MARK OF CAINE

THE HELLSLINGERS I
MARK OF CAINE
MILES HOLMES

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This is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of
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Dedication

For Vanessa
 Acknowledgements

First of all, a huge thank you to all my readers from Way of

Caine.  It’s been a genuine pleasure hearing from you since we
launched 2013, and it’s totally your fault this wild ride continues!
I’d also like to thank Matt for helping to chart the course of the
adventure before us. Make no mistake, there are big things ahead
for Caine, both in print and on the tabletop, and that’s thanks to
Matt’s efforts to coordinate the studio side. A big thanks also to
Skull Island editor-in-chief Mike Ryan, the steady hand that kept
us on course, along with the watchful eye of editor Joyce Lee.
Finally, I really, really need to thank my family for tolerating me
over the long hours and sleepless nights that went into this book!
 — CONTENTS —

PART I: THE SWINDLE.................................................................i

CHAPTER 1: Of Dregs and Drifters...............................................................1

CHAPTER 2: Of Resignation and Rancor.......................................................9

CHAPTER 3: Of Death and Duty................................................................15

CHAPTER 4: Of Fungus and Firefights........................................................23

CHAPTER 5: Of Reservations and Resources................................................43

CHAPTER 6: Of Blood and Bargains............................................................51

CHAPTER 7: Of Hangovers and Havoc........................................................57

CHAPTER 8: Of Detention and Discovery...................................................63

CHAPTER 9: Of Misdirection and Mutilation..............................................75

PART II: THE MESS................................................................... 81

CHAPTER 10: Of Predators and Prodigal Sons.............................................83

CHAPTER 11: Of Fast Moves and Family Ties.............................................93

CHAPTER 12: Of Gangsters and Gutter Rats.............................................103

CHAPTER 13: Of Bloodhounds and Bad Omens.......................................111

CHAPTER 14: Of Forgotten Friends and Foregone Conclusions................121

CHAPTER 15: Of Sewers and Sidesteps......................................................129

CHAPTER 16: Of Fiends and Family..........................................................139

CHAPTER 17: Of Bullets and Breadcrumbs...............................................147

CHAPTER 18: Of Regret and Revelation....................................................151

CHAPTER 19: Of Rot and Ruin.................................................................157

CHAPTER 20: Of Murder and Misery........................................................165

CHAPTER 21: Of Quarrels and Qualifications...........................................171

CHAPTER 22: Of Pain and Payback...........................................................177

CHAPTER 23: Of Bottlenecks and Bad Blood............................................185

CHAPTER 24: Of Retreats and Reunions...................................................197

CHAPTER 25: Of Showdowns and Sudden Death.....................................203

CHAPTER 26: Of Separation and Shootouts..............................................217

CHAPTER 27: Of Iron and Irony...............................................................223

CHAPTER 28: Of Vertigo and Vitriol.........................................................231

CHAPTER 29: Of Reckoning and Revelation.............................................245

PART III: THE RECKONING..................................................... 251

CHAPTER 30: Of Provisions and Portents..................................................253

CHAPTER 31: Of Shadows and Spirits.......................................................261

CHAPTER 32: Of Horrors and Helljacks....................................................273

CHAPTER 33: Of Long Shots and Last Stands...........................................279

CHAPTER 34: Of Mages and Monsters......................................................289

CHAPTER 35: Of Payback and Perdition...................................................299

EPILOGUE.................................................................................................303

EXCERPT from Tales of the Invisible Hand............................. 311

PART I: THE SWINDLE
 — CHAPTER 1 —
OF DREGS AND DRIFTERS

611 AR, present day

“ANOTHER,” ALLISTER CAINE DEMANDED, wiping his forehead

on his sleeve. The bartender answered his call with a wayward
tankard. It slid the length of the bar and perfectly into his waiting
gloved hand. The grease-stained clock on the wall chimed noon as
sunlight spilled in through the front window of the King’s Boot.
For the life of him, Caine couldn’t figure why he kept watching
that clock.
It wasn’t as though he had anywhere else to be, after all.
Not like these good folks, he thought. He glanced over his
shoulder and searched the midday crowd of the tavern for
anything more interesting. Traveling carpet merchants banged
on the table to his right, loudly debating the travesty of regional
taxation. Their faces were unfamiliar, so he paused to size each
one up in turn. Such assessment was a necessity of his trade, his
2 | MILES HOLMES

recent status notwithstanding. Seeing no pistol-shaped bulges or

convenient sheathes, he relaxed and moved on to checking out the
local merchants and smiths—the faces he actually knew. For an
hour or so each day, their lives briefly synched up; they exchanged
nods and glances and the occasional story until forgetting each
other to return to their lives, leaving Caine to his ways. Caine’s
visual sweep of the room settled on a set of dark eyes in the corner
booth—almond shaped, exotic, and staring right back at him.
Now that was his sort of interesting.
“Tab is due, John.” Rollie was in Caine’s face like always, and
like always, his breath stank something vile. The barkeep’s hand
rested on Caine’s tankard, but Caine gave it no notice. It wasn’t
a threat. Instead, his attention was fixated on the dark eyes that
refused to break his stare. The barkeep’s words—addressing him
by an assumed identity that Caine never expected to remember—
and his repugnant breath were beneath notice for the moment.
“John,” Rollie repeated, leaning closer. His voice was low but
firm.
Caine snapped back, first seeing dirty fingernails touching the
edge of his tankard, then Rollie’s fat and stubbly face hovering just
over it. The man’s rheumy eyes were far less enticing than the eyes
in the corner. Caine blinked, his assumed identity returning with
the man’s close proximity and bad timing.
“Easy, chum. I got yer money.”
Rollie released the tankard, extending his hand expectantly.
Caine sighed. “Well, not on me, Rollie. Can we settle
tomorrow?”
Now Rollie sighed. “Sure, John. Why break tradition, eh?” He
waddled off toward the shouts of another overindulged patron.
Caine turned back toward the darkened booth, but the eyes
were gone. He’d expected as much, but he still scowled, turning
forward to pat his breast pockets for his last cigar. With his other
hand, he tugged at his salt-and-pepper beard.
There we are. His last stogie. Now to find a match. He chomped
his prize and used both hands to search his pants pockets, then
even his boots.
 MARK OF CAINE | 3

The smell of phosphorus and perfume filled his nose, a welcome

improvement over Rollie’s breath and the generally sour air of the
King’s Boot. He turned toward her as she held out a match.
She was quite the vision. Her long black hair spilled out from
under a wrap of red chiffon. And so we meet. Her skin, like her
eyes, was dark. Maybe black, for all he could tell in the bar. The
hint of a corset peeked out from under her shawl, and her legs
were wrapped with a long lace skirt. He guessed she was a Radiz
traveler. Not altogether uncommon folk in these parts, though
there was not a damned thing common about her.
“You going to waste it?” She teased with a half-smile, pushing
an empty plate before him on the bar. The flame had begun to
sputter.
Caine leaned in to meet her flame. He nodded thanks, watching
her slide a few crowns across the bar. “Yeh got a name?” His cigar
rolled from one side to the other as he spoke, his eyes narrowing.
The woman smiled, and when she answered, it was in an
unfamiliar accent. “Why give a name you will never remember?”
“Yeah,” he said, “I have one of those for myself.”
Still, he felt a stirring. Maybe today had a point after all.
Then again, he had always had a weakness for women from that
background and ancestry. As far as he could remember, it had
happened twice. At least.
The woman said nothing, mischief in her eyes. She made a
display of slipping away from the bar and heading for the door.
The sway of her hips gave Caine a renewed appreciation of the
world and his place in it. The cacophony of the street snuck in
through the open door as the woman stepped through it, letting
it shut. He noted that she never looked back.
Caine brought the tankard to his lips while he tapped the
ash from his cigar. The boisterous merchants refused to give his
thoughts some peace; they jeered at their server, Rollie’s daughter
Gwyn. The temptation to slap the stupid out of them arose, but
he pushed it down. Not his problem. A younger Caine might
have once intervened, but that man with a lot less common sense
wasn’t the one sitting at the bar today.
4 | MILES HOLMES

Caine had managed to stay in the backwater burg of Prescott

for a grand total of four months. After two years on the run and
looking over his shoulder at every crossing, the forsaken little
town was starting to feel comfortable. That it was in the ass-end
of northwestern Cygnar with nothing but a mediocre stagecoach
line to acknowledge its existence was now more than a necessity;
it had become vital.
At forty years old, Allister Caine had grown contemptuous of
the hurry-up-and-wait life of a soldier and weary of the constant
paranoia that came with being a field agent in the Cygnaran
Reconnaissance Service. As it turned out, Prescott was about as far
from these things as one could get without needing to learn a new
language. And so here he was. Here, he’d stopped running. Here,
he’d hung up his guns and tried blending in instead of always
fighting it out. The crowns came easily enough. Every few weeks,
Gus Rivers down at the mill needed a few extra hands swinging
axes. On the off weeks, Caine could always find some way or other
to spend them. . .
He felt a tap then on his shoulder. “Do I get that name then?”
he asked as he started to turn.
“Hands where I can see them. Keep your eyes front,” a voice
growled in his ear and jabbed a muzzle against his ribs. Hands
then patted him down, confiscating his holdout pistol, then his
knife.
So much for the woman, Caine thought with a sigh. He set his
tankard down, spreading his hands on the bar. He looked straight
ahead. “What do we do now?”
“You stand up nice and slow. We’re going to take a little walk
outside.”
Caine made to look at his assailant, but the man indicated his
disapproval with a sharp muzzle jab to Caine’s ribs. His captor
couldn’t be more than twenty, Caine guessed, based on the timber
of his voice. He assumed a more paternal tone. “Easy, chum. Yeh
sure yeh want to do this?”
“I’m sure.”
Caine stood up, the young man’s muzzle still pressed hard into
 MARK OF CAINE | 5

the side of his duster. “What for? I’m just a simple traveler takin’
a rest. If yer thinkin’ I’ve got money, just ask Rollie over there. I
don’t. If I did, he would.”
The man chuckled then, closer still to his ear. “It’s not your
wallet I’m after, Allister Caine. It’s your bounty I want.”
Caine sighed. “Yeah. I see.”
He nodded to the moon-faced merchants as he passed them.
At least the scene he was making had finally shut them up. The lot
were delightfully speechless as he preceded his captor out of the
bar a step at a time.
“So, what’s that bounty up to now?”
“Fifteen-hundred crowns.”
“Big bounty, big trouble. Don’t yeh know that, kid?”
The young man snorted as the two of them stepped out onto
the creaking planks of the tavern’s front porch. Horse-drawn
carriages clopped alongside townsfolk at the height of Prescott’s
midday bustle. “Don’t you mark me for no kid, mister. I’m a
bounty hunter like my pa and his before him. This pistol of mine
shoots the same lead as theirs.” Again, the young bounty hunter
jabbed his weapon at Caine for emphasis.
“Fair enough. Are yeh right-handed or left-handed?” Caine
squinted at the sun, feeling its warmth on his skin as the young
man herded him toward a nearby alley.
“Left. What’s it to you?”
Caine closed his eyes and called upon his gift. It had been a
long time since he’d used his gift for anything other than defense.
Too long, maybe. Too long since he’d felt the tingle of it in his
hands and in his chest. Too long since he’d shaped it to form
a spell. Too long since he’d used it to reach into the mind of a
warjack and bend it to his will. It had, however, been more than
enough time to leave him guessing if it could be controlled again
once called for.
Only one way to find out, he decided with a shrug.
From deep in his chest, Caine felt a welling rush. It was not the
adrenaline that came from mortars falling all around you or seeing
your men turned to mincemeat next to you as they exploded. This
6 | MILES HOLMES

was not the rush of sidestepping an axe longer than you were tall,
wielded by a maniacal eight-ton steam-powered walking machine.
It was not even the simple thrill of taking out six gunmen on a bet
while blindfolded and fall-down drunk.
No, this was the rush that came of magic.
In a nimbus of blue runes, Caine blinked out of existence. In
half a heartbeat, he returned to the world, four feet away from
where he had started. Those four feet conveniently had him
standing directly behind the bounty hunter. The tables well and
truly turned, Caine assessed the lanky Midlunder rooted the spot,
the young man’s mouth hanging open. He didn’t look the part,
but at least he gripped a pistol in his left hand, as he’d suggested.
Caine reached for the weapon with practiced reflexes, pulling
back the young man’s wrist to snatch the weapon. In one fluid
motion, he pinned the bounty hunter’s hand against his shoulder.
The young man gasped, stuttering for words, eyes wild as he tried
to get a sense of what was happening.
“Yer gonna need a new line of work, kid,” Caine suggested,
squeezing the trigger. A shot of lead burst from the barrel with a
flash and a whiff of powder. It tore through his would-be captor’s
palm and into his shoulder beneath, leaving both a blood-
splotched mess. Caine twitched; his ears rang from the sudden
report. He stepped back and let the young man fall to his knees.
There was nothing as familiar to him in this world as the smell
of gunfire except for a man on his knees waiting for the kill shot.
He took it in with a deep breath, savoring it while he circled his
victim to observe his handiwork.
The youth sobbed and screamed, clutching his bleeding hand.
“Don’t yeh know who I am, kid? I’m the monster waiting in
the night. I’m the one your mama told you steer clear of, that’s
who. What the hell were yeh thinkin’ coming for me?” Caine
snarled. The young bounty hunter flinched, backpedaling.
Seeing the terror he had wrought, Caine paused and then
relented with a growl. “Look across the street there.” He pointed
with his newly acquired pistol. “That’s Doc Silver’s joint. If he’s in,
he’ll patch yeh up. Then yer gonna leave town.”
 MARK OF CAINE | 7

Shuddering, the young man looked up at him with damp eyes.

At the end of the alley, a couple of spectators had been drawn
to the noise of the shot, including the town blacksmith, Rand
Cooper.
“Nothing doing here, folks. The kid just had a misfire is all,”
Caine laughed, shaking his head sympathetically. “Anyone know
if Doc Silver is in yet?”
“Yeah, he arrived a half-hour ago, John.” The blacksmith slowly
took in the scene.
“Much obliged.” Caine nodded and waited for his audience
to shuffle back to their corners. When they had reluctantly
withdrawn, he turned back to his young prisoner. “Now, where
were we?”
Caine studied the kid’s pistol appreciably, sighting an imagined
target down its length. It had been a while since he’d held his own
piece, and his armor had been packed away and left to rot. This
was no Spellstorm, but it was nice work. It was a revolver like his
own, a rare enough thing. He turned it over, admiring the brass
trim at handgrip and barrel. Your family must have a few crowns to
spare, Caine guessed. It should fetch enough crowns at the market
to settle his tab with Rollie and then some. He looked back down
at the whimpering young man.
“Stop that. Yeh played and yeh lost, but yer alive. But I see yeh
around here again,” He brought the barrel level with the kid’s face,
“the next time yeh see this gun, it’ll be putting a slug between yer
eyes.”
The bounty hunter nodded, his eyes averted from the barrel.
He rose unsteadily to his feet and, without looking at Caine again,
ran across the dirt road to the doctor’s shack, just as he’d been told.
Caine watched him go, silently fuming. So much for bygones.
Two years past, and the old bastard still feared for his precious
secrets. As if Caine were nothing more than a bought-off traitor
at large. He had his vices, but when had he ever been that? Never,
that’s when.
Never, ever that.
Caine pulled his beard. He had been lucky. The wake-up call
8 | MILES HOLMES

had been this kid—it could just as easily have been someone with
the stones to put him down. Either way, the message was clear.
Scout General Rebald was not going to let this go.
 — CHAPTER 2 —
OF RESIGNATION AND RANCOR

609 AR, two years earlier

CAINE MARCHED DELIBERATELY ACROSS the busy field camp with

his jaw clenched and his brow furrowed. He saw nothing of the
bustle around him and heard nothing of the clatter of camp
routine. Instead, his senses had narrowed to an imaginary tunnel
thirty yards long that ended at a single canvas tent, its front flap
swaying invitingly in the breeze. Inside, he knew he would find
the Scout General of the Cygnaran Reconnaissance Service, his
boss of fifteen years, Bolden Rebald. In his own mind, Caine was
wild-eyed and leery still, fresh from the final battle of Cygnar’s
civil war. He had survived this day to witness a former king slain
and a new heir challenge the throne.
More to the point, he had survived today despite Rebald’s best
efforts to the contrary.
Cygnaran soldiers of all ranks and disciplines stopped short on
10 | MILES HOLMES

either side of him, giving Caine a wide berth, their eyes downcast,
their expressions startled. Anyone who knew anything about the
warcaster knew murder in his eyes meant murder in real life soon
enough. But he could only dream that such a glorious payback
was in the cards. Granted, if Rebald could be baited into going for
his gun, Caine would happily claim it. For the moment, however,
he had other ideas.
Ultimately, today would mark the last hour in a career that had
been made for murder from the very start. For fifteen years, Rebald
had led Caine down a dark path on a short leash. While they had
not always seen eye to eye, Caine had still respected the man’s
foresight and cunning most of the time. As the years had piled
one on top of the next, Caine’s dead could not easily be counted,
and he himself had long ago stopped trying. Granted, many of his
victims had been monstrous, cruel, or otherwise a genuine threat
to Cygnar. Many—but not all. So, when doubt began to cloud his
thoughts, Caine sensed his very soul was slipping into darkness.
Then came the Raelthorne kid.
The teenaged heir to the throne of Cygnar had long been
marked for death, his very existence a threat to his uncle, King
Leto, and Rebald’s perceived world order. Dutifully, Caine had
tracked him down over the course of a decade, but in the final
moment of his long quest, he saw his task for the crime it was. In
the end, he’d refused to murder the boy, and in that moment he
had learned the true value Rebald placed—or, more accurately,
didn’t place—on his years of service.
With the tent before him now, Caine breathed deeply and
reached for the flap. He could just hear a conversation inside
reaching an end. He hesitated, and a veteran ranger emerged, the
man saluting him in haste.
It’s now or not at all, he told himself.
He ducked under the flap to discover Rebald seated at his desk
in the center of the tent. Maps of every region had been spread
across chalkboards behind him and on both sides, and the desk
itself was a clutter of papers and scrolls. Clad all in grey, the aging
spymaster stroked his pencil moustache while scrawling notes in a
 MARK OF CAINE | 11

ledger. He looked up, sniffing, to find Caine staring at him.

Caine’s hands were steady at his side when he saw the fleeting
flinch on Rebald’s face. Go ahead and draw that holdout, he
thought. But Rebald only sat back from his work with a weary
expression.
“Captain,” he said, “this isn’t a good time to talk, seeing as
we’re in the midst of a civil war.”
“Sorry, General,” Caine said, his apology insincere, “it seems
yer a bit behind the news for once. The war’s about to end. We
won. Vinter’s dead. Leto will be sending for you soon. But first,
you and I have unfinished business.”
Rebald blinked and frowned, narrowing his eyes. “And the
bastard? Dare I hope you managed to complete your mission?”
“Julius lives,” Caine said. “Yeh should get used to using his
name.”
The scout general gritted his teeth and said, “So you failed,
despite everything. The one thing I thought the most certain has
not come to pass. You disappoint me greatly. I lack the words.”
Caine felt his own temper rise. Rebald had always been good at
needling him. He said, “You sent a second team, told them to kill
Julius, his mother, and to finish me off, too. Yeah I got them, and
they talked. They’re all dead now, except one, who’s in custody.
They weren’t up to the task.” Caine turned to watch Rebald react
to his defiance.
To his credit, the spymaster possessed some restraint. Rebald
said, “Had you done what you were supposed to, a second team
wouldn’t have been necessary. They were indeed a failsafe, but
clearly even that wasn’t enough to counter your incompetence.”
Without thought, Caine dropped his hands to the grips of his
pistols, but he stopped himself. That wasn’t why he was here. Had
he wanted to kill the scout general, he could have done so without
saying a word. Rebald watched him closely but kept the fear from
his face.
Caine said, “Leto knows about Julius and his mother now.
They’re with him as we speak, all under the protection of the
Church of Morrow.”
12 | MILES HOLMES

Rebald asked, “What did you tell the king? About our
involvement in this?”
“Nothing. Wasn’t time. Decided to come here first so we could
talk. Wanted to hear if yeh had any excuse for trying to have me
murdered. Seems I’m to be disappointed.”
Rebald’s expression barely changed, but Caine could almost see
the gears moving in his mind. Rebald paused a moment and then
said, “Given you’ve kept your mouth shut, perhaps this situation
isn’t entirely ruined. I’m willing to be forgiving, eventually. I hope
you’re grateful; I could have you executed for treason.”
“Screw you, Rebald,” Caine said. “Yeh may be willing to
forgive, but I’m not. Be damned if I want to earn my way back
into yer good graces. We’re through.”
“What? Think about what you’re saying. Think carefully.”
The implied threat was very real, but Caine was far past caring.
“Yeh ordered the execution of civilians. Yeh ordered me killed.
That’s it. There’s no going back. I’m out of that game now, for
good.”
He saw the tension in Rebald’s frame, the fear in how he looked
to the pistols on Caine’s waist. He said, “Relax. I’m not going to
shoot yeh. I may be a killer, but I’m not a murderer.” He tossed
his captain’s insignia on the table in front of Rebald. “I know yer
technically not my superior. But yeh’ll take my resignation all the
same. Explain it to Stryker however yeh like.”
“Desertion is a mistake, Caine. A serious mistake. This is your
last warning. I’m the only friend you’ve got. Turn your back on
me, and you’ve got nothing.”
“I’d sooner have nothing than your friendship,” Caine said.
“But I’m not interested in showing anyone yer dirty laundry. I
won’t talk. But yeh send anyone after Julius, his mother, or me,
all bets are off.”
They had had their disagreements over the years, but this was
the first time Caine had outright threatened Rebald. Appreciably,
the man now bristled before him. “Do you think anyone will
believe you when I’m done? There is a great deal I could pin on
you yet, Caine. You can’t just walk away. Do you remember the
 MARK OF CAINE | 13

incident in Llael that began our time together? A little matter

of regicide in Llael? What do you think will happen to the man
found responsible for that? I won’t need to send anyone. The
matter will take care of itself.”
Caine shook his head; he knew what Rebald didn’t. If the Llael
incident came out, it would hang the spymaster a lot faster than
it would Caine, who expected to be miles away from the man
sooner rather than later. “We can settle this clean or dirty. Up to
you. Either way, I’m out. If yeh try to have me killed, I promise
yeh I’ll be the last man standing.”
Rebald bristled, their eyes locked. Then, with a flash and the
crackle of imploding air, Caine was gone.
 — CHAPTER 3 —
OF DEATH AND DUTY

611 AR, Caspia, present day

“THREE SHOOTERS, TWO O’CLOCK!” Darsey Ryan shouted over the

cacophony of gunfire, her lean frame backed against the foyer wall
of the church. On the mezzanine balcony overhead, two of the
identified men responded by firing shots deep into the cover she
claimed. She ducked back as plaster exploded near her face. She
primed her pistols.
Twenty feet ahead into the nave of the church, Samuel Watts
cast her a nod of thanks, then turned a wary eye upward. The
gun mage had crept forward unseen up to now, but it was only a
matter of time before the newly arrived enemy would spot him.
Crouching behind an overturned pew leveled against forward
resistance, Watts was all but exposed to their advance. Meanwhile,
the pulpit and chancel ahead bristled with another half-dozen
gunmen who alternated between reloading and providing cover
16 | MILES HOLMES

fire. He was effectively pinned down.

Your targets? He gestured to her with practiced hand signals.
Yeah, I got them. Ryan nodded, picking through her personal
selection of magic rune shots. This included several experimental
ones she had been practicing, together with their verbal triggers—a
technique the Black 13th had adopted early on. It was a method
she had first thought silly at the academy, but she had long ago
learned its value in the field. Not only did verbal triggers allow
her team to coordinate their efforts, but it helped focus her magic
more effectively than she had before joining Lynch’s crew. She
swung out from behind cover, leveling both magelock pistols high.
“Inferno,” she whispered.
The twin muzzles of her guns erupted with unearthly blue fire.
The balcony’s oak rail splintered and burst, and the men behind
it were suddenly consumed in a roiling firestorm. The first man
hit fell where he stood, leaving the remaining pair to burn alive.
They screamed, teetering forward with outstretched hands into
the open space of the vaulted chamber, momentarily blinded and
desperate to extinguish their fire. As a pair, they tumbled forward,
still engulfed, falling into an inglorious heap near an unperturbed
Watts.
Three for you, he signaled, readying his magelock to fire. He
cautiously leaned over his pew to scan for a target. A heartbeat
later, he had one.
“Brutality,” Watts growled to himself, squeezing the trigger.
The choice was, indeed, more destruction than he required, but it
suited him just fine as retaliation all the trouble this lot had proven.
Perhaps the spectacle might even send the gutless running. As the
pin struck through the binary powders in the cartridge, blue runes
erupted in a flash of magic. His shot sped the length of the nave
until it exploded in the forehead of a gunman still stunned by the
state of Ryan’s victims.
The man’s head disappeared in a shower of fleshy chunks.
His ravaged neck sprayed a fountain of arterial blood, bathing
his nearby comrades, before the lifeless corpse collapsed over the
lectern and moved no more. The horrific display paid instant
 MARK OF CAINE | 17

dividends—the surviving gunmen fled, falling back to the church

sanctuary amid shouts of terror and dismay.
Their loss was Watt’s gain. The cloaked gun mage’s face twisted
with an ugly smile of crooked teeth as he slipped free of his cover.
He moved unseen from pew to pillar and into the next pew,
reloading as he went.
Ryan advanced as well, sidestepping bullet-ridden corpses—
the remains of the first wave of defenders they’d encountered
in the siege. Passing them, she dove for Watt’s former position.
Shots rang out around her. She glanced to the firestorm raging
in the ruined mezzanine above, wary should more gunmen try to
secure the corridor there. Her blue fire had spread to the tapestries
and drapes, leaving a treacherous path for anyone who might try.
But still, she knew to be careful. She brushed plaster dust from
the short tangle of her hair as she sized up the way ahead. Five
gunmen remained, all of them now shepherded into the alcove of
the church sanctuary. Of the five, most had squeezed together for
cover behind a gold-trimmed altar. Ryan squinted expectantly at
the exquisite stained-glass windows on either side of the sanctuary.
Anytime, boss…
Captain Dixon Lynch burst into the right flank of the
sanctuary in a shower of glass. He landed with both feet planted
in the chest of a stunned gunman, driving the enemy to the floor
with a sickening crunch of skull and sternum. Yet the slender gun
mage had only just begun.
He leaped clear of the fallen man, his cloak flowing after him.
With his tricorn pulled low and a barely restrained snarl, he spun to
face the next enemy. His goggles gleamed as his magelock erupted
from point-blank range, directly into the chest of his foe. With a
ghastly gaping wound exposing his insides, the stricken man fell
straight back like freshly hewn timber. Then Lynch was among the
last three, his pistol spinning in his hand to serve as a blackjack,
his short blade clenched in the other. He moved like a whirling
dervish, clubbing and stabbing until the last man lay choking with
blood-filled lungs. Moments later, Ryan and Watts joined him as he
crouched to wipe his blade on the lapel of one dying man.
18 | MILES HOLMES

“Stun grenade. Go.” Lynch pointed to the door of the rectory

office behind him.
Watts moved to the door, his ugly grin widening. The grizzled
gun mage made no secret of his preference for special operations
over frontline engagements. In fact, there seemed no end of toys
the CRS quarter-master might indulge them with for cloak-and-
dagger work. Watts pulled his cloak open to reveal a bandolier of
grenades. “One lump or two?”
“One. What’s the matter with you? We don’t want the hostage
deaf.” Lynch signaled Ryan. “You follow me on three.”
“Open that door, and we kill her!” a muffled shout came from
inside the office.
“Calm down. We’re here to negotiate. What are your demands?”
Lynch shouted while looking to Watts with the gesture of a hand-
roll toward the sizable gap beneath the door
The voice on the other side of the door said, “You’re going to
let us—”
Ryan tensed, magelocks primed to support her team. Watts
was already moving ahead of her to follow Lynch’s direction.
He pulled the pin of his grenade and rolled it under the door;
inside, a loud bang and a flash of light spilled from the gap of the
doorjamb. Coughing. Confused shouts.
Lynch counted three with upraised fingers, and then he was
moving. His drove his boot into the door, smashing it wide, and
rushed into the breach, his alchemically treated goggles allowing
him to probe the thick smoke. He spied them quickly: three
figures, one a slender girl in a formal gown tied to a chair, two
armed men standing over her. They stood close to the girl to
ensure no one would fire at them, each clutching a forgelock he
could only wave blindly. Lynch dipped low, swept right, and took
the first man down in the haze of smoke, his blade driving up into
the man’s brain through his jaw. The next man’s heart burst with
Lynch’s one and only shot—the man fell dead before the echo of
the blast had faded.
At once, the girl started to cry.
 MARK OF CAINE | 19

•••

“I DON’T SEE THE PROBLEM.” Captain Dixon Lynch stood in the

aftermath of the shootout, cleaning dust from his goggles with a
rag, his face twisted in distaste.
“You couldn’t have waited for us to form a cordon?” Beside
him, a mortified Vaughn watched his clean-up crew of CRS
agents move around on all sides of the ruined church. A pair of
them stepped past him, carrying a corpse that dripped a trail of
blood all the way out to the waiting wagon. Vaughn stepped back,
visibly paler.
“A carriage was in location to move the girl when we arrived.
Are you displeased?”
Vaughn looked to the scorched rafters of the mezzanine. “I
suppose not. It’s nothing that can’t be smoothed over with the
prelate.”
Nearby, Ryan smirked. “The prelate? Who do you think was
keeping her here?”
Vaughn bristled. “Prelate Northrop is an influential man. If
you intend to accuse him of slave trading, you had better have
something to—”
Watts tossed Vaughn a small pouch, which he caught
awkwardly. “Something like that?”
Vaughn opened the pouch. His eyes widened, and then he
drew the strings tight, stuffing the bag into the folds of his shawl.
“We’re good.”
The middle-aged handler seemed ready to speak again when
a shadow fell over him, and he stopped short. With a breath, he
slicked back his hair and stared respectfully toward the nearest
pillar of the nave.
There, a shadow stood apart from the ones already cast by the
light. A tall and narrow figure with gleaming grey eyes leaned on
the pillar with its arms crossed. A grey tricorn atop the shadow’s
head dipped slightly as its owner stepped into the light. The face
was unmistakable if unexpected—sour, gaunt, and remarkable
only for its pencil moustache. Bolden Rebald, scout general of the
Cygnaran Reconnaissance Service, joined them.
20 | MILES HOLMES

“I’d like a minute alone with the captain and his squad,” he
said quietly.
“Of course, sir.” Vaughn withdrew, blending in quickly among
his agents.
Lynch shook hands with Rebald. “Little late for an evening
stroll, isn’t it, sir?”
“A good operation here, Captain. Efficient.” Rebald ignored
the pleasantry, glancing from Lynch to Watts and then to Ryan.
Each nodded deference.
“We were lucky,” Lynch offered. “Caught them saying their
prayers.”
Ryan shook her head in disgust while Watts flashed his crooked
grin at the captain’s black sense of humor.
“It’s not luck,” Rebald corrected him. “Neither did luck bring
you back alive from Khador last year.”
“Where you going with this, sir?”
“I have another assignment for the Black 13th. It won’t be easy.
In fact, it would be a death sentence for most.”
Lynch watched with consternation as Watts and Ryan
exchanged grins. “Could you clarify that before these two run off
half-cocked ahead of me?”
Rebald paced, moving around the pew Watts had used for
cover just a short time ago. He stopped to regard a stained-glass
window fashioned by the Radiance of Morrow. “What do you
know about Captain Allister Caine?”
Lynch hesitated. “Are you referring to the warcaster?”
Rebald turned to face the captain, clasping his hands behind
his back. “Do you know of another?”
Lynch pursed his lips. “He deserted two years ago, sir. No one
has seen or heard from him since.”
“In fact, he has been seen. Here in Cygnar, and quite busy if
you take my meaning.”
Lynch watched Rebald, his instincts telling him the spymaster
had weighed his words carefully and that they carried far more
information than Rebald was prepared to reveal. Of course,
Rebald knew Allister Caine had been a friend of the Black 13th.
 MARK OF CAINE | 21

They were alumni even, trained as fellow gun mages; they’d

essentially served together dozens of times on combined missions,
though only a few times directly. Caine’s actions had likely saved
their lives once or twice, if Lynch were to be completely honest
about it. Unfortunately, Rebald also knew Lynch as a man of
unflinching duty.
Lynch looked to his crew with reluctance. Ryan and Watts’
expressions had also lost all their earlier enthusiasm to be replaced
by frowns of doubt.
“Doing what, sir?” The gun mage turned to Rebald once more.
“Spying for the reds.”
Lynch blinked. Even a proper twitch upon Rebald’s face would
have betrayed his words if they were lies, but what tremor Lynch
thought he had just glimpsed was there and gone so quickly, he
couldn’t be sure it had even happened. Nevertheless, the statement
in and of itself was absurd.
“Sir, Caine is a lot of things. A drunk, certainly. A cheat and
a cad, I’ll grant you. He’s an insufferable ass on a good day but,
more important, a welcome relief on a bad one. The one thing he’s
not, sir, is a turncoat.”
Rebald was unmoved. “His disguise was so perfect, it fooled us
all, Captain. Even you. The truth, I’m afraid, is that somewhere
along the way, the Caine we knew ceased to exist.”
The spymaster spoke with such certainty, Lynch could only
step back with a heady exhale, exchanging troubled glances with
his crew.
Rebald looked at the trail of blood crossing the floor. “I’ve a
source who suggests he may be using the town of Prescott as a base
of operations. If we are lucky, we might catch him there before he
moves again.”
Lynch conceded with clenched teeth that Prescott was a logical
place to lay low and make clandestine meetings. It was quite
remote, with relatively easy access to Ord and eventually Khador.
He removed his tricorn with a sigh, running a hand through his
short-cropped greying hair. “So, you want us to bring him back.”
“There’s no taking prisoners when it comes to Caine, Captain.
22 | MILES HOLMES

You of all people know this. Neither would he show you any
such mercy if he catches wind that you are coming up over his
shoulder. Trust me on this point—I’ve already lost good men
trying.” Rebald shook his head. “So, let us be clear on this point:
you will find Caine, and you will kill him.”
 — CHAPTER 4 —
OF FUNGUS AND FIREFIGHTS

The town of Prescott

CAINE HAD BEEN FOUND AGAIN. Just like in Steelwater Flats. Just
like in Five Fingers. And he’d been found all those times even
after ditching his smoke-belching, three-ton, sore-thumb of a
warjack, Ace. But he might as well have kept Ace as an asset, given
how things had played out over and over. Worse, he’d been found
this time by no one less than a bloody kid this time. Caine was
both furious and bleary eyed as he staggered through Prescott’s
darkened main avenue, a half-empty bottle of uiske in one fist.
“Show ’em mercy, and they’ll never let up,” he muttered as he
took another pull.
Leaving the kid alive had been a mistake. A younger Caine
would have put him in the dirt and been done with it. Better
him than you, that Caine would have justified to himself. But not
this older Caine; no, older Caine had enough to lose sleep over
24 | MILES HOLMES

without adding dead kids to the mix.

It had to stop somewhere.
He felt the uiske burn his throat and swallowed hard. He’d
done his best to dissuade the kid. Caine could only hope it would
be enough to put real fear in the kid, enough to convince junior
bounty hunter to steer clear and keep his mouth shut.
“Does it matter?” Caine snarled with a whisper. “If the kid
could find me, it’s only a matter of time until someone else can,
too. So, start packing, brother. That’s the only play yet got left.”
He grimaced over the fire in his bottle that ignited a new fire
in his gut.
“I’m not leaving,” he spat to no one in particular. “Not again.”
“We wouldn’t have that,” a woman called out from behind
him. Laughter followed.
Startled, Caine whirled to find a gaggle of women in tight-
fitting corsets and revealing lace pass him by. One and all, they
smiled at him—they knew him as their patron of evenings past
and possibly future. He tipped them a polite if clumsy bow before
stumbling on.
The bounty on him was at the heart of this, and it had changed
everything.
“You’re a sick man to post it, Rebald,” he said aloud. “Yeh don’t
have a deep enough roster of assassins of yer own to send my
way?”
Caine had watched endlessly for killers since he’d disappeared
into “retirement.” So far, there had been two major attempts. The
first had been a trio of female assassins who had tracked him to
Steelwater Flats. It had been awhile before he could sleep after
that fight, but the trio had been dealt with. Then had come the
ogrun and dwarf duo, hitting him right when he came out of an
outhouse. Caine had to admit the big guy had moved fast for his
size. Win or lose, they were fair fights at least, but he didn’t think
it mattered much if they’d taken him down in the end. He didn’t
have much of anything to live for anyway.
But just the same, this?
This was nothing but sick. To offer his bounty up to the public
 MARK OF CAINE | 25

meant any boy-next-door with a pistol and delusions of grandeur

might try his luck against him. Allister Caine, a battle-hardened
warcaster, for Morrow’s sake. Rebald might as well have been
cutting their throats himself. And in the most recent showdown,
Caine would have been well within his rights to pop the kid.
Instead, sooner or later, his mercy would come back to bite him
in the ass. He lurched forward, hurling his nearly empty bottle in
aimless anger. It shattered against the blacksmith’s brick wall as he
careened down the street.
“Hey!” someone called.
He needed another bottle, and he needed it now.
“Hey!” an old vagrant squeaked louder, sitting on the ground
with his back to the wall. From under a tangle of rags, the old man
shook away the shards of glass and uiske that had just showered
him. He dusted himself off, his alert grey eyes narrowing up at
Caine from a dirt-streaked face. “I’m not here fer target practice.”
Absently, Caine looked over his shoulder as he passed the man.
He shrugged. “Sorry, old-timer. Didn’t see yeh there.”
He walked on, unaware he’d added insult to injury by kicking
over the vagrant’s collection bowl.
“Bah.” The old man spat, gathering in disgust his overturned
tin and its scattered contents.
Caine wandered on in his drunken stupor, turning the matter
over in his head in time with the booze. There were other ways to
stay hidden—magic, for one. It was not the first time he’d thought
about this. He was a warcaster, after all. While his particular gift
of magic had been honed for the battlefield and for the control of
the fighting machines known as warjacks, there were other kinds
of magic as well. People were out there spinning witchcraft that
could make unwelcome eyes slide off a man as easily as Caine
could bank a shot, if only he knew where to find them.
So, if Rebald had given up on contract killers to let anyone
with a happy trigger finger have a go at him, maybe the time to
look was now. Faced with the prospect of murdering hapless fools
or hitting the road each time one recognized him, he could think
of nothing else.
26 | MILES HOLMES

Ahead, he could hear the marketplace before he could see it,

the shouts of haggling and the music of flutes slowly reaching
his ears. He rounded a corner, and the market unfolded before
him: farmers, butchers, and tradesmen with their wares. All to
be expected. Soon enough, he even spied the obnoxious carpet
merchants from the day before, the rolls of their trade stacked
around the back of their cart. They were gathered over a fire,
warming their hands of the evening chill and complaining of taxes
still.
From stall to stall Caine roamed, eventually locating that
corner of the market where snake oil salesmen and sideshow
freaks gathered. Radiz blew through every corner of Immoren,
and here was where they ultimately accounted for themselves in
Prescott. Self-proclaimed conjurers, musicians, fortune-tellers,
and alchemists, they sat by their tables and booths, their trinkets
arrayed for sale. Drunk as he was, Caine figured there was no
harm in a lark here to amuse himself with them. He knew a fraud
when he saw one, just as he’d know the real thing were it ever
before him, and the first Radiz stall to catch his eye was exactly the
farce he expected to find. A handwritten sign card over a rack of
flimsy garments told him everything he needed to know.
Vanishing shawl, 7 crowns.
2 for 10.
He laughed out loud, passing the merchant as she glared at
him. Yet behind the booth of the next, a portly Radiz with a
complexion of oak met his gaze with a sly nod. “Her wares are
frauds—” He met her scowl with one its equal. “-but if you wish
to move unnoticed, I truly have what you need.”
Caine paused on unsteady feet before the merchant, forcing
himself to assume an expression of stern consideration.
“Of course yeh do,” he mumbled, scanning the man’s table.
He assessed the glimmer of liquids in rows of corked flasks. The
merchant followed his gaze, his heavy-lidded eyes narrowing to
adjust his tactics.
Caine regarded the merchant with suspicion, but his curiosity
bested him. “So, let’s see it.”
 MARK OF CAINE | 27

With careful consideration, the merchant selected a particular

vial, making a great show of caution before displaying it to Caine.
“Very potent, my friend. One sip and a ghost you’ll seem, for an
hour at a time.” The man’s eyes were wide now, deadly serious.
Caine squinted at the liquid, unsure if it was the uiske lending
legitimacy to the man’s words. But his closer inspection settled
the matter at once: the silvery liquid was pretty, but there was no
magic there. With a show of annoyance, Caine snatched the flask,
surprising the merchant. He then quaffed it in a single gulp.
He smiled a drunk’s smile, tossing the spent flask to the ground.
“Am I a ghost to yeh, then?”
The merchant bristled, his features hardening. “You owe me
fifty crowns. And you should have taken your time with it.”
“I’ll pay yeh just as soon as yer hooch does what yeh claim it
does, chum.” Caine smiled still.
“I’ll summon the watch,” The merchant threatened, though
his tone seemed far less vehement in saying so.
“Do that. I expect yeh’ll be the one to suffer for it. Get yer
arse tossed in the can, yeh charlatan.” Caine shook his head and
pressed on.
He walked the length of the market, all the way to the sidewalk
alongside an undeveloped lot beyond it. A cool trickle slithered
down into his belly like a finger of ice. He took a breath, feeling
a flutter in his chest and an odd sensation besides that. A young
lady with a scarf tied over her hair loomed close.
“Hello,” he said, dipping his head. He was rattled by the
sensation of fluids moving loosely through his innards, but he still
found it within him to smile for a lady.
The woman looked back at him in surprise, managing to return
an awkward smile his way. “Hello,” she replied and kept walking.
Caine watched her go, raising his hand to pull at his chin.
He noticed then how his hand was fading into nothingness. He
looked down at himself. By degrees, he watched his entire body
disappear out from under him.
He was as air.
Caine hooted, amazed that it had actually been such a simple
28 | MILES HOLMES

thing all this time. Now he wished he’d looked sooner.

But then the ground tilted, forcing him into a lurching sidestep
just to keep his balance. He felt a momentary twinge of confusion.
It was as if the very street before him swelled like the waves of the
ocean. Even the marketplace behind him wavered in the breeze.
Caine staggered a step over the rise and dip of the cobblestone,
aiming for the center of the lot, where a lone tree stood next to
a group of workmen gathered to warm their hands by the fire
pit of a steel drum. At the base of the tree he flopped down to
rest his head in his hands. Finally, he glanced toward the men.
Their conversation had grown hushed on his arrival; now they
regarded him with curious nods. Caine opened his mouth to
greet them, only to clamp it shut in shock because even as the
landscape settled down, the men before him transformed into
great furry rabbits. Their whiskers gleamed in the fire, and their
great quivering saucers for eyes slowly grew wider and wider…
Caine blinked hard, over and over, until the rabbits were men
once more. They stared at him again, as oddly as if he had a horn
growing from his head. Curiously, he felt for one…and there it
was.
“Oh my.” Caine swayed on his feet. “This is powerful good
stuff.”
He then swore out loud, dumbfounded by the impact on him.
The men laughed at his outburst. Another time, Caine might
have done the same. That the merchant’s liquid might actually do
something was a possibility he hadn’t even considered. The only
question now was, had he gone and poisoned himself? Caine got
to his feet with a scowl and a steadying breath.
The men by the fire watched him still. “You got any more?”
Caine ignored the question. He turned to stomp erratically
back toward the merchant’s wagon.
•••

“WHAT DID YEH PUT IN THAT?” CAINE had the merchant by the
scruff of his frayed tunic. He pulled the stout little man close
enough to see mystical worms burrowing through his beard, his
 MARK OF CAINE | 29

panicked eyes glittering like diamonds until they actually became

diamonds. Caine swallowed hard, blinking reality forcibly back
into place, if only for a moment.
“Carovin! It’s simple carovin and wormwood!” the merchant
confessed, terrified by Caine’s crazed expression.
Caine sighed—only the hallucinogenic effects of a mushroom.
Not poison unless taken in large quantities, though a contraband
substance to be sure. “Maybe I ought to fetch the watch after all.
Who knows what yeh have in there.”
He peered past the merchant’s shoulder and into his candle-lit
wagon. There, he could see the gleam of many trinkets come to
life, all of them bouncing up and down with a sing-song chant.
“Please.” The merchant squirmed. “I know a man. If anyone
can get what you want, it’s him. I swear it.”
Caine narrowed his eyes, the sweat of intoxication beading on
his forehead. “Careful, chum. If yer lying again, I won’t be all civil
like this twice.”
“I’m very serious.” The man reached into a pocket, pulling out
a scrap of paper. “Here. Do you see?”
Caine warily regarded an address scrawled on the scrap, a name
above it. “Marius Janz?”
“Yes. Tell him Farzha sent you.”
Caine released the merchant and left the market without so
much as a backward glance.
He could hardly think. This Janz character was going to have
to wait until tomorrow. Between the uiske and the hallucinations,
Caine suspected he was about done. Even his bed seemed to have
come looking for him as he walked. There it was, on the corner.
Then it appeared again next to the trough at the post office. It
dogged his every step as he tried to get home.
“I am entirely too old for this.” He rubbed his temple, desperate
to be over the influence of all that both ailed him and motivated
him.
A woman’s voice spoke nearby. “Why don’t you come see me
anymore, Johnny?”
Caine kept walking, his assumed identity just about the last
30 | MILES HOLMES

thing on his addled mind.

“Johnny, Wait.” Now a hand was on his arm. With a sigh,
Caine turned to find Silvie Laucks, the butcher’s daughter and
a one-time intimate acquaintance, by his side. He regarded the
freckled-faced brunette wearily. Her hair had been tied into long
braids, and under her cloak, a snug white blouse hugged ample
curves. He thought it likely she was returning home from an
evening at the King’s Boot, just as she had been doing the night
they’d first met. Taking her in, he remembered being enamored
even of her little upturned nose. But in truth, the answer to her
question lay in that she always smelled like her father’s shop,
regardless of her perfume. Caine sniffed her now with distaste.
He was reminded of the hogs hanging from her father’s storefront
window. Accordingly, her upturned nose turned into a hog’s snout
before him. The effects hadn’t quite worn off just yet.
Silvie balked. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“No reason.” Caine grimaced. “Listen, I promise yeh we’ll get
together soon. It’s just that right now. . . Well. . .”
“What’s wrong?” She looked after him with sad eyes.
Caine flinched, his silver tongue failing him badly this far from
sober. “Can we talk about it later? Yeh’ve no idea the day it’s been.”
He was walking as he spoke, uncomfortably aware that she
hadn’t let go of his arm yet. If he didn’t brush her off soon, the
odds were entirely good she’d wind up back in his room. And
that smell.... He shuddered. As her nose became her own again,
he gave her another look and found himself willing to endure the
scent of raw pork after all.
The pair rounded the corner, arm in arm now. There ahead:
home at last. The King’s Boot awaited his return with light
spilling from every window and the welcoming noise of a raucous
crowd despite the late hour. Caine decided it was best take the
back door—he vaguely recalled something about settling up with
Rollie and missing the deadline to do so yet again.
He squinted at the clique of patrons hovering around the front
door a few dozen yards ahead. The usual drunks sauntered about,
but two men stood apart, two men in grey dusters. He regarded
 MARK OF CAINE | 31

the weather-beaten bowlers pulled tightly down to their eyes, and

he knew their look at once: this was muscle on the clock. But given
his precarious state, he hesitated then tugged at Silvie’s elbow.
“Yeh see those two, darlin’? Them with the bowlers. Are they
real or am I just seeing things?”
Silvie cocked a mystified eyebrow at him. “Course they’re real,
Johnny. But they don’t look friendly at all.”
Caine sighed.
“And why they looking this way?” she asked.
Without hesitation, Caine swept her into his arms, kissing
her full on the mouth. The pair fell back against the wall of the
post office in a hasty show of passion. Silvie moaned in genuine
pleasure as Caine turned her, tracing a line from her rouged lips
down her slender neck, all while he held his breath. Stealing a
glance toward the King’s Boot, he spied the men looking away.
Satisfied, he abruptly pulled away from Silvie, gripping her by the
shoulders as he held her at arm’s length.
“Darlin’,” he said, “we gotta say goodnight.”
Silvie looked toward the men in dusters. “This the trouble you
been meaning to tell me about?”
He nodded. “I don’t want yeh to get hurt now. So, go on.
Another time.”
She stole a final kiss from him as she slipped away. “You come
see me soon, Johnny,” she whisper-called back to him. “There’s
something we need to talk about. It’s important.”
“Yeh know I will,” Caine lied.
He blew her a kiss as she disappeared into the shadows in one
direction, he the other. He ran around the back of the post office,
slipping up the block through its cluttered alley. He hurried past
trash and shadow alike before doubling back to the street front,
coming up short at a corner at the edge of a gas lamp’s reach. The
men were still there, now talking to a third who had emerged
from within the tavern.
Ten yards away, shadows on the other side of the street
beckoned to him with the promise of safety. Caine looked to
the exact spot where he wanted to be and called upon his magic.
32 | MILES HOLMES

The rush filled him; he closed his eyes. Opening them an instant
later, he found himself ten yards to the inch from where he’d just
been, now buried in the shadows he’d coveted before. With a deep
breath and a dizzy sway, he nodded to himself, working his way
around to the alley behind the King’s Boot.
A tenement with a fire escape was to the right, and the King’s
Boot back door was to the left. A single gas lamp at the door lit
the entire setting, and Caine could only groan at what it revealed
to him. Two more heavies in dusters sat on crates by Rollie’s trash
bins, playing casually at cards while murderous hand cannons
jutted from their holsters. The glint off the weapons’ metal was
a telltale sign of killers under the spotlight. A dozen horses were
hitched at the edge of the gas lamp light as well, a clear enough
sign to Caine that their owners did not want their presence
known; otherwise, they’d be hitched out front. But the pair and
their horses weren’t the only problem waiting for him. In the dim
light, Caine could make out the lanky silhouette of a young man
atop one of the horses. He sat slouched, either despondent or
asleep in the saddle. Obscured though he was, Caine could make
out a sling over his left arm.
The bounty hunter.
Wonderful.
“So, it’s like that?” Caine whispered, pulling his beard with a
scowl. The kid was starting to rankle him something fierce. You
should have done you both a favor and killed him, he reminded
himself.
Farther down the alley, the sudden grating of metal and a hiss
of steam snapped the two hired muscle from their card game.
They were on their feet with guns drawn in an instant, but they
didn’t see Caine as he crept closer behind the cover of trash.
“It’s just a blessed steamjack, Charlie,” the first said to the
second. Caine looked past the pair, coming to the same conclusion.
A lumbering Freebooter steamjack, thirteen feet tall, was hauling
trash from inside Rand Cooper’s shop to the back alley using
its oversized pincers. With lurching steps, the steam-powered
automaton dropped garbage roughly to the ground, smoke gently
 MARK OF CAINE | 33

curling from the chimney on its back. It then wheeled about with
a clockwork stutter and returned from whence it came with great
thudding steps.
The pair turned back to their game. “Just being careful,” the
one called Charlie said, shrugging.
“The hell you are. If you’re trying to cheat me again, it’ll end
in tears. Mark me.” The other man looked over the cards left on
the crate.
Caine surveyed the spot immediately behind the men and
squinted with exaggerated difficulty. He held his hands out on
either side—the precise distance he reckoned their heads to be
apart. Then he was gone. In an instant he was back, now behind
the men. He brought his hands to grip their heads by the back
of their skulls, and with a forceful shove, brought them crashing
together.
He watched them fall to the ground in a heap. But to his
hallucinating eyes, they seemed to melt like butter in a pan as
they sprawled.
“Oh, for crying out loud.” He shook his head and rubbed one
eye.
One of the pair groaned at his feet. He quickly pulled the kid’s
pistol, leveling it square in the center of the melting man’s ever-
widening head.
“Best yeh stay down, chum,” he gasped, desperate for breath
and his wits alike. “I ain’t looking to kill nobody tonight, but that
won’t stop me if yer push tests my shove.”
In fact, it wasn’t just hallucination that dogged him now. Caine’s
gift was taking its toll, too. Magic required effort. It demanded
focus and conditioning. It was actually no less work than hauling
weight, but it was done by willpower alone. And in that respect,
Caine had gone soft quite a while ago. It wasn’t laziness, only a
fugitive’s attempt to avoid attention. Same reason his armor and
his guns were all but useless to him at this moment, given that
they were tucked under his bed up on the second floor. Finally,
the fact that he was drunk off his ass wasn’t helping much, either.
Caine’s last jump had come too soon after the one before it,
34 | MILES HOLMES

and it left him badly winded. Still, he watched his victims for
signs of consciousness but now did so while bent over with his
hands to his knees, panting for air. Gradually his heart stopped
racing, and his victims became less like melting butter and more
like men knocked senseless.
“Good,” He said, glancing around to the young man in the
saddle. The kid had been roused by the shuffle and had turned to
observe the scene. Finding a glowering Caine advancing on him
with pistol trained, the bounty hunger blanched, backpedaling to
escape his saddle.
Caine raised a hand, focusing his magic once more. For all the
frustration the kid had caused him, this little trick would be worth
it. The invocation was one of the first he’d learned; it came back
to him as easily as tipping a bottle. He’d used it until the academy
had taught him to focus it into one of his most powerful spells.
Amid a circle of runes, gossamer tendrils spilled from his hand,
bridging the gap between him and the mounted young man in an
instant. His magic slammed the boy from his mount and into the
garbage bin behind him. The stricken teen cried out, nursing his
arm in the sling as he fell.
Caine was upon him quickly, the pistol’s muzzle pressed to the
bounty hunter’s forehead as he struggled to rise in the filth. “What
did I tell yeh would happen if I caught yeh back here?”
“I’m sorry, mister, I swear!” The kid ducked under his good
hand, head down, crying, on the verge of hysteria. “My Pa beat it
out of me. I tried to—”
Caine focused on the kid, seeing the telltale signs of a beating
in the boy’s black eye. As he focused on the young man’s terrified
face, the entire heap of trash seemed to come alive around them.
The hallucinogenic sensation was fast turning his legs to jelly. He
withdrew his pistol and stumbled back a few steps.
“Get ahold of yerself. I’m not gonna kill yeh, kid. Not yet
leastways.”
“You all right?” The young man peeked through the shield of
his hand, his eyes wide. Caine glared at him. “No, really. I’m not
just talkin’. You don’t look so good.”
 MARK OF CAINE | 35

Caine shook his head, sweat dripping from his brow. “It’s not
my best day. But I promise yeh any man crosses me will have it
worse. Yer pa included.”
“Then you’d best not go inside. Pa is after your head, Mr.
Caine.”
Caine looked to the back door warily then to the narrow
kitchen windows overlooking him and the boy. “So I figured.
Unless yeh want to end up an orphan, yeh’d better start talking.”
The kid swallowed, lowering his hand at last. “A couple of Pa’s
men are out front, but I expect you knew that coming in this way.
Charlie and Byron there—,” He gestured to the sprawled pair.
“—you already dealt with.”
“And the rest?”
“Six more spread around the bar. But he and his best man are
waitin’ in your room.”
Caine stared up at the dark window of his tiny second floor
room and blinked to dispel the tremor that faintly rippled it.
Getting his armor and pistols back was going to be harder than
he’d thought. It was an awful risk to make blind jumps; appearing
where something else already was would make a hell of a mess,
after all. On any other day, he might chance it. But jumping blind
into a room with people present when he couldn’t even think
straight? Caine sighed. “Yer killing me, kid.”
“What are you gonna do?” The boy rose from the trash.
Caine looked down at the kid’s pistol in his hand. Six shots, he
noted. “Ask yer pa come the morning.”
With a flick of the wrist, he tossed the pistol into the air as
the young man just watched, his jaw slack. As the weapon spun
around, he grabbed it by the barrel, and in one fluid motion,
pistol-whipped the kid across the head. The boy collapsed back
into the rubbish like a pile of bricks, his eyes rolled back in his
head. Caine avoided looking at him too closely, fearful he might
see some hallucination of a pile of bricks in the shape of an
unconscious man. Instead, he glanced between the horses and the
back door. Yeah, that might work.
In three strides, he was among the horses, patting down their
36 | MILES HOLMES

saddlebags for anything of use. While he found ammunition in

large supply, he found nothing more than a knife to arm himself
with. As he sidled ahead to cut the reins free from the fire escape,
a nearby Cardovar mare sniffed at him with curiosity.
You got an apple? it seemed to ask with deadpan earnest.
“Next time,” Caine growled. “Now, git.”
He smacked it on the hindquarters and sent it running.
One after another, he set each horse galloping away down
the alley. When he was finished, he turned to the door, barreling
into the building. He plowed through Rollie’s kitchen and past a
blank-faced Gwyn. But he stopped short of entering the dining
hall, instead cupping a hand to his mouth as he stood on the
threshold.
“Caine is out back,” he shouted. “He’s taking our horses!”
Without waiting to see a response, he ducked past Gwyn on
the rebound, flashing a wink her way as he went. Outside again,
he took cover on the alley side, opposite the direction the horses
had fled. He waited, pistol at the ready. He felt he didn’t have
another jump in him just yet, but then again, that was far from his
only trick. With a deep breath, he drew from his well once more,
just a little this time. The air around answered his call, shimmering
until he looked no more than a blur, helping him blend into the
shadows around him. He clenched his teeth and waited.
Out the door burst a crew of hard-boiled men, who stared
in the dim light, trying to make sense of what they saw: three of
their own face-down, the horses racing away. Three, five, eight.
Caine counted silently as they piled out. If the kid spoke true,
that was the lot of them. He picked out a great barrel-chested man
with long sideburns and a harelip, brandishing a heavy-bore rifle.
If Caine didn’t know better, he’d also say the man was scuttling
along on a set of four shiny black beetle legs.
“After them!” he shouted.
“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Pa,” Caine whispered,
raising one finger in a mock salute.
As he’d anticipated, the posse dashed the length of the alley
after their mounts. He dared not waste a precious second of his
 MARK OF CAINE | 37

diversion. Under cover of his magic, he slipped back inside. As he

passed through the kitchen, he let the magic slip, the air around
him no longer obscuring his form. He burst into the dining hall,
and Gwyn shook her head to find herself sidestepped once again.
Caine saw Rollie among the patrons, as dumbfounded as everyone
else was to witness the unfolding show.
“Where’s my money?” Rollie finally shouted as Caine bolted
for the stairs.
“Tomorrow, Rollie, I swear it!” he shouted back, climbing the
steps two at a time. Panting, he raced on questionable legs to his
room at the end of the hall. Entirely too old for this, he thought to
himself, not for the first time today.
His door was already open, just as he had expected to find it.
With practiced ease, he ducked inside and dove for the bed. On
hands and knees he reached for the farthest corner at the back of
the chamber, feeling for the slim wardrobe trunk he kept stashed
there.
He felt it but then immediately felt the kick of a boot across
his face.
Pa’s best man, Caine suspected as he reeled from the blow. Best
man for a reason.
He spat blood and turned to get a look at his attacker while
the room tilted all around him like a ship at sea. Worse than the
rapidly growing motion sickness was a more fatalistic concern:
his pistol had fallen out of his reach. A shadow reached him, and
he looked up. Over him stood not a man but a woman. She was
gaunt-faced, with skin as pale as a corpse’s. He could just make
out pointed ears jutting from under her wide-peaked cap.
Given his state, he couldn’t say if she was actually a Nyss—one
of the winter elves from the north—but the ringing of his jaw
made the distinction moot. It was clearly an enemy. She drew a
pistol-sized crossbow from the holster at her hip, and he watched
as the pointed end rotated in slow motion in his direction like an
uncoiling serpent. Either the crossbow or its owner hissed as it
took aim at him.
The window. Caine flashed from reality, reappearing suspended
38 | MILES HOLMES

in the cool night air, ten feet above the alley where he’d just been.
He couldn’t see it, but he heard the twang of a spent crossbow on
the opposite side of the wall followed by the reverberating knock
it made as it passed through the place where his head had just been
and drove into the wall. Caine flailed as gravity took hold, pulling
him hard down to the cobblestones below. His heart raced with
both the strain of his magic and the rush of falling. He landed
hard, groaning and rolling into the same garbage pile where the
young bounty hunter lay unconscious still.
“Yer a real pain in the ass, yeh know that?” he rasped at the
young bounty hunter. He struggled to his feet. The uiske and
mushrooms made the alley sway, but he pressed on, his stumbling
gradually becoming a trot.
Shots rang out behind him, one buzzing angrily over his
shoulder. He ducked behind a bin to the right, painfully aware
his pistol had not made it out of the room with him. Crouched
behind his cover, he stole a glance to see the Nyss had already
exited the King’s Boot and was closing in. Worse, two men had
doubled back from the diversion of the horses and were with her.
Caine panted as the noose drew tighter. He looked the length
of the alley—he’d never make it out without taking a shot in the
back first. Unless...
He closed his eyes, reaching out with his mind.
In the darkness, he felt the simple thoughts of the Freebooter
steamjack he’d seen in the alley before. With all the concentration
he could muster, he forced himself into its cortex with his magical
gift. Ordinarily he’d need to be standing right next to it, but by
straining, he was able to reach it. It helped that its cortex was far
simpler than the warjacks he was used to and lacked the locks
intended to keep someone like him out. He pried the thing’s eyes
open through willpower alone, and then he took stock of what he
could now see through its eyes.
Before him now was Rand Cooper’s metal shop—tools on the
wall and wrought iron pieces scattered on the floor around him.
A hearth burned brightly to his right, the smith stoking it for
service. To his left was the double-wide door to the alley. Flexing
 MARK OF CAINE | 39

the ’jack’s pincers—what were now Caine’s pincers—he lurched

the metal automaton forward into an awkward charge, leaving
Rand Cooper to stare in amazement after his departing steamjack.
He smashed the ’jack through the ironbound door and out
into the alley, sending wreckage scattering in all directions. Steam
whistled from his efforts, and the ground shook as Caine stomped
via the ’jack past his own physical self to greet his pursuers.
The looks on their faces were precious. Their eyes were so
wide, they might pop from their heads. They were all shouting
now. Only the Nyss kept her mettle, managing to fire a bolt at
the steamjack before being forced back. Courageous though it
was, her fire only bounced harmlessly off the thick metal of his
newfound skin. Caine lunged for her with a mighty pincer, but
she retreated with a hasty backflip.
“Good enough,” he grunted, releasing the steamjack to press
the fight without him. He snapped entirely back into his own
consciousness, the cortex of the steamjack left behind.
He needed distance now, not a stand-up fight. The noise of
the scuffle would draw Pa and his men soon enough if he kept
it going. He opened his own eyes, panting, and got to his feet
one more time. Behind him, the metal giant moved erratically,
seemingly uncertain why it had come to the alley in the first place.
Just the same, the ploy had served, driving Caine’s attackers back
into the safety of the King’s Boot for the moment at least. He
continued his escape down the alley, glancing into the shop the
steamjack had burst clear of while avoiding the wreckage of the
door. Caine waved to the blacksmith within. The man was rooted
to the spot in confusion.
“Sorry, Rand!” Caine called as he ran.
The end of the alley drew near. He was clear. When he reached
the street front, he turned the corner and began to walk as casually
as he might with his hands in his pockets. He tried to control his
heavy breathing to appear more relaxed. Under gaslight, he peered
in all directions, sure he would find more guns upon him. But the
street was completely empty.
Except for one.
40 | MILES HOLMES

Caine blinked, unsure if his vision was his own again. In the
middle of the street stood the Radiz woman from the King’s
Boot at midday before. Her outfit was unchanged, and her eyes
gleamed at him across the darkness. She beckoned to him with
one hand. Caine frowned, seeing the broad circle of mist swirling
over the road, the hem of her skirt at its center. So ethereal did
she seem that he was convinced he was witnessing yet another
hallucination.
“Take my hand,” She finally said to him.
“Why would I do that?”
She frowned now, reaching for his hand with emphasis.
“They’re coming for you. Take it!”
Caine reached for the Radiz’s hand by reflex instead of
calculated thought. Grasping it, he saw a glyph on the inside of
her exposed forearm begin to glow. Her touch was cool, spreading
gooseflesh up his arm at once.
“Yeh gonna tell me what yer doing?”
The Radiz woman drew Caine closer, putting a pale finger to
his lips.
Before them, a half-dozen men spilled from around the corner,
breathless and brandishing guns. Caine saw the young man’s Pa in
the lead, huffing to catch his breath after the goose chase he’d led
them on. Behind him, the Nyss tracker and her escort burst from
the same alley where Caine had just emerged; they’d finally found
their way clear of the blacksmith’s stumbling steamjack.
Caine saw he and the Radiz woman had been caught standing
in the middle of the road between both groups. He knew they
were dead. Every fiber of his being wanted to run or jump clear,
but the Radiz woman held him fast with surprising resolve.
“Watch,” she whispered with her seductive accent in his ear.
Even in the middle of the tension, her perfume was not above his
notice. Much to his own surprise, Caine held fast. He looked one
way then the next with bated breath.
“You should have seen him by now,” the Nyss shouted, looking
right though Caine.
From the other side of the gap, a disgruntled Pa growled in
 MARK OF CAINE | 41

disgust. “Ain’t nobody come this way.”

