by J. V. Jones
“Though a fortress may fall and darkness ride through Wthe gate
He will lie in wait.”
A violent wrench shook the chamber. Something integral to the nature of time and being snapped, and in that instant Raif saw things that no man should ever see. A hundredfold of nightmares, a thousand lifetimes’ worth of horrors: all moving forward, pushing to get out. And riding amongst them were the nine horsemen. The Endlords on their black stallions, their swords forged from an absence of all things, the substance of souls ground to hold an edge. They felt Raif’s attention upon them, and turned slowly to meet his gaze. Their eyes were holes leading to a place beyond hell, and they pulled their lips back and smiled at him.
Soon, they promised. Soon.
In that instant the Shatan Maer stepped through the breach. A monster from another Age, born in shadow form. Raif adjusted his sword, searched the black void of the creature’s body for some semblance of a heart . . . and found one. An immense primitive pump that moved the shadowblood around its body, keeping it Unmade. Raif felt its powerful suction pull him in, and fought against it. He could not afford to lose himself in this muscular blackness. It was the second gate to hell, lying in wait.
“And when the Demon emerges and all hopes depart
He must take its heart.”
Raif lunged forward, touched shadowflesh with the point of his sword, heard it hiss. A deep roar sounded. The Shatan Maer moved. Raif did not see the blow that felled him. He lost time. Blinking awake he saw a faint shadow of himself being felled. He reached for his sword. Where was the sword? As his hand scrambled over rocks, searching desperately, the Shatan Maer turned toward him. Its eyes were forked with black veins, and they were filled with hateful yearning. Raif pushed himself back with his heels. Suddenly he wanted very much to live.
As he regained his feet, he saw another faint glimmering of himself finding the sword, and just as his glimmer self raised it, the Shatan Maer fell upon him. Raif saw his own death there, saw his leg torn off like a twig. He grinned insanely. At least he knew where his sword was now.
Probably not a good time to fetch it, either. He still had the Sull bow and some arrows on his back and he slid them off as he walked backwards, away from the Shatan Maer. For some reason the sight of the bow agitated the creature and it sprang straight forward. Raif rolled back, cracked his head on a rock. Rolled back, cracked his head on a rock again. Time was splitting. As he came to his feet he drew the bow, released the string. The arrow bounced off the monster’s thick, flaking hide.
The Shatan Maer howled in rage. Raif caught sight of his sword, waited a beat to see if time was warping around it. No shadow selves claimed it and were killed. That was good. As he lunged toward it, the Shatan Maer struck. Raif felt claws puncture his jaw and rake down his neck. Blood filled his mouth. The terrible cold odor of the monster filled his nostrils, like a small taste of death. Before he could move, another blow struck. His head snapped back, and he swallowed his own blood. Time spooled, showing him many outcomes—too many to track. The Shatan Maer struck again. Raif scrambled back, felt icy claws pierce deep into the meat of his shoulder. Pain bloomed, but he was too confused to translate it properly and he thought it felt pleasantly hot.
The sword was his. The last blow had propelled him toward it, and as the Shatan Maer sprang forward for its final strike his hand closed around the hilt.
The heart was his.
“For Bitty!” Raif screamed, as he drove the sword up through the Shatan Maer’s ribcage to the heart.
Noooooooooo . . .
Deep down, in the place where worlds met, creatures howled. An Endlord rode up to the shrinking portal and laughed without making a sound. A rushing noise filled the chamber as the darkness was sucked out. The portal collapsed into nothing, leaving only a memory scorched in thin air.
Raif lost time. Shadow selves piled on top of him, slowly sinking in. The Shatan Maer lay collapsed across his chest, and Raif didn’t know if he possessed the strength to move it. Each time he exhaled, the weight of the beast robbed a fraction more space from his lungs. Shadowblood soaked into his shirt, burning like acid. All things considered, he felt pretty good.
We can be more, Addie had said, and Addie had been right. Pity he wasn’t here right now; he could have helped lift this great monstrosity off Raif’s chest.
More time lost. He really needed to get going now. Experimentally, he tried shifting his weight to the side. Straightaway, things began hurting that hadn’t hurt before. Grimacing, he made an effort. Sometimes the pain was worth it. The pain meant you were alive, and right now that seemed precious to him.
With a mighty heave, Raif rolled the Shatan Maer off his chest.
It was time to fetch Bear, and find himself a better sort of life.
Outside the sun was shining, of course. You had to give it to the Want: it had no end of tricks. Bear came running up to greet Raif as he reached the gate, and together they headed east. Or was it south? With the Want you could never be sure.
EPILOGUE
A Trail of Flowers
Angus Lok stopped off at the Three Villages to purchase some spring flowers. He knew it was a fool thing to do, what with Darra having a whole garden’s worth of flowers at her disposal, but he felt in a courting mood. The sun was high and it might even have been a bit warm—it was difficult to tell with all his layers on. Lambs were in the fields, and the sight of them darting under their mothers’ fleecy skirts as he cantered past on the bay made him smile. We were all so young and frightened once.
His smile vanished when he thought of Darra and the girls alone for the lambing. They were good girls, hard-working, but lambing was a man’s job. Too many things could go wrong, and though he knew for a certainty his wife was a more able person than he would ever be, he wished he could spare her the distress of it. He wished a lot of things recently, none of them for himself.
