No matter how softly Lapis settled her boots on the tiles, they rang with each step. Quiet, but noticeable. Tuft produced a click click with his hooves despite his dainty walk. Whatever enemy awaited them, they would know they came.

She disliked the white of the hallway, the glare of light from above, the sensation of being watched. At least the place did not reek of cleaning liquid; she needed to shove the memories of the Cloister into the back of her mind and concentrate on her current danger.

Tuft did not hesitate to round the corner; Lapis gripped the straps of her pack for comfort and hustled after, punching down the need to stop, peek first, then slip into the next hall. He must have scanned and knew the enemy khentauree were not near—she hoped.

He took a side corridor halfway down, though his gait slowed. A jumble of dusty tech equipment sat on wheeled pallets shoved against the walls, all looking as if someone abandoned the pieces when they realized they could not cart them to wherever they needed to go. How much might these odds and ends go for in an underground market? Real military-grade, however old, would sell for metgal in vassal states. Why leave a rich source of wealth behind?

She almost stopped. Blood.

The smear started further down the hall and rounded a crate; she did not want to, but peeked anyway. Dead shank, blood pooled around him; he bled out from a charred chest wound. She looked away, swallowing; that did not bode well for them. Yes, she wore a marching shirt as protection against tech weapons fire, but that did not make her feel safer.

Tuft held out his hands and tiptoed around more bodies, his entire form expressing ick. She noticed hints at the Shivers, where he grabbed a towel to protect his hand as he opened a door, but she did not know exactly what squicked him. Was it the mess? She did not think the corpses upset him; he claimed he unhooked Mephezet Kez when his attempt at immortality by mind transfer failed, and he did not avoid the mercs Dreamer killed and left to rot in his room.

Not that it mattered; she hated it, too.

The deceased did not have fake scrub uniforms, just typical shank wear, and the lack of warm outerwear surprised her, and not just because the halls held a touch of frozen night chill. If they planned to cart the khentauree outside, why not bundle up? Did they plan to dally and casually hunt for a coat against frosty air?

The shanks they met had coats, except for the tech. And their weapons . . .

She frowned. The bodies had no weapons. Was that why they all died? Whatever Dorlund training they had, it failed them to death. She felt sad, which, she admitted, was stupid; the Minq said the Drakeways were vicious and cruel, and this lot only received what they gave to others. A late retribution, but one nonetheless.

Shivers zipped up her spine as she stepped over blood trails and body parts, fighting not to gag. She wished the charcoal khentauree had removed them, but why would they care about human corpses? They had no reason to bury them, and sickness from dead bodies would not affect them. She looked at Brander; his eyes flicked around, and he peered behind, but issued no warning. Sils’s fingers tightened on his device, and he stared straight ahead, lips pressed firmly together.

The signs indicated they neared number 074. Lapis wanted to ask Tuft whether he could contact the khentauree, but he told them not to speak unless he instructed them to. Why? The military machines would know they approached because of their footsteps, no words needed.

Tuft whisked inside a room. They hustled after.

The kidnapped beings rested within, hands and legs bound with sparking chains inside transparent tubes, lined up in a neat row of thirteen but for one slumped over on their side. Dov had yet to recover their sense?

While blood coated the floor and led out the doorway, no bodies lay inside. Other than the khentauree, the place was empty, and the grunge on the wall hinted that, unlike the halls, no one had cleaned over the years.

Relief tore through her; she did not want to wait in yet another corpse-strewn room. She had enough visuals to fuel terrifying nightmares for days to come.

The khentauree perked up, their heads swiveling to Tuft, but no one spoke—he must have warned them, too. Lapis remained at the door, squatting, listening, as Brander and Sils set about popping the chains. Tuft stood over Dov, then bent and touched the unconscious being’s shoulder. He swiveled his head to look at another who leaned towards him, then back to the stricken one.

They were going to need to cart Dov out. The wheeled platforms would work, though they would make quite a lot of noise unloading one. What if the wheels squeaked? Just their luck, they successfully snuck in, rescued the khentauree, then faced the enemy because a wheel protested its motion.

