by Sara Douglas
"Georgdi is in danger of surrounding us," Malat said, turning back to the other two, his wine untasted.
"We've managed to get ourselves stuck in this..." He caught himself just before he said nightmare of an indefensible city. "Stuck here in Pelemere. Our supplies are low to the point of nonexistence. Winter settled in a month early. We don't have soldiers used to fighting on starvation rations in the middle of snowdrifts...and Georgdi does. Gods, my friends, they've fought the Skraelings in Viland for decades.
Fulmer, have you heard anything from the supply train that was leaving Hosea two weeks ago? We need those supplies, man. Badly."
"I've heard nothing," said Fulmer. "None of the scouts have yet returned."
Malat and Sirus exchanged a worried look. No one had heard anything from the north for at least ten days. The entire area had been blanketed by snowstorms, yes, but they should have heard something.
"I think--" began Sirus, when he was interrupted by the door opening and one of his captains entering.
The captain bowed, excusing himself for the interruption.
"Sire," he said, "Chief Georgdi sits his horse outside the city gates, requesting a parley."
"What?" said Fulmer. "He has come to surrender?"
"No," said the captain, "he says he has come to warn of the approach of a tide of death."
BroadWing EvenBeat fought his way through the gusts of snow, his wings barely able to hold him aloft.
He was terrified.
He'd never encountered a storm like this. It wasn't its ferocity so much as what it was.
Not just wind.
Not just snow.
There was something else in the air about him.
BroadWing couldn't see the creatures, but he could hear them, and he could feel them. Whispers, cold,
soft fingers brushing his face, his arms, his belly.
And sometimes, so fleeting he thought he'd imagined it, a face, an Icarii face, floating before him.
A cold smile lighting its features.
Then it would be gone, and BroadWing would be left to fight his way through the storm once more,
desperate to get to Pelemere, desperate to warn the northern kings of what approached.
"Tell Georgdi he has our word," said Malat. "He enjoys safe harbor while in Pelemere."
As the captain left, Malat looked significantly at Fulmer. "He does enjoy safe harbor while under the parley flag, Fulmer."
"Perhaps he wants to surrender," said Fulmer.
"And perhaps you're nothing but a young fool," said Sirus, sitting down in a chair. "It might be better to allow Malat and myself to talk to Georgdi."
"If it wasn't for my forces and my supplies--" Fulmer began.
"Yes," said Malat, "and we're more than grateful, Fulmer. I don't know what we would have done without you. But I think it is important to hear what Georgdi has to say. He has fought with nothing but honor, and I don't expect anything else from him now."
Fulmer grunted, but he said no more, and joined Malat at the table with Sirus.
He hoped they would make Georgdi stand.
Chief Alm Georgdi was nothing like what any of the three men had expected. Somehow, Malat thought,
as the Outlander entered the room accompanied by three of his men, all unarmed (and one looking as though he'd come straight from the battlefield, given his grubby clothing and exhausted features), they'd always imagined Georgdi as an enormous bear of a man. A hulk, rippling with muscle, and probably bristling with a full beard and curling mustachios as well.
Instead, Georgdi proved to be a trim man of good height, short of hair and clean-shaven, who looked as if he should be a scholar rather than a far-too-successful warlord. His attire was stylish, his manner elegant, his eyes bright and honest.
Malat instantly knew that whatever news he brought, it wasn't going to be good.
An approaching tide of death?
Georgdi waved aside all formalities and offers of refreshment, pulling out a chair and sitting at the table without waiting for an invitation.
"We're in trouble," he said, his well-modulated voice as elegant as the rest of his appearance.
"So you have come to surrender," Fulmer said.
Malat closed his eyes briefly and prayed for patience.
"All of us are in trouble," said Georgdi, ignoring Fulmer and looking between Sirus and Malat,
instinctively knowing the better men at the table even before Fulmer had opened his mouth. "And all our families besides. Many of them will already be dead. Our petty little battles must be forgotten in the face of what approaches." He turned, gesturing to the disheveled and exhausted man who'd entered with him and who now took a step forward.