“Your boy was right. He teleports,” The Nyss spat in disgust.
“But he’s drunk on uiske, by the stink of him. I nearly had the
oaf.”
Pa looked around, furious. “He’s got to be close. I want you to
form four groups of men and find him.”
Caine watched, mystified, as both parties in the conversation
completely overlooked him while staring directly through the
space he and the Radiz occupied. He could not account for what
he was seeing or what they were not seeing. Stealth magic, he knew.
In fact, his bonded warjack, the hunter prototype dubbed Ace,
had been fitted with an infiltration device from the very start. Not
surprisingly, Caine had depended on it many times. The finicky
device had been created at the Cygnaran Armory amid much
secrecy. When functioning, it left the pair of them little more than
a smudge in the eye of an onlooker, best used in the shadows or
the chaos of battle, but not making them truly invisible.
This was something else entirely.
Gradually, Pa led the men away, leaving Caine alone with the
Radiz. From his side she smiled, releasing his hand at last.
“Come. I have something you want, yes?”
 — CHAPTER 5 —
OF RESERVATIONS AND
RESOURCES

“I DON’T LIKE THIS. NOT ONE BIT,” Watts grumbled.

Beside him, a cross-armed Ryan rolled her eyes. “What would
you like, old man?”
“Well, how about that beauty?” He pointed with his scarred
chin, indicating a peculiar long-rifle on the rack above. The barrel
alone was five feet long, with gas canisters bolted alongside, and
a folding armature from butt to firing mechanism. He couldn’t
imagine what any of it might achieve, but a weapon so large must
surely pack a punch.
Quartermaster Rawling followed Watts’ gaze from behind
the counter and shook his head sympathetically. “Experimental
model. Still working out the kinks, Sergeant Watts.”
Watts sniffed. He looked at Ryan. “You know he’s one of us.
You telling me you buy this story Rebald is selling?”
44 | MILES HOLMES

She shrugged. “What if it is true? You know anyone else up for

taking down a rogue warcaster?”
“Oh, and that’s us, is it?” He pushed up his spectacles.
Ryan patted him on the shoulder with mock concern. “Not all
of us, dearie. Just you keep behind me. I’ll protect you from big,
bad Caine.”
“Arrogant and delusional. Nice. Why not send a warcaster fer a
warcaster? Lord General Stryker could handle this.”
Ryan shook her head. “Like he’s got nothing better to do. I’m
sure he could tell the war to go hang while he pokes about for
delinquents.”
“I’ve got it.” Watts raised one finger. “Captain Sloan. She’d put
a hole in him before he knew what was what, I reckon.”
The younger soldier shook her head. “Listen to you. ‘Put a hole
in him?’ A second ago you’re telling me he’s one of us. Which is
it?”
“All I’m saying is I don’t like it.”
Ryan nodded, a rare display of solidarity with her dour squad
mate. “I know what you mean. Caine would make a hell of a
notch.” She tapped her worn leather holster, already scored with
countless kills. “But regardless of how this turns out, it just feels
like we lose here.”
Lynch approached the pair from behind, putting a hand on each
of their shoulders. “Claim your gear and report to the range. This
man doesn’t give a rat’s ass about listening to your chatter all day,”
he said dryly, nodding in the direction of Quartermaster Rawlings.
“Not true, Captain.” The wizened quartermaster winked to
the captain of the Black 13th while thoughtfully twirling his long
waxed moustache. “I wholeheartedly enjoy the deep philosophy
these two dispense. At all hours. Endlessly.”
Watts frowned in concentration, half-dismissing Lynch’s
feeble attempt at sociability. The rack behind the quartermaster
stretched another five feet above the man, lined top to bottom
with weapons. Before him, arranged all neat and tidy, were dozens
of firearms of all shapes and sizes, both mundane and magical.
Revolvers, magelocks, pepper-boxes, and holdouts. One-shots,
 MARK OF CAINE | 45

two-shots, trench guns, and carbines. There were even firearms

disguised within melee weapons or hand tools. He paused to
regard a mechanikal sword fitted with a scattergun in the hilt.
He shook his head in disbelief. He considered his own magelock,
unsure what to take.
There was no denying he’d long envied Ryan’s sleek pair of
magically attuned firearms. But in truth, and as loathe as he was
to admit that truth, Ryan was the only member of the Black 13th
with enough aptitude to wield a pair. He stared at the rifle and
weighed his contribution to the crew despite the quartermaster’s
disclaimer.
The quartermaster regarded the gun mage with an arched
eyebrow. “If I may, Sergeant Watts,” he suggested, reaching below his
ancient wooden countertop to produce a small tin of ammunition
stamped with the icon of the royal armory. He slid it forward.
“What’re those, then?” Watts cocked his head.
“Platinum-cored shot.” Rawlings twirled his moustache again
for effect. “The armory has been dabbling with them for years.
Less predictable than your copper-cores perhaps, but surprisingly
responsive.” He spoke of the gun mage ability to invoke magic on
their magelocks, granting them superior firepower with a variety
of unique magical effects.
The process was complex, requiring every gun mage to attune
themselves to their weapons. Every shot fired was done so with
carefully carved runes. If prepared correctly, the weapon could take
on invocations, a complex pattern of magic transformed through
will and thought as mystical runes. These techniques were drilled
into gun mages in their earliest days at the Academy of the Arcane
Tempest. Cadets eventually formed invocations effortlessly even
in the chaos of battle.
The raw materials used in the construction of either weapon
or shot could further alter their ability to channel the power
of an invocation. Copper-cores were among the most reliable
ammunition available, and relatively inexpensive, but there were
other more expensive materials that offered more, or were better
suited to certain applications.
46 | MILES HOLMES

Watts grinned. He opened the tin and removed a single shot,

rolling it close to his spectacles like an appraising jeweler. The
bullet itself was visibly cored with rare platinum.
“As I say, Sergeant Watts,” Rawlings added, “This ammunition
is highly susceptible to arcane impulse. Do form your invocations
carefully.”
“In that case, I want some for myself.” Ryan reached across the
counter.
Watts regarded the grenades at her belt. “You already got
yours.”
She shrugged, swiping the tin just the same. “Yes. And if it’s all
the same to you, I’ll take these, too.”
•••

“WHAT DO YOU THINK, CAPTAIN?” Ryan fired downrange, striking a

moving target at the end of the gallery.
Lynch tracked her shots and focused on her impacts. “I think
a four-inch grouping is beneath you.”
“Not funny, boss.” She shook her head, then noticed his rebuke
was deserved. “Oh, bollocks.”
“I need you focused, Ryan. This mission will be hard enough
as it is, and we move out at dawn.”
“You know what she’s askin’ about, Cap’n,” Watts interjected,
loading his own magelock with the prize of his newly acquired
ammunition.
The captain set his weapon down on the stand and removed his
goggles to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Yes, I did.”
Both Watts and Ryan looked expectantly at him.
“And?” they asked in unison.
He looked downrange again with a sigh. The back-and-forth
motion of the targets made for an easy distraction, but their
question could not be avoided. “Rebald was telling some version
of the truth.”
Both of his subordinates’ faces registered their silent surprise.
Lynch put up a hand to hold off their comments. “Honestly,
who can ever say with that man? He’s practiced enough to sneak a
 MARK OF CAINE | 47

story past my peepers when he puts a mind to it.”

“I’m expectin’ there’s a ‘but’ coming?” Watts pressed.
“He wasn’t telling us everything, and as you well know, the
devil is in the details.”
“So, are we really doing this?” Ryan snapped open her weapon,
grabbing platinum-cores from her tin on the range stand.
“Orders are orders.”
The two soldiers exchanged glum expressions.
“However. . .”
They turned their attention back to their captain.
“I find it suspicious how trigger-happy Rebald was with this
‘shoot-on-sight’ business. When we find Caine, I intend to get his
side of the story. I think we owe him that much.”
Ryan winced. “If he’s really turned, that’s a mighty risky play,
boss.”
He nodded. “And that’s why I’m going to need better than
four-inch groupings. From both of you.”
Watts gazed downrange, grim-faced. “Is that why you called us
here before we head out, Cap’n?”
“Not entirely.” Lynch bent over to retrieve a canvas bag at his
feet. “I managed to get a supply of these from Rawlings. I want
you comfortable with them by day’s end.”
The pair holstered their weapons, crowding Lynch as he hefted
the sack and opened a flap. From within, he produced a spring-
loaded device with a small triangular-barbed hook. A spool of
wire wound about the device and fastened to the hook.
“Boarding hooks?” Watts cocked his head. “Are you intending
we take Caine at sea?”
“You know, I’ve seen these before.” Ryan beamed as she
examined the devices. “Or an earlier version, leastways. I didn’t
think they had them figured yet.”
“So, what are they?” Watts frowned.
“Grapplers. Custom-made to fit over your magelock.” Lynch
handed one to each of them.
Watts drew his pistol and inspected the grappler. He matched
the device to the muzzle and hooked it over then felt for the latch
48 | MILES HOLMES

in the back to hold it in place. Across from him, Ryan did likewise,
sighting down her modified weapon.
“I thought you said you’d seen these before? Like this,” Lynch
corrected her aim. “You want to aim high enough to hook over a
scalable surface.”
“Range?” She turned to the high stone wall on her right.
“Thirty yards. Swing or climb. Under your own steam, I’m
afraid. The spring will snap the line back in, but it’s not strong
enough to pull you up with it.”
The pair both nodded, still inspecting the device.
“What’s this do?” Watts pointed to a small stud at the back of
the grappler where it was fixed to the barrel of his magelock.
“An important detail, that.” Lynch nodded, indicating a small
yellow cylinder alongside the same button on his own grappler.
“The stud triggers a small charge from this tiny voltaic capacitor
here.” He ran his finger from back to front of the device, stopping
at the triangular spear-tipped hook. “It goes up the wire and into
the hook. When you need to recover your line, the claws will
retract.”
The sergeant nodded as a smirk formed on his face. “You
reckon we could grapple Caine with these?” He guffawed.
“Don’t be a moron.” Ryan scowled, still sighting with her
weapon.
Lynch regarded the older soldier dryly and licked his lips.
“The man we’re going up against can teleport, Watts. Teleport. If
it comes down to a foot race over uneven terrain, we lose. Period.
He’ll outdistance us and navigate the terrain in ways we can’t. So,
I wanted something to level that playing field a little.”
Watts set the device down at his own range stand then checked
his weapon. “No argument from me, Cap’n. I say we take whatever
we can lay hands on.”
Lynch crossed his arms. “All right, then. Why don’t you show
us what those platinum-cores can do.”
“Yeah, Watts. Put up and shut up.” Ryan goaded him with her
elbow.
Watts grumbled but approached the line at his alley with his
 MARK OF CAINE | 49

weapon holstered. He paused to think of an invocation, scratching

his head. Settling on a well-known pattern, he recombined it ever
so slightly to see what result might occur. Something flashy, he
reckoned.
Taking a deep breath, he looked to his moving target, fifteen
yards distant. Quickly, he drew and leveled his weapon at it.
“Flare,” he murmured, squeezing the trigger. It all happened in
a blinding draw from the hip that was intended to both impress
his audience and intimidate his would-be enemy.
A ring of colorful runes encircled his muzzle. His shot erupted
in a dazzling puff of glitter that fizzled into complete nothingness
before it could strike the target. For a moment, none of them
spoke. But only for a moment.
“Not your best work,” Lynch scolded.
“Yet oh-so-festive!” Ryan howled with laughter.
Watts scowled, his nose wrinkling with an inhale of glitter as
he reloaded. He traced a new pattern in his thoughts, something
he had been working on during the quiet hours of the day—after
all, not every bounty had to be brought in riddled with bullets.
But as he raised his magelock to fire again, his nose succumbed
to the powder’s tickle. He erupted in a sudden sneeze. His finger
reflexively tightened with the outburst and pulled the trigger
before he was halfway through his pattern.
The magelock spat indigo rune-fire.
“Bollocks!” he swore, wiping his nose with the sleeve of his coat.
He reached for another shot from his tin while his companions
stared at something downrange.
“Well, would you look at that,” Ryan said admiringly.
Watts looked up from his magelock. The moving target at the
end of his alley wasn’t moving anymore. Instead, an oversized
spider’s web of luminous clear strands now bound the device in
an impenetrable tangle. The revolving mechanism strained and
groaned against the resistance, but the target and the entire area
housing it were hopelessly clogged.
Lynch shook his head, a faint smile on his lips. “Bless you,
Watts.”
 — CHAPTER 6 —
OF BLOOD AND BARGAINS

“WAIT FOR ME, DAMMIT,” CAINE SHOUTED, his breath hanging in

the midnight air. He moved at nearly a jog, but the Radiz woman
was ever ahead and never closer. Near as he could tell, the tangle
of brier they skirted was guiding them to the woods west of Gus
River’s Mill. He absently brushed his coat clear of brambles as he
struggled to keep the woman in sight. In frustration, he watched
her closely for a moment, then closed his eyes in concentration. At
once, he vanished, to appear at her side an instant later.
“What’s yer hurry?” he huffed.
She slowed, half-turning to regard him with the same
mischievous eyes he had seen in the King’s Boot. “I am in no
hurry. You are simply slow.”
Caine frowned, still catching his breath as he kept pace with
her. “I reckon no one’s ever said that to me before.”
He caught her hand in his, its coolness nearly a match for the
52 | MILES HOLMES

night air. She stopped then and looked back his way quizzically.
With his free hand raised to ask for mercy, he paused to look back
the way they’d come. The valley behind them twinkled with the
tight knot of lights that was Prescott at the bottom of its gentle
bowl, and the footpath they traveled was faintly visible in the
moonlight. “Assuming my heart doesn’t explode first, where are
you taking me?”
The dark-haired woman pointed ahead with her free arm.
Through a break in the thorny shrubs, a solitary shack—
somewhere between quaint and derelict—had appeared. A wagon
and horse were hitched alongside it, and a faint curl of smoke
turned upward from the chimney inside. Caine thought it was
quaint, though hardly what he’d expect from a Radiz woman.
“My home for now.”
As they entered the cottage through a decrepit wooden door,
Caine noted the candles set in circles on the floor and along every
surface. A hearth illuminated a table, a simple cupboard, and
washbasin that sat next to a bed strewn with chicken feathers and
green baubles. He spied a trio of trunks bound in chains along
one wall. The space smelled faintly of rot, and he expected to find
dead vermin in a corner or two. “Charming.”
The Radiz paid him no attention, setting her candles alight
until their glow joined that of the hearth to make the entire room
flicker red. He slouched onto a chair in the corner, his elbows
resting on knees.
The woman moved from her candles to one of the trunks. “I
want you to tell me,” she said as she rifled through its contents.
“Tell yeh what?”
“Are you worthy?”
Again, that perfect accent. Caine licked his lips, gazing over to
the woman’s bed.
“I’m not sure I follow.”
She turned with an ugly curved dagger in her hand. Strange
runes glowed along the blade. Thamarite runes, Caine noted. Not
that Caine knew a great deal about such things, but he could
recognize them. Thamarites knew a lot about magic others did
 MARK OF CAINE | 53

not but had a dubious reputation. It did confirm this Radiz was
a witch. She watched him studying her weapon, her eyes now
glimmering with the same light as the runes. “You have seen my
gift. It is mine to give, so tell me: are you worthy?”
“Well this came to nothing fast.” Caine stood to go, certain
nothing of his life would qualify him as worthy for much of
anything in any capacity.
“Sit down,” she commanded, pointing to a chair in a corner.
Her face became sober, absent of all its former mischief. Between
the ugly dagger and the magic he’d seen her demonstrate, the
notion that this woman might be another one of Rebald’s contract
killers finally crept into his head. He liked to think he wasn’t that
naïve. Besides, she didn’t quite fit the profile. And she could have
made her play long before now if all she wanted was his head.
Caine sat down again.
Across from him, she sank to the floor cross-legged within her
circle of candles. The broad bowl of the copper brazier in front
of her glowed in the candlelight. On it were more deep markings
associated with the black magic of Thamar. The tip of her dagger
played along her overturned forearm, dipping toward the glyph
that had been carved there. As blade met glyph a faint crackle of
magic arced between them.
“I have been watching you.” Her almond eyes were like slits
now.
He cocked his head, fixated on the line her blade traced over
her bare skin.
“You are not like them.” She led with her chin in the direction
of Prescott. “You only pretend. You have a powerful gift. Like me.
You do not want to be found. Like me.”
He nodded.
“Why are people looking for you?”
“I won’t lie to yeh, lady. I leave heartbreak most places I been.”
“Like the girl?” She turned the point of her blade toward him.
“Yeh saw that, did yeh?” He sighed, thinking back to his
encounter with Silvie. “If only that was the extent of it. The kind
of heartbreak I’m talking about is in the widows I leave behind,
54 | MILES HOLMES

if yeh take my meaning. That’s what they pay me for. Well, they
used to, back in the day. Yeh know the funny thing?”
Her eyes were piercing and steady. She didn’t rise to the
rhetorical question, but he knew she was listening just the same.
“If I’d just been a good dog, there’d be no need for all this
skulking. But the moment I aim to do right? The moment I put
my foot down?” He shook his head. “Well, yeh see for yerself the
fuss that’s gone and made.”
“Maybe it is your destiny.”
“Then, lady, I’m as good as dead already.” He shook his head a
second time, this time more forcefully. “I ain’t going back.”
She nodded, her smile returning as her blade continued to
wind its way over her arm. “This answer pleases me.”
Caine snorted. “What’s yer story, then? I still don’t even know
yer name.”
“Ask me again the next time we meet.” She smiled seductively.
He shrugged. “Fine, then. Keep yer secrets.”
“Sit. Sit here.” She beckoned with her blade opposite the
brazier.
Caine followed her lead. The woman seemed to draw magic
from within as he imitated her and sat down cross-legged. Her
eyes closed, and she drew deep breaths. The bowl seemed to glow
as no candle could. He sniffed, finding her perfume stronger by
the moment.
“If yeh won’t tell me yer name, least yeh could do is tell me
what yer ward there does.”
He wondered if she’d even heard his words. The Radiz’s eyes
remained shut, and she had begun to whisper in an unfamiliar
language. Then, without warning, her whispering stopped. Her
eyes opened and focused on him with unnerving intensity.
“You will move through this world as a wraith. By your will, may
you move unseen in sunlight and be glimpsed only under the moons
of Caen. The weapons of men will not find you—their very minds
will cloud in your presence. This is my gift. Do you accept it?” She
held her hand out over the brazier. Her dagger waited close by.
He looked at both. With a breath, he held out his hand. “Not
 MARK OF CAINE | 55

many surprises left in this world for the likes of me. What have I
got to lose?”
The dark-eyed woman smiled. She clasped his wrist firmly,
pulling it over the brazier. When her dagger found his upturned
forearm just below the elbow, the blade burned white-hot against
his skin. His eyes watered from the pain, and he trembled as the
blade slowly etched a glyph. She resumed her whispered chant
faster and faster.
Caine looked down to avoid the sight of his wounding and
tried instead staring at the copper brazier. A dribble of his blood
trickled down into. A hiss rose from the heat marked with acrid
smoke. He blinked. He could swear the smoke moved as though
living, wriggling like a serpent as it curled up and out of the bowl.
“Too late to change my mind?” he muttered.
Whatever the effects of the mushroom extract or his uiske had
been, they were well past now. This was neither imagination nor
hallucination.
This was black magic.
He watched the curl of smoke grow larger, coiling around to
fill the room. As it grew, it enveloped both of them, and the room
took on an unearthly aura. Everything he saw became warped and
devoid of all color. Curiously, the smoke neither choked his lungs
nor brought tears to his eyes. The Radiz woman seemed to not
notice it at all as she dug the last mark of the glyph into his arm,
chanting still. With each breath he took, Caine found himself
swaying a little more, gradually losing his balance. He looked up
now, numb to the pain. He thought he could see a face over him.
He thought it was his own.
Suddenly, the woman released his arm, and he collapsed.
Darkness draped over him, leaving only her voice echoing around
him as if he had fallen to the bottom of a deep pit.
“Go forth,” she said.
But he found he could not.
 — CHAPTER 7 —
OF HANGOVERS AND HAVOC

SOMEONE WAS KNOCKING ON HIS DOOR.

Surprised, Caine turned over in his bed and opened one
eye. He had no recollection of returning to his room, but more
significant than that, he couldn’t imagine why nobody else was
dealing with that incessant banging. Morning’s light spilled in
through a window, striking him square in the face. He groaned
at its brightness, closed his eye, and rolled back onto his stomach
again. The pounding continued as he absently rolled his tongue
over his teeth. A fine film of scum coated them. Last night had
been one for the books, apparently. With great effort, he leaned
over the bed and spat phlegm onto the floor. And clearly, today
would not be dealt with by anybody else.
“Give me a minute,” he groaned toward the door.
Wait, he thought.
He shot straight up in bed, both eyes wide to take in his
58 | MILES HOLMES

surroundings. He was in his room at the King’s Boot. He stared at

the door expectantly, but it had fallen as silent as if the sound had
been in his dreams. His temples throbbed, and his every nerve felt
raw from head to foot.
Despite it being far from the first time he’d woken up in his
clothes or unsure of how he’d arrived somewhere, he could not
recall ever having a hangover this bad. Not even close. He swung
his feet over the edge of the bed and then sat very still. He regretted
every inch he traveled farther from his pillow.
“Well, that was an evening,” He muttered, cradling his head
in his hands.
He remembered his uiske binge; the throbbing of his skull
ruled out any doubt about whether or not he did that. He recalled
a Radiz charlatan peddling mushroom extract in a bottle that did a
number on him. He pulled his beard for a moment. Confirmation
most certainly followed.
He’d made questionable decisions last night that now seemed
likely to come back and bite him on the ass. Never mind that
reality and fancy had blurred together like blood in the water—
anybody who’d had half a mind to do him in could have done
so between the talking horses and his wandering bed. And Silvie
Laucks had been there. He hoped she wasn’t now Silvie Laucks
and Allister Junior. No telling how far he took bad decisions
under those circumstances.
There’d been a steamjack, he remember and groaned. Rand
Cooper’s steamjack, ploughed right out the back of his shop. He
dipped his head low in regret.
“Yeh are so screwed,” he muttered aloud.
The Radiz woman from the other day rescued him from the
bounty hunters. She’d just shown up, and the pair vanished right
in front of the entire posse. In the nick of time as it were. Then
they had gone back to her shack in the woods. He scoffed as he
considered the coincidence—and his own seemingly insatiable
lust. It meant something more than just happenstance.
“A bit convenient this woman would appear just like that and
what with the exact magic yeh been looking for. Come on, now.
 MARK OF CAINE | 59

Think.” Caine looked to his hands, flexing them.

More worrying than the uncertainty of last night’s events was
the mystery of his return to his room. After all the fuss he’d put up
in the King’s Boot, wouldn’t Rollie be pounding his door about
now? He scowled as he considered the bounty hunters and the
thought of their patient return. Caine smiled weakly.
“I think yeh just went a little overboard last night,” he reassured
himself. “The rest is no more than a bad dream.”
Just to be sure, he dipped his head under the bed. His wardrobe
trunks were just as he’d left them. He reached, grunting to find
the handgrip of the first. He grasped it, slid the trunk out, and
popped open the clasp on the front.
His twin Spellstorm pistols gleamed from where they rested
deep in the felt impression of the case. Polished to a mirror shine
and engraved with runes, they almost glowed in the beam of the
morning sun. Three dozen cartridges of shot had been tucked into
both ammunition hollows of the case lining as well.
Just as he had left it.
He closed the trunk shut and reached for the other. The weight
of the container suggested that it, too, was exactly as he had
initially packed it. When he opened the lid, he saw his armor lay
properly polished, inspection ready.
“Greaves to the left. Bracers to the right. Chimney below.
Breastplate above, and both shoulder pads across the breastplate,”
he recited his old barracks routine, inspecting every buckle or
cable of the mechanikal suit.
Everything was accounted for. He sighed with relief. Gone, of
course, was the blue of Cygnar’s flag—the suit had been painted
over in black now. The chevrons of his rank and the Cygnus of
his nation had been pried from the shoulders, all of which were
appropriate modifications, given his fugitive status. Beyond that,
nothing seemed out of place.
More out of whimsy than concern, he reached beneath the
bulk of his armor, feeling for the full-length duster he’d folded
there. A long-time trademark of his panoply, he’d also kept it
stashed to avoid being found, but now he missed the feel of the
60 | MILES HOLMES

supple leather and the distinct smell of its quality.

It was only then Caine noticed the cuts on his inner forearm.
He quickly turned his arm to see the glyph, whole and ugly
on his flesh. It seemed to be his only fixed point as an unexpected
dizziness took him. He put his other arm to the bedframe, his
heart pounding. The ritual. He swallowed. Memories of candles,
a curved dagger, and an entity made of smoke that coiled like a
serpent around him. All of it came flooding back in a rush.
This is bad, he thought. Or at least not good.
“Unbelievable.” Caine assessed his new scar. Perhaps everything
from last night had happened precisely as he remembered it.
Maybe some of it that he’d already forgotten. He gingerly touched
the scabbing wound and found it cool and not at all painful.
He steadied himself. If the glyph worked as she’d claimed, that
might explain how he’d made it back with no one to trouble him.
It would account for why Rollie hadn’t hounded him while he was
in his room. It was even possible no one had seen him come back.
Again, he looked at his hands, flexing them.
He rose, a new plan forming amidst the aggravation of his
headache. He limped unsteadily to the door. Slowly and quietly,
he opened the door a crack to peer down the length of the upstairs
hallway. Nothing stirred. Not unusual, perhaps, given the early
hour. He crept down the hallway, careful to avoid creaks from the
old floorboards. He ducked into the water closet, closed the door
after him, and gathered himself before the washbasin to look in
the mirror over it.
The bearded face that greeted him was no different than he
remembered it. More tired, maybe. Nothing else.
“Yeh may move unseen in sunlight and glimpsed only under
the moons of Caen,” Caine recalled part of the Radiz’s verse with
effort. “Well if that be so, I reckon I’m about done with this
wretched beard.” He groused, plucking at his facial hair.
In his cubby by the basin, Caine found his straight razor and
toiletries. He set to work. He listened carefully as he shaved, but
the house was eerily quiet. After washing himself and patting his
face down dry with a towel, he began to feel the likely sins of the
 MARK OF CAINE | 61

night recede. As his old self returned, he felt like he might survive
the day after all. Perhaps it was even time to make amends with
Rollie, if it were possible to do that at all. After inspecting his
handiwork in the mirror, he returned to his room and tucked his
gear back under the bed.
He strode down the hall once again and then down the
staircase. Below, the King’s Boot was as he might expect it to be
in the early hour. Every chair had been set on top of the long
tables so the floors could be swept and mopped. No one stirred.
The stained clock read eight o’clock in the morning as he stepped
out of the stairwell. Rollie had clearly fallen asleep while working,
bent over his bar with a cleaning rag still in his hand. A bucket
and mop had been left by the wall next to him. Caine approached,
pulling up a chair in front of the sleeping barkeep.
“Rollie,” he said, “we should talk.”
The big man did not stir. Worse, Caine could see no rise and
fall in his girth. There was a certain disquieting pallor to his skin.
“Yeh’ve got to be kidding me.” Caine rubbed a weary hand
down his face, staring at Rollie. Reluctantly, he reached out,
lifting the man’s head by his greasy hair.
Rollie’s mouth hung wide open. His right eye was frozen wide
in death, and his left eye had been reduced to the pulpy crater of
a gunshot wound that oozed with congealed blood. Caine took a
breath, setting Rollie’s head gently back on the bar.
He supposed his bar tab was settled now.
A sudden clatter of noise outside. Caine moved to the window,
hugging the wall before glancing outside. His caution was damn
well justified—the street had been barricaded on either side of the
King’s Boot. Townsfolk crowded against the barriers, craning their
necks to see the impending fiasco. He could see Sheriff Dawes and
his deputies taking the cover behind a carriage and a water trough.
The cover was meaningless—he could shoot right through it, if
they forced a fight.
“Allister Caine, we know you’re in there,” Sheriff Dawes
shouted through cupped hands. The old lawman looked left and
right to his deputies as if confirming their presence, then back
62 | MILES HOLMES

to the door of the King’s Boot. “We have the place surrounded.
Come out with your hands where we can see them.”
Caine looked to the door and then back to the dead barkeep.
“Some days just aren’t worth getting out of bed, eh, Rollie?”
He sighed, then leaned around to look out the window
one more time before he loosed whatever hell needed loosing.
Whatever mess he’d made of things last night, it seemed there was
only one way to get some straight answers now.
He stepped to the door, flinching as he grasped the handle.
“All right, Sheriff, yeh got me,” he shouted. “I surrender.”
 — CHAPTER 8 —
OF DETENTION AND
DISCOVERY

“YOU’LL HANG FOR THIS, CAINE.” SHERIFF DAWES slammed his case
log on the desk and turned to face his prisoner. “In forty years, I
ain’t seen nothing like it.”
Caine stood in a jail cell, grasping the bars while resting his
forehead against them. Six of the sheriff’s hastily summoned
deputies stood before him; their pistols followed his every move.
So much for the glyph, he thought. Near as he could tell, he
wasn’t invisible or wraith-like of whatever it was he was supposed
to be in order to not be seen. The lot of them could see him just
fine. Of course, he could simply jump clear of his cell if he chose
to. Unless it had been built and warded to hold someone like
him, which seemed unlikely. For the moment, the truth about
last night was all he cared about. Again, for the moment. “Yeh’ll
have to take me through it, Sheriff. I only just woke to find
64 | MILES HOLMES

Rollie at the bar, just like I told yeh.”

The old sheriff glowered at Caine. “So you did, sir. Problem
is, I got a meat-wagon out back stuffed with seventeen dead.
Eyewitnesses, too. All of them are pointing fingers at you. It’s a
damned nightmare.”
Seventeen dead? Caine felt nauseated even as the sheriff had
said it. He looked at the glyph on his arm, suddenly uncertain of
his innocence. There was no doubt he’d lost time from the night
before. There was no doubt that the Radiz’s ward didn’t work as
promised either, but could her magic really have compelled him
to carry out a murderous rampage?
If it had truly come to that, Caine would size the noose himself.
He watched as the heavy-set sheriff paced the room in a personal
hell of his own. The lawman ran his hand through his thinning
grey hair. His customary laid-back manner had been reduced to
one of grim-faced exhaustion. Caine supposed it was the kind of
mess that no one ever expected in their sleepy little town.
Caine had met the man only a handful of times thus far,
keeping their encounters to a minimum. The townsfolk sang his
praises as a fair man, and Caine could find no argument there. As
Dawes paced, Caine looked past his shoulder to find a bulletin
board upon the office wall with no more than three warrants—the
sum total of Prescott’s unsolved crime for more than five years.
“Captain Allister Caine himself holed up in my town. I’m still
trying to fathom that one.” Sheriff Dawes stopped pacing and
turned to look at Caine with stone-faced disappointment. “I don’t
much care about this desertion business. I’m sure you had your
reasons, and I don’t expect cowardice played any part in it.”
Next to the warrants, he pointed to Caine’s bounty, which was
posted on the wall alongside the rest of Cygnar’s most wanted.
Caine listened mutely, his gaze skipping among the guns trained
on all sides of his cell.
Dawes shook his head. “Until last night you still had my
admiration. My boy’s alive on account of you. He’s a trencher in
the 45th ‘Nightcrawlers.’ You remember ’em?”
Caine nodded slowly.
 MARK OF CAINE | 65

“He told me what you done in Caspia a few years back. That
nasty tangle in the Church of Forgotten Souls? Between you and
me, I owe you one. If you were thinking to lay low in my town,
well, that would have been fine by me. What I will not tolerate,
sir, is murder. So tell me. What set you off? Did someone find you
out? Were you aiming to keep things quiet, no matter who you
had to snuff out?”
“Does seventeen murders sound anything like keeping things
quiet in a town the size of Prescott?” Caine growled. “Yeh think
this won’t be a nation-wide story in three days? If I’d been found
out, wouldn’t it make more sense for me to just pick up and leave?”
Sheriff Dawes blinked. “Keep talking.”
“I was found out. That much is true. A few days back, some
kid fancied himself a bounty hunter on account of his pa, and he
tried to take me.”
“The kid you put a bullet in? That would be Reggie.”
“Sure, if you say so. I just wanted to scare him off.” Caine
sighed. “But then his pa dragged him back here with a full posse
last night looking for me.”
“Yeah, he’s out front.” The sheriff jerked a thumb to the door.
“He’s too scared to come in here and identify you, but he claims
you killed his pa as well as every last one of their crew last night.
According to him, he only made it back here alive by the skin of
his teeth.”
“Anyone at the King’s Boot last night could tell yeh I did
everything I could to get away from them.”
“I have statements to that effect, yes,” Dawes countered. “But
this was at the Galvern Road we’re talking about. Just before
dawn.”
“Assuming I killed that posse, that leaves another five victims.
Who are they?”
“Besides your landlord, Rollie?” The sheriff began to count
on his fingers. “We got a vagrant near the marketplace. A Radiz
merchant, too. Farzha Doral, I think his name was. Rand
Cooper took one between the eyes. Then there’s the butcher’s
girl, Silvie. Ech.”
66 | MILES HOLMES

He paused, anguish clear on his face. “You ask me, poor Silvie
got it worst of all.”
“What does that mean?” Caine gripped the bars. He squeezed
them until his knuckles were white.
Sheriff Dawes kept his stare square met with Caine’s. “Had her
guts scooped out, near as we can tell. Just awful.”
Caine exhaled from where he’d been holding his breath.
“Sheriff, I swear to yeh I’d die before I’d ever do something like
that.”
“Point is, you knew them all, didn’t you?”
“There was some vagrant I smashed a bottle at earlier on, but it
was an accident. Hell, I didn’t know the man.”
“Right. And Silvie, you’d just ended relations with. And Farzha
was the Radiz fella you’d just robbed.”
“No, I didn’t rob him. He was a swindler, so I. . . ” Caine
thought back, shrinking as he did. As he recalled, his own behavior
in that moment could be seen as less than exemplary.
“How about Rand Cooper? Did you steal his laborjack and
break down his door with it, or was that just a misunderstanding
too?”
Caine grimaced. “No. I was just borrowing it. It was life or
death, trust me. You tellin’ me that all these people yer rattlin’ off
are dead? All these people I know?”
“You know they’re dead. You killed ’em.”
“Listen to me. I—”
Dawes cut him off. “According to Rollie’s girl, Gwyn, you’ve
been dodging your tab at the Boot this past week. Everyone you
dealt with since you came to town got a raw deal. Just like that,
one night, they’re all dead.”
“Which helps me none.” He paused. “What about yer
witnesses? Reggie said he saw me kill his posse?”
Sheriff Dawes nodded. “That’s right.”
Caine cleared his throat. “Reggie,” he shouted to the front
door, “come in here and tell me what yeh saw.”
The sheriff’s deputies kept their guns on him, suspicion plain
on their faces.
 MARK OF CAINE | 67

No answer.
“Come on, Reggie. It’s time for yeh to be a man. Things are not
what they seem, and lives are at stake.”
Slowly, the door creaked open. The black-eyed youth peered in
hesitantly. “I ain’t comin’ in there, Mr. Caine.”
Dawes nodded. “That’s fine, Reggie.”
Caine sighed, loosening his grip on the bars. “Reggie, I got no
gun, and I got six trained on me. I swear I’m not gonna hurt yeh.
Just tell us what happened. From the King’s Boot on.”
Through the sliver of open door they watched Reggie look to
the floor, considering his words. After a long pause, he tried to lift
his head to meet Caine’s eye, but he immediately lowered his stare
again. “After I came to?”
“Yeah, that’ll do.”
“Pa threw water on me, and I came up sputterin’. He says we
nearly had you, but you up and disappeared on him. His best man
Sally, the elf lady, she’s…”
“You got elves in your party?” Caine asked. “Seems an odd
name for a Nyss.”
“I don’t know about that. We couldn’t pronounce her real
name. We just called her Sally. Powerful good tracker. That’s why
Pa kept her on retainer. She’s the one what finds most of Pa’s
bounties. It was her who helped me track Mr. Caine here. I just
wanted to impress Pa, you know?”
“Been there, done that,” Caine scoffed. “Yeah, I get yeh.”
“Well, after they lost you in the street, Sally couldn’t figure
it out. She said your scent wasn’t gone, but we couldn’t find you
by it, neither. So we started turnin’ circles, street by street. We’d
spread out so far, before you know it, we were rangin’ the outskirts
of town until she could get a powerful fix on you.”
“Where?” Caine leaned forward, butting his head against the
bars.
“On Galvern Road going southeast. She picked up your trail,
and near as she could tell, you were makin’ tracks. We figure we
had you on the run.” Reggie had widened the door slightly now,
eyes shining as he looked around at his armed audience. “Suited
68 | MILES HOLMES

us just fine. However fast your feet took you, we had horses. So we
gave chase. Soon enough we found you in the mist.”
“Right around Gump’s Bog, you told me?” Dawes glanced at
the map on his wall, which were opposite his posted warrants.
“That’s the place, yeah. A powerful mist came rolling off it,
and then we saw Mr. Caine here movin’ like the wind itself down
the highway.” He clearly no longer felt he was speaking directly to
Caine, given the showdown Caine sensed was coming.
Just the same, Caine squinted and forced Reggie to look at him
again. “That sounds a bit strange, don’t yeh think?”
Reggie shook his head. “Pardon my sayin’, Mister Caine, but I
seen that disappearin’ trick of yours up close and personal. You’re
a warcaster after all, ain’t you?”
Sheriff Dawes nodded. “Let’s not get too far afield. Go on,
son.”
“Right. So Pa reckoned guns blazin’ is the only way we might
take you. So blam, blam, blam. Pa led the charge, ridin’ and
shootin’ his way up on your coattails. But it was the damnedest
thing. For all the lead he’s puttin’ into you, you don’t even turn
around. Not his shots, not the shots from the rest. It’s like you
ain’t got time for us nor bleedin’, neither.”
The weapons of men won’t touch you, Caine remembered a piece
of the Radiz’s verse with a tingle of dread in his gut. “Then what
happened?”
“So it went until Sally landed a shot with that Nyss bow of
hers. Then all of a sudden, you turned around mighty quick, and
I ain’t never gonna forget the look on your face. Not ‘til the end of
my days, Mr. Caine. You warned me you were a monster when we
met. I reckon you showed me what you meant right then.”
“Tell me about Sally’s bow. This is important, Reggie.” Caine
regretted his earlier choice of words. Monster. Wasn’t scary enough
to keep the kid away, though.
“I don’t know. It was pretty enough, I suppose, with all them
runes on it. She kept it close. Never even let Pa touch it.”
Heirloom or magical weapon, Caine guessed, or just a snotty
possessive elf. “All right. So what happened next?”
 MARK OF CAINE | 69

“You were all over us, no foolin’ around. You knew what you’re
going to do to us, right from the beginning. You drew them twin
pistols of yours, and next thing I knew, men are off their horses
face down in the dirt. None of ’em can get a shot in edgewise,
you were movin’ so fast. And when you got to Sally? It’s like you
had a special punishment picked out for her. You came up on
her and sucked the soul clean out of her body. I never thought
warcasters could do that, but you showed me.” Reggie quivered,
resting his head against the doorframe. “I swear I ain’t never seen
such a thing. So I reckoned you would’ve taken my soul too, so I
hightailed it back here as fast as my horse would take me.”
The sheriff asked, “Did Caine give chase?”
“I only looked back once, but it sure looked like he went right
back the way he was headed in the first place. South.”
Caine shook his head at the boy’s story. “Sheriff, to begin with
I never even had my guns last night. They were under my bed the
entire time, and they ain’t fired a single shot.”
“Easy enough to check.” Sheriff Dawes nodded as he walked to
his desk, opening a drawer and removing Caine’s wardrobe cases
that had been confiscated. He opened the slim case on top of
his armor container and removed one Spellstorm, then the other.
Carefully, he inspected each piece, and, likewise, checked the
ammunition within the case.
“Yeh see?” Caine looked past the tangle of deputies between
him and the sheriff. “Not enough shots fired, am I right? What
about the rest of yer victims? They all been shot? I know Rollie
was.”
“You might have cleaned these this morning.” Dawes inspected
a Spellstorm a second time.
He saw a moment of doubt pass over the lawman’s face.
Moreover, he felt it in himself, too. Perhaps he had not done this
thing after all. “So, answer me this: if the kid last saw me heading
south on the highway before dawn, how is it I have time for all
that? In fact, how is it I came to be back here at all? Plus, Gump’s
Bog is, what, a two-hour ride?”
“A fine question, I’ll grant you.”
70 | MILES HOLMES

Caine took a breath. “That we’re having this conversation at all

must tell yeh something. I think we both know these bars mean
about as much to me as an open door.”
Dawes looked up from Caine’s weapons. “Fine, then. You tell
me what’s going on here.”
Caine shrugged. “Here’s what I know. Last night, about the
time Reggie’s crew near had me, there came a Radiz woman I’d
seen about town. She spirited me back to her shack under their
noses, and once we’re in the clear, we get to talking. She knew me,
claimed she’d been watching me. I’m not clear why or what she
wanted exactly, just that she’s laying low, same as me.”
“A Radiz woman? Got a name?”
“A Thamarite witch, as it turned out. And no.”
“Oh, a witch. That makes for an even better story. We’d better
call the Order of Illumination.”
Caine rolled his sleeve back and offered it through the bars.
The closest of deputies backed away, cocking their pistols. Caine
smirked at them. “Easy, boys. My arms ain’t armed. Look here, she
put this mark on me.”
The sheriff stepped forward, inspecting the glyph on Caine’s
forearm while still holding the warcaster’s pistols. He didn’t seem
concerned Caine might reach for them; Caine thought he should
know better. “So you got drunk, found a loose woman, and woke
up with a tattoo you didn’t want. I think we’ve all heard that one
before. How does it get us to here?”
“She told me it was a gift. Would help me stay out of sight
the same way she does it. But with all I’m hearing, I reckon I’ve
been tricked. Morrow knows what, but I think she’s set something
loose. Reggie here says he saw me heading south down Galvern
Road, is that right?”
Reggie nodded.
“That means it’s headed to Bainsmarket.” Caine swallowed,
a horrible thought dawning on him. “Sheriff, I have no idea what
Reggie actually saw, and that’s the truth. It may have been the
Thamarite herself, for all I know. Whatever it wants, it seems clear to
me it won’t hesitate to kill anyone foolish enough to get in its way.”
 MARK OF CAINE | 71

Again Reggie nodded as if Caine spoke in religious scripture.

The old lawman looked between the young bounty hunter and
the warcaster, rubbing his temple. “Let’s say you’re right. What do
you figure it wants?”
Caine shook his head. “Makes no sense, the people it killed
before it left. But damned if the thing doesn’t seem to be in a real
hurry. The direction it’s heading gets me thinking I might have an
idea. It was no accident I came to be in yer town. Prescott is close
to the border, after all. A useful thing, in case I was found out, but
it’s also close to home.”
“Why should that matter?”
“If there’s one thing I’ve heard about black magic, it’s that it
tends to work with a particular sort of currency. A blood debt for
services rendered, in some cases. Drawn against yerself, yer kin, or
those yeh keep close, if yeh follow me.”
“So you think this ‘blood debt’ needs settling?”
Caine shrugged. “Given the state of things, I don’t tend to keep
folks close. The thing steered clear of me last night, you notice.”
“So you have kin in Bainsmarket?”
Caine ignored the question; he felt more than a little sick now.
“Whatever it wants, I set it loose. I reckon that means it’s on me
to stop it. Hell, I might be the only who can.”
“All right. Tell me about this witch of yours, then. Where’s this
shack she’s holed up in?”
Caine brought his arm back inside the cell, tilting his head
back to think. “Just west of the mill. In the bramble patch, if I
recall. That’s where she brought me.”
Dawes, and all his deputies looked uncomfortably at one
another.
“Well, that don’t fly,” the sheriff stated flatly.
Caine frowned. “Why not?”
“You’re talking about Horam Myer’s shack.”
“So what if I am?”
“Well, on account it’s been burned to the ground for a while
now, I reckon you were never there. It’s been gone some three
years, Daigle?” The sheriff looked to the nearest of his deputies.
72 | MILES HOLMES

“I expect so, boss,” Daigle replied.

“What?” Caine blinked.
“Yeah. A real tragedy that one. One night, he just snapped.
Doused the place in kerosene. Set the shack ablaze with him, his
wife, and their little girl still inside it. Well, him and the wife for
certain. We never did find his little girl’s body in the ashes. But no
one’s seen her since, either.”
Caine took a seat on the narrow bench in his cell. “Look,
sheriff. I admit, my head wasn’t right last night. I don’t know what
all I saw, if I’m to be honest, but I know for certain is this mark
didn’t get there by itself.”
Sheriff Dawes returned to his desk, set the Spellstorm back in
the case, then sat down with a heavy sigh. “Prescott is a nice place,
Caine. A quiet place. It’s been my job to keep it that way for a
long time.” He cupped his hands behind his head. “I reckon this
is some fix.”
“Dawes, listen.” Caine closed his eyes in recollection. “Yer boy,
his name was Cyrus?”
He nodded. “That’s right. He’s a sergeant now. Posted up in
Fellig.”
“I remember that fight clear as day. When the traitors came
through the barricades, yer boy held his ground right next to me.
Whatever is happening now, I’m still the man he told yeh about.
Maybe I played the fool last night, but that’s all the more reason
it’s on me to set things right. If that witch has set something loose,
I may be the only one who can stop it.”
“I tell you what.” The sheriff’s eyes were still firmly locked on
Caine’s, though he spoke to his deputies “It’s just due diligence we
investigate the old Myer place for this witch. If she’s as dangerous
as the man says, you all better come with me.”
A deputy frowned and, forgetting fear, spun from Caine to
face the sheriff. “But what about—”
“Shut up, Slick.” Daigle jabbed his fellow deputy with an
elbow.
“What about Silvie?” Slick’s face turned red as he started to
blink rapidly. “Somebody has to pay for Silvie.”
 MARK OF CAINE | 73

The calmer deputy shook his head. “I know you and her used
to be an item, but have you been hearing any of this?”
“He’s not foolin’ me,” he hissed.
“Like I say, you all better come with me,” the sheriff repeated
with a stern look to his men before settling on Slick. “I expect
we’ll be back in an hour or so.”
Caine nodded. “Thank yeh.”
“For what?” Sheriff Dawes rose from his desk, grabbing a brown
tricorn hanging on the hat rack next to it. “I’ve done nothing to
aid or abet you. I’m merely conducting an investigation. When
the boys and I get back, I expect we’ll continue this conversation.”
Caine stood from the bench, returning to the bars of his cell.
“I got yeh.”
One by one, the sheriff and his deputies filed out. Slick looked
back from the door at Caine with eyes narrowed to slits. Reggie
meanwhile stared blankly at the procession, the turn of events
slowly dawning on him.
“What about me?” he asked the lawmen. “You ain’t really
leavin’ me alone with him are you?”
The door slammed shut.
In the blink of an eye, the warcaster vanished from the cell,
reappearing by the sheriff’s desk next to his wardrobe cases. He
opened the nearest chest, reaching inside for his armor. A wide-
eyed Reggie stepped slowly for the door.
“What’s goin’ to happen?” the boy asked weakly.
Caine looked at him while fitting his breastplate onto his body.
“I reckon yeh can do whatever yeh like. Me? I’m going home.”
 — CHAPTER 9 —
OF MISDIRECTION AND
MUTILATION

Prescott, later that day

“I’M SORRY, CAPTAIN LYNCH, TRULY I AM.” Sheriff Dawes shook his
head. “But Caine ain’t here, and I don’t know where he went.”
Sooner or later, everyone lied. Most days, it did not surprise
Captain Dixon Lynch. With an exceptional eye for detail and a
sixth sense for those around him, he was all but impossible to
deceive. Watts and Ryan, however, were the rare exception to his
rule. They spoke their minds around him plainly, having long
ago learned the captain’s particular gift made it pointless to do
otherwise.
The sheriff did not know yet.
The sun slid gradually down the horizon as the pair walked the
length of the alley behind the sheriff’s jailhouse. Ryan and Watts
76 | MILES HOLMES

trailed after them, occasionally turning around to confront the

glares of the sheriff’s deputies.
Lynch narrowed his eyes, trying to read the man. The sheriff’s
face presented a curious puzzle. By all appearances, Dawes was
a man of conviction and principle—the sage guardian of this
backwards little town. Prescott had recently borne witness to the
mass murder of seventeen souls, a sensational story that was most
certainly already on the wire to the press and to Cygnar at large.
As if that weren’t enough, their respected lawman was lying to
cover for the presumptive killer. Lynch had seen jurisdictional
grudges before, but this was something different.
Something was most definitely up.
He watched as Dawes led on, still trying to decipher the
defiance in the sheriff’s bearing. In front of the cellar doors, his
body language showed reluctance to so much as offer up his
evidence.
“Seventeen dead, you say, sheriff?”
The old man looked back with a stern countenance. “That’s
right.”
Dawes unlocked the heavy padlock at the crossbar with a ring
of keys and swung the double doors wide open. “I just sent that
wire at noon. How could you possibly have arrived so quickly?”
Lynch brushed this off. “We were already in transit to find
Caine here. The timing of this incident proves unfortunate.”
The sheriff stood aside to let Lynch pass.
“Whew, that’s a powerful stink,” Ryan said from behind the
captain, holding her nose.
“Why not let the men to their work, then?” Watts sneered,
patting her on the back as he trailed his boss and the lawman into
the cellar. “Spare your pretty little nose.”
They descended the steps and into the darkness below. The
smell of damp earth and heavy rot hung thick in the stagnant
air. Dawes turned the gas lines on, and a row of lamps overhead
shimmered to illuminate the narrow root cellar, now hastily
converted to a morgue. Slabs crowded the narrow space, leaving
only a single body’s width lane between them to move through.
 MARK OF CAINE | 77

On each slab was a body covered in burlap, waiting for a gruesome

inspection. Lynch counted the corpses, blinking. “You’re telling
me this all happened last night?”
The sheriff nodded from the stairwell, his arms crossed.
“Quite the body count.” Ryan peered down from a few steps
up, still pinching her nose.
Lynch removed his tricorn as he approached the first body to
pull back the burlap. “I’ll need to see any personal effects.”
If his crew had just missed Caine in Prescott, then their best
hope for picking up the trail now might well be found on one of
these victims. If indeed they were the warcaster’s victims at all.
This didn’t make enough sense for Lynch to simply accept it at
first blush.
“In the tray beside each body,” the lawman said curtly. “That’s
what we recovered from the scene of the crime. If you need it, I
can take you to their respective residences.”
“Thank you, Sheriff. This will suffice for now.”
The situation was unfathomable, top to bottom. What were
the odds that a pack of bounty hunters would beat his crew to
their man by exactly one day? Highly unlikely at best. That they
had found an accomplished warcaster ready to fight was about
the only result he saw that had played out as could have been
predicted. As he looked over the many burlap sacks from which
toes protruded, many tagged with the words “bounty hunter,”
he almost chuckled at the cautionary tale before him. Poking the
bear until the bear wakes up usually resulted in ends like this.
Of the remaining victims, Lynch couldn’t be certain. If Caine
had turned traitor, it was possible this was an act of simple
housecleaning before skipping town. If it was that, it couldn’t
figure how it had earned the sheriff’s support. In fact, if Dawes
were in on it with Caine, wouldn’t he be lying dead here now?
Lynch pinched the bridge of his nose, still struggling with the
notion of Caine was a spy in the first place.
Lynch strode the narrow aisle with a ledger in his hand,
stopping to inspect the toe tag matching his current page. He
pulled back the burlap to assess the remains of what appeared to
78 | MILES HOLMES

be a Radiz merchant, who stared aimlessly up at him. He noted

two gaping exit wounds, one in the chest and the other in the
forehead.
“This one been shot, too, Cap’n.” Watts peered under the
burlap cover of another victim.
“They’ve all been shot,” Dawes offered.
Lynch only nodded, moving to the next slab. Beneath the
burlap there was a young woman in her early twenties. She had
not only been shot through the heart, but her stomach had been
torn open.
“She’s missing her entire lower abdomen,” he muttered.
He studied the damage, lowering a pair of alchemically treated
magnification goggles from his forehead over his eyes. Then he
rotated the magnification ring until the corpse before him was
four times the normal size, the claw-like marks on the girl’s lower
ribcage enlarged. The wound was cast in an eerie hue of deep blue.
“They appear to have been ripped out by an animal.”
He snorted. This isn’t Caine’s style. Lynch looked over the
woman’s wounds, finding uncanny details revealed in the blue
landscape of her cold body. At her bullet wound, he saw a faint
residue of green and found it again at the edge of her abdomen.
He gingerly touched the residue and brought his finger close to
his face. Then he returned to the first victim to find the same
residue there as well.
“Not powder burns,” he muttered. He turned to Dawes.
“You know what strikes me odd about your report, Sheriff?”
He regarded the sheriff carefully. “If I’m to believe Caine killed
all these people, how is it you lost not a single deputy during his
capture?”
“I don’t particularly care how my report strikes you. It stands
as-is,” Sheriff Dawes said.
Watts rolled his eyes. “Cap’n? Unless you want me to slap this
one around, I’m going out fer a smoke.”
Lynch nodded, his eyes still locked on Dawes. “Don’t wander
off now.”
Watts snorted as he headed out. “Have you seen this town?
 MARK OF CAINE | 79

Where would I even go?”

