Snarling, her face slashed, she sent force to strike the shape and slam it spinning backwards.
The water churned, losing its forward urgency. It pulled now, escaping. Grateful, Mara eased her concentration; she didn’t think she could’ve lasted much longer.
The Korelri emerged again. They pushed back the last few remaining Riders, who fought to the end, silent, yielding nothing. An ages-old unrelenting enmity here, Mara knew. This war was the stuff of songs and epic poems all round the world.
When the last fell, the marshal approached Skinner. ‘Thank you for your aid, but we are holding. I must ask that you leave now during this lull.’
‘Your numbers appear to be much diminished.’ Skinner said. ‘I do not believe you will hold.’
‘That is our concern. We will defend to the end, in any case. You are an outsider. I ask again that you leave.’
Skinner’s scaled armour scraped and slithered as he held out his arms. ‘I understand. We will go. I just have one request.’
The marshal raised his pale white brows. ‘Oh? Yes?’
Skinner’s hand snapped out to clench the man’s throat. The Disavowed lunged forward, thrusting and slashing to push back his fellows. ‘Where is the shard!’ Skinner yelled.
A strong wind pushed against Mara’s back and she glanced behind. The light outside had dimmed to a near subsurface dark green. So soon? Oh, shit …
She was behind the melee line of Disavowed engaging Korelri defenders. The priest, she noted, was somehow still with them, hopping and waving his fists, appearing even more demented.
‘Wave!’ she called, and raised her Warren, bracing herself.
The water slammed her to a wall once more. Through the swirling webbed green she saw shapes writhing and thrusting in a chaotic struggle of all against all. She could not even be certain which shapes were which. A blade thrust through the wall of water, narrowly missing her. She moved to answer the threat but found that her hands were now numb clubs, the nails dark blue.
Gods! It’s almost too late!
When the water receded the Disavowed were the majority standing. They fell upon the remaining Korelri. Skinner rose to his feet, water pouring from him: he still held the marshal by the throat, but the man had been thrust through the back and Mara doubted he still lived.
Skinner shook him. ‘The shard!’
The old man just bared his blood-smeared teeth in defiance, and shook his head. Cursing, Skinner threw him aside. ‘Mara!’ he called.
She pushed forward through the swirling water. ‘Yes?’
Skinner pointed to the set and dressed stones of the floor. Mara sagged inwardly. ‘I am nearly spent,’ she gasped. Her words were jagged as she stuttered with cold.
‘Red!’ No answer. Skinner and Mara peered about. ‘Red?’
‘Aye,’ came a weak response. The man straightened. He cradled an arm gashed open. Blood streamed from his fingertips, darkening the water round him. ‘Make it quick,’ he said, smiling bleakly.
‘Warm Mara.’
The old man nodded. ‘Then I’ll have me a nap – if you don’t mind.’
‘Farese!’ Skinner called. ‘See to his arm.’
The small Talian swordsman jogged to Red. Mara waited, shivering uncontrollably, while the mage summoned his strange form of elder magic – a kind of animism still retained in some backward regions. Mara couldn’t understand the first of it; unlike the clarity of the Warrens, it seemed to lack logic or order. Farese knelt at Red’s side and tore strips from his ratty sodden blanket.
Welcome sensual warmth infused Mara, yet it came on too strongly and too quickly. She felt her flesh tingling with the onset of burning. Steam rose from her. She felt faint and dizzy.
‘Now!’ Skinner demanded.
She nodded, barely able to see. She focused her Warren and gathered her energy. She collected it, guarded it, allowed it to swell until she was on the verge of losing the control that kept it from consuming her flesh entirely.
‘Back off!’ she heard Skinner yelling, distantly, through a thundering roar in her ears.
She released the pent-up energies, sending them blasting down into the centre block of the floor. Rock shattered. The block shifted beneath her feet. She tottered forward but an arm encircled her waist, holding her. Skinner. Clattering rock resounded from beneath them. Several stone blocks had fallen away, revealing floored-over circular stone stairs.