"This man is Jelial," said Georgdi. "Lord Warden of the Eastern Plains Province of Gershadi. Fulmer, you know him, surely? Yes, well. Jelial's hometown is Hornridge. He staggered into my camp late last night.
Jelial?"
"I have been running south for these past six weeks," Jelial said, and the three kings went cold at the sound of his voice, because it echoed with hopelessness, "trying to keep ahead of death."
"Oh, for gods' sakes, man," said Malat, rising from his seat, "what have you to tell us?"
"Several million Skraelings are approaching," said Jelial, his voice still dead. "They ate their way through Hornridge. No one survived."
Jelial looked at Fulmer. "Hosea is no more. Everyone, everyone, is dead. And as they come farther south, as they feed, they are growing stronger, larger...different. Gods, sometimes I have caught glimpses of some of them who bore the heads of jackals! The creatures are now streaming toward Pelemere.
They are perhaps a day away, maybe two if you're lucky. Get everyone out. Get them out!"
"Nothing will stop the Skraelings," said Georgdi in a tone as casual and even as if he were discussing the arrangements for a breakfast. "I know Skraelings. I fought them with Evenor in Viland. They are murderous in bands of a few score, and almost impossible in bands of a few hundred. Millions? Let alone the millions of what Jelial describes? I am not even going to attempt to stay and fight on these plains. You are welcome to your Pelemere and your Central Kingdoms, gentlemen. Within minutes I am going to rise from this chair and ride back to my army, which I shall gather about me and with all haste ride, flee, back into the Outlands, which I can either hope the Skraelings will ignore, or where we might have some chance of containing them in the passes between the FarReach Mountains and the Sky Peaks. What you do is your choice. If you decide to abandon your kingdoms--which, frankly I advise, because you stand no chance against these Skraelings--then you may flee with me. The more of us there are to battle the Skraelings in the mountain passes, if it comes to that, the more hope we have of standing firm against them."
Fulmer, Malat, and Sirus stared at him. For the moment none of them could speak.
"You have lost your kingdoms," Georgdi said, his voice now softer. "By the end of this week they will have vanished beneath a seething tide of death. Get who and what you can out now. You have a day,
two at the most. Sit there and gape if you wish, but, frankly, I'd be moving."
With that he pushed his chair back and rose. "I don't have time to linger here. My armies spent the night packing, we will be gone by midmorning."
"It's all lies," Fulmer said, white with shock.
"No," Malat said quietly, "it isn't."
"The Skraelings?" said Sirus. "Millions? What is happening? They've never come this far south before.
And in such numbers...What in the world are they doing?"
"They are led by a man called Lister," said Jelial. "He styles himself the Lord of the Skraelings. His Skraelings are swarming south. Migrating. My lords, I beg you. Flee. Flee."
"I do not think news can come much worse than this," said Georgdi. "I think--"
"News can get worse," said a voice from the window, accompanied by a blast of cold air.
Everyone leapt to their feet, turning to face the intruder.
An Icarii man was balanced on the window ledge, one hand still on the shutters which he'd opened.
"My name is BroadWing EvenBeat," the Icarii man said. He jumped down to the floor, spreading his hands to show he was unarmed. "And I did not think I would survive to get this far."
"What news?" said Georgdi.
"Isaiah, Tyrant of Isembaard," said BroadWing, "has just led an army of a million men or more out of the Salamaan Pass into the Outlands. Adab has fallen. They are allied, I think, this Lister and Isaiah. And we"--he gestured, taking in everything from Hosea to the FarReach Mountains--"are all but dead, for there is nowhere to flee."
"How do you know this?" Georgdi said.
"For weeks I have been looking about the FarReach Mountains, scouting for Maximilian, who entered Isembaard," BroadWing said. "My companions and I had reached the eastern parts of the mountains when another Icarii warned us."
