“I hate mud,” Lyddie grumped as she flopped like a potato sack on a Cade guard’s shoulder.  “Mud, mud, muddy mud, mud.  Blech.  Can I have my ball back?”

            “No,” the guard said.  His helmet was back on his head, covering his nose.  After Lyddie’s poop exploit, everyone smelled awful.

            “We’re out of the mud, Lyddie,” Melisma said.  “We left the swamp forever ago.”  She stumbled to keep her position in line.  Her legs were tired, and even walking on dry ground made her thighs ache.  A second guard prodded her back to make her move faster.

            Lyddie sighed.  “I’m out of the mud, but the mud’s not out of me.  I think I swallowed some.”  She had a point.  At that moment, Melisma wanted a hot shower more than anything in the world.

            “You know what I want for my birthday?” Lyddie asked.

            “What?”

            “Not mud.”

            They trudged across a broad field.  Two guards led the way, swords drawn in case of danger.  Lyddie’s guard came next.  He’d slung her over his shoulder about three minutes after they left camp.  Lyddie was good at a lot of things; walking quickly was not one of them.  Whining that her legs hurt was.

            “Whatever the opposite of mud is,” Lyddie continued.  “That’s what I want.  For my birthday, give me a whole bunch of that.”

            Melisma chuckled softly.

            “And maybe a puppy.  Hey, can I have my ball back now?”

            A cluster of pink skyscrapers appeared on the horizon soon after they left Pox Head’s camp.  It loomed larger as they marched across the field.  Elmer had described the center of the Actuarial Modeling Unit as a vast, empty plain – the “Primary Modeling Space,” he’d called it.  If that was where they were headed, then Cade had done a good job of filling the space quickly.  It looked like he’d built a whole city overnight.

            They passed a tall, cement tower.  At the top of the structure, two guards in blue and copper uniforms aimed a cannon towards the swamp.

            Lyddie grew tired of chatting about mud and birthdays.  She stared at the watchtower as they passed, then poked the guard carrying her.  “So, you guys are Cades.  Are those other guards Cades too?”

            “Yes.”  The guard’s voice echoed inside his helmet.

            “Then why do you all have different outfits?  You guys have silver armor, and those guys are more brownish.”

            “Our uniforms represent our rank,” the guard answered.

            “Was that gold guy back at the camp the top guy?  The one who ran after Spaghetti Sauce Face?”

            “Our commander is Cadence the First.  And yes, he wears the only uniform of blue and gold.” 

            Melisma frowned.  Something about their ranking system sounded off.  “But you’re all Cades!  How do some of you outrank each other?  Why does he get to be commander?”

            “He earned it,” the guard replied simply.

            “How?”

            The guard hesitated before answering.  “We serve at the pleasure of His Majesty.”

            “Huh,” Lyddie said.  “So, if you’re all Cades, how can you tell yourselves apart?”

            “It’s on our uniform,” the guard answered.  “I’m Cadence the Twenty-Seventh.”  He moved Lyddie’s legs out of the way and pointed to an insignia on his chest.  It consisted of a simple geometric design, with the numerals “XXVII” inscribed beneath it.  The design itself looked familiar: an upside-down teardrop shape with a diamond inside it, then a black circle inside that.  At the corners of the diamond sat four much smaller diamonds, each inlaid with a tiny, white stone:

            Melisma realized where she’d seen the design before.  “Wait a minute – that’s a baseball diamond!  I thought Cade hated baseball!”

            Cadence the Twenty-Seventh sighed.  “We play at the pleasure of His Majesty.”

***

The city rose higher and higher as they approached, until they stood in the shadow of a massive concrete perimeter wall.  Gleaming skyscrapers loomed behind it, their facades a mosaic of pink sandstone and glass.  There was no real transition from empty prairie to booming, downtown metropolis; the city just started, right in the middle of the scrub grass.  It was a little bizarre.

