The Boundless

by Peter Newman

  But where Lord Vasin had been a blur of motion, like a shooting star, this was static, and the light uneven. It was blue though, an unmistakable sapphire glow. She bid Glider stop, and dismounted. ‘Wait here.’

  ‘Even me?’ asked Varg.

  ‘No. I want you with me.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘I do not take orders from you, Packstealer,’ retorted Kennelgrove. ‘Yet your fortune is blessed, for I have decided to rest my aches and pains here. Let Murderkind come the rest of the way, for I have travelled far more than my share already.’

  Chandni decided that argument could wait.

  The other Dogkin were sitting back on their haunches. ‘Do not approach unless I order it,’ she said. Rayen and the others may have agreed to serve her, but she knew the stories. If she wasn’t clear, they would do as they pleased.

  ‘You sure about this, Chand?’ whispered Varg.

  She knew what he meant. If this was a Sapphire Deathless, they would see her as the enemy. To approach was a risk. To not approach was cowardly. Besides, she had information that House Sapphire needed. Though she no longer served, she would not turn her back on her former people.

  With Varg alongside her, she weaved her way through the last of the trees. The ground was bumpy beneath her feet, treacherous roots and malevolent divots in the earth were doing their best to ensnare the unwary. The figure ahead seemed to have run afoul of the Wild’s tricks. As she drew closer, she could see that one of their Sky-legs had sunk too deep and become trapped.

  What drew her attention however, was the design of the armour they wore. The simple lines, less elaborate than other Sapphire Deathless, identified them immediately.

  Lord Rochant!

  But this was not the body of her son that stood before her. This was an adult, tall and broad. This was Honoured Vessel Kareem’s body, the one that had vanished from the castle immediately after rebirth sixteen years ago.

  As her mind tried to manage the ramifications of that, she also saw that Lord Rochant was not in a good way. One of his wings was almost black, and looked ready to shatter at any moment. A spear shaft protruded from one side, and it shocked her how much of it she couldn’t see for that meant it had gone deep. His right hand was raised in a frozen wave, held there by a second silver-shafted spear that had gone through the palm and into his neck.

  She recognized it instantly. That spear belongs to Lord Vasin. Why would he be trying to kill Lord Rochant? What is going on?

  If the pack had not been so afraid, she might have assumed this was a trick of the Wild, but no, the armour was real. This man before her was her Lord Rochant.

  She stepped into his line of sight and bowed. ‘Your seneschal is here, my lord. How can I serve you?’

  Eyes that had been half closed against the pain sprung open. ‘… Chandni?’

  ‘Yes. Yes! I am here. Let us tend to your injuries.’

  Unable to nod, he gave one slow blink.

  She turned to Varg. ‘I need your help.’

  ‘Yeah.’ He looked Rochant up and down. ‘Fuck me, what a mess.’ Chandni gave him a hard look and he mumbled an apology.

  Together, they freed Rochant’s Sky-leg from the earth and helped him to sit. Varg cut a length from the wooden spear so that only a foot’s worth still protruded. The silver spear could not be cut, but it had not gone deep. Chandni pulled the spear from his neck while Varg staunched the flow of blood. Then, they threaded it through his hand and again bandaged the wound.

  Rochant made very little noise throughout, though his eyes often closed tightly and his head lolled with fatigue. Every so often though, he would snap awake, his gaze intent on the darkness around them.

  She wondered if he was aware of the pack nearby and felt a wash of shame at all the deals she had made, followed by anger. I don’t know if I could stand to be judged again. The first time nearly destroyed me. But I do not regret my actions. She squared her shoulders. ‘Do not worry about the Dogkin, my lord. They pose no threat.’

  ‘I fear no Dogkin,’ he replied.

  ‘Who attacked you, my lord?’

  His attention flicked back to her. ‘Our enemies, traitors to House Sapphire.’

  For a moment she thought he was accusing her, but then it passed. He has been away. He does not know what I have done. She made a guess based on the spear. ‘You mean Lord Vasin?’

