by David Hair
Clouds boiled around the peaks from which they’d emerged, engulfing the mountain, but the wind was gentle here. The air had a strange warmth to it, and a faintly unpleasant smell that reminded her of rotten eggs. Stars gleamed through the ragged clouds and the planetary rings glowed like a blade. It was eerie but beautiful.
‘Hey, this isn’t bad,’ she commented, as they devoured a stew made of dried meat and vegetables; she’d contrived to add some taste by adding mushrooms she’d found. At least, she hoped they were mushrooms. ‘Best meal since Teshveld, I reckon.’
‘Uh-huh,’ Banno replied distractedly, staring up. ‘I hope everyone’s all right. There’s a storm hitting the mountains.’
They watched the distant lightning flashes while huddling together for warmth, until she drew her blanket around his and leaned into him. Inhaling his scent didn’t feel awkward – in fact, since agreeing to stay chaste, these little intimacies had become easier, because they knew where the boundaries were.
They cuddled as the fire burned low, Adefar asleep unseen beside them, and discussed what life might bring. ‘I want a real life, not as an exile,’ Zar said. ‘I was twelve when we lost our home.’
‘Do you remember it?’
‘Of course. We lived in a manor house in the country, outside Perasdyne. My bedroom was bigger than Gravis’ taproom and I had everything I could ever have thought of wanting.’
‘Sounds wonderful. I shared a room with Poel in a draughty old castle. We were always cold, even in summer. But when I think of fat Bolgravs living there, I get so angry – that’s why we have to keep fighting.’
‘Sure, but we don’t have to stop living,’ she replied, twisting to look at him and she leaned in for one of his delicious warm kisses.
Then something in the darkness made a clicking noise, that was answered on the opposite side. They froze.
‘There’s something out there,’ she whispered.
When they looked round, she saw the firelight glint briefly on a small disc of light – something like an eye.
They disentangled and Banno added two branches to the fire, keeping one end clear so that they could be used as torches. Once they’d caught, he murmured, ‘On my word, we stand and wave these branches.’
Soft footfalls crunched on the frosty ground behind them and Zar tensed, her heart thudding. ‘Adefar, praesemino,’ she whispered, and the familiar flowed into her.
‘Klark-klik-klik,’ came that sound again. ‘Klark-klik-klark.’ The footfalls sounded closer.
‘Now!’
They grabbed the branches, spun and stood, gasping in shock, as big, strangely shaped creatures recoiled from the flames.
It took them both a minute to realise the creatures were huge birds, towering creatures that were double Zar’s height, with long necks and eagle-like beaks that were large enough to rip their heads off. There were five in all, two before her, one in front of Banno and two others circling in hungrily, stepping daintily through the snowdrifts, heads bobbing. They had thick body feathers, gaudily coloured in greens and browns and snatches of red, and their beady eyes gleamed. Each walked on giant three-clawed talons, big enough to wrap around her waist.
Then the largest emitted a menacing warble and the closest one lunged – then shrieked and leaped away as Zar instinctively interposed her burning brand and in her fear channelled praxis-energy, so that the brand flared up and the fire almost caught the giant bird’s head. It screeched piercingly, dancing backwards, and its fellows all recoiled too, squealing in fury.
‘It worked – they don’t like the fire, so keep it up,’ Banno urged.
Another burst of flames sent the birds skittering back again, but they didn’t go too far and moments later were again circling menacingly.
She needed to do more. ‘Adefar, accendo nunc!’ she called, drawing Ignus, the rune of fire, making flames belch and swirl around them. The giant birds shrieked and leaped back – then they all abruptly turned and fled into the darkness.
Banno put a hand on her shoulder. ‘Deo Above, what are they?’
She shook her head mutely, staring into the dark, fearing they’d all come rushing back at once, but minutes passed and the only sound was the lapping of the narrow band of melted water on the stony shore. ‘I think they’ve gone,’ she whispered, releasing Adefar before he became drained. ‘That beak was big enough to break a thigh-bone,’ she marvelled. ‘And those claws! Gerda on High!’
