by Tim Lebbon
At the highest point of the ridge, he turned back to try to see his follower. He saw no shadows running for cover, no shapes falling still out of the corner of his eye, but that could mean that the follower was becoming more careful. In this poor light it could be standing motionless a hundred steps away and Kosar would never see it.
It took him an hour to walk down the hillside and approach the edge of the ravine. The glow barely rose above the ground surrounding it, but it lit Kosar’s way for the final few hundred steps. It was a refreshing change being able to see the grasses part around his feet, but he also saw the withered remnants of mollies and chloeys, testament to the dark, and he wondered whether the sun would ever return.
Kosar paused frequently to look back, but nothing else emerged from the darkness.
The light came from a fire. He could smell the tang of burning wood, and a haze of smoke hung low in the air, mostly hidden from sight but detectable by smell and taste. Hangman’s wood! Kosar thought. It was often used on the Cantrass Plains to smoke fish and other meats, because it burned slow and not too hot. Its smoke was spicy and almost as mouthwatering as cooking meat, and he increased his step almost without realizing.
At the edge, looking down at the ravine floor two hundred steps below, he realized how foolish he had been.
There was a village down there, built in a huddle against the sheer cliffs on either side, and through its middle flowed a stream. From this high up the water looked black. The area around the village was illuminated by two huge fires, one built at either end of the settlement. He could make out maybe two dozen buildings, and between them the shapes of people going to and fro.
The fires had not been there for long. Everyone in Noreela must be reacting differently to the fall of dusk; these people were digging in for a fight.
And he had walked right up to the edge of their territory like a sheebok to the slaughter.
Something approached from behind. Kosar spun around, hand on sword, and he just had time to glimpse three dark faces before a heavy blow crunched into his nose, and all he saw was light.
A’MEER WAS LOOMING above him, and he thought that the mimics were back. But when he opened his eyes and looked past the pain he saw that she was smiling, not gasping, and her dark hair was parted into the usual plaits instead of being cleaved by a sword blow, and when she opened her mouth he knew that she was going to tell him it had all been a mistake, that Rafe was fine and Kosar was just coming out of a long unconsciousness after that final terrible battle in the machines’ graveyard.
“Wake, yer scummer!” A’Meer splashed across his face, and she tasted of piss. Someone giggled and was cut short by a harsh grunt. “Wake, scummer. Or I’ll cut yer throat where you lay!”
Kosar opened his eyes. The bright pain had vanished and it was twilight once again. He was lying on his back, and above him stood two men and a woman. They had dark skin, long hair formed into elaborate sculptures and fixed with dried, painted mud, and their faces and bodies glittered with dozens of metallic piercings. Breakers. Kosar had run into them once before. They were even further removed from Noreelan society than the rovers.
He groaned. His face was hot and sore, his nose streamed blood. One of his teeth had broken. He could feel the stump of it with his tongue, and shards had buried themselves in his lip. He turned his head and spat blood and tooth. His neck hurt and his head throbbed, and he wondered whether there was more damage he had yet to discover.
“He’s spying on us. We should take his eyes,” the woman said.
“And his tongue,” a male voice added.
Kosar looked up at the three Breakers. One of the men was buttoning his fly after pissing on Kosar. He seemed to be the one in charge; he stood close to Kosar while the other two hung back, side by side for security. “I’m no spy,” he said.
“Then what in the Black are you?” the lead Breaker said.
“A thief.” Kosar slowly raised one hand to display his marks.
“And so?” the Breaker said. “Why should I trust a thief any more than a spy? And one that’s got caught too. Yer no thief, yer a fool, and fools deserve to have their throats aired.”
“Maybe he came to steal from us, Schiff,” the woman said.
“I didn’t even know you were here.” Kosar rested his head back on the ground and closed his eyes, trying to fight off the sickness welling in him. “What did you hit me with?”
“Magic,” the Breaker said.
