Gwendolyn

Of all the things that she had seen today, all the nerve-shattering shocks that rapped against her mind like a Golem's fist against a wall, Emily Varnell's induction and promotion was perhaps the least surprising.

Less than surprising. It felt like a return to the natural order of the world, a reassertion of fairness in a structure that had spent most of the day and much of last night collapsing in on itself. It felt to Gwendolyn — a woman with no particular belief, in a City with little more than she — like her faith had been rewarded.

Which made it all the more incomprehensible that Cameron had somehow lost a lottery token because he couldn't see it coming.

Gwendolyn clapped and cheered as loudly as anyone, as Emily was given Crafter Savilla's coldstone sword. Given to her from the Captain of the Cadavalan Rangers, the City's oldest military force, raising her from corporal to lieutenant in a single heartbeat. And not just a lieutenant; often a rank regularly derided by soldier and civilian alike as the easy offering of nepotism, but a promotion in the field to the closest thing the City had to elites. A field promotion, the white scarf, and a sobriquet, all given publicly by the City's foremost soldier. To have been raised so high, by the storied Rangers, was akin to having all of Varnell's actions in the fields made holy.

The only decision the captain made that surprised Gwendoyn, was transferring her squadron to Varnell's command. And the surprise was in seeing how deeply Captain Dremora's thoughts went. "Clever bastard," she said to herself.

"What is it?" Mackaroy asked.

"Putting us under Varnell. That was a very, very deep decision he made," Gwendolyn said.

"She needs a proper platoon, and no one wants it stuffed full of new recruits. A little surprised the Captain didn't give her a more seasoned squad to work with the new Sergeant Decklan," Mackaroy reflected.

"She's a field promotion, Mack. You don't promote a work in-progress in the middle of an invasion. If the captain gave her one of his most experienced sergeants, it looks like he's assigned her a babysitter. But the other side of the token is he needs to demonstrate to both her and the company that he believes in her command."

"So he gives her Valen."

"And us," Gwendolyn added. "Field tested, field promoted, and proven. Rangers, but new. But you're right, she's also been given Valen. Which is it's own interesting dynamic."

"Why is that?"

"He put them together to learn from each other. I think Varnell is there to teach Redgrave how to command, and Valen will teach her how dangerous people can become."

"One more thing to note," Mackaroy said, in a quiet growl. "She's been given Vincent."

Gwendolyn turned and met Mackaroy's gaze, and shivered. It might have been the first time they had made eye contact since they had met, and it was a deeply unsettling thing to see. A lifetime of pain and grief looked like it was held in a small piece of glass just behind his eyes, the kind of sorrow that most people don't let themselves live through.

"You don't like it?" Gwendolyn asked.

"You don't know how hard Vincent's presence has been on Captain Dremora," Mackaroy said. "It's the same instinct that prompted the Lord Captain to send the Crafters out to fight the Golems. Vincent has more power at his fingertips than a battalion of soldiers, and as he demonstrated in the field, he has the ability to stretch himself across miles and act as if he were standing in both places at the same time. The temptation to use him as a weapon is probably driving the Captain mad."

"You mean the Captain might drive Vincent to madness by setting him against the Gloam? That Vincent could turn, like Saval?"

"That's his fear. Captain Dremora doesn't know the extent of Vincent's powers. Neither does Vincent, frankly. No Crafter really does, since testing those limits is like setting your life on fire just to see how brightly it can burn. So the Captain worries he's already pushing Vincent, and also worries he's getting people killed because he's holding Vincent back."

"If I had to guess." Gwendolyn looked back at where Emily was now speaking to Valen. "I'd say it was that the captain wants Varnell to be the one working with Vincent, in order to find out how to make the best use of the Craft."

Mackaroy frowned at that, and nodded. "Wonder what prompted that decision," he mused aloud.

"I'd imagine it's to avoid the temptation of using Vincent, more than he already is," Gwendolyn said.

"So our new lieutenant has a great deal more riding on her shoulders than we thought at first," Mack concluded. "That's a terrifying lot of responsibility."

"And so the captain gave her Valen and the rest of us."

"Hope we're enough," Mack reflected. He smiled then, though it wasn't a humorous or comforting thing. "I stand by what I said before, you'd make a superb shadow. And if either Cam or I get smoked, I want you to be the one to take our knives. Just in case."

Gwendolyn flinched, and turned away. "You've got a dark sense of humour, Mack. 'Getting smoked', in your line of work."

"My coworkers don't appreciate my comedic genius like they should."

"Not sure genius is the right word for that. Is there a word for being calamitously bad at something?"

"Har har. Let's go introduce ourselves to our new commanding officer," Mack said, and somehow, he managed to point towards them with a knife that both wasn't in his hand a moment before, and disappeared a moment after.

