Herself and thirteen battered, bloodied soldiers. All that was left.
The clash with Leoman had begun well enough, a perfectly sprung ambush. And would have ended perfectly, as well.
If not for the damned ghosts.
Ambush turned over, onto its back like an upended tortoise. They’d been lucky to get out with their lives, these few. These last.
Fayelle well knew what had happened to the rest of Korbolo’s army. She had felt Henaras’s death. And Kamist Reloe’s.
And Raraku was not finished with them. Oh no. Not at all finished.
They reached a slope leading out of the defile.
She had few regrets-
Crossbow quarrels whizzed down. Horses and soldiers screamed. Bodies thumped onto the ground. Her horse staggered, then rolled onto its side. She’d no time to kick free of the stirrups, and as the dying beast pinned her leg its weight tore the joint from her hip, sending pain thundering through her. Her left arm was trapped awkwardly beneath her as her own considerable weight struck the ground-and bones snapped.
Then the side of her head hammered against rock.
Fayelle struggled to focus. The pain subsided, became a distant thing. She heard faint pleas for mercy, the cries of wounded soldiers being finished off.
Then a shadow settled over her.
‘I’ve been looking for you.’
Fayelle frowned. The face hovering above her belonged to the past. The desert had aged it, but it nevertheless remained a child’s face. Oh, spirits below. The child. Sinn. My old… student…
She watched the girl raise a knife between them, angle the point down, then set it against her neck.
Fayelle laughed. ‘Go ahead, you little horror. I’ll wait for you at Hood’s Gate… and the wait won’t be long-’
The knife punched through skin and cartilage.
Fayelle died.
Straightening, Sinn swung to her companions. They were, one and all, busy gathering the surviving horses.
Sixteen left. The Ashok Regiment had fallen on hard times. Thirst and starvation. Raiders. This damned desert.
She watched them for a moment, then something else drew her gaze.
Northward.
She slowly straightened. ‘Cord.’
The sergeant turned. ‘What-oh, Beru fend!’
The horizon to the west had undergone a transformation. It was now limned in white, and it was rising.
‘Double up!’ Cord bellowed. ‘Now!’
A hand closed on her shoulder. Shard leaned close. ‘You ride with me.’
‘Ebron!’
‘I hear you,’ the mage replied to Cord’s bellow. ‘And I’ll do what I can with these blown mounts, but I ain’t guaranteeing-’
‘Get on with it! Bell, help Limp onto that horse-he’s busted up that knee again!’
Sinn cast one last glance at Fayelle’s corpse. She’d known, then. What was coming.
I should be dancing. The bloodied knife fell from her hands.
Then she was roughly grasped and pulled up onto the saddle behind Shard.
The beast’s head tossed, and it shook beneath them.
‘Queen take us,’ Shard hissed, ‘Ebron’s filled these beasts with fire.’
We’ll need it…
And now they could hear the sound, a roar that belittled even the Whirlwind Wall in its fullest rage.
Raraku had risen.
To claim a shattered warren.
The Wickan warlocks had known what was coming. Flight was impossible, but the islands of coral stood high-higher than any other feature this side of the escarpment-and it was on these that the armies gathered.
To await what could be their annihilation.
The north sky was a massive wall of white, billowing clouds. A cool, burgeoning wind thrashed through the palms around the oasis.
Then the sound reached them.
A roar unceasing, building, of water, cascading, foaming, tumbling across the vast desert.
The Holy Desert, it seemed, held far more than bones and memories. More than ghosts and dead cities. Lostara Yil stood near the Adjunct, ignoring the baleful glares Tene Baralta continued casting her way. Wondering… if Pearl was on that high ground, standing over Sha’ik’s grave… if that ground was in fact high enough.
She wondered, too, at what she had seen these past months. Visions burned into her soul, fraught and mysterious, visions that could still chill her blood if she allowed them to rise before her mind’s eye once more. Crucified dragons. Murdered gods. Warrens of fire and warrens of ashes.
It was odd, she reflected, to be thinking these things, even as a raging sea was born from seeming nothing and was sweeping towards them, drowning all in its path.
Odder, still, to be thinking of Pearl. She was hard on him, viciously so at times. Not because she cared, but because it was fun. No, that was too facile, wasn’t it? She cared indeed.
What a stupid thing to have let happen.
A weary sigh close beside her. Lostara scowled without turning. ‘You’re back.’
‘As requested,’ Pearl murmured.
Oh, she wanted to hit him for that.
‘The task is… done?’
‘Aye. Consigned to the deep and all that. If Tene Baralta still wants her, he’ll have to hold his breath.’
She looked then. ‘Really? The sea is already that deep?’ Then we’re-
‘No. High and dry, actually. The other way sounded more… poetic.’
‘I really hate you.’
He nodded. ‘And you’ll have plenty of time in which to luxuriate in it.’
‘You think we’ll survive this?’
‘Yes. Oh, we’ll get our feet wet, but these were islands even back then. This sea will flood the oasis. It will pound up against the raised road west of here-since it was the coastal road back then. And wash up close to the escarpment, maybe even reach it.’
‘That’s all very well,’ she snapped. ‘And what will we be doing, stuck here on these islands in the middle of a landlocked sea?’
Infuriatingly, Pearl simply shrugged. ‘A guess? We build a flotilla of rafts and bind them together to form a bridge, straight to the west road. The sea will be shallow enough there anyway, even if that doesn’t work as well as it should-but I have every confidence in the Adjunct.’
The wall of water then struck the far side of the oasis, with the sound of thunder. Palms waved wildly, then began toppling.
‘Well, now we know what turned that other forest to stone,’ Pearl said loudly over the thrashing roar of water-
That now flowed across the ruins, filling the Dogslayer trenches, tumbling down into the basin.
And Lostara could see that Pearl was right. Its fury was already spent, and the basin seemed to swallow the water with a most prodigious thirst.
She glanced over to study the Adjunct.
Impassive, watching the seas rise, one hand on the hilt of her sword.
Oh, why does looking at you break my heart?
The sands were settling on the carcasses of the horses. The three squads sat or stood, waiting for the rest of the legion. Bottle had walked up to the road to see the source of the roar, had come staggering back with the news.
A sea.
A damned sea.
And its song was in Fiddler’s soul, now. Strangely warm, almost comforting.
One and all, they then turned to watch the giant rider and his giant horse thunder along that road, heading westward. Dragging something that kicked up a lot of dust.
The image of that stayed with Fiddler long after the clouds of dust had drifted off the road, down the near side of the slope.
Could have been a ghost.
But he knew it wasn’t.