When he was gone, Lynch put the ledger down on the nearest
slab and looked at the sheriff. “It is unwise to lie to me.”
“I’ve no doubt. I’ll keep that in mind.”
Lynch assessed Dawes, who seemed completely unperturbed.
“All right. I think you’d best leave us a moment.”
With a nod, the sheriff turned to go and made his way back up
the stairs. “Don’t forget to lock up when you’re done.”
Ryan’s eyes went from body to body in the cellar as she watched
Dawes depart. When he was gone, she said, “What do you make
of this?”
“Something stinks here.” Lynch smirked.
“Not funny, boss,” Ryan said. “You know what I mean. What’s
up with this guy? You’d think he’d be kissing our feet for the back-
up after this train wreck. That’s a lot of bodies.”
“I get the strangest feeling he thinks Caine is innocent.”
“Why? We’ve got eyewitness accounts.” Ryan gestured to the
room. “Doesn’t this look like his work?”
“All but the girl, yes. I can’t figure that at all.”
She shook her head. “So what now? How do we find him?”
“If I thought it would get us anywhere, I’d have Watts put the
screws to Dawes. But as it is?” Lynch paused, looking across the
room. “We process the victims and their effects. Interview the
witnesses. It might take a while, but I’m betting Caine has left me
a trail. So, let’s find it and follow it.”
•••

FROM THE END OF THE ALLEY, WATTS blew a smoke ring, pleased
with his own skill. Evening was settling over Prescott, and his eyes
wandered over the sobering foot traffic passing by him. This was
a town in mourning, no doubt about it. He glanced with a sigh
at the King’s Boot across the street. No ale to be had there, most
likely. The barkeep was dead, and his place was dark. Quiet as a
tomb. In a town where drinking is a hobby, you never wanted to
kill the only bartender.
“You got a light?” asked a voice at his side.
80 | MILES HOLMES

Watts cast a sidelong glance at one of the sheriff’s deputies, the

hefty one with the beady eyes. He’d been introduced as Slick. The
gun mage reached within the folds of his greatcoat and produced
a match. He struck it alight, holding it to the deputy’s cigarette.
“When you find him,” the man said, shifting on his feet and
reluctant to look Watts in the eye, “what will you do?”
Watts chuckled, tossing the butt of his own cigarette to the
ground. “We’ll shoot him dead, I expect.”
He ground his heel into his discarded cigarette for emphasis.
Slick’s eyebrows furrowed, but still he wouldn’t look up. “So,
what if I told you I know where he’s gone?”
Watts regarded the man with a newfound interest. “I reckon
I’d tell him Slick said ‘hello’ before I shine him on.”
Watts elbowed Slick with an ugly grin. “Look at me, being all
sociable with you. Where’d he go?”
“Bainsmarket,” Slick said, a sneer spreading across his face.
“The bastard is headed to Bainsmarket.”
PART II: THE MESS
 — CHAPTER 10 —
OF PREDATORS AND
PRODIGAL SONS

“I’LL BE DAMNED.” CAINE LIFTED HIS CHIN from his chest to see
Bainsmarket spread before him, kissed by the pink-and-gold
of mid-morning’s light. Farmers’ wagons crowded the highway
ahead of him, piled high with the goods of the fields. Beyond the
city’s impressive rise, the Dragonspine Peaks rose higher still with
breathtaking grandeur. The sharpness of their profile left no doubt
as to their namesake. On both sides of him, farmhands moved
between their fields, their broad woven hats and downcast glances
keeping their eyes from meeting his.
With a hard two-day ride behind him, Caine stifled a yawn
and shifted his weight in the saddle. The last he’d looked, he could
swear it had been night, black as pitch, and Bainsmarket had been
nowhere in sight.
There hadn’t been a clear sign of the killer he sought yet.
84 | MILES HOLMES

Galvern Road had been quiet, nearly to the point that he could call
it barren. The emptiness brought him more worry than comfort.
The only clue he had found—if, in fact, that’s what it was—came
in the form of a lone horse wandering without a master thirty
miles ago. It wasn’t much, but it was the only thing out of the
ordinary. The exhaustion of the ride and his frayed nerves had
taken hold sometime in the dawn’s darkest hour. He was glad that
at least his own horse had not strayed from the path.
He looked up again with apprehension and bleary eyes to take
in the growing cityscape before him. Strictly speaking, it had been
years since he had passed this way, and even then, it had been
little more than a stopover on his way to a deployment along the
northern border.
It had been fully nine years since Caine had paid his hometown
a proper social call. There had been occasional correspondence
with his limited family, but nothing more. He’d long ago arranged
for the paymaster to send the better part of his wages to his mother,
but, beyond that, he’d simply seen no reason to interact with them
again until the stars aligned just so.
During those nine years, both his family and the city as a
whole had come to occupy a fond nook in his memory, separate
and safe from war and overall reality. Seeing the city outline
again—divorced from the bloom of nostalgia and burdened with
the potential threat he had unleashed— Bainsmarket seemed
altogether worn out and broken.
He was close enough to see the market clock tower in detail.
One of Bainsmarket’s tallest spires, it was stopped at six and
twenty with a rough scaffold climbing its sides to allow works
to revive the silent giant. Distant though it was, Caine stared at
the landmark for a moment, watching the workmen as if they
were ants upon a tree. Drawn to the gargoyle at the northwest
corner, he recalled the moment he’d tossed the noseless
mobster Horace over the side on the end of a rope. Though
he didn’t know it at the time, it was Horace’s hanging that had
set Rebald’s sights on Caine. And here he was again, all these
years later, a wanted man with Rebald dogging him still. Some
 MARK OF CAINE | 85

things never changed. He sighed.

Caine’s focus shifted to far-off shouting. Ahead was some
sort of pileup; Caine’s horse whinnied as he slowed her pace to
avoid joining it. As he urged the mare forward, he was able to
make out the issue. A collision of opposing carts had stopped
the morning rush, leaving the farmers involved to clear the
way as angry shouts from passersby accumulated on both sides.
The loudest voice in the fray was, in fact, a pudgy man clad in
overalls who scrambled to replace his spilled rutabagas to the
cart, running in all directions to retrieve them and shouting as
he did so. Meanwhile, the farmer in the opposing lane sat by
the axel of his wagon and hammered his slipped wheel, chewing
on a blade of grass. By his bearing alone, he seemed entirely too
composed for the ruckus he had caused.
Grunting, Caine gripped the reins and led his mount to the
shoulder of the road, as a few single riders had already done. An
errant farmhand failed to notice his approach, though, looking up
from under a wide-brimmed hat a moment too late. With a cry of
dismay, the farmhand backpedaled before Caine and fell into the
soft mud of the ditch, spread eagle.
“Sorry, chum.” Caine fought back a smile as he looked at the
sprawled farmhand. The young man looked back at Caine, his
cheeks red. Caine could see the instant the young man recognized
him. The farmhand’s mouth slowly opened and the color began to
drain from his face. After a sidelong glance to a roadside post, he
struggled back to his feet, locking eyes with Caine before bolting.
“It’s him. It’s him,” he shouted, running back to the fields
whence he had come.
Caine puzzled over the young farmhand and turned to the
poster the boy had looked at a moment before. He found his
own face leering back at him in the form of a sketch. The pit
of his stomach dipped, leaving him sick. That didn’t take long,
he thought. Does my hair really look like that? The image in the
poster was bordered with words big enough to read even at
twenty yards.
86 | MILES HOLMES

WANTED
by his majesty, King Julius
Captain Allister Caine,
DEAD OR ALIVE
For the crimes of mass murder, desertion, and treason
Reward of 800 crowns
All at once, the debacle with the carts ended. Caine looked
back to the collision to find the face of every man on him. For a
moment, their anger was forgotten, replaced with ashen shock.
Even the old farmer with the hammer surrendered his blade of
grass, staring mutely in Caine’s direction.
“Don’t mind me.” He spurred his mare. She trotted to skirt the
shoulder then dipped back onto the road in a gallop. Caine did
not look back, but he had little doubt their eyes were still upon
him.
Some homecoming.
One thing about Bainsmarket had changed in the years since
he’d been here—across all of Cygnar, for that matter. It was
something he still wasn’t used to. There had been no telegraph
structures when Caine last ran across the rooftops of his hometown.
It seemed like that technology had spread to every major town.
News traveled so fast now. It was a seemingly unnatural thing
he could do without this moment—he didn’t need any more
attention than he already had, thank you much. If his bounty had
been raised to 800 crowns, it was clear enough that the events of
Prescott had preceded him. Still, they shouldn’t have any reason to
expect him to come this way.
Unless they think yer already here. Caine swallowed.
He brought his mount alongside a large covered wagon as they
approached the city gates, riding the wagon’s blind spot that hid
him from the guardhouse. While Bainsmarket was an open city
and papers were not required for entry, he would just as soon
avoid testing his luck against being recognized at the gate. Closing
to within a hundred yards, he began to pull ahead of traffic and
 MARK OF CAINE | 87

dipped into the shoulder a second time. He urged his mare on,
slipping past the gates with a sudden burst of speed. He dared
a glimpse back, finding his timely passage had drawn a look of
consternation from the attending guard but only that.
Things might be looking up.
Considering his fugitive status, he was now where he wanted to
be, in the press of a lively crowd and a colorful city. He pulled the
high collar of his leather duster to conceal himself and his armor
the best he could. Before him, the main avenue of the northwest
gate continued into the distance, bending out of sight after a
hundred yards. Along its length, wagons and horses crowded
among a throng of pedestrian traffic, revealing the full extent
of the morning traffic. At the avenue’s turning point, he could
see shops of every sort. The main street was cut with winding
cross-streets and alleys at irregular intervals, and atop the uniform
wall of storefronts, a cityscape of tin-roofed tenements rose five
stories high. Yet this wall was overshadowed by the tallest towers
of Bainsmarket’s skyline.
Among those towers, the mighty Presidium was closest,
rising over the tenements like a monolithic stone sentinel. Caine
squinted up at it, shielding his eyes against the morning sun,
recalling the time he’d spent there in his yesteryear. It was where
he had been left to rot after hanging the mobster, Horace, and it
was there he had met Rebald for the first time.
“Best give that place a wide berth,” he cautioned his mount,
leading her clear of the main avenue with a pat to the neck. The
way they were going led to the Presidium’s very doorstep and in
plain sight of the considerable garrison constantly moving to and
from its ancient halls.
The detour made little difference to him. He had known
Bainsmarket’s streets and her rooftops like the back of his hand
not so long ago—plotting an alternate route that bypassed the
prison to reach the southeast district of his old neighborhood was
only a matter of an extra block or two, no more. Or so it had been
once. As he gazed ahead, he found old landmarks had grown near
unrecognizable. New buildings stood where familiar ones had once
88 | MILES HOLMES

been or had sprung up over formerly dilapidated lots. Banners

of every color were strung over the streets, the leftovers of some
celebration he had never heard of. Even though he was far from
the pulp mill and the textile factories that hemmed in his family
home, the signs of encroaching industry were clear here, too,
as evidenced by the numerous oversized brick smokestacks and
steam whistles screaming close by. More pressing, Caine noticed
his own face among the scenery more than a few times since the
highway—wanted handbills had been strewn without pattern all
along the way. Bounties were usually posted in constabularies or
outside courts but seldom among the public. That’s because the
thing is already here, and you know it, he thought.
He perked up from his troubled thoughts as he smelled a
familiar scent. The storefront windowpanes of a tobacconist’s
shop displayed pipes, hooga leaf of every tin and type, and with
a variety of newsprint hung from bull-clips against a wall just
within. He reckoned a stogie along with whatever news could be
found were in order. More than a little stiff, he dropped down
from his mare and hitched her to the nearest post.
The tobacconist’s door tinkled with a small chime as he
entered. A wizened pair of older men stood gossiping as he looked
around, the two separated by the till. Caine kept his face from
their sight, turning sharply from their attention to track down
a box of stogies on a nearby shelf. The shopkeeper watched him.
“Just got some talus leaf, if you’d prefer,” the man called out.
“I’m fine, thanks,” Caine coughed, crouching to regard another
tin on the shelf below while reducing what they could see if him
even further. Across the small shop, the conversation between the
shopkeeper and his patron resumed.
“Torn to pieces, she was,” he heard one cluck in dismay.
“It’s wrong, I tell you.”
Caine frowned. The conversation sounded entirely too
familiar. Like an echo of Prescott. He stood, turning to avoid the
shopkeeper’s eyes, regard the wall of newsprint. There, he found
nothing less than a nightmare of headlines.
 MARK OF CAINE | 89

Hellslinger Kills 10 More!

Prescott Killer Linked to Bainsmarket’s Second Night of Terror
Disgraced Warcaster Wanted for Mass Murder Investigation
Is Allister Caine the Hellslinger?
Caine reeled, feeling as though the floor had just fallen out
from under him. It was as bad as he had feared. Worse even.
Forgetting his cigars, he dropped the tin and grabbed the closest
print and pulled it clean from the clip.
“If you wants to read it, I’ll kindly ask you to pay first, sir,” The
shopkeeper called over, his tone polite but firm.
Caine ignored the rebuke, scanning past the headline, frantic
for details. Once he was a paragraph in, he found a list of the
dead. He sighed with relief; neither his sister nor his mother was
among the victims.
“Sir?”
Caine heard nothing. His mind turned desperate circles now.
He paused and turned back a page to recount the dead.
It was like Prescott.
He knew these people, one and all.
Harvey Jenkins. Markus Biggs. Seth Gorsham. The first
three names on the list struck him with devastation on second
consideration. All three were small-time hoods Caine had run
with or against at one time or another before he’d enlisted in the
service. The other names did not come as quickly, but one by one
they stirred in him days of regret now long past. A history, his, was
on the page. Yes, he had known these people.
“Is that who I think it is?” The shopkeeper whispered to his
patron. Both now stared openly at Caine.
Bainsmarket was not a sprawling metropolis like Caspia, but
it was no village either. But there were no reasonable odds that
would have accounted for him knowing all nine of the victims.
And there were witnesses who claimed to have seen him at the
crime, just as Reggie had back in Prescott. It explained why he
now saw his face on every street corner. He was the target of a
citywide manhunt and the prime suspect of the murders.
90 | MILES HOLMES

The Radiz’s curse was here, all right.

Whatever she had unleashed, it had arrived two full days before
him and was, by every indication, just getting started. More than
ever, he needed to stop it, and he absolutely had to find his family
before it did.
One of the men whispered, “I think it’s him.”
Caine felt the blood rush to his temples, raw anger stirring
deep inside him. He snatched another print down, searching for
anything he could use to track the killer.
Suddenly, he perceived the store had gone deathly quiet. The
shopkeeper and his patron had not only ceased their prattle, but
now they made no sounds at all. He looked up and found himself
alone. The soft flap of the back door offered the only explanation
for the pair’s passing.
From outside came the shrill whistles of the city watch, the
noise screaming over the din of morning traffic. So much for
getting past the gate unnoticed.
He moved to the storefront window to glance outside. With
consternation he watched as a squad of lawmen made their way
toward the shop. Around them, the morning crowd had stopped
in their tracks to watch in astonishment as the scene unfolded.
Barricades were already being set in place. Through the frosted
glass, he could see a squad in coats of navy blue close in on his
mare, all with their guns trained on the shop’s door.
“Next round’s on me,” Caine growled, dropping his newsprint.
“Here we go again.”
With a quick glance behind him, he decided to make a run
out the same escape route the shopkeeper had taken. He burst
from the back door to find a narrow alley and pair of constables
rounding the corner in a hurry. Swallowing hard, he looked above
him to find a balcony on the opposite building. The constables
spotted him at once and blasted their whistles, drawing their
pistols.
When they aimed their weapons to shoot him, Caine was no
longer there.
He reappeared on the balcony overhead. Time and again lately,
 MARK OF CAINE | 91

he’d been forced to use his magic, so his form and control seemed
to be returning. As an afterthought, he conjured his shadows for
cover, feeling no strain whatsoever in doing so.
A moment later, the constables raised their weapons in his
direction again, but they saw him as a blur and nothing else. They
fired two shots without a warning, but both went wide, ricocheting
off the stained brick wall behind him. Caine was resolved to not
give them another chance. Tempting though it was to end this
pursuit with two easy killshots, he kept the Spellstorm pistols at
his side holstered. Whatever evil the Radiz’s curse had entangled
him in, he would not add fuel to that fire through misdeeds of his
own. Evasion was his only play here.
It was a good thing evasion had always been Caine’s specialty.
He looked upward again, one step ahead of the constables’
next volley. He spotted another balcony across the alley and two
stories higher. He vanished and reappeared on that balcony an
instant later, taking no more than a breath to manage the strain.
Above him, the length of a short ladder led the way to the roof.
Shots chased after him, whizzing past his ear. The constables
seemed more than ready for his tricks, even if they were not able
to counter them.
He lunged for the ladder, climbing as the men reloaded
and blew their whistles again. He climbed rapidly and deftly,
noting more constables arriving in the alley. He heard the shouts
directing their fire toward the fire escape, but they called it too
late. Their shots came buzzing after him just as the tails of his
duster disappeared from their sight over the crest of the roof.
Caine took a breath and took in his surroundings; the looks
and smells all reminded him how he’d done this same thing in the
days of his youth. He dashed across the roof, looking down over
the storefront and the street three stories below him.
What he saw was breathtaking. The constabulary had clearly
been ready for him. On the street below, barricades held back the
gathering crowd, now a hundred or more civilians. Within the
circle of barricades, the lawmen had already doubled in number.
At a quick count, he spotted more than two dozen constables of
92 | MILES HOLMES

the watch rushing to-and-fro in order to secure the area while

sidestepping a pair of warjacks.
Caine paused. Warjacks meant a whole new level of hassle.
Both were light ’jacks, each a three-ton chassis most often used
for reconnaissance or flanking maneuvers. Their configuration
of cannon and hammer on either arm identified them both as
Chargers, likely summoned from the local garrison. It both
insulted him and pleased him at the same time.
But it did not stop there.
He stared down at a full platoon of Cygnaran regulars arriving
double time. They entered the fold and took up firing positions
along the far side of the road. At the shouted commands of their
sergeants, the long gunners in two ranks unslung their weapons,
training their weapons at his rooftop. Both Chargers followed
suit, completing a horrific and overwhelming firing squad.
“Smells like I’ve stepped in it now.” Caine turned away,
scanning the roofs in every direction for a way out.
A shot buzzed over his shoulder, chasing him to cover behind
the brick chimney at his side. An unruly fusillade had begun, and
he heard the barked orders of the long gunner’s sergeant calling
his squad to join in. As he slid down with his back to the chimney,
he heard more shouts. With his disappearance, the shots stopped,
though he dared not peek over the crest again.
One voice rose above the chaos, amplified by a horn.
“Allister Caine. This is Captain of the Watch Eli Harbins,” the
man’s voice boomed. “This block has been cordoned off. Surrender
or we blow you to pieces even your mother wouldn’t recognize.”
 — CHAPTER 11 —
OF FAST MOVES AND
FAMILY TIES

“I’M NOT YER MAN,” CAINE SHOUTED from the cover of his chimney,
hoping to start a parley if for nothing more than a moment to
think.
This wasn’t Prescott, and Caine had no time to play along with
the law. Not with the lives of his mother and sister at stake, if his
new enemy was targeting everyone he knew. Scanning the roofline
in all directions, he settled on a church spire two blocks away.
Almost certainly, Captain Harbins had set snipers in support of
his ground force. Maybe the man had even called on gun mages
from the garrison to skulk after him. Caine groaned aloud, rolling
his eyes at the very notion. Surviving a cadre of his own kind was
a daunting lose-lose scenario, any way he cut it. The fact that he
hadn’t taken fire from behind his chimney yet was a sign no one
had set themselves up past his defilade. Not yet, anyway.
94 | MILES HOLMES

He needed a way out, and he needed it quick. He looked again

to the spire, whispering to himself an imagined route there and
beyond. The block ended in a thirty-foot gap, but maybe? He
squinted in estimation of the odds he’d put himself into a three-
story drop by falling short of the mark.
“Come on down, and we’ll talk things through,” Captain
Harbins shouted, still invisible at the street level despite the boom
of his voice. “But get it straight, son, in a box or on your feet,
you’re coming with me.”
“Then yeh don’t know anything about me,” Caine snarled, his
voice a low growl.
The situation was a nightmare—Bainsmarket itself had turned
against him. It became a hornets’ nest like nothing he could have
prepared himself for. For years, he had prowled in its alleys and
run in its shadows. He and his best mate Tylen had kept one
step ahead of constables and mobsters alike here. He had been
a shadow here once; nobody saw him. Nobody knew him. Now,
every eye was looking for him. Save for the nagging guilt of his
family’s safety, he wondered if he might not be better off to let the
bloody Radiz have her way here and just be done with it. But he
had maneuvered through the city like a ghost once, and he knew
he could do it again. So with a sigh, he looked to the spire again,
gritting his teeth.
“Now or never, old man,” he grumbled.
He crouched, his back still braced against the chimney.
“One, two.”
He swallowed.
“Three.”
He pumped his legs into a full sprint, following the length of
the tin roof, aimed decisively for the next.
But Captain Harbins was no fool. He was ready for this
possible maneuver. Shots pinged perilously close to Caine, and
he could hear their hiss as they passed his face. One was close
enough to make make his hair move in its wake. Wherever the
snipers were holed up, they were good. At the crest of his rooftop,
he leapt clear and through the ten-foot gap to the next rooftop.
 MARK OF CAINE | 95

Below him, a three-story drop to the alley below yawned open.

They were good, he knew, but not good enough.
At the edge of his leap, he imagined himself atop the next
rooftop, and so he appeared a heartbeat later. He materialized
in the pose he had departed from, left foot leading and ready to
sprint.
A second volley of sniper fire chased after him as if it had
predicted his landing point. This time, their shots did not miss.
Caine felt two sink deep into the power field his mechanikal
armor weave, coming dangerously close to overwhelming it.
“Who are these guys?” Caine dared a glance back, but he
spotted no one.
One more volley with that degree of intensity and accuracy,
and he knew he was done. Fortunately, he was moving directly
away from them, weaving left and right around chimney tops as
he went. While the snipers scanned the roofs for him, he figured
he might as well make another leap out of reach. As long as yer
heart doesn’t give out, he thought between gasps. His next brisk
run brought the end of roof up swiftly, but Caine pumped his legs
harder to make the best effort possible to outdistance the unseen
marksmen. Nearly there, he focused on the church steeple thirty
feet from the edge of his roof. He would need all the space he
could get for a chance to flash the remaining distance.
Even then, it would be a near thing.
His leading foot hit the edge of the roof, and he pushed off with
a loud grunt. His arms waved circles as he went. Beneath him, a
few citizens in busy street craned their necks to catch a glimpse of
him sailing overhead. Then he vanished. He was twenty feet closer
to the church, and he grasped desperately for a handhold.
The spire was just beyond reach.
He was suddenly falling, and there was no time to teleport
again so soon after the last time. He gasped, looking down
with growing horror. Against the wall of the church, a gargoyle
beckoned him. He flailed for the hook of the thing’s beak. Two
of Caine’s fingers caught, swinging his fall into an arc bound
for the wall instead of the ground. He brought his free hand
96 | MILES HOLMES

out to mitigate the impact, hearing shouts of alarm from below.

Neither the captain’s marksmen nor his ground troops had yet
traced Caine’s path, but it was only a matter of time. He would be
easily tracked by the crowd below. Hanging precariously from the
church wall, he took a breath. He gripped the gargoyle, feeling it
shudder on its pedestal. The stone cracked loudly, and he felt his
handhold tremble.
Perhaps this had not been such a good idea after all.
He knew he needed to teleport again, and he needed it badly.
He looked upward to the original landing point he’d intended.
Again, he dipped into his well. It was time to clear away the
cobwebs for good. In the past few days, he’d never been pressed
more than now to use his gift, and he felt his control of old
returning to form. It was vital to put it to the test right now; the
gargoyle he dangled from would not last another second. With
gritted teeth and closed eyes, Caine vanished, just as the head of
the gargoyle cracked loose, crashing toward the street below.
Caine reappeared fifteen feet overhead, clinging to the spire as
he’d intended. “Look out below!” he shouted.
He saw a pair of teenage boys recoil and leap from the broken
statue’s impact. Relieved, Caine wasted no more time on them,
scrambling up the steeple and circling around to the far side.
The church roofline awaited him, and beyond it was another tin-
roofed tenement.
For the moment at least, Caine was clear of Captain Harbins’
noose.
•••

THE OLD PULP MILL HAD BEEN SHUT down for years. Even Caine
knew that. It had put a lot of people out of work, of course, but
according to letters from his sister Bethany, the old neighborhood
didn’t smell like dirty underwear anymore. Sniffing the air from
the gable of a brownstone across the road from it, he looked at the
rotting carcass of the mill, recalling its heyday.
He had traced the way here with caution over the course of
several hours. He alternated between streets, alleyways, and
 MARK OF CAINE | 97

rooftops, zig-zagging the entire length. Just the same, he couldn’t

shake the feeling that he was being watched. He felt certain
Harbins’ marksmen were trailing him, though no one took a shot
at him. Still, it seemed like his every move was witnessed from
the shadowy windows of Bainsmarket’s spires. Every loud noise
startled him, sending his attention in all directions just to find its
source. Glancing skyward as he moved, he cursed the afternoon
sun and longed for the cover of nightfall.
He hoped he was already in the clear. Once he was well within
the borders of his old neighborhood, he only had to cut through
the condemned mill and skirt the block adjacent to it to reach
his family home. Very few people moved about below, and the
late afternoon sun cast long shadows. He was nearly there. Caine
cracked his knuckles, looking to the factory a final time before
slipping over the side of his perch to shimmy down a drainpipe.
Halfway from roof to ground, he vanished, reappearing on the
ground. He broke into a sprint for the sagging front gates of the
mill.
A loose chain across the gate had enough slack for him to pry
the old timber doors apart and slip between them. He stole a
glance back the way he had come, finding no one watching him.
Despite this, his nerves refused relief. He turned, regarding the tall
factory entrance across the yard as though it were a gaping maw.
Weeds, overturned crates, and rubbish of every sort was strewn
about, and it all looked menacing.
The mill stood four stories tall, and its main double doors once
reached up for two those stores. They now lay on the ground in a
shattered pile. Moss grew over the broken shards of door. Caine
stepped gingerly past to peer into the gloom of the interior.
Sunlight spilled through multiple gaps where the ceiling had
long ago collapsed, and more sunlight crept at regular intervals
through dirty square-paned window frames. In some cases, the
glass was smashed and left only jagged remainders at the edges. A
steady drip of water from the reservoirs of rainwater caught in the
roof trickled down. Caine wrinkled his nose. The place stank like
moldy death, and he wondered if some vagrant had come in here
98 | MILES HOLMES

to breathe his last. It was the kind of place he expected he might

end up dying himself one day.
Finding a stairwell, Caine ascended to the catwalk that
comprised the mill’s third floor. It was a latticework, hanging by
girders and chains. It stretched in every direction above the ground
floor. The place was vast and mostly empty save for the discarded
rubbish and the support pillars, as well as the equipment too large
to haul off for sale at auction. A pair of paper rollers thirty feet
long lay in a jumble in the middle of the floor near the slant of a
long drainage ramp. Rats scurried everywhere—he could see some
of them and hear the others, creeping among myriad puddles of
stagnant water. He looked toward the darkened offices set along
the far wall, searching for their doorways. Carefully, he stepped
along the unsteady catwalk, sizing up a second floor office on the
far side of the vast chamber. If it led outside, he could hop the
outer wall of the mill and reach his old house within minutes.
He arrived at a gap in the catwalk and paused to peer over its
edge. The large missing pieces were mangled on the floor below.
He checked the place the catwalk resumed some twenty feet ahead.
He stepped back, preparing to start the jump and then teleport.
He heard a faint moan and stopped short. Perhaps there were
vagrants here after all. Or maybe it was the wind. He heard a
shuffle of movement somewhere between the silos on the ground
level. He turned to the tall brass repositories with renewed interest.
Each was ten yards high and three yards across. Each stood gashed
and crumpled with years of abuse. He reckoned the things were
too difficult to scavenge, so they stayed. Now someone was
definitely among them, hiding at the base among the trash.
“It would be just as well to keep moving,” he muttered to
himself. His muted tones carried through the open space.
He could not. A strange curiosity compelled him closer to the
base of the silos. His coat was open, his hands above both his
weapons. He stepped closer, watching the space like a hawk. A
peculiar ache began to throb in his arm as he neared the base of
the first vault.
“Come out,” he growled.
 MARK OF CAINE | 99

No answer.
He kicked a crate aside, drawing and aiming his Spellstorms. A
trio of rats scrambled from their overturned shelter. He watched
them go, amused. With a shake of his head, he holstered his
weapons.
Looking down, he realized he’d stepped in a pile of something
unpleasant. With a sigh, he leaned one hand on a silo to steady
himself while turning his foot over for inspection. The instant his
hand touched the silo, a static charge leapt forth, and the ache
in his arm flared as though he had been touched with a white-
hot poker. He immediately realized the source of the pain: the
Thamarite’s glyph. He quickly drew his arm back, rubbing the
scar beneath his sleeve in an attempt to soothe the unsettling
sensation. He could only stare uncomprehending at the silo. The
sudden urge to move away from it was overpowering, as was his
sudden sense of dread. He felt danger all around him. The smell
of death flared in his nostrils, and the air grew cold, chilling his
skin. He stared at the silo, unable to fathom what exactly was
happening. But there was definitely something happening.
Compelled, he drew back the sleeve of his duster, horrified to
find his scar was ablaze. Magical fire licked at his skin but burned
only the fresh scab the Radiz’s mark had left. Beneath it, the
brilliance of her glyph was underscored, as heated in appearance
as it felt.
“Whatever she did, I’m not having it,” Caine snarled. He
cocked his head, glancing between the silo and his arm. As he
stepped back, the glyph glowed, though quickly fading until it
was no more than a dull-black mark on his skin. He bared his
teeth at the Radiz bitch and her curse. He still had no idea what
he’d allowed her to do to him. The unlikely notion that she might
now have some hold over him was increasingly troubling.
“Tara?” a man’s voice echoed from the far side of the mill.
Caine snapped his head in the direction of the call. A dozen
figures were coming through the same entrance he had used just a
short while ago. As they stepped in from the daylight, he counted
six lanterns sputtering.
100 | MILES HOLMES

“Tara?” the same man called again, louder this time. The figure
swept his light in Caine’s general direction. Another voice called
the name and then another still. Caine ducked for the shadowy
side of the silos, peering out enough to spy the progress of the
new arrivals.
They were coming his way.
It’s not like I could use a little me-time here, Caine thought as
he turned to go, a frustrated snarl curling his lip. He had only to
look to the catwalk overhead, and instantly he was teleported onto
it. There he made a gruesome discovery, just as he’d worried he
might. A body lay face-down before him, one arm hanging from
the side with a gold chain spilling from its grip. Near as he could
tell, it was a middle-aged man, and one of means if his fine clothes
told a true tale.
“I’m going to bet yer not Tara. So, what brought you to this side
of the tracks, mister?” Caine knelt to better inspect what the man
clutched in his death grip, noting a pocket watch of considerable
value. The man appeared freshly dead, a bullet hole in his back.
“Not a robbery, then.”
He pulled the pocket watch free.
“I saw her by the silos last, Father,” he heard the voice of a child
say. He guessed the group below had closed to within a dozen
yards now. The sweep of their lanterns was coming nearer still,
and with reluctance he abandoned the mysterious brass silos and
the corpse with the pocket watch.
He followed the catwalk to its end where it met the mill’s
second story offices, and he traced their corridors until he could
find an exterior exit. As he stepped through, the warmth of the
afternoon sun warmed his face, and he felt glad to be out of the
bleak murk of the factory.
A dozen yards to his right, the outer wall on this side of the
mill had a crumbling gap in it. He approached it with caution,
leery of a trap. Nothing. He paused there, assessing what he could
see, and on the other side discovered his old neighborhood, much
as he remembered it. He could not help but find the view surreal.
Light pedestrian traffic in the vicinity paid little to no attention to
 MARK OF CAINE | 101

him, tucked into the wall’s shadow as he was. He allowed his gaze
to wander the street from one end to the other until he finally let
himself see it, no more than a hundred yards away.
His family home awaited him.
 — CHAPTER 12 —
OF GANGSTERS AND
GUTTER RATS

THEY WERE GONE. HE FOUND NEITHER his sister, Bethany, nor his
mother. Caine paced the floor of his old house, upstairs and down,
for any clue of their passing. With each circle he turned and each
tick of the clock on the mantle over the hearth, his temper grew
shorter. He knelt at the front threshold to rifle through the mail
that had gathered there, but he didn’t find anything helpful. He
threw the useless papers to the floor and balled his fists.
More than anything, he felt the need to hit someone.
The approach to the house had been nerve racking enough, to
say nothing of what he’d discovered in doing so. He had circled the
worn brownstone several times, carefully watching for surveillance
before making his final approach. It pained him to suspect the
murders and his assumed complicity had already cost his family a
great deal. The front windows had been smashed out, and the front
104 | MILES HOLMES

door had been splashed in red paint. As he’d crept through the back
entrance, navigating wash lines and watchdogs, he found the door
had been smashed open and left ajar. He had entered silently with
both pistols drawn, only to find the place empty.
Harbins, Caine guessed, smashing his fist against the hallway
wall. Cheap plaster crumbled from the blow, exposing splintered
slats behind the hole. He took and held a breath. Maybe they’d
left of their own accord. They certainly had the money to go; he’d
been seeing to that for years. He cocked his head, an idea taking
shape as he headed upstairs.
On the second floor again, he went into Bethany’s room and
moved to her dresser drawers. Pulling them back, he noted a
lack of clothes. He also found her closet missing items. Better,
if the dust outlines on the floor were the indication, so were a
pair of travel bags. It was a strange time for a vacation, to be sure,
but perhaps it was also the best time, given the heat he’d drawn.
Crossing the hallway to his mother’s room, he discerned a similar
pattern in her closet. With a sigh, he sat down on the bed and
thought things through.
He rubbed a temple, thinking of where they could have gone.
He considered they had perhaps fled to a hotel to lay low, and his
jaw flexed to think he might have caused this.
The Radiz woman was going to pay dearly.
“Oh, yes,” he growled.
A knock from downstairs snapped him to his feet. He moved
to the window and pulled back the crimson embroidered drapes
to take in the front step below. The street crawled with traffic,
and on his family’s doorstep, a lone man stood waiting. He was
slightly built and clad in dark clothing. The stranger had long
dark hair, tied back, and a short beard, neat and trimmed. He
wore no gun at his waist, though his dress coat or sleeves might
harbor a holdout. Whoever he was, it was clear to Caine that he
was no constable. The man knocked again.
A single Spellstorm at the ready, Caine imagined the doorway
on the floor beneath him. In an instant he appeared there, dead
silently, no creak of the steps or the hallway as he approached
 MARK OF CAINE | 105

to answer. He grasped the doorknob and swung open the door,

grabbed the man by the scruff of his coat, and pulled him inside so
fast the man fell face forward into the hall. Caine looked quickly
to either side of the doorway, saw no one, then slammed the door
shut. He locked it with finality.
The stranger turned over, only to find the warcaster descend
on him with one knee to his chest, a Spellstorm muzzle planted
deep in his mouth.
“Start talking,” Caine growled, his voice barely a whisper.
The man sputtered gibberish, gagging on the muzzle at
intervals.
Caine withdrew the pistol from his mouth but kept it no more
than an inch away. “Now in a language I can understand.”
“You don’t want to kill me,” the man said.
“Why’s that?”
“I can take you to your family. That’s why I’m here.”
“Where are they?” Caine leaned closer until he was nose-to-
nose with the surprised stranger. He pressed his Spellstorm into
the man’s cheek for emphasis, the barrel leaving a red mark on the
man’s flesh.
“They are safe. That’s all I know. The boss wants to talk to you
first, you understand? He sent me to watch for you.” The man
glanced sideways at the gun at his cheek, but otherwise he held
his composure.
“Yeh mean turn myself in, don’t yeh? It’s Harbins what sent
yeh, is that it?” Caine could feel his patience wearing thinner by
the second.
“No, sir. I work for Mr. Redmayne.” Caine leaned back. When
he did, the man sat up slightly and dusted himself off as if there’d
been only the slightest of misunderstandings.
Caine blinked, slipping back on his haunches. He had heard
that name more than once over the last few years. While the
man’s true identity was unknown, his exploits were infamous
well beyond Bainsmarket city limits. His operation was believed
responsible for various heists throughout Cygnar, extending as far
south as Caspia. Caine had once been aboard a troop train the
106 | MILES HOLMES

man was thought to have robbed without so much as shot being

fired. The train simply arrived at the station with the paymaster’s
armored car emptied of its contents. Caine’s face hardened.
“So, the mobster.”
“Not the term we prefer, but yes, sir.”
Caine lunged forward again, grabbing the man fiercely. “If it’s
a ransom he wants—”
“No, it’s nothing like that, I assure you. He just wants to talk
to you.” The stranger swallowed, discomforted by the grip but his
composure still intact.
Caine looked at the man’s calm demeanor, his curiosity piqued.
“Yeh’ve got some stones, I’ll grant yeh that. So, yeh know who I
am?”
The stranger nodded. “I daresay everyone in Bainsmarket
knows who you are, sir. More to the point, Mr. Redmayne knows
who you are. He warned me you might be a little ornery, but. . .
Well.”
“But what?” Caine frowned, holstering his gun.
“He also assured me you are not the monster the papers say
you are.”
Caine stood, offering a hand to the man on his floor. “Mighty
big of him. Can’t say I know much of anything about him, though,
so I don’t know that his opinion matters much to me just yet. So,
what do I call yeh?”
The stranger took Caine’s hand, rising to his feet with a smirk.
“Jarvis, sir. Tomas Jarvis. After all the stories he’s told us about
you, it’s a genuine pleasure to meet you.”
Cacine shrugged off the compliment, balancing his suspicion
with amusement.
•••

JARVIS WAS NO STRANGER TO MOVING unnoticed, mundane as he

was. He lacked the ability to move along rooftops, but Caine
followed the man with a satisfied nod. He watched as Jarvis led at
a practiced pace though the city’s shadows and alleys. Twice the
man had stopped them with a casual turnabout, doubling back
 MARK OF CAINE | 107

rather than facing patrols he’d spotted long before Caine had.
Nearing the central district just north of the warcaster’s old
neighborhood, Jarvis stopped a third time, receding into the
alcove of a brick building next to them and feigned patting his
pockets for a smoke.
“Do you see those two?” He kept his head down and his voice
low as he gestured to a pair of dour men in matching grey long-
coats and top hats. Amusingly enough to Caine, both men had
groomed themselves with matching mutton chops. Everything
but their height seemed to comically match—the taller man stood
around six-foot-four, and the shorter appeared to be around five
foot on the dot.
“Yes.” Caine leaned past the alcove then pulled back again.
“What about them? Lawmen?”
“Yes. Constables. I’ve crossed paths with them a few times. We
should wait here a moment.”
“For what?” Caine glanced back to see the men engaged in
feigned conversation; their eyes rarely met. Instead, they scanned
the crowd in either direction. As the taller man looked their way,
Caine retreated into the alcove again.
“A diversion, I think.”
Caine scoffed. “Why not just go around them?”
“Because we’re here. Redmayne is in the very house they stand
in front of.”
Caine flipped his coat back to expose one pistol. “How did
they know I’d be coming here?”
Jarvis smirked slightly. “With respect, it’s not you they’re
watching for. Though I suppose they’ll raise the alarm just as
quickly should they see you.”
“I don’t follow.”
“Redmayne’s activities have been under investigation for some
time. They know we operate within this neighborhood, so they
keep tabs.” Jarvis shrugged as if it were all a part of doing business.
Caine leaned back out, watching the pair and the nondescript
doorway just behind them. “Do they have any idea how close they
are to him?”
108 | MILES HOLMES

Jarvis shook his head. “For the moment, no. Let’s see if we can
keep it that way, shall we?” He glanced down the street toward a
group of kids playing ball in the street. With his fingers to his lips,
he whistled a short birdcall.
Among the children playing with a ball, a girl with unkempt
dark hair looked their way at once. She tossed the ball away and
abandoned the game to come running over.
“Cynthia.” Jarvis rose expectantly at the girl’s approach. “How
much have you made today?”
The child shrugged, looking quizzically at Caine. “Only twenty
crowns, but it’s early yet.”
“I’ve got something else for you to do just this minute.”
“What’s that?” The girl looked at the warcaster again instead of
her acquaintance, openly curious. He returned her attention with
equal interest. There was something familiar in her face.
“The constables over there.”
“Tallie and Smallie?” Cynthia giggled at her humor; Jarvis did
not, though he maintained an indulgent smile.
“Yes. I need you to make them go away. Can you do that?”
Cynthia crossed her arms, disappointment plain on her face.
“Are you kidding me, Tomas? Can I do it?”
His smile widened.
She scoffed at him. “Fine.”
She casually walked back into the street, approaching the
constables in a wide, wandering circle. Caine watched as she
walked past the pair, brushing casually into the smaller one.
“She’s good,” Caine said to Jarvis. “A first-rate pickpocket.”
“Redmayne trained her himself. Just watch.”
Cynthia continued past the constables and leaned on a street
lamppost ten feet away, mischief plain on her face. She held the
man’s coin purse in her hands.
“Sir? Is this yours?” she called out.
The shorter constable looked to her and began patting his
pockets. A scowl came over his features as soon as he realized she
displayed his own valuables to him.
“You little thief,” he shouted.
 MARK OF CAINE | 109

She was gone then, threading a path through the crowd as

only a child could. The pair of constables looked on, momentarily
taken aback. Then they chased after her, crashing into pedestrian
after pedestrian as they tried to keep pace with her. They flew
around the corner of the block, lost to sight.
“Will she be all right?” Caine looked beyond the alcove to the
point they had disappeared. He glanced to the exposed doorway.
“Those two don’t stand a chance,” Jarvis said, chuckling. “That
one has a gift that just can’t be taught.”
Caine smirked. “I like her already.”
“Now, then. Shall we?” He gestured to the house opposite the
street.
“As yeh wish.”
•••

“WAIT HERE, PLEASE.” JARVIS DEPARTED the sitting room and

vanished behind a threshold of red velvet drapes. Caine was left
to bide his time, seated in a formal chair padded with crimson
embroidery and polished oak.
Caine felt out of his element. The house had appeared modest
from the outside, but it was the exact opposite within. Even the
dimensions were at odds with the exterior. Just to reach this finely
appointed chamber, he had been led down a series of corridors
and passed rooms and stairwells in either direction. The façade
outside presented a single-unit home, but he was left to conclude
that most of the block had been interconnected into one large
residence.
He noted how a faint perfume hung in the air, and he could
hear the sounds of conversation and a violin in the adjacent room.
In fact, he could sense an appreciation for art in the room in
which he waited—sculptures and paintings both filled the space.
If he were to take a guess, even the woven carpet at his feet had
been imported from some faraway lands. Whoever had said crime
didn’t pay had clearly never been to the home of this Redmayne
character or the phrase would have been more like “crime buys
the best.”
110 | MILES HOLMES

He tried to listen past the faint sound of the violin, straining

to hear the conversation beyond the door. He could hear laughter
but serious tones as well. Caine tried to identify the voice leading
the conversation, but he wasn’t sure. He wondered instead who
Redmayne could be to claim he knew Caine so well. While he’d
run with a few hoodlums back in the day, none of them had ever
amounted to much, as far as he knew. More than a few were well
past the rotting stage of death, dead long before the Radiz’s curse
had come calling for their precious lives. Had it not been for his
years in the service, Caine suspected that might be the stage of his
existence too.
The music stopped. He heard footsteps approach the door, and
the carved oaken doors swung open. A group of heavyset men in
dark clothing emerged, all headed with purpose for the corridor.
He counted six, each one armed and stern faced. Only one offered
him so much as a passing glance, and Caine noted a familiar look
to the man, including a scar over his left eye.
Randall Deacon. That’s him. Caine had known the man well
enough in the old days. After all, Caine had been the one who
had put that scar on him after a certain disagreement. Deacon
seemed not to remember Caine, however; he said nothing as he
left the chamber without so much as a backward glance. When
Deacon’s crew had departed, Caine looked back to the door they
had emerged from to find Jarvis waiting for him.
“Mr. Redmayne will see you now, sir.” Jarvis smiled.
Caine didn’t like it.
 — CHAPTER 13 —
OF BLOODHOUNDS AND
BAD OMENS

“LET ME THROUGH,” LYNCH GROWLED, guiding his horse a step at

a time through the shoulder-to-shoulder horde before him. He
looked back to find Watts and Ryan trailing by a dozen yards,
both similarly stuck by the gathering mob.
“What’s the hold-up?” Ryan stood in the saddle and strained
for a look ahead.
“There’s been another murder,” Lynch answered, indicating a
sudden parting of the crowd. Constables in navy blue uniforms
appeared, shouting and waving batons in order to push back the
crowd. As the people grudgingly retreated, a horse-drawn wagon
rolled out of an alley and headed for the Presidium. Despite the
fact that its shutters were drawn tight, the captain of the Black
13th stared closely after it until it had wheeled down the street
and out of sight.
112 | MILES HOLMES

“What was that, Cap’n?” Watts asked.

“A meat wagon,” Lynch said.
At his flank, a spectator looked up. “Aye, it was. Another victim
of the Hellslinger.”
The rumors moving through the crowd was working it up into
a panic. Cries of fear and shouts for retribution flowed in waves
from front to back and side to side.
“I reckon Slick’s tip was a good ’un, eh, Cap’n?” Watts looked
back to Lynch.
Lynch had no intention of making such a concession. “We
need a place to hitch. I want to check the scene.”
They had barely arrived by the dinner hour, but less than a
hundred yards from the city gates, it was clear enough that
Bainsmarket was a city in the grip of fear. Two nights of mayhem
primed the mob’s fear to a fever pitch, and when the sun sank
now, the twilight brought dread with it. Caine’s bounty had been
posted everywhere. Graffiti had been scrawled calling for an end
to the Hellslinger. The press had plastered his moniker in every
headline, and aside from a close call with the constabulary earlier
in the day, it seemed he was on the loose still. The story had arrived
and moved quickly, and the rumors were moving even faster. The
city seemed certain that by morning there would be more victims,
and before him now, Lynch could see the city collectively losing
its mind over the matter.
He hitched his mount to the front of a mercantile shop and
approached the barriers, finding a constable ready to wave him
back.
“Cygnaran Reconnaissance Service,” he declared quietly,
slipping past the barrier with a tip of his tricorn.
Either convinced or intimidated, the constable only swallowed
and let him pass without any challenge. Ryan and Watts followed
close behind.
“We’re with him.” Ryan winked at the constable.
The alley was a dead end, marked by a series of flags: one was next
to the smashed doorway of what appeared to be the side entrance of
a bakery. Another stood at the rubbish bins at the end of the alley.
 MARK OF CAINE | 113

Blood spatter against the brick wall caught Lynch’s notice, and he
slipped his alchemical goggles into place over his eyes.
He swept the alley with his enhanced vision, and it seemed
like a living thing before him. He adjusted the magnification and
filters until he could see the dust before him, borne aloft by faint
eddies of air. His attention was drawn to the blood, a patina of
purple coating the back wall of the alley. Within arm’s reach of the
spatter, he found the impact the fatal shot had made on the grimy
bricks. The victim had been cornered here and then shot dead.
When the bullet exited the victim’s skull, the shot had continued
on, marking the wall with blood and brain matter.
He scanned the ground to find chunks of masonry radiating
from the point of impact; he focused his vision narrowly until the
chunks appeared a vibrant red against a backdrop of black.
He located the bullet crater, leaning forward until it was no
more than inches from his nose. He cocked his head. Neither
shrapnel nor the telltale knife marks an investigator would have
made in removing it were present. The pit was simply an empty
hole. He leaned closer, his sight catching the slightest traces of
green.
“We recovered no shot, sir.” A constable leaned close behind
him, watching Lynch adjust his goggles with curiosity. “We’re
puzzling over that one ourselves.”
The captain pursed his lips, turning to regard the motley pattern
of color across the man’s pudgy face. “Who was the victim? When
did the murder happen?”
“He was Sylvester Norton, sir. He owned the bakery there.”
The constable indicated the side door just two yards away. “We
think he was killed last night with the rest of our victims, but his
body went undiscovered in the garbage until this afternoon.”
Lynch turned back to the impact site, doubling his goggles’
magnification. It was faint but real enough: a trace substance his
eyes took for a gradient of green. There could be no doubt. It was
the same as he had seen on the bodies in Prescott.
“I need to speak with the lead investigator,” he said to the
constable. “Where is he?”
114 | MILES HOLMES

“You just missed him, sir. He rode out with the body. Bound
for the Presidium.”
“What’s his name?”
“Harbins, sir. Captain Eli Harbins.”
•••

“NOW THIS IS A MORGUE.” RYAN admired the arched corridors of the

Presidium’s subterranean labyrinth, the walls slick with moss and
condensation. Her captain paid no attention to the remark, but
Watts shook his head beside her.
Beyond a set of swinging steel-bound doors, the Presidium
morgue rose into a high ceilinged chamber with overhanging gas
lamps. It was a square room bordered by rows of slab drawers,
five tall and ten deep, on either side. Ryan saw a solitary figure in
the open central floor space, bent in concentration over a spot-lit
examination table. The man seemed oblivious to their approach
until he reached a hand out blindly behind him.
“Three-inch forceps,” he said.
Closest to the examination table, Ryan grabbed a clamp and
passed it to the man’s outstretched hand. Harbins took the tool at
once without looking behind him, bringing it between him and
the freshly vivisected corpse he examined.
“That’s not a three-inch forceps.” He sighed. He turned from
his subject to see the young soldier shrugging in response. “Also,
you’re not my assistant.”
Harbins was a striking figure. The Captain of the Watch rose,
tall and narrow, in a black greatcoat detailed by a double row
of gold buttons running from collarbone to waist, each polished
to a mirror finish. Thick examination goggles obscured his eyes,
and his white hair stood at attention, cut to a service-grade flat
top. He might be an albino, if the pallor of his cheek gave any
indication. He was older too, his lined skin drawn taut over
jutting cheekbones and a sharp chin. He left little else exposed.
Even his hands were clad in dark examination gloves. It was not
until he looked up at Lynch that he paused his work. He set the
tool on its tray with a smile.
 MARK OF CAINE | 115

“Dixon,” he said, pulling off a glove to shake Lynch’s hand

with his own left hand.
“Hello, Eli.” Lynch grinned. “This is my crew. Watts is the
good-looking one. That other one is Ryan.”
Ryan snorted, tipping her tricorn as Watts followed suit.
Harbins shook their hands in turn, once again offering his left.
“War injury,” he explained, removing the glove from his right
hand to reveal a wooden prosthetic beneath.
“But you should really see the other guy.” Lynch nudged Watts,
who was clearly fixated by Harbins’ injury.
“So, this is the Black 13th in person.” Harbins pulled his goggles
off his forehead. His severe look took in the three. Ryan noted a
particular gleam in Harbins’ eyes, something some precious few
gun mages had.
“You have true sight,” she said.
“And the aim to go with it.” Lynch bowed in Harbins’ direction.
“Back when it all started, Eli here was one of the Order’s first
riflemen. As far as records go, he’s still our best shot at a hundred
yards.”
“I certainly know the name Eli Harbins,” Ryan said. “Some
men are to always be remembered for what they accomplished.”
Harbins’ pale skin faintly blushed. “That was a long time ago,
miss. Losing a hand cut my time in the service quite short, I’m
afraid. I’ve been captain of the watch here ever since.”
Ryan smiled, no less impressed. “Do you still have Swan Song?
And can we see it?”
Now it was his turn to smile. “Impressive. You really do keep
track of these things.”
“Oh, you’ve no idea when it comes to her,” Watts groused.
“Now, why would you call your rifle Swan Song?”
Harbins hesitated, reluctant to answer.
“That’s a long story,” Lynch said with a dismissive smirk.
Watts said, “Oh, come on. Just tell me.”
Harbins cleared his throat, obviously uncomfortable with the
spotlight. “Dixon, I hate to spoil the reunion, but the truth is it
couldn’t come at a worse time.”
116 | MILES HOLMES

“I know. In fact, that’s why we’re here.”

“Ah. Of course it is.” Harbins smiled tiredly. “Why didn’t I see
that straight away?”
“You see everything else,” Lynch agreed.
“Is that the baker from last night?” Ryan looked over Harbins’
shoulder, noting the cadaver of a paunchy middle-aged man. The
man’s forehead was punctured directly between his eyes.
“Already on the case, I gather. Yes, that is Sylvester Norton.” He
took up the forceps he’d requested earlier and slid them into the
hole of the dead man’s forehead. Carefully, he withdrew a morsel
of glistening brain matter. The others kept their eyes averted as
he took a jar from his table and dropped the sample into it. With
a grease pencil, he marked the jar and sealed it, turning back to
Lynch.
“Walk with me,” he said, heading for the double doors,
clutching his sample.
Lynch followed close as Harbins led them out of the morgue
and to a spiral staircase at the end of the corridor. “So, what do
you make of the situation?”
“Well, we have a maniac loose in my city. No sooner had the
wire come through about Prescott than we had eight dead of our
own. Last night he killed ten more, including Mr. Norton here.
With every name added to the list, the press has stirred a little
more panic into people. I half-expect we’ll have riots or a lynch
mob out to find him if we go another night. I have bounty hunters
coming in on every train with crowns in their eyes. As it stands,
even the local gangs, the hoodlums, are tripping over themselves
to cash in, but I’m not sure there’s a man alive harder to catch than
Allister Caine. Believe me, I know. He slipped us this morning
with that disappearing trick of his.”
“So, you actually saw him?” Ryan asked.
Harbins nodded. “Aye. Now we’re losing light, and we’re no
closer to finding him. How many more will die tonight if we
don’t?” He held his sample jar to the lamplights above him as he
walked.
“All right, then,” Lynch said. “What’s the play?”
 MARK OF CAINE | 117

“I’ve got every man out on patrol, both uniform and under
cover alike. The garrison has lent me a small army, including a
platoon of their best marksmen, to keep watch of the rooftops.
We know that’s how he prefers to move, after all.”
“Fair enough.”
“Oh, and the baron has just given me approval to double the
bounty for all those free agents out there.”
“1600 crowns? That’s quite the jackpot.” Watts nodded
appreciably.
Lynch asked, “Have you established any pattern to the killings?
Anything that might predict his next move?”
“I confess, the victims have given me more questions than
answers,” Harbins said, indicating his sample. “Is there anything
you can tell me?”
“Well, we nearly had him in Prescott. The CRS had us check
out a tip that he’d been using the town as a base of operations to
conduct espionage for Khador.”
Harbins shook his head. “Incredible.”
He led them up and into the keep proper, winding up the
spiral staircase and out of the Presidium underbelly. As he did, the
ground floor revealed a busy corridor. He pressed on until they
reached a large wooden door. The captain of the watch led the
way into a broad space divided equally into office and laboratory.
“Swan Song,” Ryan said with surprise, scanning the chamber
as Harbins ushered them in. The wall behind the captain’s desk
was decorated with plaques and a trophy case from his time in the
Order of the Arcane Tempest and as captain of the watch. At the
center of this display hung a remarkable rifle in a rack. Its long
barrel was inscribed with the telltale signs of gun mage runes.
Watts had not missed the significance of the weapon either.
He let loose a long whistle of appreciation. “That’s a fine-looking
magelock rifle. What is it?”
“A Grauss V extended barrel,” Harbins said without fanfare,
fixated as he was in finding something on the length of his
laboratory table. “Handmade by Brobek Grauss himself in 584
AR. A little piece of history, the first of its kind. All those that
118 | MILES HOLMES

came after are just lesser copies. And please, pardon the mess.”
Ryan approached Harbins’ trophy case, silently taking in his
many achievements. She looked to her own belt with a sigh.
Scored as it was with her many kills, she seemed to understand
just how much work she would have to do to measure up to the
captain.
Harbins said, “You asked if I had found any pattern to the
killings. Perhaps I have, at that.”
Lynch approached his friend at the bench, watching him
uncork a vial of amber fluid and bring it to his tissue sample. “Go
on.”
“In the victims, I find no pattern. They are a number of low-
level hoods long known to us and a few law-abiding citizens like
Mr. Norton. If Caine has prior connections with them, I have yet
to establish it.
“Now here’s the rub. If Caine is on a shooting rampage, why
can’t we recover so much as a single bullet from any of his crime
scenes?”
“The residue,” Lynch said.
“You’ve seen it yourself, haven’t you?” Harbins looked
impressed, tipping the amber vial. “A peculiar residue in the
wounds of the victims and throughout each and every location,
for that matter. I’ve found trace amounts, and it took me some
time to recognize it even with true sight.”
Lynch watched as his friend poured the golden liquid into the
sample jar. He shook the jar faintly, swirling the liquid around the
brain matter.
“What do you think, then?” Lynch asked.
Harbins opened his mouth to answer, but the contents of the
jar beat him to the punch. At once, the combined ingredients
reacted. The amber liquid began to fizz into white foam, expanding
rapidly until it overflowed the sample jar.
Lynch moved closer, fascinated by the reaction. “It’s
necromantic.”
The captain of the watch stood away from the sample, removing
his goggles. “Indeed, it is. So, if Caine has turned traitor, I doubt
 MARK OF CAINE | 119

it is the reds he’s working for.”

