Andover continued to frown. “Not entirely.”
“Good enough.” Drask nodded. “When you were with Wheklam what did you learn?”
“How to build a boat. How to judge the winds on the water. How to swim. How not to drown. How to fish if I need food.” The words came freely and Andover felt an unsettling sense of awe. He was not aware that he had learned these things, not on a conscious level, but now that he spoke, the comprehension was there. He had never sailed, never built a boat, never fished, but the knowledge was there as surely as he understood how to walk.
“Wheklam held you under the waters. You were tempered by the touch of a god. Now you must be heated again and shaped again.”
“What do you mean?”
“Andover. You have worked as a blacksmith. You understand the process of making a tool or a weapon. You have forged your own weapon and killed with it, yes?”
“Yes. My hammer.” The hammer was gone now, of course, but he’d made it and used it well.
“Your hammer. The first of many weapons you will make in your life. You have the skills to make more. You will do so before you leave here. Metal will be shaped and formed and you will carry a new weapon, whatever you decide to make.”
Andover nodded. If the gods wanted him to make weapons he would. It was the least he could do in exchange for all they had given him.
“Gods make tools and weapons, too, Andover. You are one such weapon. Each and every one of the Sa’ba Taalor is a weapon of the gods. We have shaped them, as we are now shaping you, do you understand this?”
Andover considered those words carefully before nodding.
“Are you… Am I Sa’ba Taalor now?”
“That is for you to decide.” Drask looked at him and then moved his arms away from Andover. “You can leave here and go back to your people. Step through that spot…” He pointed to the image on the wall. The image that moved, where water lapped at the edge of the river, and the scent of cooking meats brought a rumble to Andover’s stomach and a flutter of familiarity to his heart. “Three steps, and you are in Freeholdt, never to return here.”
Drask crossed his thick arms and continued to look at him. “Freeholdt is not yet touched by the Sa’ba Taalor, though it will be soon. You would have time to get away before that happened and you have the skills to survive should you wish to avoid my people. Your life will not be easy, but it will be yours.”
The Silver Hand walked a few paces now and gestured to the ground, where seven faces of seven deities glowered toward the ceiling. “Or you can stay here and finish what you have willingly started. You can be shaped by the gods, forged into a different being. Your life here will not be easy, either, but you will be accepted by the Sa’ba Taalor and you will have a purpose in this world beyond finding your next meal.”
“What will I learn from you, Ordna? If I stay, what will you teach me?”
“Do not ask what I will give you, Andover Lashk. Merely know that you will learn and be shaped. You will be prepared for war.”
Life is pain. War is change. The raw materials of life hammered and shaped into something with a purpose.
He did not ask if he had to choose now. He already knew the answer. He was in the presence of a god and gods did not wait on the whims of mortals. He could only guess how rare it was for a god to give a mortal options.
Andover turned his back on the land where he had been born and walked toward the image of Drask Silver Hand.
Eleven
“Why are you still here, Cullen? Everything is gone already. Everything is dead.” Deltrea’s voice harped at her. Deltrea was dead, of course, but it seemed not even death could shut the woman’s mouth.
“I told you before, I’m waiting for something.”
If she looked in the direction of Deltrea’s voice she could almost see her friend, long and lean and smiling that lazy, lusty smile of hers. She missed Deltrea more than she would have thought possible. Enough, it seemed, to let herself wallow in the madness of fantasies.
She’d have thought she could do better when it came to spectral companions, but apparently her mind wanted Deltrea and she had to accept that.
“Does this make you our new queen?”
“What?” She looked toward the voice but there was no face this time. “No. Why would it?”
“You told me once you were related to the queen, didn’t you?”
“No. That was my grandmother.” She waved the question away. Or maybe she waved at a fly. It was hard to say sometimes.
Cullen had watched the grayskins move on and the people of Trecharch stumble past her, though she could not have told anyone which came first. Days moved past her with no true recollection beyond the end of everything she had ever believed in. She might never have moved again if hunger hadn’t finally snuck past her shock and bitten hard enough for her to notice.
In exchange for her vigilance, she had gotten Deltrea’s voice in her head. A blessing, perhaps, or a way for the Mother-Vine to make her suffer even more.
The Mother-Vine lay dead before her, burned and hacked and destroyed. That fact sat as well with her as the notion that sun would never shine again or that the Great Star would fly away and find a new home somewhere far away. None of the concepts made sense in her eyes.
She spent a week foraging in the woods around the ruins of the tower and circling the ruin of the Mother-Vine. What she touched failed to feel real under her fingertips. Her skin was numb and she could not escape the horror of what her world had become.
Sections of the great vine fell from the trees and shattered to the ground at random intervals and Cullen watched. It was all she could do. In time she found a decent bow and gathered arrows. Neither were hard to find. The grayskins had not claimed anything but the bodies of the fallen and most of her people who had gone past wouldn’t have known how to use a bow or were too weak to use one. Those she saw were not the sort to fight. The old, the diseased, the young. The rest were gone along with the Mother-Vine.
