'The blinkers were taken from my eyes. Azaer does not lie – Azaer can¬not lie, for if you draw the shadows back, you reveal what is hidden. The shadows illuminate the path, they do not force one to take it, and certainly not one such as I, born to change all and leave Gods broken in my wake. Fools forge weapons to their own devices, I learned that before my tenth season, when my uncle showed me the mysteries of fire and metal. This you already know to be true: iron and stone have their shapes within them, and those shapes should never be denied. Not all steel should become a sword.'
Sudden laughter rang through Isak's head, so fleeting that he wondered if the last vestiges of sanity Aryn Bwr had retained were gone forever.
Then the voice returned with a chilling clarity. 'You above all know this to be true: you, the weapon both men and Gods tried to forge to their own ends, resulting in – well, not what was wanted. Azaer does not forge, but Azaer can see the shape within, because it itself lacks mortal flesh.'
'Where did the shadow lead you?' Isak asked.
'Deep, deep into darkness, down paths that had not been there under Tsatach's fiery eye.'
'Where?' Isak insisted, desperate for concrete information. This mystical litany was beginning to try his patience.
'No place mere mortals could find,' the dead spirit said, oblivious now to everything except his memories, 'no place to be found, except at twilight, where one world meets the next; between the edges of what we know and what we fear. We were three days' ride from where 1 would build Keriabral, on lands my House controlled, though I never found that barrow again. It was outside of time, the link between this life and what lies past Death's final judgment.'
'A barrow,' Isak said, sensing they were getting somewhere useful, 'so you were underground?'
'Down into darkness, into the bowels of the Land, the heart of the Land, a point of balance, a place of harmony and standing stones. Deep; so deep I feared going further would bring me to the six ivory gates of Ghenna itself
'And what did you find?'
'Gifts, links in a chain, twelve means to a thousand ends.'
'Twelve gifts… and there was no price for these gifts?' Isak asked hoarsely. He could guess what they were now, for this was a scrap of history that made sense at last. Aryn Bwr had been a mage-smith of great power, but weapons that struck fear in the Gods themselves? The ballads and stories of that age told how Aryn Bwr had forged the twelve Crystal Skulls and made gifts of them to his allies. Nowhere did it say how he had managed this, nor from what he had forged them.
'A fool's price, a fool's soul. I paid nothing, but I knew I would not wit¬ness the Land I re-forged. I strove for a legacy and it was that they tore from me. I was never driven down the path, only shown the one 1 would choose. My actions were predicted, anticipated, by hateful shadows that whisper and laugh in the night… they knew they would have me one day. They were always watching, always waiting, ever-patient for their prize.' He broke off suddenly and Isak felt a chill breeze run through his head.
'In a moment of desperation, 1 gave it, in return for petty revenge,' Aryn Bwr said at last.
'Revenge?'
A memory stirred, one Isak recognised from his dreams. A great fortress crowned by towers as massive as the one he had come to know so well in Tirah: Castle Keriabral, Aryn Bwr's fortress, where he should have died – until, in a last desperate act, he'd called out a name and secured a completely different fate.
'I remember,' Isak said, subdued. Pain and grief flowed from the dead king's spirit now. It took Isak a moment to shake off the anguish and pursue his original line of questioning.
'What does Azaer want? What links the Skulls to the destruction of Scree?'
'Deeds done openly betray little; done in the shadows, they speak the truth.'
Isak hesitated. All this could be misdirection? Thousands of people are going to die – have already died. It cannot be so simple. If Azaer has had only a light hand in events, then it most likely hasn't the strength to become more involved – this change in tactics means either it's growing stronger, or it's taking a risk.'
He tailed off as he tried to understand it all. For the hundredth time since his elevation, first to Krann and then to Lord of the Farlan, he cursed his own ignorance. He'd stolen time whenever he could to struggle his way through impenetrable scrolls and ancient books. He was not one who found pleasure in reading, but he knew the worth of knowledge. He had begun to associate the scent of leather bindings with a yearning for the breeze in his hair, and the feel of the rough parchment under his fingers brought on a sense of dread, a precursor to the stilted, ritualistic style of writing that invariably fogged his mind.
'It can't be,' Isak muttered, more to himself than Aryn Bwr.
'All deeds serve a purpose,' the dead king replied solemnly, 'but what use can shadows have of grand gestures!'
In short, careful phases they came within sight of the barricade. They were all listening hard for voices: signs of panic, sudden shouts, anything that might signal the order to attack. Doranei looked at the half-dozen wooden houses blazing away on his left, casting long
shadows over King Emin's painfully small company. The men made their way down the middle of the street in three neat columns. They marched smartly, keeping in formation, their best defence against the barricade's defenders. Even so, every one of the Brotherhood had an ear cocked for that first whistle of an arrow shaft.
'Your Majesty.'
Doranei didn't need to turn his head to know it was Beyn, on their right flank, who'd spoken. The street was silent aside from their quiet footsteps and his voice carried easily.
'Something in the shadows,' Beyn said.
'Something?' the king echoed.
'Figure; too quick to see properly, but tall, not a citizen.'
'Hooded and cloaked in white? Watching us?'
'Yes, all in white. Looking towards the barricade, but he saw us too. Moving alone, not frightened to be seen.'
'Tell me if it gets any closer,' King Emin said. 'We don't want to get caught up in someone else's problem.'
'What is it?' Endine whispered, unable to keep quiet.
Doranei looked at his king, who looked perturbed by the news, however calm he sounded.
'Scree's end is near, then,' he said quietly, sadly. 'When the Saljin Man ventures inside a city's boundary, it's because it is no longer a city.'
'The Saljin Man?' Now Endine sounded afraid. 'The curse of the Vukotic?'
'The very same. The daemon can follow any member of that tribe. No doubt it can sense the death hanging around Zhia. We should move faster.'
They picked up their pace, no one needing to be told twice. They'd all heard about the daemon that plagued the Vukotic tribe, and not even Coran wanted to try his arm against it.
The ground by the barricade was littered with corpses, most un¬armed and many painfully thin, and those arrows the defenders had not bothered to recover after beating off however many assaults they'd endured. Doranei tried not to look at any of the bodies too closely as he carefully stabbed every one within range, in case one of the rabid creatures was only injured. They'd been lucky so far, encountering no more than a dozen stragglers between Autumn's Arch, where they'd left the Farlan Army, and the Greengate.
Lord Isak hadn't bothered trying to talk King Emin out of the expe¬dition – he was busy organising his own fool's errand, though Lord Isak had more soldiers to accompany him to the Red Palace, where they believed the necromancer was holed up. The white-eye had grasped the king's wrist in friendship and saluted the rest of the small band, just as any Farlan soldier would, kissing his bow-fingers and touch¬ing them to his forehead. The other Farlan had followed suit, and Doranei felt a flush of foolish pride that Lord Isak had spared them the moment of respect, before the Brotherhood had dropped over the barricade and marched south, heading for the spot where their mages, Endine and Cetarn, had sensed a Crystal Skull being used.