Her entire being prickled, like it did when she chased a shank at night and they had hidden behind a corner, waiting to jump her from the shadows.

She held her breath; no sound. She looked above the equipment but did not see the head and shoulders of a charcoal khentauree. She looked towards the part of the hall they had not traversed; pristine white, piled junk, nothing more.

She blinked. She thought she saw the wall waver.

“Tuft, they’re here!”

Ice zipped across the door as she jerked back, along the walls to either side, and snaked to the back of the room, encasing them in a hardened shell. Her breath puffed in the frosty air as an unseen something struck the doorway barrier; cracks formed, but the solid stuff held. Cyan blazed at khentauree head height and hit the barrier; droplets raced down from the melting surface.

She did not see charcoal anything attached to it. How far did they stand back, that she could not make them out through the half-transparent ice?

“Lanth, help Brander. Sils must aid me in waking Dov.” Tuft’s buzz was as hard as the ice he formed. “Dov is military, they will battle what we cannot.”

More ice barricaded the door as two more beams joined the first. Certain the enemy would break through, she hurried to Sils, fear pounding against the back of her eyes. The modder handed her a palm-sized wand with a spring-enshrouded antenna at the top.

“Hold that against the lock,” he said, pointing at the round tip, before joining Tuft at Dov’s side. He unslung his pack, rustled around for wires, and plugged a round something into Dov’s ear. He attached it to his tech device, and the screen changed to a line diagram with running text to the left side.

Lapis set the ball on a lock and waited until the chains popped off and slid to the floor. The khentauree rose, humming in fear; she patted their leg, a poor attempt at comfort, and proceeded to the next.

Despite having an automatic pic, Brander still freed more khentauree than she did with his special candysticks. How many more neat things had he picked up from the undermarket out Blossom way?

Another layer of ice rose in front of the door.

“I think Dov’s almost fixed the problem,” Sils said. He scrolled rapidly through green-hued lines of text, pausing briefly before continuing. “I’m not sure we should interfere.”

“The ice will not last, and I cannot form it on their surfaces,” Tuft said. “We must risk it, for they can fight where I cannot.”

“They are only three, but they are driven.” A khentauree pressed against their friend and clasped their hands at their chest. “They think we are enemies, they think the bad men are enemies. They think we have invaded and overrun their overlords and they seek to return order.”

“We free them of their confines,” Tuft muttered. “Should that not bring joy?”

“They are confused,” another said, their buzz wavering hard enough Lapis had difficulty understanding them. “They know time much longer than their reconstitution passed, but they think their internal timekeeping is corrupted. They claim only weeks have passed since they shut down for maintenance, not centuries.”

“We told them,” the first said. “We said that Taangis went away and left us khentauree. They thought we lied, and they tried to ask their prime console, but they could not communicate with it.”

“We used no interior communication.” The second swiped the air with their hand. “We don’t know their thoughts.”

“A wise choice,” Tuft agreed.

Ice shattered, leaving a thin blue, transparent wall between them. Lapis still only saw cyan light, no physical body. Why could she not perceive them? “When they arrived, I didn’t see them, but the walls waved like someone passed their fingers through water.”

“It is concealment,” the first said. “Old military khentauree used it in battle. Taangis thought it smart, but concealment had many downsides. It drained energy, and khentauree would need recharging more often in the middle of battle. Some hid rather than face foes. Taangis disliked disappearing khentauree, so they changed the programming.”

Tuft could have mentioned that. Knowing they faced older, perhaps uninspired, machines would have been good to know, though she had no idea what to do with the info. It was not as if she understood ancient Taangin and could speak with them. She glared at the mechanical being anyway, but he remained engrossed in Dov’s reawakening, oblivious. Pursing her lips, she turned back to the first.

“Are you a military khentauree?”

“Yes, but not for combat. I was a keeper of records for a siscousige before Maphezet Kez brought me to the Cloisters. I was keeper of records for him, then.”

“A siscousige?”

“A general. They led many troops, and I maintained transactions on unsuccessful battles, the injured, and deaths.”

