‘If we keep on this way,’ she heard one of the phalanx commanders say, ‘they will drive us up against that ghostly wood.’
‘He comes!’ sounded a cry. ‘The blue-haired man returns!’
Jaya felt relief sink in, but was surprised to hear some dispirited muttering around her. It seemed that some of the soldiers felt Bel had abandoned them, that it was somehow his fault they had been forced to flee the camp.
‘Idiots,’ she muttered to herself. ‘If not for him, you would have been mander mash days ago.’
She followed Brahl to the army’s edge, and spotted Bel right away, galloping in on Taritha from the east.
‘Must have circled around,’ muttered Brahl.
As he got closer she could see he had a face on him like storms brewing. Holding onto him limply, Querrus looked drained, as did the horse.
‘A trick,’ Bel spluttered furiously, bringing Taritha to a rough stop.
‘So it seems,’ glowered Brahl.
‘Illusions,’ spat Bel, though he seemed not to wish to go into it any further. He did not catch her eye, but swept his angry gaze back and forth across the army. ‘You had the good sense to retreat, I see. How many lost?’
‘Hard to say,’ said Brahl. ‘A few hundred at least. The mander could not follow us far, for we set fire to the camp, thus holding Tyrellan back for a time. Plenty of gear is gone, not to mention our catapults.’
‘I see carts,’ said Bel, gesturing.
‘Some were saved,’ said Brahl. ‘We are not in the habit of keeping our supply carts on the front lines. But some were left behind, for the sake of lives.’
Bel nodded, then finally looked down to see her.
‘How are you?’ he said shortly.
‘All right,’ she said, though the tremor in her voice threatened to contradict her.
Bel dismounted abruptly, leaving Querrus rocking in the saddle. ‘We will set up again, then,’ he said. ‘As best we can. Here. They may have gained a little ground, but that is all.’
They have crippled us , thought Jaya, but she kept it to herself.
‘What chance of resupply?’
‘Erling’s Vale is close enough,’ said Brahl, ‘and some smaller settlements also. We shall not want for food, but the rest will be harder to replace. There will be plenty of bodies sleeping on hard ground.’
‘So be it,’ said Bel. ‘It will not be lightly that I go chasing off after lies again.’
Brahl nodded and turned away. Jaya went to Bel, who was looking out at the approaching shadow.
‘We are to return to a stand-off?’ she asked quietly.
‘Should never have left,’ growled Bel.
‘You weren’t to know.’ She reached out to hold his hand, and after a moment he took it tightly.
‘The path was telling me to return,’ he said. ‘I ignored it.’
He seemed to have a thought, and craned his head to the north.
‘What is it?’
‘We must be close to …’ He drifted off, and though she followed his gaze, it was impossible to see anything past the thousands of soldiers.
‘What?’
‘Whisperwood,’ he said, in a tone of voice that was hard to read.
•
Across the Nyul’ya, from the shade of willows, three figures watched the two armies.
‘They’re setting up again,’ said Charla.
‘But they’re closer to us now,’ added Nindere.
Corlas didn’t answer – he was staring at the distant figure standing on the field in plain view of all. It had been too long since he had seen his son, and the fact that he couldn’t simply go to him was resting hard upon his heart. And in the shadow’s midst, somewhere, was his unknown boy, Losara.
‘Let us go further along the river,’ urged Charla, her eyes bright.
‘No,’ said Corlas. He did not like to be the cause of the disappointment in her eyes, but he knew she understood the reason. Although Charla, Nindere – and many of the others, for that matter – had never ventured far from Whisperwood, they knew that the further they all got from the seat of their power, the more vulnerable they would be.
He brushed Charla’s hair out of her eyes.
‘Some day soon,’ he promised. ‘When all this is settled. When Old Magic can survive in the world once more.’
He said it as if it was fact, belying the doubt in his mind. The assembled forces before him were maybe the greatest the world had ever seen. Even with Old Magic on his side, it was not lightly that he chose to tangle with them.
Charla pouted, but Nindere nodded. ‘We should listen to Corlas,’ he said. ‘It would be a shame to be captured so early in the game.’
Early for you, perhaps , thought Corlas wryly, though he was glad for Nindere’s level-headedness.
‘When do we attack, then?’ asked Charla. She did insist upon calling it attack, even though that was not quite what they planned to do.
‘Patience, forest flower,’ he said. ‘For now we must content ourselves with watching and waiting. We will know when it is time. Now come,’ for even now he could feel his power beginning to wane, ‘we must return.’
Begrudgingly, the other two turned away.
As for Corlas, he found it harder than ever to take his eyes from his boy.
Soon , he promised himself. Soon.
Part Two
Sunny Days
And so we watched each other across the gulf, like a scaled-down version of what had been going on for centuries, our new border worn clear in the grass. In retrospect it seems something akin to looking in the mirror – but is that mole on the right side of your face, or the left? Is the shadowmander a hindrance, or a help? I suppose it depends on where you stand, and whether you are what’s real, or what’s reflected.
At any rate, there we sat – one who could see the path, the other left to navigate as best he could, alone in the dark, on those sunny days.
An Unfortunate Encounter
As she stepped through the inn doors, Elessa was relieved to be out of the sun. Although she did not feel its touch, she imagined it drying the flesh that still clung to her, hastening her towards desiccation. How soon until she became like Fazel, as she remembered him? She had thought of him often during these days of fast travelling across Kainordas. Long had he lived in this same suspended state, almost a hundred years without pleasure or comfort. Pain there was still, she had come to understand, but only in her bones, where she herself resided underneath her old flesh, no longer really a part of it. How had he coped? He had not been given any choice, she knew, but the thought of being trapped so long surpassed all previous notions of dread. Fahren had promised to release her as soon as he could, but his words did little to relieve her.
It was not that she did not try to be strong. In the days following her resurrection, traces of her old self had bobbed to the surface. She had been an Overseer, charged with finding the right and wrong of things. That sense was muddied now, for while objectively she knew Fahren was doing what he must, necromancy was outlawed for good reason and her own personal dismay was proof of why. To be ripped from such peace, attenuated into this form …and yet she reminded herself that if the light failed, there would be no Great Well for her to return to. For her own sake, and the sake of countless others, she had to go on. Making up her mind to do so brought some respite, and she was now sometimes capable of not thinking about her own situation for a moment or two at a time.
Despite being glad to escape the sun, she felt uncomfortable here. Until now Fahren had avoided settlements, and Elessa was not sure if he hid her, Battu, or both, but she had not protested – she didn’t want to be seen. Yet he made this exception, bringing them to this little village because they had run out of supplies. Or rather, Fahren and Battu had, since she did not need to eat.