Chapter 135 Chorus Drill

The practice yard on floor twelve was a square of rubber tile beneath open sky, ringed by dented targets. Ganzo stood in the middle with a whistle between his teeth, a stopwatch in one fist, a pun ready.

“Welcome to Chorus practice, the only class where a failing grade doubles as a music lesson,” he said.

“I volunteer as the target, a Steelhorn can absorb any amount of choreography,” Bruno announced.

“The rules are simple, four masks, one heartbeat each, no killing the Quartermaster, no lying about the results,” Zinnia said.

“Those are the rules I already follow, minus the last one.”

“I will be timing the lies separately.”

Nilo’s tears slowed to a drip at sunrise, leaving a salt tightness around his eyes and rain in his hair. Tink asked for three days before the Captain heard a word about the plaque, so the hall stayed entirely unspoken.

‘Three days to tell Ganzo his Heron is still singing. I’m not good at keeping secrets from people who bake me cake.’

Inside his skull, the Weeper’s voice drifted by like drizzle on a distant window. “I rest between storms, small blank, do not wake me for a training yard.”

“Good, today you cry only from the shame of losing to Bruno,” Ganzo said.

Bruno rolled his shoulders in the sunlight, the cracked tip of his horn catching the glare off the nearest targets. Zinnia perched on a crate with a notebook on her knee, a pencil behind each ear, ready to time it.

“A Steelhorn is a gracious winner, I would never gloat more than twice per bout, only in the third person—”

The whistle cut him off, a shriek that rattled every target on the roof.

The drill was simple, four masks in a loop, each held for one heartbeat, repeated until something broke. Nilo once managed three masks in six seconds before an examiner, a memory that made his hand ache.

“Hold each face for exactly one heartbeat, but remember that hearts come in different speeds.”

“Mine runs at eighty-two beats a minute, I will time it accordingly,” Zinnia said.

Clangor’s plate slid across his coat in the first swap, hair slicked back, the greatsword rising in his fists. The second swap turned the plate to a black cloak, the sword to twin daggers, his breath to silence.

“I dare you to hold that loop for ten seconds, a Steelhorn never doubts a challenge,” Bruno called.

Nilo’s grin faded as Clangor’s price locked around him, an iron hand closing on the back of his collar. He could not refuse the dare, so the loop had to hold ten seconds, whatever it cost his nose.

“Young man, I accepted on your behalf, you may thank me after the bleeding.”

Cadenza’s tailcoat flared in the third swap, crimson waves tumbling down his back, the spear spinning in his palms. The fourth swap dropped a traveler’s coat across his shoulders, a katana settling at his hip with old weight.

“Darling, which key shall we murder tonight, something with more tragedy, perhaps?”

A coin rang on the tile, rolling in a circle, as he drew without thinking, the blade humming low. Cadenza’s price forced a stanza out of his mouth, a rhyming aria about the sorry state of Bruno’s haircut.

“Behold the bull with brass and braid, whose horn was cracked, whose pride was frayed,” he sang, then clamped his jaw shut against Zilch’s silence.

“Chat, he is singing a legal cease and desist, I repeat, a legal aria,” Pipa whispered.

Zinnia scribbled furiously, “He is violating four prices at once, Captain, I need a form for this.”

Ganzo grinned, “That is what a Chorus is, a committee of grudges working in four-part harmony.”

With Toro’s horns lowered, Bruno charged across the tiles, brass bracers ringing, each footfall cracking the rubber into a star. Nilo met him halfway with the greatsword, shoulder to shoulder, the clash shaking dust from the targets like fresh snow.

“A Steelhorn never loses a challenge to a—” he grunted, planting his heels.

Cadenza’s aria cracked a target in half behind Bruno, the sound rolling over the yard like a pane of glass. Zilch’s blade whisked past Bruno’s ear, trimming one neat thread from his long coat before vanishing into the shadow again.

Frozen mid-stride, Bruno reached up to touch his collar, discovering the missing thread. “That was a very good coat,” he said, his voice small.

“Seven,” Zinnia said, glancing at her stopwatch, “no, six, one of those swaps was a pose.”