The little market held every tenday in the village square was winding down as he approached. All the sorry-looking vegetables were left: green beans with black spots, loose cabbage heads, and some remarkably slimy leeks. Anyone venturing into the Ewe’s Feet for a noonday meal had a good chance of seeing those leeks again. The vegetables concerned might even be able to walk there on their own.
Spying a young girl holding a big basket of snowdrops and sweet peas, Angus reined in his horse and hailed her. “How much?” he asked her as she came running toward him.
“A copper a bunch.”
“No. For the lot.”
Her eyes widened. Angus guessed she was younger than Cassy but a bit older than Beth. A pretty lass. But not as pretty as his girls. His request had sent her into a confusion of risky mental calculations and uncertainty, so he solved it by handing her a gold piece. “Tie the basket to the saddle bags with some fancy ribbon and we’ll call it done.”
She had the sense not to argue. Her hands, he noticed, were rough and callused, the skin toughened by farm work. “What’s your name?” he asked when she’d finished securing the basket.
“Bronnie.”
“Split the gold piece before you go home, Bronnie,” he told her. “Take half home to your Da, and buy yourself some fancies with the rest. No one but me and you need ever know the price you got for the basket.” He rode away, knowing from the worry in her face that she wouldn’t do it.
Shrugging gently, Angus kicked the bay into motion. Home. He could smell it, he was quite sure of that. Smell rabbit in Darra’s cook pot, and some sticky honey monstrosity cooked up by Beth on the hearth. Gods, but you knew a man was a fool and in love when he ate his women’s burned cooking!
He couldn’t get there soon enough. Caution demanded that he work his way around the oldgrowths and the stream, but caution could go to the nine spiraling hells. He’d been cautious for too long. It was time to get to his family by the quickest, shortest route.
Some of the flowers were lost in the gallop and he grinned, imagining the trail he left. Some poor fool might follow it,
believing there must be a princess at the end of such a scattering of blooms. He’d get an ugly middle-aged bordeman instead. Angus slapped his thigh. He hoped there wouldn’t be kissing.
His grin fell a bit as he left the main path and took the little horse-trail that led to the Lok farm. No smoke. Darra must be cleaning out the hearth. A shiver of anxiety passed down through his shoulders into his spine. This trail hadn’t been walked on for months. The grass was thick and untrodden. And the apple trees in the east orchard—they hadn’t been cut back since before winter. Darra usually tended them like babies.
Angus Lok’s mouth went dry.
As the trail wound around a low mound of blackberry bushes, he caught his first sight of the house. Burned. The walls were black and the roof had partially collapsed. Even before the horror of it hit him, there was a part of his brain that took in the details. This had not been recently done. There was no odor of char in the air, and the blackening on the walls had been crazily streaked by many rains.
“They got away,” he said out loud, hardly knowing that he did it. “They must have got away.”
But he’d been a member of the Phage too long to fool himself with false hope. For twenty years he’d been trained for the worst.
And now it was finally here.
The Sull horse knew, he knew, and he slowed to let his rider dismount. Angus’s feet touched earth, and he made a bargain with his gods. “Take me now,” he murmured. “Bring them back and take me instead.”
The gods didn’t answer. The gods were dead.
Angus took a breath to steady himself, and then walked into his house.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
ONE - The Ice Fog Rises
TWO - The Widows’ Wall
THREE - In the Tomb of the Dhoone Princes
FOUR - The Beast Beneath the Ice
FIVE - Into the Fire
SIX - Becoming Sull
SEVEN - An Arrow With a Name
EIGHT - The Thorn King
NINE - A Broken Stone
TEN - Condemned Men
ELEVEN - The Forsworn
TWELVE - Fair Trade
THIRTEEN - Blue Dhoone Lake
FOURTEEN - Awakening
FIFTEEN - Stillborn
SIXTEEN - Leaving Blackhail
SEVENTEEN - Maimed Men
EIGHTEEN - The Tower on the Milk
NINETEEN - City on the Edge of an Abyss
TWENTY - A Test of Arrows
TWENTY-ONE - The Nine Safe Steps
TWENTY-TWO - Treason
TWENTY-THREE - Hauling Stones
TWENTY-FOUR - A Surlord’s Progress
TWENTY-FIVE - Spilling Sand
TWENTY-SIX - Spire Vanis
TWENTY-SEVEN - The Rift
TWENTY-EIGHT - Dealing in the Milkhouse
TWENTY-NINE - The Robber Chief
THIRTY - Pursuit
THIRTY-ONE - A Storm Building
THIRTY-TWO - The Game Room
THIRTY-THREE - A Walk on the Edge
THIRTY-FOUR - At the Sign of the Blind Crow
THIRTY-FIVE - Harlequins
THIRTY-SIX - The Racklands
THIRTY-SEVEN - Chief-in-Exile
THIRTY-EIGHT - Raid on the Shanty
THIRTY-NINE - Black Hole
FORTY - Fighting One-Handed
FORTY-ONE - Desertion
FORTY-TWO - Into the Want
FORTY-THREE - A Severed Head
FORTY-FOUR - To Catch a Fish
FORTY-FIVE - Fixing Things
FORTY-SIX - A Fortress of Grey Ice
FORTY-SEVEN - A Bolt-Hole
FORTY-EIGHT - The Stand At Floating Bridge
FORTY-NINE - The Gates To Hell
EPILOGUE