Kosar’s eyes snapped open and he looked at the thing in Schiff ’s right hand. It was a club, a mad merging of stone and metal and wood held together by dried mud and twisted grasses. There was no magic about it, and if the light had been better he would see it decorated with his blood. “No magic there,” he said.
Schiff squatted beside Kosar and thumped the club down beside his head. “Yet this bastard’ll open up your skull easy enough,” he said. “Open it up like magic!”
“I know why it’s dark,” Kosar said. Got to be careful here, he thought. Got to feed them just enough, but not too much. The Breakers spent their lives traveling Noreela and dismantling old machines, opening up rusted metal hulks and cracking stone limbs, searching through long-dried arteries and funnels and routes for dregs of the old magic they still believed to be there somewhere. They came into towns and villages in small groups and lived apart from the local populace, setting up their own commune, growing their own food and keeping sheebok and sometimes sand rats for meat. Out in the wilds, Breaker communities often sprouted up around old mines or abandoned farms, and the centerpiece was always a giant machine. Sometimes they worked a machine for a whole generation, taking it apart meticulously and carefully, laying the component parts out to view. Magic had made the machines long ago, and now Breakers were dismantling them. They knew more about how the machines were made-and perhaps how they had worked-than anyone in Noreela.
Kosar had never heard of any magic being found, of course. And therein lay the Breakers’ madness. After three hundred years of failure, they were more hungry than ever.
“It’s the land,” Schiff said. He stared past Kosar down into the ravine. “Noreela’s been dead a long time, and now it’s finally starting to rot.”
“It’s magic,” Kosar said. “It’s back in the land, but the Mages have come and taken it.”
“What in the fucking Black are you talking about, scummer?” The big Breaker stood and lifted the club, letting gravity swing it into the side of Kosar’s head.
It was not a heavy blow; there was no strength behind it. But the pain bled through Kosar like molten silver, and when he looked up at the life moon he saw it turning red. For a second it had eyes and a face-a mad, angry face obsessed with purpose and flooded with blood. Maybe it really would have been better if we’d not run so fast, if A’Meer hadn’t fought so well, if I hadn’t loosed that tumbler to kill the Monk. If they’d caught Rafe and slaughtered him, maybe the magic would have gone with him. The Mages would have returned to nothing, and perhaps they would have been killed by the Monks. They were old, and probably mad.
“Better if he’d died,” Kosar muttered.
“What was that, scummer?”
“Better if he’d never shown us anything.” Kosar’s head swam, as though he’d had too much rotwine. Sickness still threatened. He wished a tumbler would come and roll him away.
“Kill him, Schiff!” the woman said. “He’s mad and raging, and he’s nothing for us.”
Schiff knelt again and touched Kosar’s belt. “He has a Shantasi sword,” he said.
“So? He’s a thief.”
Schiff looked at Kosar, really looked at him for the first time, and Kosar returned his gaze. “He has something for us,” the Breaker said.
“What in the Black could he have for us?”
“Don’t know,” Schiff said. He frowned, still looking at Kosar. Then he moved closer and sniffed. Kosar heard his piercings clinking and scratching at one another. “Maybe we’ll have to cut him open to find ou
t.”
“So are Breakers butchers as well?” Kosar asked. He formed his words closely, trying not to slur and show weakness.
“I’m whatever I need to be,” Schiff said. He nodded down at Kosar’s sword. “Who did you steal that from?”
“It’s not stolen,” Kosar said.
“Then who gave it to you?”
“A friend.”
“Come on, Schiff, stop playing with him. Brain him and leave him for the sand rats.” The woman seemed to be getting nervous. Kosar saw her glancing around, trying to see into the dark. The glow of the huge fires down in the ravine reflected pale yellow in her eyes.
Schiff reached out quickly, nudging Kosar’s hand aside and grabbing the sword handle.
Kosar sat up and closed his own hand around Schiff ’s, wincing as piercings in the back of the Breaker’s hand rubbed against his raw fingers. “The sword’s mine.”