  ‘Yes. He betrayed High Lord Yadavendra and took his place. He is known as Vasinidra now. He intends to reinstate Nidra Un-Sapphire and destroy me.’ Rochant paused. ‘Your son, your real son, is in grave danger.’

  ‘You’ve seen him?’

  ‘Yes. Like you, he is a good person. Without him, I would still be rotting away in the ruins of Sorn, but he is being misled by the thing you raised.’

  Her hand went to her chest as it clenched. ‘Tell me what to do.’

  ‘Like my enemies, they are here in the forest too. We must find your son whilst avoiding capture. Then we need to free him from the demon’s clutches. As you can see, I am in no position to fight. Our first task is to move away from here while obscuring any tracks we’ve made.’

  ‘I have an idea of how to do that, my lord.’

  She thought she detected the hint of a smile behind the visor. ‘I have come to be unsurprised by your excellence, Honoured Mother. Do as you see fit. I will trust in your wisdom.’

  Chandni moved back to where the pack was waiting. Varg was right behind her, bending down to hiss in her ear. ‘He ain’t going to like it when he finds out about all of them.’

  ‘I’m not worried about myself, Varg. I’m worried about Lord Rochant. The pack can obscure our passage with their own. I’ll handle that. I want you to stay close to Lord Rochant and support him as best you can.’

  ‘So, are you back to being a Sapphire now?’

  ‘In my heart, I never stopped being one. Please, I know you’re worried, but I have to do this. We can discuss the future if and when we get there.’

  ‘I thought we were done with serving them. I thought … I dunno. This makes things different.’

  She tried not to feel annoyed. In her mind there was a clear way forward, but she realized that Varg was not part of the house. He had no reason to do any of this except for her. ‘Nothing’s different between us, I promise.’

  ‘Because I didn’t walk away from Pari just to help some Sapphire Lord.’

  ‘I know you didn’t. I couldn’t go back to the Sapphire now, even if I wanted to. This is just the right thing to do. Helping Lord Rochant will also help find my son.’

  His expression became marginally less grumpy. ‘All right then, let’s get to it.’

  Having brought Varg into line, she turned her attention to the pack. And they ignored her completely. Where Glider and Rayen had been on their bellies, they were now standing, their ears pricked up and their teeth bared.

  Something was wrong.

  Chandni looked around for the source of the danger, making sure to scrutinize the canopy above for any sign of enemy Deathless and their hunters. But the only thing she saw was a single Birdkin sitting on a nearby branch. It was reminiscent of Crowflies, but she knew immediately that it was a different creature. There was something unpleasant about it, a malevolence that made her shiver. Like the Dogkin, it was ignoring her and its attention was fixed on Lord Rochant as Varg helped him to stand.

  ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘We need to go.’ She looked towards Rayen and said, ‘Lead us to a place of safety.’

  The old Dogkin made a grumbling noise in her throat and turned first left, then right, then whined.

  Another Birdkin arrived, black winged, with compound eyes. It perched next to the first, and quickly assumed the same position.

  Then another came, and another.

  She picked a direction at random and set off on Glider’s back. Rayen went ahead while the majority of the pack brought up the rear, allowing Rochant and Varg to stay in the middle. If her lord thought the pack’s presence odd, he gave no sign.
She hoped – knowing it was futile – that he was too concerned with his injuries to notice them.

  The four Birdkin gave chase, moving in lazy flights to catch up every so often. Up ahead, more Birdkin were waiting, as if they’d known she’d choose this route. Crowflies was among them. She saw its pale beak in the light of Rochant’s armour. Like the others, it had eyes only for Rochant.

  Increasingly, they looked less like a collection of distinct creatures and more like one. Their postures were identical, their demeanour the same. A tension was building in the air. She could feel it, and in her heart, she knew what it was.

  Murderkind is coming.

  Slipping off Glider’s back, she looked from the fractured light of Rochant’s armour to the growing shadow ahead, and moved into the space between the two.