            The wall that blocked the group’s entrance was strange as well.  The main portion consisted of a row of concrete Jersey barriers, the sort that sometimes appeared on highways, with wide triangular bases and steeply tapered walls.  But these Jersey barriers were enormous; each segment was fifty feet tall and one hundred fifty feet long.  Coils of razor wire ran along the top of each barrier, behind which blue and copper-uniformed Cade guards patrolled, manning cannons every fifty feet.  A row of heavy traffic spikes, the sort that caused severe tire damage to vehicles that drove the wrong way over them, jutted aggressively outward along the base of the wall.  In front of the spikes lay a moat, and in front of that was a barbed wire fence.  Finally, someone had surrounded the whole thing with orange traffic cones, just for good measure.

            Someone really wanted to stop people from getting into this city.

            The girls soon saw why.  A lone figure streaked across the sky above them, spitting jets of fire from a machine on his back.  “Ha ha!  I found it!” he shouted.

            Melisma and Lyddie gaped upward in surprise.  Cadence the Twenty-Seventh groaned.  “Move faster,” he shouted to the guards ahead of him.  “We’ve got to get inside as quickly as possible.”

            Somewhere on the wall, a siren blared.  “Ace attack!” a guard shouted.  “It’s the Ace of Cades!”  Blue- and copper Cades sprinted back and forth between battle stations.

            The figure in the sky flipped a toggle on his jetpack and swooped jauntily toward the wall.  “Lowly guards of Cadia!” he shouted.  “Drop your weapons and join my cause!  Overthrow your evil masters!  Fight with me under the banner of freedom!”

            A Cade guard shouted back from the wall.  “Why would we ever join you?”

            The Ace of Cades laughed.  “I dunno,” he said.  “It’s more fun than guard duty, for one thing.  Oh, and we’ve got tanks!  You want a tank?  I can give you a tank!”

            “Who is that?” Melisma asked.  “What’s going on?”

            “Don’t worry about it,” Cadence the Twenty-Seventh grunted.  “Just keep moving.”

            The Cades on the wall opened fire.  A cannon gave a deafening belch and sent an iron ball whizzing past the Ace of Cade’s feet.  The Ace flipped another toggle and shot skyward to dodge a second cannonball.

            “Very well, miscreants,” he called, “I’ll find someone else to drive the tank.”  He swooped over the barrier, dropping something small and black as he passed.  A moment later, a section of wall exploded.  Lyddie shrieked at the noise as Melisma threw herself to the ground.

            “He’s throwing bombs!” Cadence the Twenty-Seventh shouted.  The guards wrenched Melisma to her feet and broke into a sprint.

            The Ace made another pass.  “You see, miscreants?  Evildoers never triumph!”  A third cannonball sailed uselessly past his knees as two more sections of wall disintegrated.  The Cade guards hustled even faster, and Lyddie’s shriek grew in intensity as her head flopped against her captor’s back.

            The Ace of Cades grinned and punched a button on his controls.  His smirk gave way to panic as the jetpack emitted a low, urgent beep.

            “Oh no,” he said.  “No, no, no, no….”  He shot two-hundred fifty feet straight up, spinning like a dentist’s drill as he rose.  His jetpack rained a spiral of blue and purple sparks in his wake.

            Melisma stumbled and fell again.  She picked herself up and stared in confusion at the Ace, now hovering uncertainly in mid-air.  “Very well, miscreants, you win this round!” he called, his voice shrill and distant.  “But you haven’t seen the last of meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee–”

            His pack vomited a column of black smoke, and the Ace of Cades zigzagged helplessly across the sky.  He disappeared somewhere beyond the wall.

            The guards stopped running.  Cadence the Twenty-Seventh extended a hand to Melisma  “I hate that guy so much,” he said.  “We’ll probably have to report this to His Majesty.”

            Melisma stared in concern at the smoke trail the Ace left behind.  “What was that?  Is he okay?  Has this happened before?”

            Cadence the Twenty-Seventh grunted.  “All the time,” he said.  “His Majesty would be worried about the attacks, if the Ace weren’t so terrible at them.  He always botches it before he does any real damage.  But it’s a pain to rebuild the wall every time.”

            Lyddie shifted on his back, much calmer now that the danger had passed.  “Melisma, do you think he meant that stuff about having a tank?”

            Melisma sighed.  “You don’t need a tank, Lyddie.”

            “Hey,” Lyddie protested innocently, “I wouldn’t use it on you.”  She scratched her butt.  “It’s for Doria.”