She lifted her wrinkled, age-darkened hands to her face, turned them over and over. Yet what was this but a glimpse of the old ways? Her people’s hands were no more clean. No one’s were. How could this have once been the norm? How could the ancestors have named this a great victory and boasted of it? The slaughter of children? Perhaps it was a good thing to be reminded of this — once in a while.
Sound reached her. So wrapped in her horror was she that it took some time for it to register for what it was: the wail of a baby. She started, jerking, and ran in the direction of the noise. Rounding a hut she came up short, her breath catching.
All were not dead. A woman stood ahead. She cradled a tiny squirming bundle awkwardly in her muscular arms. A woman not of this village, nor even of this continent. For Silverfox knew her, and as she advanced the woman’s sharp gaze reflected their mutual recognition. Dark earth-brown she was. Sun-darkened even more over her wide arms. Sturdy-boned, heavy-browed, with smooth silken black hair, in old buckskins.
Kilava. Last living Bonecaster of the Imass.
Silverfox inclined her head in greeting. The baby writhed in its wrap of a coarse blanket. It squalled anew. Silverfox found she had to swallow hard to wet her throat to speak. ‘Just …’
‘… her,’ Kilava finished. ‘Yes.’
Silverfox peered anew round the silent village. ‘Who were they?’
‘They called themselves the Children of the Wind.’
Silverfox regarded the babe. ‘It is hungry.’
‘I have no milk to give,’ Kilava said. She arched a brow to Silver-fox. ‘We neither have any milk left, do we?’
Silverfox shared the knowing look. ‘We are neither the nurturing sort.’
Kilava gestured to her hair. ‘You have come into your name.’
Reflexively, Silverfox lifted and examined a twist of her long ash-grey streaked hair. ‘So I have.’
They regarded one another for time in a heavy silence; the ancient Bonecaster’s gaze shifted to peer behind Silverfox. She turned to see both Pran and Tolb standing at a respectful distance. ‘They would remain out of my reach,’ Kilava muttered to Silverfox.
‘They have tasted your temper.’
‘I have not changed my mind!’ Kilava shouted.
‘I would not have thought so,’ Pran answered.
The Bonecaster snorted at that. She lowered her attention to the babe. ‘I will take this one south. Find willing arms for her. Then I will return to warning the tribes.’
Silverfox’s breath caught. ‘Then some have escaped …’
‘Those who have heeded my warnings. I’ve been sending them to the west. The Kerluhm are headed to the mountains — I do not believe they will divert for refugees.’
‘Thank you, Kilava.’
‘I did not do it for your benefit, Silverfox. Your task remains and I wish you’d taken hold of it.’
Silverfox felt her cheeks heating. She snapped, ‘We’ve been through this already.’
Kilava did not answer. She adjusted the babe in her arms then brushed past to walk on to the south. Once she was gone, Pran and Tolb came to Silverfox’s side.
‘A powerful ally,’ Pran observed.
‘We cannot count on her aid,’ she warned them.
Behind her, Pran and Tolb shared a silent glance. Silverfox examined them. ‘Where’s my horse?’
‘We have found another,’ Tolb said.
She turned to peer among the silent empty huts, rubbed her eyes. ‘I can’t stay here. I’ll keep going — have it brought to me.’
The two Bonecasters bowed. Silverfox walked on. The two stood motionless for a time, then Tolb spoke: ‘Should we reach the very north it will be good to have her with us.’
Pran’s dry sinews creaked as he nodded his agreement. ‘Even she would not stand aside … then.’
*
Atop the heights of a rocky cordillera, a file of skeletal figures came to the lip of a tall hillock of mixed gravel and sands. Here, ages ago, a continent-spanning mountain of ice ground to a halt, piling up this near mountain of debris. Wordlessly, they spread out to line the edge. The bones of their feet clattered and grated across the stones. The rag-ends of hides and furs snapped and lashed in the cold dry wind. Here they stood still as statues of bone and ligament. The wind whistled through dry chest cavities and gaping fleshless jaws. Several times the sun rose, traced its path across the sky, and set. They waited, as patient as the stones themselves.
Beneath the cold light of the moon the shifting and grinding of stones announced movement within the slope. Stones came sliding down, banging and clattering. The talus heap shifted, slipping. A fist punched free of the gravel and a forearm of bare aged bone emerged. A figure straightened, sending dust and sand blowing in the wind from a long tattered bearhide cloak that glowed dirty white beneath the moon. It lifted a ravaged head half scoured of flesh.
A figure, nearly identical but for the cloak, advanced to greet this newcomer. They clasped hands to bony forearms. ‘Ut’el Anag,’ the cloakless one said. ‘Long have we been parted.’
The newcomer nodded its battered skull. ‘Lanas. It warms my spirit to see you once again.’
Further Imass now came dragging themselves free of the heaped moraine. Ut’el raised his head as if to sample the chill night air through his naked nostril slits. ‘Omtose retreats before us.’
‘As it ever has.’
The Kerluhm Bonecaster turned his head to the east. Lanas shared his gaze: across a shimmering plateau rose sapphire peaks, capped in silver. ‘The stain has spread,’ Ut’el observed, ‘and the source remains.’
‘We arrive to wash it away — as ever. Though we are opposed.’
The head snapped round. ‘Who?’
‘Remnants of the Ifayle … and now the Kron.’
Ut’el nodded. ‘They will come round and will thank us before the end.’
‘As it always has been.’
Without further word Ut’el stalked off to the east. Lanas remained. ‘There are survivors here,’ she called.
Ut’el turned. ‘Forget these lesser ones. The source lies to the east.’
‘The source?’
‘The Matriarch. The mother of their kind.’ He raised an arm of ligament and bone sheathed in tattered leathers, pointed to the distant peaks. ‘She awaits us, Lanas. She’s known we would come. Like the thawing of the spring, we come. Eventually.’
‘It will be a long walk,’ Lanas answered.
‘As it has ever been, Lanas.’
She inclined her head in assent and came abreast of Ut’el. Together, the two struck a path to the north-east over the rocky slope. The rest of the Imass followed in a rattling and clack of bone over stones. Behind, more of their brethren dragged themselves free of the eroding moraine, sloughing off a rain of dirt and mud.
* * *
Orman jogged downhill from one high mountain valley to the next, ever angling to the east. For two days ghosts, Sayer ancestors, pointed the way. On the third day he came to a ridge separating the Sayer Holding from the Bain. Here, an immense half-dead white pine stood taller than all its kind. Pinned to the trunk by a hunting knife hung Jass’s cloak.
He understood the message, for he recognized the knife. He’d last seen it pushed through the belt of Lotji Bain. He ran on, leaving the challenge hanging for others to find. Should any others be following. He descended the ridge, crossed a forest towards a stream rushing over a wide bed of naked broken rock. Here, a shout sounded over the pounding waters.
Lotji stepped forth from the cover of the wide bole of a pine. He held Jass before him, a knife to his throat, the lad’s hands tied. He bellowed up: ‘I’m glad you came, hiresword! You’ve saved me a lot of time. You know what I want. You and me! Now!’
Orman squeezed the haft of Svalthbrul so tight it seemed to squirm in his hands. He picked his way across the tumbled rocks. He so wanted to meet this man — to cut him to pieces with Svalthbrul — but what if he lost? What of Jass then? Jass, as he’d known all along, was far more important to him than any weapon. No matter how storied. He raised the spear. ‘I have something you want, Lotji … and you have something I want. Let’s exchange.’