One of his commanders spoke in Shantasi, and O’Gan looked up again. “He’s asking whether you can fight.”
Kosar nodded. “I’ve learned a lot.”
“Good. Well…” He raised one corner of his mouth in a sad smile.
“Thank you for believing me,” Kosar said. “It doesn’t feel quite so hopeless.”
“You’re a liar,” O’Gan said, but his voice was light. He looked up at the darkened sky, then north toward where the Krotes might soon emerge from the night. “I never thought it would come to this,” he said. “The bulk of the Shantasi fleeing. We were always the strong ones. If only we’d stayed together…if the Elders had faced their fears…” He looked away, shook his head, perhaps embarrassed at saying so much in front of this stranger. Then he looked directly at Kosar, and fear and doubt were obvious in his eyes. “We have absolutely no idea what we’re about to face,” he said quietly.
“You have your ways and means.”
O’Gan nodded. “We do. You’re right. And you’ll see more of them soon. Good luck, Kosar.”
Kosar nodded. O’Gan stood and walked away without looking back, and Kosar sensed that the Monk was about to speak.
“Silence,” the thief said. “Can’t you hear that silence? It means the land is dying, but for now it’s just…peaceful.”
A few minutes later the order came to rise, and the Shantasi army split in two.
SOUTH OF MARETON, Lenora sent scouts ahead of the Krote army. Several flew, several rode their machines hard across the landscape, and she told them to return upon first sighting of any Shantasi.
She was happy to admit her nervousness to Ducianne. The Mol’Steria Desert was to their left, a looming presence that wafted the scent of spice and the feel of great wilderness, and out there might be the Shantasi. Angel had dismissed them as pale-faced freaks, but Lenora knew that they were true fighters, and the most likely to offer any real resistance against the Krotes. But with her nervousness came a sense of keen anticipation. A real fight, she thought. Not just a slaughter. Something worthy of what we’ve trained for.
Don’t forget me, a voice reminded her. But Lenora shook it off, saying, Of course I can’t forget you.
In the midst of the Krote army rolled the great constructs that transported the dead from Noreela City. Their bodies had started to stink already, yet still they moved and squirmed, eager to fulfill the unnatural killing desires that had been instilled in them.
After a day’s fast travel, the desert smells began to fade, and Kang Kang loomed like a massive hollowness ahead of them. This was when the first and last of the scouts returned. His machine limped on three legs; where the fourth had been was a gaping hole, dribbling foul innards that could have been blood or molten rock. The Krote upon its back was spiky with arrows, and his head was missing a great slab of scalp and flesh, exposing his skull to the cold.
“Shantasi…and…” he said as Lenora rode to him, and then he died and fell across the machine’s back.
Ducianne appeared at Lenora’s side. “Must have been a good fight,” she said, glaring at the dead Krote.
“He’s the only one to return. The flyers would have been here before him if they were coming back. But the Shantasi made an error letting him escape; they’ve lost their surprise. Whatever ambush they plan, we can be ready.”
“They have something that can kill our flyers?” Ducianne asked.
“We can never think of ourselves as unbeatable.”
“I do!” Ducianne laughed, then looked at the dead scout again. “So, we ride straight in?”
“No. Hold position here. Three hours, that should be long enough.”
“The flyers?”
Lenora called the flyers’ captain through the voice box, and they brought their machines down to land in a semicircle before Lenora. There were about thirty flying machines in all, some with wings, others with hollow appendages that gushed flame and gas when they were airborne. They clicked and creaked as their Krote masters awaited Lenora’s orders.
“There are Shantasi south of here,” she said. “Probably scouting parties, but strong.” She waved her hand, dividing her force in half. “You, fly low and fast and take them on. Clear our way through to the main force. You, fly high for Kang Kang. You know your aim once you’re there: the witch and the girl. Find them and kill them, and then we can fight the Shantasi at our leisure. But right now, that girl and witch are the priority. I know I’m sending you south on your own…and Kang Kang is no place to be. But we will be joining you there soon. Questions?”
A few warriors glanced at the dead Krote and his battered machine, and their own machines jittered like nervous horses. Some exchanged glances. But none of them spoke.
“Good,” Lenora said. She watched sternly as her Krotes took off.
“Don’t worry,” Ducianne said. “Even among Krotes there are the strong, and the weak.”
“It’s not weak to be scared,” Lenora said. An edgy silence had descended across the bulk of the Krote ground force. Some of them looked at the dead man spiked with arrows, while others made it obvious they did not want to see.
“Then what is it?” Ducianne asked.
“Sane.”
“Ha!” Ducianne rode to the damaged machine, leaned across and pushed the dead Krote from its back. The machine wandered away, aimless and leaking fluids.
“You think the Shantasi know about the girl?” Ducianne said, talking to Lenora with the dead warrior on the ground between them.
“Of course. No other reason to come this far out of Hess, other than to try to keep us away from Kang Kang.”
“Unless they’re drawing us away from New Shanti. Or sending an advance force against us. Or trying to keep the fight from their Mystic city.”
Lenora shook her head. “If they thought we were coming for them, they’d dig in at Hess. It’s the gateway to New Shanti, and it has a hundred miles of desert before it. No. They know what our target is today.”
“So now we hold back?” Ducianne’s despondency at this idea was palpable.
Lenora watched the flying machines fading into the darkness, one group climbing high, the other disappearing across the scrubland toward the Shantasi waiting in the distance. “I think not,” she said. “Let’s ride hard and fast now. What do you say?”
“I say I’ll get sick of waiting.”
The order was given and spread through the ranks, and the machines formed three attack lines. The faster machines-those with longer legs or sleeker bodies-took the outside of the front line, ready to sprint forward and enclose the enemy. The second line consisted of the heavier, slower machines, and behind them came the new transports, groaning with the mass of Noreelan dead. The army moved out with Lenora at the head, brandishing a sword in each hand, proudly displaying the wounds of every one of her three hundred years, whispering to a voice that nobody else could hear.
Sometimes, that voice spoke too loud. Is this it? it said. Is this the life I missed? Killing and blood? Mother, maybe they were right to purge me from your body. Maybe they knew what you would become.
Lenora shouted to drown out the voice, but nothing could silence her thoughts.
O’GAN PENTLE STOOD within a circle of small rocks and, in an effort to calm himself, breathed in Janne pollen from the crumpled bloom in his pocket. He already knew the Krotes were on their way; the lookouts he had sent north had engaged an advance force and returned with the news. It was the manner of the Krotes’ destruction that caused O’Gan’s nerves to fray.
The lookouts had hardly been touched. They lost one of their number when a Krote machine fell on her, but other than that, their involvement had been merely to ensure the Krotes were all dead. Serpenthals had done the rest.
“Huge!” one of the Shantasi had said when describing them. “The largest I have ever heard of, let alone seen.”
They must have come out of the desert, O’Gan thought, feeling the Janne pollen settle his nerves. He opened his mind to visions, but none came. He was not surprised; the plant had been on the verge of death when he picked its bloom. Followed us, perhaps. Or led the way. But he had never heard of a serpenthal appearing outside the Mol’Steria Desert, certainly not one of the size his warriors had reported.