Ryan looked away from the trophy case, her gaze moving with
an arched eyebrow between the two captains. “All that from a
piece of grey matter?”
Harbins crossed his arms, looking up from the sample jar with
grim-faced determination. “It appears to me that he’s using the
magic of Cryx. I’d say that makes Cryx a more likely ally than
Khador.”
“Does that help us?” Watts interjected.
“Aye, it does.” Lynch took a breath, slipping his own alchemical
goggles on. He studied the jar for a moment, tuning his lenses
until he seemed satisfied. “It means he can be tracked.”
Ryan nodded, a smile slowly forming on her lips. Beside her,
Watts did the same, revealing a familiar mess of crooked teeth.
Lynch turned to Harbins. “I’m going to need the exact location
Caine was last seen.”
 — CHAPTER 14 —
OF FORGOTTEN FRIENDS AND
FOREGONE CONCLUSIONS

CAINE ENTERED THE EXPANSIVE OFFICE of the mysterious Redmayne.

The room was cast in the golden hues of a sunset. The man stood
between a polished oak desk and a large gabled window, swaying
with a violin under his chin. From what Caine could see from the
man’s back, he was lithe and tall. He was dressed in a white silk
shirt and leather tights that ended in knee-high black boots. Caine
noted that the view of the window looked out over a meticulously
tended private garden with a fountain. Further, Redmayne’s office
apparently doubled as a library as much as a place of business, the
walls lined thick with books. Once again, Caine noted the man’s
appreciation of the arts. Several busts and artifacts sat under the
glass on pedestals against the far wall.
The man he assumed was Redmayne—who else would conduct
a high-level meeting with his subordinates without so much as
122 | MILES HOLMES

changing to a slower tempo?—continued to practice the violin,

even as Caine entered. He played with energy, each stroke of the
bow drawn with practiced flourish. It also did not require much
imagination to figure out where the man’s moniker had come
from. His hair was a long mane of ginger, neatly combed and
pulled back, and his three-quarters beard was also red.
Caine glanced skeptically at Jarvis. The idea that this dandy
before him might have once been an acquaintance from the old
neighborhood was slightly absurd. After watching him more
closely, he saw that the man’s left hand, which was moving up
and down the fingerboard of the violin with his song’s impending
crescendo, lacked two fingers.
“Tylen,” Caine called, shaking his head.
The music stopped, and Redmayne wheeled about with a
smile of mischief. The face of his childhood friend was still there,
however many lines the intervening years had imposed upon it.
Tylen loosened the hair on the bow and placed it into the open
violin case.
“Jarvis. That will be all,” he said pleasantly, looking past Caine
while placing his violin in its case. With a demure smile and a
slight bow, Jarvis backed out of the room. As he withdrew, he
closed the double doors quietly behind him.
Suddenly, Tylen hurried forward, his complete hand extended
in greeting. Instead of a handshake, Caine found himself pulled
into an embrace.
“I’d hoped we’d find you. I’d hoped to Morrow we would
before anyone else did,” Tylen said.
“Yeh found me. But I’m here for my family.”
“They’re safe, I promise you that.” Tylen stood back, his hands
raised reassuringly. “When this thing got ugly, the mob came
for ’em, they did. So the boys and I came in and scooped them
clear. Now they’re in a hideout ’cross town with my best lads to
keep ’em safe. At least until this whole thing blows over, I would
imagine. Now that you’re here, I can bring you to them.”
“Why have yeh done this?” Caine looked narrowly to his old
friend.
 MARK OF CAINE | 123

Tylen looked pained. “You’ve been gone a long time, chum. I’ve
kept watch over them for you ever since. I know it’s not my place
and all, but I think it would be the least I could do, considerin’ all
you’ve done for me.”
Caine turned from the gable view, his hands on hips and one
eyebrow raised. “What I’ve done for yeh? How do yeh reckon that
one, mate?”
The man often known as Redmayne grinned wide, the
infectious energy of his youth shining through, just as Caine
recalled it. “You remember all the nights we spent roof-side,
picking through scraps and looking up at the stars?”
The warcaster nodded. “We had our share.”
Tylen smirked. “Like that time I lured Sylvester Norton to
help with me ‘broken leg’ while you cleaned out his shop?”
Caine snorted, recalling the memory of running with an armful
of cakes while the paunchy baker chased after him, swatting at him
with his long peel. He’d taken his lumps, but he’d never dropped
a single treat before making good his escape.
“I always dreamed we’d steal our way to fortune and glory back
then,” Tylen said.
Caine looked round the room. “Seems to me yeh’ve done it,
eh?”
Tylen nodded. He looked out at his garden below, his eyes
growing dim with contemplation. “Aye, but I couldn’t have done
it without you. What you did to Horace? That was the start of the
thing.”
“I’m not following.”
“Last you seen me, I was down on my luck in Orven,” Tylen
said. “Horace had right kicked me out of here. After you hung him
high, his gang was done. Finished. Left a vacuum in Bainsmarket.
Well, I went right back to work.”
Caine considered the ripple effect his hanging of the mobster
Horace might have had. He could scarcely believe that his old
friend had risen to become a gang boss.
“Oh, I started small,” Tylen assured him, sensing Caine’s
apprehension. “No more than a few rackets about town at first.
124 | MILES HOLMES

Bookmaking, recruiting pickpockets, and such. Maybe the odd

heist here and there. The crowns came easy enough. Soon, people
were coming to me for work. I learned to keep up.”
Caine said, “I always said there was talent in yeh, did I not?”
Tylen laughed. “When you weren’t playing me for a fool,
perhaps you might’ve said something to that effect. Well? What
do you think?”
“Yeh’ve done well, chum.” Caine laughed. “Though yer poor
old mother would weep on account of it.”
Whatever humor Tylen might have seen in this moment faded
slowly away. “Allister, what’s going on?”
Caine turned from the window to find Redmayne’s fearful
stare squarely directed at him. He considered how much to share,
then said, “It’s bad. I know that much. But it’s not me what’s
doing these killings.”
“Why did you come back?”
“To stop it.” Caine stood grim-faced with determination.
“Whatever it is, I can’t let it stand.”
If Tylen doubted him, Caine couldn’t tell. “Glad to hear it. For
all our sakes.”
“First things first—take me to Beth and Ma.”
Redmayne nodded, gesturing to the door. “Aye. Come with
me first, there’s someone you need to meet.”
•••

“THIS IS CYNTHIA,” TYLEN INTRODUCED Caine to the tiny

pickpocket with a flourish.
“We’ve met,” Caine said, and when Tylen raised an eyebrow, he
added, “No, she’s not good enough to pick my pocket.”
For a second time this day, the girl stood nonchalantly before
him. This time, however, her jet-black hair was a tangle filled with
burrs, her cheeks brushed with soot.
“What happened to yeh?” Caine tried not to smile despite
himself, then looked to his friend. “Last I saw of her, she was
being chased by a pair of would-be lawmen.”
Tylen arched an eyebrow. “That so?”
 MARK OF CAINE | 125

The girl sniffled, wiping her runny nose with her sleeve. “Ech.
That pair weren’t so dumb as they looked. It took some doing, but
I made clear of them.”
The sun had all but spent, its last light retreating from the sky
in hues of purple and orange. A busy street lit by gaslight spread
out before them, and Tylen watched the passing crowd from the
shadows of his alley.
Caine looked at the girl a moment longer, frowning again at
the familiarity of her face. “Why is it that I think I know this
one?”
“I can settle that easy enough,” Tylen said with the air of a man
eager to share gossip. “You remember Lucy?”
The name struck a chord and more than a few memories. The
girl’s face blossomed into womanhood before him. Yes. Lucy. Caine
had spent more than a few nights in her company. Their tryst had
lingered on even after he entered the service, sometimes giving him
cause to visit home despite his presence being required elsewhere.
It had been enough until it had abruptly ended for one reason or
another that he’d either never known or long forgotten. That was
how it was between Caine and his women. “So, this is Lucy’s girl?”
“Lucy’s me ma, yeah. What of it?” Cynthia crossed her arms,
suspicious.
“Yer as beautiful as she is, that’s all. The resemblance gave me a
bit of a start. How has she kept?”
Tylen looked uncomfortable. “Well, it’s been hard times for
Lucy, truth be told. That’s why I took her girl here under my wing
so she could help at home. I swear I’ve got little birds in every
corner of the city, but Cynthia here is my very best. A natural
pickpocket, she is. And more, what with all she gets away with.
Leaves me to wonder.”
“Last I saw of yer mom, she was quite the bait. Much obliged,
Cynthia.” Caine tipped his head to the little girl.
Cynthia nodded. “Yer welcome, mister.” She turned to Tylen.
“What do yeh want me to do now, boss?”
He knelt in front of her, putting a hand on her shoulder. “You
know the house the boys use in Lachlan block?”
126 | MILES HOLMES

Cynthia nodded. “Of course I do. I was just there last week,
what with yer stash.”
“I want you to take Mr. Caine there, quick as can be. Underside.
You follow?”
Caine shook his head. “I don’t need a guide. Just tell me where
the place is, and I’ll move there roof-side. It’ll be faster, anyway.”
“I don’t advise it. Not one whit.” Tylen looked grimly at Caine.
“My boys have been keeping tabs on that Harbins character. He
means to take you, and he knows how you move. Posted snipers
roof-side to tag you, he has. But Cynthia here? She can run you
clean through the sewers. Nobody will ever see hide nor hair
of you. She’ll even get you in the front door without my boys
tryin’ to blow your head clear of your shoulders, and that’s saying
something.”
Caine shrugged, his eyes still on the girl. “I suppose that’s fine
by me, then. Yer not coming, I take it?” He glanced at his friend
as he gathered himself up to go.
Tylen shook his head. “I don’t have the time, truth be told.
The boys and I have been planning a little something special for
tonight that I must attend.”
“What’s yer caper, then?” Caine cocked his head, his curiosity
piqued.
Redmayne smiled widely, coming near enough to clap his
friend on the shoulder. “Would be like old times if you could join
us. I’m going to rob Solomon Hoss.”
“Who’s that now?”
“One very nasty brute. His crew runs the market district. He’s
cost me quite a bit one or two times, that one has. So tonight, I
aim to settle the books. With interest.”
“Go on.” Caine grinned, the mischief of his youth returning if
only for a moment.
Tylen seemed happy to share. “A few weeks ago, he started
stockpiling some black market cargo. Precious enough that it’s
worth bribing the watch to turn a blind eye. He thinks the stash
is his little secret, but my birds don’t miss a beat, do they?” He
winked at Cynthia.
 MARK OF CAINE | 127

“No we don’t.” Just the same, Cynthia shrugged like it didn’t

matter one way or another.
Tylen looked back at Caine. “Anyway, I’m going to steal it. All
of it. Fence it. Ransom it back to him or blow it to bits, for all I
care. No matter how you slice it, I don’t expect we’ll get a better
chance than right now.”
Caine smirked. “On account of everyone out looking for me?”
Tylen tapped a finger to his nose. “A good thief has to seize the
moment.”
“Then yeh owe me a cut.” He nodded. “Well. I’ll bring yer girl
back to yeh safe when all is said and done.”
“I know you will.” Tylen extended his hand. “Good luck,
Allister.”
Caine accepted the handshake with a firm grip. “Good to see
yeh again. It’s a comfort to know I’ve not burned every single
bridge I’ve ever crossed.”
 — CHAPTER 15 —
OF SEWERS AND SIDESTEPS

“YEH SURE ARE SLOW, MISTER.” Cynthia stopped where the dim
sewer turned a corner, waiting for Caine to catch up.
From a dozen yards back, Caine huffed his way up to her. This
marked the second time in a week he’d been called slow. He shook
his head in offense, unable to rebuff the slight due to his lack
of breath. He let out a gasp as he reached the child and studied
the darkness ahead. It was lit irregularly by moonlight at intervals
through the sewer grates above.
Speed be damned; it was the dark that was slowing him down
worst of all. How the girl seemed immune to it, he couldn’t say.
“Yeh might just be really fast, kiddo,” he muttered, “but ever
think of it this way? Why would anyone want to be slow in this
nastiness?”
The girl cracked a weak smile for the first time as far as he
could tell. She turned to go. “Well, at least yer funny.”
130 | MILES HOLMES

“Whoa, whoa. Give me a minute.” He bent over, hands on

knees.
“Would yeh like to take a nap now?”
“No, I would not like to take a nap now. Yeh’ve just run me in
so many directions, and it’s so dark down here, I’ve no idea where
we are anymore.”
Next to him, a grated chute erupted with fresh sewage,
threatening to splash over him. By instinct, he flashed clear and
reappeared farther ahead in the dimly lit sewer. Cynthia stared
after him.
“Cheater. Yeh never said yeh knew any magic,” she shouted,
her voice echoing over the sound of running sludge.
He grinned at her. “Now who’s falling behind?”
“It’s still you, mister. We go the other way.” She pointed in the
opposite direction of the tunnel and was off at a run once more,
jumping onto the sewer walkways where solid rubbish allowed her
to cross the cistern like stepping stones. She sang a jaunty little
tune with the same refrain over and over as she ran.
All night we run, all night we go,
Under the streets with a feller so slow
Helplessly, he followed, grumbling past every obstacle the girl
sailed over. For all the trouble she was and for all the indignity
she heaped upon him, he couldn’t help but admire her spunk. He
remembered fondly when he was her age. He watched overhead
as the light of the moon shone down from grate, and he could see
the footfalls of the streets traffic walking by.
He couldn’t argue with Tylen’s logic in selecting a subterranean
route. Down here, their passage would surely go unnoticed by
both snipers and foot patrols. The only thing they’d need to fret
over down here was the rats, and that suited him just fine.
Ahead, the dim tunnel grew lighter—he saw the glow of a
torch brightening the way. The flicker of the flames danced on the
walls, and as the tunnel rounded a gentle bend, Caine could see
figures at the next junction. Three men stood waiting, the one in
their center with a torch. In the blink of an eye, Caine flickered
clear of the world, reappearing within arm’s reach of Cynthia.
 MARK OF CAINE | 131

“Hold up.” He grabbed the girl’s arm, eliciting a gasp of

surprise from the child. He pulled her behind the cover of a heap
of bricks. “Trust me. Wait here.”
Then he was gone again, reappearing at the edge of the torch’s
light. In a blur of movement, his pistols were drawn and trained
on the visibly surprised trio.
“What yeh know, boys? Start talking. And make it good,” He
ordered, squinting at them. “Unhappy fingers are trigger-happy
fingers.”
“Hello, Allister.” The tallest among them smiled, raising his
hands slowly.
Caine focused on the man, taking note of his facial scar. “Well,
well. Randall Deacon,” he growled. “What are yeh doing here?”
“Look here, boys.” Deacon turned to his fellows, a world-
weary smile on his lips. “Allister Caine.”
“I suggest yeh let us pass,” Caine warned.
Deacon ignored him. “So this one, he hangs me out to dry
twenty-five odd years back. We’re mates on a job, see? We busted
in through the roof of this warehouse. Watchdogs are wise to us
straight away, and next thing you know, I got a gun to my back.
But Allister here? He’s long gone while I’m getting fitted with
cuffs. And this is the welcome I get?”
Deacon’s mates scoffed, shaking their heads.
“Randall, what d’yeh want? Boss gave me a job, and I aim
to do it.” Cynthia was suddenly at Caine’s side, her expression
defiant and aimed squarely at the towering man.
“Hey, I thought I told yeh to stay back,” Caine snapped at the
child. She ducked past him easily, moving into the torchlight to
face Deacon.
“He’s one of ours, mister. Yeh get that, right?” She looked back
at him as though he were simple.
Caine sighed, holstering his guns. “Yeah. I guess.”
Deacon smirked at the pair’s bickering, then knelt down meet
Cynthia to get eye to eye. “Darlin’, we got a situation the boss
wanted you to know about. He sent us to tell you personally. We
got a rat.”
132 | MILES HOLMES

“What are yeh saying?”

Deacon said, “Mack’s crew has been tipped off somehow. They
got savvy, and they got the sewers staked out the way you’re goin’.
They want Caine, and trust me, they won’t care much if a little girl
gets greased in the crossfire.”
“How do yeh know this?”
“On account of Boss keeps a rat in Mack’s crew, of course.”
Deacon looked up at Caine. “So, I suggest you turn back. Or
consider we lead you a detour top-side.”
Caine said nothing.
Deacon spread his hands wide. “Oh, and you’re welcome.” He
turned to go, heading for the ladder on the far wall of the sewer.
His comrades followed after him.
“Wait a minute,” Cynthia called out, hurrying to the man’s
side as he grasped the first rung.
“Well?” Deacon cocked his head.
“We’re in Hoss’ territory now, ain’t we?”
“That’s right.”
“So how you aim to get us through?”
“I called in a favor, but it won’t last if they find out who we’re
moving. So, we gotta do this fast.”
“What are we talking about here?” Caine stepped between the
pair and sank to a crouch, his eyes locked on Cynthia.
“Mister, you gotta understand that Boss don’t run the whole
city.”
Caine rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I understand that.”
“Well, we ain’t home right now.”
Caine looked to the moss-covered ceiling warily. “All right.
Who runs this territory?”
Deacon smirked and before Cynthia could answer, he said,
“Market district is run by an old-school bruiser by the name of
Solomon Hoss.”
“Your boss told me about him.” Caine shrugged indifferently.
“So, why do we care?”
The gangster shook his head. “Harbins ain’t your only problem.
Not by half. The bounty on your head is up to 1600 crowns. That’s
 MARK OF CAINE | 133

a number, brother. The whole city is turnin’ over rocks to find

you. Hoss’ crew has some real heavy-hitters, the kind with magic,
yeah, you savvy? I’m sure they’d love to lay eyes on you, same as
anyone else. Mack’s crew ain’t no push-overs, either. Difference is,
they know you’re coming, and Hoss don’t. You tell me the better
odds.”
Caine rose, inspecting the shadowy tunnel ahead. He drew his
Spellstorms and cocked them. “I’ve got two friends who say I’ll
run through Mack’s crew just fine.”
“Well, now, maybe you could. You’re a real survivor after all,
ain’t you?” Deacon narrowed his eyes sullenly. “But you got our
little girl with you. Are you willing to bet her life on it?”
Caine sighed, looking back at Cynthia. She stood as defiant
as ever, her hands balled into fists. Her blue eyes gleamed back
at him from amid the soot on her face and from under the rat’s
nest of her hair. He knew she’d go with him without hesitation;
she was no coward. But she didn’t know any better, either. With
a breath he spun his pistols for show, appreciating her grin, then
dropped them forcefully back into their holsters. “Kiddo, we’re
going with Deacon.”
•••

CAINE WAS PRESSED AGAINST A BRICK wall, watching as Deacon

poked his head out into the street. The alley was dark and quiet
save for the sounds of the city drifting in from all around them.
From an open window they could hear a woman cry; dogs barked
in a yard behind them. There was laughter in the street ahead, and
the people of the night began to emerge. Caine glanced up at the
break in the looming alley walls on either side and found a moon,
Calder, staring back down at him. He was grateful for a moment.
“Come on.” Deacon waved, and Caine, Cynthia, and Deacon’s
crew sprinted across the well-lit street. Reaching the far alley,
Caine rubbed his eyes to adjust them to the shadows once more.
The back street wound into impenetrable darkness. Nothing
stirred, not even rats in the scattered garbage bins.
“How much farther?” Caine peered over Deacon’s shoulder.
134 | MILES HOLMES

The mobster drew his firearm, sweat beading on his forehead;

they’d kept a mean pace to get this far. “The alley hooks around to
a courtyard back there. It’s the only way through. The boys and I
will scout it out for you. Past the far side, Cynthia knows the rest
of the way. Don’t you, darlin’?”
Cynthia nodded.
Deacon grinned. “Wait a moment for us.”
Caine watched the trio slip into shadows before he squared off
with the corner that looked back out into the street. The east district
of Bainsmarket had always been a well-to-do neighborhood, so he
hardly recognized it now. The buildings he saw had fallen into
exceptional disrepair, some even being abandoned altogether. It
reinforced the gulf between the city he remembered and city he
was seeing.
Through the entire run so far, Cynthia had kept pace and then
some. She had endurance, and she was a better thief than Tylen
was at her age. Caine had to admit the girl was like no ten-year-
old he’d ever met. As if sensing his eyes upon her, she stared back
at him, her eyes narrowing with suspicion. “What is it?”
He shrugged. “I was just thinking what a tough little bird yeh
are.”
She shrugged back. “Why’d yeh leave my ma?”
“What?” Caine coughed, blindsided by the question.
“Yeh heard me, mister.”
“Well, I just—that is, we—” he began.
“My pa was shot dead in the street when I was two,” she
mercifully interrupted him. “Maybe if yeh got back with her, she
wouldn’t be so lonely all the time. It gets old, yeh know?”
He couldn’t stop himself from laughing out loud. Sure enough,
the kid had it all figured out. “Kiddo, I’m the last thing yer ma
needs. Take my word for it.”
“Just an idea, mister. It’s not like I’m partial to yeh.”
She seemed ready to say something more, but her mouth hung
open, her attention now drawn to the shadows ahead. Caine
followed her glance, scowling hard at the inky blackness. “What
is it?”
 MARK OF CAINE | 135

“Randall. He’s giving us the all clear.” She wiped her nose, and
Caine saw the gleam in those clear blue eyes of hers again.
“How do you see him?” He scratched his chin, still confounded
as he was by the darkness ahead. First the sewers, now the alley.
The girl had some peepers on her, all right.
“You tellin’ me yeh can’t? Come on. Time’s gettin’ away, and
we’re not.” She ran, leaving Caine to try to keep up.
By small degrees, his night vision improved, and he side-
stepped a trash heap instead of tripping over it. He heard Cynthia
ahead of him more than he actually saw her. She was little more
than a shadow against the blackness now. He smelled tar and
fried pork wafting through the claustrophobic gap. The press of
tenements ahead rose on either side, then they opened before
them. Pale moonlight spilled over the courtyard.
It was a wide space, twenty yards wide and half as long. A half-
dozen brownstones lined either side with balconies and backdoors.
Wash lines were strung across the gap like cobwebs. The lights
inside each room cast orange glows into the unlit courtyard. It
had a surreal feel to it.
Caine looked up. A dozen yards above, he noticed the glowing
dot of an ember. He recognized it was the lit cigar of a man on a
fire escape. Then he saw another silhouette on high. And another.
In their hands, weapons winked in the soft radiance of the moon
Calder.
He sighed. The courtyard crawled with gunmen on high. They
waited on all sides, spread across three stories of balconies and fire
escapes and roofs.
He and Cynthia had run into a shooting gallery, their path the
kill zone. Caine’s heart pounded in his chest. His gaze fell on the
girl, who still led the way in. He reached for her, desperate to pull
her clear. The men were aiming their weapons.
Time seemed to stop around him.
His focus fueled him until he slipped once more to the place
between moments. The world appeared grey here, colorless and
hazy. Caine had long ago learned the way to unlock fantastic speed
of thought and reflex, but it was a place he could never stay for long.
136 | MILES HOLMES

So, he began to run.

He sprinted past the frozen form of Cynthia, angling for an
overturned garbage can. He stepped up onto the can, pushing off
and into a vaulting leap for the wide-open space of the courtyard.
As he moved, he vanished, reappearing two stories high both
Spellstorms drawn. The firing squad around him was paused mid-
aim, though he saw now that his magic had not stopped two of
them from firing. The muzzles of their weapons glowed brightly.
The shots burst forth and inched forward slowly, targeting the
place he had been standing only a moment ago.
Caine opened fire.
His Spellstorms sang his favorite song, stitching death shot by
shot across fire escapes and balconies. He spun, pistols balancing
him, leaving no man unmarked. The fury of his maelstrom was
unleashed in full. The world was a blur of bullets and blood bursts.
The men before him had all drawn their last breath without even
knowing what was happening to them before it was over.
He landed. The world regained its color as dead men began to
fall from the sky all around him. One by one they tumbled from
their perches to land in silent, broken heaps on the cobblestones,
no longer men, now just corpses.
“Morrow’s sake, mister.” Cynthia whirled around, staring at
the sudden carnage.
Just ten feet away, a fallen gunman stirred at her voice.
Groaning, he reached for his gun. Caine approached and crushed
the man’s hand underfoot. Without a word, he finished the man
with a shot to his chest. Then he sank to his knees, winded by the
toll of what he’d done. Cynthia was by his side. She pulled close,
and he could see the tears coming, but Cynthia wasn’t going to
let them fall.
“They was gonna kill us,” she stammered. “I never seen ’em
in time, but yeh did. Yeh killed them. Yeh killed them all. I never
seen anyone move so fast.”
She hesitated, then reluctantly burrowed her face deep into the
nook of the warcaster’s shoulder. Awkwardly, he patted her.
“Who’s the slowpoke now, kiddo?”
 MARK OF CAINE | 137

Through her unexpected tears, she looked up at him in anger.

She punched him square in the chest. Hard.
Caine coughed. “What did yeh do that for?”
“This ain’t no time to be funnin’ me, mister,” she growled.
“All right, all right.” Caine looked past her shoulder to scan
the courtyard again. Though there didn’t seem to be any present
danger, he felt as if something still wasn’t quite right. His expression
hardened with revelation. “Hold on. Where’s Deacon?”
Cynthia pulled back, wiping a runny nose as she did. “I never
saw him. He was already gone when I turned the corner.”
“That bastard.” Caine spat. “He wasn’t lying about there being
a rat in Tylen’s outfit. He just left out the part that it was him.”
Her expression now mirrored his own: cold and hard. On the
face of one so young, Caine found it unsettling. Her voice was
not unlike his when she spoke. “So, if yer right, yeh gonna fix
him for it?”
“Kiddo, we have—”
Three shots rang out, forming a staccato echo in the courtyard.
A man screamed piteously. The sound seemed to die in the victim’s
throat as Caine craned his head to locate the source of the sounds.
Cynthia looked toward the exit of the alley they had originally
planned to use.
“That’s Randall,” she cried.
“Come on.” He rose to his feet, checking his Spellstorms. “Stay
close to me.”
 — CHAPTER 16 —
OF FIENDS AND FAMILY

RANDALL DEACON WAS BLEEDING OUT on the cobblestone, riddled

with bullets. A pall of fine mist hung in the shadowy alley around
him. From a dozen yards away, Caine thought the mist was so
concentrated, it almost seemed to come from a sewer grate. Except
there was no grate. The vapor appeared to move of its own accord,
refusing to dissipate as it coiled about in the wind. The clouds
parted, and moonlight flooded the scene.
A hazy figure of a man crouched next to the dead man, his
back turned. All Caine could see was the man’s eerie silhouette
clad in a leather duster that matched his own. The figure pulled
Deacon’s slumped body up by the lapels of his jacket as if to speak
with him. Caine stepped closer silently, leading with his pistol
while motioning to Cynthia to stay back.
While watching the mysterious figure, Caine could feel the
mark on his arm began to throb. He froze in his tracks, focusing
140 | MILES HOLMES

on the warmth beneath his sleeve. The outline of the glyph faintly
glowed through the fabric.
“What’s that man doing?” Cynthia whispered. Caine scowled
and made to wave her back, but he hesitated when he saw why
she’d asked the question at all.
Deacon opened his mouth wide, revealing a luminous glow
from his throat as if he had swallowed a jar of fireflies. He moaned.
The light within him grew ever more brilliant.
This is bad. Caine felt a cold sweat bead his forehead. He knew
what he was watching. Too well at that. He knew it from countless
battles and run-ins with the most potent agents of the nighmarish
kingdom of Cryx. The stranger before him was using the darkest
of necromantic magic to pull the dead man’s soul out of his body.
Once Randall Deacon’s soul slipped free from his yawning
mouth, it hung in the fog for an instant. It twisted, taking on a
spectral form of Deacon in an unnatural light of green and yellow,
seeming to turn the man into a phantom of his former self. The
man in the duster then inhaled him as easily as one might take a
breath of fresh air. When Deacon’s soul was gone, the man who
had taken it turned to confront his witnesses. Yet Caine knew the
face even before he fully saw it. He knew it in his bones. He’d seen
thousands of times before.
It was his face.
The man with his face smiled at him, seeming to wink
knowingly. A heavy cloud passed over the moon, and the world
below it suddenly darkened. Caine took a step forward as he
strained to keep his eyes on the stranger. He considered whether
or not to open fire when the light cleared, but he didn’t fully
understand what he was seeing yet. Then, when the cloud passed,
dull moonlight spilled over the alley once more, and the decision
was stripped from his hands. The phantom was gone.
“Where is it?” Cynthia asked.
Caine didn’t answer. His mark still throbbed hot against his
arm, but he felt his blood run cold after seeing the Thamarite’s
curse with his own eyes at last. That thing was him—or a shadow
of himself at least.
 MARK OF CAINE | 141

You will move through this world as a wraith. By your will, may
you move unseen in sunlight and be glimpsed only under the moons of
Caen. The weapons of men will not find you—their very minds will
cloud in your presence. This is my gift. Do you accept it?
Her words rang true enough upon reflection, though it seemed
to him that she never intended it to apply to him directly. Nothing
in her idiotic verse answered any questions of consequence. And
now he was unsure what the stranger wanted or how he could stop
it. But whatever else he did or didn’t know, he now was certain the
correct answer to her question was Nah, I’m good.
“So what do we do now?” Cynthia asked, tugging his sleeve.
Seeing him adrift in his thoughts, she repeated the question.
Twice.
He blinked, finally looking toward the end of the alley. “We’re
close to the safehouse, yeah?”
She nodded.
“Then we better get to them before that thing does.”
•••

CYNTHIA WOULDN’T LET CAINE KNOCK, so he had to wait while she

did it four times before anyone inside the house heard them.
“Who goes there?” a low voice growled from the other side of
the thick ironbound door. A pair of eyes narrowed as they looked
out from a slot.
“Down here,” Cynthia called, and the eyes looked down.
“Hey.”
“Cynthia, what you doing here?”
“Do yeh know who I am?” Caine stepped into sight and
interposed himself between the doorman and the girl.
“I know who you are, sure.”
“Do yeh know who yer keepin’ watch over?”
Again the owner of the eyes agreed.
“They’re why we’re here,” Cynthia said.
“Let us in, and be quick about it. Trouble is coming.” Caine
looked anxiously behind them, up and down the street. With
little more than gaslight illuminating the area, he scanned for the
142 | MILES HOLMES

mist that would herald his doppelganger’s arrival.

The slot slid shut, and the sounds of locks turning and braces
being pulled echoed from within. Then the door creaked open,
revealing the owner of the eyes: a brawny man of Ordic descent
stood brandishing a hand cannon. He was of middle age, had
receding grey hair, and wore spectacles and a stained white apron.
“A chef with a cannon,” Caine muttered. “Yeh might as well
have come with a spatula, cookie. Yeh not much to look at, are
yeh?”
The doorman stepped to one side. If Caine had thought of
Tylen’s security as light, he only needed to look beyond the old
man and into the cramped hallway entrance. Four more heavyset
brawlers stood waiting with rifles, scatterguns, and knuckledusters.
“None of yeh are waiters, are yeh?” he asked.
“I’m Ludo,” the cook said. “How is our Cynthia?” He wrinkled
his nose with a kindly smile to the girl, patting her head as she
went by. He scowled at Caine.
Caine could hear the clatter of dishes in what sounded like
a kitchen one room over. Then an older woman’s frantic voice
shouted from beyond the hall.
“Is that Allister?”
Relief washed over Caine like a wave. “Yeah, Ma, it’s me.”
•••

CAINE LOOKED WITH SURPRISE AT HIS sister from across the cramped
kitchen table.
Beth’s hair had been pulled back tight to create a look so unlike
herself, as far as Caine could recall, that he could have passed her
in the street without recognizing her. The lines around her eyes
were a surprise, too, though he understood how the time they had
spent apart could easily account for them. By contrast, his mother
was not far from how he remembered her—just a little greyer
and frailer. Her short hair was pure white now, her eyes rheumy
and silvery. She sat in a perpetual hunch, another unexpected
benchmark of the years they’d spent apart. In studying them both,
it seemed again to Caine that his nostalgia for the Bainsmarket of
 MARK OF CAINE | 143

his past clashed with the reality of its present. The contrast was in
everything he thought he knew.
“I still can’t believe you’re here after all we heard.” Bethany
shook her head, both her hands wrapped around her mug of
coffee.
“It was no trouble, Beth.”
“Like hell it weren’t,” Cynthia exclaimed from her seat at the
table. “Yeh should have seen all the men Hoss sent to grease us.”
Caine shot the girl a withering glare. “Don’t go runnin’ yer
mouth and give them a start now.”
She shrugged. “Just saying is all.”
“Whatever yeh heard, I’m just sorry to put yeh through all
this.” He looked around at the small family he still had.
His mother smiled. “I know yeh’ll set things right, Allister.
Yeh’ve always been a good son. Now will yeh introduce yer mother
to her granddaughter or do I have to do it myself?”
He blinked, looking back and forth between his mother and
Cynthia. “No, Ma. Cynthia’s not mine. I knew her mother once,
but that’s the extent of it.”
“But, Allister,” Bethany shook her head. “Her eyes.”
“Unless she plucked ’em out of my head, they ain’t mine.”
Caine shook his head emphatically.
Both his sister and his mother looked at the little pickpocket,
unconvinced. And the attention made Cynthia shy away from the
table.
“I reckon I better see Ludo,” she whispered meekly, then
departed the chamber.
Beth turned to look her older brother in the eyes. “Why don’t
yeh tell us what’s going on.”
Caine took a deep breath once the girl was gone. “All right. But
I better start from the beginning.”
“Yeh must be hungry, Allister.” His mother looked him up and
down as if assessing his general well-being. “Whatever needs to be
said, yeh can say over a hot meal.”
“I’m really fine, Ma.”
She ignored his protest with a wave of her hand, looking to the
144 | MILES HOLMES

corridor beyond as if in search of Cynthia or even Ludo. Caine

sighed. “Fine.”
The more he thought of it, the more he decided his mother was
right. The day had been long enough already, and he could not
remember the last time he’d eaten, let alone stopped moving. He
was more than hungry; he was famished.
For a solid hour, Caine, his mother, and his sister spoke of the
lost time on both sides of the gap between them, all of it leading
up to recent events. For his part, he punctuated the conversation
by shoveling food into his mouth, gulping mugs of coffee, and
glancing at his Spellstorms placed on either side of his plate like
cutlery. There had been no sign of the phantom wearing his face,
so he had begun to fixate on its absence.
“I just can’t figure it out,” he said at last, interrupting his sister
as she spoke of her job at the mill.
“My new shift?” Bethany frowned.
“No, I get that.” Caine pushed himself up from the table to
peer down the hall. “What is it waiting for? Maybe it ain’t looking
for me. Or yeh.”
His duster lay folded over the chair back; his armor was on the
floor. His sister looked at his exposed arm as he paced. “Didn’t yeh
say yer arm hurts when it’s close?”
“It does.” He shrugged, looking at the glyph. “I wanna know,
why doesn’t it come?”
“It had two days to find us.” Bethany shuddered. “I somehow
think we’d be dead by now if we were really what it wanted.”
“That’s the part I can’t figure. It doesn’t waste time, and it’s kept
plenty busy since it got here. Same in Prescott.” He scratched his
head. “So, what am I missing?”
Beth sipped her coffee. “Yeh said the last man yeh saw it kill
was Randall Deacon, eh?”
Caine nodded.
“There was bad blood between yeh two, wasn’t there?”
Caine nodded again. “Yeh could say that and still be generous.”
“What about that list of victims I read in the paper. Yeh say yeh
knew them all, right?”
 MARK OF CAINE | 145

“What are yeh getting at, Beth?”

“How did yeh leave things off with them people?”
“Truth be told? Not well.”
“Now here’s us and Tylen. Neither him nor us seen this double
of yers, right?” Bethany leaned forward, her expression hopeful.
“Yeh’ve always been a good son. Yeh have,” his mother added,
patting his unscarred arm. “The crowns yeh sent home over the
years? Never missed a month, for all the trouble it must have been
for you.”
“And what about Tylen?” Bethany persisted. “Didn’t yeh say
he’s made something of himself, thanks to yeh? I suspect yeh’ve
done right by him, so he’s kept an eye out for us all these years.”
Caine thought back to the start of the unfortunate events in
Prescott. Bad blood fit the pattern, to be sure. He’d stiffed Rollie
on the tab. And the man was dead. He’d stolen Rand Cooper’s
steamjack and ruined his shop. And the man was dead. He’d been
careless with Silvie Lauck’s heart, and the girl was dead. He puzzled
over these facts for a moment. But the bounty hunters didn’t quite
fit the pattern. They were the ones to come after it, not the other
way around. Maybe if they’d just left it alone, though, they’d still
be alive. And now, it’s in Bainsmarket. A vague worry, growing
stronger by the hour, turned circles in his head.
Cynthia appeared at the door, yawning. “Ludo says yeh can
stay as long as yeh like. I’m going home.”
“Not without my Allister to take yeh.” His ma waved a finger.
“Don’t yeh know there’s a killer loose?
Caine looked at the girl. His worry quickly shifted to dread.
He was reminded of how Lucy was yet another heart he’d toyed
with. He turned to his mother. “Maybe yer right, Ma. But what
about you and Beth?”
Ludo appeared at the doorway, his brawny figure leaning in
with crossed arms. “I’ve been bodyguard to Mr. Redmayne for
five years. You can have my word on this: I promise you nobody
touches a hair on their heads.”
Caine glanced to the man’s holsters and the well-worn handles
of his hand cannons. The Ordic gunman and cook seemed
146 | MILES HOLMES

capable in both the alley and kitchen. Caine glanced at Cynthia,

the uneasy sensation continuing to well up inside him. But it was
going to do that whether he sat tight or was on the move.
“All right,” he finally said. “Let’s go, kiddo. But this time we
stick to the sewers, eh?”
 — CHAPTER 17 —
OF BULLETS AND
BREADCRUMBS

“DIXON, TAKE A LOOK AT THIS,” HARBINS SAID.

Lynch rose from one corner of the shadowed alley, pulling
away his alchemical goggles as he did. A few yards away, Harbins
dug at something in the brick wall using the edge of his knife’s
blade. Lynch moved to join him.
As he crossed the alley, he looked out of the alley at the other
side of the picket, shaking his head in disbelief. There, torches
flickered and bobbed in the hands of a restless gathering crowd.
A few were outfitted as militia members, openly brandishing
blunderbusses, knives, pistols, and even the same axes they
chopped their firewood with. Their rising cacophony and the
constant whistles of the constables who strained to keep them
back was beginning to agitate him.
“We’re going to have bloody riots at this rate.” Lynch indicated
148 | MILES HOLMES

the crowd as he stepped up to Harbins. Beside him, Watts nodded

with a wary grimace. Even Ryan’s signature flippant expression
was absent.
The sun had barely set before their man had gone back to
his murderous work. This back alley courtyard had erupted in a
hailstorm of gunfire only an hour before, and it was now drawing
Harbins’ task force and spectators alike. When they’d arrived, it
had proven no small task just to count the bodies. At one point,
Lynch looked up to find a dead man twisted in the wash lines
strung between the terraces. Another pair were slumped over the
rail of the balconies. Below, a heap of the dead lay piled two-deep
in some places, forming a circle of death around the center of the
cramped courtyard. Setting aside the dead, Lynch zeroed in on the
source of Harbin’s interest.
“What have you got there?” Lynch asked. Harbins turned
toward him, revealing a cold blue lump of metal, etched at one
end with runes of power.
It was a bullet.
“Is that what I think it is?” Lynch lowered his goggles into
place out of habit.
Harbins nodded. “They are scattered everywhere.”
Lynch took the fragment, his stare probing its every scratch
and contour. He turned it over, noting the rune inscribed. He then
stood back from Harbins, locating the center of the courtyard.
There he turned in a circle, first regarding the suspended bodies
from this vantage, then those on the ground. He imagined himself
as their killer, and he nodded to himself.
“Now this is the Caine I know.”
Harbins grimaced. “Are you quite sure?”
“I’ve seen him carve this rune before. Besides, notice the radial
pattern to the dead?” Lynch turned a circle, gesturing as he did.
“These men died in a maelstrom of fire. All at once, single shooter.
Only Caine could do this.”
Watts grinned, crouching next to a corpse. He tugged at the
weapon the former owner still clung to with stiff, dead fingers.
“Like that time at Kelsey Field, eh, Cap’n?”
 MARK OF CAINE | 149

Lynch nodded. “Exactly like Kelsey Field.”

Harbins raised an eyebrow, assessing the scene. “It appears
our man found himself in a proper ambush. These men were all
known gunmen for Solomon Hoss. Well-armed at that, I should
point out.”
“All right. But something is missing.” Lynch crouched by the
corpse Watts had inspected, one finger probing the wound in the
dead man’s chest. He flicked the magnification of his lenses. “The
scene is less than an hour old, but I see no necromantic residue
at all.”
Harbins’ eyes gleamed. “You’re not looking in the right place.”
“What do you mean?”
“Come with me.” The captain of the watch headed down the
alley toward a narrow corner. After a moment, Lynch followed.
“What do you think he racked up here?” Ryan asked Watts as
the pair trailed behind them.
“I dunno. . . twenty? Twenty-five?” Watts looked around as he
walked.
“Twenty-eight,” Harbins called back, leading Lynch around
the alley’s corner. “Twenty-nine, if we count this one.”
A dead man lay at the end of the alley, just yards from the
street, staring up from a pool of blood.
“So, what, Caine gunned down a straggler before he can get
away?” Ryan guessed.
“I don’t think so,” Lynch said. “This man was shot in the chest,
not in the back.”
“Caine could have teleported in front of him to stop his escape.”
Harbins crouched by the corpse, his eyes gleaming. “Adjust your
lenses, Dixon. What more do you see?”
Lynch trimmed the filters of his goggles until the world
appeared blue. When he did, his mouth fell open—the body and
its wounds were covered in luminous green dust. The entire scene
was alight with it. The dust only gleamed faintly; sometimes, it
even eddied up into the air as the breeze stirred the alley. Lynch
looked ever closer at the wounds. “Let me guess. No shot recovered
from this man?”
150 | MILES HOLMES

Harbins smiled humorlessly, his eyes dulling as he let go of his

true sight. “Not a one.”
“So perhaps we do have a second shooter here. Someone
capable of necromancy.”
Harbins shrugged, jerking a thumb back toward the ambush
site. “Or your man switches back to it after gunning down the
lot that way. Maybe his ammunition was spent after the firefight?
Maybe he’d been holding it back as a last resort?”
The idea that Caine was using necromancy went against
everything Lynch knew about the man. But then again, so had
Rebald’s story in the first place, Caine working for the reds. Just
the same, everywhere Caine’s trail led, the death toll kept climbing.
“I don’t think the crowd cares much either way. It’s Caine the
crowd wants,” Ryan cautioned, looking beyond the end of the
alley at the restless crowd waiting behind the pickets.
Lynch stared at the disgruntled mob. “Did anyone actually see
anything?”
Harbins nodded. “Two witnesses. Both claim a man in armor
matching what we believe Caine is wearing fled the scene with a
street child in tow—a girl, perhaps nine or ten years old. And then
no one else went in or out of the alley until we arrived.”
Lynch rose, his stare still fixed on the green residue on the
ground. “We are getting closer. That much is for sure.”
Watts and Ryan drew alongside him, their attention divided
between the corpse and the gathering crowd.
“What now, Cap’n?” Watts growled.
As particles of green dust drifted away in the breeze, Lynch
reached out with one gloved hand as if he could catch them. The
radiant dust simply tumbled away from his grasp, rising higher
into the cool night air. He looked toward the alley’s cobblestone,
seeing traces of the substance leading away from the corpse like a
criss-cross of snail trails.
Finally, he said, “We have a trail, and it’s fresh. I say we follow
it for as long as it lasts. And when we run out of trail, we’ll get
him.”
 — CHAPTER 18 —
OF REGRET AND REVELATION

“CYNTHIA. GET AWAY FROM THAT MAN this instant.” Lucy stood at
the doorstep, watching with the practiced scowl of a mother as her
daughter approached.
Caine watched the girl run up the front step of the worn
apartment building with a lump in his throat and scratching his
head. It was clear his former flame had not recognized him yet. It
also occurred to him then he’d rather be staring down a platoon
of Khadoran Iron Fang pikemen than face Lucy. Just the same, he
stood fast and waited for the inevitable.
He had known Lucy since they were children. They had
run the streets together in times of mischief and in times of
survival. Over the years, that relationship had predictably
blossomed into a tempestuous on-again, off-again affair. When
uiske, coincidence, and physical desire brought them together
on so many occasions, her temper and his indifference usually
152 | MILES HOLMES

separated them shortly thereafter. This had continued well after

he had enlisted in the service, so on those rare occasions he passed
through Bainsmarket, either he’d find her or she’d find him, and
their relationship would go on as if it had never stopped. And
then he’d leave again.
It had been ten years, he guessed, since he’d seen her last, and it
had been that long for good reason. She had been clearer that day
than on most of their morning-after breakups that there wasn’t
going to be a next time this time. He couldn’t even say he blamed
her. For all the worthwhile conquest it had seemed to be at the
time, sleeping with her best friend while Lucy was passed out in
the next room had, upon reflection, turned out to one of his less-
than-finer moments.
“Darlin’, have yeh been playing in the sewers again? What
have I told yeh about that?” Lucy shook her head, arching her
back as she yawned. She looked out wearily over the slum of the
southeast quarter and drew a long final pull from her cigarette.
Cynthia tugged at her mother’s dress, drawing Lucy’s irritated
glance downward.
“He’s here to talk to yeh,” Cynthia said, pointing to Caine.
Lucy frowned, focusing beyond the stoop to find him looking
back up at her.
“Hello, Lucy.” Caine winced; her name sounded like a foreign
word on his tongue.
“Allister?” She stared with eyes wide.
He nodded with his hands on hips, watching as the little
pickpocket ducked past her mother to disappear beyond the
doorway of the worn tenement.
Lucy’s face hardened into an ugly snarl. “Give me one good
reason—”
He nodded, resigned. “I know, you must—”
“—one good reason I don’t call for the constables to collect yer
worthless arse right now.”
“Hear me out,” Caine suggested, his hands raised for mercy.
“The pair of yeh might be in more trouble than I am.”
 MARK OF CAINE | 153

•••

LUCY WAS JUST AS BEAUTIFUL as Caine remembered her but also

worse. He met her sullen gaze, recalling the first time he’d done
so. Her eyes were the same crystal blue he’d known, yet they were
world-weary and sunken now. Her cheekbones were as high as
ever but looked more severe than angular. Her once flowing locks
of raven hair were gone, shorn into something ragged and flecked
with grey. She looked sour. And her internal debate was visible in
the narrowing of her eyes.
“A man running about town with yer face? Yeh seriously expect
me to believe that?” Lucy scowled at him.
Caine sat with his arms crossed, staring back at her. He
considered his reply carefully. It was like a tight rope he was
walking here—no less dangerous. He had laid his cards on the
table, but that was a long way from gaining her trust. At times like
this, he wondered if his life might be easier if his gift had come in
the form of persuasion. He’d be better at both cards and love, he
supposed.
Lucy mirrored him almost perfectly, sitting opposite him in
the cramped living room, still waiting for his answer.
“It’s the truth. But when did that ever matter in yer estimation
of me?” Caine said and immediately regretted it. He was not
prone to apologies, however, so instead, he sat back and waited
for the next barb, frustrated and exhausted all at once.
“It’s just more of yer silver-tongued bollocks,” she hissed.
“Why, Allister? What’s yer game?”
“It’s not a game.” Caine ran one hand through his hair; this
was not going anywhere close to plan. For a moment, he wished
his doppelganger would just show up to resolve the stalemate,
whatever the risk. Or to take over the conversation for him. He
looked hopefully to the ward on his exposed arm that it might
flare to life, but it remained simple scar tissue for the moment.
“I’ve made a life here.” Lucy sighed. “I work my shifts at the
factory, and Tylen keeps my girl busy with odd jobs. It’s not much,
but it’s honest, and we manage to make ends meet. Why don’t yeh
do us a favor and leave off, then. If yeh promise yeh won’t come
154 | MILES HOLMES

near my Cynthia again, maybe I won’t even report yeh were here.”
She rose to usher him to the door.
“People are dead, Lucy,” he said, his shoulders slumped. “I may
not have pulled the trigger, but I’ve a hand in it for certain. If
it’s bad blood the thing wants, it’s only a matter of time until it
comes calling here. I wouldn’t feel right trying to live with myself
if anything were to happen to yeh or yer girl.”
“My girl, eh?” She mulled over Caine’s pained expression then
cocked her head as if to reconsider the story he presented.
“The Radiz, who is she?” she finally asked. “Did yeh play loose
with her like yeh did me? Did it never occur to yeh there might be
consequences for the life yeh lead?”
“It has occurred to me this past week, yes.” Caine snorted.
“But I’m not much inclined to introspection, am I now? Just the
same, I don’t know this woman.”
Still Lucy’s eyes bored into his own, unrelenting.
He shrugged. “With her gift, I suppose she might look like
anyone. Maybe I do know her.” He stood and peered through the
drapes covering the front window, once again looking at his scar.
“I’ve made mistakes, I know I have. With you. With others. What
more can I do now but try to make amends?”
She remained fixed in place, pointing at the door. A look of
revelation crossed her face, and she leveled her pointing finger
in Caine’s direction instead. “This hogwash of a con is about
Cynthia, isn’t it? Is this yer way to make amends with her? Who
told yeh about her in the first place? Was it Tylen?
Caine’s eyes widened, unblinking. “What’s this now?” He
swallowed hard.
“For pity’s sake, she’s the spitting of image of yeh. Don’t
pretend yeh don’t know.”
His hands shook. Three times, he fumbled with his breast
pockets searching for a stogie that wasn’t there. He cleared his
throat. “She said her pa was dead.”
Lucy’s stare darted down the corridor to where Cynthia played
in her room. The door stood wide open.
“Cynthia, close yer door,” Lucy shouted.
 MARK OF CAINE | 155

Unseen, the child obeyed, and her door slammed shut.

Lucy’s shoulders slumped, and she took her chair again with an
audible sigh. “Well, there it is, then.”
He blinked at last. “I’m a father.”
“Don’t kid yerself. Yer no father. I’m just saying she’s yers.”
“Well, why did yeh never tell me?” Caine leaned forward, his
eyes meeting hers squarely. His heart raced, and his face reddened
with emotion where it had grown pale before.
“After what yeh did? Yeh’d have just said it was some trick to
get yeh back. And there yeh were after all, a high and mighty
warcaster. Do yeh really think yeh would have stood by me if I’d
told yeh?”
“I don’t suppose we’ll ever know the answer now. That’s yers to
carry.” Caine scowled. “I didn’t deserve this.”
She seemed restrained, even taken aback by his glare. Her eyes
grew misty. “What did I deserve, Allister? Did I deserve what yeh
done to me?”
“No.” Caine lowered his head, his anger draining. The notion
that he was a father tumbled in his head, more dizzying than a
bottle of uiske. “Let me protect yeh. I’ve all the more reason now.”
“Ma,” Cynthia said, peeking around the corner of the hall, “I
thought yeh said Garth was my pa.”
Caine couldn’t help but stare at the girl now, his own mother’s
words coming back to him like a slap in the face. Of course she was
his. Who wouldn’t know?
A tear rolled down Lucy’s cheek as she looked helplessly at her
daughter. “Garth was the closest thing yeh had to a father. But
this one here is yer real pa. I’m so sorry I never told yeh, darlin’.”
The girl entered the room, staring at Caine as she stood next
to her mother. With eyes that never left him, she sat and gave
her mother a hug. The gleam of her eyes may as well have been a
searing blast, as far as Caine was concerned. He couldn’t bear to
meet it. Instead, he looked mutely at his feet.
“It’s fine. I think I knew it, Ma.” Cynthia looked at him, her
expression softening at last. “Before he knew, anyway.”
Lucy returned the child’s hug. “Are yeh all right?”
156 | MILES HOLMES

“He’s not so bad,” Cynthia conceded, still staring at Caine.