Banno added more branches to the fire, keeping his sword close to hand. ‘I’ve never heard of such things,’ he exclaimed. ‘They looked like something from the Pit.’
‘I think I’ve seen pictures of them,’ Zar said excitedly. ‘Those sort of birds lived in the Aldar times.’ Then it struck her. ‘If they live here, they must prey on something other than people. I told you the air felt warmer.’
Banno clutched her arm. ‘The istariol must be here!’
*
After that, it was impossible to close their eyes, but Zar and Banno tried, huddling together, taking turns at staying awake. It was lovely snuggling beneath the crook of his arm, resting her head on his lap, but she was too excited to sleep. They’d come so far, found paths no one had taken in hundreds of years and actually escaped the empire – and this must be the place they sought.
Father isn’t insane after all. Who knew?
Finally, light seeped back into the eastern skies and the distant storm clouds broke up, giving way to a crystal-clear morning. They wolfed down the remainder of their rations, gazing back across the frozen lake.
‘We need to get back and tell them what we’ve found,’ Zar said excitedly.
‘Let’s look around first,’ Banno replied. He studied the churned mud outside their campsite and whistled. ‘Look at these.’ He showed her the taloned footmarks of the giant birds. ‘I wonder what they taste like?’
‘Chicken, maybe? With the biggest drumsticks ever known.’
‘And look!’ Banno plucked a green and orange feather from the frosted ground. It was more than a foot long. ‘I think that’s a tail feather – wait until we show everyone.’
There was an entirely different feel to these dead woods in daylight. The wind was shifting to the northwest, wafting warmer, pungent air into their faces. The ground wasn’t the dreary grey they’d expected but was streaked in green moss. They followed a watercourse upstream, exploring deeper into the woods, and though they saw no more giant birds, they heard distant, piercing cries like herons, and the creaking of what might have been a toad.
When Zarelda went to cross the stream, she cried out – the water was warm, with tendrils of vapour rising from the surface.
‘Feel it,’ she told Banno. ‘The water’s giving off steam.’
A few paces on they found a pool where bubbles were coming through from the shingle bed. It was much hotter, too, and Zar was half-inclined to strip and hurl herself in: it had been so long – a lifetime ago – since she’d bathed in hot water; she felt like she’d never be able to scrub all the grime from her skin.
Then Banno put his hand on her shoulder and pointed into the woods beyond the pool and all inclination to relax evaporated. There was a wooden arch like a gateway straddling the stream and every inch of it was festooned with stylised demonic faces with big leering eyes and protruding tongues. The bases were carved into the shapes of men, each face fiercer than the one below, culminating in a big reptilian beast at the top of the arch snarling down at them. It was frosted in moss and grime and it looked as old as the dead trees around it.
To Zarelda, it was a sombre reminder that people had once lived here, an ancient race long lost to time.
They’re dead and gone, she mused. Is that what’ll happen to us?
*
‘Here they come,’ Raythe muttered unnecessarily.
He’d made what preparations he could make: a summoning circle was etched into the ice with runes and signs to instruct Cognatus, who lurked nearby in the nebulum, ready to enter him at a moment�
�s notice.
But the task before them was practically impossible.
It would do no good simply to block the glacier path: he had to destroy their pursuers so thoroughly that no one would ever be able to return to the garrison at Rodonoi and tell them to send more men. That meant he had to strike when the entire enemy force, perhaps as many as five hundred men, were bunched together. The long valley to the south was too flat for the avalanches that were his best hope; he needed to get them beneath cliffs.
As soon as the storm had cleared, some time before dawn, he’d taken his tiny group half a mile back along the glacier, where he’d seen a natural stone ledge at the north end of a narrow, steep-sided gully. It was better, though still not ideal, for the space below might be too small for all the Bolgravian soldiers, but it would have to do.
Kemara, standing beside him with a pistol in her right hand, was clearly just as scared of her own power as of the enemy. He couldn’t quite believe they were going to risk another meld, but he didn’t see any other choice. Jesco was above him, perched halfway up the cliff, readying his flintlock, but sorcery would be their prime weapon; Jesco was here to ensure no one took advantage of those moments when the sorcerers would be most vulnerable.