On the ninth day Cullen climbed to the remains of the Mother-Vine and slowly scaled the great husk. She wasn’t quite sure why, except that she seemed to have a need.
That was the only reason she had stayed this long anyway.
“What are you going to do, Cullen? Whittle your name in the remains?”
“You’re very rude, Deltrea.”
“Well, death has made me like manners less.”
“Nothing could make you like manners less. Shouldn’t you be off fucking Lurne’s ghost?”
“Now who’s lost her manners?” There was a pause and Cullen scaled the remains, pulling herself up the vast trunk of her dead god with ease. “Besides, I haven’t found any other ghosts to speak with.”
“Just as well. I’d be bored without you.”
“That’s why I stay, you know. To save you from boredom.”
“I have lost my mind and you are an echo of that loss.”
“You have lost your way, Cullen. There’s a difference.”
“Well, should you happen to know the way I should go, please feel free to tell me. Otherwise I’m just staying here until the winter comes around again.”
Deltrea’s voice stayed silent, but that was just as well. Cullen would have never noticed. She was too busy looking at the brilliant slice of green hiding in the ruined trunk of the Mother-Vine.
Had anyone told her that she would reach for that sliver of green in a vast field of dead, gray ruin, she would have laughed at the notion. Cullen was simply not that brave and would have been the first to tell anyone as much.
Still, her fingers reached, and touched, and burned with the vitality of the treasure she found hidden in the depths of a dead god.
Deltrea no longer spoke to her. Instead she screamed. Cullen screamed, too.
Drask moved as carefully as he had for days now. He could have made noise and he had no doubt he would not have been heard over the sound of complaints coming from below. Tega was quiet. The larger of the men was quiet
as well, but the small one, the one he thought of as the digger, continued to bemoan the lack of food.
He reached into his pouch and took out a logga nut. Most people required a knife or a rock to open one of the hard nuts. Drask had a silver hand. He found it very useful for just such situations.
They had made surprisingly good time. Despite the constant complaints, the digger led them well enough, careful to avoid the more obvious pitfalls.
Drask merely followed, as he had been ordered.
Until they reached level ground.
Everything that he had already seen in the depths of the Mounds was here as well, only more so.
There were columns of crystalline rock that held hidden things within the murky depths; half-seen bodies and remnants of other forms. Near his left hand he could see a human head, burnt and blistered and torn, suspended in the stone and staring with one wide eye in his direction. He did not fear such things, but they made him uncomfortable.
When Ydramil spoke it was with Ganem’s voice. Ganem was the King in Silver and so this was not at all surprising to Drask. Her voice was smoky and sultry and Drask closed his eyes, delighted to hear the familiar tones.
“It is time, Drask Silver Hand. You will soon learn secrets never meant for the Sa’ba Taalor.”
Drask nodded his head, fully aware that the god knew and could see all that he did.
“There are places forbidden to your people for your protection. This is one such place. But there are also secrets here, for even gods have their secrets. You are trusted as none of your kind have been trusted before in this. Think carefully before you react. Know that your actions and words will have consequences.”
Drask spoke softly, but he spoke. “Ydramil, I have served all of the Daxar Taalor. I have lived in each land and studied the ways of every king and every god. Yours is the path of reflection and consideration. I have chosen to follow your ways. I will not disappoint you.”
“The Fellein will soon find what they have sought. Here there is a weapon that can be used against us. It is also a weapon that can be used by us and for us. Look upon their discovery when the moment comes and if you would honor me, take up that weapon in my name.”
“How will I know this weapon, Ydramil?”
“You are a warrior, Drask. You will know it as you have always known weapons. You will see it for what it is.”
The voice faded, but the presence did not. For this moment in time Ydramil kept close watch on Drask and that by itself was enough to make him understand the gravity of the matter ahead.
Drask watched the Fellein as they moved across the flat surface of the ground and closer to the source of the light they had been seeking for so many days.
“By the gods, Vonders! Do you ever stop complaining?” His voice was louder than he’d meant it to be, but the sentiment was sincere and Nolan glared at the source of his frustration.
“No, not often.” Vonders looked back at him and smiled. It was the first time Nolan had seen the man look remotely cheerful in the last two days.
“You’ve enough of your trinkets to buy a castle when we get home. You should be celebrating, not pissing about how hard your existence is.”
Vonders shrugged and patted the pouch he’d sewn into his cloak. “Can’t spend a fortune here. It isn’t worth a fortune here, and even if it were, I’ve still got to finish this nonsense.”
Nolan knew that Orly was only complaining to hide the fact that he was terrified. The nightmare that had killed Tolpen had been unsettling enough, but when they found Tolpen’s corpse far below them several truths became evident. First that the thing Tega called a Mound Crawler was not dead. There was no sign of the vast body. Second that other things were alive down here. Hart’s body had been chewed on a great deal. Most of his face was gone and the droppings of whatever had fed on him were nearby.
Tega reached into her cloak and pulled out three pieces of pabba fruit that should not have been there. They were fresh and smelled as perfect as a sunrise over the mountains looked.