The priest appeared from nowhere, cackling and waving his arms in triumph. He jumped and leaped his way down the steps. Skinner released Mara and rushed to follow. ‘Remain!’ he ordered, adding, ‘Hold them here …’ as he disappeared from sight.
Jacinth came to Mara, steadied her; the woman’s blazing mane of hair now hung bedraggled and lank about her shoulders. Ice rime feathered the red-stained leather scales of her armour. ‘I’ll hold the stairs,’ Mara told her.
The swordswoman nodded and glanced about at the remaining Disavowed – a mere eight. And of Petal there was no sign. Washed away, Mara imagined, feeling an unexpected pang of loss.
Another wave surged towards them. Mara readied herself. The avalanche of water hit the chamber and Mara fought to repel it. But an opening had been created, and she could not contain the pressure; the force pushed her aside like a cork and the course streamed past her to rush down the throat of the staircase. Almost immediately the waters round them swirled down to a mere wash about their knees and this too was sucked away down the stairs.
Damn. Skinner … I’m sorry.
A convulsion from below kicked the floor. Everything loose jumped, including all bodies, living and dead. Mara rammed her elbow into the floor, raising stars in her vision.
Stones came crashing down among them. Cracks tore the set blocks apart.
‘Out! Now!’ Jacinth bellowed.
The Disavowed all ran scrambling for the entrance. Mara descended the iced stairs down the front then stopped to look back. Further concussions shook the ground beneath her feet. Great cracks now climbed the walls of the tower.
Skinner! Come on!
The priest appeared. He came running and dodging from the entrance. Mara didn’t think that holding his hands above his head would really have helped him much, but he did make it out. She caught hold of one skinny blue-hued arm as he ran past. ‘What happened? Where’s Skinner!’
‘He has it,’ the priest growled, enraged. He pounded his chest and shouted, scattering spittle: ‘I should have the honour! It is mine!’
‘Your god’s, you mean,’ Mara answered and released him to totter onward.
Skinner … now would be good …
She scanned the water for any sign of a new wave. The sea raged, choked by clashing white-capped waves that broke in every direction. It is as though they are confused, unsure. Hurry, Skinner. We have a chance!
Farese pointed. ‘Someone!’ It was the wide black-robed figure of Petal emerging from among the broken boulders of the slope. Farese ran to help him.
Mara felt an unaccountable degree of relief. Now at least I still have someone to talk to.
‘Do you feel that?’ Jacinth called. ‘It is quiet.’
Mara felt for tremors: the ground was still but for the pounding of waves. The tower remained, though wide cracks climbed its sides. It also stood rather canted in its rise.
‘There!’ Shijel called, pointing.
Skinner was at the entrance. He came stepping over fallen blocks and he carried a large chest in both hands. The chest gleamed silver in the overcast half-light.
‘Open your Warren!’ Jacinth told the priest. ‘Now!’
Mara’s attention was drawn from Skinner as he descended the slope. She felt something tug at her awareness. Magery, on the far side of the tower. Someone familiar.
‘Someone comes!’ she shouted to everyone.
The priest opened a gate. The chaos roiling through it made Mara gag once more. It gave her a headache like a spike being pounded into her temple.
‘Go now,’ Jacinth orde
red the Disavowed. ‘Go!’ They hurried through one after the other.
She shoved the priest but he would not move. ‘Not until I have it!’ he yelled.
‘Just send us all now!’ Mara shouted over the wind and crashing surf.
‘Someone must bring it,’ he answered, snarling his frustration.
‘Go!’ Mara told Jacinth. Furious, the lieutenant backed into the gate, glaring.
‘You, too,’ the priest told Mara. She ignored him.
Closer now, Skinner called out, ‘Go now, all of you …’ Mara edged back into the gate, slowly. The priest followed after her, also backing in. As Mara went she heard a bull-throated yell sound out, so loud it drowned all the noise of the roaring wind and the pounding combers: ‘Skinnnnerrr!’ it bellowed on and on.
She tried to return but it was too late. The gate had hold of her. She heard, or thought she heard, Skinner calling something, and then she was gone. The repulsive touch of chaos enmeshed her and her own absolute abhorrence made her push at it as if she could somehow keep it from touching her.