Schiff leaned forward, his nose pressed against Kosar’s. “I’ll have it from you like this, or I’ll smash your skull open and then have it from you. Your choice, scummer.”
“Aren’t you going to kill me anyway?” Kosar breathed long and deep, fighting the nausea for a few seconds more.
“If you don’t continue to interest me, yes.” Schiff pulled hard, knocking Kosar’s hand aside and drawing the sword. He ran his fingers along the blade, sniffed at it, tasted it. “You’ve seen some action,” he said.
“Some,” Kosar said.
“Who did you kill?”
“Red Monks.”
Schiff fell silent, but his two companions broke into laughter, even the nervous woman. “Red Monks!” she said. “I’d have like’d to have seen that!” Her laugh broke into a cackle, reminding Kosar of Hope. Where is she now? he thought. I hope she’s safe. I hope she’s looking after Trey and Alishia.
“Bring him!” Schiff said. He stood and held the sword before him, turning it this way and that as he inspected its surface, its cutting edges, the designs on the hilt and the sweat-darkened leather looped a hundred times around the handle.
“It needs blood,” Kosar said.
“It’ll have it.” Schiff tapped the sword against his face, neck and chest, creating a mess of metallic notes.
The other two Breakers hefted Kosar to his feet and shoved him toward the lip of the ravine. For a terrifying instant he thought they were simply going to push him over and let the jagged rocks do what they would not. But then he saw the path cleverly concealed behind a pile of rocks at the cliff edge and, their way illuminated only by the flickering light of the two huge fires, they began their descent to the ravine floor.
Kosar was still dizzied from the blow to his head. He spat more blood and wondered what would become of it. Would it soak down into the sand, solidify, form part of a stone that would perhaps be found in ten thousand years? What would that finder of the future think of a stone with teeth shards and fossilized blood seaming it? They could build a story about him, and it would be far from the truth.
Or maybe a sand rat would lick up the bloody splash, teeth specks and all, and Kosar’s spit would end up as rat shit.
Fate had many tricks in store, and the future felt so insecure.
Breakers did not welcome strangers. Halfway down the sloping path, Kosar became certain that if he let them reach the ravine floor he would be dead within the hour.
“MAGIC’S BACK IN the land,” he said. “The Mages have it. I was with the boy it was being reborn into, and they stole him away and killed him and took it for themselves. They made the skies grow dark. It’s the beginning of their revenge.”
“Shut up, scummer!”
Kosar felt A’Meer’s sword prick his back and urge him on. He winced at the feeling of metal parting his skin, and the warm dribble of blood that followed. At least the blade’s blooded, he thought. The wound was not deep but it stung. Schiff’s voice had changed. Before it had been dismissive and harsh, now there was more thought behind it. He’s going to kill me, Kosar thought. For some reason I scare him, and he’ll kill me as soon as we get down, run me through with the sword A’Meer gave me, but he’ll do it in front of his Breaker clan to show that he’s protecting them from whatever new rot has set into the land.
“Why don’t you believe me?” Kosar said.
“Move on or I’ll help you on your way.”
“You’ve been looking for it forever, and now when it’s actuallyhere, in the land instead of rotting away in old machines that were dead before you were an itch in your father’s cock, you’re not even close to ready-”
The sword pricked in again, digging into Kosar’s right shoulder above the shoulder blade, splitting skin and flesh, and Kosar fell forward and spun at the same time, landing on his side and kicking out at Schiff’s legs. The path cut into the side of the cliff was barely wide enough for two people and, with the other Breakers behind him, Schiff had nowhere to go. Kosar was confident that one good kick would send the Breaker tumbling from the path.
His right foot connected with Schiff’s left leg. Schiff did not move, and Kosar cried out as pain tore up his leg and into his hip. He kicked again and Schiff stepped back, swinging out with the sword, sweeping it across the path in an arc that would take off Kosar’s foot. Kosar pulled back, cringing as the wound in his shoulder gushed. More blood spilled, he thought. I can’t have much left. The sword scraped across the path and sparks flew.
