Another cry of agony. Frothing blood sprayed out from its mouth.
Kicking himself away, the man reached his sword. His motions a blur of speed, he drew the weapon, alighted on his feet in a crouch, and slashed the sword into the side of the bear’s neck. The ancient watermarked blade slid through thick muscle, then bit into bone, and through, bursting free on the opposite side. Blood and bile gushed as the bear’s severed head thumped on to the sand. The body sat down on its haunches, still spewing liquid, then toppled to one side, legs twitching.
Blazing heat seethed at the back of the man’s head, his ears filled with a strange buzzing sound, and the braids of his black, kinked hair dripped thick threads of bloody saliva as he staggered upright.
On the sword’s blade, blood boiled, turned black, then shed in flakes.
Still the sky rained dead leaves.
He staggered back down to the sea, fell on to his knees in the shallows and plunged his head into the vaguely warm water.
Numbness flowed out along the back of his skull. When he straightened once more, he saw the bloom of blood in the water, a smear stretching into some draw of current — an appalling amount. He could feel more, streaming down his back now.
He quickly tugged off the chain hauberk, then the filthy, salt-rimed shirt beneath. He tore loose the shirt’s left sleeve, folded it into a broad bandanna and bound it tight round his head, as much against the torn skin and flesh as he could manage by feel.
The buzzing sound was fading. A dreadful ache filled the muscles of his neck and shoulders, and in his head there now pounded a drum, each beat pulsating until the bones of his skull seemed to reverberate. He attempted to spit again, but his parched throat yielded nothing — almost three days now without water. A juddering effect assailed his vision, as if he stood in the midst of an earthquake. Stumbling, he made his way back up the beach, collecting his sword on the way.
On to his knees once more, this time at the headless carcass. Using his sword to carve into the torso, then reaching in to grasp the bear’s warm heart. He tore and cut it loose, raised it in one hand and held it over his mouth, then squeezed it as if it was a sponge. From the largest of the arteries blood gushed into his mouth.
He drunk deep, finally closing his lips round the artery and sucking the last drop of blood from the organ.
When that was done he bit into the muscle and began to eat it.
Slowly, his vision steadied, and he noticed for the first time the raining leaves, the torrent only now diminishing, as the heavy, warring clouds edged away, out over the tea.
Finished eating the heart, he licked his fingers. Rose once more and retrieved the scabbard, sheathing the sword. The drumbeat was fading, although pain still tormented his neck, shoulders and back — muscles and tendons that had only begun their complaint at the savage abuse they had suffered. He washed the one-sleeved shirt then wrung it — tenderly, since it was threadbare and liable to fall apart under too rigorous a ministration. Slipping it on, he then rinsed out the chain hauberk before rolling it up and settling it down over one shoulder.
Then he set out, inland.
Above the crest of the shoreline, he found before him a wasteland. Rock, scrub, drifts of ash and, in the distance, ravines and outcrops of broken bedrock, a dimpling of the landscape into chaotic folds that lifted into raw, jagged hills.
Far to his left — northward — a grainy, diffuse haze marred the sky above or beyond more hills.
He squinted, studied that haze for thirty heartbeats.
Patches of dusty blue above him now, as the storm rolled westward over the sea, its downpour of leaves trailing like claw marks in the air, staining the whitecaps beyond the reef. The wind lost some of its chill bite as the sun finally broke through, promising its own assault on mortal flesh.
The man’s skin was dark, for he had been born on a savannah. His was a warrior’s build, the muscles lean and sharply defined on his frame. His height was average, though something in his posture made him seem taller. His even features were ravaged by depredation, but already the rich meat of the bear’s heart had begun to fill that expression with stolid, indomitable strength.
Still, the wounds blazed with ferocious heat. And he knew, then, that fever was not far off. He could see nothing nearby in which to take shelter, to hole up out of the sun. Among the ravines, perhaps, the chance of caves, overhangs. Yet. . fifteen hundred paces away, if not more.
Could he make it that far?
He would have to.
Dying was unthinkable, and that was no exaggeration. When a man has forsaken Hood, the final gate is closed. Oblivion or the torment of a journey without end — there was no telling what fate awaited such a man.
In any case, Traveller was in no hurry to discover an answer. No, he would invite Hood to find it himself.
It was the least he could do.
Slinging the scabbard’s rope-belt over his left shoulder, checking that the sword named Vengeance was snug within it, its plain grip within easy reach, he set out across the barren plain.
In his wake, stripped branches spun and twisted down from the heaving clouds, plunging into the waves, as it torn from the moon itself.
The clearing bore the unmistakable furrows of ploughs beneath the waist-high marsh grasses, each ribbon catching at their feet as they pushed through the thick stalks. The wreckage of a grain shed rose from brush at the far end, its roof collapsed with a sapling rising from the floor, as exuberant as any conqueror. Yet such signs were, thus far, all that remained of whatever tribe had once dwelt in this forest. Fragments of deliberate will gouged into the wilderness, but the will had failed. In another hundred years, Nimander knew, all evidence would be entirely erased. Was the ephemeral visage of civilization reason for fear? Or, perhaps, relief? That all victories were ultimately transitory in the face of patient nature might well be cause for optimism. No wound was too deep to heal. No outrage too horrendous to one day be irrelevant.
Nimander wondered if he had discovered the face of the one true god. Naught else but time, this ever changing and yet changeless tyrant against whom no crea shy;ure could win. Before whom even trees, stone and air must one day bow. There would be a last dawn, a last sunset, each kneeling in final surrender. Yes, time was indeed god, playing the same games with lowly insects as it did with mountains and the fools who would carve fastnesses into them. At peace with every scale, pleased by the rapid patter of a rat’s heart and the slow sighing of devouring wind against stone. Content with a star’s burgeoning light and the swift death of a raindrop on a desert floor.
‘What has earned the smile, cousin?’
He glanced over at Skintick. ‘Blessed with revelation, I think.’
‘A miracle, then. I think that I too am converted.’
‘You might want to change your mind — I do not believe my newfound god cares for worship, or answers any prayers no matter how fervent.’
‘What’s so unique about that?’
Nimander grunted. ‘Perhaps I deserved that.’
‘Oh, you are too quick to jump into the path of what might wound — even when wounding was never the intention. I am still open to tossing in with your worship of your newfound god, Nimander. Why not?’
Behind them, Desra snorted. ‘I will tell you two what to worship. Power. When it is of such magnitude as to leave you free to do as you will.’
‘Such freedom is ever a delusion, sister,’ Skintick said.
‘It is the only freedom that is not a delusion, fool.’
Grimacing, Nimander said, ‘I don’t recall Andarist being very free.’
‘Because his brother was more powerful, Nimander. Anomander was free to leave us, was he not? Which life would you choose?’