There was work to do. They buried the dead in shallow graves in a makeshift graveyard. Abhorrent corpses were hauled into piles.

Xerxes was still numb, but was shaken nonetheless.

Enusat was the only mage that fell. The unit he’d been attached to, Unit Twelve, had been devastated. There were only two surviving members, the sergeant, named Ilia, and a private named Yomadan.

Other than Unit Twelve, the highest casualties were in Units Four and Seven, those to which Teucer and Laxu were attached. More than half of the soldiers in each unit had been killed.

Two of the soldiers in Xerxes’ Unit One had lost their lives.

All other units had lost soldiers except for Unit Five. Katayoun’s assigned unit. According to the murmured stories Xerxes heard, some believed it was because of Katayoun’s skill as a healer. Others claimed that it was more the leadership of Sergeant Laz.

Altogether, Black Jackal Company lost forty members in the fighting.

For a long time Xerxes just stared at the grave mounds and thought of the people beneath them. He felt too empty for tears. The loss wasn’t as personal as it had been with Bel, Gem, or the soldiers he knew back on Mannemid.

But the Unit One soldiers who’d died were men he’d shared meals with for weeks on end. And even those from other units were familiar to him. The sheer number of lives lost was….

While they reorganized the camp, Abhorrent attacked twice more, but only in small numbers, and neither resulted in any casualties.

After the bodies were buried, Gandash gave a short speech that Xerxes didn’t pay attention to. He just stood in the crowd, held Katayoun’s hand, and looked at the graves.

The surviving two members of Enusat’s old unit were absorbed into Unit Thirteen with Tizqar. There were other minor adjustments as well.

As the final preparations were being made to start traveling again, Gandash called the mages together.

“I want to know how much melam everyone has,” he said. “And how many spells you can cast. We’ll start with me. I still haven’t cast anything. I’ve mastered the Buhhu Sebum rune, allowing me to cast Greater Spawn Duo. But there was never an occasion in which two Abhorrent spawn under my control would have made a difference. Let’s move on to Unit One, and then go through all the units sequentially. That means you’re first, Xerk.”

Xerxes knew where he stood with his chambers of energy. “I’m down to about a quarter capacity. I can cast Minor Augmentation once. And Singular Lethality… probably fourteen or fifteen times.”

Gandash made a note on a wax pad. “Unit Two, Kashtiliash.”

“I’m at three quarters,” the bearded mage said. “I haven’t mastered my second rune, so I can only cast Singular Lethality. Maybe thirty times.”

“Unit Three. Kuri.”

Kuri still had blood caked in his buzzed hair. “I’m at about twenty percent,” he said. “Just enough for a Minor Augmentation, and not even ten Singular Lethality.”

“Unit Four. Teucer.”

Teucer was only a Seer, which meant his total melam capacity was half that of the High Seers. “I’m at about half. Ten Singular Lethalities.”

That was all of the Asgagu mages in the company.

“Unit Five. Katayoun.”

“I’m down to ten percent or so. I don’t have enough for Slow Death. But I do have enough for four or five Minor Restorations.”

Gandash exhaled, and there was an accompanying round of disconcerted murmuring from the other mages. Katayoun was their only Balatu High Seer. In other words, she was the highest level healer they had. And she was almost out of melam.

“Unit Six. Ningal.”

Ningal was short and skinny, but the blood caked in her hair and splattered all over her clothing made her look more fierce than usual. She was also a Balatu mage, but she was only a Seer. “I’m down to thirty percent. I can cast Minor Restoration six or seven times.”

There was more murmuring.

“Unit Seven. Laxu.”

Laxu was the only other Buhhu mage in the company, and he was a Seer. Scratching at his long sideburns, he said, “I’m below half. Not enough for a Spawn Duo, but close. If I focus on meditating for a day and a half, it’ll put me over the edge.”

“I remember you were close to max before,” Gandash said. “You cast Spawn Duo in the fighting?”

“I did.”

Gandash made a note. “Unit Eight. Jad.”

“We need to go back to Tower Plateau,” Jad said. “If we’d done it before, Enusat would still be alive, plus a lot of good Unsighted soldiers.”

Gandash looked up from his wax writing tab. “I didn’t ask for opinions about what to do next. How much melam do you have?”

“Fuck that,” Jad said. “You’re going to get us all killed, Gandash. I refuse—”

“As the commanding officer of this—”

“I didn’t vote for you,” Jad interrupted. “None of us did. We were forced—”

Gandash yelled, “This isn’t the time and place for you to—”

“To what, die?” Jad shouted, stepping forward with clenched fists.

Xerxes reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. “Jad….”

Jad brushed Xerxes’ hand off. “No. It needs to be said. Gandash has no idea what he’s doing, and he’s going to get us all massacred!”

This time, Gandash didn’t seem inclined to interrupt.

Jad looked around. “You all can see it, right? We should have gone back to Tower Plateau the minute those meteors started falling. Instead, this moron decided to camp on the open road. And thanks to that, my best friend is dead! So I say we relieve him of duty and do something to stay alive. Go back to the plateau and wait out the Abhorrent. Then once things calm down, we go back to the Gateway. Whatever ridiculous diplomatic mission we’re on isn’t worth more than our lives!”

Silence followed his outburst. Most of the other mages looked down at the ground.

“Well?” Jad said. “Who’s with me?”