She fell out on to hard dry dirt, choking humidity, and the screeching of birds. Jacuruku. The land was not welcome, but its heat certainly was. She fought down her heaving empty stomach and watched, fascinated, while streamers of mist rose from her arms and blue-tinged hands. Never again would she complain about the heat. Never.
The priest emerged and moments later Skinner appeared. He still carried the large chest, which Mara saw now was indeed made of hammered silver. ‘Who was that?’ she demanded. ‘Someone shouted. Who was it?’
Skinner just tossed his wet hair and laughed. ‘Bars! Can you imagine? And Blues. They must have come for the shard.’ He hefted the chest. ‘Well … it is ours now.’
Blues? Really? Mara felt astonishment, but also relief. She was strong in D’riss, but his understanding of it was far more subtle, and deeper.
‘My god’s, you mean,’ the priest snarled. ‘Now open it and give it to me.’
Skinner set the chest down. The priest threw himself upon it, rubbed his hands over it. ‘How do you open it? Is there a catch? A latch?’
Mara flexed her hands; feeling was returning to them in a most painful wave of pins and needles.
‘I believe you open it like this,’ Skinner said, reaching down. And he clasped hold of the priest’s head and savagely twisted it. The snap of his neck made Mara jump.
The body fell aside. Mara’s gaze climbed to Skinner. Her amazement and horror must have shown on her face for he shrugged. ‘We have no more use for him. He has delivered to us a shard. Now we have a bargaining chip in all this.’
‘But you are King of Chains – what of that?’
He picked up the chest. ‘It too has served its purpose. Now it is no longer necessary either.’
‘But are you not … what of retribution?’
Skinner threw his head back and laughed again. ‘Retribution?’ He started walking. ‘That creature has far greater things to worry about.’ He raised his voice: ‘Shijel! Which way?’ The swordsman pointed. ‘Very good. Farese, help Red. Mara, can you help Petal?’
Mara took hold of the mage’s arm through his frigid sodden robes. ‘What happened to you?’
The big man touched a hand to his head, hissed his pain. ‘I almost drowned.’
Mara nearly laughed aloud. Yes, drowned. There were times when plodding literalness is somehow appropriate.
Later in the afternoon Petal was treading along in front of Mara, swinging from side to side with his elephant-like gait, when he suddenly stopped. Mara nearly ran into him. ‘What is it?’ she asked, rather annoyed.
He was peering up at the canopy. ‘Someone … some thing … watching.’
‘Tell Skinner.’
He twisted his hands together. ‘I may be wrong …’
She sighed her impatience, shouted, ‘Skinner!’
He glanced back from the fore. She raised a hand, signed: company.
He nodded, raised a hand to sign for a halt. Everyone crouched, hands going to weapons.
‘Where?’ Mara whispered to Petal.
The big man lifted his chin to one side. ‘Right over—’
Something came streaking down to hammer into Skinner and the two went careering off through the brush, rolling and crashing. Mara had a momentary glimpse of a shape that resembled a woman, yet not a woman, something half else.
Everyone set off in pursuit.
They found Skinner engaged in a tug of war with a woman smeared in dried mud and wearing only a loincloth. What was even more astonishing to Mara was that when she yanked upon the chest she pulled Skinner entirely off-balance. And she recognized the woman: she’d been trapped among the Dolmens of Tien the last time they saw her.
‘Let … go!’ she panted, snarling. ‘This one is mine.’
The Disavowed encircled the two, weapons out, but unsure whether to rush in. Skinner let go one hand and lashed out with a punch to the woman’s head that made Mara wince.
All that happened was that the woman stilled. Her eyes grew huge, like twin black pools, and she drew herself up as if insulted. ‘You dare … again!’ She raised a hand and backslapped Skinner across the face. The blow echoed through the trees and sent him tumbling. She raised the chest. ‘At last,’ she breathed.
‘Get her now!’ Jacinth shouted. Hist and Shijel closed.
The woman laughed and jumped up the trunk of a nearby tree. Mara stared, astounded, as she pulled herself up one-handed and leaped from limb to limb.
