Eric hadn"t come with her. He"d lingered to stare at something in the field beyond, where there was the beginning of a small wood. She followed his gaze. A lone figure stood at the edge of the trees, watching them. She had time only to see that the figure"s clothes were dark before it was gone, vanished in a blink of her eyes. Instinctively she reached for an arrow before remembering that b.a.s.t.a.r.d Sharfy had mangled her bow before they"d fled Elvury.
Eric still stared. "There he is," he said.
Something in his manner was disquieting. She shivered, wondering if she were even safe turning her back on him, let alone safe from whatever else was out here. She"d have preferred him preoccupied with l.u.s.t like he"d been in the haunted woods.
It would be easy enough to abandon him ...
But whatever leadership remained of the Mayors" Command would sorely want him. And his weapon, which could slay Invia with such ease. She had no intention of killing him and taking the weapon, but it was a possibility she was aware of.
"This way," she said. "Keep your gun ready."
4.
The rumbling of stoneflesh feet was now part of the background, so that in spite of it there seemed an eerie quiet. They"d ventured directly east from the Great Dividing Road, Siel checking behind them for any sight of the stranger. Eric had not yet spoken.
She said, "When we saw the man back there. You said, there he is, or similar words."
"I said that?"
"Yes. What did you mean?"
He was a while answering. "Don"t know."
"Nor I. But you were not surprised by the sight of him. Or were you? Did you know him?"
Eric gave a funny laugh. "Actually this will sound strange. But it almost seemed ... I meant there I was. I don"t know. Guess I"m just tired."
She didn"t ask him to elaborate, for his answer worried her.
The foot-worn path branched off. There was a village not far along but a look at the tracks said many feet had just come through here. She crouched down, waiting for happenstance magic to show her something. There was no guarantee it would, but it was the right time in her cycle to see things. Willing it to happen encouraged but did not guarantee a vision.
Waiting, waiting aha! A glimpse of rough men hurrying by, hunting dogs with them, running down the slope along the path. Weapons out like they expected a fight. They appeared and vanished in a second, a lonely second of the past thrust forward (or had it cast her back? She could never tell). The men may have been there a thousand years back or just yesterday. Or minutes ago.
There were no clear dog tracks here but she decided not to risk it; another village waited a few miles ahead and she could hopefully forage enough edible roots to keep them going. For the hundredth time she cursed Sharfy"s name for breaking her bow and depriving them of the chance to hunt.
The abandoned countryside did not tell her much. They should have come across at least the occasional wagon train or traveller. Abandoned crop fields balmed her concerns about food. From these they ate and stuffed their packs with vegetables.
She was eyeing off the tall stalks of a distant cornfield as possible shelter for the night when a group of dark shapes emerged over the rise to their left. There were twenty of them, some with tall walking sticks. One had a flail. What she didn"t yet know was whether they were real or a glimpse from the past. "Do you see them?" she said.
Eric nodded and pulled out the small black Otherworld weapon. "I may not have bullets left for all of them. But after the first goes down, the rest will run."
But can he actually bring himself to kill a person? she wondered. Even one who threatens us? The mad fool did not kill Kiown.
Siel grabbed Eric and dragged him with her behind one of the th.o.r.n.y bushes scattered over the plain, without much hope they"d be hidden by its thin leafless branches.
"We see you, sister," came a mournful call, sure enough. "We see you! Don"t run, don"t hide. No need, no need!"
"We"ve peace!" said another. "To this green land we bring it!"
Siel stood in full view with her knife in hand. "I should have known by the garments," she said.
"Known what?" said Eric, standing beside her.
"They are Nightmare cultists. It"s been long since I met any. We are probably safe. They don"t often sacrifice."
"How often is not often?"
"Twice a year that I know of. The victim is usually one of their own."
The cultists walked in ranks of five. They limped and looked starved. Their wails and shrieks sounded like carrion birds. The one with a flail lashed his own back with it then pa.s.sed the weapon to the one next to him, who did likewise. Some of their black robes were already shredded, wounds glistening beneath. "Come with us!" a few of them cried as the group closed in. There was a reek of infected flesh.
"We"re on business for the Mayors. Leave us be," said Siel.
The whole group of them laughed. Said one, "Wayward sister! What business? We are the first to go to the new world. You too are invited, by virtue of our invitation, if not the Great Dark One"s direct call, which was our privilege alone, for long service given. You may come. We are generous. But you both must walk in the rear rank."
"Nay! Behind the group, on their own in a rank of two. They may not use the flail."
Said another, "It was fourteen nights ago his arm reached down! It is said he laid a gift upon a hilltop tower, a sign for all of man."
"He did!" cried another. "I saw it with these eyes, traversed the tower"s steps with these feet, and read the signs he left there! He calls us across, Great Dark One, roamer of night skies, shepherd of the icy winds-"
"Bringer of the ice winds, shepherd of the storm clouds, tamer of the brood, roamer of the-"
"Breaker of the Wall!"
