Map’s Edge

by David Hair

‘He going to make it?’ Moss Trimble asked. He was lying on his front, the bandages on his back newly changed. The skin was healing well, though: better than she’d thought it could. He was made of resilient stuff.

  ‘I hope so,’ she replied, wiping Brayda’s mouth, ‘but there’s not much more I can do.’

  She had only the two patients in her cart now. Tami was sheltering in Raythe’s camp – and clearly angling to move closer still to the Otravian noble – while her other patients had returned to their own families. There’d been an outbreak of pregnancy and three of the children had frostbite from some stupid escapade on the ice, but none of them needed to sleep in her camp.

  She’d set her tent a little away from the others, for privacy, and so that Veet didn’t disturb them with his coughing fits, which gave her just Trimble for real company. But that was fine: he was interesting.

  They’d just finished eating when Trimble said, ‘I’m told you went into Rhamp’s tent and faced him down?’

  Kemara pulled a face. ‘What of it?’

  ‘You said it was just Vyre who made my ship burn?’

  ‘It’s not something I like to talk about.’

  ‘Tami said you’re new to it?’

  She considered lying, then admitted, ‘Not really, Moss. I went to an Arcanus Academia when I was younger, but I didn’t do well. So I left. I don’t really use it any more. The empire doesn’t like untrained sorcerers.’

  And they really, really, REALLY don’t like mizra-witches.

  ‘Can you use it to help this poor mutt?’ Moss asked, looking at Veet.

  ‘I’m doing what I can. Protean sorcery includes healing, but I never got the training I’d need for such tasks.’ And the mizra isn’t conducive to healing, she thought bitterly. It’s best at wrecking things . . .

  She stared out at the rest of the camp, strung out over several hundred yards. The villagers and hunters were mingling freely now, but Rhamp’s mercenaries were still apart, with a fifty-foot space between that few crossed. The mood was as cold as the air.

  She wondered if the rift in the expedition would heal, or fester? She remembered how Sir Elgus had been in the tent: torn between the need for vengeance and an acceptance of how badly he’d erred. His force was weakened now, too. Surely he couldn’t risk any further power-plays?

  But I feel no safer, even with Osvard dead.

  She rose, told Trimble to get some sleep and headed for her own blanket.

  ‘It’s going to be a damned cold night,’ Trimble replied, then he winked. ‘Two bodies are warmer than one.’

  ‘Piss off,’ she chuckled. But she was still smiling as she wrapped herself up and closed her eyes.

  *

  It was hard to know where the mask ended, even whilst he wore it. Toran Zorne had been a lot of men and to him, personalities were things you donned, then put aside. He hadn’t known Moss Trimble, but he habitually soaked up impressions of those around him, so when he was pulled from the sea, scarcely believing he was still alive, he’d latched onto Trimble’s persona to conceal his own.

  His first task had been to eliminate anyone who knew him, so that first night, despite the agony of his lacerated back, he’d crawled to the next pallet and smothered the other imperial man Vyre’s people had rescued.

  After that, his focus was to construct this new identity, partly himself, to explain his racial stamp, and partly Moss Trimble, an earthy being with crude desires, or so he deemed. He’d stolen the redleaf from the sailor he’d murdered and chewed it to discolour his own teeth, because Trimble was an addict. He’d also been a man who lusted after redheads, but who concealed his predatory nature with a gruff kind of charm.

  I’ve infiltrated rebels and spy rings. I’ve walked with kings and priests, beggars and thieves. I am a chameleon.

  But right now, he was alone, and his empire was far away. He had to tread very carefully.

  Once the healer’s breathing became regular, he whispered: ‘Animus Ruschto,’ and his familiar entered him. Ruschto had been hiding, but tonight Zorne needed the praxis.

  ‘Consano, corpus caecus,’ he murmured, commanding the spirit to resume healing his back. The praxis was all about restoring the natural order and the spell formed easily. A tingling sensation suffused his skin, repairing it. He’d seldom been able to do this since his rescue, making the journey a torment, but a gradual recovery was more plausible than some miraculous cure.