Next to her, Petal stroked his wide chin. ‘An impressive display,’ he murmured.
Jacinth helped Skinner to his feet. ‘Bring her down!’ he roared to Mara.
She nodded and let out a wary breath. Very well … but can we take her? She focused her Warren.
Far above in the upper canopy the woman laughed wildly and shook the chest. ‘Sister Envy!’ she shouted to the sky, ‘I am coming!’ And she leaped from her perch.
Mara flinched, but as the woman fell her shape transformed into something else, something sinuous and dark russet-red that flapped huge wings, driving Mara to cover her face from the dust. When she looked back the long writhing form was diminishing in the sky, forelimbs clenched round something small and gleaming.
‘Most impressive,’ Petal repeated. ‘Sister Spite. Envy, I think, is in for rather an unpleasant surprise.’
Skinner roared, enraged, and punched the tree, leaving a dent in the thick bark.
‘Now what?’ Mara murmured to Petal.
‘I am not certain. But I do believe that we still have to establish whether K’azz truly is here.’
At that name Skinner’s head snapped round. He marched to Petal and stared up at him; Skinner was one of the largest men Mara knew, but Petal was simply a giant both in girth and in height. After a moment, their commander nodded and crossed his arms. ‘That is for you, Petal.’
The big mage’s eyes slid to Mara. They held fear like twin cornered mice. Why the dread? Ah, of course … Ardata will be waiting.
* * *
The mound Saeng and Hanu kept to was broad enough to be dismissed as a mere natural undulation in the jungle floor. The canopy rose seamlessly from the forest of the surrounding lower tracts to top the higher ground just as densely. As she walked, Saeng wondered whether, from far enough away, an immense pattern, rather like a many-rayed star, might be visible in the rise and fall of the canopy height.
They followed the rise for two days, angling southeast. The way was not easy as the passage of centuries had not been kind to the earthwork; streams cut through it creating steep-sided gullies. In places it had been levelled entirely in broad swampy lowlands. But after continuing on, they found it once more as the land gently rose again.
Each night Saeng lay awake for some time beneath the cover of the densest trees while the inevitable rain poured down. She watched the olive-tinged clouds and the glowing Visitor, immense and ominous, glaring down upon them. Would it really come crashing into the eart
h? And if so, where? Right on top of them? She hardly believed the Thaumaturgs would call it down directly upon themselves. In which case, being next to them might be a very safe place to retreat after all. Not that it would matter. She imagined that such an impact would annihilate everything across the land in ferocious firestorms.
On the third day she glimpsed through gaps in the canopy some sort of tall rounded structure far ahead. Hanu paused and gestured. The land rose here; jumbled age-gnawed stone blocks might have once described a set of rising levels, or wide stairs. Jungle choked them now. A curtain of hanging and ground-crawling lianas draped the rise. Clinging orchid blossoms dazzled her with brilliant crimson, pink and white. Hanu pushed aside the hanging mats and led the way.
The ground appeared to level here to a wide plateau that stretched as far as she could see. Far off, perhaps at the centre, was a structure. They advanced, Hanu drawing his yataghan. After a time she realized they walked the remains of a concourse. Statues lined it, barely visible through the undergrowth. They appeared to depict monsters or daemons of some sort, all bowed or kneeling. Defeated enemies? Enslaved forces? It was all so long ago she had no idea what they might reference.
The concourse traced what might once have been a moat but was now just another stretch of wilderness, albeit wetter than its surroundings. It led to a wide arched gate in a wall of dressed cyclopean stones. The arch was strangely pointed in a style she did not recognize.
Here Hanu pulled her behind the cover of the nearest of the mature trees that had pushed their way through the laid stones ages ago. He motioned to the ground close to the gate. She could just make out deep cuts and prints in the loamy soil. A line of many wheeled wagons or carriages had entered before them.
The Thaumaturgs were already here.
A black despair of exhaustion pulled on her. After all this! She pressed her head to the tree trunk. She’d counted on getting here first to sabotage or wreck any possibility of the ritual, but they had lost too much time. Now the Circle was here and had already begun.
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