“He ain’t lying about the thing with his face, neither. I seen it.”
The woman sat up, her face prepared to turn to a frown as she
wiped away one final tear. “If that’s so, then what do we do?”
Caine gathered his courage, looking squarely at the pair before
him. Everything was changing. And fast. “Whatever we decide. I
quit the service when I came here, and I’m twice as certain about
that call now. I’ll do right by the both of yeh, if yeh let me.”
He rose, offering his hand.
Lucy looked at his hand thoughtfully, but she remained in her
seat. “That’s a conversation for another day, I expect. I’m not sure
we can talk about it just yet. What about this thing with yer face
instead?”
A look of determination took hold on Caine’s features as he
turned the matter over. “If the theory holds that this thing is
cleaning my slate, I reckon it’ll be in Bainsmarket for a while yet.”
Mother and child both exchanged worried glances.
“So, here’s what I’m thinking. . .”
 — CHAPTER 19 —
OF ROT AND RUIN

“YOU CAN DO BETTER THAN THAT,” Ryan laughed, looking back at a

haplessly dangling Watts.
The older gun mage hung suspended by his grappler wire
from an overhanging exhaust pipe. The arc of his leap had fallen
short of the warehouse roof where Ryan had just landed. He
now swung like a pendulum in slowly diminishing strokes,
cursing in a steady stream whatever came to his mind. Below
him, spectators on the street level looked up in astonishment.
On either side of the road, the industrial spread of the textile
factory rose up in all manners of oddly shaped structures like
exhaust piping, conveyor belts, iron cogs, and wire lines.
“You both need to keep up.” Lynch looked back from the
crest of the nearby roof, three stories above the street. He had
already turned away, studying the ethereal trail of the phantom
gunman through the glass of his alchemical goggles. “This trail is
unraveling quickly.”
158 | MILES HOLMES

Then he was gone, sprinting down the far side of the roof and
out of sight.
“Come on then.” Ryan leaned over the eaves, hoping to catch
Watts by the hand on his next swing past her. Instead, he fell
short of her grasp, eliciting another round of cursing as he slipped
helplessly away.
“It’s hopeless,” he spat, first looking contemptuously at his
grapple overhead and then wide-eyed at the ground below. At
best, the fall would probably break both his legs. “Just go on with
the Cap’n.”
“Bollocks.” Ryan shook her head. Releasing her own grappler
from her magelock, she pulled free a length of wire from the spool
and spun the hook around like a sling. On Watts’ next pass, she
let it fly, catching his line with ease.
“That’s it,” he said. He watched as Ryan planted her feet wide
to haul him in. With a tentative step to the eaves, he hopped into
a crouch and turned to recover his hook.
“You can get me next time,” she said, looking the direction
where Lynch had disappeared.
With quick strides, she reached the crest of the roof and looked
out over the cityscape vista. A moment later, Watts joined her,
winded.
“Where is he?” he gasped with his hands on his knees.
The downtown proper rose to look down on all else, alight and
moving in the distance. But here in the industrial district of the
south, nothing stirred. It was a ghost town, vast and dark. Ryan
checked out the yard adjacent the textile factory. It seemed to
be just another industrial complex, one that had been left to rot
some time ago. There were gaps in the bordering fence and entire
sections of the main building had collapsed. Ryan pointed it out
to Watts. “I think he went into there. What is that place?”
“That’s the old pulp mill,” Watts said between labored breaths,
perplexed. “Do you know where this is?”
She looked all directions. In truth, the path of the necromantic
dust had been winding and chaotic, leaving her mostly lost, and
she’d spent little time in Bainsmarket as it was. “Should I?”
 MARK OF CAINE | 159

“Look over there.” He gestured, using the grappler at the end

of his magelock. A darkening night sky revealed the mighty peaks
of the Dragonspine as colossal shadows beyond the northern
walls. In the neighboring blocks below, row after row of aging
brownstones were lit by flickering gaslights. At once she saw it for
slum it was.
“Well, it doesn’t exactly look like a nice place,” she conceded.
“But what of it?”
“This is Morchester.” Watts said it matter-of-factly, as if she’d
recognize the name. When she didn’t, he added, “Caine’s old
neighborhood.”
“And our trail leads straight into it.” Ryan nodded. “Come on.
The boss is alone up there. Let’s keep moving.”
She slipped down the slick tin roof with care and left Watts to
step lively after her. A faint shadow of movement in the yard of
the pulp mill suggested their captain was heading for the interior
of the main warehouse through a set of broken double doors.
•••

LYNCH STOPPED AND CROUCHED, running his hands through the

dust on the floor. To any layman, it would seem no more than
dirt and metal filings. But to his alchemically enhanced vision, the
dust teemed with luminous green particles. The warehouse floor
was crisscrossed with the substance in every direction.
The place was cavernous, more than a hundred yards end
to end with a suspended catwalk stretching into the shadows
overhead. In the warehouse’s center, he saw a drainage ramp dip
into the floor as though it were an entrance to a subterranean
passage. Beyond the ramp was a trio of brass silos standing nearly
to the ceiling, which was high overhead. He squinted toward the
silos and brushed his hands clean before standing again. Over and
over again, trails of emerald converged on the silos.
“Not a bad place to hole up, I reckon,” Lynch whispered,
sliding his magelock free of its holster. He paused to listen but
heard no sound in the vast chamber other than the shuffle of
his own feet. He glanced warily at the catwalk network above; it
160 | MILES HOLMES

looked unsteady and broken in several places. “Not a bad place for
an ambush, either.”
He checked back the way he’d come, anxious for the rest of his
team to join him. The overgrown yard beyond the fallen double
doors looked like a landscape cast in gradients of blue. He waited
until a familiar pair of shadows came into view. They approached
in an uncertain zig-zag.
With a step back to the door, he whistled softly, a sound so
thin it would carry no farther than his team. Both figures stopped,
dropping low with their weapons ready. He whistled again, adding a
new note to the call. He saw Ryan’s silhouette point in his direction,
and the pair moved again, this time in a beeline straight for him.
He pressed ahead on the spectral trail, staring at it through
the azure filter of his lenses while drawing ever closer to the three
brass silos. Ten yards from their bases, he halted in his tracks. Two
bodies lay face down, one crossed over the other. He moved to
within a few yards of them—there were no obvious wounds on
them, though a steel lantern lay crushed near them.
He knelt next to the men. By their dress, they appeared to be
watchmen who patrolled the mill. They had seemed uninjured
from afar, but the filters of his goggles told another story up
close. Their bodies fairly glowed with luminous jade dust. Lynch
studied a concentration of the curious substance on the throat of
one—the man’s windpipe crushed. The second man had suffered
a similar fate. And the faintly smoldering remains of the wick in
their lantern gave him an approximate time of death.
“Just a few hours ago,” Lynch concluded, his gaze moving to
the silos. With a quick backward glance to the double doors, he
whistled a third time. The familiar figures approached quietly, still
trying to keep up.
He drew his magelock, moving ever closer to the looming
silos. He was more surprised than he thought he’d be—at this
range it was impossible not to notice the silos were covered in the
glittering green dust.
Lynch heard a scuffle behind him. Shouts.
Then, gunshots.
 MARK OF CAINE | 161

•••

“WHAT’S HE DOING?” RYAN WHISPERED, staring through the shattered

doorway. She glimpsed their boss moving ahead, running up a
deep ramp set into the floor. His path was taking him straight
toward a trio of brass silos in the center of the mill.
Watts squinted. “I’d guess he’s spotted something. We’d best
move.”
He dashed in through the doorway, and Ryan caught a blur of
movement overhead as he did. Her mouth opened to warn him,
but it came a little late. The catwalk fell, dislodged in a deadly
cascade meant to crush them both beneath it. Watts saw it in time
and rolled clear. As he fell, he aimed his magelock high, his lips
shaping his word of power.
“Snare,” he hissed as he pulled the trigger. His magelock
erupted in runefire, the weapon’s roar echoing in the cavernous
chamber. The shot exploded on impact with the falling catwalk,
bursting into a web of luminous strands that stretched from the
ceiling, wall, and floor alike. The bulk of the collapsing catwalk
strained against the magical web, but it held.
“It’s Caine,” she swore, raising her twin magelocks to open fire.
Overhead, a lean figure in a ragged duster stepped into view for
only a second, sprinting beneath a gap in the ceiling and across the
moonlit section of catwalk it illuminated. She squinted, squeezing
off a hasty shot before the figure disappeared into the shadows on
the other side. Her shot ricocheted off the chain suspending the
catwalk and blasted a hole in Watt’s web. With a sharp twang the
line snapped, bringing the entire catwalk crashing down. Too late,
Ryan realized what she had done. She managed a single step back
out of the way.
It was not far enough.
Watts could only watch as the catwalk crashed down atop her.
She cried out as the metal grating knocked her off her feet.
Watts hurried to her, kneeling to test the weight of the twelve-
foot long section of grating that pinned her in place. She grimaced
when he let go of the metal.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
162 | MILES HOLMES

“I’m fine, I think.” Ryan grunted as she pressed against the

wreckage. “But my foot is trapped.”
Watts took hold of the metal again, straining with a feral growl
to hoist it. The section gave an inch then two but resisted moving
any farther. His arms trembled. “Can you move it now?”
She shook her head.
He lowered it, his face red now. He took a breath, readying
himself for a second go, but Ryan stared past him. “I can get
myself out. The boss needs your help.”
He turned to follow her gaze over his shoulder. At the base
of the silos, the silhouette of Lynch seemed to be watching their
dilemma. But above him, a swirling mist had appeared and seemed
ready to envelope him.
“Oh, no,” Watts whispered.
•••

A SWIRL OF MIST PLUNGED TOWARD Lynch from out of thin air. It

was a dazzling sight to his enhanced vision—a cascade of glittering
green particles tumbling in a rapid downward spiral.
“Here we go,” he growled.
He had only a second to step clear. Without the prescience of
his skills, he might not have even had that much time. Stunned,
he watched the fog faintly dust the floor where he had just stood
before writhing ahead to the base of the nearest silo. It vanished as
though sucked up by the silo itself.
A hissing came from within the structure, and Lynch watched
as the haze bled up through the top of the silo, swirling itself into
the rafters and then through a jagged tear in the old roof.
“Oh, no, you don’t.” He threw back his cloak and reached for
the grappler at his belt. In a fluid and practiced motion, he fitted
it to his weapon and leveled it to fire into the rafters. The spring
action shot his hook, the wire coil unspooling in a sudden blur
of motion. His aim was solid—the hook found a hold among
the rafters. He tested the line with a single tug and then climbed,
walking up the side of the silo. He looked back as he went to see
Watts sprinting up the mill’s drainage ramp to get to him. Beyond
 MARK OF CAINE | 163

Watts, Lynch could see Ryan prone, struggling to free herself from
a fallen catwalk.
“Hold up, Cap’n!” Watts shouted, fitting his grappler to his
magelock as he ran.
There was no time. Lynch shook his head as he reached the top
of the silo. Climbing hand over hand, he strained to keep moving
until the hole in the roof was within arm’s reach. The mist had
long since vanished, so he dismissed the likelihood of an ambush
and pulled himself through.
The flat roof stretched in all directions, broken at intervals by
the silhouettes of crumbling chimneys and rusted turbine vents.
Lynch looked all around as he unhooked the grappler from his
weapon. To the north, he saw the errant mist easily, but the
moonlight passing between the clouds revealed it as something
more. An ethereal man was forming in mid-sprint. The figure
ran for the eaves to make good his escape, slowly appearing as
a man wearing a ragged duster over a slender, tapering frame.
On his back were the tell-tale smoke stacks and steam pipes of a
warcaster’s armor.
“Allister?” Lynch whispered. This entrance was like none he
had ever seen the rogue warcaster make before. In fact, it was so
unusual that he struggled to accept it was him.
Still, Lynch aimed his weapon square in the back of the fleeing
man and readied a potent invocation. He called out, “Caine.”
The figure did not react, continuing to flee.
“So be it.” Lynch squeezing the trigger. “Reach.”
With his word of power uttered, a burst of runefire exploded
from his magelock, designed to travel the length of the roof
unerringly. The shot dug into the figure’s shoulder, and Lynch’s
target stumbling in his flight.
“Caine!” he called again, walking purposefully toward the
stumbling man as he reloaded. “The next shot will kill you.”
Abruptly, the figure in the mist whirled on him, revealing a
grisly sight to the uncanny vision of Lynch’s alchemical goggles.
The thing stood on the legs of a man, but if it were Allister Caine
before him, he had been dead for some time.
164 | MILES HOLMES

The corpse of Caine bore a leering smile of crooked teeth, its

skin a patchwork of rot and decay. The long duster it wore was
torn, the hem a ragged edge. The warcaster armor beneath it was
bent, gouged, and rusted and had no rank upon the shoulders but
for death-heads. Milky eyes without pupils narrowed at Lynch’s
approach; the corpse reached with gnarled and bony hands for
its holstered Spellstorms. The gunshot wound at its shoulder
was bizarre; it was visible as a hole from front to back as it bled
luminous green dust instead of blood. Gradually the wound grew
smaller until it vanished altogether. Lynch grimaced. Now he
doubted this creature before him was truly Caine. But if it were,
it was a horrible end for any man, let alone one he’d once called
a friend.
Lynch’s mind raced back to classified reports he’d read only a
year ago. There had been another casualty among the warcasters
of Cygnar eerily similar to the sight before him now. Dalin Sturgis
had been a decorated commander before his untimely death. Yet
those responsible had not stopped with just his murder. Instead,
his body had been recovered, corrupted, and reanimated. If Caine
were left as he was now and the same thing had happened to him,
the warcaster would forever be enslaved as their puppet. Lynch
considered for a moment how Caine’s travels might have led him
to this similar fate. And he could not think of a more dangerous
opponent than Caine transformed.
“For Morrow’s sake,” Lynch said as he aimed at the thing,
“you’ve seen better days, Caine.”
 — CHAPTER 20 —
OF MURDER AND MISERY

“ARE YOU COMING?” WATTS SHOUTED over his shoulder as he

climbed the silo. A shot rang out from the rooftop overhead, and
he flinched, ducking his head between his shoulders.
“Keep moving. I’m almost there,” Ryan shouted from across
the warehouse. Near as Watts could tell, she had worked herself
free and was rolling clear to get back on her feet.
Another shot thundered from above, then another. He kept
one eye on the hole in the roof, desperate to catch some glimpse
of the gunfight in progress. He hauled himself along his grappling
line with every ounce of his strength.
“This is your fault,” he snarled to himself. “You fell behind and
now he’s alone up there.”
•••

LYNCH FELT THE WIND OF THE SPECTRAL shot before he heard it. He
felt it tear through his cloak, streak past his thigh, and shatter into
166 | MILES HOLMES

the brick chimney behind him. He winced at the finger of ice the
warcaster’s shot had left in passing.
This Caine was fast, faster than Lynch had ever seen him.
He dove headfirst for the chimney’s cover, hunkering down
to check his leg. A cut in his pants and the line of red beneath it
confirmed it was no more than a minor wound. Despite this, he
could still feel his leg growing stiff with cold, just as his shoulder
had done after a similar graze.
He counted two hits apiece in the duel so far, so at least he gave
as good as he got. He knew his chances would be better if his crew
could make it roof-side. If they didn’t, maybe Morrow might lend
them a hand. The chill in his wounds was spreading, slowing him
down a little more with each passing second.
He risked a peek from his cover. No one was there. He swept
his magelock in a broad arc ahead of him, ready to open fire.
But the undead Caine was gone—not even the peculiar mist that
enshrouded him remained.
A thin tendril slipped around a nearby rusted turbine vent,
so slight as to go unseen by most. But Lynch was not most. He
watched it go, tracing its line of movement. He looked to the next
vent in the line, aiming his magelock in anticipation of Caine’s
next passing.
Then Watts climbed up slowly through the torn rooftop hole
directly between the combatants. He glanced around to see Lynch’s
gun pointed at him, and when he looked the other direction, he
understood he had emerged in the dead center of a no man’s land.
“Get down, Watts!” Lynch shouted.
Watts realized his peril too late. He had only just heaved his
bulk up and onto the edge of the gap to find himself a target
of opportunity. Beyond him, Caine thing rose from behind his
turbine, both Spellstorms trained on the helpless soldier, evil in
his eyes.
Lynch felt the next moment before it actually happened. He
felt the certainty of each action and consequence. He moved, his
body guided by reflex instead of thought. He felt himself rise,
leaping from cover, and dive for Watts. In mid-air, he covered
 MARK OF CAINE | 167

his man, even as Caine’s Spellstorms’ barrels lit up with green

runefire. Lynch’s own magelock was perfectly trained as he jumped
sideways, and in that instant, he let his shot loose.
“Brutality,” he growled, a crescendo of runefire exploding
before him.
Even as his shot flew unerring, he recoiled. This play had cost
him dearly. He felt the shots marked to kill Watts dig deep into
his own gut instead.
The ghostly Caine sank from sight with a miserable shriek,
the breastplate covering his chest sporting a horrific crater where
Lynch’s bullet punched him.
Lynch slid hard, his belly full of ice. Behind him, the sudden
action had sent Watts slipping into the darkness of the mill. He
heard the gun mage strike the top of the silo before regaining his
grip.
“Hold position, Watts,” Lynch shouted down to him, reloading
his magelock, hoisting himself up on his side. He tried not to
think about the bitter cold running through his veins now.
“You’ve lived through worse, old man,” he reassured himself.
That might even be true, he decided, as long as he did not stop
to inspect his wound. Either way, it didn’t matter. His best shot
had found Caine. If the man had died once already, he was surely
dead again this day.
Whatever his fate might be, Lynch still had only to confirm
the kill now.
The captain rose unsteadily to his feet, clutching his bloodied
gut with his offhand. He led with his magelock, limping to the
turbine. The world beyond his alchemical goggles was a binary of
blue and green due to all of Caine’s coming and goings. Behind
the turbine, he found a surplus of emerald. Then as he rounded
the turbine’s cover, he noted a darting movement. A faint tendril
of mist slipped from sight and over the eaves of the roof. Though
Lynch glimpsed it for only a second, Caine left a slick trail of
luminescent green. The captain shook his head, frustrated by the
chill in his bones and this seemingly endless chase.
He limped after the tendril, climbing what seemed like an
168 | MILES HOLMES

eternity of steps, until he reached the eaves. Carefully, he aimed

his magelock down, ready for an ambush. When this didn’t come,
he noted the sheer drop four stories down and the twenty-foot
gap to the next adjoining warehouse. A conveyor line bridged that
gap, feeding into a blocky rooftop entryway on the far side. The
conveyor belt had long since snapped, leaving only a patchwork
belt in its place, a treacherous passage of exposed gears like
stepping stones, to negotiate the crossing.
Lynch’s sight picked up the trail of emerald over the conveyor
and into to the adjacent warehouse. It led past the rotted entryway
doors, which were long left hanging and ready to fall from their
hinges. Beyond them, he identified the deep blue of shadow
within. A whiff of rot lingered in the air. His teeth had begun to
chatter.
“Come on up. The weather’s fine,” Lynch called to Watts,
trembling. He did not look back but instead kept his eyes on the
hatch at the other end of the conveyor. Caine might not be dead
just yet, but he was certainly bleeding his last if his trail gave any
indication.
“Aye, Cap’n,” came an echoing reply from the warehouse interior.
With shallow breaths, Lynch stepped out onto the conveyor.
He moved cautiously toward the hatch, one cautious step at a
time, magelock readied. When he was ten feet out and halfway
between the buildings, delicately suspended four stories above the
street, he paused to sniff the air while avoiding the temptation to
look over the side of the conveyor at the lethal drop below.
Something wasn’t right.
The shadows ahead offered no sign of the vanished warcaster.
Lynch frowned, perplexed by the stench of rot. It could not be
stronger if he were stomping through a pile of wet autumn leaves.
He looked abruptly down at his feet, his face wearing the same
expression of resignation as a man who had just lost everything
at cards. A tendril of mist curled up over the lip of the conveyor
then slid back under like a retreating worm. Lynch turned stiffly,
his jaw aching from trying not to shiver. Directly behind him, a
spiral of haze rose straight up through the conveyor. Within its
 MARK OF CAINE | 169

swirling mass, the leering smile of the fugitive warcaster greeted

him, pressing an ethereal Spellstorm to his forehead.
“You sneaky bast—”
Caine fired.
•••

WATTS LAY FLAT ON THE ROOF, CAUTIOUS that the next bullet didn’t
find him, as the shot echoed away. Then he raised his head, looking
in the direction of the blast. His breath punched out of him as if
he’d been struck in the gut.
Thirty feet away, the moonlight revealed a gunman in a
duster standing on a conveyor bridge connected to the adjacent
warehouse. With a single arm, it held Watts’ captain’s slumped
body. The gunman was wreathed in a shifting mist but otherwise
stood motionless, staring into Lynch’s lifeless eyes.
The gunman’s mouth moved, words seemingly impossible to
form.
Watts saw a light well in his captain’s slack mouth, rising up
and out of his throat. The gunman waited, watching it come,
perhaps even goading it with his pistol. Watts saw a ghostly vision
of Lynch slip from his broken body to hang suspended above the
pair.
He fought the paralysis of shock, anger now driving him. This
was a soul harvest he was witnessing, and it was far from his first.
Such indignity would not be the end of his captain. He raised his
magelock toward the distant target.
“Reach,” he hissed, a shot exploding forth in a spectacular
burst of runefire.
The gunman buckled, struck in the back. Lynch’s body fell
to the conveyor while his apparition self simply vanished. The
wounded gunman did not fall. Rather, he rose and turned. In his
off-hand, a pistol materialized to match the first, and with a snarl
he aimed them both at Watts.
“Caine,” Watts shouted, dropping behind cover. At last, he
recognized the man, if not the magic the warcaster now wielded.
“Fight me.”
170 | MILES HOLMES

“Fight us,” Ryan shouted, scrambling to Watts’ side through

the hole in the roof. Her twin pistols thundered, forcing the
murderous Caine over the side of the conveyor before he could
fire. The warcaster simply disappeared from sight.
The pair ran breathlessly to the eaves to find only Lynch’s body;
their captain was lying at broken angles on the production line.
Caine was gone, apparently having fallen over the side. But there
was neither a body at the bottom of the four-story fall nor any
other sign of his passing at all.
“We can’t let him get away,” Ryan snarled, readying her
grappler to rappel down.
“Darsey, for pity’s sake, just look.” Watts gestured in anguish
at Lynch’s still form.
“No,” Ryan resisted. But Lynch’s fate could not be ignored,
and the shock of it slowly brought her to her knees, her breathing
reduced to sobbing gasps.
Watts stood by her at the eaves, a hand on her shoulder as she
cried. He dipped his head in tearful deference to their late captain.
“I’m sorry, Dixon.”
 — CHAPTER 21 —
OF QUARRELS AND
QUALIFICATIONS

“A SORRY STATE THIS IS.” LUCY PACED the room, circling around
Caine. “Where would we even go?”
“Fharin. I’ll see yeh to the train myself.” Caine reached for her.
She looked at his hand on her arm and stopped in place. Her
expression was no less troubled. “What do I have in Fharin?
Nothing. If I don’t show up to work tomorrow, I lose my job.
Then I’ll have nothing here, too.”
“Start over. Yeh’ve done it before. We both have.”
“I’m not a warcaster, Allister. Do yeh have any idea how hard
life is for the rest of us little people? Do yeh have any idea what it’s
like to protect someone when yeh’ve nothing more than yer own
two hands?”
“It’s yer life I’m trying to protect, yeh know.”
Lucy’s eyes flashed angrily. “Yer asking me to pick up and run
172 | MILES HOLMES

on a hunch. A bloody hunch is all it is in the end. What if yeh’ve

got this thing figured all wrong? And where are yeh when it’s all
over, might I ask? Shot dead or just gone again, as I expect?”
Caine glanced over at Cynthia, who sat mutely between them
on the sofa. Her face was troubled but determined at the same
time. Her eyes never left him. It was a lot to lay on the girl, and
he could see it. But he didn’t think there was anything else he
could do.
He rubbed his temple. “I have to find this thing. I have to stop
it. I can’t sit here and wait for it to come for yeh while others need
saving, too. What more can I do but send yeh away?”
Lucy looked on the edge of tears. So, Caine let out a long
exhale and yielded the floor to his raven-haired ex. He sat down
at his daughter’s side.
“I’ve never been on a train.” Cynthia smiled at him, shrugging.
Lucy stood staring at the pair of them a moment longer. Caine
could imagine how much she disliked seeing anything akin to
decency pass between father and daughter. But then she surprised
him. With a heavy sigh, she said, “Well, we’d best get packed
then.”
•••

CAINE STOOD WITH HIS ARMS CROSSED at the doorway to the little
pickpocket’s cramped room while her mother rummaged through
her own possessions. He watched the girl toss rumpled clothes, a
few books and, finally, a rock into a rucksack.
“Do yeh really need that rock?”
“It’s a very lucky rock,” she confided.
He arched an eyebrow. “How do yeh figure?”
“On account when Dar Mullens came to hit my friend,
Queenie, I tossed it at him from ten yards even. Caught him right
in the forehead, it did. Lucky enough?
“Aye.” Caine smiled. “Yeh better keep it then. Ready?”
She nodded, wiping her perpetually runny nose. She thought
on the matter a little more. “Yeh promise yeh’ll come for us, right?”
He nodded, crouching down to meet her eye to eye. “Just as
 MARK OF CAINE | 173

soon as I track this thing down and kill it. Yeh have my word.”
The girl seemed satisfied by this, but she struggled to hold
Caine’s gaze. At last, she looked at him with a cocked head and a
suspicious frown. “Whether yeh are or yeh ain’t, don’t expect me
to call yeh my pa just yet. That’s gotta be earned, is all.”
He coughed, blindsided by Cynthia’s hard candor. He licked
his lips, searching for candor of his own. “To tell you true, when
I hear that word, it sets me thinking of a drunk old bastard who
took to slapping me around whenever life didn’t go his way.”
Cynthia’s eyes grew wide, her face twisted in surprise.
He shrugged. “Which is just to say if yeh never called me yer
pa, we’d be fine. Why don’t we just leave it at Allister for now?”
He extended his hand.
“Deal.” She nodded, shaking his hand firmly. Only afterward
did Caine realize it was the same hand she kept wiping her nose
with.
“Here.” Lucy approached from the hall, travel bag in one hand
and a folded garment that she offered in the other.
“What’s this?” The warcaster regarded the garment, immediately
using it to wipe his hand on. Nothing came off, but it didn’t mean
something wasn’t there.
“A cloak. Yer the most wanted man in Bainsmarket. Did yeh
really think yeh could walk us onto the train as yeh are?”
He looked over his shoulder at the twin chimneys of his armor’s
arcane turbine. “I could just leave my armor here.”
She shook her head. “What sense does that make? If this
double of yers finds us, would yeh wish to greet it with one hand
tied behind yer back?”
“Fair point.”
He grabbed the cloak and tugged it over his head. He then
reached for Cynthia’s bag, pulling it over his shoulder to obscure
his turbine a little more. He brought the hood down over his eyes
and turned around for inspection. “How’s this?”
A frowning Lucy finally relented with a slight smirk. “Yeh’ll do.”
174 | MILES HOLMES

•••

“COME ON.” CAINE SAID, SMILING tiredly. “We’re almost there.” The
whistle of a train leaving the platform both underscored his words
and picked up the pace of his little trio.
With Bainsmarket’s slums behind them at last, he found the
way ahead increasingly empty. While the masses seemed ready
to riot for his capture, the affluent districts had taken another
tactic entirely. People here seemed largely hidden away, tucked
behind shuttered windows and bolted doors. Given the state of
his situation, it suited him just fine.
A few blocks down the avenue, he saw Central Station’s familiar
rise above its neighbors. The stately building featured a long hall,
three stories high with an arched ceiling and a grand entrance of a
half-dozen doors set on revolving hinges. Tall lancet windows let
the light from inside spill out into the night, casting a warm glow
on the nearby streets.
At his side, Lucy eyed the station with a suspicious glance. In
a neighborhood that was nearly empty, the station still offered a
curious crowd. A steady traffic of pedestrians and private carriages
moved about the entrance while numerous constables patrolled
the perimeter.
The power of privilege was displayed before them.
While the poor and the middle class of Bainsmarket had
found their own ways of coping with the ongoing murders, those
with true wealth or noble bearing seemed able to easily leave
Bainsmarket. And they were wasting no time about it, either. Of
course, where money went, so too went the protection it could
afford. Caine heard the stamp and steam of warjacks among the
people in the crowd and noted checkpoints to guard the entrance.
Before long, he saw a Sentinel pattern light warjack turn the
corner in a predictable march to defend the perimeter, its deadly
chaingun pointed where its glowing eyes scanned.
“How are we supposed to get past that?” Lucy asked, ready to
turn around and flee.
“I could do it,” Cynthia assured them from her mother’s side.
As they drew closer, Caine saw the gathering crowd funneled
 MARK OF CAINE | 175

through the checkpoint at a plodding pace, some angrily

demanding to be let through immediately. That pace was further
slowed when passengers needed to produce papers and exchange
crowns. Some arriving passengers could not pay and angrily
demanded safe passage as a right of all. They could all hear a
train arriving to station, chugging loudly as it came. A long, shrill
whistle blew.
Caine frowned, waiting for the whistle to subside. “Yer not a
wanted criminal, are yeh?”
Lucy shook her head.
“What about yeh?” Caine asked, and Cynthia grinned up at
him.
He shook himself down. “All right. Show them yer papers,
give them yer crowns, and don’t worry about the rest.” He smiled
wryly from beneath the hood of his disguise. “I’ve got my own
ways of getting around.”
Lucy nodded. “So we get past the checkpoint, then what?”
He scanned the station rooftop, wary of any snipers who might
be waiting for his silhouette to appear. “I’ll be close. Watch for
me on the other side, and we’ll take the train out together—for
a stretch, at least. I’ll bail later and double back. Are yeh ready,
kiddo?” He winked down at the girl, standing at her mother’s side
with her bag slung over her shoulder.
Cynthia looked like a completely different child with her hair
combed and dressed in a bright blue smock for the late evening
departure. As much as she’d fought her mother over it, Caine had
to admit his girl cleaned up real nice.
“This one’s going to break some hearts,” he had smirked
upon seeing her, feeling more than a little pride. He had been
immediately thankful Lucy hadn’t heard him; no need for that
fight just yet.
Approaching the checkpoint, Cynthia smiled at him with an
upraised thumb.
And there it was again. Something was coming loose in him,
something he hadn’t felt in a long time. It was something no
amount of uiske seemed able to put in him these days: actual
176 | MILES HOLMES

pleasure. Purpose, too, perhaps. For two years he’d drifted, one
eye over his shoulder but neither one on the road ahead. He had
never been sure what he really wanted. Even just a week ago, he’d
still had no idea.
Today, though, right now, he wanted to keep this little girl safe.
Where that might lead didn’t matter. For this one moment, he felt
good about something. Caine smiled at his daughter.
“We’ll get through this. I promise,” he said.
 — CHAPTER 22 —
OF PAIN AND PAYBACK

“CAINE IS A DEAD MAN WALKING,” Watts hissed, marching up the

steps of the Presidium with Lynch’s corpse wrapped tightly and
thrown awkwardly over his shoulder.
“Aye.” Ryan trailed him, watching as the carriage entrances
on either side of the tall steps opened wide to disgorge warjacks
marching in file as well as two full platoons of trenchers. The
shouts of their sergeants spurred them to double time.
Watts looked up, following the monolithic rise of the Presidium
to its very summit. The building looked like nothing else in all of
Bainsmarket for a precise reason: the thing was a relic of another
time and another people. The Orgoths had built the foundation of
the Presidium, though Cygnar had long since claimed and rebuilt
it. They had been a cruel and sadistic people, skilled above all
other things in the dark magic of harvesting souls. The black stone
quarried in its construction was their trademark— bleak, ominous,
178 | MILES HOLMES

and imposing. Most such structures in Cygnar had been destroyed,

making the few that remained expecially stark reminders.
“One great bloody tombstone,” he growled bitterly at the
Presidium’s design—and his purpose.
He grunted with the burden of his fallen captain, pausing on
the steps to adjust Lynch’s dead weight. Ryan had found a tarp
among the trash of the mill. They bound their fallen captain up
in it, the indignity of his death covered from spectators as they
trudged back to Harbins’ command in defeat.
Not that there had actually been anyone to notice. The night
was still young, a time normally no less busy than daylight hours.
But aside from the roving mobs in the slums, those normally
inclined to an evening’s entertainment were absent tonight. As the
pair made their way back, the streets of the more affluent districts
remained empty. The taverns were dark, their doors locked.
Perhaps the residents hoped that a locked door would save them
from the so-called Hellslinger.
As Watts and Ryan neared the mighty ironbound doors that
served as the primary entry into the Presidium, Watts again cursed
his situation, swallowing the bile in his throat. There was little
certainty in this life, but by Morrow above, one thing was.
He would kill Allister Caine—or his imposter, or both of
them, if need be—even if it was the last thing he ever did.
Whatever magic the man had gained, whatever dark powers he
had conspired with, they would not save him. Watts would end
him and watch him up close and personal when he breathed his
last. Though Watts’ days of running with the gangs of Orven were
long past, he would still like to see to Caine’s throat cut ear-to-
ear. Just like the old days. He would also ensure that by the time
he was done, what remained of the traitor Caine would not be
acceptable for an open casket viewing.
Over time, he and Ryan had kept score in a game of tit-for-
tat regarding the many enemies they had faced. In truth, he
cared little for the game, especially in light of Ryan’s unbridled
enthusiasm. For this particular mark, however, he would not be
denied. Not by her. Not by anyone. Watts was no rookie—he’d
 MARK OF CAINE | 179

seen the horrors of war play out over decades, but there had been
only one Dixon Lynch. Never before had he felt the loss of a
comrade so intensely. While he might never forgive himself for
Lynch’s sacrifice, he could, at least, be the one to settle the score.
Somewhere across town, the sound of gunfire erupted. Ryan
tapped Watts’ shoulder, gesturing to the southeast. She cocked her
head to the sound, frowning with a practiced ear.
“Harbins’ snipers,” she whispered, still listening. “You reckon
they scoped him?”
“You know anyone else they’re gunning for?” Watts rasped.
She glared at him. “All right, old man. You know, he was my
captain, too.”
He sighed. “I know.”
“Should we get after them, then?” She strained on tiptoes to
glimpse beyond the nearest of rooftops, hopeful for some sign of
another outburst. Watts suspected she was wasting her time.
He shook his head. “We take the captain to the morgue first.
After that, it’s Harbins we need. Because chasing after gunfire all
night won’t mark your belt.”
Ryan, who’d been left to carry Lynch’s possessions when Watts
lifted up Lynch’s corpse, held up their captain’s smashed goggles
glumly. “Good point.”
•••

MUCH OF THE CITY’S GARRISON WAS gone, deployed in anticipation

of Caine’s ongoing rampage. The platoon they had witnessed
leaving may have been the last. Bainsmarket was fast becoming
a war zone, all to stop a single man. Ryan shook her head at the
strangeness of it all.
“Where is he?” Her voice echoed down the Presidium’s ground
floor main corridor while Watts leaned with arms crossed by the
door of Harbins’ office.
A constable hurriedly approached, his keys jangling, headed
for the main holding block. He had panic in his eyes.
“Hey.” Ryan stepped out to block him, checking out the
insignia on his shoulder. “Where is Harbins, uh, Sergeant?”
180 | MILES HOLMES

“He’s coming back. But we just got word there were casualties,”
the sergeant admitted, flustered.
“Join the club,” Watts growled at no one in particular, his voice
nearly a whisper.
“What happened?” Ryan gripped the sergeant by the shoulder,
unwilling to let him pass just yet.
“Caine turned up in a storage yard. We had him cornered, but
he slipped by us again.”
“How many did he take down on the way out?”
“I don’t know, but it’s bad. Do you mind?” The sergeant looked
disapprovingly at Ryan’s hand. “I need to warn the infirmary.”
She let the man go, absently watching after him as he hurried
on.
“I didn’t expect you back so soon,” said a familiar voice from
behind her.
Ryan turned to face a visibly weary Captain Harbins. He was
approaching from the far end of the corridor.
Harbins pulled a dirt-smeared bicorne from his head to dust
it off. His greatcoat and britches were smeared with blood; it was
clearly not his own. His eyes gleamed when he looked between the
impassive faces of both Watts and Ryan. “Where is your captain?”
Watts swallowed. “Cap’n didn’t make it.”
“That’s why we’re here,” Ryan added.
Harbins’ head sank, his expression one of barely controlled
agony. “Come inside, please.”
•••

RYAN WAS TIRED. LIKE WATTS, SHE felt anger, too. But more than
anything at this moment, she wanted a quiet corner and to be left
alone and find a way to control herself. She wandered Harbins’
office, listless and bleary eyed.
“Can I offer either of you brandy?” Harbins looked her way,
hanging his bicorne and coat on hooks on one wall. He approached
a stained oak cabinet and opened it. Inside, a full bar had been
established with numerous bottles of antiquity.
“Make mine a double,” the older gun mage said.
 MARK OF CAINE | 181

“Mine, too.” She nodded, looking miserably at Lynch’s tricorn.

She ran her fingers through her close-cropped hair, watching as
Harbins moved his goggles to his forehead before he poured. His
severe features were not immune to emotion, she realized, and his
own regret was plain to see.
Watts took the offered drink, half-looking as though he
might crush the glass in his hand. Ryan had seen it many times
before; she knew her partner’s rage was simmering, and it was
only a matter of time or circumstance before it erupted. She had
witnessed him use that anger to do horrible things, even by the
standards of the Black 13th. And that had been while Lynch was
alive. With Lynch dead, she had to admit that she had no idea
what to expect from the grizzled gun mage now. Maybe a bigger
body count than Caine’s. She kept a watchful eye on Watts as the
three of them raised their glasses.
“To Dixon Lynch,” Harbins murmured, his gaze finding Ryan’s
then Watts’ before taking a sip of his rich brandy.
“To the Boss.” Ryan raised her glass.
“To the Cap’n,” Watts finished, downing his own drink in a
single quaff. He set his glass aside and wasted no time getting to
the point. “We need your help.”
“Whatever I can do,” Harbins agreed, sipping his brandy.
“That said, my time is not entirely my own at this point. I’ve just
been in session with Baron Blackwood and the commander of the
garrison at Stonebridge, Colonel Scarrow. As of an hour ago, the
baron has declared the conditions in Bainsmarket to be dangerous
to the point of requiring intervention.”
“Probably wise after all that’s happened,” Ryan said.
“Oh yes.” Harbins’ tone was sardonic. “Especially for Baron
Blackwood.”
“What do you mean?”
“The declaration grants me the full authority to act in his stead,
so that he might make himself scarce. Many nobles are doing so
tonight.”
Ryan sighed. “I see.”
The captain of the watch retrieved his pocket watch, flipping
182 | MILES HOLMES

it open to regard to the dial. “I’ve been ordered to escort him to

Central Station with a full detachment in one hour. He intends
to wait out this manhunt from the comfort of his country estate
under the watch of his personal retinue.”
Watts chuckled but said nothing.
Harbins acknowledged the remark with a smile while returning
his watch to its pocket. “Meanwhile, Colonel Scarrow has lent
troops from Stonebridge and can have more ready tomorrow, if
I ask her.”
“It’s specialists we need, not grunts.”
Harbins narrowed his eyes. “Explain?”
Ryan circled Harbins’ desk as the men talked, examining the
map of the city on the wall. She noted pushpins in a broad circle
over the city, marking the attacks. At the nexus of that pattern was
the old pulp mill where they had found Caine.
“Caine has magic like nothing we’ve ever seen from him
before,” Ryan pointed out, studying the map as she spoke.
“Consistent with the necromantic residue we recovered?”
Harbins asked.
She nodded. “He actually attempted to harvest the captain’s
soul after gunning him down. Watts was in time to spare him that
fate, at least.”
Across the room, Watts glowered, and the gun mage twitched
at the remark, turning to look out the window.
“A more clear sign of necromantic magic, I cannot imagine.”
“Aye, but here’s more,” Watts finally said, still watching the
streets outside. “Have your men been able to hit him?”
“We had him cornered,” Harbins said. “I admit, I thought him
too fast at the time, but the truth is he stepped right in front of
a double line of long gunners. He must have been hit, but he
returned fire with no issue and made good his escape just the
same.”
Ryan shrugged. “Watts definitely hit him with a magelock.
That’s something.”
“Aye,” Watts confirmed, “but he took it right in the back. No
power field for protection, as far I could see. He then went and
 MARK OF CAINE | 183

jumped four-stories straight down.”

Harbins seemed surprised. “I know Caine to be a difficult
target at the best of times, but could it be he is incorporeal now
as well?”
“Well, it would explain the fall,” Ryan acknowledged. “He’s
never been able to teleport that far. It would also explain the
trouble with your long gunners.”
“We’re not prepared for this.” The captain of the watch looked
down at the blood on his coat with a grave expression. “What
could explain the transformation?”
“The story of Commander Sturgis comes to mind,” Ryan said,
her eyes distant.
Watts nodded. “Same thing occurred to me.”
“Go on.” Harbins set his brandy down upon his desk.
“There were files about Sturgis’ death a couple years ago.”
“Yes, I remember.” Harbins stared at her expectantly. “He was
a national hero.”
Ryan shook her head. “The part they kept quiet was that he
didn’t stay dead.”
Watts leaned across Harbins’ desk. “On account of him coming
back different, see? He’s one of them now. Re-animated by Cryx.
Corrupted.”
Harbins shook his head. “You think this is what happened to
Caine?”
“Caine vanished two years ago.” Watts held up two fingers for
emphasis. “Who knows what trouble he got himself into in that
a long a time.”
Ryan glanced over Harbins’ laboratory table as she spoke,
finding the necrotic sample contained within a vial. “Whatever
he’s become, we can still track him.”
“You’re going to need my true sight,” Harbins acknowledged,
inclining his head toward the vial.
“Unless you know someone else?”
The captain of the watch stepped out from behind his desk.
“My duties are not easily shirked. But if you two are my single
best chance of stopping the man, I can scarcely refuse. Including
184 | MILES HOLMES

Dixon, the death toll is at least forty-seven now, and it might be

upward of fifty. And we are no closer to stopping him now than
when we began. Think about that.”
“If we knew his purpose, we might be able to anticipate him.”
Ryan turned away from the table. “He seems to be working on a
list of sorts and is reluctant to engage anyone else.”
“Unless you get in his way,” Watts amended.
Harbins agreed. “Well, we’ve uncovered a history between
Caine and some of the victims. Not all of them, we don’t think,
at least as far as we can see.” He then turned toward a knock at
his door.
A constable poked his head in. “We’re expected, Captain.”
“One moment.” Harbins turned to the two gun mages as the
constable retreated. “I’m required to attend to the baron. Let’s
meet at the Central Station in exactly one hour to resume the
hunt. Though I admit, I find myself asking if we can even stop
him.”
“I hurt him.” Watts drew his magelock to inspect the runes
inscribed upon it. He held it up for Harbins to appreciate. “But
for another shot, I believe I’d have had him.”
Across the spread of his desk, the grim-faced albino turned to
his own prized weapon, the magelock rifle on the wall. He took it
down single-handedly, then tossed it to Watts.
“You’ve had your eye on Swan Song since you first set foot in
here, Sergeant Watts. Do you think you can handle it?”
“Just watch me, sir.” Watts grinned mirthlessly, admiring the
heft of the weapon.
Harbins nodded. “Good. I have a feeling we’re going to need
all the firepower we can get.”
 — CHAPTER 23 —
OF BOTTLENECKS AND
BAD BLOOD

WATTS MARCHED ALONG THE EMPTY STREET, his long rifle slung
over his shoulder. His mood was no less sour despite the rare gift.
Central Station was only a few blocks away; the whistle of a train
leaving the platform sounded like a lonely call across the silent
city.
Next to him as they approached, Ryan eyed the station, watching
the city’s rich and elite residents empty out of Bainsmarket in
a steady line of traffic. As they drew closer, she could hear the
shouts from a checkpoint and saw the perimeter marked by both
warjacks and soldiers.
“It seems I overestimated your abilities,” a familiar voice said
from behind. It was a voice that belonged back in Caspia, and
in truth, its owner could not be less wanted here and now if he
were a leper.
186 | MILES HOLMES

The pair turned to face Bolden Rebald as he stared back at

them. As ever, the old spymaster was clad in grey, a suitable color
for an unremarkable man able to blend with shadows and crowds
alike. He wore a bowler on this occasion, a rolled-up broadsheet
under his arm.
“Rebald,” Watts bristled. “What are you doing here?”
The spymaster joined them as they walked. “Work has taken
me abroad. Suffice to say, I was near enough to Bainsmarket that
I could neither avoid nor ignore this disaster you’ve allowed to
develop. I daresay news of the ongoing crisis has spread to every
corner of the nation. Well done, both of you.”
Watts was in no mood to explain himself, even to the Scout
General of the CRS. “I hear travel’s good for the soul. I’d love to
hear all about every charming little inn you’ve visited, but I’ve a
man to kill and no time for small talk.”
Rebald scowled. “If I’ve given you reason to think our
relationship a casual affair, let me correct that mistake. You operate
at my discretion, Sergeant. As things stand, I believe, it is time for
you to go.”
They stopped suddenly, staring at the spymaster.
“We’re not going anywhere.” Now it was Ryan’s turn to bristle,
holding the spymaster’s gaze squarely.
Rebald unrolled his broadsheet. “No? Then explain to me how
this could possibly be the most recent headline.”
He held up the front page, thrusting it before him with both
hands as if the force of his gesture and the inflammatory headlines
were evidence enough of their failure.

HELLSLINGER RAMPAGE
UNCHECKED!
Bainsmarket Braces for Third Night of Terror
“Was I not clear I wanted Caine dead?” There was genuine
ferocity in his eyes now, something Watts had rarely seen in the
old spymaster. “Was I not clear about the danger he represents?
Incompetence has allowed him to run amok here when you
 MARK OF CAINE | 187

should have taken him in Prescott. Worse, I arrive here to find the
best of you has fallen in the hunt.”
The two scowled but said nothing.
“So I’ll say this again.” He lowered the broadsheet, folding it
again with feigned fastidiousness. “Your mission is over.”
“No, it’s not.” Watts nearly spat, grabbing the broadsheet
and casting it aside before catching the spymaster by the throat.
The pair moved backward as one until Rebald was pinned to the
nearest building’s wall.
“I say it’s over when he’s dead. Are you hearing me?” Watts
hissed, his crooked teeth bared and his hot, animal breath heavy
on the spymaster’s face.
“Admirable resolve, Sergeant. And an impressive lapse of
judgment. Now release me before I truly lose my patience. You
are but a word from joining the list of Cygnar’s most wanted.”
Rebald’s eyes seemed on fire and his will indomitable. He had no
visible reaction to the attack.
After a moment of hesitation, Watts let the spymaster go. As he
withdrew, he caught the gleam of a pistol beneath Rebald’s cloak
trained on his chest.
“You wouldn’t dare,” Watts said. “I’m all you got right now.”
Ryan saw the gun as well and stepped between the men. “Let’s
not make any more empty threats here. Rebald, this squad is the
closest thing we have to family. We’re going to avenge our captain.
You know it as well as we do.”
Rebald’s composure seemed to soften. “The question remains:
Can you?”
“We might have had him already if your intelligence was worth
a damn,” Watts growled. “A spy for the reds now, did you say?
What bunk.”
Rebald’s eyebrows went up. The spymaster made an exaggerated
cough to cover his surprised reaction as they turned to continue
walking together.
“You clearly have new information. Explain.”
“It wasn’t Khador turned him. It was Cryx, and they’ve given
him power like he’s never had before. That little nugget might well
188 | MILES HOLMES

have spared the captain’s life, if you’d had the wits to gather it.”
Again, his reaction seemed to confirm his ignorance. He looked
to Ryan suspiciously. “Is this true? What power did he acquire?”
“He’s changed,” she confirmed. “Beyond the pistols and the
duster, he’s something else entirely. He’s faster and deadlier.”
“Have you any sense of his purpose here?”
“Isn’t that your department?” she asked. “If he’s the spy you
suggested he was, maybe his network has been compromised.
Maybe he’s on a mission to tie up loose ends.”
Watts shrugged. “Does it matter? Just as likely Cryx has turned
him into a monster and set him loose as a distraction or a decoy
or just for the fun of murder.”
Rebald’s swagger was clearly diminished. He weighed his words
carefully. “I was not prepared for these developments. I’ll have to
reconsider. Regrettably, however, this little detour has already cost
me dearly enough, and now there’s this news to process. And I am
scheduled to depart with the evening train.”
Ryan cocked her head suspiciously. “So, what now?”
“I will return tomorrow evening with assistance. If you cannot
resolve the matter by then,” Rebald paused, locking eyes with
both Ryan and Watts in turn, “then rest assured Caine will not be
my only target. Good hunting.”
“Didn’t you hear the lady?” Watts said. “No more empty threats.”
Rebald ignored him.
The pair watched him turn and go, passing through the
checkpoint ahead of the station with his papers in hand. The
constables waved him directly through. Moments later, the
spymaster was lost from their sight, blending into the gathering
crowd as another train arrived at the station. The whistle sounded
in a long, single blast. When it stopped, Watts turned to Ryan,
scratching his chin with a growl.
“I kind of like that man.”
•••

CAINE RAN THE LENGTH OF THE ALLEY with his sights on the second-
story balcony at its end. A quick flash put him there for the view
 MARK OF CAINE | 189

over the high fence and into the railyard on the other side. Save
for the gaslight of the platform and the lamplight spilling out the
waiting passenger cars, the yard was dark. He could barely see a
glint of rail below, the moonlight escaping through holes in the
overcast night sky.
As always, the shadows had been his closest of friends.
Unfortunately, they were often the shelter for others, too. Aware
his arrival might easily be noticed by the heightened security of
the watch, he decided he still needed a closer look.
Not for the first time this evening, he thought that true sight
would be a welcome ability to have on hand. Finally having a
moment to think, he whispered its pattern in slow recollection
over and over, invoking the component runes in the air before
him as diaphanous wisps. He studied their shapes, ultimately
noting one was missing. Again, he invoked the formula until the
pattern was correct and complete. When it was done, he felt a
small wave of relief to have it at his disposal.
His first spell, teleportation, had revealed itself to him in his
youth as more a primal reflex rather than a pattern of thought,
and it remained such to this day. But his playbook of spells had
grown deeper over the years, a repertoire of utility and power
taught to him by the academy, his elders, and preciously earned
battlefield experience.
Like all warcasters, he was trained to rack a number of his
most useful spells at a time, drilling with them repeatedly so he
culd instantly invoke them when needed. But then his time spent
in hiding and his desire to avoid the attention that magic drew
had given him little opportunity to practice. And now there was
a particular spell that would serve him, but it had gone unused
for long enough that he needed a moment to recall the complex
pattern it required. He could have used the spell in the darkness of
the sewers, except he had Cynthia’s taunts distracting him instead.
Now that he was alone and able to concentrate, the configuration
of runes returned to him.
As the final rune of his invocation took shape, his eyes
gleamed, and the world as it truly was revealed itself to him. True
190 | MILES HOLMES

sight transformed the railyard below into a swirl of hyper-realized

detail, so much so he found himself gripping the balcony rail for
balance as his mind adjusted. Once his focus was steady and his
balance was in check, he gazed out over the former shadows of the
yard to take the details in.
The world no longer looked so dark. Where it had been murky
before was now smooth gradients of subtle hues. He checked the
trains, the crosswalks above, and the nooks of the wheelhouse for
anyone or anything suspect. His enhanced vision found hidden
movement in the dark, but it was only the rustling of discarded
papers tumbling along empty tracks, caught in the night breeze.
On a catwalk over the tracks he spied the gleam of a peculiar
green dust passing from one side to the other, but he couldn’t find
anything more in those shadows, so he finally turned his attention
to the main station.
With his enhanced vision, he could detect guardsmen
patrolling the platform. Six constables walked the fifty yard
length, each with a carbine held at the ready. He considered them
lightly armed by his personal standards, but each one paced in
clear sight of the next, so any one of them could easily summon
the full detachment stationed within the terminal if necessary. He
reassessed his approach as he scanned the waiting train next to the
platform.
There was sound and movement along the train itself, all of
which he took in with a careful eye. The engine hissed steam as the
crew readied for departure. Down the length of the cars, Caine
located a conductor emerging from the first of twelve cars. The
man checked his pocket watch as he stepped onto the well-lit
platform.
“Last train. Last train, all aboard,” the man called with
practiced, melodic tones. Caine watched the shuffling crowd
gathering along the platform. Time to catch a train.
He leaped from the balcony with his focus on the shingled roof
of the station and vanished. He reappeared in a low crouch on
the roof, scrambling on all fours over its crest until the foremost
checkpoint was in sight.
 MARK OF CAINE | 191

He frowned. Cynthia and her mother were stuck in line as

some kind of argument at the head of it bloomed.
“They’re not going to make it,” he whispered, letting his true
sight slip away. As the world regained its muted tones once again,
he vaulted over the rail and disappeared for a third time in mid-
air.
He reappeared from his flash with his boots no more than
a foot above the ground in an alleyway that extended from the
street where the checkpoint dragged on. He landed softly and ran
for the line, his cloak flapping behind him. There, he found Lucy
and Cynthia still a dozen yards from the entry.
“Come with me,” he said quietly, grasping her by the arm.
“Why?” She frowned, looking around with immediate panic.
“What’s wrong? Are we in trouble?”
“The last train just pulled in. Yeh’ll not make it at this rate.”
“What do yeh intend?”
“Something I’ve not done in a long time. Probably damned
foolish, too. Just come on.”
Caine led them away, returning to the alley alongside the
station. When he was sure he had not been observed, he pulled
them close to him. The little pickpocket cocked her head as he
pulled her into the nook of his shoulder. “What are ye—”
The three of them vanished.
“—doing?” she finished with a gasp. Beside her, Lucy fell to
her knees, retching her dinner onto the tracks. The three of them
were now inside the railyard, sheltered from the platform on the
far side of the train and next to the engine itself.
“What was that?” Lucy gagged, spittle hanging from her lower
lip.
The girl put a hand on her mother’s back. Her eyes were wide
as saucers, but her smile was irrepressible. “Yeh know what he
done, Ma? He tellyported us.”
She giggled, excitedly jumping up and down in place while her
mother recovered.
Even Caine needed a moment. He struggled to keep his balance
after that stunt, winded and dizzy. Beside him, the looming engine
192 | MILES HOLMES

hissed from the pistons of its great iron wheels, and he swayed in
the blast of vapor. Cynthia saw his strain and came to his side.
“Are yeh okay?” she asked, tugging his sleeve while he rubbed
one temple.
Caine focused downward, taking a long breath as he looked
into her face. “I’m fine, kiddo. It’s just a head rush, that’s all. I’ve
never tried it with two of yeh ‘clingers’ on me before. One is tricky
enough. I don’t care to make a habit of it.”
He squinted at Lucy as she wiped her mouth, then he looked
back to the girl. “It don’t seem to trouble yeh much, though, does
it?”
“No.” Cynthia grabbed his hand with a look of pure delight.
“Do it again.”
He shook his head, looking around. “Sorry. We’ve got a train
to board.”
“We’re going to need tickets first.” Lucy was finally on her feet,
already moving to circumnavigate the engine.
•••

WATTS AND RYAN WERE IN THE STATION now. Rebald was long gone,
and they were both silently thankful.
“Remember that time Boss hit Strakhov with the thunder? Put
him square on the tracks before the train came speeding by,” Ryan
recalled, carving a rune with her knife into a platinum-core shot
as she walked. “Remember what he told him?”
“You got a train to catch.” Watts grinned despite himself.
“That’s it.” The younger gun mage chuckled, pacing the
perimeter of Central Station alongside Watts. From their place in
the shadows, she could see an argument going on at the head of
the line beyond the checkpoint. The crowd there was becoming
unruly, shouting for the constables to open the way. She yawned.
“What about that time on the ship?” Watts added.
“Which ship?” she scoffed. “And which time?”
“That upstart Mercarian League captain we chartered with.
The one who figured he’d re-plot our course to save a crown or
his hide. Tried to assure the Cap’n it was all the same in the end.”
 MARK OF CAINE | 193

Watts cleaned his thick spectacles, but Ryan saw a distant look of
remorse pass over his rheumy, exposed eyes.
“Oh, yes. Boss settled him, didn’t he?”
“Below decks, that bugger opens his liquor cabinet to find his
prize rum drunk and replaced with the captain’s own vintage,” he
laughed, setting his spectacles back on the bridge of his nose. “So,
he comes stomping up to the main deck, spitting and cussing, his
face all purple. ‘What’s the meaning of this?’ he demands.”
“Boss looked him square in the eyes and told him to relax. ‘It’s
all the same in the end,’ he told that pirate, totally deadpan.” She
laughed as well, her own eyes suddenly misty. “Just terrible.”
“He always knew what to say.” Watts looked around the station,
refusing to meet her eye now. “And I’d give about anything to have
him back to say something else.”
“The boss could sure get under your skin when he had it in
mind.”
Watts nodded in sober silence.
For as long as Ryan had known him, Watts had been bitter
and ruthless. No doubt he’d needed to be, given what he’d lived
through. But she had known him long enough to see his soft
spots, too. She supposed the guilt he was shouldering over Lynch’s
death must be nearly crippling. “Boss made the call, Sam,” she
said, glancing down the length of the platform.
“That don’t make this any easier.” Watts adjusted the weapon
on his shoulder, looking down as he spoke. “It should’ve been
me.”
She shrugged. “That ain’t up to us.”
He had no answer for that. She sighed—she definitely preferred
an angry Watts over a remorseful one. She was pretty sure which
of the two would be more useful in the fight to come. It was time
to focus him.
“I never did get a look at that rifle. May I?” She gestured to the
long barrel slung over his shoulder.
“Sure.” Watts passed the weapon her way.
Ryan marveled at the craftsmanship of Swan Song and sighted
down its barrel before inspecting the inscribed runes along its
194 | MILES HOLMES

length. It was impressive piece of craftsmanship, this was one of

a kind.
“Never been much for rifles, but I bet this one handles like a
dream,” she remarked with genuine respect.
“That notion is about all I have to keep me putting one foot in
front of the other right now.”
She looked back at the crowded station entrance. “The sooner
we meet Harbins, the sooner you’ll get that shot. What time did
he say he’s due?”
Rising over the surrounding cityscape, Bainsmarket’s famed
clock tower showed six and twenty, as it had for days—the
venerable timepiece was frozen by the renovations that clambered
up its flanks. Watts retrieved his own pocket watch. After a glance,
he replaced it to his watch pocket.
Ryan looked at him expectantly.
“About now, I reckon.” He smiled mirthlessly while cracking
his neck left and then right.
“You hear that?” She perked up at the sound of a rising clatter
in the streets.
“Well, well. Has our baron arrived then?” Watts re-slung the
rifle.
Though it wasn’t visible yet, a procession was clearly making its
way through the deserted streets, evidenced by the raucous sounds
of its arrival. The stamp of marching feet was closely followed by
the clip-clop of steel-shod hooves on the cobblestones. Slowly, the
solemn procession came into view from around the corner.
Two full squads of long gunners led, their colors unfurled.
They were followed by an honor guard of Harbins’ constables on
horseback. An armored carriage drawn by a team of four purebred
stallions trailed them, the carriage’s windows drawn closed by
rolling steel shutters. By heraldry alone, there was no doubt as to
who the passengers inside were. This was the ruling baron, Wolfe
Blackwood and his immediate family.
Bringing up the rear, a pair of well-maintained Sentinel light
warjacks dutifully accompanied the procession at the heel of a
mounted Captain Harbins, their thick shields bearing the same
 MARK OF CAINE | 195

coat of arms as the carriage. Harbins’ dark mare sported a coat of

satin black, a perfect match for his own greatcoat. His bicorn sat
prim and proper on his head, his badge of office affixed to it, the
same badge as those hooked onto his epaulettes. All were polished
to a mirror finish. He rode with his fake hand bound to the reins
and his magelock held at the ready in his living hand. Though his
eyes were hidden by his goggles, he clearly surveyed all angles in a
constant search for danger.
“Quite the parade,” Ryan noted as she and Watts met the
procession and fell in alongside the vigilant Harbins. He nodded
down at them.
The baron’s carriage rolled into Central Station, and the stage
for a railway exodus was set at last.
 — CHAPTER 24 —
OF RETREATS AND REUNIONS

CAINE MOVED THE LENGTH OF THE passenger car, mindlessly

running his hand over the crushed velvet of the seat backs. He
kept his eyes beneath the brim of his hood, but he marked the
boots of passengers he passed until at last he saw Cynthia’s shoes
kicking impatiently at the seat in front of her.
“Well?” Lucy whispered as he raised his eyes to meet hers.
“The forward cars are almost loaded, but I saw no constables or
soldiers aboard. And I expect we’ll be underway in a few minutes.”
A young woman opposite Lucy and Cynthia’s seats; and while
she seemed disinterested in him, Caine kept his face from her just
the same. Lucy glanced at the woman and then to the empty chair
beside her. “Will yeh sit with us?”
“No.” Caine glanced around at other empty seats nearby. “If
I’m discovered, I’d rather yeh not be associated with me. But I’ll
stay close just the same.”
198 | MILES HOLMES

He craned his neck to look through the windows into the next
car back of the line. A dining car, it looked like. For a moment, he
felt a dull pain in his arm, but a quick scratch eased it. “I’ll be back.”
Maybe we’re all right, he thought. Now that Lucy and Cynthia
had their seats, all that remained was to see them off. The moment
Caine was sure they were safely away, he could set his sights on the
grim business at hand. For the first time today, something seemed
to actually be going his way.
He stepped lively between the cars, closing the rail door behind
him and reaching across for the next with a quick glance down at
the space between. The chains on either side made for a railing,
and he took note of a ladder that ascended to the rooftop. He was
pleased—a rooftop perch would allow him to spot trouble from
any direction while staying right above his charges.
In the dining car, he found the staff moving between tables
as they prepared the service. The seats were still empty; service
didn’t begin until after the train’s departure. Caine strode casually
past them, his eye already on the next car ahead. As he passed
the bar, he felt the urge to lift a bottle of uiske. It stood in plain
sight and within easy reach. Yeh may yet need yer wits about yeh,
he chided himself. As he moved on to the exit, he ran into the
barman arriving from the other side, struggling to open the door
while carrying a crate of supplies to his station.
Caine held the door for him, avoiding eye contact with him.
“Thank you, sir.” The barman stepped over the threshold,
forcing Caine to sidestep the man.
“Excuse me,” Caine muttered.
The barman hesitated. “I’m sorry, sir, but that’s the last car.
Reserved for the baron.”
Caine eyed the finely appointed car through the window. He
glanced at the stairwell to his right through which the baron’s
group was boarding from the platform. More than twice the
number of guards already in place were approaching. The stamp
of warjacks could even be heard from within the terminal, and
as the machines drew closer, he sensed the dim consciousness of
their cortexes.
 MARK OF CAINE | 199

“More Sentinels,” he groaned, having commanded more than

his share of that particular model during his service days.
“I’m sorry, sir?” The barman was still watching him from
behind. He leaned forward, looking to see what held Caine’s
attention.
“I said, ‘Oh, what the hell,’” Caine answered, keeping his back
to the man. “We gotta wait on all this just to be on our way?”
He turned his attention from the platform to assess the last car
again. It seemed more like the sitting room of a nobleman’s house
than a train car—it was decorated with chaise and sofa chairs and
drapes of velvet above richly patterned carpet. Lamps with tassels
of gold lace dotted its length, and a private bar with polished brass
fittings awaited, its shelves fully stocked with better stuff than
even the expensive drinks the barman was unpacking now.
“Must be nice,” Caine gestured to the baron’s car.
“I imagine so,” the barman answered wryly.
His reconnoiter at its end, Caine turned on his heel to return
to Lucy and Cynthia. He passed the barman with a downward
nod, felt satisfied with how he was ignored, and re-entered the
passenger car. There were a few more arrivals than when he
had left; he noted there was still an aisle seat by the door that
offered a direct view to Cynthia. A single passenger had come
to the opposite aisle seat, leaving the facing window seats empty.
Lucy, meanwhile, struggled to stow her bag in an overhead
compartment. She noted his arrival with a nod.
“Let me help you with that, ma’am.” A porter in a red suit and
flat cap came to her aid, and Caine slid into his chair without a
word. The pack he wore covered the arcane turbine of his armor,
but it would not let him recline fully, so he shifted his bulk to
find a more comfortable position. As he shifted, he glanced at the
man across from him. He was mostly hidden behind newsprint
broadsheet, tough Caine could see his grey suit trousers below
and a matching grey bowler above the paper’s spread. Across the
front of the broadsheet the man held, he could read a menacing
headline about his new moniker, the Hellslinger.
Caine sighed, still shifting in his seat. They should see what
200 | MILES HOLMES

happens if I actually have a mind to sling some hell.