  As he repaired, he watched Kemara’s sleeping face, red hair a tangled frame for her sharp, lived-in face: a woman of substance and secrets. Trimble would’ve wanted to possess her, but Zorne didn’t care either way. Other people stank – he’d never enjoyed being close to them. He had always hated their breath, their odours, their secretions. His parents had never been able to understand why their child bawled when hugged, why he was so cold and distant from such an early age. So they’d beaten him, which had driven the wedge deeper.

  It’s no wonder I’m always alone.

  That was fine, he liked his own company. Loneliness didn’t factor into the equation.

  Before he slept there was one more task to perform. He whispered the spell and carved the rune-shapes he needed, a blend of flux and anchor, to create a psychic beacon attuned to the imperial sigils. Any listening imperial sorcerers would sense it and know where to look, but no one else would be aware.

  He didn’t kid himself, though: it was highly unlikely that any imperial sorcerer was close enough to detect it. More likely, he was trapped with these doomed heathens as they walked off the edge of the world.

  ‘Abeo,’ he whispered, the spell ended and Ruschto faded back into hiding. A feeling of warm numbness suffused his back and he felt a pleasant weariness that lulled him.

  Vyre will lead me to the istariol and I’ll bring the empire down on him. Then I’ll claim Vyre’s bounty and never have to work again.

  Except he would, of course. The hunt and the kill were all he knew. Life was for fulfilling one’s passions, and finding people was his.

  The hunt and the kill.

  *

  Waves crashed against the coast, whipped up by the winds churning the smoke rising from the headland, where Vyre’s trap had closed on the Bolgravian pursuers. Larch Hawkstone lurked near the Bolgrav komandir and his aides, waiting to be noticed.

  Vyre’s gone and my lads want to go home . . .

  Finally, Alexi Persekoi waved Hawkstone in. The komandir didn’t look so certain any more, and he’d been snapping at his aides, his anxiety clear. ‘Yuz, Kapitan?’

  ‘Komandir,’ Hawkstone greeted, saluting.

  Persekoi wrinkled his nose at Hawkstone’s stained leathers, a sharp contrast to the immaculate stiff grey coats and golden braids of the Bolgravs. ‘What you want?’

  ‘I respectfully request clarification of my orders. I was assigned by my Governor to Under-Komizar Zorne, who is now deceased. We are ready to stand down and return home, sir.’

  Persekoi’s handsome face turned ugly. ‘Pelarians, always backsliding. This is why you is conquered people. Answer is ney. You is assigned to Bolgrav military. Now you report me.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Obey, or face charges, Kapitan Hawkstone. Your choice.’

  The Pit take him. Hawkstone saluted again. ‘Understood, sir,’ he said through gritted teeth, and walking away under the contemptuous gaze of Persekoi’s aides, thought, The Pit take them too.

  He found Simolon and the other lads beside a river below the headland where the recent humiliation had unfolded. Nearby, a Bolgravian mater was chanting prayers over the graves of her countrymen.

  Vyre’s people had vanished into the mists. Persekoi’s scouts had gone in all directions, concentrating on the east, where timbers from Vyre’s longboats had been found. But the two sorcerer twins insisted they’d detected a sorcerous beacon north of here, and that was where Persekoi now purposed to go.

  What’s Vyre up to? There’s nothing up there but the Iceheart.

  ‘What’s happening,
Larch?’ Simolon asked, as the lads pressed around. ‘Can we go home?’

  ‘Persekoi says “ney”, the prick. We’re to go north with the Bolgies.’

  A burst of profanity greeted the announcement. Many had families back in Teshveld and in truth, few of them gave a shit whether Vyre was caught or not.

  ‘I know,’ Hawkstone agreed, ‘but Persekoi is the law here.’

  ‘I hope Vyre’s lot get away,’ one of his scouts, Trenchard, mumbled.

  ‘I don’t,’ Hawkstone lied, for appearance’s sake. ‘Vyre’s a rebel and a renegade and he’s screwed us twice now. Let’s take the bastard’s head.’

  And get my woman and daughter back.

  ‘Yeah,’ the rest mumbled, and the abashed Trenchard joined in. That resolved, Hawkstone got them working, readying for the journey inland.

  ‘Boss,’ Simolon said, once everyone else was busy, ‘how do the Bolgies know where Vyre’s gone?’

  ‘A praxis-sign, apparently. Something the Bolgie sorcerers have detected.’

