Points six and seven fell in a single day.
Should not have been possible — working at six as deeply reinforced as Iolan predicted, terrain at seven hostile enough approach took four hours careful navigation through stretch blight half-consumed, grey standing trees crowding route and poisoned ground making horses nervous. Should have taken two days, with defense Serath demonstrated at five, with two scholars running on reserves of three hours sleep and sustained effort left both visibly diminished.
Possible because stopped doing things way either would have done alone.
Somewhere in six-point sequence, operational coordination that required explicit communication — I’ll take western approach, you hold east, converge at scholars’ position — quietly ceased to require explicit. Moved through terrain at point six with automatic precision of people doing this together for years rather than days, and defense Serath sent — six practitioners, more experienced than group at five, arriving not from above but from below through tunnel system in hillside none anticipated — broke against response before response consciously formulated.
She had gone left. He had gone right. Orin and two of his riders held center. Defense nowhere to go.
“You didn’t consult me,” he said afterward, when anchor point stilled and moving toward seven.
She glanced. “You went right.”
“Went right because you went left.”
“Both went where needed. Consultation happened. Simply didn’t require words.”
Thought about this mile of difficult terrain. “You’ve fought like that before. With someone whose rhythm matched yours.”
Pause long enough to be information. “No,” she said. “I haven’t.”
Point seven was in blighted zone proper.
Had been skirting blight’s edge since Greywood — moving in living territory, approaching anchor points from outside corruption, never needing to enter dead zone itself. Point seven sat two miles inside blight boundary, in section Greywood dead fifteen years.
Verath effect immediate.
Had been told — Fenrath’s careful description, Varek’s corroboration, accounts in Erath texts Iolan translated into plain language. A kind of intoxication. Or truth-telling. Been prepared for description. Not prepared for reality.
Not dizziness, not typical physical markers of intoxication. More subtle and pervasive — quality of heightened attention, as though ambient light turned up fractionally without light itself changing. More aware than usual. More specifically aware — detail of ground under horse’s feet, sound of grey trees in wind, presence of people around with clarity that made ordinary fuzziness apparent by contrast.
Most aware of her.
This was not, told himself, verath field. Been most aware of her for eight days. Field simply making awareness more difficult to manage, stripping some padding normally kept between attention and things it landed on.
Focused on work.
Point seven’s defense heaviest encountered. Eight practitioners, deployed in pairs, working layered interference pattern Fenrath described in terms meant nothing to Caelum but whose effect visible in strain on both scholars’ faces within first twenty minutes. Escort teams extended — covering more perimeter than at any previous point, terrain forcing defense into positions requiring his people and hers operate further apart than comfortable.
Watching northern perimeter when saw it.
Practitioner — one of experienced ones, not frightened young runner from point five but someone operating with controlled efficiency of long training — had found gap. Gap small, moment of overlap between Orin’s repositioning and coverage of soldier beside her, second or less where approach to scholars’ working space unobserved.
Practitioner saw it same moment he did.
Moved. So did she — Morgaine, from eastern side of clearing, already moving before fully processed she’d seen it too, angling toward gap with controlled speed of someone who covered ground without appearing to hurry.
Arrived simultaneously.
Not quite simultaneously — he arrived fraction second earlier, and practitioner, committed to approach, adjusted and struck at nearest threat which was him, and he took blow — not physical blow, not weapon, something landed in chest with pressure like fist through water, disorienting, kind that required moment to process and push through.
Moment enough. She was there.
He had seen her fight two days. Thought understood what capable of. Working with incomplete picture.
She neutralized practitioner with three movements.
Understood, watching those three movements, she had been holding back in previous engagements — maintaining level of force appropriate to adversary not want to permanently damage, operating well below ceiling of what could do. What did now was not below any ceiling. Fast and absolute and completely without excess of someone performing capability rather than simply deploying it.
Practitioner went down. Gap closed. Orin repositioned.
She turned and looked at him.
Still processing blow — pressure in chest, dissipating with slowness of something found crack in awareness and trying to hold onto it. Could see her assessing same way assessed arm at point five — flat, immediate inventory cataloging damage.
“I’m fine,” he said.
“You took verath-strike directly,” she said. “You’re not fine. You’re functional.”
“That’s what I said.”
“It isn’t.” Very close — nearest since fire conversation, necessary proximity of immediate situation rather than any choice, but proximity regardless, and in verath field proximity was—
Focused.
“Fenrath,” he called. “What does direct verath strike do?”
Fenrath looked up from frantic work at anchor marker. “Short term — heightens field effect. Makes verath effect more pronounced.”
Pause.
“Everything I said about field applies, but more so, for next few hours.”
Looked at Morgaine. Looking at him with expression come to read as version of concern — concern itself hidden below flat operational surface, visible only in specific quality of attention.
“I’m still functional,” he said.
“I know,” she said.
Still very close. Had not moved back. In verath field, in heightened awareness, she was — most specific thing in world. Not beautiful in abstract way of general quality, but specific: grey-green eyes in flat light of blighted forest, way dead trees framed her, eight centuries compressed experience behind face that showed none and somehow showed all.
Looked at him with quality of someone deciding something.
“The operation,” he said.
“The operation,” she confirmed. Voice very steady.
She moved back to operationally appropriate distance.
They held anchor point another ninety minutes while Iolan and Fenrath completed counter-working. Seventh anchor point went still.
Stood in grey silence of blighted forest and breathed through heightened awareness verath strike produced, way breathed through any wound — steadily, deliberately, acknowledging without letting it direct.
Five down? No. Seven down. Five remaining.
Aware with precision ordinary defenses would have dampened that did not want to be doing this alone. Had not wanted to be doing anything alone for longer than let himself acknowledge.
Filed it.
Led people out of blighted zone.
Did not look back at anchor point marker standing in silence of dead forest, ghost of ancient working stilled at last.
Thought about buildings. About what you make when not primarily occupied with survival.
Thought about gardens.
Thought, with honesty verath field making temporarily unavoidable, that what wanted to build was not something built alone.