Noting his discomfort, the young porter approached. “Why
don’t I stow that pack for you, sir?” He tried to make eye contact
as Caine lowered the brim of his hood further still.
“I’m fine,” he said, once more scratching the pain in his arm.
The porter considered, then turned his attention to the
obscured gentleman opposite Caine. “And you, sir? Do you have
any baggage I might stow for you?”
“I do not.”
The voice behind the newsprint was flat and quiet yet firm.
The very sound of it raised gooseflesh on Caine’s arms and made
his back stiffen. It was a voice he had heard often enough to leave
no room for doubt about the man’s identity.
The man before him was Scout General Bolden Rebald.
Whatever his purpose here, whatever the coincidence, it could
not have come at a worse time. Caine’s hand slid within the folds
of his cloak to the Spellstorm at his side. He drew it free of its
holster, watching carefully as the porter moved on. As quietly as
possibly, he slowly brought the pistol to bear, though it remained
hidden under the folds of his disguise. He aimed it at the center
of the broadsheet.
The newsprint dipped, and Caine could Rebald held it with
only one hand. The other was hidden behind the front-page story,
and Caine could instinctively sense the presence of another gun—
regrettably, in someone else’s possession.
Rebald let the broadsheet drop, blanketing it over his right
hand. Under the broadsheet’s fold, Caine could now see the
muzzle of a firearm protruding and aimed squarely at his face.
“So, you’ve come to kill me at last,” Rebald said quietly, his
grey eyes never leaving Caine’s.
Now there’s a thought I hadn’t had in a while, Caine admitted to
himself. He could have ended the man’s life at their last meeting
two years ago, but he’d opted to walk away clean. Maybe if he had
pulled the trigger, a lot more people would likely be alive today. His
mind raced as he considered this option, however unexpectedly
it had arrived. For a moment, his finger only tightened on his
 MARK OF CAINE | 201

trigger. Then he heard Cynthia singing to herself, and the thought

vanished as quickly as it had come. He knew that any showdown
between them would imperil Cynthia and her mother, perhaps
even ruin their escape altogether. Again Caine’s arm ached, though
he dared not scratch it this time. If he twitched the wrong way,
Rebald was likely to blow a hole in him big enough for Cynthia
to crawl through.
“Give me one good reason not to get rid of you,” Caine bluffed,
the menace in his low voice certainly sounding genuine to his own
ears.
“I’ve got you point-blank, and by the lack of smoke about you,
I daresay your arcane turbine under your disguise has been turned
off. Without a power field, we both know you’re as mortal as I
am.” Rebald’s voice dropped to a near-whisper as passengers yet
made their way by.
Caine stared at the muzzle pointed at him. The wily spymaster
knew Caine’s moves and capabilities, and he had good reflexes.
Small though it was, he guessed Rebald chose the weapon and it
ammunition to pack more of a punch than its size might suggest.
At this range, he might not be able to avoid a shot to the head.
Rebald recognized that his point had been made. He dipped
his head to indicate his broadsheet. “I’ve often wondered what
you’ve been up to in the last two years. It seems you’ve been busy
this past week at least. Where do you find the time for so many
victims?”
“Is that why you’ve come?” Caine asked.
“I admit I find myself curious about your exploits, yes,”
Rebald admitted. “You were never the sort to take innocent lives
so casually. If you were, perhaps we might still be in business
together.”
“Don’t believe everything yeh read. Half of it was written by
liars like yeh.”
“Come now. Take some pride in your work.” Rebald was
clearly fishing; Caine could see him watching Caine’s reaction like
a predator. “I’m sure Captain Lynch’s death was no easy feat, even
for you.”
202 | MILES HOLMES

The cheap shot struck home, Caine recoiling reflexively.

Dixon Lynch? The Black 13th were friends, alumni of the Arcane
Tempest and kindred spirits besides. They’d fought together and
bled together. And if he were to be completely honest, Dixon’s
crew might even have saved his life once or twice. Were they here
now? Was Dixon actually dead or was this one of Rebald’s tricks?
“So, it really isn’t you.” Rebald seemed genuinely surprised.
The train whistle announced their readiness to move out.
Again, the dull pain throbbed at Caine’s arm, stronger than
before. Unable to ignore it this time, he realized at last what was
causing it. The mark on his arm was burning just as it had the last
time he’d seen his doppelganger. His heart pounded in his chest.
He needed a plan, and he needed it now.
Cynthia was becoming agitated, too. Caine could hear her
babbling something to her mother. He avoided the temptation to
look her way, instead keeping her only in the blur of his peripheral
vision. Abruptly, she jumped up on her chair, pointing out the
window and turning to shout at him.
“He’s here!” she cried.
 — CHAPTER 25 —
OF SHOWDOWNS AND
SUDDEN DEATH

THE LONG, SHRILL BLAST OF THE TRAIN whistle sounded, and Watts
looked down the length of the platform. A single file line boarded
the train at the front, though most of the passengers were already
aboard. He could see them sitting in their seats inside, peering
out the windows or engaged in conversation with one another. At
the rear of the train, Harbins’ honor guard attended the Baron as
he ascended the stairwell into his private car. All seemed close to
readiness.
“Come on,” Watts grumbled impatiently. “I ain’t getting any
younger.”
Harbins stared at one of several iron lattice catwalks arching
over the train. “Your waiting may be at an end, for better or worse.”
Next to the captain of the watch, Ryan raised her pistols, scanning
the place where Harbins looked. “He’s here? I don’t see anything.”
204 | MILES HOLMES

“It seems that way.” Harbins squinted, his eyes glinting in

the low light. “Caine has been here recently. I see his trail in
abundance on that gantry.”
“Let’s take a look then.” Watts led the way, slinging his rifle as
he approached the train to climb the ladder at its side.
Harbins followed after him, calling a nearby constable from
his honor guard over as he did. “Sergeant Wick, have the men
spread out. I want coverage at the terminal and the yard. We may
have trouble here.”
The constable nodded and with terse shouts of command
rejoined his squad. Watts noted them rushing into the terminal
while Ryan and Harbins followed him up the ladder to the roof of
the train. A moment later, long gunners lined up across the platform
with weapons at the ready. The arrangement startled travelers in
the crowd and added a renewed sense of urgency to the line for
boarding. After the long gunners, the constables returned with
Sergeant Wick at the lead. In their wake, two Sentinels were had
been marshaled into action by the sergeant’s shouted commands.
The sergeant, his crew, and the Sentinels dropped down from the
platform to advance into the railyard proper. They spread out,
covering each angle with caution and readied weapons.
On top of the train now, Watts prepared his rifle as Ryan and
Harbins joined him. Next to their position, the arching platform
was within easy reach—they only had to scale a guardrail. Once
more, the grizzled gun mage climbed. When Ryan was ready, he
reached back to pull her up and over. Harbins took a hand from
Watts as well.
“Thanks,” Harbins said as he set foot on the catwalk. He
scanned the area a wide arc from their new vantage. “Our man
has been circling the yard, high and low,” He indicated the path
loosely as he spoke. “Over and over again.”
Ryan scanned the crowds. “Gunning for someone aboard the
train, maybe?”
“Looks like it.” The albino nodded, peering down over the
railyard as his men spread out. “But where is he?”
Watts sighted with the scope of his rifle, tracking the constables
 MARK OF CAINE | 205

below. He watched them as they moved between bins, support

columns, and the train itself. Finally, he set his sights on a single
constable investigating the nearest water tower to the train’s
engine.
As the man passed the squat base of the tower, Watts saw a
hand reach out suddenly to grab the man from behind—it seemed
to appear from the side of the tower itself. With a violent lurch,
the man was pulled through the tower’s solid copper siding as
easily as one might slip through a beaded curtain. In an instant,
the constable was gone, disappearing without so much as a sound.
“Pull your men back, Cap’n,” Watts growled, priming Swan
Song to fire. “Caine is in the water tower.”
•••

“IF YOU’RE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS rampage, why are you here?”
Rebald cocked his head at Caine, watching his reaction carefully.
“Did you board this train hoping to escape? Could our meeting
be such a fantastic coincidence?”
The warcaster weighed his options. He could only stall the
spymaster for so long. While he was dealing with this, he could
feel the thing with his face closing in. He wondered if his hunch
had been correct after all—if it was truly coming for his old
sweetheart or if was actually coming another target aboard.
Be convenient if it was Rebald, he thought bitterly.
Either way, he certainly couldn’t stop the thing while locked
in a stalemate with his former employer. He needed a distraction
or some time to focus his magic. There was no room for error. He
had little doubt the spymaster’s reflexes were sharp enough to end
him if he slipped just a hair.
“No. That’s not it. No escape plans for you.” Rebald compressed
his lips to form a thin line.
Caine frowned slightly, pained by both Rebald’s conjecture
and the unpleasantness in his arm. Neither one was an itch he
could scratch at the moment, it seemed, though he knew there
had to be a solution here that didn’t result in more dead bodies.
“You’re aware of the killer, surely. Perhaps you’ve even come to
206 | MILES HOLMES

stop him.” Rebald frowned. “But whatever for? You’re a wanted

man, and you risk capture showing your face here, of all places.”
“Stop runnin’ yer mouth, Rebald. Yeh’ve no idea the stakes
here. Yer just baiting me,” Caine growled as a passenger drew near
to stow luggage.
“Well, perhaps you had some idea of the killer’s agenda,” the
spymaster speculated, undeterred. “You’ve friends and family
in Bainsmarket, of course. What if someone you knew had the
killer’s attention? Is that what lured you out of hiding?”
How does he always do this? Caine scowled.
“Yes, that’s it.” The scout general smiled. “You’re here to escort
them to safety aboard this train. They must be close by. Within
sight, I’d wager.”
“You’d lose that bet.”
“I think not.” Rebald chuckled. “Have I not warned you in the
past about forming attachments? They trap you.”
Caine only stared back, unblinking. Open your mouth again,
he’s likely to figure out who they are.
“History seems about to repeat itself,” Rebald finally said.
The warcaster bristled. “How do yeh figure?”
“Surely you’ve seen this place is surrounded? Surely you hear
them even now?”
Caine dared not look away from Rebald, but it didn’t matter.
He’d well observed the security in the station, and he could,
indeed, hear the sound of soldiers and warjacks outside, moving
in response to orders from their commanding officer.
“One shot from either of us, and every gun out there will
be turned on this spot in a matter of moments. If that were not
enough to stop you, the Black 13th is close at hand and eager for
your blood. I might be able to stop them, if I were apprised of the
real killer. Of course, any altercation between us might jeopardize
the safety of those you wish to save. If anything were to happen to
you, I suppose the real killer would then be free to act.”
“Aye, so here’s the part where yeh’d have me back into yer fold,”
Caine scoffed.
“And why not? Use this coincidence to your advantage. One
 MARK OF CAINE | 207

word from me, and whoever it is that’s precious to you will be

escorted to safety, and you and I can stop this menace as a team.
Just like it when we defended Cygnar’s interests.”
A bead of sweat trickled down Caine’s forehead. He had no
good options. Rebald was right about one thing: any shots fired
would stop the train. And he couldn’t simply teleport away, either.
That would allow the scout general to raise the alarm as well. The
mark on his arm was beginning to feel almost as if a hot piece of
metal were pressed to it.
“Cygnar’s interests?” he hissed, his mind racing still. “Or did
yeh mean yer interests? I’ve seen firsthand how yeh manage those.
For all yer refinement, Rebald, yer no more than a thug.”
The man’s steely gaze offered no sign of contrition. Only his
voice betrayed his exasperation. “Fine, we’ve degenerated to name
calling. But you cannot possibly be this naïve. Not after all we’ve
been through.”
Caine glanced over at Cynthia. Whatever the monster with his
face was doing out there, it was starting to attract more attention.
More passengers were pressing against their windows, apparently
looking for the commotion but unable to spot the thing, and
Caine could hear shouts from the watch. The thunder of moving
warjacks shook the platform and the train cars.
The spymaster’s ease with situation was infuriating.
“So, what is your answer?” He smiled triumphantly.
•••

RYAN SPRINTED ALONG THE PLATFORM side of the track, sliding

into cover near the front of the engine. With guns held high, she
glanced back at Watts, who was still perched on the suspended
platform fifty yards behind her. Braced to the rail, the older gun
mage sighted with his rifle’s scope along the other side of the
engine and then back. After a moment, he gave her the all-clear
signal.
Somewhere on the other side of the train, Harbins was
matching her step-for-step with cover of his own. It was a flanking
play to encircle the water tower and draw Caine out from where
208 | MILES HOLMES

he was hiding inside. If it worked, Watts stood ready to finish him

with a single rifle shot.
“You never struck me as a man who cared for his baths, Caine,”
Ryan said under her breath, focusing her will into her twin
magelocks. She’d loaded them with the experimental platinum-
core ammunition, and she now recalled a pattern she’d used at the
shooting range. She swung out from the nose of the engine and
lined up a shot at the water tower just as the final whistle blew.
“Freeze,” she whispered. The crack of her pistol was drowned
out by the ear-splitting whistle. Her first shot had hit the mark,
expanding on impact with the tower. With her second magelock
at the ready, she watched as frost spread rapidly across the copper-
skinned tower.
“How does that suit you, you bastard?” She leveled the second
gun, waited for Caine to emerge from the tower to escape the
freezing water. She assumed he’d come alone; given that this was
Caine, she was sure the man he’d grabbed through the tower wall
was dead.
Mist seeped from base of the freezing tower. Beside her, the
train between them started to move.
“Give us two more minutes,” she pleaded. But the train creaked
along heedlessly, venting steam from its pistons, and slowly cut off
her line of sight to the tower. She kept pace alongside it, but this
wasn’t going to work. She glanced back to Watts, gesturing for
him to make a call. He shook his head—no target. Suddenly, he
pointed firmly, two fingers pointed at the engine.
Ryan groaned. “Really? He’s on the train? How is he getting
around so fast?”
•••

THE TRAIN HAD JUST STARTED TO PULL out of the station when
Caine saw his chance to end the standoff. Last-minute arrivals
were shuffling down the aisle, making their way to the only seats
left in the car, those next to him and Rebald. If he were to pull
this off, he’d need tranquility, clarity, and maybe more than a little
luck. He took a deep breath. This was going to be a close call.
 MARK OF CAINE | 209

It’s the only kinda call I ever get, he thought.

He could see from where he sat that Cynthia had finally
settled back into her seat, though her expression was clearly
uncomfortable. The question of how she had spotted the enigmatic
killer among the shadows of the railyard when no else could was a
subject for another time, though Caine had some theories already,
given their shared lineage.
“Here’s the thing, chum,” he said evenly, eyes locked with
the spymaster. Despite his apparent focus, he watched the new
passengers draw closer in his peripheral vision, marking their steps
with each breath. “If Cygnar needs thugs like us to survive, maybe
it never was worth saving.”
“Spare me your laughable sanctimony,” he sneered. “You don’t
believe it at all, so it’s just a tactic. A stall. Instead, why don’t you
explain to me how it might relieve you of this stalemate?”
“It won’t. Why else would I be declining yer offer?” Ignoring
the pain in his arm, Caine closed his eyes. The approaching
passengers edged along the aisle to pass directly between him and
Rebald.
Caine opened his eyes, having entered that familiar trance
where the time between heartbeats stretcehed longer and longer.
He couldn’t sustain it forever. His energy reserves were dangerously
low, threatening him with the loss of consciousness. If the thing
with his face were aboard, that would be disastrous. Fortunately,
his plan didn’t require him to be here long.
He assessed the passengers standing in front of him, dull and
barely motionless. They had just cleared the space between him
and Rebald as Caine had opened his eyes. Across from him, the
scout general sat staring at him with eyes seemingly frozen. His
hand still gripped his pistol and his mouth was twisted in a sneer.
It was a pretty sight.
What had to follow required absolute precision. Caine invoked
his shockwave, the concussive blast of magic he was best known
for channeling into a devastating thunderous attack. He had used
this magic as a teen when his gift had first manifested. When
applied to its fullest, the blast rang out with the quality of a savage
210 | MILES HOLMES

thunderstorm, a lethal force. It could be subtler if he wished, and

it was proportionately less jarring when he chose it to be so. He
lined the point of impact squarely to Rebald’s forehead.
“Right between the eyes,” he whispered to himself.
He let the trance go, and the world returned to normal speed
with a whoosh of air and movement.
There was a crack, and the spymaster slammed back against his
headrest with a brutal lurch. His eyes rolled back in his head, and
his weapon slipped from his hand. His mouth lolled open as he
began to slump. Concerned that the unconscious man’s exposed
weapon might be spotted the boarding passengers, Caine reached
forward and propped Rebald back up in his seat while scooping
the man’s pistol up from beneath his cloak. A pair of passengers
looked at him in surprise.
“He’s had a long day, this one,” Caine explained, a sheepish
grin on his face. “With a little luck, he’ll sleep clear on through to
Fharin. Sorry if you smell the booze.”
The young and well-to-do couple smiled politely in response
then looked out the window without further comment.
Caine adjusted Rebald’s bulk, feeling the man’s shallow breath
on his face. He was sorely tempted to end him then and there but
in thinking a moment more, he thought better of it. A sleeping
man would rouse no suspicion; a dead man might stop the train
before it even left the station. He leaned close to Rebald’s ear. “I
promise yeh, we’ll finish this conversation another time. Maybe
with yer eulogy.”
Then he stood and headed down the aisle. When he reached
Lucy and Cynthia’s seats he paused, his arm outstretched for his
daughter’s hand. The mark on his arm throbbed relentlessly.
“Time to move,” he announced.
•••

“JUST JUMP, YOU OLD FOOL,” WATTS said, goading himself while
watching the train beneath his platform go past, car by car. With
each second, the train picked up speed, making the inevitable leap
all the more precarious. Glancing to the head of the train, he saw
 MARK OF CAINE | 211

both Harbins and Ryan scaling the sides of the engine, climbing
to the rooftop.
Steeling himself, he slung his rifle over his shoulder again and
hauled himself over the rail. He fell over the side, hands flailing
for something, anything, to grasp below. He rolled to the left and
nearly over the side of the second-to-last passenger car. At the last
moment, he found a handgrip and clung to it for dear life. Once
secured, he hauled himself to the center of the roof and got to his
knees. Ahead, he could see the engine’s smokestack belch a great
cloud of black smoke as it picked up speed out of the railyard.
He detected something in the smoke. Dark though it was, the
intermittent moonlight peeked through the thickening clouds
and revealed a man climbing out from the exhaust. He wore a
long, flowing duster and brandished twin Spellstorm pistols.
“I’ll be. Those Cryxian buggers really did a number on you,
didn’t they?” Watts swore. The warcaster was almost beyond
recognizable. His newly gained abilities were a complete enigma
from one moment to the next. Watts knew only one thing for
certain: he had the shot, and he was damn well going to take it.
The gun mage adjusted his stance to take a knee and brought his
rifle up.
If the figure knew he was being targeted, he didn’t show it.
Through the scope, Watts watched as Caine walked the length of
the engine toward him, hopping the cars easily. Watts moved the
crosshairs until he found Caine’s forehead. A feral snarl bloomed
on his prey’s face; he didn’t even look human, but Watts was
undaunted.
“Cap’n’s regards, dead man.” Holding his breath, Watts
squeezed the trigger.
The train shook then, jinking its way along a track change
southeast. His aim shifted with it, the shot exploding just the
same.
It’s gonna hit him anyway, Watt thought. But he cursed when
he looked through the scope to see that Caine’s head remained.
Or some aspect of it did.
The warcaster shrieked an unearthly sound that carried the
212 | MILES HOLMES

length of the train, his shoulder ripped asunder by the shot. He

fell, crouching low on his hand and knees. Watts recoiled at what
he saw as he hastily reloaded. The face snarling back at him now
seemed far more beastly than man, gaunt and even spectral. As
he watched, Caine suddenly scuttled insect-like over the side and
onto the train through an open passenger window.
The gun mage cursed again, his quarry gone just as he was
ready to fire. He looked through the scope on Swan Song, hoping
Caine might resurface. Instead, he saw Ryan and Harbins scramble
topside of the engine.
Ryan moved down the train cars in a low crouch, her magelocks
sweeping the length of the train until she saw Watts.
Below, he signaled. She nodded. She relayed the message to
Harbins, then both gun mages found ladders to hurry down over
opposite sides of the train. They disappeared from Watts’ sight
once more and into the second car.
He sighed, slinging his rifle. Reluctantly, he drew his magelock
and checked its readiness before holstering it again. Then he
stepped to the front of the car and found his way down into the
dining car.
No matter what power Cryx had granted the traitor, Watts
was prepared to face him. He had seen this Caine bloodied, so he
would see him dead as well.
•••

HIS DISGUISE WAS NO LONGER USEFUL. Caine pulled the cloak free,
and flicked the switch that ignited the fire in his arcantrik turbine,
bringing it back to life. As smoke began to churn from his armor’s
chimney, his power field hummed to life around him.
“This way.” He led Lucy and Cynthia down the length of the
car, trailing smoke as he went. On either side, passengers stared at
their little procession but clearly could not determine what to make
of them. Near the front of the car, Caine opened the door to the
baggage hold, and they moved in, closing the door behind them.
The way was cramped with oversized trunks, packages, and
bags, but he could see the door to the next car readily enough.
 MARK OF CAINE | 213

Picking a path through the baggage, he reached the door and

pressed open the latch on the door that led to the platform
between the cars. Wind rushed in his ears as he stepped out. The
train was gathering speed and entering the industrial district.
On both sides of them, the spread of the Morton Brothers’
steelyard passed by. He gazed over the chain rail for any soft
landing in the yard, looking beyond the rushing stacks of girders
next to the rail.
“Should we jump and roll?” Cynthia peered eagerly over the
side.
Lucy recoiled. “Can’t yeh just, make us. . . yeh know?” She
gestured, her fingers spread wide.
Caine resisted the desire to smirk. “Yeh mean vanish?”
She nodded.
“Aye, but we’ll carry speed. You won’t hit the ground any softer.
May as well just brace yerself.”
Lucy nodded reluctantly, staring at the rushing ground as she
considered the jump. His daughter, on the other hand, spit in her
palms and rubbed them together, a grin curling her lips.
“He’s getting closer,” Caine announced. He felt his arm throb
with renewed pain, and he rubbed it with a wince. “We’re going
to have to—”
“Look,” Cynthia interrupted, pointing at the window of the
car ahead.
A mirror image of himself strode the length of the aisle, smiling
darkly as he came. Caine saw his dark duplicate wink as their eyes
met, now only a dozen yards apart.
Desperately, he scanned the landscape then looked to the track
ahead as it curled gradually. “New plan.”
He led Cynthia by the hand back into the baggage hold they
had just come through and back toward the previous car. As the
three stepped back among passengers, Caine saw the door at the
far end open to reveal a man in a black cloak. The newcomer
stared back at Caine through thick goggles.
With a sinking feeling, he realized he knew this man and the
danger of their untimely reunion. Just as Rebald had warned, here
214 | MILES HOLMES

was one of the members of the Black 13th. The grizzled gun mage
approaching had a rifle slung over his shoulder, momentarily
useless, but a magelock in his hands with which quickly took aim.
The passengers between them recoiled from the weapon, surprised
and terrified.
“Bollocks,” Caine swore, turning back for the baggage hold.
He wasn’t about to kill an old friend who didn’t know any better.
Not if he could help it. Instead, he pushed the two back inside
and slammed the door behind him. He ducked low, fearful Watts
might open fire through the door. For the moment at least, the
door remained intact, and Watts seemed to be restraining himself.
“We’re trapped,” Lucy cried, looking hopelessly in both
directions.
“We could hide in a trunk,” Cynthia suggested. Caine shook
his head at the girl’s energy. Somehow the gravity of the situation
eluded her. I was young and dumb once, too, I suppose.
“I have a better idea,” he said, looking from the trunk to the
ceiling above. “Yer going to love it, kiddo.”
Lucy sensed what he meant but still asked, “What does that
mean?”
He frowned and spread his arms as he kept his gaze to the
ceiling. “Come close, both of you.”
There was no other choice. They were surrounded.
Come on. Yeh did it before, he goaded himself for courage. It
didn’t help much.
The glee in Cynthia’s eyes could not be mistaken as she
embraced Caine tightly with both arms. He shook his head and
closed his eyes, prepared for the worst. Lucy moved into his
embrace. Then they were gone.
The trio reappeared in a heap on the roof of the speeding
train. Draining though it was, he was relieved they had survived
relatively intact. He still gripped both Lucy and Cynthia tightly—
he needed to ensure they would not lose their balance and slip
over the side if he let go too soon. As before, both of his passengers
responded to the sudden displacement with nausea in one and
glee in the other. Lucy had no more food to surrender at least;
 MARK OF CAINE | 215

she gagged up little more than spit. Caine rose with some effort,
the pounding in his heart close to bursting his chest open and his
balance shaky. He drew his guns, convinced his move had bought
them a moment’s respite and no more. The throbbing in his arm
all but confirmed that his double was nearly upon them.
Lucy rose by his side, looking back then forward along the
rushing train while he closed his eyes, fighting the dizziness.
“Morrow’s sake, look,” she shrieked.
A bridge connecting two of the larger steelyard factory buildings
was only yards away and closing fast. Caine stared stupidly at the
brick wall approaching them; there was no way to get out of its
way in time. Instinctively, Lucy and Cynthia clutched for him.
“Do it again,” the little girl shouted happily over the rush of
the wind.
 — CHAPTER 26 —
OF SEPARATION AND
SHOOTOUTS

RYAN OPENED THE DOOR OF A CLOSET in the crew car and found
an engineer’s body haphazardly stuffed inside. The man had been
broken in the process, his spine clearly snapped.
Harbins joined her from behind. He looked at her discovery,
leaning his head in for a better view. “Keep moving. We might
well lose him, given the speed he’s moving.”
She grunted. “Or worse, Watts gets to him first and notches
the kill.”
At the end of the crew car, she swung open the exterior door to
let in the rush of night air beyond it. The narrow gantry between
cars beckoned, and she stepped across with ease. They would
reach the first of the passenger cars soon enough.
“At least we we’re on his trail,” Harbins shouted over the clatter
of the train.
218 | MILES HOLMES

“We don’t know Caine like we used to,” she shouted back,
her hand on the door to the next car. “He’s definitely incorporeal
now. That means he can move anywhere, overhead or underfoot.
Be sure you look for him everywhere, even places you’d think he
can’t go.”
She entered the passenger car with her magelock leading the
way. When she stepped through, every pair of eyes turned to her.
An air of open discomfort ran through the seated passengers. Even
the conductor, mid-aisle, turned on their arrival, pausing from his
duty of ticket punching.
“Official CRS business,” she announced loudly enough to be
heard all the way to the end of the car. “Stay calm, and stay out
of our way.”
She strode the aisle briskly, raising her offhand to the perplexed
conductor to pass him by with a graceful sidestep. Harbins paused.
“Have you seen anyone aboard in a long duster? Perhaps with
warcaster armor? And armed?
The conductor shook his head, but a gentleman close by heard
the exchange and raised his hand. “I swear I saw a man on the side
of the train a moment ago.”
Ryan stopped in the aisle and whirled to exchange a troubled
glance with Harbins. “What was I just telling you?”
Harbins nodded, glancing at the ceiling. “If you and Watts
intend to meet in the middle, perhaps I should follow along on
the roof to keep an eye out so he doesn’t slip through.”
“We’re split up as it is.” She recalled how separation had cost
them Lynch in the first place. “But I expect you’re right.”
Harbins nodded warily. He turned to backtrack up the aisle
and exited the car the way they had come.
Ryan paused to look around her at the people watching her.
She was alone. Not for the first time either, truth be told. She’d
survived her share of last stands and lost causes on the frontlines
long before being mustered into the Black 13th. One had, of
course, led to the other. The life of a gun mage at war had always
been the stuff of legend—or a short, brutal footnote when ranks
drew close. That was the job, and she had accepted it.
 MARK OF CAINE | 219

That said, after finding Lynch in Caine’s clutches on the roof

of the mill, she had decided it would be entirely preferable if old
Watts scored the kill rather than have Caine take out him, too,
and end up leaving her alone for good.
She would certainly make him work for it.
One car to the next, she advanced, expecting Caine to be
hovering over a fresh kill each time, but she only found passengers
frightened by her magelock and grim-faced expression. At last, she
entered a car roughly at the center of train and spotted Watts just
entering at the opposite end. Seeing her down the length of the
aisle, the older gun mage scowled.
“I just had him,” Watts complained. “The bastard looked right
at me and turned tail into the baggage hold.”
He struck the wall in frustration.
“Nice to see you, too,” Ryan said. “Well, I never met him, so
he didn’t get this far. Let’s regroup with Harbins topside on the
double.”
Watts nodded, turning to head back the way he’d already come.
She followed, drawing near to the platform between cars. Once
she was outside again, she saw a sprawling steelyard rushing past,
tall, well-lit buildings appearing at regular intervals along the track.
The remaining details of the steelyard were barely silhouettes in the
darkness—clouds had gathered to crowd the moonlight from view.
Still, the buildings were well marked by a line of gas lanterns. Ryan
could see the illumination of smelting in progress inside some of
them, the labor casting a warm glow in the cool night air.
“Let’s roll,” Watts said over the clatter of the train, indicating
ladders on either side.
As she climbed, Ryan spared a glance back to see the stonework
arch of a low clearance overpass receding from view. She then
saw another one with a higher clearance arch fast approaching.
The overpasses appeared to connect warehouses to the steelyard’s
smelting facility, running supplies across by rail cart. There was
no sign of Caine or Harbins. On the roof, she glanced in both
directions, perplexed. A car-length back, a dark figure suddenly
climbed into view.
220 | MILES HOLMES

“Target at your six,” Ryan called out; Watts whirled to meet it

with his magelock.
“Hold your fire,” the figure shouted, straightening up in the
center of the car with his hands raised. Dark though he was, the
sound of his voice confirmed it was Harbins.
“What happened?” Ryan called as she and Watts advanced to
meet the albino captain of the watch.
Harbins looked frustrated. “I thought I saw him, but that last
overpass nearly had me. I had to jump over the side before I could
get a good look at him.”
Ryan craned forward to see the next overpass coming up
quickly. But seeing no threat in the ample clearance it allowed,
she turned back to Harbins. “I think we should—” she began, but
her words died in her throat.
Harbins stood looking at them both, unaware that a spectral
hand was reaching up through the roof of the train to grasp him
by the ankle.
“Morrow’s sake,” Watts gasped, equally caught off-guard.
Harbins’ features went rigid, his eyes blank. The hand pulled,
yanking him down into the roof of the car as though he were
no more than a phantom himself. Then, the hand released him.
Whatever spectral advantage it had lent him was gone, and
Harbins was left embedded waist-deep in the roof of the train.
The captain of the watch screamed, buried and enmeshed to his
stomach in the wood and metal. Blood burst all the way around
the seam where the roof met his body. His arms flailed hopelessly
as he tried to free himself, his face a mask of unimaginable agony.
Then, Caine came into sight with a jeering laugh.
It came from beneath Harbins, at first a smoke that burst free
of the train with uncurling tendrils. Then it began to take form—
and in moments, a spectral vision of Caine began to climb the
dying man like a ladder, placing a hand on his shoulder, then
another on the man’s head. Still enshrouded in a misty veil, Caine
cast Watts and Ryan a baleful glare as he ascended. He seemed to
tense up as he rested on the man’s slumping shoulders like a bird
of prey atop a stump.
 MARK OF CAINE | 221

The two soldiers were hardened to the horrors of Cryx; both

had seen the abominations of necromancy many times and had
lived to tell the tales. Despite this, both were momentarily stunned
by Caine’s sudden and brutal spectacle. Nor did they realize his
impending leap had been timed to coincide with the rushing
arrival of an overpass. As they regained their senses enough to aim
their magelocks, the figure hissed once more, leaping straight up
into the air.
They chased it with their weapons to fire.
Caine grasped the underside of the arch. Watts’ first shot went
wide, and the warcaster scuttled on all fours to climb the arch.
Ryan took the second and third shots, but these also fell short
of the mark—her first shot dug into the stone where her prey
had been just a moment prior, and her second passed harmlessly
through a smoke tendril that wrapped out of sight on the far side
of the arch.
“I don’t believe this,” she gasped, looking from the arch to the
corpse of Harbins.
Watts was clearly already planning to pursue the monster.
Harbins was beyond them, but his killer was not. Watts reached to
his belt. “Set grapplers,” he shouted, pointing above them. Girders
spanned the gathering of buildings they passed. Immediately, she
knew what he intended. Ryan hurried to fix her own.
Both grapplers flew through the air, their spools unwinding
with a whistling twang. The pair was suddenly and dramatically
lifted clear, leaving the speeding train to disappear into the night.
 — CHAPTER 27 —
OF IRON AND IRONY

“ALLISTER!” CAINE HEARD A GIRL’S voice scream. “Wake up!”

He wanted to tell her to stop, that she was making his head
throb, but he was surprised to find a clump of grit in his mouth.
He spit it out, but it came out all wrong. It spilled up his face,
into his nose and across his cheek. He snorted to get it out again,
thinking it odd. . . until it occurred to him he might not be
right-side up. A sound like metal clanging rose in the distance,
repeated over and over. Caine shifted his weight, but as he did so,
he realized that everything hurt. He shifted again. Somehow, he
still felt upside down. Finally, it occurred to him there might be a
better way to figure this situation out.
Caine opened his eyes.
Indeed, he was hanging upside down and out over open space.
Some ten yards below, an empty rail track waited to receive him.
The question remained, why wasn’t he falling? He looked up to
224 | MILES HOLMES

his feet, and there he saw Cynthia. Her face was desperate, and her
hands steadfastly gripped him by one ankle. The other appeared
snared in the wire of a guardrail, yet with each move he made, it
slipped free a little more. Caine blinked, vanishing in the process.
He reappeared on unsteady legs behind a startled Cynthia. His
legs buckled almost at once under the unexpected strain, and he
put a hand out to the girl’s shoulder for balance, slowly settling
into a crouch.
“Are yeh okay, kiddo?” he gasped.
Cynthia didn’t answer. Instead, she threw her arms around
him, clutching him tightly. Then, all at once, she was sobbing.
Surprised, Caine gently returned the embrace, gazing around
to orient himself. He and Cynthia were on an overpass inset
with a track of some sort. He could see a long skid mark in the
gravel across its width, a trail leading over the side. The two main
structures of the steelyard, one on either side of the overpass,
rose high overhead, one of them a foundry, if the glow of the
windowpanes above and the steady hammering from within were
to be believed. He whispered, “What happened?”
Cynthia sniffed, pulling back from the embrace to wipe her
nose. “Yeh tellyported us again, like I told yeh to.”
Caine looked around more, Cynthia’s words jogging his memory.
Clearly, the sudden displacement onto the overpass had not come
without its price. By the wide skid mark, he could see they had
carried speed into the jump, which explained his final position.
“We come up here rollin’, and I thought yeh kept going right
over the rails. I thought yeh were dead, but then I found yeh over
the edge. Even so, I was afraid yeh were gonna fall on yer head
before I could wake yeh,” Cynthia stammered, her eyes misty.
“I’m okay. You did good.” Caine gripped his girl by the
shoulders and turned her to face him, his dirt streaked-face
regaining its customary smirk. “Now where’s yer ma?”
Cynthia looked past his shoulder, pointing. “She was down
there, when we come rollin’ on this bridge, she didn’t stop neither.”
Caine’s felt all the blood drain from his face, his heart
threatening to die in his chest.
 MARK OF CAINE | 225

Cynthia saw his expression and shook her head. “No, she’s
all right.” She indicated a heap of garbage by a rail-side loading
platform. “She fell over into that pile. She saw yeh were gonna fall
after her, so she came runnin’ to find a stairway back up.”
Caine checked over the side of the overpass, spying a door left
open by the loading platform. “We better find her. I doubt we’re
going to be alone here for long.”
The door led to a warehouse. Inside, a woman’s call gently
echoed over the noise of the smelting facility adjacent to it.
Cynthia and Caine descended to enter the warehouse from the
overpass. Pushing through a set of swinging doors, Caine stepped
into pitch blackness.
“That way,” Cynthia shouted, a few steps ahead of him in the
darkness.
“How can you see?” Caine called after her, careful not to trip
on the tracks by his feet.
“You have magic. You know how I can see,” Cynthia said
bluntly. He could just make out her eyes gleaming back at him in
the nearly complete darkness.
Caine winced. Of course he knew. He’d seen that gleam in her
eyes when they’d first run the sewers, even as he was wondering
how she could keep such a pace. Now that he knew her blood, he
knew it doubly so. His girl had the gift, all right. True sight at least,
maybe more besides; only time would tell. It was a bittersweet
revelation, to be sure.
Personal pride notwithstanding, he knew the world could
be a cruel place for people with the gift. As a child, he’d seen
it firsthand. The King’s inquisitors had hunted those like him,
forcing them into service or ending their lives as they saw fit.
Like Cynthia, he’d kept himself and his gift hidden from such
miscreants in Bainsmarket’s underworld.
The days of King Vinter’s inquisitors might have passed along
with his rule, but people with the gift were no less a commodity
and no less at risk from the world at large. Caine was staged by the
idea of his girl finding her way as he had. In the end, he had been
drawn into the service by an errant warcaster, Asheth Magnus.
226 | MILES HOLMES

Magnus had convinced him to choose the service. It was that or

face a lifetime of persecution. Caine smiled bitterly at the irony of
his current state and the fact that even Magnus had ended up on
the wrong side of the law eventually.
It’s what they did, he supposed.
It would not be this way for Cynthia. He could give her the
choices he’d never really had, and he’d do so once he’d cleaned up
this mess. In seclusion, he could teach her to use her gift her own
way, an opportunity he’d never had and something that just might
give her those choices of what to do with her life. If nothing else,
he could ensure she wasn’t obliged to use her gifts for any nation’s
war. Considering his prospects as recently as a week ago, a whole
new world seemed ahead of him now.
“Yeh coming?” Cynthia demanded.
“Of course. Give me a moment to put some eyes on.” Again
Caine invoked the pattern of true sight. In response, a nimbus of
runes pulsed into existence over his head. Quicker this time than
last to be sure, as it had always been when he could get in a little
practice.
At once, the vastness of the warehouse opened wide before
him with the vibrant colors only his gifted vision could provide.
Absolute darkness became absolute clarity, cast in infinite shades
of blue and green. Cynthia appeared in hues of red and orange
ahead of him, looking back with a smile and her hands on her
hips. Beyond her, he could now see how the overpass track ran
adjacent to a scaffold leading directly to a stairwell only a dozen
yards away. Caine scanned over the great warehouse to see an
immense steam-powered crane reaching nearly to the rafters and
spread halfway across the wide space. Beneath it, great stockpiles
of iron were spread out amid the many catwalks and scaffolds that
divided the space. The track he and Cynthia stood upon led to
a line of carts and continued past along a winding trail that ran
through the building and over to the smelting chamber on the
other side. During a full shift, Caine imagined the track would run
ore continuously to be smelted. For the moment, at least, the carts
had been left idle, marshaled back-to-back in a single-file line.
 MARK OF CAINE | 227

For all that was revealed to him, Lucy was still nowhere to be
seen. Caine followed the scaffolding to the stairwell then followed
the stairwell down to the ground floor of the warehouse. The door
Lucy would surely have come through was beneath them, thirty
yards below and still ajar.
“Where is she?” Caine asked, trying not to sound as worried
as he felt. If the Radiz’s curse had been able to track them to the
train, it would surely know its prey had bailed. As much as Caine
would prefer to flip the roles of hunter and hunted, keeping those
in his care out of harm’s way was his first priority now.
It irked him, truth be told; Caine had always gone it alone
after all. After years spent skulking behind enemy lines as an agent
of the CRS, precautionary isolation was often necessary. People
who stayed too close had a tendency to get hurt, as he’d learned
from experience. Keeping control of a battlegroup of warjacks was
responsibility enough. He worried his lip, unable to dispel the
idea that Lucy and Cynthia’s fates might well have been sealed the
moment they’d been forced to flee the train.
“Look!” Cynthia indicated a receding shadow in the open
doorway on the ground floor.
Caine watched carefully. He’d seen the shuffle of movement as
well. He strained to listen and heard footsteps running away from
the door.
“Let’s move,” he said, doubling pace as he headed for the
stairwell. His Spellstorms drawn, Caine dropped down the stairs
two or three steps at a time with Cynthia trailing fast on his heels.
At the landing of the first turn, Caine stopped at a sudden
outburst of noise—three loud shots, shattering the stillness of the
night, rising even over the steady clanging within the smelting
chamber next door. Then somewhere outside, Lucy screamed.
•••

“HEADS UP!” RYAN SWUNG A SIDEWAYS arc about her pole, turning
to find a platform coming up fast below. Timing herself with
a whispered count, she tapped the stud on her grappler as she
clung to it, disengaging the hook to retract the line. Open air
228 | MILES HOLMES

rushed past her as the line re-spooled itself, and she landed with
a somersault that carried her up into a wary crouch, her grappler
pointed forward and ready to fire again.
Her warning had been unnecessary. Watts’ own arc had taken
him to the opposite platform, and he landed a moment later in
the same ready posture. A stairwell along either platform led to
the ground two stories below.
The pair ran parallel paths, meeting above the rail tracks and
ten yards back of the arched overpass where they had lost Caine.
“He disappeared into that warehouse.” Watts gestured, turning
his spectacled face upward to the overpass. His jawline was set
with grim determination.
Ryan saw a ground-floor entrance to the warehouse on a
platform by the rail line, fifty yards away and under another
overpass. She ran for it at once, only thinking to settle the matter
as an afterthought.
“This way, then,” She called after a trailing Watts.
“Stay sharp!” Watts warned, his own magelock at the ready.
Even as he spoke, three shots rang out in the night, seemingly
coming from nowhere. Ryan ducked for the cover of a trash heap
on the platform, coming up fast with her pistols sweeping a wide
arc to find the shooter. Close by, Watts did likewise, holstering his
magelock and training his rifle toward the entrance. He glanced
at Ryan with a shake of his head to indicate he had no targets,
either. Ryan could now see a similar entry across the rail from the
warehouse entrance, clearly leading to the foundry. It stood ajar,
the warm glow of molten metal inside spilling out into the cool
blue-dark of the night.
As Ryan sighted the door with her magelock, she was startled
to hear a scream from within. It was a woman. She looked at
Watts; both remained behind their cover, unsure of the situation.
It could be a trap meant to expose them.
“Advance to the door. I’ll cover you,” Watts hissed. He raised
his rifle and aimed at the door.
Ryan nodded. She prowled along the platform, zigzagging
from cover to cover. Though she knew Watts had her back, she
 MARK OF CAINE | 229

stayed vigilant, and she saw no further movement from the

smelting chamber entrance. But there was noise from within the
warehouse opposite. Only ten yards from the double doors into
the warehouse, she heard footfalls coming up fast. She fell behind
new cover and listened for another moment to discern what was
approaching.
Two, She indicated with a gesture back to the watchful Watts,
pointing to the warehouse doorway.
At once, Caine came barreling out, his famed Spellstorm
pistols leading the way. The rogue warcaster angled for the foundry
entrance opposite the tracks; he seemed totally unaware he had
just stepped into an ambush.
“Brutality!” Watts fired, his rifle erupting with a muzzle flash
infused with blue and gold energy. Ryan watched his glowing shot
strike Caine dead on. But the shot was intercepted, bursting in
a spectacular clash of sparks. The display was clear enough; she
had just witnessed a power field flicker under the strain of the
incoming fire.
“So, what? Now he has a power field?” Ryan was baffled by the
inconsistency here with their last encounter. For his part, Caine
reacted to the surprise fire by diving into a somersault from the
platform and vanishing mid-leap. A second later, Ryan spotted
him crouched atop a water tower adjacent the smelting chamber,
one hand grasping the copper drainpipe over it for balance, the
other holding a Spellstorm aimed in her direction.
“Hide!” Caine shouted to someone unseen, glancing in the
direction of the warehouse entrance from which he had just
emerged. He cocked his weapon to fire.
His warning gave Ryan time enough to duck behind cover,
but Caine had already anticipated her move. His glowing shot
veered wide of her position to strike the wall behind her. With a
sound like a hammer to an anvil, the shot ricocheted toward her,
accurate enough to blast a hole in Lynch’s tricorn on her head.
Ryan gasped in surprise, diving back from her less-than-secure
position.
“Ryan!” Watts called after her, his rifle blasting cover fire a
230 | MILES HOLMES

second time at Caine. “Ryan, are you hit?”

Caine would not be finished so easily. The warcaster was already
gone from his perch, reappearing to challenge Ryan’s position a
second time, protected from Watts this time from the opposite
side of the tracks.
Caine got Ryan in his sights at the same moment she sighted
him. She squeezed both her triggers, whispering “storm” as she
did so.
Ryan watched her rune-infused shot scream toward her target,
but the rogue warcaster was too quick to stay there to take it.
Caine’s eyes widened, and he rolled clear of his cover rather than
return fire. An instant later, the place he had been standing was
enveloped by magical fire.
Another scream interrupted the duel. To Ryan, it sounded
like the same woman who had screamed before. Caine reacted
suddenly, his expression suddenly desperate. Crouched low already,
he turned his head in the direction of the smelting chamber door
then glowered at both Ryan and Watts, looking for all the world
like a cornered animal convinced it could escape. “Don’t follow
me!” he shouted and vanished.
“There’s nowhere you can go we won’t follow,” Ryan whispered,
a hand reaching for Lynch’s tricorn to inspect the damage Caine
had caused.
Nearby, Watts rose wordlessly, aiming Swan Song at the door of
the smelting chamber. If Caine had chosen to appear there, Watts
would have killed him instantly; instead, he finally conceded
silently that Caine was escaping.
 — CHAPTER 28 —
OF VERTIGO AND VITRIOL

“DAMN IT ALL,” CAINE SWORE, running down the corridor into the
smelter. Cynthia was somewhere back in the warehouse, Lucy was
somewhere up ahead, and between the two, the Black 13th had
found him. While they were a complication he could certainly
do without, he refused to be burdened by any sense of former
loyalty if they got in his way. There would be no escaping the
Radiz’s curse, this much he knew. That notion had slipped over
the horizon along with the train they’d been forced to abandon.
No, he planned to draw the line here and now, and Caine would
do whatever was required to get what he wanted. The stakes were
too high for anything less.
That said, the Black 13th had come at him with an impressive
sucker punch. He knew firsthand they were good, and they
seemed to have some new tricks up their sleeves. So, he knew he
couldn’t count on his power field alone to protect him.
232 | MILES HOLMES

Perhaps the bullet he’d put through Ryan’s tricorn would earn
him a moment’s peace from them. The shot hadn’t been a miss—
they would surely know that. Though he’d been ambushed, he’d
returned fire with the courtesy of that warning shot. It might give
them pause for thought about the matter of their fallen captain.
It also might not.
Either way, Lucy was in trouble, and there was no time for
anything more with his hunters.
At the end of the corridor, Caine pushed through the oversized
ironbound galley doors and into the steel mill’s main foundry. The
clarity of true sight was certainly not needed here; the room was
well lit and vast, even beyond the warehouse opposite the tracks.
A skeleton crew kept the steel pouring all through the night,
aided by what appeared a veritable platoon of heavy-duty
steamjacks. Just ahead of him, an automated crane, similar to
the one he had observed in the warehouse, rose nearly six stories
high on a central pillar like the trunk of an ancient, titanic tree.
Winding around this trunk and throughout the great hall was a
divided rail that hung from the rafters, hosting a procession of
ladles filled with molten metal. The ladles were no less than ten
feet across in Caine’s estimation, propelled along the tracks by the
ceaseless grind of massive cogs at all corners. Platforms suspended
high and low throughout the chamber received the ladles as
they traveled from the top to the bottom of the chamber. Each
platform was attended by a steamjack; most were fed molds along
conveyor tracks the ’jacks stooped to retrieve. Caine watched
the automatons respond to the ladles’ arrivals in turn, holding
their mold in place to receive a measured portion of liquefied hot
metal before sending it on down the conveyor line. Each time the
molten metal was poured into a mold, the immediate area was
showered with sparks.
When a ladle had completed the descending circuit and its
contents had at last been exhausted, the enormous steam-powered
crane reached down to collect it. One after another, the ladles
were lifted back to the rafters to be refilled from the source and
begin the process all over again. Caine caught himself gaping at
 MARK OF CAINE | 233

the complexity of the chamber. It was so vast that the smoke of its
operation suspended overhead in the rafters like clouds in the sky.
Caine scanned the enormous chamber for any sign of Lucy.
Scattered among the clockwork precision of the operation he could
find the erratic motion of living things. A half-dozen engineers
were spread out to oversee their respective stations, and Caine
quickly determined there was one among them who appeared to
be running for her life.
Lucy’s erratic flight through the path of the ladles was only
a story above and some fifty yards distant. Her dress had been
torn and bloodied—either during their escape from the train or in
the moments immediately following it. He could not tell whether
she’d been injured, yet her pace was good enough to give hope.
Meanwhile, he did not see the thing with his face, no matter
much he searched.
“Lucy!” he shouted over the cacophony of the foundry. His
Spellstorms were reloaded and ready for action.
Lucy continued running, heedless of or deaf to his voice,
reaching a grated stairwell that led to a third-story platform. As she
climbed the stairs, he could see her shriek when she encountered
a bewildered engineer in overalls at the top of the steps. Panicked,
she pushed past the man, racing toward another stairwell at the
opposite side of the platform.
Caine looked overhead to find a platform of his own, some
twenty yards away on the second story. He blinked, the world
disappearing around him to re-form in the next instant. Now
standing on that raised platform, he re-oriented himself to find
Lucy just a dozen yards away.
“Lucy!” He called again, cupping his mouth with his offhand.
She heard his voice this time, though Caine immediately
regretted calling her. She turned toward his voice, still running,
her face a mask of confusion and terror. Distracted, she stumbled
and fell face-first onto the grated floor. Nearby, the puzzled
engineer looked at Caine across the chasm of open space between
them, cocking his head questioningly.
Then his head was gone entirely.
234 | MILES HOLMES

“No!” Caine snarled at the sudden, gruesome burst of red and

white.
There was a shooter somewhere overhead. Caine ducked down
by the platform rail, both Spellstorms at the ready now, and craned
his neck to look above. The decapitated engineer took a second
round, this one to his torso, as his body slumped lifelessly to the
platform, a fountain of blood where his head once was. Caine did
quick math—judging by the trajectory of the incoming fire, the
engineer had accidentally saved Lucy’s life. Scrambling to get up,
she screamed at the corpse. In a blind panic she climbed, clawing
her way up the stairs.
Then Caine saw it. High above, the thing with his face leaped
from the perch of a conveyor. It had been easy to miss the thing in
the smoke that hung in the chamber; it was further shrouded in
an uncanny pall of its own. As it moved, the hazy veil flowed after
it with shifting tendrils. When it landed in a crouch just ten yards
away on another platform, the shroud around it seemed to grasp
the floor for balance.
The creature drew itself up to fire again, lining up Lucy in its
sights with a long-barreled pistol uncannily similar to Caine’s
own Spellstorms. Now Caine could now see the creature had
more than his face—the parallels were disturbing, down to the
details of his duster and armor, even the sweep of his jet-black
hair. Caine had to blink away his surprise before he could aim
his own gun.
His shot caught the creature in the back of the hand. The result
was better than he might have hoped—it blasted an egg-sized hole
on impact and sent the creature’s pistol skidding to the platform.
With an unearthly shriek, it turned to regard Caine, clutching
its wounded hand. A tremor shudders over the thing’s face, and any
sense Caine had of looking in a mirror quickly vanished. Its skin
withered and sloughed away, leaving its face that of a desiccated
corpse. The thing’s body changed too—its clothes instantly
became dusty rags, its limbs abruptly skeletal. Caine recoiled to
see his own appearance distorted by the aspect of death, the rictus
grin on its face the most troubling of all.
 MARK OF CAINE | 235

Yet the transformation put a name to his nemesis at last. “So

yer a bloody wraith,” He said softly.
The Radiz’s curse had forewarned him that a wraith had been
spawned that night in Prescott, this one with an offering of his
own blood no less. Caine had seen his share of wraiths after years
of battle against Cryx; he well understood the necromancy that
spawned them, much as he recognized the terrible toll they took
when they were loosed upon the battlefield. What gifts his blood
had bestowed on this one, he could only guess. The savagery it
had committed while wearing his face was bad enough—but
surely that was just its beginning.
As the wraith’s weapon clattered to the grated platform, the
gun began to dissolve immediately. It was no weapon at all but
just an extension of the creature’s will. The thing hissed as a new
pistol began to form in its grasp.
Caine snarled at the creature, gathering his focus into a
singular point of energy. His concussive shockwave invoked, he
let it erupt from his chest with everything he had. Across the gap
of platforms, tendrils of ethereal force spiraled forth, seeking his
target with the power of a thunderbolt. Yet the creature seemed
to sense the attack, avoiding its trajectory with a last-second jump
out into open space.
Caine saw a pair of engineers on the ground level below recoil
from the falling creature, then he looked back to find Lucy had
ascended another story above them. She paused to glance down
over the rail, then she turned and ran past a steamjack working
there.
“Lucy, I’m coming!” Caine shouted to her without waiting
for an answer this time. He leaped over the rail, landing on an
ascending conveyor alongside the chamber wall. He dashed up
the steep incline until he was close enough to flash himself to a
third-story platform adjacent to hers.
He didn’t quite make it.
A gunshot punctured the conveyor at his feet, knocking it
loose. Before he knew what was happening, he was in free fall, a
platform far below rushing up fast to catch him. By reflex alone he
236 | MILES HOLMES

blinked from existence, reappearing a foot above the platform. He

crashed with a wheezing grunt against the hard grate, but reducing
the distance had saved him—the difference between a ten-foot fall
and a thirty-foot fall was the difference between having his breath
knocked out of him and his neck broken.
Caine rolled over onto his stomach, pistol at arm’s length,
searching for the shooter. He expected to see the wraith closing
on him; instead, his attacker was at the entrance to the foundry,
reloading to fire again: Watts. The intractable gun mage raised his
rifle once more, marking Caine through the opaque lenses of his
goggles. Caine could see Ryan scaling a ladder to gain a flanking
position on him, a bold move that left him precious little time
to wriggle free of them. It was only a matter of time until one
of them tagged him again—they were too good. He invoked the
shadows of his shroud, watching the pair reposition as he blurred
from their sight.
“That should slip me some time,” he muttered with more
confidence than he felt.
Yet Watts’ arrival had drawn his attention to another matter.
Caine realized the gun mage stood close to a pair of bodies he
could not account for: the engineers who had leaped clear of
the falling wraith just a minute ago. Both men lay dead, their
bodies at twisted angles. And the wraith was nowhere to be seen.
Caine moved clear of Watts’ angle, pulling himself up to his and
heading for the stairs to the next level when he caught a blur at
the periphery of his sight.
“Fast like a bug, ain’t yeh?” Caine whispered.
The wraith seemed to have already recovered from Caine’s
attack, scaling its way back up the platforms even as Caine had
been knocked down. He watched with bitter envy as it scrambled
up the wall easily, the tendrils of its shroud questing forth like the
legs of a spider. Then it was gone, ducking from sight behind a
glowing ladle moving into position to be poured onto a platform
above.
Caine raced up the path as fast as he could. He skidded between
platform and conveyor, diving out into open space to catch a
 MARK OF CAINE | 237

section of the ladle’s track overhead. Hand over hand he swung

along its length, tracking a platform he was not yet close enough
to teleport to. The connecting stairwell would surely rejoin him
with Lucy. Her path had led her around a steamjack preparing to
receive a full ladle in the slab-like mold it held. On the far side
of her fifth-story platform, she seemed to be headed for a gantry
leading to the next platform.
As he climbed, Caine caught a glimpse of Ryan reaching the
end of her ladder below. At least Lucy’s out of harm’s way over
there, he thought. The nimble gun mage was still moving in his
direction, pointing what seemed to be modified magelock at an
overhead track across the open space. With a snap and a twang,
a grappler line extended from her weapon to hook the track, and
Ryan was swinging over wide gap to get back into a flanking
position once more.
“Bollocks!” Caine swore. Maybe I could just deal with one
disaster at a time? He looked around to locate all his enemies and
found the wraith again.
It had Lucy dead to rights. Its pistol was aimed at her once
more.
Caine’s Spellstorms hung useless in his holster as he clung to
the platform. Neither could his spells reach the wraith in time.
Desperate, he focused on the bulky steamjack on Lucy’s platform,
feeling for the cortex within it. Once he located it, he forced
himself into the machine’s head and took in the situation through
its vision.
Lucy was before him now, fleeing for the gantry. He turned
himself—the steamjack—around, spotting the wraith across the gap of
platforms. With a twisting gesture, he brought the iron slab of his mold
up and around like a shield. The wraith’s bullets struck it, ricocheting
harmlessly away. He then took a step forward, interposing himself
directly between the wraith and Lucy. Surprise, he thought. With the
considerable strength of the steamjack’s piston-driven armatures at his
command, he hurled the slab across the gap and into the wraith. The
iron slab passed harmlessly through the creature and embedded itself
in the warehouse wall, but he saw he had at least drawn its attention.
238 | MILES HOLMES

Caine returned to his own head, shaking off the dizzying effect
while charting any path that would reunite him with Lucy. As
he assessed his choices, he saw a familiar sight—a possible escape
route, even. One of the many tracks that wound through the open
space of the chamber led to an arched entryway, the very same one
where they had landed to escape the train.
Cynthia stood there.
She watched him hanging with her hand over her mouth, her
eyes terrified. She seemed rooted to the spot.
“Get out of here!” he shouted, suddenly aware of how helpless
was he was hanging out over open space. As if in response, the
foundry crane rose up beneath him, only a few yards away and
carrying an empty ladle. Caine turned his head to track the new
arrival. Then he let go and vanished at the same time. An instant
later, he reappeared atop the ladle, grasping the crane’s thick
bound wire with one hand.
“Go!” he shouted, this time with a forceful gesture. “I’ll come
find you when it’s safe.”
The girl nodded, clearly reluctant to go. Caine had to trust
she was listening—he had to focus on the host of other problems
descending on him like a tidal wave. He assessed the crane’s slow
ascent with a measure of satisfaction, seeing a trajectory that
should allow him to intercept Lucy’s midway across the gantry.
This may yet turn out all right, old man, he thought.
At that moment, molten metal began to cascade down from
overhead.
•••

SUDDENLY, CAINE WAS SQUARE IN WATTS’ SIGHTS.

