A second later her lips were close enough to kiss and moving past until she was whispering in his ear. “I came back because there was a once in a thousand years’ opportunity, and Desh Krohan seized it. He considered necromancy. He thought hard of taking lives to bring me back, but in the end he could not even take the lives of our enemies.”
Her arms, long and elegant, hugged against him for a moment, the kind embrace of a friend, not the embrace of a lover.
“I came back so that Desh could sleep at night. I killed the king so I could sleep.” Goriah pulled back from him enough so that he could look into her eyes and she could return the favor. “What will it take to let you sleep again, Merros Dulver?”
He wished he had a good answer.
The city was descending from the sky. The sun had set behind them and the stars were out and clear, save where the city’s mass blocked them. The Great Star illuminated the edges and offered hints instead of details.
Drask looked at the city of Canhoon and nodded.
“What are you smiling about, Drask?” Andover’s question was innocent enough. The boy had not yet decided if he would try to kill Drask. Despite his many changes, Andover could still not easily hide his thoughts. His face was not yet a proper mask.
“This is coming to an end, whatever it is. We no longer chase the city. It lands as all birds must land.”
“Are there birds in the Blasted Lands? I don’t recall ever seeing one.”
“There are birds. They are very, very large and feed on, well, everything. You are fortunate not to have seen one.”
Andover thought about that for a while and nodded. Tega rode up ahead, and Nolan rode with her, occasionally murmuring to himself; sometimes he laughed and other times he cried. He made words now and then, but not often.
Drask rode forward, until he kept pace with Tega. She looked his way and offered a weak smile.
“You were gone for a long time, Tega.” It was not a question, merely an observation. Still, she flinched just a touch as if afraid he would strike her.
When she made no answer he continued on. “You have brought back one of your own.”
“She was close to me, and she was murdered without ever being a part of your war.”
“It is not my war, Tega. It belongs to the gods.”
“They brought back Swech.” Still she cringed. She tried to hide it but she was terrified.
He nodded his head. “What they did took power. What you did took power. You both had the ability and your own reasons.”
“I thought you would be angry, Drask.”
“I have no place in your actions. I am merely observing.”
“You are reflecting,” she corrected.
A smile played at his mouth and he nodded in the way of her people. “Yes. Reflecting is a good word. It is strong and accurate.”
“What do you reflect upon, Drask?”
“What we are becoming.” He raised his hand again, the most obvious change in any of the three of them. In the past it had been a miracle, yes, but stylized. There had been markings made by the gods on the metallic surface. Now it was clean of those marks.
“What are we, Drask?” Her voice shook. That was the thing about the Fellein: they seemed determined to torture themselves with doubts about the universe and their place in it.
“I am Drask Silver Hand. You are Tega, apprentice to Desh Krohan. Nolan is… Nolan. The only thing that has changed is that we have been touched by the gods in a way they did not intend. I do not have a name for what we are or what we are becoming beyond that. We are changing, but the changes are physical, Tega. You are still you. I am still me.”
He pointed to the City of Wonders. “In your life did you ever imagine that you would see such a thing? A city that floats in the air, and moves hundreds of miles.”
“Why did you… Why did you bring back the Blasted Lands?”
“That is easy. They have been there all my life and I find comfort in them. I spent my youth hunting in the winds and storms.”
“Do you think I could bring back Tyrne?”
Drask shook his head. “Durhallem rests there now. He is a god. We have power but his is greater. You could bring Tyrne back, but if you tried to place it over the mountain or to move the mountain, Durhallem would fight back.”
“Do you really think we could move a mountain?”
Drask looked at her for a moment, studied the minutiae of her face. She was easy to understand. Like Andover, she had not truly learned to hide herself behind a mask.
“I raised the Blasted Lands, Tega. You raised the dead.” He gestured to Nolan, who was currently drooling on his own hands and seemed fascinated by the puddle forming in his palms. “Nolan was dead. I killed him. I felt his neck break. Yet he moves, and he feels, and perhaps even thinks.”
“I used sorcery. I brought Goriah back with magic, not with–”
“You used what you know. What you are comfortable with.”
Tega shook her head.
“It is frightening to you. You have so much power in you and you are limited only by your own desires. That is why I reflect. I must understand what I am capable of. I must consider what is coming. There are gods at play here, Tega. Gods that move mountains and cities and have fought against each other for a very long time. So long I don’t even think they know why they fight any more.
“What will you do when the city lands, Drask?”
“I will go to it. I will see what happens when gods meet.” He looked at the city again. It was a magnificent sight. “What will you do, Tega?”
“I will go too. I will stand with my friends, even if that means that you and I must stand on separate sides.”
Drask nodded. “I do not yet know where I stand, Tega. We shall see.”
While he looked at the city above, a small shape dropped over the side. Whatever it was, it moved as it fell. A few seconds later another shape dropped. This one was definitely humanoid.
The world continued to be interesting. Drask said nothing, but reflected on that.