With each outburst they came closer, their bulging eyes bloodshot. Eric brandished the gun openly but it was clear none of them perceived it was a weapon. An older man with what had to be a broken forearm fell to his knees, wailing: "Aye, down he cast it, his hands parting the twin skies like curtains. Come with us, be among the called taking steps of great distance!"
"Have you seen him?" a hunched middle-aged woman cried, her face swollen and bleeding from blows struck by the thick branch in her hand. "It is said he has roamed these skies."
"He was west of here, near the Great Road," said Siel, her tone mocking theirs. "You should hurry. He awaits you."
The bruised woman threw herself at Siel"s feet. Eric fired a warning shot into the air, the Glock loud as thunder. The cultists shrieked, scattered and ran, then resumed formation and marched south, not one of them looking back, already incorporating in their mythos the gun"s firing as some kind of test of resolve. Clearly, they had pa.s.sed it.
Siel and Eric watched them go. "There are things I could tell them they probably wouldn"t like," he said. He replaced the gun"s clip but could not bring himself to throw the empty one away.
Siel"s ears rang painfully. "They are not always so worked up," she said. "I have heard if Nightmare"s sighted, they sometimes attack people. It"s why I was nervous ..." but she trailed off.
Behind them a solitary figure had returned. It stared at them. For a second she was sure it was Eric over there. His clothes and hair were different, and he stood at a strange angle, leaning nearly forty-five degrees sideways. The being did not respond to her wave. A blink later it had vanished.
Eric, still staring after the Nightmare cultists, hadn"t seen it. "Come," said Siel, keeping her voice steady. "Your gun"s noise may have drawn ... all kinds of things. We should hurry."
"Hurry where?"
"We should head for Tanton. The people of these lands must have gone there. A good choice. Their mayor is Tauk the Strong. He will fight, whatever comes from World"s End."
"How far is Tanton?"
"A hundred miles, nearly. Don"t tell me you"re tired of the road; I am more so. But it"s not safe out here any more."
5.
It wasn"t long before Nightmare himself the Great Dark One, guider of the ice winds was seen, drifting high off to the west. "Stop here! Hold! He is seen! He is great!"
"He is great! He, tamer of the brood, breaker of-"
"What does he wish? My vessel is cracked, bleeding. My arm is lame. I hurt, I thirst. I am ready to replace this unworthy sh.e.l.l, to be renewed and-"
Lansith, who had climbed the tower and read the signs, gestured for silence and received it. "See?" he said. "It is as I read. It is as the evening rites foretold, may the soil glory our victim! And lo, you see his gaze is fixed upon us!"
Indeed it was Nightmare had turned a slow ponderous circle, his long streaking trail a dark hook across the sky. He drifted toward them.
"March!" Lansith screamed. "It is what he wishes, it is what he asks. We must cross into that land of reddened skies, we the first, we the called!"
There was not far to march. A hundred paces, fifty paces. They broke into a sprint, those with damaged legs hobbling badly. All of them gave joyful cries.
Nightmare moved with uncharacteristic haste when the group"s intent became clear: they meant to cross the boundary. With a low thrumming sound of distress louder than the ground"s booming beneath stoneflesh feet, the G.o.d rushed through the skies to them, covering in a blink the full distance. Nightmare swatted a hand through the air as he cast. Reality about the group parted in tiny fractures. The effect was as of a cl.u.s.ter of flying blades going through them. Their shredded remains blew through the air, tumbled to a halt and lay scattered across the ground.
Nightmare drifted away, seeking the next threat, wishing for the other Spirits to wake to the danger and come to aid him.
THE WOLF"S FOE
1.
His feet thudded down on soft rain-wet gra.s.s, a soothing break from the hard slap of mountain road or the stony gravel which tore bleeding sores in the pads of his feet. They would heal when Far Gaze shifted back, but that was slim comfort, since the shift itself in either direction meant bones breaking and re-setting. The inner organs moving around during a change was perhaps even less pleasant: that felt like squirming creatures loose inside his body. There was no magic known to ease the punishment of shifting shape.
Of course the wolf would whine and argue against the need to change back it always did. The arguments weren"t complex: Stay. Run! Hunt! But it was always a wrestle with temptation for that little part of the human mind still present in the wolf"s. Some shifters he"d known had lost the battle, stayed their animal selves too long and forgotten the way back.
But they were, he had thought sourly many times, probably much happier for it. Other than rescuing errant Pilgrims from war mages and other perils, what a relief it had been to switch off his human mind and just run, a thousand scents spicing the cold air, rare people gaping or cowering when he pa.s.sed them, a thunderous growl from his throat for show, give them some tales to tell. (Wolves and dogs knew humour too!) Most of the gawkers had probably never seen a real shape-shifter, wouldn"t know there was a mage within the huge hulking white frame, the savage red mouth packed with white knives, tongue lolling and flapping, steam puffing from its breath into the morning air as though an engine in its chest chugged it along.
