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“You know, Saladin’s not gonna be happy if we’re late to the rendezvous.” Perun flips her knife, holsters it, looks sideways at Skorri. There’s mud on both of their boots, testimony to the fact that the first hour of their patrol turned up nothing but deer trails. The forests are mostly uncharted territory, but they’ve found little that’s chart-worthy, she thinks. Where the treeline ends, it transitions abruptly into a snowy plain, flat and easier to travel over.
“We have time. It’s two hours before we’re expected back, and Efrideet will probably take longer if she’s found a nice perch.” Skorri squints up at the Peak, her helmet in her hands. It’s a nice day: no snow, a cool forty degrees. The snow on the ground is mostly slush, this late in the day. Perun can see the messy footprints where the wolves were hunting the night before, chasing down rabbits and deer and a few newborn Light-bearers, maybe.
Perun pulls the hood of her cloak down around her shoulders, the breeze quickly numbing the tips of her ears. They’ll probably get a scolding about line rifles and caution once they get back to camp, but she hasn’t seen any Fallen all day; besides, she’ll gladly trade a death or two for a view this pretty. “Maybe we’ll find a nest- some Dregs, a Vandal or two if we’re lucky.”
Skorri hums, looks up at the sky like she can see the other planets if she checks the right corners. “Nothing but Devils here, searching for Golden-Age scraps. You’d think Winter would be more at home in the snow, not on Venus. Too on the nose?”
“I don’t think they care for the symbolism.” She kicks up the snow around her feet, thinks of camouflage, shadow-blue instead of blood-red. Fallen are tricky enough without the help, quick and silent and deadly. The snow is blinding in the midday sun so she glances back at Skorri, who waves a hand, humming.
“Mm, probably not. It’s a shame- ‘Blue banners rest on fallen snow / Through storms House Winter rages so,’ maybe? The last part is a bit weak.”
“Better than the rest of us,” Perun says, “you’re the one writing the Song.” She grins, her bottom lip cracked from the cold. Warm blood wells up from the split and it reminds her of the Devils, again, red banners and Barons. “Give anyone else a pen and paper and it’d take us an hour to think of a line half as good.”
Skorri turns to look at her, cheeks flush from the cold. There’s something to be said for the both of them, Perun thinks, walking through enemy territory, heads bare, red-faced and smiling. They’ve been called angels, before, by dirt-streaked children, eyes wide with excitement and learned, careful fear. Skorri had laughed the first time she’d heard, said something about adding that to the Iron Song, coming back and teaching it to these children once she was finished.
“I have more practice,” Skorri says eventually. “Maybe that’s what I did, before whatever killed us all the first time- poetry, melodies, something. I wonder if there’s a centuries-old book of songs with my name on it, somewhere in the world.” She snorts, shakes her head. “It’s probably all terrible, if it exists.”
“Careful,” Perun replies, tugging at her hood, “you’re starting to sound like Timur, with all this wondering about past lives. You should go with him on one of his trips to Mars, see if Clovis Bray was interested in your Golden-Age limericks.”
Skorri rolls her eyes. “Too many Warlocks in one place. Felwinter would come along, too, since that’s the only time he gets away from the Peak. Nothing for the Song, either- it’s all sand and Vex, mysteries too complicated to sing about.”
“I guess so. Another poem for another day, another planet.”
Perun falls quiet shortly after; Skorri knows enough to let a Hunter do her work. They arrive at the trees around the rendezvous point a few minutes later, the forest oddly still. Perun gestures to her, transmats her helmet. Skorri nods, puts her own back on.
Her comm crackles to life as soon as her helmet’s seal connects. “-Fallen,” Jolder yells, static buzzing through her voice. “Where are you two? We need the help-”
Something on the other end thuds, loud and heavy, and Jolder laughs. “Get over here,” she says, and Skorri can’t tell if it’s directed at them or the next unlucky Fallen.
Skorri twists her head to look at Perun, who nods, blank helmet staring back at her own. “Watch the trees,” Perun says, soft even with her helmet on, though they both know she has an eye on every branch within a hundred feet. Skorri follows her, matching her footfalls, gaze tracking the wind’s movement through the trees.
Their careful walk turns into a run as the shouting grows louder, gunshots loud enough that Skorri couldn’t hear a thunderclap if it was just above her head. Perun chases after her, still checking for an ambush, any semblance of a coordinated stalk vanishing.
Skorri swears as she skids into the clearing, ramming herself into a herd of Devils. Her Ghost transmats out in a green-gold flash as a Vandal claws at its shell, hissing. She palms the nearest Dreg, and gold fire blooms out from its chest, turning it to ash. She unholsters her hand cannon, shoots the Vandal twice in the head as it swipes at her helmet. Light coalesces around her hands, thick and shield-blue, and she grins, takes a moment to find the others.