Interesting and depressing. “Is there anything else you can tell us about these khentauree that will help us fight them?”

A third khentauree stepped forward, clicking with annoyance as they stared at the barrier. “They are old khentauree, old enough to run on cheresti, not sponoil.”

“Cheresti?” Lapis asked.

“It is olden sponoil. It is not efficient, and they must recharge it using a special machine, unlike sponoil.” He flipped his hand at the attackers. “They battled, they now use concealment. They run low on power, I think. They attack Tuft’s ice, but make no progress.”

Did they miss the ice shattering? She counted that as progress!

“Dov is a newer model. They run on sponoil, they have advanced chippiks, braadroiged coumzear, and roomcak. But they are many to Dov’s one.”

“Many?” She did not count three as many, though she did not want to handle more.

“They said their braars wake, that they will join together and defeat their enemies. They wanted to return with aid and send us to silence—”

Tuft’s unmistakable ice shot through the room at the words, and Lapis’s breath formed crystals when she breathed out. Sils shuddered and Brander hissed through his teeth, eyeing the mechanical being. The chill receded but lingered, like the scent of freshly spritzed perfume.

“They are old models,” the third continued. “They have old programming and old, deer-shaped chassis that lack the strength of later, horse-shaped chassis. I think most have gone to silence, and those that remain are not so functional.” They touched their chest. “We khentauree of the Cloister and Shivers performed maintenance, both internal and external. We did not sit in stasis for centuries while we eroded. Even in containment units, degradation occurs.”

“So how can we take advantage of that?”

The khentauree cocked their head. “They caught the evil men by surprise, and even though their strikes missed, they had time to compensate,” and they motioned to the back wall. Lapis studied it, realizing marks she took for grunge were black tech beam smudges flaring out from the center of impact. “Their movements are not so fast, and we can use that against them.”

“I’m assuming they’re still fast compared to humans.”

“Fear made the evil men slow, and they died. Do not fear, and you will live.”

Wonderful advice. She doubted she could apply it.

A dissonant, high-pitched whine came from the enemy khentauree. The ice shuddered and collapsed into a pile that spread across the floor. The air flickered, showing charcoal chassis and torsos with cyan stripes across the arms and legs.

Lapis reached the door before she consciously moved. She focused on the still-glowing cyan spot, triggered her blade, and rammed it through the center.

Sparks erupted, and a fizzy sound coincided with the khentauree blinking into view and slumping to the ground, taking her with it. She released the handle to sheath her weapon, wincing at the thick, musty-smelling goop fouling it, and rolled to the side as a beam struck the floor to her side; near, but a miss.

Another khentauree collapsed on the first, one of Brander’s knives sticking out of its head. The third stepped over them, hands reaching out to the doorjamb for balance, attempting to re-employ the concealment and failing. Their forehead burst into a cyan glow that flickered and faded as they slumped and slid down on the other two, effectively blocking the way out.

Lapis froze. Were they out?

“They no longer function,” the third khentauree said. “They will not work again until they recharge.”

Not functioning? Good enough.

She scampered over and snagged a wrist, trying to lug the being out of the way. Her arms and legs trembled, but her efforts had no discernable effect. The third khentauree and Brander joined her, and together they hauled the enemies far enough from the door they could leave without tripping over them.

“Why did you not answer?”

Tuft’s viciously angry tone made Lapis flinch, and she fought the urge to cower. Dov shrank away from him, shoulders hunched, head bowed.

“I was damaged.”

“Even damaged, you heard them. Why did you not answer and soothe their concern?”

No reply.

Tuft turned on his heel as Dov stumbled; another helped them regain balance. Lapis frowned; should she suggest they needed a cart, or would they take that amiss? The furious being whisked through the door; She looked at Brander, who shrugged. Sils did not hesitate; he shoved his device under his arm and booked it after.

“Others come,” the first one said, wringing their hands.

“Go,” Lapis said, waving for them to precede her. The khentauree fled. Dov staggered after, assisted by a friend. Brander grabbed the lockpick wand, stuffed it into her pack, and together they brought up the rear.