  ‘Why would Vyre leave a trail?’

  ‘Who knows? It’s all bat-poo to me.’

  Inside an hour they were underway, marching amid a stream of fresh Bolgravian infantry Persekoi had brought in from the garrison at Rodonoi, emptying his barracks in a bid to restore his reputation. The four sorcerers – the twins had been joined by two ancients – were currently surveying the desolate coast with confused disdain, as if they couldn’t believe all their years of learning and magic had brought them here.

  But when the two newcomers turned their heads, he felt a chill: both had white, empty orbs for eyes. Izuvei, he realised: the Mutilated, sorcerers who burned out their own eyes to better see the spirits, or deafened themselves to better hear the nebulum, and other such masochistic horrors.

  Their blank stares transfixed him momentarily, then they nudged their mounts and cantered away, leaving him and his men shivering in their wake.

  ‘The blind leading the blind,’ Simolon jested nervously.

  ‘Those worms killed my brothers,’ Trenchard growled. ‘Pelas govo a nagrei.’

  Pelaria will rise again.

  ‘Stow the rebel talk, lads,’ Hawkstone growled. ‘As long as they lead us to Vyre, that’s all that matters.’

  With that, they shouldered arms and headed upstream.

  *

  The journey up the glacier began in a series of staggering vistas, every bend revealing a new peak of crystalline ice gleaming beneath starkly azure skies. The weather held, a small miracle that might be their salvation, but the air was bitter, burning bare skin numb. For some, the cold settled in their lungs, strangling their breath.

  We’re going to lose people, Raythe worried.

  They had to move slowly, the first walkers testing each footfall, and they travelled in almost complete silence. An avalanche could destroy them, blocking the way forward – or back. Even the animals sensed the danger, muting their normal calls. They had very few wagons left; most had been broken up for fuel, leaving only those truly deemed essential to be hauled along the river of ice. The first day they managed only four miles; the second just two, thanks to a sharp ascent up an old gorge and a steep slope full of broken ice.

  Beyond that, however, the way became smoother and they’d made another eight miles by mid-afternoon on the third day, when Raythe, moving up the column to the vanguard, found a bottleneck where the ice had given way and a wagon had fallen through. The two horses, both with broken legs, had been killed to silence their agonised cries. The wreckage was twenty feet down.

  ‘Whose wagon?’ Raythe asked.

  ‘Gravis Tavernier,’ Elgus Rhamp growled, appearing at Raythe’s side and putting a hand on his reins. The tension between Rhamp’s people and the rest was still palpable and this was the first time they’d spoken since the morning Osvard and Poel had been buried. It was mostly his people here, staring down at the shattered barrels. Gravis, shaking like a leaf, was being hauled out. ‘His was the largest and heaviest – there must’ve been a weak point in the ice.’

  ‘I thought he was out of stock and rolling empty.’

  ‘He’s got yeasts and wheat and whatever else he needs for a new batch when we arrive.’ The knight spat on the ice. ‘Or he did have. Gonna be a long time between drinks, for real.’

  ‘It’ll be worth it,’ Raythe told him. ‘The istariol will repay us a thousand-fold.’

  The Pelarian hung his head. ‘This expedition is going to kill us all, Vyre.’

  A nervous murmur ran through those listening and Raythe pushed aside his annoyance. Expressing fear in front of everyone was about the worst thing a leader could do right now.

  ‘It’s going to be the making of us, Elgus,’ he said loudly, before adding in a whisper, ‘Keep your doubts to yourself, man.’ He turned to those working to recover the wagon. ‘Pull the gear from the wagon and share it about. Keep the noise down – and take care.’ He swung himself from the saddle. ‘I’ll give you a hand.’

  It was a small thing, but seeing him mucking in galvanised the rest. Villagers, hunters and mercenaries alike formed a human chain to rescue what could be salvaged; somehow the shared work felt like a gentle balm after the raw tension of the past few days. When it was done, Raythe roped himself up to the men above and climbed down into the icy hole. He quietly summoned his familiar, then extended his senses down into the ice. As he’d hoped, there was a streak of dirty orange running through the lower reaches of the glacier: frozen istariol. It wasn’t enough to warrant digging out, but it was a sure sign that they were on the right track.