Jolder is wrestling a Captain in the center of the clearing, her axe half-dug into its back. Efrideet is in a tree nearby, Skorri thinks, going by the crack of sniper fire. She whirls as Perun appears at her back, knife gleaming.
“Saladin’s gone to find the others,” she says, before Skorri asks. Her knife digs into a Vandal’s skull, then between another’s ribs, carving a path from the edge of the woods to the center, where Jolder puts a shotgun blast into the Captain’s armored stomach. It falls to the ground, smoking; Jolder gives it a kick to be sure, then launches herself back into the fray, hands sparking. A Vandal dives towards her, hissing. Efrideet kills it mid-roll, its ether billowing out like steam.
Skorri turns, shoots an approaching Dreg between the eyes. Her hand cannon bucks, and she jabs another in the neck with her bayonet, elbows it in the chest to knock it away. A Vandal in glossy stealth rams her in the side, shock blade slipping across her ribs, and she shouts, feels fire spiral down her back. Her Light flares, red blood flashing gold, and she flings a grenade at her feet, another a few feet away. The Vandal growls, stealth crackling, and she takes aim, puts a bullet through its helmet. With the extra Light still burning down her arms she forms another few grenades, throws them towards the others, scatters the remaining Fallen. A few burn out, smouldering, and Perun makes short work of the rest, her sidearm barking.
Jolder kills the last stragglers with a Fist, kicking up snow and dirt and torn-apart house banners. She laughs, cocks her head to the side as she surveys the damage. “Thanks, Efrideet,” she calls, because for every Fallen killed a sniper averts a hundred tiny disasters.
“Welcome,” she replies, jumping out of a nearby tree. She wanders over to the dead Captain, where Perun’s cutting the Devils cape from its body. She pokes at it with a boot, winces in sympathy. “Sorry if you wanted help with that one. It seemed handled, and I thought your story would be better that way.”
“Want it?” Perun asks, holding the cape out to Jolder. She shakes her head, and Perun hums, throws it over her shoulders like a blanket. Skorri reloads her gun, laughs as best she can with what feels like a broken rib. Her robes are still torn from the blade, though the slash has stopped bleeding, and Perun walks to her, stepping carefully over the Fallen left in their wake.
“‘Red banners torn and Baron dead / Iron queens reign in fallen’s stead,’” Skorri tries, smiling, tired from the running and the fight, the Light burning in her side as her skin knits itself together. Perun snorts, hands over her new trophy. “It wasn’t a Baron, obviously, but I like to think I can exercise some creative freedom.”
“Only we’ll know,” Perun says. “A hundred years from now, the world will think Jolder killed a Baron with nothing but her fists.”
Efrideet looks up from her rifle. “I’d pay to see that,” she scoffs, “Warlord fights wouldn’t hold a candle to it.”
Jolder stretches, transmats her shotgun out. “Saladin just commed,” she says, “he found Radegast and Silimar, finally. Silimar is going back to the Peak, and the other two will be here in a minute.”
Skorri elbows Perun lightly, dancing out of the way to avoid the answering jab to her still-aching side. “How’d you piece that one together?” She asks, reaching up to loosen the clasps on her helmet.
“Saladin is smart enough to think about an ambush, Silimar’s terrible at answering his comm, and I assumed he hadn’t checked in.” Perun shrugs, the gold edging of her cape gleaming. “And if he didn’t think of it, then Jolder would have and told him to track down the others.”
“He was halfway gone by the time I told him to.” Jolder checks her comm again. “Finnala and Ashraven are coming by tomorrow to help us scout,” she says. “We need help clearing the forests out, I think.”
Efrideet nods, starts dragging bodies to the edge of camp. “Help me clean up,” she says, and Skorri and Perun follow, carrying Dregs and Vandals out of what remains of the night’s campsite. The Captain is last, and as they deposit it two figures emerge from the treeline.
“You missed the fun,” Jolder says, as Saladin stops in the middle of camp, Radegast behind him. “I killed a Baron. Barehanded.”
Perun and Efrideet turn around to hide her laughter, instead heading for the few tents that are still standing. Skorri busies herself with the campfire, singing and revising parts of the Iron Song, humming melodies.
By the time the camp is repaired, it’s dusk, sunlight already well past the trees. Skorri lights the fire, and the six of them crowd around it, helmets off even in the cold. Perun grins, hood up; Skorri looks like a Hunter, with her short robes and long cape, her own hood hanging over her eyes. Her hands are alight, orange flames as bright as the fire, and Perun grabs one between her hands, gloved fingers buzzing like a live wire. Jolder crowds between her and Saladin, soaking in the warmth like a cat.
The fire burns down, eventually, and they retire to their tents and blanket nests, Perun sitting outside hers to keep watch. Skorri sits next to her, another blanket wrapped around her shoulders, orange and yellow and Devil-red.
“Don’t want you freezing to death,” she says, her hands warm. Perun grins, wolf-sharp, sun-bright. Skorri hums, and they sit quietly until morning, watching the treeline.