Sechul Lath found himself lying on the ground. His eyes were closed, and he felt no desire to open them. Not yet, anyway.
He heard footsteps, coming closer. Two sets, halting to stand on either side of him.
‘Oh my,’ said a woman’s voice on his left. ‘I suppose it had to happen, eventually. Still … tell me, brother, are you feeling anything?’
‘No,’ replied the man on his right. ‘Why, should I?’
‘Well, we are what was the best of him, and we shall live on.’
‘Do you think he can hear us, sister?’
‘I imagine so. Do you remember once, we sent a coin spinning?’
‘Long ago now.’
‘If I listen hard …’
‘Probably just your imagination, my love. Some games die with barely a whisper. And as for this new one – I want no part of it.’
She made a sound, something like a laugh. ‘Is that wisdom I’m hearing?’
‘Look at our father,’ he said. ‘When he opens his eyes, when he climbs to his feet, there will be no going back.’
‘No, no going back. Ever again.’
Sechul’s son sighed. ‘I think we should hunt down the Errant, beloved. In our father’s name, we should teach him about the lord’s push.’
‘Draconus will find him. You can be certain of that.’
‘But I want to be there when he does.’
‘Better we should be like this, brother. Come to welcome him before the gates of death. We could help him to his feet, reminding him that our father waits on the other side.’
‘We could guide him to the gate.’
‘Just so.’
‘And then give the Errant—’
‘A nudge.’
His children laughed, and Sechul Lath found himself smiling. Son, daughter, what a fine gift you give me, before I am sent on my way.
‘Sister … I see a coin with two heads, both the Errant’s. Shall we send it spinning?’
‘Why not, brother? Prod and pull, ’tis the way of the gods.’
When at last he opened his eyes, they were gone.
And all was well.
Where her draconic shadow slipped over the land below, the ground erupted in spumes of dust and stones. Fissures spread outward jagged and depthless. Hills slumped, collapsed, their cloak of plants withering, blackening. Where she passed, the earth died. Freedom was a gift, but freedom filled her with desperate rage, and such pain that the rush of air over her scales was agony.
She had no doubt that she possessed a soul. She could see it deep inside, down a tunnel through cracked bedrock, down and ever down, to a crushed knot lying on the floor. There. That. And the screams that howled from it made the roots of the mountains shiver, made seas tremble. Made still the winds and lifeless the air itself.
Before her birth, there had been the peace of unknowing, the oblivion of that which did not exist. She neither felt nor cared, because she simply wasn’t. Before the gods meddled, before they tore light from dark, life from death, before they raised their walls and uttered their foul words. This is, but this is not. There shall be magic in the worlds we have made, and by its power shall life rise and in looking upon its myriad faces, we shall see our own – we shall come to know who and what we are. Here, there is magic, but here, there is not.
She could never give her face to the gods – they would not look, they would only turn away. She could awaken all the power of her voice to cry, I am here! See me! Acknowledge me – your one forgotten child! But it would achieve nothing. Because even the vision of the gods must have a blind spot. And what will you find there? Only me. A crushed knot lying on the floor.
Her living kin were hunting her now. She did not know how many, but it did not matter. They sought her annihilation. But … not yet. Leave me this freedom … to do something. To do a thing … a thing that does not destroy, but creates. Please, can I not be more than I am? Please. Do not find me.
Below her, her flight made a bleeding scar in the earth, and where her eyes reached out, where they touched all the beauty and wonder ahead, her arrival delivered naught but devastation. It was unconscionable. It was unbearable.
See what comes, when every gift is a curse.
A sudden pressure, far behind her, and she twisted her neck round, glared into her own wake of devastation.
Eleint.
So many!
Rage gave voice to her cry, and that voice shattered the land for leagues on all sides. As its echoes rebounded, Korabas flinched at the damage she had unleashed. No! Where is my beauty? Why is it only for you? No!
I will have this freedom! I will have it!
To do – to do – to do something.
Her wings strained with the fury of her flight, but she could fly no faster than she was already flying, and it was not enough. The Eleint drew ever closer, and Korabas could see that crushed knot flaring with an inner fire, blazing now with all the anger she had ever felt, had ever taken inside – bound for so long. Anger at the gods. At the makers – her makers – for what they did to her.
Eleint! You would kill me and call it freedom? Then come to me and try!
Her rage was waiting for them, waiting for them all.
Mathok reined in, dust and stones scattering from his horse’s hoofs. As the cloud lifted around him he cursed, spat and then said, ‘They’re in the pass, High Fist. The bastards! How did they anticipate us?’
‘Calm down,’ Paran said, turning to glance back at the column. ‘We are in the manifestation of Akhrast Korvalain. The Assail can track our every move.’ He faced the Warleader again. ‘Mathok – are they well placed?’
‘Dug in, sir. And these ones, High Fist, are heavily armoured. Not local – the Assail have hired mercenaries.’
Fist Rythe Bude, standing beside Paran – somewhat too close, as he could smell the spices in her hair – asked, ‘Could you see their standards, Warleader?’
Mathok made a face. ‘Wolf furs, Fist. Wolf skulls too. I didn’t get close enough, but if they had the carcasses of wolf puppies hanging from their ear lobes it wouldn’t have surprised me.’
Paran sighed. ‘Togg and Fanderay. Now that complicates things.’
‘Why should it complicate things?’ Noto Boil demanded, withdrawing the fish spine from his mouth and studying its red tip. ‘There’s nothing complicated about any of this, right, High Fist? I mean, we’re marching double-quick for who knows where but wherever it is it won’t be pretty, and once we get there we’re aiming to link forces with someone who might not even be there, to fight a war against an Elder race and their human slaves for no particular reason except that they’re damned ugly. Complicated? Nonsense. Now Seven Cities … that was complicated.’
‘Are you done, Boil?’
‘Noto Boil, sir, if you please. And yes, I am. For now.’
‘What makes this complicated,’ Paran resumed, ‘is that I have no real interest in fighting worshippers sworn to the Wolves of Winter. In fact, I sympathize with their cause, and while I might disagree with the means by which they intend to express their particular faith—’ He turned to Rythe Bude. ‘Gods, listen to me. I’m starting to sound like Boil!’
‘Noto Boil.’
‘The point is, we need to get through that pass. Mathok – any other routes through the south mountains?’
‘How the Hood should I know? I’ve never been here before!’
‘All right, never mind. Silly question.’