Nilo’s nose began to bleed on the fourth swap, a red thread running over his lip and down his chin. The Chorus faltered, the masks stacking on his face in a bright jumble, forcing him down to one trembling knee.

“That’s enough for the first round, kid, the next one is dessert,” Ganzo said, lowering the whistle.

Crouching beside him, the big Steelhorn offered a hand, his brass pauldron clinking against the tiles. “Your Clangor holds a line better than my father’s honor guard, you are never to repeat that.”

“Your father’s honor guard is a very low bar,” Nilo said, taking the hand.

“It is a very expensive bar, my father sent another note this morning calling me a fallen horn, I framed it, it hangs above my cot beside the boiler.”

“You framed it?”

“It is a handsome frame, Steelhorn taste.”

Zinnia hopped off the crate and checked her stopwatch, frowning as though the numbers had personally insulted her. She wrote the result in her notebook under a heading that read, in capital letters, STUPID DECISIONS, UNFINISHED.

[ CHORUS ]

[Loop: Clangor, Zilch, Cadenza, Drifter]

[Hold: 6 seconds]

[Strain: nosebleed, numb left hand]

“Six seconds is respectable… the strain is not, sit down before I add a column,” Zinnia said.

Nilo sat with his head tipped back, a handkerchief pressed to his nose, the yard blurring into sunlight. Inside his head, the Weeper’s voice drifted in like rain on a window, patient, polite, a little hopeful.

“Add me to the loop, small blank, I would be the fifth chair.”

“The Chorus holds four, Weeper, five would snap my head like a twig.”

“Then I will wait in the fifth chair, I am excellent at waiting.”

“Why do you even want in the loop?” he muttered.

“Grief is stronger when it keeps company, small blank, everyone fights better with someone beside them.”

Ganzo set down the stopwatch and cracked his knuckles, the sound rolling across the whole roof like distant summer thunder. He tossed a stack of tiles into the air with one hand, catching them on his fingertips without a grunt.

“Again, kid, choose which price you obey for each swap, you cannot obey all four at once,” he said.

“Choosing a price sounds like cheating, Captain.”

“It is called tactics, the best word for cheating in a clean uniform.”

Nilo rose with the handkerchief tucked in his fist, a stubborn tilt to his jaw, his breath steady through spite. The Chorus spun, four faces in four seconds, until the yard was a blur of plate, shadow, feathers, and steel.

“Again!” Bruno shouted, thumping his chest like a drum.

The loop held for seven full seconds this time, the longest anyone in that whole yard ever saw in person. On the eighth, the Drifter’s coin missed the tile and rolled off the roof, ending the drill with a clink.

“Seven seconds, the Quartermaster approves of seven seconds,” Zinnia said, hiding a smile in her notebook.

Cadenza purred from the rack, “I approve of the nosebleed, it shows commitment.”

“Young man, I protest the humming,” Clangor muttered.

Pipa’s drone hovered at a very respectful distance, its lens tilted toward Nilo’s shoulder, never once toward his face. She narrated into the headset with the quiet reverence of a golf commentator, whispering every swap like a putt.

“Chat, the putt is long, the wind is a rooftop, the crowd is two cats and a sparrow…”

A throwing knife thudded into the nearest target beside Bruno’s head, a folded violet card pinned flat beneath its blade. Everyone whirled toward the rooftop edge, finding only a drifting scrap of violet cloth and a lingering smell of lavender.

Nilo plucked the card free with two fingers and read it aloud, “Rule one, never wear Sorrow where I cannot see your face.”

“That is either a threat or a love letter,” Zinnia said flatly.

“She makes rules now, I do not remember hiring a rule maker, put it in the tally.”

“It is rule one, so there is at least a rule two, I am almost looking forward to it.”

“The first law of the Bureau is never to stand under the Captain’s hammer, the second law is the first again,” Ganzo said.

“I will write that on my wall, next to Bruno’s framed note.”

Bruno lifted his chin, “My note has the better frame, a Steelhorn can tell.”

“Can we go inside, please, this roof has far too much open sky and not nearly enough walls,” Jingles squeaked.

The Steelhorn snorted, “With Calla, those are the same envelope.”