“Eat,” she said. He could see the strain on her face. Though she had explained little, he understood from her words that sorcery of any sort had a cost. Getting fresh fruit from another part of the world might have seemed like a parlor trick to some, but there were no fruit stands here and however she had managed the feat she had to reach a very great distance to gather the feast.
Vonders snatched the fruit and sniffed it eagerly.
“Gods, Tega. Now if you could just manage a bit of bread and a good cheese.”
Nolan looked carefully at Tega. “Thank you, but do you need this more than me?”
“I can manage on one fruit, same as you.” She smiled and he felt his stomach flutter. He had seen her kill with a gesture, had watched her quite literally make a monster explode before his eyes, but she was still capable of smiling and making him forget all of that. She was lovely, true enough, but that wasn't it. She was also kind when she did not have to be and that forgave many sins in his eyes.
“I think the glow is stronger here.” Vonders’s voice had lost some of its waspish edge now that he was eating.
“It is,” Tega agreed. “I think we have almost reached our destination.”
“Then why have we stopped here?”
Tega smiled in his direction. “Because we are tired. We are thirsty and we are hungry. Better to allay those troubles before we face whatever comes next, I think.”
Nolan nodded his head. There was wisdom in the notion and he was certainly tired enough.
The fruit was perfect, fresh and sweet and juicy. He made himself savor it instead of wolfing the food down. Vonders did not follow the same philosophy.
Nolan looked away from the other man and scanned the area above them. There was a lot of darkness up that way and he could only guess that they had descended close to a thousand feet. He was wrong. Drask would have pointed out that they were closer to five thousand feet down.
“I hope that if we find a weapon against the Sa’ba Taalor that it is light.”
Tega frowned and pulled a section of pabba fruit from the whole. “Why?”
“I will do what must be done, of course, but I have no desire to carry a great weight all the way back up there.”
A second later they were all looking at the vast distance they had covered.
Vonders sighed. “The problem isn’t the weight so much as the entire thing will be uphill.”
Tega laughed at that, the sound echoing away from them and bouncing back. The look of horror on her face when the sound started was enough to make both of the men with her smile.
It was as close as Nolan could remember to being genuinely relaxed in days. He finished his food and licked the juices from his fingers, relishing the taste. By the time he had finished the others were long done.
“We should go.” Vonders spoke almost too loudly and Nolan looked at the other man. He gestured with his hand, pointing in the direction that they’d come from. Nolan looked that way but only after starting to collect his belongings. The move hid his taking the time to look where Vonders pointed.
He barely managed to keep his face calm when he saw the giant moving carefully down the path.
The man was enormous, but moved with the grace of a cat.
Before any more time had passed, Vonders had a throwing blade in his hand and Nolan tried to get his attention and stop him before he could throw. The challenge was to do so without being noticed himself.
He was too late. Vonders Orly was a clown half the time and he was greedy to a fault, but he was also a trained soldier and he had moved through the periphery of the Blasted Lands a hundred times or more. He knew how to handle his weapons and he knew how to aim at a target.
The blade cut the air silently and moved for the shadowy form. If the blow was not perfect, if the enemy did not get injured, but instead merely noticed the attack, they were going to suffer for Vonders’ actions.
The blade sailed flawlessly into the darkness and
the man moved, stepped to the side and swept his hand at the spot where the blade should have buried itself into him.
The man’s head turned and his eyes flashed with a light all their own.
He made no sound as he moved, but instead came in fast, charging toward Vonders. If the scavenger had thought to escape before he was struck, he failed in his efforts. The man came out of the semi-dark and drove his fist into Vonders’ chest with a hard, wet noise. Vonders let out a grunt and fell back, his face twisted with pain.
As Vonders fell backward the man moved in closer again and drove his knee into the muscles of his attacker’s thigh. The thick bone snapped. Nolan watched the way Vonders’ leg bulged unexpectedly and then saw the bone rip free of the muscles around it. Vonders never even screamed. He got lucky and passed out before the pain could fully register.
The man turned, his entire body lowered into a crouch, and his right hand glimmering oddly in the faint light. His left hand held a blade of some sort, but from his current distance and in the dim light, Nolan couldn’t quite make it out.
The fight was over before Tega even noticed it was happening. That was hardly her fault. She was not trained in fighting situations and besides, the entire thing had happened in two heartbeats.
“Drask Silver Hand!” Tega stepped forward, her hands held out at her sides, showing clearly that she held no weapons.
The giant nodded, but his attention remained firmly focused on Nolan. “Put down the weapon. Do not make me hurt you.”
It was only then that Nolan realized he’d drawn his axe. His grip on the handle was tight enough to make his fingers hurt.
It wasn’t conscious, but he calculated his chances of taking the man down before the situation could get worse. The odds were not in his favor. He put the axe away.
Vonders coughed and groaned, drifting slowly back toward consciousness. Nolan knew he would wake properly soon enough and that the pain of his leg would come down on him like a felled tree.
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