"What in the world is Maximilian doing in Isembaard?" Fulmer said.
"I don't think any of us have time for that story right now," BroadWing said.
CHAPTER SIX
The Sky Peak Passes
Malat had always thought he would not fear death when it came, but would accept it with courage and honor.
Of course, he'd never envisioned a death like this.
It was not just that death beckoned, or that death strode through the snow toward him, but that it was taking so damned long about it. The continuing terror, day after day, week after week, was not something Malat had ever thought to endure, and it had sapped his courage and honor and fortitude.
They'd fled Pelemere with Georgdi. Not everyone came. At least half the population of the city had refused to believe that a sea of Skraelings seethed down toward them--and who could blame them for disbelieving? They'd stayed, despite desperate shouted warnings, and now they were dead.
Malat remembered how, three hours after riding out of Pelemere, he'd pulled his horse to a halt and looked back.
Pelemere should have been clearly visible--a black blot on a hill in the middle of a vast plain.
Instead it had vanished beneath an undulating river of gray.
Skraelings.
Eating.
Malat, as all those who'd pulled their horses to a halt with him and looked back, could not quite comprehend what he saw. He could not imagine that number of Skraelings; of any creature. He'd sat his horse, his mouth agape, and stared, and it was only a few minutes later, when one of his men screamed,
that he'd looked to his north.
A wave of Skraelings was less than five hundred paces away, and approaching fast.
Thus began the nightmare. Almost three weeks of constant battling, of bunching together, of fighting, of running, running, running eastward as fast as they could. Malat estimated that between Georgdi, Fulmer,
Sirus, and himself, they'd escaped Pelemere with two hundred thousand people--both soldiers and civilians. Now Malat would be surprised if there were any more than fifteen thousand left.
Fulmer was dead, lost that first day.
Sirus also, lost a week later when his horse stumbled and then collapsed as a score of Skraelings swarmed over it.
The only reason any of them were still alive was because the bulk of the Skraelings were still to the west.
Eating, Malat supposed; feeding through the Central Kingdoms toward Kyros.
Sometimes, when he managed to snatch a few minutes' rest, Malat would weep, thinking of his wife and remaining children, of all those he loved sitting in Kyros, not understanding that within days, weeks at the most, they would be eaten by these damned...damned...
Malat wanted to die. He wanted to succumb to the Skraelings' teeth, to their claws, their hunger.
But always, every time they faced renewed attack, something in Malat forced him to take up the sword again, and wield it, and somehow survive.
For another day.
They were in the western reaches of the Sky Peak Passes now. Georgdi, still alive and somehow still in control, still hopeful, said that if they could reach a gorge he knew of a few days' travel ahead, then they would have a chance. It had a narrow mouth, apparently, and they could defend themselves more easily there.
Malat didn't really care anymore. He put one foot in front of the other, or sat his horse staring sightlessly ahead as it somehow managed to put one foot ahead of the other, and he forced food and water down his throat as needed, and he wrapped himself against the increasingly bitter cold. About him, the few civilians and soldiers who survived bunched together for security and warmth and similarly trudged forward, defending themselves from never-ending attacks by groups of Skraelings, losing a few more comrades with each attack.
Malat thought there must be a trail of blood leading back to whatever remained of Pelemere.
That they survived at all was due to the Icarii. Not only BroadWing EvenBeat, the man who had warned them of the Isembaardian invasion into the Outlands, but several score of others who had joined him.
They warned of approaching Skraelings, scouted clear routes through the territory ahead, and they were skilled bowmen and women, attacking Skraelings from above. They'd lost a few of their number, and Malat, as Georgdi, was incalculably grateful to them. They could have fled, this was not their fight, but they didn't. They stayed, and helped, and died, and Malat, who'd never had much respect for the birdmen, now admired them immensely.
But he still didn't think any of them would survive.
Winter closed in with tight, cruel fingers. Every few days heavy snowstorms enveloped them, and in those storms...