Moss Trimble had been sent back with Kemara’s cart. His injuries meant fighting was almost impossible, and in any case, someone had to report to the others if they didn’t return. And Raythe didn’t know the man: pressganged or not, he’d been an imperial sailor until the last couple of weeks.
Trimble and Kemara had looked pretty cosy when he and Jesco has arrived last night, which gave him an odd twinge. The healer could be infuriating, but there was something compelling about her, and seeing Trimble sniffing around her provoked unexpected anger.
I can’t have her distracted from mastering her powers, he told himself. That’s all it is.
He glanced at her hard-set face as she murmured her own preparatory spells and wondered if she really could control the powers she drew on. Legends of the Mizra Wars spoke of vast explosions of darkness that ate all life, devouring the Aldar and all their works. The healer didn’t look like she’d be much of a match for forces like that. But it was too late for second thoughts, for Jesco had spotted the enemy.
‘Scouts coming,’ he called from above, pulling Raythe back to the here and now.
Six men had emerged at the far end of the gully below, clad in furs and armed with flintlocks. The Bolgravs tended to use local scouts, but even if they were Pelarian, they could afford no mercy.
Raythe looked at Kemara. ‘Are you ready for this?’
She gave him a hard stare. ‘Are you?’ From beneath her cloak she drew the scarlet mask, all teeth and horns and cavernous eyes.
The way it clung to her face, needing no strings, made his hackles rise, but he steeled himself to that sinister presence, stepped into the circle he’d inscribed and called out, ‘Cognatus, animus.’ His familiar flooded into him, tingling his nerve endings. ‘Praesemino . . . tutela nunc,’ he added, and lines of light ignited in the ice at his feet.
Beside him, Kemara’s lips moved, her hands tracing arcane patterns. Her own familiar flowed inside her in a shadowy ripple and her eyes flashed deep crimson.
Then Jesco’s flintlock cracked, the sound reverberating through the icy canyon, and two hundred yards away, one of the scouts dropped, clutching his chest, while the other five sought cover in the snowdrifts. Shards of ice, shaken free by the gun’s report, tumbled down the cliffs on either side.
Three flashes came from down the valley, puffs of smoke erupted and moments later flintlock balls whistled past. Kemara flinched, but Raythe barely noticed: the battlefields of Otravia and Pelaria had taught him to ignore what he couldn’t control. ‘Cognatus: paratus,’ he snapped, ‘sonus magna.’ He gestured to the cliffs above the gully—
—which triggered a massive boom! that resounded through the canyon, sending up clouds of snow-dust and shards of ice into the air. Raythe looked around anxiously, fearful the sound might have set off something too near their position, but despite some small falls, it all held. For a full minute the rocks and ice kept sliding down, until the canyon below was partially blocked by sliding snow. He nodded in satisfaction, his purpose fulfilled: the enemy would be forced to bunch together to advance up the middle of the glacier. Moments later the scouts scurried into the distant narrows and vanished, leaving their fallen comrade behind.
‘Cognatus, opperio,’ he said, bidding the familiar wait, then called, ‘You all right, Jes?’
‘For now,’ the Shadran replied. ‘Some of those ice-falls got a little close.’
‘Kemara?’
‘Ready,’ she answered. Eerily, the lips of her blood-red mask moved when she spoke.
He didn’t like it, but if it helped, he could put up with it. ‘Good. Prepare.’
He’d hoped they’d get twenty minutes, but they got only ten before grey-coated Bolgravian soldiers began filing into the canyon and forming up in skirmish lines. Then four horses rumbled in, towing a bombard, and he began to get profoundly nervous. Then came another and the two cannons were hastily unloaded and readied. A contingent of officers arrived and the assault went from pending to imminent.
The nebulum around Kemara was heavy with the presence of her mizra-spirit and Cognatus was simmering with energy inside him, although he felt his familiar quail at that unseen but baleful presence. Gritting his teeth, he told Kemara, ‘In ten seconds.’
Those moments vanished in a string of commands, then their minds touched – and ignited.
