had almost single-handedly collapsed a district…

But it hadn't. Kane had fought on; Rakel had fought on. Ghjuseppu and Kinga had rushed to them when no one else had; Kinga had single-handedly pulled him from the jaws of a druj when things were at their most dire. Sanav Mahesar had gone in the opposite direction, and summoned reinforcements, ordinary men and women who had raced to man the cannons and walls until Oroitz Txori's garrison and Edző had arrived from Nav to relieve them. Even Reiko Morozova had hauled open the gates to allow refugees to flow into the safe haven of the district beyond, contrary to the orders of the paqūdus from Vanth.

Mag Mell still stood. Illéa still stood. They had won.

Was this victory?

Even so, Kane could not shake the impression that, as they walked across the courtyard, slowly, torturously, there was something enormous and monstrous watching them from the sky.