“What will you do when you get to Canhoon, Andover?”
Andover looked at Tega. During the few times they had spoken, he discovered that she still fascinated him. He had thought that was gone, but after speaking again, the old feelings were back. They had just changed. There was no burning desire to fuel his fascination. It was not lust. No. Not true. It was not lust alone. She was unique in the world as far as he knew.
Still, there was Delil to consider. He remained uncertain whether she would want to come back. And if she did, whether he would act on her behalf.
“I will decide when the time comes.” He did his best to smile, suddenly selfconscious of the changes in his face. “I know what the Daxar Taalor want. I am to be their champion if the Empress declares a single champion for combat.” He looked at his hands and then back at her. “I do not know why I was chosen. I only know that I was and that I am grateful to the gods for all they have given me.”
“I should have stopped them, Andover.” Her still, calm face broke and tears threatened to fall from her blue eyes.
“What do you mean?”
“Menock and Purb and the rest. I should have told them to leave you alone. I should have–”
“No.” He carefully put a hand on her shoulder. The metal was stronger than flesh and sometimes among the Sa’ba Taalor he’d forgotten that fact. He would not do so with Tega.
“You are not at fault, Tega. I am not at fault. They were predators and they wanted a meal they could play with. Nothing more.” He shrugged. “I had my revenge on them. I maimed them. I made them weak forever.”
“If you had never been broken by them…”
“I would have been in Tyrne when Durhallem made the city his own. I would be dead. Or I would be wandering in the city up there, hoping to find a home and food.”
Tega nodded and sniffed and tried to hide the misery she felt.
“Tega, what has happened is what has happened. The pas
t is gone. I was not the same person then. I was much weaker. I lived and breathed and hid in fear. That time is gone. I fear nothing. I have faced my fears and learned from them. The gods gave me that.
“So many fear death. I still understand that. I fear for anyone I care for, I grieve for Delil. But I do not fear pain. I do not fear injury. Those are only parts of life we cannot always control. They have no power over me.”
He sighed and smiled, fully aware that his smile unsettled her. “That is a gift, Tega. I received that gift because I was wounded. I would have died from the poisons in my hands, but you changed that. Do you understand? If not for you, I would have died. If not for you, I would have never met with Desh Krohan and I would have never met the Sa’ba Taalor. Whatever else might happen in this world, Tega, I am here now because of you.”
His iron hand moved from her shoulder and very carefully raised her fingers until they were close to his face. He looked over her fingers to stare into her eyes.
“All that I am, everything that I do, is because you cared enough to stop for a boy who could not help looking at you.”
The look she threw his way was not one that he easily understood. She had never regarded him with that expression previously and he had no idea what to make of it.
“What will I do when I get to Canhoon, Tega? What I must. Whatever I do, know this: you helped me more than any person ever has and I am forever in your debt. Thank you.”
Tega nodded and rode forward.
Andover looked up to Canhoon, where another body fell from the sky.
The snow was melting but was not yet gone. That was good. It worked to their advantage.
Swech nodded her head and then raised one hand, speaking without words to the others.
The night air was still cold, the ground still frosty enough, and the Mid Wall was dark. The time had come to try their luck.
Evenly spaced along the Mid Wall, the stairs leading from the ground to the top of the wall were unguarded. What need of a guard when the unkillable Silent Army was already performing that duty?
The Sa’ba Taalor were vastly outnumbered. There were just over a hundred of them. There were at least ten times that number of the stone men with their swords.
They would work in teams of three.
The stone soldiers stood at their posts, some looking over the wall, others looking into the city. The stairs were easy enough. At Swech’s order the groups went up the access points to the top of the Mid Wall and did not wait to be engaged.
Three lengths of heavy rope and three metal weights. Swech threw her bola at the first of the Silent Army that she encountered. The soldier stood at attention. The bola wrapped around his legs at the knees and he turned toward her, his face expressionless.
He started moving his legs, trying to untangle himself, and Swech stepped closer. The mace was heavy and spiked and took a large chip out of the soldier’s face. As he turned toward her and reached, Jost came in low and jammed her staff between his legs, throwing her weight into the move. One foot was off the ground already as he tried to break away from the bola. His balance off, the soldier fell backward, arms flailing. Deras, the heaviest of them, smashed his weight into the soldier from the front and sent him careening over the wall. Momentum did the rest. Swech watched exactly long enough to see the soldier grab at the small lip of ground that still existed beyond the Mid Wall. He caught it and it crumbled, and ground and statue alike soared down toward the earth several thousand feet below.
The next one in line had turned toward her by the time she reached him. He swept his sword from the scabbard and Swech smashed her mace into his wrist, which promptly broke into two pieces. Hand and sword hit the ground. Swech brought her mace around in an upward trajectory and drove the soldier back as she shattered his chin.
As he stepped back Jost was there, once again using the staff to trip up the stone man’s feet. As he staggered, Deras used a heavy staff and shoved at the soldier’s chest. He stumbled further, off balance, and Deras hit him again. Jost was still there, her staff catching the guard at his knees and keeping him off balance.
