It took him an hour to walk down the hillside and approach the edge of the ravine. The glow barely rose above the ground surrounding it, but it lit Kosar’s way for the final few hundred steps. It was a refreshing change being able to see the grasses part around his feet, but he also saw the withered remnants of mollies and chloeys, testament to the dark, and he wondered whether the sun would ever return.
Kosar paused frequently to look back, but nothing else emerged from the darkness.
The light came from a fire. He could smell the tang of burning wood, and a haze of smoke hung low in the air, mostly hidden from sight but detectable by smell and taste. Hangman’s wood! Kosar thought. It was often used on the Cantrass Plains to smoke fish and other meats, because it burned slow and not too hot. Its smoke was spicy and almost as mouthwatering as cooking meat, and he increased his step almost without realizing.
At the edge, looking down at the ravine floor two hundred steps below, he realized how foolish he had been.
There was a village down there, built in a huddle against the sheer cliffs on either side, and through its middle flowed a stream. From this high up the water looked black. The area around the village was illuminated by two huge fires, one built at either end of the settlement. He could make out maybe two dozen buildings, and between them the shapes of people going to and fro.
The fires had not been there for long. Everyone in Noreela must be reacting differently to the fall of dusk; these people were digging in for a fight.
And he had walked right up to the edge of their territory like a sheebok to the slaughter.
Something approached from behind. Kosar spun around, hand on sword, and he just had time to glimpse three dark faces before a heavy blow crunched into his nose, and all he saw was light.
A’MEER WAS LOOMING above him, and he thought that the mimics were back. But when he opened his eyes and looked past the pain he saw that she was smiling, not gasping, and her dark hair was parted into the usual plaits instead of being cleaved by a sword blow, and when she opened her mouth he knew that she was going to tell him it had all been a mistake, that Rafe was fine and Kosar was just coming out of a long unconsciousness after that final terrible battle in the machines’ graveyard.
“Wake, yer scummer!” A’Meer splashed across his face, and she tasted of piss. Someone giggled and was cut short by a harsh grunt. “Wake, scummer. Or I’ll cut yer throat where you lay!”
Kosar opened his eyes. The bright pain had vanished and it was twilight once again. He was lying on his back, and above him stood two men and a woman. They had dark skin, long hair formed into elaborate sculptures and fixed with dried, painted mud, and their faces and bodies glittered with dozens of metallic piercings. Breakers. Kosar had run into them once before. They were even further removed from Noreelan society than the rovers.
He groaned. His face was hot and sore, his nose streamed blood. One of his teeth had broken. He could feel the stump of it with his tongue, and shards had buried themselves in his lip. He turned his head and spat blood and tooth. His neck hurt and his head throbbed, and he wondered whether there was more damage he had yet to discover.
“He’s spying on us. We should take his eyes,” the woman said.
“And his tongue,” a male voice added.
Kosar looked up at the three Breakers. One of the men was buttoning his fly after pissing on Kosar. He seemed to be the one in charge; he stood close to Kosar while the other two hung back, side by side for security. “I’m no spy,” he said.
“Then what in the Black are you?” the lead Breaker said.
“A thief.” Kosar slowly raised one hand to display his marks.
“And so?” the Breaker said. “Why should I trust a thief any more than a spy? And one that’s got caught too. Yer no thief, yer a fool, and fools deserve to have their throats aired.”
“Maybe he came to steal from us, Schiff,” the woman said.
“I didn’t even know you were here.” Kosar rested his head back on the ground and closed his eyes, trying to fight off the sickness welling in him. “What did you hit me with?”
“Magic,” the Breaker said.
Kosar’s eyes snapped open and he looked at the thing in Schiff ’s right hand. It was a club, a mad merging of stone and metal and wood held together by dried mud and twisted grasses. There was no magic about it, and if the light had been better he would see it decorated with his blood. “No magic there,” he said.
Schiff squatted beside Kosar and thumped the club down beside his head. “Yet this bastard’ll open up your skull easy enough,” he said. “Open it up like magic!”
“I know why it’s dark,” Kosar said. Got to be careful here, he thought. Got to feed them just enough, but not too much. The Breakers spent their lives traveling Noreela and dismantling old machines, opening up rusted metal hulks and cracking stone limbs, searching through long-dried arteries and funnels and routes for dregs of the old magic they still believed to be there somewhere. They came into towns and villages in small groups and lived apart from the local populace, setting up their own commune, growing their own food and keeping sheebok and sometimes sand rats for meat. Out in the wilds, Breaker communities often sprouted up around old mines or abandoned farms, and the centerpiece was always a giant machine. Sometimes they worked a machine for a whole generation, taking it apart meticulously and carefully, laying the component parts out to view. Magic had made the machines long ago, and now Breakers were dismantling them. They knew more about how the machines were made-and perhaps how they had worked-than anyone in Noreela.
Kosar had never heard of any magic being found, of course. And therein lay the Breakers’ madness. After three hundred years of failure, they were more hungry than ever.
“It’s the land,” Schiff said. He stared past Kosar down into the ravine. “Noreela’s been dead a long time, and now it’s finally starting to rot.”
“It’s magic,” Kosar said. “It’s back in the land, but the Mages have come and taken it.”
“What in the fucking Black are you talking about, scummer?” The big Breaker stood and lifted the club, letting gravity swing it into the side of Kosar’s head.
It was not a heavy blow; there was no strength behind it. But the pain bled through Kosar like molten silver, and when he looked up at the life moon he saw it turning red. For a second it had eyes and a face-a mad, angry face obsessed with purpose and flooded with blood. Maybe it really would have been better if we’d not run so fast, if A’Meer hadn’t fought so well, if I hadn’t loosed that tumbler to kill the Monk. If they’d caught Rafe and slaughtered him, maybe the magic would have gone with him. The Mages would have returned to nothing, and perhaps they would have been killed by the Monks. They were old, and probably mad.
“Better if he’d died,” Kosar muttered.
“What was that, scummer?”
“Better if he’d never shown us anything.” Kosar’s head swam, as though he’d had too much rotwine. Sickness still threatened. He wished a tumbler would come and roll him away.
“Kill him, Schiff!” the woman said. “He’s mad and raging, and he’s nothing for us.”
Schiff knelt again and touched Kosar’s belt. “He has a Shantasi sword,” he said.
“So? He’s a thief.”
Schiff looked at Kosar, really looked at him for the first time, and Kosar returned his gaze. “He has something for us,” the Breaker said.
“What in the Black could he have for us?”
“Don’t know,” Schiff said. He frowned, still looking at Kosar. Then he moved closer and sniffed. Kosar heard his piercings clinking and scratching at one another. “Maybe we’ll have to cut him open to find out.”
“So are Breakers butchers as well?” Kosar asked. He formed his words closely, trying not to slur and show weakness.
“I’m whatever I need to be,” Schiff said. He nodded down at Kosar’s sword. “Who did you steal that from?”