BroadWing said ghosts lived in them. Perhaps the ghosts of Icarii long dead, he didn't know, but they were almost as terrifying as the Skraelings, although they did not attack or maim or murder. They simply terrified with sudden appearances, their ethereal faces materializing in the snow before vanishing again,
always accompanied by the barely audible beat of wings, and a constant undertone of whispering...
Malat could not understand how any of them would survive. If, by some miracle, they outran and outfought the Skraelings, and if these snow ghosts finally left them alone, then they still had a million Isembaardians with which to cope.
Their world was falling apart, and Malat did not think anything left within it could possibly endure.
Alm Georgdi was the first to hear the beat of approaching wings.
He was huddled in front of a campfire, his face haggard, his hands trembling from both weariness and cold.
He looked up, hoping it was not bad news.
BroadWing EvenBeat landed a few feet away, staggering a little. He was exhausted, as was everyone else.
"Georgdi," he said.
Georgdi grunted. Bad news, then.
BroadWing staggered forward, almost collapsing as he sat before the fire. His face was white with cold and fatigue.
"Georgdi," he whispered.
"What is it?" Georgdi snapped.
"The Skraelings," BroadWing said. "The Skraelings...they have abandoned the Central Kingdoms."
Georgdi stared at BroadWing, not able to understand what the birdman said. Abandoned the Central Kingdoms? "They've returned to their frozen wastes?" he said.
"No," BroadWing said, "they've swarmed into the FarReach Mountains. Every last one of them. The mountains are covered with them."
"What...why?"
"They are moving en masse into Isembaard," BroadWing said. "For the moment we're safe. From the Skraelings, at least."
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Sky Peak Passes
Lister stood with Eleanon, Bingaleal, and Inardle on a snowy platform high in a narrow gorge within the northern FarReach Mountains.
Below them the last ten thousand or so of the Skraelings swarmed southward.
Millions had passed by in the last day or so, desperate to reach DarkGlass Mountain. They were now moving supernaturally fast, almost flowing over the ground, pulled by Kanubai's power. By now, Lister reckoned, the first waves o
f Skraelings would be seething almost to the gates of DarkGlass Mountain.
He could hardly bear to think of what might be happening to northwestern Isembaard as the Skraeling nation swept through.
Above them, snowflakes drifted gently down from heavy clouds, settling on rocks and clinging to crevices.
As they settled, very slowly they transformed into ice-covered lumps.
The Lealfast nation. Hundreds of thousands of them covering the FarReach Mountains. This was as far south as they, or Lister, would come. Isembaard might have a few more weeks, but then it would be Kanubai's and DarkGlass Mountain's entirely.
Lister sighed. "It comes to pass then. The Skraelings hurry to their true lord."
"Pity the Isembaardians," said Eleanon, watching the Skraelings. "They can have no idea of what is about to descend on them."
"Isaiah and I could not warn them," Lister said quietly. "Isaiah did what he could to get as many of his people out of the area as possible. The Salamaan Pass will remain open for a week or so for refugees,
but then..."
"Then the Lealfast will do what they have to in order to keep these northern plains free, for as long as possible, from the armies of Kanubai," said Eleanon.
"Kanubai will do everything he can to get to Elcho Falling," said Lister. "He'll need to attack before the Lord of Elcho Falling attains his full strength."
"We will do everything we have to," said Eleanon, "but we pray to all gods above, and to the Star Dance that runs through our souls, that the Lord of Elcho Falling rises soon. Without him we are all doomed."
"Lister!" said Inardle. "What is that?"
At her alarmed voice, everyone looked to where she pointed.
A black shape climbed up the steep slope of the gorge on which they all stood. From this distance it looked half bat, half spider, and it certainly moved with the speed and agility one might expect from a creature bred from those parents, but as it grew closer the figure resolved itself into that of a man wrapped in a black cloak (albeit still climbing with the speed and agility of some creature of the night), a satchel slung over his back.
Lister laughed, and relaxed.
