Inside with them, Alys Carroll was pale but indignant. “You should have heeded my warning. I could have shown you a safe path. Headmaster Albans trained me in the school’s defenses against enemies. I know how to penetrate those walls — and how to get past the obstacles around them.”

With her legs wrapped and the wounds sealed, Anari insisted on going back out before dawn. “Very well, we’ll try again. This time, you will lead, Alys.” She glanced over her shoulder at Manford and said, “The mind of man is holy — and the blood of my enemies is bright red.”

Refusing to acknowledge her injuries and forcing herself to walk without a limp, Anari took another Swordmaster team, and this time the Mentat trainee guided them through hillocks of marsh grass, over fallen logs that bridged rivulets of water. Carroll flitted along, confident in the placement of her feet, while Swordmasters followed.

The woman reached a wider channel that served as a moat guarding the Mentat School. “There are stepping-stones just beneath the surface. You can’t see them with all the peat and debris in the water, but if you know where to place your feet, we can cross. Watch where I step.” Carroll flashed them a determined grin. “It will look as if we’re walking on water.”

She went forward. Anari followed her into the channel, and the Swordmaster’s foot found a flat stepping-stone, barely submerged and unseen. Solid. The Mentat student picked her way forward, and the Swordmasters copied her steps, forming a line across the expanse of water.

Carroll was ready to take her next step, but Anari called for her to pause, and gestured for everyone else to stop. She pointed at floating black forms, mostly submerged, in the water nearby. Anari counted four. “Those are not fallen logs.”

Alys Carroll’s eyes widened. “Swamp dragons.”

The shapes drifted aimlessly. One floated closer to the Butlerian Mentat, who had frozen in place. But as the monster came close, Anari pounced onto the stepping-stone next to Carroll and thrust with her sword. When she stabbed the armored creature, it did not resist.

Anari plunged her blade again, looking for blood, sure that the struggle would attract the other swamp dragons. But the shape simply bobbed and drifted away. Anari snagged it with the point of her sword and pulled the thing closer.

It was indeed a swamp dragon: a hideous, scaled creature with powerful jaws and long fangs … but it was already dead, a preserved specimen, dissected and stuffed.

“Merely a decoy to frighten us,” Carroll said. “A trick from the Headmaster.”

Anari nodded. “A stalling tactic. But it won’t work for long.”

Carroll turned forward again, scanning the starlit water ahead. “Follow me.” She moved to the next submerged stepping-stone, then jumped to a third and a fourth. Another fake swamp dragon drifted toward them. Anari stabbed it with her sword just to make sure, and the stuffed specimen floated away.

The Swordmaster commandos followed on the precise stepping-stones. Anari watched the placement carefully and imitated Carroll. The other woman moved ahead, jumping confidently until they were halfway across the width of the waterway. Then she gasped in surprise and fell in. Splashing and flailing around, she tried to locate the stepping-stone. “It was here! The Headmaster must have moved the stones. He—”

Anari swung her head, alert. “Look out!”

One of the floating swamp dragons was not so listless after all, but had been lying in wait for its prey to make a mistake. Struggling to pull herself out of the water, Carroll turned as the creature surged out of the brown slurry, lunging for her. The monster hooked its powerful jaws on to her torso and crunched down, barely giving her time for a whimpering scream before she vanished underwater.

Anari didn’t know where the next stepping-stone might be, and she couldn’t fight that creature in the murky water. The other commandos, poised on unseen stepping-stones, watched the swamp dragon attack, then began a swift retreat. Many of them missed the hidden stones and slipped into the water, which only increased their panic. Then someone imagined he saw razorjaws swimming around them and yelled out. If the nearby swamp dragon hadn’t already had its meal, Anari’s followers would all have been killed in their frenzy to escape.

Anari remembered her Swordmaster training clearly, focused her thoughts, and made herself calm. She forced herself to recall where the stepping-stones were behind her, and jumped from one to the next to the next. She barely caught the last one on its edge, swayed to catch her balance, and heaved herself onto solid ground again while the rest of the scout party splashed and crawled to the shore.

Disgusted with herself, Anari looked back at the still-untouched Mentat School.

GILBERTUS REMAINED ON the battlements far into the night. Flickers of light, splashing, and screams on the sangrove swamp side told him that the Butlerians had made an ill-advised sortie. He hadn’t needed to lift a finger to respond. The swamp and the marsh lake provided all the defenses the school needed for now.

Next to him, Anna Corrino gazed into the darkness, listening to the sounds. “Our little trick worked. That is comforting.” They were the only two who knew that the decoy swamp dragons had been Erasmus’s idea.

Gilbertus pondered whether he should lie to reassure her, but decided to be honest and forthright. “This is only going to get worse, Anna. Much worse.”

Chapter 64 (As a human being)

Despite her increasing infirmity, Raquella felt a burst of energy, fueled by anger. Gripping a curl of message paper in her hand, she walked at a brisk pace through the plant- and statue-lined portico that had been set up in one of the new school buildings. Her shoes made sharp reports on the tiles, sounds that grew louder as she rounded a corner before coming to a wooden door.

She rapped sharply and stood staring at the door, as if willing it to move. Finally the door opened, and Reverend Mother Valya stood before her in a new black robe.

“I ordered you to attend the reception for Dorotea and her companions from Salusa Secundus.” Raquella waved the message paper under the younger woman’s nose. “Why did you decline?”

Valya had been on Wallach IX for less than a day since returning from Ginaz, but she arrived before Sister Arlett, who was bringing Dorotea from the Imperial Court. Now the transfer ship from Salusa Secundus was about to land at the spaceport, and Raquella didn’t have the time for squabbles or stubbornness. This had to end now!

Valya’s dark eyes hardened. “How can I welcome Dorotea when she is responsible for the murder of so many Sisters? She teaches a heretical group of women that pander to the Emperor and swoon whenever Manford Torondo mutters a command. To invite Dorotea back here, even to suggest that she is still one of us—”

Raquella did not try to quell her emotions. “I am the Mother Superior, and this is my school. I made it clear to everyone — Acolytes, Sisters, and Reverend Mothers alike — that I want the two factions to reconcile before I die. Valya, you must set aside your feelings for the sake of the Sisterhood … for my sake.”

Valya squirmed, obviously fighting her dislike. “I will never trust a turncoat, Mother Superior. On Rossak, you asked me to pretend to be Dorotea’s friend so I could spy on her — I have seen her heart, her unbridled ambition.”