The rogue warcaster had jumped clear of them only a moment
before while hanging from a conveyor track. Back and forth he had
bounced, disappearing and reappearing once Watts had knocked
him into free fall. He was impossible to track. But Watts was a
patient hunter, and his chance had come at last. While Caine’s
erratic path had gained him several stories in height, riding the
foundry crane had made his path predictable for a moment at
 MARK OF CAINE | 239

least. Watts led the target, holding his breath as he gently squeezed
the trigger.
Then Caine was gone again.
Watts swore furiously. But when he saw the reason for the
warcaster’s sudden departure, his frustration instantly changed to
panic. Molten metal was falling fast, cascading right down on top
of him.
He dove away, rolling on his shoulder and back to his feet
to watch the deadly liquid splash down in a deadly shower of
sparks where he had stood only a heartbeat ago. Gasping, he
looked up again, using his scope to find his target once more.
On a higher platform, a steamjack had wandered from its station,
leaving a brimming full ladle to tip over unattended. Watts
nodded grudgingly; Caine was no less a bastard to fight than he’d
imagined he would be.
“Well so am I,” Watts said. He shouldered his rifle and drew his
magelock from its holster, looking for a new perch as he headed
for a stairwell. He felt no more urgency than if he were hunting a
caged animal. In a space with long sighting lines like this one, it
would only be a matter of time until he got his man.
On the next level up, he found a perch halfway down the
length of the chamber that seemed likely to be his best bet. As he
approached, a sudden whoosh of air came from over his shoulder,
and he turned, magelock ready, to find Ryan landing on the
platform beside him, her grappler retracting after her for another
use.
“Damn he’s fast,” She complained, breathless. “He’s over here,
then he’s over there. It’s like we’re chasing two of them.”
“What’s he doing here, do you think?” Watts looked around to
reacquire their target. He saw nothing above. Caine was hiding,
no doubt.
“That woman we heard screaming outside? He has her nearly
cornered in the rafters. I reckon he’s on the hunt, same as us.”
Ryan shrugged, finally catching her breath. “If we haul ass, we
might just save her.”
Watt indicated his perch. “I’ll have damn near the entire
240 | MILES HOLMES

foundry covered from there. Keep pressing him. Close in if you

can, but flush him out, and I’ll lend you fire.”
Ryan nodded. “Done.”
She turned, firing her grappler. Her line sailed twanging for
some thirty yards, her hook finally finding purchase on the rail of
a distant platform. Then she was gone.
•••

CAINE CLUNG TO THE WALL, BALANCED on a narrow pipeline. Inch

by inch he moved toward a narrow ledge not far ahead. He could
see Lucy overhead. She had made the gantry, yet he was not there
to meet her. Not just yet but soon enough. He inched another step.
Two shots fired.
Caine craned his neck for a look, desperate not to fall. I can
get closer, he thought, once again occupying the cortex of the
steamjack on the platform overhead.
The wraith was coming at him, firing. Three shots. Four, five. All
dug into the heavy plate of his chest carapace, yet nothing hurt. Caine
willed the ponderous machine to step into the line of fire, wishing
for all the world this was his bonded warjack, Ace, so that he could
return fire. As it was, Caine could only raise oversized claws to meet
the attack, a gesture the wraith all but ignored. It met his posture
with a sudden charge, leaping from the narrow gap between platforms
to lunge straight at him. The creature dove headlong through him,
and Caine felt a cold tremor as its non-corporeal form passed through
the cortex that now lent its vision to his mind’s eye. He came about
to track the wraith as it passed, and he saw it pause behind him.
Deliberately, it aimed and fired a pistol, the line of sight to its target
clear at last.
Lucy was hit.
“No!” His own eyes opened as Caine nearly toppled from
his perilous perch. He had no firing angle from here. His hands
shaking, he edged his way to the ledge. Time seemed to crawl.
He heard nothing more overhead. When he had both feet safely
planted on the ledge, he sprinted ten paces while focusing on the
platform above. With a sudden flash, he was upon it.
 MARK OF CAINE | 241

Lucy was only a story above him now. She staggered and fell
to her knees. She gripped the gantry rail with one hand while
clutching her wound. Her dress was soaked at the torso in blood,
but she still struggled along the rail, determined to keep moving.
The wraith was only a few yards back of her now, raising its
pistol for the killing shot, leaving the abandoned steamjack to
wander the platform. With the correct angle at last, Caine raised
a Spellstorm and braced the weapon to fire.
If he had only arrived a second earlier, he would think later, he
might have saved her.
The wraith fired first. The point-blank shot struck Lucy
through the heart, and Caine saw the life explode out of her in a
cloud of red. She crumpled like a ragdoll, her eyes blank.
“No!” Caine screamed in agony, sinking to his knees.
Yet the wraith was not finished. It slid forward and took a knee
at her side, reaching with one outstretched hand to her shoulder,
its mouth opened wide. Caine groaned. He had seen this before.
With a shaking hand, he raised his gun again.
A thunderclap sounded, and the world lurched around him.
His power field dimmed as he was sent tumbling against the rail
and very nearly over it. He shook his head, his senses jumbled by
the impact. He knew it was a thunderbolt shot that had caught
him, coming from somewhere across the chamber. Watts or Ryan
had lined up on him again, the cost this time no less than Lucy’s
soul. Caine pulled himself up on the rail, heaving with both effort
and emotion as he watched her ethereal form swallowed whole by
the kneeling wraith.
The wraith did not depart as it had the first time Caine
had seen it devour a soul. Rather, it began to howl over Lucy,
trembling in morbid revelation. It turned, spying the exit where
Cynthia had been only minutes ago. With the bond of the glyph
on his arm throbbing, Caine felt something change. He knew
in an instant: the wraith had set Cynthia as its next target. But
there was new urgency he could not fathom. Without any more
delay, the wraith was in motion, leaping over the side of the
gantry to plummet from sight.
242 | MILES HOLMES

Caine rose to track its movement, but as he turned, a boot

connected squarely with his face. His nose snapped and gushed
blood. The impact staggered him back against the rail again.
Dazed, he looked up at Ryan. The gun mage had swung into him
on the end of a wire that extended above her and out of sight. As
she dropped on the platform, she raised a magelock at his head.
“Leave her alone!” Ryan growled.
Caine’s eyes widened with momentary confusion. Then,
without a word, he tumbled head over heels over the rail and
out of her reach. A heartbeat later, he heard her weapon’s report
somewhere above. Below, the distant floor rushed up to kill him.
He concentrated on a conveyor line below and twenty yards
across the chamber. Beyond it, he spotted the landing with the
exit to the warehouse again.
This is gonna hurt, he thought and blinked himself away.
He reappeared within arm’s reach of the conveyor line but still
at falling speed. Desperately, he tried to catch the struts of the
conveyor but could only secure a one-handed grip. He swore as
his fall turned into a wild swing, his arm feeling as if it would be
ripped from its socket by the maneuver. Thankfully, the added
strength of his armor kept him in one piece, and he arced cleanly
beneath the conveyor. He let go a second later to catch the lip of
the landing, smashing his face again as he slammed into the wall.
Staggered by the impact, he fought for consciousness, trying to
pretend the pain was tolerable.
Gritting his teeth, Caine hauled himself up onto the landing
and dragged himself to the exit’s swinging doors. He staggered
through them, gasping for breath in the cool night air. He was on
the overpass between buildings again, the rail line beneath him.
Ahead, he saw Cynthia’s shoe left upon the overpass.
“No,” he gasped, stumbling to it. He picked it up, sinking to
his knees.
“No,” he moaned again.
In the cool black of the night, Cynthia screamed, her tiny voice
echoing down through the emptiness of the railyard.
Caine collapsed. He lay gasping on his back and staring up
 MARK OF CAINE | 243

at the moon, his every nerve both raw and dulled. The wraith
had taken his girl. Somewhere out there, it had her. And it hadn’t
killed her yet—which meant something even more horrifying was
coming. He’d been beaten, and the cost was staggering.
The swinging doors of the overpass burst open. Two figures,
each clad in tricorns and flowing cloaks, strode forth, magelocks
drawn and cast in silhouette by the chamber’s glowing interior.
Caine limply raised a Spellstorm at them, barely able to hold
it straight.
Before he could fire, they were on him. Ryan kicked the
Spellstorm out of his hand, her foot pinning Caine’s wrist down
while Watts clubbed him across the face with the butt of his
magelock. The gun mage spun his weapon by the trigger guard,
in one fluid motion bringing the muzzle to center on Caine’s
forehead.
“End of the line, Caine,” Watts said, priming his weapon to fire.
 — CHAPTER 29 —
OF RECKONING AND
REVELATION

RYAN STOOD BY, HER EXPRESSION HARD as Watts held his magelock
to Caine’s face.
“Save her,” Caine muttered, his face bloody and his eyes
drifting skyward. In his hand he held a child’s shoe.
Watts seemed prepared to squeeze the trigger, but Ryan’s eyes
darted between the shoe and Caine’s face. There was torment
there, heartbreak even. Something didn’t add up. And she’d
known all along that the mission hadn’t added up, not from
the outset. Lynch had known it—he had gone so far as to insist
they ask questions first and shoot later, against Rebald’s orders
and even because of those orders. Now Ryan knew it, too. The
chase had shown that they were chasing two Caines, each with
different abilities. This wasn’t a man who’d murdered callously;
this was a man who wanted to keep a child from dying.
246 | MILES HOLMES

Watts’ vengeful anger was about to bring them to the point of

no return.
“Watts, wait!” Ryan shouted, batting the older gun mage’s
weapon away at the last instant. Watts’ magelock fired, his shot
striking the ground mere inches from Caine’s face and nearly
deafening him in the process.
“What is the matter with you?” Caine snarled, gripping his ear.
Watts wheeled on Ryan, but she restrained him with a
particularly stern, unforgiving look. She knelt by the rogue
warcaster’s side. Despite her misgivings, she jabbed her own
weapon into Caine’s chest to ensure he detected no weakness on
her part.
“Save who?” she snarled.
Caine stared at her.
“Save who?” she shouted to be heard over the ringing that was
surely in his ears.
“Cynthia. It killed her mother. I couldn’t stop it.” Caine
coughed as spoke, his broken nose still running bright blood
down his face. He looked dizzy. He held up the shoe, handing it
to Ryan.
“Ye mean you killed that woman,” Watts growled, his weapon
already reloaded and retrained.
Caine shook his head, coughing again. “No. And now it has
her.”
Ryan glanced at Watts. He showed no reaction, his goggles
reflecting only the anguish in Caine’s face. She strongly suspected
hate had settled the matter for him while Ryan’s heart now
stuttered in her chest. Could they really have read the situation so
incorrectly? She pushed her weapon even harder to Caine’s chest,
uncertain if her threat was even real.
“Stop who? Who’s Cynthia?” she demanded.
“The Hellslinger from the papers. It’s been looking for her all
along.” Caine began to wipe his bloody nose on his sleeve but
thought better of it when he looked down at Ryan’s gun against
his body. “She’s my daughter.”
“You are the bloody Hellslinger!” Watts snarled, glancing to
 MARK OF CAINE | 247

Ryan. “Do you believe this nonsense?”

“Kill me if yeh like.” Caine adjusted Ryan’s muzzle squarely
over his heart. “Just find her. Save her.”
Ryan wrested her weapon from Caine’s grasp but kept it steady.
“Keep talking.”
“You’re serious?” Watts’ face was becoming a furious shade of
purple.
Ryan ignored his protest, her focus still fixed on Caine.
Slowly, Caine sat up to dust off his jacket and fix Watts with a
look of unflinching conviction. “I’m not this Hellslinger, Samuel.
It has my face, but it ain’t me. Yeh can’t be so dumb to not see it.”
“Then I’d better shoot you both,” Watts growled. “So, if it
looks just like you, how do we know you’re really you now?”
With a faint smirk, Caine indicated Ryan’s recently perforated
tricorn. “That weren’t a miss, yeh know.”
Ryan sighed, tracing her free hand along the brim of the
damaged hat. As far as she was concerned, the matter was settled.
“I know. That was one hell of a shot, Allister.”
Caine shrugged. “Point is I’m tryin’ to stop this thing. I’m
sorry about what happened to Dixon, but it weren’t me who killed
him. In fact, I haven’t killed anybody since I got here except some
thugs tryin’ to put lead in my girl, and that’s the truth.”
“Since when do you have a kid?” Watts demanded.
“It’s a wonder if he doesn’t have a dozen,” Ryan said with a
sneer. “Since when has he ever been able to keep it in his pants?”
“Me?” Caine looked genuinely hurt. “We both know what
those notches yeh cut on the inside of yer belt are for, now don’t
we?”
Watts looked between the pair, blinking. “Wait. What?”
“I should never have told you that.” Ryan rubbed one temple.
If there had been any doubt about his identity before, he’d just
settled it for her. In fact, she was impressed he remembered at all.
That little detail had only come loose three years ago after a night
of celebrating had reached the tenth round of uiske shots. As it
turned out, Caine had been only one more round from passing
out on the floor, and he had never mentioned her confession since
248 | MILES HOLMES

then. She had assumed her secret remained her own, otherwise
forgotten.
“Well, I have a little girl. I only met her today.” Caine looked
beyond the overpass as he slowly regained his feet. With gritted
teeth, he pinched his broken nose, pushing it back into place with
a sudden click. “And now… ow, ow, ow… now I’ve lost her.”
Watts kept his gun on the rogue warcaster’s back. “You know
that’s not why we come for you in the first place, right?” He turned
to Ryan, his expression pained. “For pity’s sake, Darsey, we have a
mission whether he killed the cap’n or not.”
Caine turned around to roll his eyes at Watts. “Oh yes. Rebald.
I can just guess how this all started.”
Ryan shrugged. “Seems to me we can figure that out once
we’ve got the girl.” She looked to her partner. “Besides, wasn’t it
who you swore you’d put a bullet in the boss’ killer?”
Watts’ trademark scowl gave way to grudging consideration. “I
reckon that much is true.”
“All right, then.” Caine sighed, a measure of relief on his face.
“I’ll warn yeh both now. This Hellslinger is like nothing I’ve ever
seen. It’s a wraith, most likely. I don’t know what all it can do, but
after what happened to Lynch, I reckon yeh’ve as much an idea
as I do.”
Ryan shuddered, recalling the brutal deaths of both Lynch and
Harbins. “How could this happen?”
“I got swindled by a Radiz.” Caine shuffled his feet. “Here I
am, thinking I’d found a way to keep folks like you off my back.
The Black 13th ain’t the first to come sniffing around on Rebald’s
orders, and I was really hoping I wouldn’t have to kill anybody
else. Some solution, eh?”
“Ye let a fiend from Cryx loose to murder anyone who’s ever
known you.” Watts spit. “Aye, that’s a rare solution.”
“There’s more to tell.” Caine rolled back his sleeve to reveal
the glyph etched into his forearm. “It may not be me, but we are
connected. It knows me, knows my past. I’ve a sense of it when
it’s close. Near as I can figure, the thing has been clearing my
debts one bullet at a time, along with anyone who gets in its way.
 MARK OF CAINE | 249

I couldn’t figure why until it got to Lucy. It fixed itself on Cynthia

right then and there. It went for her like a shot.”
“Why wouldn’t it just kill her like it did everyone else?” Watts
looked skeptically to the shoe.
Caine gave his glyph a doleful look before rolling his sleeve
back down. “It’s taking her somewhere. I don’t know how I know
it, but I do. Whoever she is, I expect the Radiz woman had this in
mind from the start.”
“Major Haley,” Ryan whispered, hearkened to the origins of
one of Cygnar’s most decorated warcasters, Victoria Haley.
“You can’t be saying what I think you are.” Watts turned to
look at Ryan, his face flush with disbelief.
“What? No.” Ryan blinked at her puzzled partner. “Do you
remember her story? Cryx raiders come ashore at Ingrane when
she was five. As I heard it told, they razed the village looking for
her and her twin sister. Killed everyone they found. Hell, the place
is abandoned to this day. And why did they do it? Because she and
her twin sister shared the gift.”
Watts yet frowned while Caine’s eyes began to widen.
“What I’m saying, Watts,” Ryan continued, “is that Cryx has
massacred to harvest gifted children before.”
“Aye, and if one were to rummage in this one’s closet,” Watts
jerked a thumb jerked in Caine’s direction, “odds are pretty good
you might find one or two gifted offspring.”
Caine groaned. “Yeh make me sound like I’m some sort of—”
“Do you remember the girl in Prescott?” Ryan interrupted her
face lit with realization. “The one with her guts scooped out? Boss
said she was with child, didn’t he?”
“Aye,” Watts nodded gravely.
For his part Caine visibly paled at the news, following the train
of thought to other conclusions. “The Radiz. Maybe yeh weren’t
so far from the mark about Haley after all, Ryan.”
Ryan regarded Caine with a sharp intake of air.
As the story went, the minions of Cryx had partially succeeded
the day they had come for Victoria Haley. The minions of Cryx
had managed to discover her twin sister, even as Haley managed to
250 | MILES HOLMES

hide away. Their paths had been drawn apart from each other: one
to the light and one to the dark. Each of them had been groomed
in time to wield great power, and each was now a formidable
sorceress with a special magic all her own.
No one less than a sorceress would be entrusted with or
even capable of a conspiracy of this proportion; they each knew
it. Spawning a wraith was, in and of itself, no minor rite of
necromantic magic. While the agents of Cryx were many and the
pockets of their corruption were spread throughout Immoren, few
of their kind would be capable of such a thing. Further, among
the ranks of the Cryxian elite, Haley’s twin was gifted in deception
in general and seduction in particular. She would never find an
easier mark than a notorious womanizer like Allister Caine, and
he himself knew it, as the look on his face confirmed.
“Deneghra,” Ryan whispered the adopted name of Haley’s
twin.
“Denegrha?” Watts grimaced, his crooked teeth bared.
“Deneghra.” Caine nodded, breathless.
“If this mess is hers, it won’t be a trifle.” Watts licked his lips
with distaste. “I reckon she must be close, waiting for her hound
to bring in the prize.”
Caine paced, his lip curled, his eyes watering. “And here we
stand with our pistols in the wind.”
“What do you mean?” Ryan queried.
“I mean, how are we supposed to find Cynthia now?”
Watts crouched by the track, looking across to the overpass
where they’d lost both the wraith and Harbins. “True sight is the
only way to track the thing that took her, and Harbins was the last
of us with that particular gimmick.”
“Not so,” Caine said. “I can invoke it.”
“Well, then.” Ryan gripped Caine’s shoulder, a half-smile
forming on her lips. She holstered her gun. “Let’s go find your girl.”
PART III: THE RECKONING
 — CHAPTER 30 —
OF PROVISIONS AND PORTENTS

“WELL, IT’S ABOUT DAMNED TIME.” Caine looked at Ryan as she

climbed up the ladder, returning to the perch he and Watts had
established high in the scaffolding of the market tower clock. She
carried a pair of overstuffed saddlebags slung over her shoulders.
She stepped out across the narrow planks, carefully gripping the
scaffolding trusses while canvas drop sheets flapped in the breeze
around her.
“If you’re in such a hurry, why didn’t you get these yourself?”
she hissed, dropping the saddlebags at Caine’s feet. “Oh, that’s
right. You’re a fugitive.”
“Technically, you’re now one, too, Ryan,” Watts chuckled
without looking over, his attention rooted down the length of his
scope and over the front gate of the market stables. “On account
of we’re aiding and abetting said fugitive.”
“If nobody sees it, it never happened. That’s my view,” Caine
254 | MILES HOLMES

said and shrugged, returning his attention to the gate. “Well?”

“I got the pair you marked, sure enough. Now add another
four,” the gun mage remarked.
Dawn was an hour away. As many a desperate man had
observed, it was often darkest before the light—the gathering
clouds were drawn tightly over the night sky. They hung like a
dark curtain, leaving only small circles of gaslight on every street
corner. Under the heavy clouds, rain fell as faintly as mist. It soon
cast a sheen over the cobblestone and tin roofs around them. A
slow rumble from above threatened that more rain would follow.
“Did the quartermaster give yeh a hard time about any of
this?” Caine reached for a saddlebag.
Ryan shook her head, hands on her hips as she watched the
stables next to the sprawl of the market beneath them. “I just told
him Harbins cleared it.”
“Poor bastard.” Watts shuddered, his attention still fixed on his
scope. Caine was respectively silent, now that they’d brought him
up to speed about the demise of their captain.
The trail of luminous green dust Caine had followed to the
market was all but gone from the rain-slicked cobblestone now, but
it had served its purpose well enough. The trail bee-lined halfway
across town, nearly to the very spot where Randall Deacon had
attempted his ambush a few hours ago. The Hellslinger’s trail had
ended here even before the rain had come to wash it away, leading
the warcaster to believe it must be here still. Where exactly it had
gone was another matter. They could not spy the creature beyond
the gates where its trail ended, but they observed a surprising
degree of activity in the yard itself.
The gates and the high fence marked a large, rectangular
lot next to the famed market square; it contained stables and
warehouses alike for merchants and teamsters to manage their
goods and livestock. At this early hour, it should have been nearly
abandoned, but a crew of armed men now roamed the yard,
intent on some undisclosed business. It seemed stranger still that
they were alive, given that the Hellslinger had come this way.
“So, there are six,” Caine counted, his invocation of true sight
 MARK OF CAINE | 255

granting him an uncanny view of the darkened yard.

“I can’t see the far corner of the compound. That warehouse is
blocking me.” Watts pointed to a two-story long hall. “Could be
hiding more in there.”
“Then allow me to reconnoiter.” Ryan dipped her tricorn
and fired her grappling hook. The speeding hook wrapped itself
around a suspended pipeline, and without further fanfare, she
stepped clear of the scaffold.
“I get the impression she’s rather fond of that,” Caine noted as
he watched the gun mage swing off into the night, easily landing
on a far perch, recovering her line, and swinging again. In a series
of leaps, she steadily rounded the compound to observe the far
side, and she did so with nearly the same speed his teleportation
would have granted him.
“She likes it more than I do, to be certain,” Watts admitted.
“May as well see what’s been scavenged for us.” Caine opened
the nearest saddlebag with his knife. Inside, he found it crammed
with ammo tins until the bag was near bursting, each tin marked
with the stamp of the Presidium’s quartermaster. It was enough
to take on a small army, Caine determined. Considering the
current state of his reserves and the likely battle before them, the
ammunition was a welcome sight. He took a seat next to Watts
and began carving runes, one shot at a time. As he did, Watts
looked over the stash.
“Not enough?” Caine arched an eyebrow.
“Oh, it’ll serve, but we’re down to three shots of the platinum-
cores. I reckon I’d trade half of that bag for a single box of those
little troublemakers.”
“Platinum what?”
“Platinum-core. Experimental shot.” Watts shrugged. “Worth
their weight in, well, platinum, if you ask me. You’ll see.”
“The lot of yeh certainly came prepared to take me on, didn’t
yeh?”
“Cap’n always was a detail-oriented man, ye might say.” Watts
grinned, baring his crooked teeth, but his eyes dropped in quiet
respect or perhaps grief.
256 | MILES HOLMES

“Three.” Her tally came with a whoosh of air, and like a magic
trick, Ryan returned. She landed in a perfect crouch, her grappling
arm trailing after her. With the push of a button, her line came
twanging back and re-spooled itself until the hook rested at the
end of her magelock once more.
Caine looked back to the yard. “So, what do we think this crew
is up to, anyway?”
Ryan said, “Near as I can tell, they’re just muscle.”
“Muscle for what?” Watts asked.
“Whatever it is, it’s likely not legal.” Caine recalled his earlier
conversation with Tylen. “This is the market district, so I expect
that’s Solomon Hoss’ crew down there. But the only question that
matters now is how do we get in there without raising the alarm?”
“I’ve no problem with us getting up close and personal.” Watts
looked up from his scope to draw a finger across his throat. “Keep
things quiet, if you follow me.”
The warcaster carved another rune while considering the
sweep of the patrols beyond the gates. It could work. His own
concussive shockwaves could be triggered with reduced sound, if
done right. He felt confident enough that he could move himself
and the Black 13th by teleportation a time or two if he needed
to. But it would not be easy.
Ace would be perfect for this. He found himself longing for the
warjack for this second time this night. As petulant a machine as
it was, Ace’s infiltration field had a knack for moving him in close
without catching wandering eyes, something that he sorely missed
right now. He’d ditched Ace after the first of Rebald’s assassins had
found him two years ago. Now he had no idea where the warjack
might be.
“The sewer runs under the fence and opens up in the yard,”
Ryan said, sitting down next to Caine and carving runes of her
own. “So, we’ve got an exit, if we need it.”
Caine bristled. “If we need it, I reckon we’ve all but lost
Cynthia. So, it’s best if we don’t need it.”
“Fair enough.” She looked back across the yard. “We could—”
An explosion two blocks east cast a blinding flash that briefly
 MARK OF CAINE | 257

turned night into day. A hot wind followed; Caine felt it on his
cheek and through his hair.
“What was that?” Watts froze, pressing his tricorn to his head
to keep it in place. Ryan gripped a joist to keep her balance in the
shockwave, clutching Lynch’s hat. At the point of the explosion, a
rapidly growing fire raged. Caine frowned.
“You need to see this.” Watts looked through his rifle again.
When neither of the others responded, he said it again, this time
with mounting excitement. “Look over there.”
“What is it?” Caine tore himself away from the display.
“Whatever that was, it seems to mean something to our friends
down there.”
“He’s right.” Ryan gathered her ammunition, sliding her knife
back into her boot.
The scattered crew was mobilizing. Caine watched them sprint
in the direction of the blast, his true sight revealing them as figures
of orange and red against the blue and green of the unlit yard. A
single sentry remained, a bulky figure in orange at his post. The
others calmly filed out through an exit along the far side of the
fence and out into the street.
“That was mighty good timing,” Caine said in disbelief. He
followed Ryan’s example, hastily stuffing carved shots into the
pockets of his duster. “We’re down to one, I reckon.”
“On it.” Watts slid a platinum-core shot into Swan Song and
aimed into the yard.
“No, wait.” Caine reached for the rifle before it could fire. “It’s
too loud. It’ll bring back the—”
He was too late.
“Whisper,” Watts hissed, squeezing the trigger. A faint puff of
indigo smoke leapt from his muzzle, but it made no sound.
“We’re clear.” He looked up from his scope, his face flush with
success and the thrill of the kill. Caine turned to the yard and saw
the single remaining sentry lying prone and spread eagle, a pool of
blood slowly draining from the remains of his orange head.
“Handy,” he said appreciatively.
“Easier with these platinum-cores.” Watts grinned and rose.
258 | MILES HOLMES

“Hey, Ryan. Are we counting kills?”

She looked at him as though he were stupid. “Of course we
are. We never stopped.”
“Well, then, you’re down by one.”
•••

RYAN HUFFED, STRUGGLING TO KEEP pace. Caine led the charge,

giving her a strange sense of déjà vu after the chase in the foundry.
She trailed after him, Watts behind her and gradually slipping
back. The chase was taking its toll; Watts had never been known
for his endurance. Ahead, the stables gave way to reveal the
warehouse. It was the very one they’d observed sentries circling
until the bizarre explosion sent them running.
She could certainly understand the warcaster’s urgency, though.
Beyond the fear of what was being done to his daughter, there
was no telling when the sentries might return. Worse still, the
explosion was sure to rouse the watch, whose constables were
already on high alert in their search for the Hellslinger. Whatever
they found in the warehouse, she still hoped to be somewhere
else when the watch finally arrived. Shooting at gangsters was
one thing; shooting at constables was something else entirely,
and it was a line she would not cross. As it was, she and Watts
were already in deep trouble. Caine was a wanted man, but they
believed his story and were essentially on his side now. Captain
Lynch would most certainly have approved.
Caine rounded the corner a dozen yards ahead of them,
disappearing from sight. Fearful she might lose track of him, she
forced herself to run harder, but she had to stop short as she came
around the corner to keep from bowling the rogue warcaster over.
He stood panting in front of an open doorway. He stared beyond
the open threshold, an expression of disbelief on his face. She
came alongside him.
Beyond the open sliding doors, the warehouse was empty.
The interior was well lit and disappointing. Overhead spot
lamps revealed a dozen pillars in two rows holding the ceiling up,
but there was nothing to see of any more consequence. There were
 MARK OF CAINE | 259

a few scattered heaps of garbage and smashed crates, exits out of

the warehouse, and an upper level balcony that led to the skylight
windows. Any reason nine sentries might have had to guard this
place escaped her completely.
“I don’t understand,” Caine panted, entering the warehouse
one slow step at a time.
Ryan asked, “What were they guarding, exactly?”
Watts rounded the corner to join them, stepping inside while
cleaning his goggles with a rag. “Well, it’s clear your Hellslinger
ain’t here.”
Caine half-turned to regard the gun mage, his lip curled. “Good
observation, Watts. Thank yeh for being so insightful about—”
In the yard, there was sudden chaos.
Ryan whirled to see a pair of sewer grates in the yard burst
open to reveal masked men in dark clothes climbing forth by the
dozen. Their arrival was precisely coordinated. A moment later,
the main gates to the yard smashed open, ushering in a procession
of three horse-drawn wagons. On those wagons rode another
dozen masked men, commanded by a lanky man with red hair
and beard, standing on the first wagon. The masked men now
spotted her, and she could see guns in every one of their hands.
“We’ve been made,” she shouted to the others, turning her
twin magelocks on the closest targets.
 — CHAPTER 31 —
OF SHADOWS AND SPIRITS

RYAN HAD A MASKED GUMAN IN HER sights when Caine put a hand
to her arm to stop her from killing the man.
“Stand down,” he shouted, pinning her magelock while
turning to the converging gunmen with an outstretched hand.
“All of you.”
“What are you—” Ryan sputtered, confused.
“I know these guys.”
Tylen stood from the bench of his wagon, watching Caine
struggle with Ryan, amused.
“Allister. Have you come to help us after all?”
Caine stared up at the man with relief. He let his grip on the
gun mage’s arm go. “Not exactly. What are yeh doing here, Tylen?”
“I already told you what I’m doing.” Tylen laughed, hopping
down from his wagon to meet the warcaster with a clap on the
shoulder. “This is Solomon’s compound. We’ve cast diversions to
262 | MILES HOLMES

lead his men away. We’ve cleared the way to take his stash quick
and clean.”
Caine nodded at the empty warehouse. “I’m afraid we’re both
disappointed here, chum.”
Tylen followed his gaze, his mouth slowly dropping open as he
gleaned the meaning. “I don’t understand. We’ve been watching
this place night and day. The barrels come in—they don’t come
out.”
Caine gestured for the crime boss to pass by him. “Maybe I’m
missing something, then.”
The red-haired man wandered into the open space. His mood
soured as his voice echoed throughout the empty space with a
string of colorful profanities. As suddenly he started, he stopped,
turning on his heel.
“Wait a tick. Why are you here at all? Didn’t I just send you off
to your family?”
“Aye,” Caine sighed, crouching to examine a series of skid
marks on the warehouse floor. Something heavy had been moved
here recently. “And they’re fine, thanks to yeh. But about yer girl,
Cynthia.”
“What is it?” Tylen asked.
Caine struggled. “It seems she’s my girl, if yeh follow me.”
His friend’s expression suddenly turned coy. Caine blinked
incredulously. “Oh, but yeh knew already, is that it?”
Tylen shrugged, grinning. “I had my suspicions. That’s why I
sent her with you. Her mother swore up and down it wasn’t so,
but I mean, you’ve seen her. Spitting image and all that.”
The warcaster nodded but did not share the joke. “Yeah, well.
She’s gone. Brought here, I thought. Now, though, I’m not so
sure.”
Tylen’s mischief was gone. “I expect we don’t have long before
Hoss calls his men back to the fold. But we’ve some time yet. If
she’s here, we’ll find her.” He waved his men in close to relay the
news.
The impact Cynthia had had on Tylen’s men was obvious
enough. Just as his friend’s demeanor had changed with news of
 MARK OF CAINE | 263

her abduction, a comparable ripple effect went through his pack

of thieves. One by one, they began to fan out over the compound
to search for her.
Caine followed the skid marks in the dust, his thoughts growing
ever more troubled. He looked around as the gang searched,
noting a few of them ascending the stairwell to the second floor
balcony.
“What now?” Watts asked. Ryan came up next to him as well,
her attention on the dusty floor. Caine turned to look at them,
struggling for an answer.
“Look at that.” Ryan pointed at the skid marks by his feet.
It was then Caine noticed the marks continued under a tangle
of canvas and torn netting in front of him. He followed her
gesture, stooping to lift the canvas. Sliding it aside, they found an
enormous pair of ironbound cellar doors. Caine held his breath.
He lifted one door slowly open, the stench of death assaulting his
nostrils.
“Call the men back,” he said, his voice barely a whisper. “Right
now.”
•••

WATTS BROUGHT UP THE REAR, CAREFUL with his magelock as he

went. His perpetual scowl deepened as he saw Tylen’s gang move
ahead of him down the stairwell. Introductions had been made,
but the gun mage truly only trusted two people in this world, and
one of them had been killed this night. He wasn’t about to give
this lot his back if he could help it.
As the slick stone stairs descended into shadows and cobwebs,
he was more than happy to have them in front of him. When the
long stairs came to an end at last, the sweep of the torches, which
Tylen’s crew carried, revealed a cavernous labyrinth with arched
stone ceilings twenty feet tall. The men lit the torches set in the
walls to expose the extent of the chamber. Barrels of wine and
spirits by the hundreds lined wooden racks. With every step they
took forward, it seemed there was a new corridor leading off into
the gloom, corridors lined with more shelves.
264 | MILES HOLMES

The place smelled more like a tomb than a cellar, a mix of old
rot and damp earth. The air was cool enough to raise gooseflesh
on their bare arms, and it seemed to suck the very sound from
Watts’ ears. The men’s chatter and footfalls were all but lost ahead
of him. He could tell the place had seen regular traffic recently.
Despite an abundance of moss and cobwebs overhead, the floors
underfoot were well scuffed, and he could see fresh cigarette butts
scattered about.
He squinted beyond the light of the torches to see Caine
leading the way at the front, Ryan and Caine’s friend Tylen next
to him. Watts paused within arm’s reach of a barrel. On the top
of it, he saw white-stencil lettering. Uiske. From Ord, if the label
could be trusted.
“This what you lot had in mind, was it?” Watts called ahead to
the nearest of Tylen’s men.
The man turned, regarding with an expression of awe the
barrel and the hundreds more all around it. “Aye, a fortune of
stolen booze, or so the boss says. Ours for the taking.”
It occurred to Watts the booze could stand for inspection,
perhaps even a taste. He unstopped the barrel’s bung, aiming the
barrel sideways for a quick pull. No sooner had he opened it than
an acrid stench came off the black liquid as it spilled onto the
floor. With his thirst all but gone, he replaced the stopper with
disgust.
“Maybe don’t take all of it,” he noted and kept moving.
Farther into the cellar, he found a pair of Tylen’s men ducked
into a side corridor, shining their torch to see where it led. Beyond
the racks of barrels, the corridor had once been a dead end. But
stones had been freshly pulled out and tossed aside, allowing picks
to dig a winding tunnel that led on into inscrutable darkness. The
picks rested against the wall; their wielders were gone.
“That’s headed for the sewers,” one of the men speculated.
After noting the exit, the pair moved on. Watts lingered,
peering into the shadows a bit longer. Shouts of excitement along
the main path distracted him from his thoughts. He turned away
from the tunnel with a final wary glance.
 MARK OF CAINE | 265

“What are they saying?” he called ahead, trying to see past the
press of bodies and the flickering light.
“A shaft. And we’ve got movement.”
•••

“DO YOU HEAR THAT?” CAINE STOOD at the rail, his head cocked to
listen to the shaft.
Ryan was at his side, her head also turned. “Sounds like
hammering.”
Caine nervously invoked true sight. Since entering the cellar,
he’d found the necrotic dust the wraith had left in passing
everywhere. Through the corridors and over the barrels, he could
see it gleaming like emerald snail trails. The reassurance that they
had not lost Cynthia yet was tempered by caution. The wraith
might not be alone here.
The glimmering trail led down into the shaft and into the
tunnel it opened up on thirty yards below. They could see the
glow of torchlight below, and the hammering sound grew louder.
They had stumbled into the heart of Hoss’ operations in the
bowels of Bainsmarket. The wandering tunnels they had found
carved from the old cellar suggested the mobster had dug them for
greater mobility and secrecy. It seemed like a logical precaution that
he kept his stockpile underground rather than above. Given the
certain presence of the wraith in these tunnels, it was impossible to
guess why any Cryxian forces might be involved in the operation
or in cahoots with ordinary criminals. Such creatures existed only
to sow chaos at the whim of their Dragonfather, wherever and
whenever he so desired. They were a deadly threat to all, law-
abiding or otherwise.
“Quite the maze, this is.” Caine looked around at the darkness.
“We’re out of the cellar proper at this point. I wonder what this
Hoss character might have dug himself into?”
“With all the alcohol he’s got stashed back that way, I can’t
figure it either.” Ryan strained to hear sounds other than the
repetitive pounding.
“This is about as mediocre a fencing operation as I’ve ever
266 | MILES HOLMES

seen,” Tylen chimed in, coming alongside the two. “Wherever

we are, we should keep moving. I expect Hoss will be back with
numbers before long, wherever we’ve led him to.”
“She’s down there,” Caine insisted, his gaze fixed on the faint
trail of green down the shaft. “I’m not leaving until I have her.”
“Neither am I.” Tylen put a hand up. “I suppose barring the
doors back the way we came would be prudent. I don’t know
about you, but I’d hate to have Hoss flank us down here.”
“Aye, send a lookout to go back. If it comes to that, I reckon
there are enough alternate routes out of here. Or with guns blazin’,
if they insist on it.”
Caine looked over the rail to a find a makeshift path winding
its way down the shaft. The descent was made of slanted planks
placed on top of old wooden ties jutting from the square-hewn
shaft. A single pulley crane had been set with broad timbers over
the shaft, though the rope in place seemed too short for any sort
of use.
“Who’s going first?” Tylen said with disinclination plain on
his face.
“Who do yeh think?” Caine scowled and headed to the top of
the path. His procession followed him single file, careful not to
test the planks with more than one body at a time.
Caine wound his way around, cringing on every plank when
it creaked or groaned under his feet, waving the man behind him
to follow only when it proved to be stable. Reaching the tunnel
below at last, he crept to its edge and peered from a corner to see
along its length.
A cavernous chamber opened wide ahead of him, lit by torches
and stocked with more barrels and crates. The chamber tilted
downward, with various hewn timber joists set in place to hold the
roof back from collapsing. There was a flurry of activity within—
the source of the noise they had heard above—along with a crowd
not unlike the crime boss’s men.
“The old villain himself,” Tylen whispered, joining Caine.
One man among the crowd stood head and shoulders above
the rest. A middle-aged man with dark hair and a full beard
 MARK OF CAINE | 267

streaked with white, Hoss was the clear leader of this crew. He was
a bear of a man with a barrel chest and thick, tattooed forearms.
He stood with his arms crossed to oversee a pair of steamjacks at
work. The ’jacks had been fitted with jackhammer arms, and they
worked at intervals in front of him at the lowest end of the room,
digging wide tunnels leading away from it in diagonal angles.
They chugged smoke and steam, and at their flanks, a number of
Hoss’ men followed suit with picks and shovels. A third tunnel lay
between the pair, curiously unlit and unused.
“Cover, there and there.” Caine pointed to Tylen. “Get yer
men into squads, and get ready for my signal.”
Tylen grinned. “I’m on it.”
Caine spotted a joist a short distance away that was wide
enough to hide behind. He vanished and reappeared in position
behind it. Confident his move had not been seen, he looked back
to Tylen and Ryan. He signaled them to advance into the chamber
and take cover. As they complied, the rest of the crew expertly
crept forward with guns at the ready, waiting for the command
to unleash hell. They might not be soldiers, Caine knew, but they
were no rookies in a skirmish, either. Watts was the last to take
a knee behind a heap of crates, unslinging his rifle to extend its
barrel out from between them.
The warcaster peered out from behind his cover, cocking his
Spellstorms for action. With Hoss dead in his sights, he raised a
hand to give the signal. Then, he saw gleaming eyes materialize
from the unlit tunnel between the work crews. With his true sight,
he focused to discern a shapely figure, though it was unusually
difficult to distinguish it from the dark tunnel walls around it.
He knew who he was looking at.
He swore softly. He anxiously waved off the impending attack,
watching in fascination as the new arrival stepped into the light
of the chamber.
The Thamarite witch from Prescott approached Hoss, caressing
his cheek seductively as she drew near. The mobster met her touch
with a cocked head and a dazed look. Her appearance seemed
unchanged from the moment Caine had first met her.
268 | MILES HOLMES

The pair exchanged words, though Caine could hear nothing

over the cacophony of the jackhammers at work. He glanced
across the chamber to find Ryan five yards behind him, straining
to hear. She looked back at him with a shrug.
He gestured, Hold position. He took a deep breath, reaching
out for the cortexes of the steamjacks before him. They halted
their work and came about to face Hoss and the witch. The pair
looked up at the machines, their faces perplexed.
“Have I got yer attention?” Caine grinned, releasing the hapless
machines. He vanished.
A second later, he reappeared ten yards behind Hoss and the
witch, Spellstorms trained on them. He squeezed both triggers at
once. Each shot found the head of an opposing steamjack. Both
ricocheted with a ringing sound as the bullets struck the other’s
head with another pinging sound. The double trick shot and the
noise it had created proved effective, startling his enemies and
leaving them frozen in confusion. Their heads and optical systems
destroyed, the steamjacks staggered, and one of them tripped to
fall forward with a heavier crashing noise. Caine gave them the
mental order to shut down.
“Nobody moves,” he drawled in the pall of sudden silence,
his twin pistols smoking before him. “Yer outnumbered and
outgunned.” At his last word, every gun in his command was
revealed and focused on a target.
“Impressive.” The Radiz turned with a smile, clapping her
hands lazily. Hoss turned with a frown and a dazed look. “Deserves
a reward, I think. Would you like to know my name?”
“After following the shit-laced breadcrumb trail yeh left me,
I’m willing to bet yer the witch Deneghra.”
She grinned. “What a smart boy.”
After a slight bow, her face began to melt. Caine watched,
disturbed to see her face and clothes fall away as if they were
nothing more than hot wax. Beneath the glamorous exterior,
another woman stood with the cold blue skin of a corpse. Her
armor was an elaborate ensemble of black and silver, trimmed
with ornaments of death and runes of power. Below her plunging
 MARK OF CAINE | 269

neckline was a grotesque scar on her exposed midriff. She wore a

belt of iron and a skirt that revealed stockings running the length
of her shapely blue legs. On her head, a horned helm formed from
thin air, as did a long-bladed glaive in her hand. Her transformation
concluded with a rack of six curved blades fanning out of her back
as though the legs of an insect were unfolding. In the end, only
her eyes were untouched from her previous incarnation, gleaming
and alert as ever.
“As I thought,” he growled, his Spellstorms aimed at each of
her eyes. “Now give me back my girl or I drop yeh where yeh
stand.”
Deneghra smiled, widening her stance and tightening her grip
on her weapon. Caine watched her every tendon flex just as his
own focus had triggered the familiar sensation of time slowing
around him. He knew what she was doing: she was readying her
own magic for battle.
“What? I thought you had her,” she said with mock confusion,
her voice low and husky with the delay of Caine’s accelerated state.
She turned to Hoss, her motions deliberate. “No, really. Didn’t we
just see Cynthia with Allister here?”
Hoss turned an aimless half-step toward the sound of her voice
and drew closer. His eyes were wistful and unfocused. “It certainly
looked like him, darling.”
“I’m in no mood for yer games.” Caine held his guns level, his
trigger fingers slowly tightened as the seconds grew wide.
“More’s the pity,” Deneghra said. “In truth, your girl is quite
safe. She will be well cared for, even on the long journey ahead of
her.”
“She’s not going anywhere with you.”
“Even if you could stop me, do you really think you could offer
her a better life? You, Allister?” she sneered.
“This is no debate, lady. Yeh bring her out here now or we start
shooting until every last one of yeh is face down.”
“Understand that Cynthia has become part of something
greater than you could possibly imagine, let alone something you
could stop.” Deneghra’s mocking tone became genuine reverence.
270 | MILES HOLMES

“You’ve seen something of her potential, haven’t you? It’s greater

than I could have ever hoped to find. Laris’ apogee will see it
realized, her place in history forever set. The Dragonfather will be
eternally grateful to your child, don’t you see?”
Caine’s blood turned to ice in his veins at her words. He knew
what talk of apogees, moons, and eternity meant for the sadistic
necromancers of Cryx: agonized torture, blood sacrifice, soul-
rending. Just as poor Lucy had suffered, likely for all eternity.
“Never,” he growled.
The witch’s smile widened as she dipped ever so slowly into a
crouch. “Poor, simple Allister. It has already begun.”
•••

“YOU HEAR THAT, WATTS?” RYAN STOOD with a shoulder against her
cover, both magelocks trained on Hoss’ crew. Her attention darted
between her partner and the exchange between the two warcasters.
“I hear something,” Watts agreed from his cover five yards
behind her, his attention fixed through his scope.
She clenched her jaw. The tension between the two warcasters
was all but tangible, and though she was loathe to admit it, her
palms had grown clammy waiting for the shooting to begin. Battles
between warcasters were notoriously dangerous to join. Even
lesser gun mages like her and Watts were typically fodder in such
engagements, their frailty underscored by the raw power surging
back and forth. Warcasters revealed they were truly more than
human in these moments. Even the ones on your side might well
kill you by accident when they failed to temper their own strength.
At least Caine had been telling the truth this whole time.
The decision to go rogue on his account was no longer the
question of the hour, only the consequences of the choice. She
was a known factor—Deneghra was among the most powerful
of necromancers and a sworn enemy of Cygnar. Whatever her
purpose here and with Cynthia was, it would surely herald sheer
disaster if they left it unchecked. Ryan glanced over each shoulder.
She saw nothing in her immediate vicinity, but a sound like
scratching persisted across the chamber.
 MARK OF CAINE | 271

“That bitch is stalling,” she cursed sotto voce across the gap to
her partner.
He turned from his scope, his attention distracted. “Look.”
She turned to see a dozen barrels by the wall rupture, splashing
pungent black liquid onto the floor. Oversized metal gauntlets
smashed their way free, splintering the barrels like matchwood.
From within the shattered remains rose the emaciated shapes of
mechanithralls, each one a patchwork of corpse and machine. The
creatures were dangerous enough on their own in small numbers,
but she looked with rising dread at the shaft entrance. They had
passed hundreds of such barrels to reach the cavern.
“Who pissed in those barrels?” she groaned.
The hunched shadows of dozens more of the re-animated dead
invaded the chamber threshold. More were gathering in their
wake, plummeting down the shaft from above only to rise to their
feet and lurch forth with their distinct gait.
“We’ve got more problems!” Ryan shouted at the top of her
lungs.
 — CHAPTER 32 —
OF HORRORS AND HELLJACKS

CAINE TURNED TO RESPOND TO RYAN’S CALL and regretted it

immediately. As he watched the rush of mechanithralls approach,
he heard the sound of a foot sliding off behind him.
“So be it,” he hissed.
Hoss had moved selflessly to interpose himself before the
witch, his hand cannon drawn. He fired, but Caine had more
than enough time to duck to one side while returning a shot of
his own.
Hoss’ forehead blossomed with a red crater; his eyes rolled
back into his head. Slowly, he dropped to his knees, exposing
the place Deneghra had once stood. The sacrifice was enough.
She fled toward the mouth of the tunnel she had emerged from
just minutes ago. Caine’s second Spellstorm targeted her, but as if
sensing his thoughts, she flipped forward into a handspring, and
his shot whizzed by.
274 | MILES HOLMES

She sent an attack hissing back at him in the form of a venomous

spew, forcing him into another sideways dive. The hissing liquid
scorched the stone where it landed, missing him by inches. As
Caine came back to his feet, he spied shadows approaching in the
tunnel. Two pairs of gleaming green eyes rushed up, one on either
side of the witch. They clanked into the light to protect their
mistress. The black-plated machines of Cryxian design known
as Slayers were twelve feet tall, nightmares of iron contours and
jagged barbs. They stamped forward, goaded into action by her
mental summons. The ground shook with their advance, and they
raised their tapering claws against Caine. Their engines roared in
anticipation, and their tusked visors dipped toward Deneghra as
they received their mistress’s orders.
•••

EVEN WITH HIS SCOPE, WATTS COULD not separate friend from foe
as the skirmish came to blows. Hoss’ men charged forward with
the desperation of cornered animals, pistols blazing and picks
swinging, and Tylen’s men were forced to fight on two flanks as a
steady stream of mechanithralls poured in from the shaft. Watts
did not dare open fire for fear of killing allies instead of enemies.
“Do something about that entrance,” he commanded Ryan,
looking up from his scope.
“What do you think I’m trying to do?” Ryan shouted, reloading
her magelocks. An instant later, the gun mage stepped out from
her shelter with her teeth gritted, leveling her twin weapons in the
direction of the doorway.
“Inferno.”
The double tap of her shots screamed for the entrance and
merged into one to create a firestorm of searing blue. The incoming
mechanithralls were engulfed in flames, their withered limbs like
tinder to the magical blaze. They staggered clear, burning and
aimless, and collapsed on top of one another. In short order, the
cavern was filled with the foul smell of dead, burning flesh.
Watts aimed Swan Song at those enemies already within
the fold. The scope of his rifle danced easily between targets
 MARK OF CAINE | 275

with a steady rhythm of aim, fire, and reload as though it were

all in a day’s work. He was distracted only once, when a lone
mechanithrall loomed up directly before him to block his view,
its metal gauntlets raised to murder him. In one fluid motion, he
came to his feet and drew his magelock from his hip, shooting the
creature directly in the face. As the twice-dead corpse fell like a
stone before him, he turned toward Ryan.
“That’s eighteen. You’re falling behind.” He took up his rifle
and resumed his cover once more.
Ryan bristled at the taunt and found new targets among the
chaos. Her inferno shot had brought her own total to thirteen.
There was no way she was losing to the old man. She scowled
as she reflected on how he even knew her score. She fired a shot
at one of Hoss’ men in mid-swing of his shovel at one of Tylen’s
crew, taking the man squarely in the mouth.
“Fourteen,” she called without looking, scanning for her next
target. “Watts? You’d better look over here.”
He turned with his scope, then lowered the weapon to curse
and spit. At the mouth of the tunnel, Deneghra was gone, and
Caine was scrambling for his life, caught between a pair of towering
Slayers. The warcaster ducked, dived, and vanished, always one
step ahead of the pair but never more. When he could spare the
time to shoot, his Spellstorms blasted. The shots tore and gouged
the thick plate armor of the horrors, but he was too busy to aim
for a crippling blow to the vital machinery of either one.
“Keep your magelocks on the door,” Watts shouted over the
din of battle, rising with his rife. “I’ll give him a hand.”
•••

CAINE CURSED A STEADY STREAM OF PROFANITIES. Deneghra was

getting away. Despite everything they had gone through to find
her, despite even getting the drop on her, she’d turned the tables
on him just the same. She was out of sight now, disappearing
into the shadows of the tunnel. Cynthia was nowhere to be seen;
neither was the wraith the witch had created to start it all. But
Caine could feel it was close enough to set his arm throbbing and
276 | MILES HOLMES

cause the mark on it to assume a constant, baleful glow.

He ducked a long-taloned claw from a Slayer, tilting a
Spellstorm upward to fire as it swept over him. His shot blew
out the wrist joint, seizing the Slayer’s digits in place. It was only
an inch gained. Another claw raked after him, then another and
another. On impulse, he leaped on top of one arm that swept by
him, clawing up the length of it and onto the bulge of the Slayer’s
hunchback. He stumbled and nearly fell; the Slayer turned in
search of its prey before realizing it had been, for all intents and
purposes, boarded. Sending his power into the shots, Caine fired
twice point-blank down at the metal that shielded its cortex.
The bullet punched a circle in the helljack’s hull, and a distressed
hissing and keening sound emanated from the puncture wound.
The green-hued eyes behind its visor flickered, and the Slayer
began to turn erratically. One arm went limp, and it seemed to
lose its balance, as if it were suddenly drunk. But there was no
time to admire his handiwork. Instead, he was forced to leap clear
as the Slayer swung wildly at its own back with another claw.
This used to be a lot easier, he thought, wheezing for breath.
The second helljack lunged for him, forcing Caine to dive
beneath its legs or risk being driven against the wall. He narrowly
avoided being crushed as it stomped in his direction. When he
came up behind it, a second massive claw swept behind the Slayer,
forcing him to teleport or die on the spot. As he appeared in front
of it, a crack like thunder echoed above his head, and the machine
reeled to one side. Caine shot a look across the chamber to see
Watts holding his smoking rifle. The warcaster nodded his thanks
to the gun mage.
But the Slayer was not subdued, despite the neat hole Watts
had created in the hull over its cortex housing. The damaged
machine erupted into a high-pitched roar and charged. Caine
whirled, dodging a blow that would have knocked him across the
chamber, and skidded around to face the second Slayer. As that
helljack moved to attack him despite its apparent blindness, Watts
fired again. The blinded helljack took a hit to the leg Caine had
already damaged, and it stumbled headlong into the charge lane
 MARK OF CAINE | 277

of the first. When the two collided, the blinded Slayer launched
into a ferocious attack as if it had encountered an enemy. Without
their mistress to guide them, the other helljack fought back, and
in moments the nightmarish machines were tearing each other to
scrap.
Caine turned from the clash and shouted across the chamber.
“We need to move.”
The battle could certainly have gone worse, despite Deneghra’s
escape. Tylen and his crew had accounted for themselves well
enough. There were fallen living and undead alike on either side,
but they’d only lost a few of their own. Still, Ryan was struggling
to contain the endless influx of walking dead from the shaft
entrance, the magical blaze of her gunfire pushed to its limits
no matter how many mechanithralls lay burning and motionless
across the chamber.
“Suits me just fine,” Ryan called back. “We’ll run out of shot
long before we run out of these damned horrors.”
Tylen came to Caine’s side, standing in breathless awe of the
battling deathjacks. “Just another day at work for you, I suppose?”
“More or less.” Caine looked around impatiently. “Are yeh
coming or not?”
“Aye.” Tylen nodded, summoning his crew over. “We’ve a few
bombs left over from this evening’s mischief. We could make sure
we’re not followed.”
Caine weighed the option, invoking true sight once more to
scan the length of the tunnel ahead. He could not see its end, even
with his enhanced vision, but he wouldn’t expect Deneghra to
back herself into a dead end.
“Do it,” he finally said, heading into the mouth of the tunnel
without looking back.
 — CHAPTER 33 —
OF LONG SHOTS AND
LAST STANDS

MINUS THE TORCHES FROM THE previous cavern, the tunnel was
utterly black, a winding path Caine ranged with both enhanced
vision and steely determination. At turns, he doubled back to
find both the Black 13th and Tylen’s crew following his lead with
torches and careful steps.
He was at a loss to describe the labyrinth that wound ahead.
The farther it went, the more fantastic it seemed. Though Tylen’s
explosives had collapsed the tunnel at the entrance to cut off the
army of undead behind them, it had only led a dozen yards in
before abruptly opening into a dusty arcade of brick walls and
a cobblestone floor. Doorways and window frames, bricked
or boarded over, appeared at intervals along either wall. Caine
imagined he might well be walking in Orgoth ruins, forgotten
catacombs, or even a city district long ago abandoned and built
280 | MILES HOLMES

over a later development. But really, he cared little. As the pain of

his mark grew ever fiercer, he knew he was getting close.
Cynthia was all that mattered.
The ground shook. Caine stopped as a fine dust settled on his
shoulders. He coughed, looking up at the ceiling. Shortly, Tylen
appeared behind him amid the flicker of torchlights.
“You felt that, right?” Tylen’s face mirrored Caine’s own anxiety.
“Maybe those bombs weren’t such a good idea after all,” Caine
admitted, swallowing hard.
They heard a loud impact, and the tunnel shuddered again.
Caine gripped the wall and stared up, expecting the worst. If the
ceiling fell in on them here, Cynthia was lost.
“That wasn’t us,” Tylen said, scanning before them to the edge
of his light. “It’s coming from ahead.”
Watts and Ryan pushed their way through Tylen’s grim-
faced crew to join Caine at the head of the line, breathless and
distraught. Ryan licked her lips. “What’s going on?”
“Deneghra’s up to something.” Caine’s features hardened as he
looked ahead. “Come on.”
The alley wound around a sharp corner, ending in an ancient
door. The door was ten feet tall, wooden, dry, and bound by iron.
Caine gave a quick shake of its iron ringed handles, only to find it
barred from the other side. Even so, footprints on the dusty floor
leading beyond told him he was on the right track. He turned,
looking to Watts and Ryan.
“Give it thunder,” he said simply.
The pair nodded, then stood shoulder to shoulder. With
magelocks drawn and aimed, they looked expectantly at Caine
and then to Tylen.
“Ah, yeh might want to cover yer ears,” Caine cautioned his
friend and Tylen’s crew. He then covered his own.
As one the Black 13th fired, muttering keywords under their
breath. Shots erupted from their muzzles in dazzling unison,
blasting the door with an ear-splitting crack that echoed brutally
throughout the enclosed space. The door vanished in a cloud of
dust, hurled into the chamber beyond.
 MARK OF CAINE | 281

Caine strode in after the shattered door, Spellstorms at the

ready, the swirling shadows of his blur spell invoked. Before him,
the threshold opened into a rounded chamber of interlocking
stones, perhaps twenty yards in diameter.
They could see signs of recent activity as they had before—
scaffolds climbed to the ceiling, unpacked crates littered the floor,
torches burned along the walls, and still more steamjacks stood at the
ready. Some of the ’jacks were at work while others stood dormant
in a line, their hearth-fires extinguished. Yet Caine determined the
chamber only told half the story at eye level. His gaze wandered
the stonework walls upward, following a sliver of moonlight at the
center of the chamber to find the ceiling some sixty yards overhead,
a patchwork of broken timbers, brick, and mortar.
The scaffolds rose to meet it with varying degrees of success,
many of them joined with planks to form a haphazard footpath
spiraling upward. He could see corridors entering the tall chamber
at various levels and angles. A bridge had once connected corridors
on opposite sides of the room two stories above, though this had
collapsed some time ago away, leaving only rotted timbers on
either side.
Then he saw Cynthia.
Twenty yards above, his girl climbed out over the side of a
scaffold, desperate and wild. She scrambled to get away, using
every trick she had. She cried as she came, a heartbreaking sound
to Caine’s ears, and when their eyes met, he could see her tears and
the stark terror on her face. She had lost everything this day yet
somehow was still fighting.
“Allister!” she screamed with an outstretched hand his way.
“I’m coming!” Caine reached back, fighting tears of his own.
“I told you to stay put, girl!” Deneghra hissed, appearing
beneath Cynthia on a platform. She clawed after the child, only
to find her climbing back the way she had come.
The witch looked down at Caine with a mocking sigh.
“Children. Am I right?”
“Yer gonna die for this,” Caine roared, drawing his Spellstorms
to fire.
282 | MILES HOLMES

“Try him first,” Deneghra laughed, pointing with her glaive.