The wolf did not need much time to pause and rest, but he had sprinted non-stop since near Elvury where the old Pilgrim had jumped from a cliff to his rather pointless death. He"d been tired before then, for the strange and mysteriously powerful woman in the green dress had exhausted him. But whenever he thought of pausing to rest, he"d get a hunch she was close, even pick up a hint of her scent.
As he did now. It was stronger than it had been since he"d picked up her faint trail some while back. She wasn"t far.
Ah, these fields were fine to run through, country not recently trampled by the feet of people making war. The air was clean and laced with stable magic. He could smell food cooking in the farmstead homes. One or two polite growls at someone"s back door and he"d be served well, no doubt of it.
The air"s scents had told him many things as he loped through the night, which his mind would translate when he changed back to human form. The other cities he had pa.s.sed Faifen in the night were in a panic for some reason, perhaps the same reason that had caused the ground to rumble and shiver, and for the very peculiar currents to pa.s.s in the upper airs. In fact if Far Gaze judged right, it looked very much like the influx of a new, strange and surely not foreign magic flooding in.
He would, had his human mind engaged with it, have had an idea of what all this meant. For a while now he"d heard enormous rumbling and playfully pretended the sound was caused by the thudding of his own feet.
And there! Twisting up in the distant morning sky was a thin spiral of disturbed energy, like a line scrawled in fading ink from the horizon to the clouds. It would have looked to Far Gaze"s human eye suspiciously like her work. The mage in the green dress, that "woman" named Stranger.
After what happened in the woods near Faul"s, he didn"t credit for a moment that she could truly be human. He"d stood as much chance against her as a child with a toy sword fighting an armed, trained soldier. There was one moment alone as she"d cast that pillar of light in Faul"s yard when she"d been distracted enough for him to get his teeth around her throat.
He"d almost got her too. In her ensuing casts were little flourishes and touches which would have been delighted laughter, had they been translatable to human expression. There had been something playful about the combat from the outset, as though she was showing off to (at last!) an audience able to appreciate her arts.
Knowing he couldn"t beat her, he"d hoped only to keep her away from Anfen and the Pilgrims. Whatever she truly was, she was great, surely greater than the Arch (himself about as great as humans could become). Ah, how dearly he"d have paid to learn what she was, and where her power came from.
The spiralling twist of spent energy was recent, and yet it had almost faded. It had to be her. A normal mage, even one skilled, could not mask his casts this well. She too would be seeking the remaining Pilgrim. He surged forward with greater speed in the direction of the cast spell.
When a mile or two pa.s.sed the southern skies had a funny look to them. There was a shimmering redness in the distance. In fact, the Wall should be in sight by now. For some reason it wasn"t ...
Suddenly the wolf saw what the night"s scents had tried to tell him. He skidded to a halt, growled low in his throat and then, for want of better ideas, howled at the sky.
2.
Another night"s run through Outcast country, past some villages emptying of people, through others looted and abandoned. At one, bandits had begun slaying families in some kind of casting ritual. They had people tied, waiting in grim silent groups while homes were plundered. Far Gaze the man might have stopped to do something about it. But the wolf did not, any more than a man on urgent business would risk himself taking sides in a vicious fight between wild wolves.
There now was more of that disturbing scent. The wolf held a vast library of scents in memory, easily recalled minute variations and combinations of each one. This scent was not in there.
Never mind that there was meat close by! It didn"t smell too old, either.
The man forbade eating such things, for it would make him sick if he changed back soon after. But how about just a look at the meat? He padded around to the edge of the clearing near another abandoned hut and found the body of a horse, perhaps just a day old. He sniffed. It had died of the horse plague which had made the beasts so rare and valued. But humans didn"t catch that sickness. Nor wolves. One little mouthful would not make the man too sick, not like the time of that week-old stuff which had nearly killed him, and made him refuse to shift form for over a year.
With what sounded like a growl but was really a note of pleasure, the wolf ripped into the carca.s.s, sending off a cloud of little black bugs. His jaws cracked bones, loosing delicious marrow. Heaven!
He was so occupied it took a moment for his keen ears to notice men"s voices from the hut nearby. With a whine he obeyed duty"s call, rose from his prize, stalked around the clearing and saw shields had been laid to rest by the front door. There were some the colour of Tanton, others of High Cliffs. The wolf listened for a while, locking in memory conversation of which it understood only parts. It heard that war brewed among cities who were just recently friends. It heard that these two cities Tanton, High Cliffs now sought the Pilgrim, thinking him responsible for something or other. The Pilgrim held a mighty weapon, they said, and might help them, although he was very dangerous. If need be he could be slain, but the weapon must be captured. It was their last hope in the war.
Far Gaze the man would listen to it all later. The man would be far more pleased with his wolf incarnation for storing these words in his mind, than for the meat in his belly. It was time to go. The wolf bounded off again through fields of crops plundered and scattered.
So much he"d already scented in the long night"s sprint. From the scents alone it would seem a hundred messengers had come.