Schiff grinned. He moved back a step or two, forcing the other two Breakers back behind him, and pulled at his trouser leg. It rose away from his foot and gathered at his knee, and Kosar saw the fires reflected on the metal skin of his leg. “Machines give us everything we need,” he said.
“But I’ve seen them alive,” Kosar said. And for the first time, he saw something like belief in the Breaker’s eyes.
“I’m going to fucking kill you, scummer,” Schiff whispered.
“Why?” Kosar said. He was bracing himself against the ground, testing his right arm to make sure he could lever himself upward. The wound on his shoulder was painful, but it didn’t appear to have damaged the muscles. As soon as Schiff was distracted he was going to launch himself at the big Breaker and shove him from the path. Easy, he thought. Piece of piss, as Hope would say.
Schiff seemed unable to answer Kosar’s question.
Kosar glanced over Schiff’s shoulder at the woman. She looked confused, and scared. “Because with magic back, your lives mean nothing,” he said. “That’s why. I’ve brought a truth you can’t bear.”
“Schiff, what’s he-?”
Schiff turned, already starting to shout at the woman, and Kosar pushed himself up from the path. A stone rolled beneath his hand, his shoulder jarred and the wound seemed to stab at him again. He cursed and pushed harder, tearing a muscle in his shoulder and adding to the pain already nestling there. The woman’s eyes opened wider as she stared past Schiff at Kosar. Kosar saw fire reflected there, yellow then red, as though her eyes were slowly filling with blood, and Schiff started to turn back, sword rising, legs bracing, mouth opening in a scream of rage and realization. He believes me, Kosar thought, and I’ve made his life meaningless.
Kosar stood and drove forward, striking Schiff across the nose with his elbow and feeling the crunch of cartilage giving way. The Breaker’s piercings tinkled and scraped as they were ground together.
Schiff roared, swinging his arm, but Kosar had pushed himself into the Breaker’s fighting circle and the sword slapped harmlessly across his lower back. Five heartbeats, he thought, that’s all it’ll take, five heartbeats to draw back and stab in and then A’Meer’s father’s sword will gut me. He thought much, much more in those few moments, a slew of images rather than words: Rafe raising the boat from the River San; watching A’Meer in the Broken Arm without her knowing he was there, the way her plaits swung, her constant wry smile; running across the plain toward the Gray Woods, fearing the Monks behind them and having no idea of what they were about to face; the machines, rising; the Mages, falling out of th
e sunset; the darkness. And he realized that he had never been this close to death before.
The other male Breaker screamed.
Kosar looked over Schiff’s shoulder.
The Breaker was behind the woman, ten steps back along the path, and he was staring down at a sword protruding from his chest. Behind him, a flash of red. And above this confusion of colors, a face, teeth bared and eyes blacker than mere darkness.
“Monk!” the woman shouted. Her voice was low and rough, as if her throat were already slit.
The Red Monk lifted the Breaker with the sword through his chest, pivoted and leaned forward. The man shrieked, waving his arms and legs, then slid from the sword and fell. When he struck the rocks his scream ceased, replaced by the thuds and crunches of his body tumbling to the foot of the cliff.
The woman backed toward Kosar and Schiff, but the Monk was on her quickly, a blur of robe and glittering sword sweeping her from the cliff path. She did not scream as she fell into the dark.
Kosar shoved against Schiff but stumbled over his own ankles, falling down again. He remembered fighting the Monk in the square in Pavisse. Now he did not even have a sword.
Schiff stood his ground. Kosar had a fleeting sense of respect for this Breaker, hefting a strange sword and planting his feet on the narrow cliff path in readiness to take on a Red Monk. But then the demon strode in, grunting as Schiff buried the sword in its shoulder, pushing itself further onto the blade until it was close enough to strike out and bury its own in Schiff’s gut.
The Breaker screamed. His hands went to the wound, leaving Kosar’s sword protruding from the Red Monk, and the Monk glared down at Kosar.