  Vasinidra flew. Just. It was hard to maintain height, let alone gain more, and he battled to get his head above the tree line. Mia was right about his wings. They were in pitiful condition, almost as bad as he was.

  Even in his exalted state, he was aware of the pain. His body was trying to tell him that it needed rest. That he needed to stop. And while the Deathless could push their bodies beyond their limits, there was always a cost. He didn’t like to think of what it would be like to take off the armour, nor, if he survived somehow, what tomorrow’s price would be.

  The suns were getting lower, but he caught their red-gold rays illuminating a set of wings down on the ground, then a second, then a third, like the gleeful fingers of a child playing hide and seek.

  Got you.

  He didn’t have the height or the speed to dive effectively, so he turned his body in their direction and fell towards them as gracefully as he could muster. The three hunters were advancing on a figure who had to be Yi, his mother’s protector and last descendant. She was hiding in a cluster of dense trees. They could not move into them easily because of their wings nor could she leave without being run down.

  As he got closer, he saw a fourth hunter crouched over the body of a fifth, a knife handle protruding from an eye socket. They were trying to stem the blood before the Wild came, not knowing that there was an abundance of blood nearby. But not a single demon had come to claim it.

  Why was that?

  He’d planned to land between them and Yi but the currents were too weak and he came down behind the three instead. ‘Stand down,’ he said. ‘Or be forever known as traitors.’

  They did not pause. Whatever Rochant had told them left no room for doubt in their minds. When they looked at Vasinidra, they did not see their High Lord. They saw the child of Nidra Un-Sapphire, an enemy.

  Even as his feet touched the ground, they were going for him.

  He did not have his own spear, but he had the shaft of one that he’d been using as a walking stick. He swung it at the head of the first hunter whilst stepping forward to grab the second. There was a satisfying thump as wood met forehead but the second hunter seemed to move too quickly or his hand moved too slowly. In either case he grasped empty air.

  The two remaining hunters hopped back and forth, dancing away from his swings while stabbing at him with quick, stinging attacks. He was aware that the fourth hunter had stopped tending their dead companion and was standing up, ready to join the fray.

  I am in worse shape than I realized, and getting worse by the moment. I have to end this quickly if I am to have a chance.

  He forgot about the new hunter coming behind him and blocked out the one on his right. The next time the one on his left began to jump forward, he moved to meet him. He knocked the hunter’s spear aside with his stick and put his other fist into his chest, using their momentum to add weight to the blow. Bones cracked beneath his gauntlet, organs ruptured, and the man, who had been loyal and good, an asset in any other time, was reduced to a lifeless bundle.

  It occurred to him that the hunter on his right had not attacked. This was odd as he’d expected him to take advantage of his open flank. However, that hunter seemed to have his own problems. He caught a glimpse of Yi on his back – her fingers sliding into his eye sockets – as the two went down in a heap.

  Before he could go to help, he felt a sharp pain in his back. Nothing had distracted the last hunter who’d taken the opportunity to plunge her spear through the cracks in Vasinidra’s armour and into the the flesh beneath. He now turned with such force that he tore the weapon from her grasp, coming face to face with a young hunter. She was determined, focused, reaching for a weapon even as she sought to leap away. It reminded him of Mia when they’d first met.

  He grabbed the end of one of her Sky-legs as she leapt and swung her into the nearest tree, killing her instantly.

  When it was clear that Yi was not in danger he sank to his knees, wondering if he had it in him to rise again.

  More good people gone by my hand. Rochant has set House Sapphire upon itself. Truly, the man is poison.

  He stayed on the ground for a while. At some point he closed his eyes.

  Time passed, thoughts drifted, and then he heard leaves crunching nearby, the sound of many hunters, and then his mother’s voice by his ear. ‘You did it, Vasin, you can rest.’

  ‘It’s … Vasinidra now.’

  ‘Yes. High Lord Vasinidra.’

  ‘Can you do something for me, Mother?’

  Her voice was rough with emotion as she replied. ‘Name it.’