They stepped forward, and made a point of joining the quiet discussion Emily Varnell was having with Valen and his new counterpart, until recently Corporal Decklan Stroat.

Until recently. As much as Valen himself. As much as she was.

"Lieutenant Varnell," Gwendolyn said, extending her hand as she approached. "Let me be the first to offer my condolences. You just manage to climb out of the pot, and all the City does it turn up the heat and toss you back on the frying pan."

Valen frowned at that, and even Mack eyed her sideways. But the laugh threw itself out of Emily's mouth like too much steam in a boiler. She was still laughing as she shook Gwendolyn's proffered hand. "Captain did say he was doing me a damn poor turn. Emily Varnell, least prepared Ranger in the history of the City."

"Least prepared? I'm pretty sure that's still Roderick," Mackaroy said, as the rest of his battle group trickled in.

"Right, so Valen told me something I'm still not willing to believe, that there's less than six years of army experience in your entire squad. Who are you all, and where did you come from?"

"Corporal Gwendolyn Aranhall, and I used to be a camp warden for a bunch of delinquent youth doing work rehabilitation. With me is Hendricks Lamar, Fauth Adrienne, and Cameron Aster."

"Been a soldier about a year," Hendricks said. "Joined for the pardon, wounded someone in a duel."

"About the same," Fauth said. "It was either the army or building machinery with my parents in the Billows District. Starting to feel like I cut off my nose to spite my face."

"Shadow," Cameron said, and didn't bother to elaborate.

"Also a shadow," Mack said. "Corporal Mackaroy O'Fallow. My group is Mildred Crispin, Roderick Gwalior, and I believe you met our missing member."

"Missing member?"

"Vincent Hearthsward," Mackaroy explained. "He's currently working with the company's demolitions expert at the wall, trying to cut their way through it in such a way that they can close the hole behind them."

"And he's a part of your squad because you're the senior shadow?" Emily asked.

Mack nodded.

"And neither of you shadows are with him, right now? Thought that was the whole point of a shadow."

"The fact that I'm not with him right now, and have no intention of rejoining him at the moment, should tell you a great deal about how worried I am about him. The demolitions expert working with him right now is the safest man in the City."

It sounded glib, but Gwendolyn could see that Mackaroy meant every word. Including the depth of their implications.

"Is Vincent a civilian then, attached to the army?"

"He enlisted," Valen said. "Special Talent, Rank Four."

"Rank four?" Emily asked.

"Special talent ranks are for how far their authority can be applied within their specialty. Rank one for a battle-group, two for a squad, three for a platoon, and so on."

"So rank four would put him in command of a company?"

"Aye, ma'am," Vincent said. "If things go badly enough, and Vincent needs to step in, Captain Dremora has given him the necessary authority."

"Burn me," Cameron whistled. Gwendolyn could almost see the hairs standing on the back of his neck. "That gives him more authority than a Crafter. No one who can wield the flame has ever had that kind of power."

"Crafters don't have authority precisely because they have power. And if you were so burning worried about him, you shouldn't have ignored me when I said to go with him," Mackaroy said, quiet and slow, but with the kind of dread menace that made the younger shadow shiver and shrink into himself, folding his shoulders forward and lowering his gaze.

"Right. So I'm technically in command of a bloody Crafter, until he decides otherwise."

"He isn't aware of the extent of his potential authority," Valen added. "I believe that was deliberate. The Captain wants Vincent to follow orders, but is also looking to shield him from any repercussions of using his power in our service."

"I'll accept that," Emily agreed. "Mack, I'll want to talk to you about Vincent when we get the chance. But for now, who else did we have in your battle group?"

"Specialist Mildred Crispin," Mildred introduced herself with a smile and a wave. "Wall duty. Like Hendricks, I was in Valen's battle group until we got swept up into the Rangers."

Roderick coughed, and grinned as if he were about to deliver the punchline to a joke. "Roderick Gwalior. Until last night, I was a delinquent in Gwen's youth work camp."

Emily was shaking her head, and she looked from one to another, until her eyes turned back to Valen. "Odd things crop up in the dark hours, and the City hasn't known an hour so dark in almost fifty years. Decklan, do you have any people you want to snap up into your squad? I have Jerome and Sarina. I'd like to say I have Raeth, but if he's ducked out now I'm not going to expect him back. Abyss take us all, he already did more than I could have hoped."

"I'd sign up Ivan, and the Tolun twins. They were my hammer while we were keeping the Gloamtaken on their side of our firewall. Guess I really only have enough for two battle groups."

"Any objections if I raised Ivan to corporal?"

"None," Decklan agreed. He looked from Gwendoyn to Mackaroy, and added, "It seems to be a running theme in the fourth."

Gwendolyn laughed at that. Once again, it felt just a little like the world had titled back to normal.