The defense of Ghost Perch proceeded as follows.

We had deployed our cavalry to the west and south, performing wide field maneuvers against massed resistance. Therewith, our objective was to suppress pressure from the southerly front, and especially to intercept any attack on the primary residence of the estate. Our infantry meanwhile, had stalled in its aim to reach the animal enclosures, due to the effect of our casualty (mentioned as suffered previously). We may omit the positioning of our irregular support personnel, as they endured only light harassment at that time and were required to do no more than maintain an advantageous range with the majority of our forces.

The light cavalry was repurposed first, responding to our signaling. Tactical communications (relayed from support) determined shortly that the recovery of our wounded would be better served by more mobile personnel. Promptly and at haste, the unit delivered itself into the extraction and recovery effort.

Preliminary success in this project granted the heavy infantry free reign to focus on the offense. In addition, the ax division was reapportioned once again (after some small insubordinations) towards supporting the heavy cavalry as a funnel lure.

At the approximate hour of one and a half in the AM, the first percentages of the herd were released from their stalls and driven afield. From that moment, our foot withdrew through a side entrance to accelerate the deployment of the animals, and reversal of the circumstances of the engagement did ensue from there.

Emergency field dressings were applied to the injured, whom after certain deliberations were accommodated to return (provisionally) to active deployment. They were allocated as necessary to provide for them as a supplement to the cavalry. We were rallied shortly thereafter, alongside the support staff, and pushed deliberately southward, driving the herd ahead of us and overturning the enemy.

By the hour of two and one quarter, we had retook ground until the boundary of the crick which marked the south edge of the property.

I was perplexed by what nutritional value a goat might derive from the corpus of a living metal golem. But then again, I supposed that Marie Antoinette should have been expected to outgrow my quaint understanding of nutrition at the point that she had grown a third eye-ball; or when the hair on her forelocks had fused into a scaling which most resembled the feet of a chicken. The screeching noise of yielding metal between teeth set me to shuddering.

Like many and most of our most precious commodity, the beast demonstrated a most voracious appetite for the raw and ephemeral substance which a person of superstitions would call magic. Further – well, I’ll describe those creatures as ‘intemperate of conduct’, for they kicked and battered, and butted, and bit, and their raucous aggression most neatly overmastered any and all of these most primitive varietals of the gòshëm which we faced.

A cow with a rictus smile stomped on a drudge: its crystal failed along a weak seam. An emu with fingers instead of vestigial wings choked on a length of white metal, so Christopher stopped aside the bird such to induce it safely to disgorgement. One of the lesser descendants of the ignominious Lil’ Sauce snorted, and charged with shattering force into a shambling armored-plated beetle.

Maynard was pale, and under his unbuttoned shirt he was pink at his bandage. We had set him atop the once-mule Ernst P Dubya, and set him safely at the back and center. The creature was plodding, and of the most offensively dull shades of taupe and drab as can be imagined. But he carried our man gently, and that was good enough.

Läp Dāng was dismounted after Asura of the Ring had exhausted himself to such lengths that we dared not overextend him. Dāng commanded the west flank to restrain our spread there, and Christopher walked aside Cricket on the opposite left for the same purpose. While we had allowed the cattle to break the initial tide, after some minutes Mister O’Carroll advanced ahead of the animals to blunt the danger and pave the way. With each revolution of his hammer, a white lace flower flashed from where it was proudly fixed to his coat button.

Ashli’s amulets were bloomed on every breast which wore them, and from them was emanated a most contiguous and determined restoration of the inverse square law1.

Whatever firmness of invisible, connective tissue had been the scaffold of gòshëm limbs was thoroughly disrupted. Each of the segments of their bodies had slipped their grip of one another; they sunk their posture into wrongly joined angles, and parted with the least applications of force.

It was my duty to continue to play, though there was some grumbling as to the expression of my contribution. As we marched, I noted that the heavier of my mallets was continuing to splinter; I had no recourse though, but to monitor its decline. Instead (and for some minutes), I continued to make certain reflections on the melody of my Rudiment, even if I was not yet prepared to make refinements to its practice. Finally, I stepped away from my safe position at the rear. I rounded past a fattened, de-vampired mole, and approached the van.

Once or twice, I would flub my rhythm, but my curiosity demanded I evaluate certain hypotheses. So at the edge of safety I squatted, and I shuffled. I danced from side to side and swung my arms out between beats. I wobbled my head, and I made certain noises; like to the babble of a child. I enunciated the most basic of imperative commands.

“The fuck are you doing,” Ryder repugned me in disgust.

Being much too exerted for embarrassment, I returned a neutral shrug. “I’d figured to see how these things respond to anomalous behaviors, such to plumb them for some hint of rational thought. Truthfully, I’d be unsettled something fiercely if we brought this creature to extermination and then found they’d been possessed of any sort of enlightened mind.”

“They’re fucking robo-bugs,” scowled Ryder. Perspiration had settled his hair, and spattered off his words. There was a cut along his calf, and across his scalp, and overall it was fair to say the man had descended into poor spirits.

I took a long stride over unsure footing, and reached ahead with a panic to prevent my drum from tipping. “Sure, and I see that, it’s just that there’s no means to know a thing for sure, but to put it to experiment. The known ought be challenged, just as well as what’s unknown.”

The man recoiled of me. “Why?” he said. And there, our conversation ended.

As a result of Mister Simons’ increased displeasure. I simply renewed my focus on the duties of percussion. The frigidity of the ’vader dispute had been boiled away, as had their weight and wildness. The confluence of our triune Blessings was Homestead – if you’ll so remember I’d named it earlier. Its sanctity drew from the warmth of the hearth fire, and good firm walls. We carried with us a softness that we’d remembered from thick blankets, and the savory promise of good soup.

We hinted at the security of the musket which might stand at ease besides the coat-rack.

I suppose I do linger on the consideration of matters which stand outside of substance. What I mean to say is: we were warm again. The magnetisms which were violate of natural law were being set right. Where we progressed, we did so with a measured ease that could no longer be called a fight. Now and again, soft metal squeaked under my boot – and that was all.

Our initial losses of livestock had been few, as to be satisfactory, and their lows, snuffles and bleats had since grown calm. The moon lit the broad of indeterminate backs as they stirred between each other. We were awash in that certain potency of odor which – I suppose passing into a need for brevity, I might describe as stank.

I would note that Ashli spend the most of our march alone. She’d been irritated by my drumming, and floated out from my company as a result. Hand Christopher approached her at one point, until the two of them had strayed so far from the young man’s post that Maynard had pulled him aside.

“Son,” the grey haired one said to his junior, “you need come to learn the difference between when a woman is polite to make conversation, versus when she’s been eager to. Give her some space, and tighten up our left.”

We stood in a great company of vertebrates along the north; arrived then, at the border of what was ours. Arrayed in ranks on the other side of the trickling waters, was reserved some dozens of automatons of frightful quality. There, and stood at their backs, were five figures which awaited us. They both defied and resembled the shape of men.

Ah, it so occurred to me. This migration had not been so particularly spontaneous at all.