Caine followed her gesture, looking down a dark corridor two
stories above and on the opposite side of the chamber. He knew
what was coming before he saw it—and he felt it even sooner. His
arm was at once afire, burning as though he’d pressed a blazing
torch against it. He gritted his teeth against the sudden pain,
turning his guns from Deneghra to the corridor’s shadowy throat.
There, the wraith came hurtling forward, leaping through the pall
of its smoky veil to join him on ground level, its guns blazing as
it fell.
Caine could do no more than vanish or else be gunned down
where he stood.
When he reappeared across the chamber and a story higher, he
knew the tables were well and truly turned. He opened fire then,
holding back nothing. This was the thing that had caused him
so much grief, and payback was a bullet. His Spellstorms sang a
cacophony of death, echoing loudly throughout the chamber. His
focus was absolute; so was his fury.
It was all pointless.
The wraith stood untouched, sidestepping the fusillade with
no more effort than dancing a simple two-step.
“I’ll be damned,” Ryan said, staring at the spectacle of the
corrupted Caine versus the living Caine.
“Somebody will be,” Watts muttered, equally stunned.
“Get them behind cover!” Caine called down to the Black 13th,
indicating Tylen’s mesmerized crew. The lot of them were scattered
around the chamber now, defenseless against the creature in their
midst. As his smoking Spellstorms flung their spent cartridges to
the ground, Caine ducked for cover to reload.
“You heard him!” Ryan barked, waving an arm as she raised
her magelock at the shrouded Caine before her. Watts had shaken
his paralysis as well, dashing into position behind a dormant
steamjack. Both gun mages fired as the Caine before them raised
its weapons on the Caine above them.
But the wraith was ready for their attack just the same. Sensing
the threat, it dove for cover of its own. Watts tagged it first, his
 MARK OF CAINE | 283

magelock sinking a shot deep into the thing’s hip as it slipped

from sight.
“There,” he said with satisfaction.
Ryan prowled around a stack of crates, ready to finish what
Watts had begun.
But the wraith Caine would not be pinned so easily. Doubling
back, it came weaving as Watts reloaded, avoiding Ryan’s trap.
Then it was gone with a terrible hiss, borne aloft on ethereal
tentacles.
Caine watched it circle, rising to the chamber’s next story and
into a shadowed corridor similar to the one from which it had
come. Where it might emerge next, he could not guess.
“Try as you like, he will never let you pass, Allister,” Deneghra
called down from the chamber’s topmost level, her attention
drawn upward to the ceiling. “He knows you better than you
know yourself now. Your shots are nothing for him to avoid.”
Caine ignored her, his keen eyes searching for Cynthia, but he
could sense something was coming, something big. As he scanned
the chamber, it blotted the moon and descended with a gust of
wind behind it. Caine focused on the patchwork ceiling, listening
to the sound grow ever louder.
What is happening here? He prepared for the worst.
An enormous bulk smashed onto the ceiling with the force of
a wrecking ball, shaking the ground like a small earthquake. The
impact loosened great clouds of dust that blanketed the chamber.
Even the torches upon the walls seemed to flicker from its
tremulous power. Caine could hardly understand what it was he
was seeing. The ceiling itself was tearing apart, its timbers bending
and sagging while loosened bricks plummeted to the floor below.
A titanic head on the end of a long sinewy neck plunged in
through the widening gap to deliver a bloodcurdling scream that
filled the chamber. The thing was eyeless, a horrific patchwork of
desiccated flesh and wire. It blindly flailed and snapped savagely,
long teeth in search of ceiling timbers to tear loose.
“What the hell is that?” Caine gasped, retreating deeper into
his perch for cover. He could only watch as the thing found a
284 | MILES HOLMES

support beam to pull away, wrenching it loose as though it were

no more than a matchstick.
Beyond the horror of Deneghra’s summoned monstrosity and
the skulking wraith she had sent to keep them back, Caine could
still see something more.
“She’s trapped here,” he said aloud to no one. He laughed
mirthlessly.
“What is that?” Ryan asked, climbing a ladder to join him.
She trained her magelocks on the raking talons above, her face a
terrified mask of disbelief.
“You got me,” Caine admitted, “but damned if we’ve not run
her into a dead end after all. I think that thing is trying to dig her
out.”
His lips curled into a grim but satisfied smile.
Then the monstrous head was gone, disappearing to the noisy
flap of its own wings. Cain was sure it was rising up only to crash
down onto the ceiling again.
“Don’t you worry about Deneghra getting loose now.” Watts
had followed Ryan, and he took cover alongside her to scope the
witch’s position with Swan Song.
“Brutality,” he whispered. His muzzle burst with magical
blue fire. The dazzling bolt seared skyward, perfectly targeting
Deneghra. Her power field flared brightly to deflect the shot, but
the power of it pierced through. The witch was knocked from her
feet by the shot.
Deneghra screeched with the shock and insult, her shrill voice
echoing throughout the tall chamber.
“Kill them! Kill them all!”
She rose into view, commanding unseen minions as she did.
But she did not stay in view long enough to draw fire. Instead,
she fled the ledge and into the corridor behind her with her cloak
flowing after her.
“Wherever she goes, that’s where I’ll find Cynthia,” Caine said,
creeping forward. He glanced back at Watts and Ryan. “Keep up,
if yeh can. Or cover me. Whichever suits yeh best.”
Down on the floor, Tylen’s men were spread out behind cover,
 MARK OF CAINE | 285

their weapons sweeping every entrance as they watched for the

horror above to return. Watts and Ryan exchanged cautious
glances.
“Go after him.” Watts nudged her, taking a knee to reload.
“You’re faster on your feet, and I’ve the heavy artillery to cover
you anyway.”
“We’ll see about that,” Ryan smirked, already moving to follow
the warcaster.
Caine raced ahead of the pair at a full sprint, heading for an
ascending stack of crates ahead that formed makeshift stairs. He
ran, hopping from one crate to the next with an eye on a scaffold
and the platform adjacent to it overhead. His magic welling in
his chest, he leaped to the height his sprint would allow, then
disappeared mid-jump to reappear with both feet securely on the
scaffold. He spun, scanning for the wraith and any continuing
line of ascent he could find.
Instead he found his girl, and his heart thundered in his chest.
Cynthia had come to a new ledge above him, and she watched
his approach with something bordering on hope. Caine met her
teary eyes across the yawning chamber. “Hang on, kiddo,” He
called out. “I’m nearly there.”
Tear-streaked and desperate, Cynthia swallowed. “Don’t yeh
let her take me!”
Never again, Caine promised silently, and ran across the
scaffold to a length of rotted planks. Just as he reached the edge to
leap, the shadow of a body fell directly before him, forcing him to
backpedal or risk being knocked off. With half his boot hanging
out over open space, he flailed his arms for balance. He watched
the shape plunge past and, when he was secure again, leaned over
to see what it had been.
“Mechanithralls, incoming!” He shouted to the men below.
The undead creature had already regained its feet, finding one
of Tylen’s crew within reach of its ferocious metal gauntlets. The
man fought the thing off as best he could, but he was felled by
its savage blows before he really understood he was about to die.
Caine leaned out to shoot the thing dead, but as he did, he
286 | MILES HOLMES

saw the reanimated creature was far from alone. On all sides, the
corridors of the upper chamber had begun to rain mechanithralls
down in file lines. From the deep shadows they shambled forward
to tumble from the ledges, hurtling their bodies to a bone-
breaking collision below, only to rise up again in battle against
Tylen’s dwindling crew.
Caine lent fire to the skirmish, but he saw the harried gangsters
needed tactics over bullets now. “Tylen! Pull them into a circle.
Back to back, chum!”
He wasn’t sure if his old friend had heard him over the constant
gunfire. So much for outnumbering Deneghra, he thought, looking
to find Cynthia up above him once more.
For his effort, he nearly had his head blown off.
Somehow, the wraith had attained a scaffold directly opposite
the chamber and had already lined him up for the kill. The pain
in Caine’s arm was a constant now, its use as a warning apparently
gone. The wraith’s shots were aimed at his head despite the haze
of his shroud. He could only dip from the first, feeling its wind
come past his ear, then watch in slow-motion horror as the second
impacted his power field. He blinked as it traced a collision course
for his forehead, and he blinked again when it disintegrated
against his ethereal barrier.
Too close. He returned fire. As before, his shots seemed to be no
more than a distraction to the creature as it weaved to avoid them.
But distraction was enough for now. Caine’s power field was close
to spent, and he needed to move. The way to Cynthia was up, so
he looked that way.
He spied a dormant steamjack on the level above the wraith,
and he vanished. He set himself at the back of automaton’s
shoulder for cover. The wraith’s shot had left his power field
savagely dimmed, only a fraction of its former strength. With
focus, he slowly began to replenish it.
He did a double-take then. Deneghra was doing the exact same
thing across the yawning chamber, crouching to escape the line of
sight of those below. Their eyes met. Her own collapsed power
field was returning, a diaphanous sphere drawn back to existence
 MARK OF CAINE | 287

by her force of will alone. She looked back at him, her expression
of surprise soon replaced by one of bitter hatred.
“You’ve lost, Deneghra,” Caine growled under his breath,
forsaking his own power field’s repair to raise a Spellstorm at the
embattled sorceress.
“You think this place is the sum of my ambitions?” Deneghra
spat at him. “There are a score of them hidden under your noses.
Bainsmarket, we can lose. I assure you, plans are in motion that
cannot be stopped by the likes of you. Your own fate is already
sealed, regardless.”
“And I’m personally sealing yours,” Caine said, but he hesitated.
Deneghra seized upon his hesitation. “Did you really think my
pet was a common wraith?” she hissed, her eyes cold and bright.
“Do you have any idea what that mark on your arm really is?”
Caine still stared, the cold creep of dread rising from the pit of
his stomach as his arm continued to throb. “What have yeh done
to me?”
“A better question is what have you done?” Deneghra laughed.
“Did you really think there would be no consequences for the life
you’ve led? The wraith is guided by your own conscience, Caine.
It will settle your debts one and all, until the very last, no matter
what you think is owed now. On that day, all that I promised you
in Prescott shall come to pass. Because you will be the last soul it
takes. You will become the wraith that day, damned to death. Every
last person you ever slighted will be dead. And you’ll know that
every last child you fathered will be brought to serve me, if they
prove worthy. The ones who aren’t will be dead. How many more
such children do you think it will find in its travels?”
“Yer awful smug for a bitch with a gun to her head,” Caine
replied coolly, firing both Spellstorms at once.
Deneghra was fast, as fast as Caine. Maybe faster. She
was smiling still as his shots screamed across the chamber. He
understood she had goaded him into doing it. He realized then
she had likely been tensed and ready, believing herself more than
capable of dodging the legendary deadeye shot. She might even
have been right.
288 | MILES HOLMES

Except Caine hadn’t aimed to hit her.

Instead, his arcane-empowered shots went wide on either side.
Deneghra flicked her head to one side to avoid where she thought
it was aimed and instead took one to the head. Her weakened
power field burst with a spectacular clash of pyrotechnics, and
Caine’s shot found its mark with a ruinous impact.
Deneghra stopped smiling. The shot struck her horned helm
at the temple and sent it exploding into pieces on the floor. She
screamed, staggering back with a hand up to cover her wound, the
black ichor of her blood splashing across her face.
Suddenly Caine was taking fire. He was chased back behind
cover as Deneghra’s wraith raced to answer its mistress’s cry. He
flinched at the withering hail, firing blindly in return to drive it
back. After a moment of silence, he rose and dared a glance past
the steamjack’s shoulder.
“Bollocks!” he swore.
Of course, Deneghra was gone.
 — CHAPTER 34 —
OF MAGES AND MONSTERS

“CAINE!” RYAN SHOUTED UP AT THE embattled warcaster, watching him

take fire as he huddled behind the cover of a steamjack. Ricochets
whizzed from the machine’s thickly plated body, and Caine leaned
out after each one to give as good as he got from his corrupted twin.
“Help them!” Caine pointed down, his back to his cover.
Below, Ryan could see a pair of mechanithralls rush Watts’
position. She ended them both with well-placed shots from her
twin magelocks. The creatures fell writhing, still clutching after
the grizzled gun mage’s feet, and he looked up from his scope to
kick them away with a bemused grumble.
“That’s twenty,” she called.
“Twenty-four down here.” He put Swan Song over his shoulder
so he could assist Tylen’s crew in closer quarters.
Ryan scrunched her face—she was beginning to think she
preferred Watts without his precious Swan Song. The old man had
290 | MILES HOLMES

always been good, but he’d never put up these kinds of numbers
before. Now that she had it, she wasn’t sure she actually wanted
the competition.
“Stop it. You’ve got bigger problems, girl,” she whispered,
surveying the scene below.
The newly arrived mechanithralls might well be more than
either she or Watts could handle. Tylen had less than a dozen men
left now, their circle tightening with the ferocious onslaught of the
horrors. His men were decent brawlers, she had to admit. Tylen
himself fought with a curious grace for a gangster, whirling and
stabbing without pause.
Just the same, the lot of them were visibly tiring, and their
features plainly showed their terror of the situation. If they
stood a chance of surviving, it would be with Caine or not at all,
and therein lay the rub. Ryan looked up again to see the rogue
warcaster still trading fire with his elusive twin.
“That’s enough,” she muttered, fitting her grappler attachment
and firing it with practiced ease.
“I’m going to help him,” she shouted down to Watts. The gun
mage had joined the brawl now, a whirling dervish of magelocks
and blades. He nodded at her as he was putting a mechanithrall
down with his knife buried in its skull.
“Twenty-five,” he replied.
You’ll need them all, she thought. She tested her line with a tug
before she flew across the gap of the chamber on the end of it.
Now beneath Caine by one level, she spun around and into cover,
carefully lining up a shot at his elusive foe.
“Reach!” she whispered.
She landed only a glancing hit, but the creature screeched at
her indignantly. Her grappler detached, she chased the wraith
away completely with her second magelock. As it disappeared,
hissing, into the shadow of a corridor, Ryan looked around for a
way up and spotted a ladder nearby. She scrambled its length to
find Caine topside, winded but otherwise unscathed.
“I think it would rather play with you,” she said, squatting
down behind a crate to reload.
 MARK OF CAINE | 291

“I have to get to Cynthia,” he muttered, his eyes darting to the

level next up.
Though his arm was sleeved and armored, Ryan could see
the burning radiance of his cursed mark through both. “Are you
okay?”
“I’ve been better than that.” Caine turned with effort, noting
her fixation.
“Can you fight, I mean.”
“I damn well have to.” Caine attempted a smile. “Can’t very
well leave yeh to sort this out for me, now can I?”
They both heard a sudden hiss, and Ryan whirled about.
From her right, she caught a glimpse of a shape moving fast. The
wraith was coming again, a relentless terror. But Caine was ready,
firing after it. Still, the creature seemed able to predict his attack,
spinning in the air to avoid the shots while returning fire of its
own. The wraith’s first shot was a miss, an inch from Caine’s cheek
but hitting the wall over his shoulder. The wraith’s second shot
was a perfect hit.
Caine’s overburdened power field burst, allowing the shot to
trace an ugly wound across his shoulder plate. Ryan saw it hit,
saw the grimace of strain pass over Caine’s face. She then saw the
creature pass in front of her, the arc of its leap about to drop. She
brought a magelock to chase after it, but she was able to fire only
once.
“Brutality,” she growled and squeezed the trigger. Her magelock
erupted with a dazzle of blue-and-gold fire.
The creature’s flank erupted with a rippling force, leaving a
hole in it the size of a small shield. It screamed piteously and fell
in mid-air. It flailed as it tumbled, tendrils of its smoky shroud
grasping for purchase. It tumbled into the netting of a scaffold
below as it hissed with pain. It scuttled free of the tangle and out
of sight once more to lick its wounds.
“At least one of us can hit it,” Caine admitted, his eyes already
scanning the level above, “and it sure ain’t me.”
“Yeah, I noticed.” Ryan took up surveying below for the creature’s
return while swiftly reloading. “Since when do you miss like that?”
292 | MILES HOLMES

“It’s this bloody mark.” Caine indicated his arm. “It knows
where I’m going to fire.”
“Nice trick.” Ryan grinned. “Well, I tagged it but good. I think
it’s done.”
“Think again. It hides, and then it looks for another soul to
harvest. That’s how it’s sustaining itself. At a guess, I’d say it’s
probably going to try for one of Tylen’s men next. Easy pickings.
Yeh follow?”
“You have your girl to save, and that thing’s out of your way
for now.” Ryan peered left and right before indicating the scaffolds
above. “Just go already. I’m on it.”
Caine smiled weakly. “Yer all right, Ryan.”
Then he vanished.
•••

CAINE WAS HURT MORE THAN HE’D LET RYAN KNOW.

He had his pride, after all. He coughed, trying to find Cynthia
from his new position on the next level up. The truth was his
power field was down, and he hadn’t the time to raise it. Adding
in the crippling pain of his mark, Caine had never felt more
vulnerable.
But there, right there, was his girl. Across the chamber and one
more story to climb. Cynthia was nearly to the ceiling, clinging
to the top of a stack of crates and adjacent to an active steamjack
digging a tunnel in the nearest wall with a pair of mattocks,
heedless of the conflict below.
Caine took a moment to recover, his eyes sweeping the tall
chamber up and down. Deneghra had hidden herself away, as
had her wraith. Meanwhile, Ryan remained where he’d left her,
covering his advance. Then he traced a line, however precarious,
to get to his girl as quickly as possible.
A scaffold rose halfway between them along the curving wall
of stone, its loose planks laid out to connect their respective
platforms.
Run in, flash out. He gauged his recovery time. It’ll do or you’ll
die. So, get to it.
 MARK OF CAINE | 293

He ran the narrow path for all he was worth.

This close to the ceiling, he could see the night sky through its
jagged fissure, along with the light of the moon Calder. Deneghra’s
beast was absent for the moment at least, and he counted it a
blessing.
“Yer going to be okay,” he called to Cynthia. He was less than
a dozen yards from her now.
She stood and nodded, wiping her nose on her sleeve.
Gradually, her face took on a wilful expression, her tears fading.
She believes me. Caine smiled. He was beginning to believe it
himself.
He ran, leaping at last for Cynthia’s platform.
Then he was hit. A horrible clang at his back told him his
arcantrik turbine had spared him the worst of it, but it was bad
enough. He felt his armor’s steam bleed away, its bulk now dead
weight on his back. He smashed to floor at the foot of Cynthia’s
crates. Her wide eyes were on him. But as she looked across the
chamber, her face knit itself into a terrible fury.
“Leave my pa alone!” she screamed, her eyes ablaze with all the
pent-up fear churning within her.
Caine could only turn on his side, following Cynthia’s gaze. He
had failed her. The next shot was the killing one, and the wraith
was surely his shooter. It had followed him to the bitter end, never
giving up the hunt, despite its wounds. He saw it, braced on the
very scaffold from which he had just come. It came for him with
its pistols trained on him.
A sizable metal hand gripped him suddenly, pulling him up
to his feet.
Stunned by the turn, Caine twisted and looked into the
glowing eyes of a steamjack, the one that had been mindlessly
digging beside his girl. Its mattocks were gone, dropped in haste
when it came for him.
Somehow the thing pulled him from the line of fire, its back
riddled with shot as it defended him. He listened as the wraith’s
fusillade ricocheted harmlessly away while the machine cradled
him protectively. He gazed into the embers of its eyes, probing its
294 | MILES HOLMES

cortex to find a will inside, to find its controller.

Cynthia was controlling the steamjack.
Impossible though it should have been, she was the one. He
already knew his girl was gifted, as many in the world were, Watts
and Ryan among them. But the ability to control the mind of a
’jack, and at her young age, was a gift more precious than any
other earthly treasure.
More to the point, his little girl had saved his life.
The wraith snarled in frustration, its advance becoming a
charge. It came with shriveled claws of bone to rip Caine’s very
soul apart. It leaped straight through the intervening steamjack,
its incorporeal form bursting through the automaton to attack
him with ease.
Fingers of ice were upon him. Caine felt himself becoming
as ethereal as his enemy. He rolled, and the pair plunged over
the side of the platform as Cynthia cried out after them. Caine
looked back up at her, even reached for her, as she grew distant
overhead.
In the flurry of action, he thought to vanish—but he did so
aimlessly. Once more he sent himself hurtling through the void,
the chill of those horrible fingers on him still. He looked down
to find his own dead face grinning back up at him. The wraith
gripped him with both hands and was now scrambling up his
body, its skeletal hands reaching for his face.
Then the world returned with a starburst’s intensity, revealing
a stack of crates at ground level, five yards below, in the center
of the chamber. Caine fell onto the crates, feeling his ribs crack,
still locked in mortal combat with his wraith. Meanwhile, Tylen’s
men, mechanithralls, and the Black 13th fought a pitched battle
on all sides around them.
•••

“KEEP FIGHTING!” WATTS ROARED TO THE gangsters at his flanks,

his face splashed with both their blood and mechanithralls’ ichor.
The gun mage took a knee to reload, though his reserves were
disturbingly low now.
 MARK OF CAINE | 295

Without warning, Caine appeared in the open space above

them, his doppelganger locked onto him. The warcaster fought
desperately to keep the thing’s claws from his throat as they came
crashing to earth. They landed hard among a collection of wooden
crates, an explosion of painful howls and splintering wood echoing
up at the moment of impact.
Caine was staggered, Watts could tell, but he was fighting still.
He tried to take in his whereabouts and found Watts looking at
him.
“Kill it!” Caine shouted, holding the thing’s claws from his
throat by the thinnest of margins. “I can’t hold it much longer.”
Watts leveled his magelock to fire into the pair’s melee. His
shot flew unerring, tearing a hole in the creature’s leering face. It
shrieked at the attack, looking up at Watts in surprise.
“Ryan!” Watts called. “Help him!”
Hearing her name, Ryan looked around and across the
chamber, paling to find Caine suddenly among them. She stepped
wide of a mechanithrall’s lunge and raised her magelocks. Her first
shot took the wraith in its hip. Once again, the wraith shrieked,
all thoughts of its prey seemingly forgotten. It released Caine at
last but found it could not escape.
“Not so fast, chum,” Caine growled.
The warcaster held the creature in a death lock as Ryan’s second
shot came roaring in to kill it. The wraith’s shoulder burst, and it
howled piteously with the injury.
At last, Caine was able to bring up his own pistol in his right
hand while his left kept a grip on the wraith’s throat.
“Let’s see you dodge this,” he said, firing.
The wraith’s head disappeared, bursting in a splash of ethereal
green. Then the creature shifted into a mist, fast unraveling,
spinning and fading until Caine lay alone atop the shattered
crates. He rose, panting, blood flowing from deep gashes on his
cheek and throat.
“Are you all right?” Watts asked, slashing a mechanithrall aside
as he approached.
Caine looked at him with bleary eyes as if he were about to
296 | MILES HOLMES

reply. But the earth shook then, and everyone’s eyes turn skyward.
“Take cover!” he cried as the ceiling came down on them.
•••

CAINE SAW IT COMING, A TERROR OF splinters and bricks. Worse still,

he knew the thing that had sent it. He didn’t have the strength to
avoid the onslaught; he was only able to raise an arm and hope for
the best. Around him, destruction unfolded on the combatants,
crushing gangster and mechanithrall alike. Deneghra’s monstrous
creature had broken through the ceiling at last. Moaning, Caine
thought of Cynthia up there, alone and unguarded.
The thing screamed as it entered, a keening wail deafening to
those left standing. Caine felt its fetid breath sweep the chamber,
a wind of earthy decay. The creature descended, folding back its
rotten, membranous wings with sword-like claws jutting at the
tips so it could scuttle along the wall with unnatural ease. As it
came, it thrashed its long, sinewy tail, tipped with a bladed barb
five feet in length. In its chest, a soul-fire of necrotite burned an
unearthly green beneath its armored plates; the fire pulsed in place
of breaths the horror did not need to take.
With sudden, darting movements, the creature’s eyeless head
scanned the chamber, thrusting back to answer the call of its
master. Deneghra stepped forth then to greet her pet, high above
on the very scaffold where Caine had last seen Cynthia.
She carried Cynthia’s slumped body.
With a dismissive wave, she climbed onto her creature’s back,
tucking the child behind her. The horror then flapped its great
wings to ascend the tall walls again. With Calder framing his
enemy, Caine watched as the beast rose into the night sky, his
child a prisoner of the witch riding it away.
There was nothing for it.
Caine trembled in fury. Fury that fate would reveal something
so unexpected and so precious, only to snatch it away from him.
Fury that Rebald would dare to have the tenacity to push things
to this. Fury that Deneghra had killed so many in his name and
cost him his daughter in the end.
 MARK OF CAINE | 297

But most of all, Caine was furious with himself.

None of these things had happened in isolation. One after
another, his choices in life had led to the bottom of this pit.
Whatever his intentions had ever been, here he stood. He thought
about all this and no more.
Blinded to the battle around him, he did not flinch as the
last mechanithrall reached for his foot. Ryan intervened, first
blasting the thing’s head, then dragging its slumping corpse away
from him. She stepped closer, her gaze rising to follow his own.
She looked at his face then, but turned away, clearly startled by
whatever she saw there.
“I’m so sorry,” she simply said.
 — CHAPTER 35 —
OF PAYBACK AND PERDITION

“COME ON. GET HIM UP,” RYAN INSISTED as they fled the complex,
gesturing for Tylen’s remaining men to move faster. Dawn’s
first rays were creeping over the rooftops of Bainsmarket, and a
crowd was gathering to see the house that had been torn apart by
Deneghra’s beast, leaving a massive sink hole in its wake. Alarm
bells were ringing throughout the area.
“It would be better if we did not linger here.” Tylen ducked
his head before the bewildered crowd. “This will get ugly soon
enough.”
Ryan nodded anxiously as two of Tylen’s men helped Caine over
the crest of pit. The rogue warcaster was covered in ash and soot;
he swayed with fatigue. Or possibly despair, Ryan conceded. Still,
he seemed to have all his body parts and wasn’t losing any blood.
“I don’t need any help,” Caine insisted, struggling to break free
of his helping hands.
300 | MILES HOLMES

Ryan was at his side, watching him carefully for signs of shock.
“Allister, we need to get out of here. We can talk about what
happened with Cynthia later.”
“The watch is coming. All of them, I think,” Watts warned
from his perch atop the ruins, scoping the avenue with Swan
Song. “By the by, where did we finish our count?”
“Are you paying attention? Caine just lost his girl.” Ryan
glowered at him, though in truth the thought that he had run the
table with her this night had crossed her mind. “This is hardly the
time to discuss it.”
“All right,” Watts said with a shrug, “but just so you know, I
count thirty-seven.”
“Thirty-nine,” Ryan shot back. Then she blanched, looking at
the battered Caine. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Caine grunted, righting himself and
starting to walk the avenue under his own steam. “Take care of
yerselves.”
“Wait,” she said. “What is your plan? Do you have one?”
“The Scharde Islands,” Caine answered, stumbling but moving.
“What?” Watts looked after the departing warcaster with a
cocked head. But before Ryan could answer him, he squinted and
looked to his scope again. “Oh, that’s not good.”
“What is it?” Tylen asked.
“That’s not the watch. That’s regular army,” Watts called out.
“Full platoon of regular cavalry. Two warjacks—no, make that
three. I see trenchers, too. A lot of them. I reckon we must be
under martial law after they found poor Harbins.” He hopped
down from his perch, turning in Caine’s direction.
“I’m surprised it took this long,” Tylen said to Ryan as she
followed Caine down the avenue. “The sooner we get back to my
place, the better.”
Ryan nodded at him but then jogged ahead. She caught up to
Caine and put a hand on his shoulder to slow him down. “You
should come with us. We need to talk about this.”
Caine blinked, his stride unchecked. “There’s nothing to say.
I’m going to the Scharde Islands to find Cynthia.”
 MARK OF CAINE | 301

“Over here,” Tylen signaled, standing by an opened grate to

the sewers. “This is our best way out.”
“Hold on, Tylen.” Ryan turned her attention back to the
dispassionate warcaster. “You don’t have to do this alone.”
Caine came to a halt. “Of course I do. It’s suicide. Who else
would do it?”
“Just come with us and listen,” Ryan pleaded. “I believe there’s
a chance to save her.”
Caine looked narrowly at the gun mage then back to Tylen at the
sewer grate. He raised one weary eyebrow at her, and she nodded.
“I am sure of it,” she said.
Caine let out a sigh. “Fine.”
•••

CAINE WALKED THE SEWERS AMONG the ragtag group, alone in his
thoughts. He was removed from the sounds of cavalry trotting past
an overhead sewer grate, even the entire army top-side looking for
him now. He followed Tylen’s lead wordlessly until Ryan pulled
even alongside him. She eyed him thoughtfully, considering her
words.
“Let’s have it, then,” he finally said.
“Laris’ apogee.”
The rogue warcaster frowned, Ryan’s words lost on him.
“You remember what Deneghra said?” She watched Caine, his
distracted mind struggling to make sense of the question.
“Yes. A ceremony at Laris’ apogee,” Caine muttered. “Caen’s
second moon. Never had a reason to learn astronomy.”
Ryan smiled, though most of the faces looking back at her
wore a similar frown as Caine’s. “Now, can someone tell me when
Laris’ apogee is? Do we need to find an astronomer?”
“Two months’ time. Ashtoven 17, I believe,” Tylen said quickly
then. Seeing frowns turned to him, he added with a shrug, “I’ve a
telescope for things like this.”
“Where you goin’ with this?” Watts asked.
Ryan said, “What I’m saying is we might actually have time to
plan something.
302 | MILES HOLMES

“Two months.” Caine straightened his stance, his gaze

narrowing as they walked the dim path of the sewer. But he
stopped unexpectedly in his tracks.
“What is it?” Ryan asked.
“Why the hell would yeh come with me?” He looked between
Watts and Ryan.
“Way I see it, we still owe Deneghra for Cap’n,” Watts said.
Ryan nodded. “We’re in this to the end.”
“Yeh realize even if yeh survive, yeh’ll be fugitives, same as me?”
Caine pursed his lips. “And you can count on Rebald to figure out
our little partnership quick enough.”
“He already made that clear,” Watts grunted. “Told us we were
dead if we hadn’t killed you by sundown. You don’t look so dead
to me.”
Caine shook his head. “He’s got some serious stones, that one.
But he’s not fooling you.”
“Oh, to hell with Rebald,” Ryan said dismissively. “This is what
I signed up for.”
“I can help as well,” Tylen replied. “I’ve connections from
Caspia to Five Fingers and beyond. Some truly unsavory people,
you understand. If any of them know of Deneghra’s little ceremony,
it’s only a matter of crowns to get them to talk.”
“That’d be a great help, chum,” Caine said, nodding, his
demeanor slowly changing. A fire was beginning to burn behind
his eyes again as he looked between the gun mages. “I get the
feeling we’re going to need a few supplies along the way. Maybe
more than just the three of us, too, if I’m to be completely honest.”
Ryan asked, “You’re thinking a few mercenaries?”
Caine shook his head, straightening to his full height. “More
like an army of them.”
 — EPILOGUE —

2 weeks later, port of Five Fingers

ANTON STANOV STEPPED LIVELY down the gangplank of the HMS

Resilience, slipping past his slower shipmates and onto the dock
with a wink and a nod. The tall, slender helmsman was young
with a deeply bronzed complexion, owing to days spent above
deck and his mixed Ordic and Umbrean heritage. Under his hat,
his shoulder-length black hair had been neatly oiled back, and
he had dressed in his best clothes, fully aware of where the night
would take him.
If they had more time to spend in port, Stanov might well have
hit the local tavern and tried to find himself companionship the
old-fashioned way. As it was, his ship was only at port for a single
night, leaving him no time for such a sentimental tradition. The
jingle of royals in his pocket would settle the matter soon enough,
and he knew just the place.
The last two months at sea had put a stirring in his loins and
a fire in his belly. Rum, they had aplenty of aboard the Resilience.
304 | MILES HOLMES

Likely the crew would long ago have mutinied without it. But
women and food worth eating were another matter entirely. He
whistled as he walked, the façade of the Red Lady Tavern almost
in sight on the corner of the avenue.
The street before him fairly bustled, but that was nothing
new for Five Fingers; the place was always hopping. Whatever
the dangers—and this place had more than its share—the pirates’
haven had proved to be an adventure every time he set foot on
the quay. Stanov clapped his hands together as he reached the
Red Lady. If luck were on his side, perhaps his best girl Sadie
might even be free. This particular evening’s adventure was about
to begin, and it seemed to have no limits.
There was shouting nearby. A quarrelsome Khadoran he
regretted to call his shipmate was the source, which came as no
surprise to Stanov.
Drobosk, why is it always you? he sighed silently.
“You are for sale, and I’ve money. What is problem?” Drobosk
shouted with mock humor, more for the crowd than for the
woman before him.
“Touch me again, and you’ll pull back a stump,” the woman
replied, and at once, the hair on Stanov’s neck stood up. Such
spirit! Her Cygnaran accent too was sublime. Stanov moved closer,
smiling as he did so.
“Say there, Drobosk.” Stanov came up beside his shipmate,
stepping into his sightline more to see past him than to announce
himself as a friend. Drobosk turned, grunting with surprise as he
found himself moved aside.
“Stanov,” he said, his acne-plagued face contorted in a frown.
“You have seen this before? A whore in Five Fingers who does not
want my money?”
“Easy, my friend. The Red Lady is right here. What need do we
have of—” It was then, of course, that Stanov saw her.
She was just the sort of slim and hard-eyed woman he
preferred, her skin flawless and her hair cropped short, reddish
brown. Already his legs were growing weak. Her eyes were a
perfect crystal blue, framed by a lean face made all the more
 MARK OF CAINE | 305

fierce by Drobosk’s boorish behavior.

At once, Stanov knew he had found his adventure.
“Milady,” he said, doffing his wide-brimmed hat. “I am Anton.
Can I assist you?”
The angry woman seemed to have forgotten Drobosk, too,
greeting Stanov with a cold smile. “They didn’t say you were so—”
She caught herself, shaking her head with the return of her frown.
“I mean, there’s no problem. None whatsoever.”
“Thanks for help, Stanov.” Drobosk reasserted himself into the
exchange, taking the lady by the arm. “Now, come with me. I
have been at sea long time.”
The woman looked at Drobosk’s hand with disdain, quickly
balling her free hand to a fist. A moment later, Drobosk was laid
out flat on his back with a broken nose.
Stanov blinked, unsure he had seen what he knew he had
just seen. Staring down at the nearly unconscious Drobosk, he
struggled to speak at all. “Are you not a—well, you know.” He
looked at her with widening eyes.
The woman glowered at Drobosk as she flexed her hand. “Oh,
I am certainly that.” She turned to face him. “Just not for him.”
Stanov swallowed. “And me?”
The woman had him by the arm, leading him past the Red
Lady, apparently headed for another tavern a block away. She
moved at a breathless pace, so much so that Stanov could scarcely
believe his luck.
“What is your name?” He asked as they fell into the press of
the crowd.
“Darsey,” she said, half-smiling.
In moments they were through the door of the busy tavern,
moving up the stairs nearly two at a time. Stanov’s heart was
racing. He wanted to kiss this woman, first tenderly and then not
so much. As she led him into her room, he turned for her with
such excitement that he failed to notice the two men sitting on
the bed playing cards.
“Ahem,” she said, her eyes leading Stanov back in the direction
of the bed.
306 | MILES HOLMES

He turned back, startled. A tall man of early middle age, dark-

haired with streaks of grey at the temple and darker eyes, looked
back at him coolly. The man wore an intricate suit of warcaster
armor under a full-length leather duster. He wore an impressive
pair of pistols. Next to him, a more world-weary man with
crooked teeth sat grinning. The older man wore thick spectacles
and had an unusually long pistol at his side.
“Three pair, Allister.” Grinning still, the older man threw his
hand down on the bed. “You’re busted.”
“What else is new,” the man called Allister said, throwing
his own hand down despairingly. He looked at Stanov with an
appraising sigh. “So, you’re Stanov? Anton Stanov? Former
helmsman of the privateer ship Coiled Serpent?”
Stanov swallowed hard. “That was a long time ago. I sail for
House Mateu now. It’s all above board, I swear.” He dared a glance
for the door, just as the woman named Darsey shut it.
“Sorry, Anton, but we really do need to talk,” she said, her
eyes sympathetic, though another long, rune-inscribed pistol had
appeared in her hand. She gestured with the weapon for him to
sit.
“Rumor has it the Coiled Serpent is a rare breed. One of a select
few mainland ships given leave to supply the Dragon’s Roost,” the
one with the bad teeth said.
Stanov did not like the sound of this. Not at all. “Why are you
asking?”
The man said, “That would mean her helmsman knows the
route into it like the back of his hand. Right down to where every
last trap, lookout, and sandbar is, all along the way.”
Stanov blanched. “Captain Norich would kill me if he knew I
was talking to anyone about this. I’m lucky enough he didn’t kill
me already, given our falling out. Please, I’m just an honest sailor
now.”
“An honest sailor who knows his way safely in and out of
the Dragon’s Roost.” Darsey smiled coyly. “That makes you very
special, Anton.”
“Why would you want to go there? Do you have any idea the
 MARK OF CAINE | 307

things that live there? It is a nightmare you don’t wake up from.”

Stanov shook his head, sure these people must be ignorant instead
of crazy. He could make them understand. “You need more than a
helmsman. You need a ship with the mark of passage, or else they
will destroy you on sight.”
“A ship like the Coiled Serpent?” the one called Allister said.
“Because we have the Coiled Serpent.”
Now Stanov knew these people were crazy. “Of course, you
are lying. Captain Norich would kill you with his bare hands
before he gave you his ship. He’s a very bad man, you see.” Stanov
assumed the deadliest tone he possessed. “A very, very bad man.”
“Anton,” Darsey said sweetly, “understand you’re being press-
ganged by some very bad people.”
“Very, very bad people,” Allister said, smiling darkly.
Stanov swallowed, his legs swaying faintly. “What did you do
to the captain?”
The one with the teeth drew a finger across his throat, smiling
his ugly smile.
Stanov was breathing hard now, and he was beginning to think
he might faint.
Darsey smiled, pulling Stanov by the chin away from the
menace of the man with the bad teeth to look her in the eye. “He
didn’t want to charter us. Will you charter us? Because I would
really be so grateful if you did.”
With a deep breath and a trembling hand, Anton Stanov put
his hand out for Darsey to shake. She took it with a firm grip and
a warm smile.
“Who are you people?” Stanov stood trembling, staring at
Darsey’s hand in his. At least her skin was soft, he told himself.
The one called Allister smiled without humor. “We’re the
Hellslingers.”
 — ABOUT THE AUTHOR —

Miles Holmes is a game designer with experience in the industry

going back more than fifteen years. He’s worked on a lot of
games, including well-known franchises like Mass Effect, Sonic
the Hedgehog, and Full Auto. He has also played tabletop games
since he was a kid, and has spent far too much money on games
like WARMACHINE. He writes fiction on his website, www.
infinitygate.com, where he offers free content for interested
parties. He recently released his first full novel, Tales of the Invisible
Hand, also available from Skull Island eXpeditions.
 Tales of the
Invisible Hand
Miles Holmes

The following excerpt is from the first book in brand-new science

fiction/fantasy series from author Miles Holmes. Tales of the Invisible
Hand offers a fantastic alternate-history Earth setting that readers
of the Iron Kingdoms fiction will find enthralling. The following
introduces readers to Max Braun, a historian of the future, and his
theories about what preceded the history of our world, taking back to
a time before what we have always believed was the birth of man…

™
 RIDDLE OF THE ANT
You can’t know where you’re going until you know where you’ve been.
So it goes, right?
But here’s the gag: we don’t know. We probably never have, and
we probably never will. As a species, we’re chronic amnesiacs. Near as
we can tell, Homo sapiens like us have walked the Earth for over two
hundred millennia. Just try for a moment to wrap your head around
that much time. Then consider that the entire sum of human history
barely accounts for one percent of that time.
Knowing this, could man have a greater mystery to solve than
the riddle of man himself? In the pages of this journal, I offer my
own journey into this frontier. Though my research has long been
discounted by my peers, the artifacts it has uncovered remain and
with them, my conclusions—chiefly, that modern man has profoundly
underestimated pre-historic man.
Not so long ago, even I would have laughed at such hyperbole. My
story begins twelve years ago in the former Republic of Iraq. It was
there I led my first archaeological expedition, deep into the wastelands
of that failed state. Three days from the gates of Amman to the dry
lake of Hammar we traveled, avoiding hostile tribesmen and sand-
swallowed ruins until at last we set foot in the very cradle of human
civilization, the oldest city known to man.
Eridu.
Having published collegial papers on the origins of the Tower of
Babel a year earlier, I was delighted to receive a sizable bursary from
a wealthy if reclusive patron only a few months later. Yet as is often
cautioned, one must be careful what one wishes for. So it was with me.
Though I had come looking for a mere tower, it was instead the
surreal I found. Within the first week alone, I had little doubt that
Sumerian civilization had been founded over the ruins of another.
Incredibly, these precursors appeared to possess knowledge rivaling
our own.
The tower itself we found readily enough; the sheer scale of the
thing could not long escape notice by our sophisticated instruments.
 TALES OF THE INVISIBLE HAND

And though it was reduced to no more than a ruined foundation

twenty meters beneath the surface, the structure hinted at fantasy from
the very start. Just as in the biblical account, it could have supported
a truly massive tower, the equal of any modern skyscraper. Further,
the foundation’s architecture featured precise lines and a unique
honeycomb, one at odds with anything built around it. While it was
resistant to all but thermo-luminescent dating, even this method led
us to an impossible conclusion: that the tower had been raised some
seventy thousand years ago. How? For what purpose? We faced too
many questions, and we had only just begun. As we delved deeper,
we uncovered a series of sub-chambers. It was there we found the
artifacts.
Foremost among them, we identified a curious archive of cuneiform
tablets. Immediate study of the tablets suggested a dramatic end to the
tower amidst fire and chaos, in a time long before the rise of Sumer.
Yet the tablets proved to be no more than a ruse, soon crumbling
to reveal plates of rare and precious metals marked with an unknown
language and pictographs. Additional study of these plates would later
reveal so much more, as I will detail in the chapters to come.
Yet for all that we gleaned in Eridu, I confess it is the pistol that
haunts me to this day.
Discovered within a case of similar composition to the plates, the
weapon was an unmistakable marvel of craftsmanship and design to
behold. It yet defies both dating and the ravages of time, leaving only
one’s imagination to reflect upon its true nature.
That a structure might have been raised some seventy thousand
years ago alone demands we re-consider the middle Palaeolithic age.
Yet to hold in my hand a functioning revolver of potential comparable
antiquity leaves me in breathless wonder as to the missing pages of
humanity’s story.
Who were these people to wield guns in an age of stone knives and
spears? By what means did they roam the Earth, and how did their
journey end?

—Professor Max Braun, “Revelations of Eridu,” 2069

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 MILES HOLMES

Journey now, back to an age of adventure and intrigue to meet a

civilization swallowed by the gulf of time. We begin with the young
scout Zekh var Zaehn, flying his first away mission for the nomadic
Thae-ano Flotilla and already in deep trouble for insubordination.
His only passenger and superior officer, the grim-faced Neanderthal
inquisitor Gavross Gaur, charts a path to the frontier of this savage
and ancient world, charged to find answers for a sudden spate of
tribal unrest and set things right. Yet as the pair is about to discover,
some stones are better left unturned…

LHOTT BY DAWN
“AIR MARSHAL, AIR MARSHAL, identify Thae-ano craft four-two-five-
five. Please respond.” Zekh keyed his headset, indifferent to the
silence. With a shrug, he released the key and gripped the yoke
with both hands, his keen eyes scanning the horizon.
The dawn sky was a perfect blue gradient, broken rarely by
low-hanging stratus clouds. Drifting high above one such bank,
Zekh raised throttle then put his airship into a dive. Within the
cockpit, the projection sphere cast radiant glyphs in the air about
his face, tracking his every move. Tumbling left, he banked steeply
to catch the wisps of the cloud. Immediately there was a howl of
discontent from below. With a glint of mischief in his eye, he
leveled off, resuming a more gradual descent.
Even this early, it was a glorious day, and Zekh could not help
but glow along with the rising sun. Once more the Qinta was
aloft, and he was where he most wished to be: nestled in the age-
worn nook of her cockpit. He savored every feeling here, from the
throb of the engines that shook him raw to the rush in his belly
with each loop or dive.
The rattling old airship was a Korvanite commission, three
centuries old and far from the fastest in the Flotilla. Her rivets
had been replaced many times over, and her silver skin had
been patched in countless places. Her engines predated her

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commission, salvaged from an even older relic. Despite drawing

on first-generation power cores, they also predictably stalled at
full throttle. The Qinta creaked with even the most casual of
maneuvers as though she might suddenly shatter into pieces.
Zekh didn’t care. For all her flaws, she was a thing of beauty.
She was his.
Her stubby silver-and-black-striped fuselage was just over a
dozen yards long, framed by tandem ellipsoid wings. Spanning
twenty yards aft and fifteen ahead, each wing mounted a transverse
tilt rotor engine for variable vector thrust. The aft wings also
sported matching tail rudders, each five yards tall. Atop the back
of her fuselage sat Zekh’s bubble-like cockpit, appointed with
threadbare bucket seats and an inglorious press-metal dash.
As with any airship considered a scout of the Flotilla, the
Qinta had been retrofitted with a projection sphere at her dash
and a sensitive detection array along her belly. And at her nose
jutted quad Sparkler guns and even a long first-generation lance.
Built by the Thae-ano of old, the high-powered beam weapon was
a rare treasure for a scout. And once it had been fitted for war six
decades ago, no one had seen fit to remove it since. Thus was his
Qinta equipped to fight if the situation demanded it, however
unlikely that might be.
Regardless of what she’d been called over the centuries of her
service, she was his to name, as far as Zekh was concerned, and
he had exercised his rite of title by choosing the moniker of the
terrifying demon-fish from the lore of his lost village: the Qinta-
Kaa. He’d even gone so far as to paint her nose with the jaws and
eyes of the fearsome beast.
Leveling off directly under the bank, Zekh let the tail rudders
rake the cloud above. It seemed to him as though they were
daggers slicing the underside of a grain sack, and with a dumb
grin he pictured the contents spilling as he went. From the ladder
beneath his feet came a stumbling noise and an awkward smack of
head to bulkhead, followed immediately by a sharp curse.
“Explain this rough passage, scout!” the Sh’Col demanded,
making his way up the tiny ladder into the two-seater cockpit.

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 MILES HOLMES

Zekh chuckled softly to watch this oversized Makai try to squeeze

into the narrow adjacent seat.
“Apologies Sh’Col, just avoiding a little rough air,” he lied with
all the deadpan he could muster. Yet in short order, his repressed
grin fought itself loose.
“Pshtak!” the Sh’Col swore. “You are reckless. You seem to
forget your flight status is probationary. I warned your Kivra you
were not ready, and you demonstrate it for me time and again.”
His baleful eyes bored into Zekh with an intensity that caused
the scout to shrink in his seat. Still, he met the glare with his best
impression of innocence.
The Sh’Col rolled his eyes. “Oh, and did you think last night’s
weapons discharge had gone unnoticed?”
Zekh swallowed, his face flushed.
“Yes, it was noticed. If you find our protocols so chafing, you
need not worry, boy. After my report is tendered, you will not be
asked to abide by them again.” The middle-aged Makai plucked
his beard until at last his glare drifted out beyond the windscreen.
After a moment of silence, he turned to regard Zekh again.
“And just what is it you always appear to be so pleased about?
Do we not have problems enough for you?”
Zekh shrugged. “I. . . Well, I can fly, Sh’Col. Where I come
from, that makes men and the gods just about the same. You
Makai ascended a long time ago. Maybe you’re just used to it by
now.”
“So, what of it?”
“So, the world is a hard place. People die all the time, often for
no good reason. I guess it just seems to me there’s no threat can’t
be made small with enough altitude, and here’s me with an airship
of my very own. What more could I ask?”
The Sh’Col snorted. “A ridiculous philosophy. I certainly hope
we have parted ways by the time reality comes calling to set you
straight.”
“Sh’Col, please.” The young scout paused to adjust his
wireframe headset. It was time to deflect the conversation. And
fast. He remembered that his passenger had said nothing of his

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solitary excursion since arriving back at camp. “You disappear for

two days and come back to say the Hetakz are preparing for war.
So, what are we doing about it?”
“May I presume you read the mission brief prior to departure?”
the Sh’Col snorted.
Zekh looked past a series of coolant readings in mid-air,
reviewing the brief in his head, then cleared his throat. “Investigate
reports of tribal instability in the region,” he recited, “Gomeer and
Hetakz ranges.”
He turned to the Sh’Col with an arched eyebrow. “That’s what
mine said. Now, from one end of Hrrta to the other, you can take
your pick of primitives. At any given time, half of them don’t get
along. So, what exactly is the trouble with these two?”
The Sh’Col’s brow furrowed. “Very well,” he said, looking
beyond the riveted panes of the cockpit and out into the open
sky. “The problem is the Hetakz have been offered the Hand of
Ascension.”
Zekh whistled. “What? Why didn’t you say so? When did this
happen?”
“Three years ago. They nearly have our language already. We
had planned to begin the next phase early next season, but now...”
“What’s wrong?”
The Sh’Col shook his head. “Unless we can resolve the situation,
they will be forsaken.”
Lining up a new heading from the myriad glowing projections
before him, Zekh tried to reconcile the Sh’Col’s revelations. “The
Sh’Col order keeps tabs on many tribes. This sort of thing does
happen, right?” Zekh scanned the horizon to studiously ignore
the stern glare his comment had drawn.
“Do you truly know so little our ways, boy? The Hand of
Ascension is the most sacred rite of our hosts. Once begun, it is an
undertaking and investment both, and it is not easily discarded.”
“I get it.”
“Convince me.” the Sh’Col scoffed.
Zekh sighed. With a deep breath, he resolved to offer the first
and most fundamental of the catechisms. He held a free hand out,

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his fingers closed into a fist.

“The hand that guides brings one more to the greater good.
The hand has five fingers.” He put his pinky finger up. “The first
finger grants the word of Thae-ano. By speech and the written
word can their education begin, and with it their first step on
the path to the greater good.” He glanced at the Sh’Col to find
him still watching expectantly. With a shrug, he put up his next
finger. “The second finger grants the numbers of Thae-ano. By
mathematics and measurement might their world be better
observed.”
Zekh took a breath, extending his middle finger, his attention
turned to the horizon. “The third finger grants the industry of
Thae-ano. By our wisdom might they recognize their resources
and how best to cultivate them. Instilled are the principles of
agriculture, craft, and manufacture that they may find their way
to prosperity. Should these three fingers be grasped in peace, the
fourth finger”—Zekh now raised his index finger—“grants the
rule of Thae-ano. By the tenets of our constitution will they adopt
the stability of a just and elected council that their freedom and
prosperity be long-lived.”
“And the last?”
Zekh extended his thumb, his hand now fully opened. “The
thumb grants the science of Thae-ano. By the principles of our
science might they navigate their future. Whatever path it may
take, when the hand has been embraced, we are all drawn to the
greater good.” Knowing he had omitted or even maligned some
words of the verse, Zekh winced at his stern companion, expecting
reproach.
“Very well,” the Sh’Col conceded. “Never forget we are, all
of us, indebted by this rite. All eight nations of the League were
raised in this manner at one time or another.”
Zekh nodded, though the Sh’Col’s final words chafed. “And
some few have been lost along the way, too. As it was with my
people.” he spoke softly as the Qinta began to bank. He looked
ahead to find the faint shadow of mountains across the horizon line.
The Makai cast a narrowing glance Zekh’s way. “Perhaps I’ve

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overlooked the reason your Kivra chose you after all.” He pursed
his lips, on the edge of saying something.
“What?”
“You understand the situation. The League is a patchwork of
civilization spread wide over a barbaric frontier. Savages vastly
outnumber us. Most of them will kill for nothing more than the
shoes on a man’s feet. And in the entire last century, only three
tribes showed the non-violent potential for contact, including
your own.”
Zekh blinked at the Sh’Col, momentarily at a loss for words.
“Yours might have grown to join the League as a full nation
one day. The Hetakz yet may. And we have the chance to help
them now. Do you understand?”
“I suppose. But to what end? If my lessons are right, they’ve
been at this for, what? Three thousand years? What difference does
a tribe like mine or the Hetakz make, really?” Zekh shrugged.
“Whatever is meant by the greater good, has it not more or less
been achieved?”
The Sh’Col shook his head. “The greater good is the restoration
of men as it was at the height of the Thae-ano Empire. The greater
good is a world of science and hope, not savagery and fear.
Nothing less.”
Zekh edged the Qinta into a descent, noting a swirl of air
pressure glyphs materializing over the amber vector as his airship
continued to the distant mountains. He had heard most of the
Sh’Col’s explanation before from the scholars. Yet it never sat
entirely right with him, and here was an actual Sh’Col to question.
“And nothing more?”
The Sh’Col blinked at him. “A valid question. I have descended
the hold of Ursis and peered inside the vault they keep there. I
have seen the ancient tomes lined row after row. Memorials of
heroes lost and battles won. An armory of Gol suits. Plasma lances
and other wizardry that I cannot begin to guess the purpose of.
Often have I wondered at the unspoken history that brought a
vast and ageless people to just a few thousand survivors. Even the
history they are willing to speak of presents a troubling pattern.”

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 MILES HOLMES

“What do you mean?”

“If the Hand of Ascension has been observed for three thousand
years, why do we find ourselves a League of only eight nations?”
Zekh grimaced. The discussion was fast slipping into the
surreal. “What are you saying?”
“I only ask a question.” Gaur shrugged. “For now, the task of
keeping one more tribe on the path is before us. If it be in my
power, it shall be done.”
The Sh’Col’s face broke into a mirthless smile. It was the first
time Zekh had seen such from the Sh’Col, and he was immediately
convinced Gaur’s smile was worse than his scowl, given the feral
teeth he exposed.
“You’ve never spoken with Makai before, have you?” The
Sh’Col chuckled.
Zekh shook his head.
“Never ask Makai questions you do not wish to hear the
answers to.”
“I’ll remember that, Sh’Col.” Zekh refocused on his projection
sphere. The amber vector of his trajectory was paired with a
steadily descending glyph. “We should make the capital of Lhott
in twenty-two minutes.”
The Sh’Col’s attention was drawn to beyond the Qinta’s
windscreen, and he took in the view with a deeply drawn breath.
“My grandfather was the Sh’Col who brokered the ascension of
Lhott. Did you know that?”
Zekh shook his head. “I suppose that explains why you are
here.”
“Indeed. I am obliged to matters that attend his legacy.”
At that moment, Zekh noted a hazard glyph dancing just
above his nose. His eyes darted ahead for an explanation only to
find the mountains looming ever closer.
The Sh’Col didn’t seem to notice; he grunted, his face twisted
to a frown. Stealing a sidelong glance, Zekh saw him grasp for an
unseen object tucked into the collar of his tunic.
“You know, you still haven’t told me what you saw down
there,” Zekh noted, scanning the horizon.

320
 TALES OF THE INVISIBLE HAND

The Sh’Col grunted again, nodding this time. “Your brief tells
the bulk of it. Indeed, I saw mounting aggression between the
Hetakz and Gomeer tribes. All over an apparent trade dispute.”
“A trade dispute?” Zekh frowned. For the most part, tribesmen
and ascended kept to their separate selves. “Whatever would they
have to trade?”
“Food for livestock, primarily. Gomi beasts are prized
throughout Lhott, and the Hetakz keep vast herds of them.
In truth, it was the stability of this peaceful exchange that first
brought the Hetakz to our attention.”
“So, what happened?”
“While gathering their winter stores, the Hetakz claim the
caravans from Lhott simply stopped arriving.”
“Why would Lhott do that?”
“The Hetakz claim Lhott was lured into new bargains with the
Gomeer, who also tend Gomi herds. So, I sought out the Gomeer
chieftains to investigate the truth of these claims. But the Gomeer
denied any involvement, and I found no reason to doubt them.
Thus must we seek an answer in Lhott itself.”
Zekh balked at oddity of the situation. He was not and could
never be as studied as a Sh’Col, but he was not ignorant of Lhott.
Among the most distant and more guarded nations of the League,
Lhott was known to be honorable enough—it would never have
been chosen for ascension otherwise. The Sh’Col watched with a
knowing grimace as Zekh worked through the situation.
“Now,” Gaur said at last, “you see something of the life of a
Sh’Col.”
Movement at the periphery of his left windowpane cut short
Zekh’s reply. He jerked his head around and dipped his wings for a
better look at the surface of the land below. “Oh, that’s not good,”
he muttered.
Far beneath them, a hundred Gomeer tribesmen were on the
move. Each rode beasts as the Sh’Col had earlier, and the dust
cloud they stirred up made them easy to spot from above. Their
barbed spears were drawn, and they moved with a menacing
precision southeast.

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 MILES HOLMES

“What is it?” the Sh’Col snapped, trying to see over Zekh’s

shoulder. The young scout brought the Qinta around to give his
passenger a better look, pointing as he did.
“That’s a war party,” Zekh said.
“Just as I feared.” The Sh’Col simmered for only an instant
before he erupted, pounding his fist on the dash.
“Wait. Can’t we do something?” Zekh looked across at the
hunched, furious Makai.
“They will not listen. It has gone too far.” The Sh’Col scowled,
tracking the fast-moving riders below. “If we are swift, we might
broker an arrangement for Lhott to airlift the goods promised to
the Hetakz. But of course, the Gomeer are committed now. This
complicates things greatly.”
“Is it possible Lhott wanted this to happen?”
The Sh’Col regarded Zekh with narrowed eyes. “Why would
you ask such a question?”
“It’s a possibility, isn’t it?” Zekh pressed.
Gaur pulled his beard. “Yes. Yes, it is. They are also well aware
of the status of the Hetakz. If they are undermining our efforts,
there will be consequences.”
Zekh’s attention, still drawn over the side of his canopy,
snapped forward as a ping sounded in his ear. Looking once
more at his vector, he saw it now glowed green, a hexagonal glyph
bulging midway.
“That’s it,” he said. “We’ve just crossed the first marker into
Lhott.”

322
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THE WAY OF CAINE

by Miles Holmes

A lister Caine has always been an enigma and an outsider among the warcasters
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Born into poverty, Allister Caine did what he must to survive, and the choices
he made have followed him like a vengeful specter throughout his life. Now, just
months after the Lion’s Coup and his full commission as a warcaster, he has been
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mercenaries camped inside Cygnar’s borders threaten hostility against the country’s
divided nobility. In a test of grit and arcane power, Caine alone must make choices
that will affect all the nations of the Iron Kingdoms.
Follow Cygnar’s most unpredictable warcaster from his early days on the streets
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THE BLOOD OF KINGS

by Douglas Seacat

T hree men who would be king threaten to sunder a kingdom, provoking a

war that will drown its lands in blood.
Amid the backdrop of a new Cygnaran civil war, the fate of the kingdom
depends on the outcome of a covert struggle between two powerful warcasters—
the gun mage Allister Caine and the mercenary warlord Asheth Magnus. Caine
faces a moral quandary as he seeks to kill the bastard son of Cygnar’s former
king, knowing he must end an innocent life to preserve the peace. But Magnus
is equally determined to see the bastard crowned as king—and is willing to kill
anyone who gets in his way. Regardless of who emerges the victor, the blood of
kings must be spilled to end an otherwise interminable war.

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