The stone man fell over the wall and Swech watched history repeat itself.
Further along the wall she saw N’Heelis catch a soldier’s arm, shift his hips and throw one of the stone men over the wall.
Beyond him, a Sa’ba Taalor named Rander soared over the wall when he tried to use mass alone to fight the Silent Soldier. Like the stone men before him, he fell several thousand feet. Like his predecessors, he likely shattered on impact.
The Silent Army were bracing themselves now and that made life more difficult, but not impossible.
It merely meant they had to change tactics.
The next bola was thrown by Jost and wrapped itself around the face of a stone man. The soldier reached for the weapon around his neck and face and while he did, Deras took a turn entangling the soldier’s feet. The stone men weighed too much to wrestle down to the ground. Their flesh was stone. Their muscles were unmovable if they set their minds to not being moved. But creatures of all size must obey the rules of physics, which was where the training of N’Heelis and Wrommish came into play. They could not fight the Silent Army with conventional weapons and win, and so they tried a different method.
Ultimately there were too many of the soldiers and they knew it, but they did what they could.
The Soldiers were not foolish and learned a new trick. They kept their feet fused to the stone wall they’d grown from. They could not move as quickly but they could not be thrown.
That possibility had been discussed, and as soon as the Sa’ba Taalor saw that their enemy had grown wiser they dispersed, moving away from the area as quickly as they could and dodging the attempts to grab them.
Four of the Sa’ba Taalor died in the conflict. Over fifty of the Silent Army were thrown from the wall before all was said and done.
That was a victory in the eyes of the Daxar Taalor and that was enough for Swech.
They were clever moving through the city. No one gathered in groups and no one made their way back to their gathering place in the same directions.
The house of Dretta March was no longer available, but Swech had purchased several buildings and some of them were better suited than others. They gathered in a warehouse that stored raw goods and they were careful to leave a barrier between themselves and the rest of the place. The barrier was built of barrels and crates of supplies. It was heavy and solid.
They were also wise enough to have guards.
After the raid Swech took her time getting back. She moved through parts of the city that were desperately overcrowded, fully aware that Jost followed her.
As she went, Swech changed her appearance a bit, switching her scarves for lighter colors and drawing out a bright shawl to cover her shoulders and hair. She walked differently, too, moving like an elderly woman and doing her best to look like someone who was harmless, but not a victim.
That had been a problem earlier in the week when a group of men tried to separate her from her purse. Fortunately they’d been weak and easily dissuaded.
When she finally stopped, the younger woman caught up with her and they moved among the waking crowds. The sun was not risen yet but the sky was growing lighter. Many of the people in the area were already rising. They had no choice. The world they moved on was dropping slowly and whether they wanted it or not, people had to respond to the change. Mostly that meant they were gathering their supplies again and preparing to flee if everything went wrong. Town criers had been notifying people of the descent for the last two days, but the melting ice and the warming temperatures would have told anyone who wasn’t brave enough to look over the Mid Wall to see what was happening.
“What happens next, Swech?”
“We wait.”
“What are we waiting for?”
“The gods will tell us when they are ready, Jost. In the meantime we must wait. I know that is not what you want to hear, but we must be patient. T
he Silent Army is probably already looking for us.”
“I just. I feel incomplete not having a king.”
“You have a king. N’Heelis is with us and will guide us.”
“What of Glo’Hosht? What of the King in Mercury?”
A beggar looked their way and raised a hand in supplication. Offering coin was often an invitation to get more beggars active. Swech moved on without acknowledging the hand and the beggar went back into a knot of clothes in the alleyway.
“Glo’Hosht is dead. You saw what they did.”
“But who will be our new king? Why has Paedle not chosen?”
“Jost,” Swech kept her voice conversational though she was tempted to roar, “never question the Daxar Taalor. It is foolish and solves nothing.”
“But…”
“No. They are the parents. We are the children. They guide and love us and we accept their wisdom. If Paedle has not announced who will lead, that is Paedle’s decision. In time, when we must know, we will know. Paedle must judge all of her followers and decide who among then, if any, is worthy to stand in Glo’Hosht’s place.”
Jost sighed. “You are right. I know this. I followed Wheklam’s wishes to get here, and I had never spoken to Wheklam before.” She touched the new Great Scar on her face as she spoke, moving her fingers under the scarves that hid her face away.
“We must get back. The sun is rising soon and we tend to stand out here.”
Jost nodded and the two of them quickly climbed to the rooftops. Swech had learned her way around them well enough.
From one of the higher roofs the two of them could see the view beyond the western gate of the Mid Wall. They could see the vast lake that was Gerhaim in all its glory and they could see the sun reflecting off the calm surface.
“Gods.” Jost’s voice was very small.
“Aye. I thought we’d have hours but the city has moved faster than anticipated. We need to get to the others now.”
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