*
Toran Zorne hadn’t gone far.
Thanks to his own spell-work, his flayed back was far better healed than the mizra-witch realised; he’d used a veneer of scarring and bleeding to hide his sorcery-aided recovery. At need, he could run and even fight. Instead of obeying Vyre’s command, he drove the cart around the next bend and abandoned it, leaving Veet Brayda asleep but taking the man’s flintlock and powder.
My people will overrun Vyre’s position, we’ll seize control of the caravan and make them reveal where to find the istariol, he thought, finding a vantage behind where Vyre and his cronies were making their stand, just as shots rang out in the ravine. Jesco Duretto was lying on a ledge, exchanging fire with unseen attackers further down the canyon. The two sorcerers – no, witches – were on the glacier surface. He could see the ice glowing from protective spells and feel the pressure building in the nebulum.
He crouched behind a boulder a hundred yards away and sighted along the barrel at Vyre’s back. It was the closest he could get, but it was still a chancy shot.
If I shoot when others do, I might be able to conceal my attack.
He thumbed the hammer back and took a breath – then came a deep booming sound and as something snapped overhead, he instinctively glanced up and saw a shard of ice break away. He hurled himself aside an instant before it speared the surface of the glacier just where he’d been. He kept rolling, showered in broken ice, as more crashed about him.
By the time he’d ascertained that the cliffs weren’t about to collapse on him, the situation had changed: the Bolgravians were no longer shooting and Vyre and Kemara were walking around, which would make aiming problematic.
He was forced to wait again.
Ten minutes passed before Vyre and Kemara returned to their positions. Jesco settled over his gun. From the distance came the calls of Bolgravian officers, muffled by the falling snow.
He settled down to take aim once more.
*
Simolon leaned into Hawkstone and muttered, ‘Here, Captain, are those Bolgies mad?’
‘They’re Bolgies,’ Hawkstone replied. ‘They think even nature won’t dare touch ’em.’
The Borderers huddled in the lee of a cluster of boulders near the entrance to the ravine, watching the Bolgravs ready the bombards. Given that the light rattle of the flintlocks had been enough to trigger slips on either cliff, Deo only knew what a cannonade would do. But the
big boom that had brought down the snow suggested that it wasn’t just soldiers they faced here: Vyre was up there somewhere.
And he’s forced us to advance in a narrow column, Hawkstone noted. Even if all he’s got up there is a company of men with flintlocks, we’re going to have a rough time of it.
So he called his lads in, telling them, ‘Heads down, boys. And if they trigger an avalanche, stay here in the middle.’
Another string of orders rang out around the bombards as a group of horsemen trotted from the narrows, including the four sorcerers. An angry exchange took place, then the gun-crews were stood down. Persekoi, flushed and furious, bawled out his gunnery captain before rounding on his aides and snarling out orders.
‘I guess even they can see sense sometimes,’ Hawkstone murmured to Simolon.
In a few minutes, sixty-odd infantry men were marched to the fore: enough to make Vyre reveal his hand, but not too many to lose if things went badly. Bayonets were fixed and they advanced up the slope.
‘How many d’you reckon’ll make it back?’ Simolon whispered.
‘Too many,’ Hawkstone muttered, which worked, no matter the result. Simolon grinned.
As the footmen climbed the slippery slope towards Vyre’s position, the four Bolgravian sorcerers arrived, dismounted and formed a loose line. They raised staves above their heads, chanting and carving symbols of light in the air. Around them, little whirlwinds began to dance and shadows shifted under their feet. Hawkstone’s arms pricked into goose-bumps as the temperature suddenly dropped.
‘How do those blind bastards always know which way to face?’ Simolon muttered.
‘They can probably hear you from there,’ Hawkstone replied. ‘And they can see inside you – so shut it.’
He turned to watch the imperial soldiers reach the sharp slope at the top of the valley, just below Vyre’s position. There’d been no more firing during their advance, making Hawkstone wonder if they’d run.
Either they’ve gone, or they’ve got something up their sleeves. He ducked his head and prayed to Deo that Persekoi wouldn’t send them in next.
