‘Highness,’ he said.
‘Speak to me,’ said a strained, half-broken voice, ‘on the disposition of my legions.’
‘Certain leaders among us,’ Spinnock replied, eyes lowering to fix on the dais, or perhaps a pair of booted feet, ‘are in their souls unleashed. ’Tis the scent upon this wind—’
‘If the fire draws closer, the city will burn.’
‘Against that conflagration, Highness, only you can stand, for it is by your will – we see that now. We see your grief, though we do not yet understand its meaning. What pact have you made with Silanah? Why does she lay waste to all the land? Why does she drive ever closer to proud Kharkanas?’
‘Proud?’ The word was a sneer. ‘I am now one ghost among many, and it is only ghosts who belong here. If we are to be forgotten, the city must fall. If we are to be forgiven, the city must swallow our crimes. If we are to be dust, the city must be ash. That is how to end this.’
‘We have journeyed long, Highness. From the Outer Marches, on a hundred hidden paths only a thief would remember. And then the violence took our leaders. The blood of Eleint.’
‘Cursed blood!’
‘Highness?’
‘No! It poisoned me once – you know that, Spinnock Durav! You were there!’
He bowed his head still further. ‘I saw what was done, yes. I saw what you sought to hide away.’
‘I did not ask them to come back. I didn’t!’
He lifted his gaze, tilted his head. ‘I sense … this is important. Highness. Who did you not ask to come back?’
Hard, cold hands closed on her face. She felt them like her own, felt the long fingers like prison bars, smelled the wax of melted candles. ‘Can’t you hear it?’
‘Hear what, Highness?’
‘Their screams. The dying! Can’t you hear it?’
‘Highness, there is a distant roar. Lightfall—’
‘Lightfall!’ Her eyes widened but she could not speak, could not think.
‘What is happening?’ he demanded.
What is happening? Everything is happening! ‘Are they in disarray? Your troops?’
He shook his head. ‘No, Highness. They wait on Blind Gallan’s Road.’
Blind Gallan’s Road? There was no such road. Not then. Not when Spinnock Durav came to kneel before his lord. I have lost my mind. A sudden whimper, and she shrank back in the throne. ‘Take off that mask, Spinnock Durav. You were never so old.’
‘Who did you ask not to come back?’
She licked her lips. ‘She should have taken the throne. She was a true queen, you see. Of the Shake. And the Letherii, the ones she saved. I don’t belong here – I told them—’
But Spinnock Durav was on his feet, a growing horror on his face. ‘Highness! Sandalath Drukorlat! What is that roar?’
She stared at him. Moved her mouth to make words. Failed. Tried a second time. ‘The breach. They’ve come again – tell Anomander – tell him! No one can stop them but him! The Shake – dying. Oh, Mother bless us. DYING!’
Her shriek echoed in the vast room. But he was already leaving. Out in the corridor now, shouting orders – but that voice, too desperate, too frantic. Not like Spinnock Durav at all.
Lord Nimander Golit Anomandaris, firstborn of the fraught union of Son of Darkness and the First Daughter of Draconus, fell to his knees. His body trembled as he struggled against the blood of the Eleint and its terrible need, its inescapable necessity. Where was Skintick? Desra? Nenanda?
The stones of the river bed crunched beside him, and he felt hands clutch his shoulders. ‘Resist this, Lord. We’re the last two left. Resist the call of the Eleint!’
He lifted his head, baffled, and stared into Korlat’s ancient eyes. ‘What – who?’
‘She has commanded Silanah. She has summoned the Warren of Fire, and set upon the dragon the madness of her desire – do you understand? She would burn this realm to the ground!’
Gasping, he shook his head. ‘Who sits upon the throne? Who would do this in Mother Dark’s name?’
‘Can you not smell the blood? Nimander? There is war – here – I don’t know who. But souls are falling, in appalling numbers. And on the Throne of Darkness sits a queen – a queen in despair.’
He blinked. A queen? ‘Where is Apsal’ara?’
Korlat looked across the river. ‘Into the city, Lord.’
‘And Spinnock?’
‘He has followed – to beseech the queen. To make sense of this – Nimander, listen to me. Your Soletaken kin, they have succumbed to Silanah’s power – she now commands a Storm. If we now veer, you, myself, Dathenar and Prazek – we shall be forced to fight them. In the skies above Kharkanas, we shall annihilate each other. This must not be.’
Nimander forced himself to his feet. ‘No. Silanah. She must be stopped.’
‘Only the Queen can command her to stop, Nimander.’
‘Then … take me to her.’
When Korlat hesitated, he studied her, eyes narrowing. ‘What is it, Korlat? Who is this Queen of Darkness?’
‘I fear … no matter. Go, then, Nimander. Convince her to release Silanah.’
‘But – where will you go?’
‘The war. I will go with Dathenar and Prazek. Lord, I believe I know where the battle will be found. I hope that I am wrong. But … go. Walk where your father walked.’
How long ago was it? She could not remember. She was young. The night before she had taken a boy to her bed, to remind herself that not everything was pain. And if she later broke his heart, she’d not meant to. But this was a new day, and already the night just past seemed centuries away.
She’d been with her brother’s hunting party. On the spoor of tenag. The day was warm, the sun bright and pleased with itself.
They heard his laughter first, a deep thing, hinting of thunder, and they followed it down into a depression thick with chokecherry and dogwood. A figure, lying against a slope. He was Imass, like them, but they did not recognize him, and this in itself was startling. Disturbing.
She could see at once, when she and her kin gathered close, that his wounds were fatal. It was a wonder he still lived, and an even greater wonder that he could laugh as he did, and through all the agony in his eyes, that mirth still shone when he looked up at them.
Her brother was first to speak, because that was his way. ‘What manner of stone do you wear?’
‘Stone?’ the dying man replied, showing a red smile. ‘Metal, my friends. Armour. A Tel Akai gift.’
‘Where have you come from?’
‘Clanless. I wandered. I came upon an army, my friends.’
‘There is no army.’
‘Jaghut. Tel Akai. Others.’
They were silenced by this. The Jaghut were despised. Feared. But an army of Jaghut? Impossible.
Were they now at war? Her clan? Her people? If so, then they would all die. An army of Jaghut – the words alone opened like Omtose Phellack in her soul.
‘I joined them,’ said the man, and then, lifting a mangled hand, he added, ‘Set no crime at my feet for that. Because, you see, I am the last left. They died. All of them. The Jaghut. The Tel Akai. The Jheck. All … dead.’
‘What enemy has come among us?’ her brother asked, his eyes wide with fear.
‘None but that has always been with us, friends. Think well on my words. When you slay a beast, when you hunt as you do now, and blood is spilled. When you close upon the beast in its dying, do you not see its defiance? Its struggle to the very last moment? The legs that kick, the head that tries to lift, the blood frothing from the nostrils?’