  He climbed out and asked for quiet and space, then traced the rune Isa, for ice, and instructed Cognatus. Together they sealed over the hole, burying the dead horses and the smashed wagon again. Raythe wondered how many centuries it would take for the wreckage to reach the sea.

  The awe in the watching faces as the ice slithered in from the sides and filled the hole was also a kind of binding: a reminder of his powers, and that they weren’t entirely at nature’s mercy. Even Rhamp’s mercenaries looked suitably intimidated by the spell-work.

  ‘He’s keeping the skies clear for us,’ he heard the blacksmith’s wife tell her children.

  ‘No, I’m not,’ he replied. ‘Deo and Gerda are doing that.’ He looked around the circle of faces. ‘Hold the course,’ he told them. ‘Keep believing.’

  To his surprise he found himself shaking hands as he worked his way back to his horse.

  Elgus muttered, ‘I left the empire to escape bloody politicians.’

  ‘People means politics, Elgus,’ Raythe replied. ‘You know that.’ He offered his hand and heard everyone murmur appreciatively at this little symbol of reconciliation. ‘We’re in this together, Elgus: to the end.’

  The knight clearly felt cornered, but he clasped Raythe’s hand and murmured, ‘To the end.’

  That done, Raythe rode back down the column, warning each group he passed to beware of the weak point. He knew all their names now and found himself worrying about them all – this man’s health, or that woman’s bad ankle, and all the swarming children. As he rode, he pulled a wry face, realising that what he’d said to Sir Elgus had been more or less sincere.

  We’re in this together, to the end. Although death was also an ending.

  These people had become significant to him. They’d placed their lives in his hands and that wasn’t easy to put aside. When they set out, he’d regarded them as merely necessary – now he regarded many with respect, even affection. They’d come through a lot with him. They mattered.

  A new weight had settled on his shoulders, one he hadn’t wanted or expected: responsibility.

  With that in mind he set off back down the column, Jesco trotting along behind, looking for the rearguard. He counted off families as he passed them; the Borgers, the Woodburns, the Geldermarks and Tolleys . . .

  But no Kemara Solus, who’d been with the Tolleys in the morning.

  ‘The healer’s behind us, trying
to cure Veet Brayda,’ Sim Tolley told him. ‘We offered to wait with her, but she said the rearguard weren’t far behind, so she’d be fine.’

  Sunset was imminent, the advance guard was miles ahead now and the main body of the caravan would be preparing camp. Raythe began to worry, so he summoned Cognatus and used Aspectu, the rune of farsight, to seek her. But in this lifeless place, other spirits were few and Cognatus found none to link to. So he sent the familiar onwards as a bird, then turned to Jesco.

  ‘She’s behind us somewhere, on her own. We need to find her.’

  The Shadran was scanning the skies anxiously. ‘Then let’s hurry – your run of lucky weather’s ending, my friend. There’ll be a blizzard tonight.

  *

  ‘Now which way?’ Banno asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Zarelda admitted. ‘We need to wait for Father.’

  A trick of the scouting rosters had seen them posted to the same patrol for once. The six of them, led by Vidar, had reached a confluence of sorts; they were currently resting on a rocky ledge with a view beyond the canyon. The glacier was still there, but intriguingly, there was a frozen lake before them. Zar wondered if it was possible that it, not the upper slopes of the mountains, could be the source of the istariol.

  She narrowed her eyes, squinting against the gathering gloom. The setting sun piercing the clouds lit the misty haze hanging over the far shore a mile or more away. ‘There might even be trees over there,’ she commented.

  ‘If there are, they’re probably dead,’ Banno replied. ‘We’re at least twenty miles into the Iceheart.’

  ‘This is just the edge,’ she replied. ‘The true Iceheart is a desert of ice. But you’re right, if there are trees this far north, they’re dead ones, preserved by the cold since the Mizra Wars.’

  They were all heavily wrapped up, with their faces well greased to protect from chapping. But the day’s trek had kept Zar warm, as did being with Banno, even if he was subdued, still stricken by his brothers’ deaths.

  They weren’t worthy of his grief, she thought, but didn’t say: after all, she’d only ever seen them at their worst.

  Vidar had been chatting to the other three scouts, but he joined Zar and Banno and asked, ‘Can you can get to the far side of the lake before you lose the light?’