  ‘Gather the others. I have some things I’d like to say before I go.’

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  While the forest itself was quiet, the night was alive with sounds. It made Sa-at nervous. He knew the animal kin and the demons and the blends of the two, and he knew that what he could hear was none of those things. The whisper of wings cutting the air, of feet kicking off from the ground with such long gaps in between that they were leaping rather than running. Hunters.

  And so many of them!

  Perhaps the Wild was playing its usual tricks to confound the senses, but Sa-at suspected it didn’t need to. He’d seen how many of those blue-winged men and women there were.

  He looked at Satyendra. It was difficult to make him out in the dark, and it was getting harder for Sa-at to match his own image to the shape in front of him. ‘I want to stop.’

  ‘Not until we find Rochant.’

  ‘I can’t see and the trees aren’t talking. I want to stop.’

  Satyendra moved past him. ‘Let me lead then, there’s still a little bit of light.’

  No there isn’t! Thought Sa-at. The three suns had gone down some time ago. Even if they weren’t beneath the canopy, any residual light had faded from the sky. Only his familiarity with the Wild allowed him to navigate at all, and that was offset by the strange atmosphere.

  The trees are scared. That makes me scared.

  All his instincts were telling him to find a hiding place and stay there until morning. But as he squinted into the night, he couldn’t be sure exactly where they were or how to get to any of the havens he knew.

  What was clear, though, was that they were moving deeper into the Wild, into the places he would normally avoid regardless of the hour. Increasingly, he felt a resistance to their progress. The signs were subtle, but the usually supportive environment began to tug at the two of them, slowing them down. Maybe this was because the trees were trying to protect him, maybe it was because they wanted to get between them and Rochant. Either way, any sensible person would take the hint and turn back.

  Satyendra did not even seem to notice.

  A couple of times, they caught glimpses of distant lights through the trees. Some of the hunters had caught up and were moving parallel to them. Sa-at didn’t think they’d been seen, not yet, but it was only a matter of time.

  After all, they were both tracking the same person. Except that as far as he could see, the trail they’d been following had vanished, replaced by multiple Dogkin tracks all moving in different directions.

  The hunters also seemed to be confounded. They had spread out like a long string of pe
arls, and were calling to each other, staying in contact and checking in. None seemed happy. One of the hunters was awfully close too.

  He crouched down behind the nearest tree with Satyendra and whispered, ‘What are we going to do?’

  For the first time since they’d fled the fight, Satyendra hesitated. ‘I thought Vasinidra would have retreated by now.’

  Sa-at waited for a better answer. He decided that if he didn’t like it, he was going to follow his own path.

  But before Satyendra could say anything further, Sa-at heard a faint sound, almost hidden by the hunter’s movement. It was a soft, sliding noise, of fabric brushing the ground, and something else reminiscent of a long, endless sigh.

  And it was coming from behind them.

  Sa-at spun round and was rewarded with the sight of a creature. Tall, ghostlike, more a suggestion of a presence than an actual thing. Before he could reconcile the shape, it had vanished again, but only from view. It was still there. The raised hairs on the back of his neck told him that much.

  He reached out and tugged on Satyendra’s sleeve. ‘We’re being followed.’

  ‘Yes …’ all the usual confidence had gone from his tone. ‘What is it?’

  Sa-at shrugged. ‘I don’t know. It looks big. We should keep away.’

  ‘No.’ Satyendra’s confidence had returned as fast as it had broken, icy and brittle. ‘Maybe this is a good thing. That demon might distract the hunters. Come on, we keep after Rochant.’

  The demon might distract the hunters, he thought sullenly as they continued. But what if it wants us as much as Satyendra wants to kill Rochant?

  Do I want to kill Rochant?

  He tried to think about what he wanted but the only thing that came to mind was something nice to eat, and the sense of safety that came from being curled in his friendly tree with Crowflies nearby.

  And then, amid the sounds of hunters prowling, and the demon’s hushed pursuit, he heard a more familiar flap of wings.

  Crowflies?