Torin couldn’t suppress a shudder. “So … yes, definitely not as pleasant as Sinyong.”
She slapped his chest. “Be quiet and go get our books. It’s time to practice a new language.”
Torin raised his eyebrow. “A new language?”
For the past six months, he’d been speaking with Koyee in Qaelish, her language, mixed with a good dose of Ardish, his mother tongue. They both knew just enough of each language to mix them into something they both understood. Torin jokingly called their speech “Qaelardish,” and he was finally enjoying being able to converse freely with Koyee.
She nodded. “The Ilari speak their own tongue. It’s similar to Qaelish and shares many words, but you’ll have to learn the differences. My father taught me some; I need to learn too.” She scuttled across the deck, reached into a chest, and produced a leather-bound book. “We have a long time on this boat. We will learn.”
With a sigh, Torin settled down beside her, the book lying between them.
The boat flowed downriver.
The hourglass turned.
The stars moved above.
They ate, studied, slept holding each other for warmth, and watched the landscapes roll by.
They were five hourglass turns along the river when they saw the burning village.
* * * * *
More than the cawing crows, it was the smell of burning flesh that woke Torin.
He lay in the Water Spider, Koyee nestled against him for warmth. Fur blankets wrapped around them. It was always cold in Eloria; most days chunks of ice floated in the river, Torin’s fingers felt numb, and his breath frosted. Yet as he woke now, the smoky scent in his nostrils, heat floated on the wind. Sweat clung to his skin and dampened his hair. He opened his eyes, blinked, and saw ash swirling in the sky.
“Fire,” he whispered.
Arms wrapped around him, Koyee opened her eyes and raised her head from his chest. Lines from his tunic creased her cheek. She blinked, sniffed, and then leaped out of the blankets. She stood in the boat, stared off the port side, and blanched. Never removing her eyes from the eastern bank, she knelt, grabbed her katana, and drew the blade.
Heart leaping into a gallop, Torin rose from his bed of furs, followed Koyee’s gaze, and felt his heart sink.
“Merciful Idar,” he said, grabbing and drawing his own sword.
“Are they all dead?” Koyee whispered.
Torin walked toward the stern and grabbed the rudder. He began directing the boat toward the eastern bank. “We’re going to find out.”
A village nestled along the riverbank—or at least it had once been a village. The place now smoldered. Clay huts lay shattered, their roof tiles strewn across the ground. Charred corpses lay upon a boardwalk, and crows—birds Torin had only seen in Dayside before—feasted upon them. Lantern poles rose along the docks, but rather than holding lights, corpses now hung from them.
Koyee winced. “The enemy might still be here.”
“I see none.” Torin grabbed an oar. “The Timandrians came, burned, and moved on. This is no longer a war of conquest. It’s mindless slaughter.”
When they reached the docks and moored, the stench flared so powerfully Torin nearly gagged. He pulled on his shirt of steel scales, donned his helmet, and stepped onto the stone pier. Koyee joined him, tugging on her own armor. Leaving their boat behind, they walked into the village, swords and shields raised.
“By the light,” Torin said, wincing as he stepped onto the main street.
Corpses lay charred upon the cobblestones, their bones curling inward like wet parchment. The skulls seemed to have bloated and cracked like sausage casings stuffed with too much meat. Only bits of skin clung to the remains. The shells of houses rose around them; beyond the crumbled walls Torin saw more skeletons, these ones of children. Some of the skeletons sprouted extra limbs. One child’s skeleton had two skulls, while another’s ribs flared outward, flipped backwards upon the torso.
“Who did this?” Koyee said, voice shaky. “Who would desecrate the dead like this, rearranging bones to form these … these shapes?” She stared at a skeleton at her feet, its femurs coiling like pig’s tails.
Torin swallowed bile. “They did not deform the dead. They deformed the living.” He could not stop his hands from shaking. “Magerians did this.”
He pointed at the wall of a temple, its dome collapsed. A mural spread across it, painted in blood, forming a buffalo with long horns and red eyes.
“Magerians?” Koyee whispered. She stared at the painted animal and shivered. “Who are these demons?”
“Mageria is a kingdom in Timandra.” Torin kept walking, heading around a fallen bronze statue of Xen Qae, founder of Qaelin. “It lies west of Arden, my own homeland. You remember how you told me that different Elorian nations have fought one another? The same has happened in Timandra. There are three empires in Eloria. We have eight kingdoms in the daylight, and Mageria is the most dangerous among them. They fight not with swords and arrows, but with dark magic. Their spells can twist bones like clay, burn flesh, and spread death like a farmer spreading seeds. They conquered Arden’s capital city thirty years ago; they would have reached my village too, had King Ceranor not driven them off.” Torin rounded a corner, saw a hundred skeletons stacked in a grotesque hill, and grimaced. “And now they’re here in the night.”
Koyee stared at the hill of bones, her eyes dampened, and she shivered.
“I want to leave this place.” She looked at him. “All are dead here; we cannot help them. We must seek aid. We must.” She turned and began walking back to the river. “I don’t know if any in Eloria can fight such evil, such power. But if we have any hope, it lies south. Come, Torin. Let us oar. We must reach Ilar before all lie dead.”
They returned to their boat in silence, ash raining upon them, hot and stinging and scented of charred meat. Torin grimaced to think that these pale flakes might be the remains of the dead. When they were sailing downriver again, he did not look back.
The hourglass turned and turned.
The moon waxed and waned.
The stars rose and fell.
The world became only their boat floating upon an endless black sky. Fish lit the water, luminous bulbs growing upon stalks, spine ridges bright with running pins of light. They shone like stars below. Nothing but darkness and glowing beads surrounded them, and Torin barely knew water from sky, ground from air. Endless night. Endless, cold darkness.
And endless death.
Every turn or two, they sailed by them—the burning remains of a village, a town, or a humble riverside temple burned down. At every outpost they saw them—the dead. The twisted corpses hung from lantern poles, hundreds of the fallen lining the riverbanks. Their bones coiled like fingernails left to grow too long. Bits of flesh clung to their skulls, the mouths agape in silent screams. Upon the walls of their houses appeared the same sigil, again and again, a mark of damnation crawling downriver—the buffalo of Mageria, horns long, eyes red, a demon painted in blood.
At every settlement Torin and Koyee docked their boat. At every settlement they prayed to find survivors. They found only death, a hill of skeletons between burnt houses.
“When we reach the southern coast, what will we find?” Koyee whispered as they sailed away from another burnt village. “Is Sinyong, the great city at the edge of the river, but a graveyard for thousands—another Pahmey, its people trapped and burned?” She lowered her head and hugged herself. “Will we find the same in Ilar? Torin … what if all the lands of night are dead and gone, if only a handful of survivors still live, dwindling every hourglass turn?”
Torin grimaced, watching the latest village fade into the distance behind them, the corpses swinging upon the lamp posts. “I don’t know how many more live. But so long as we live, we will seek life. We will sail past death so long as we breathe, even if we are the last.” He turned toward her and held her hands. “But I don’t believe that all are gone. Even in the deepest darkness a light shin
es. We will find life again.”
A tear trailed down her cheek, and Torin lifted it on his finger. He found himself stroking her cheek as she gazed at him, her eyes twice the size of his, deep lavender that reflected the stars. Her lips parted in a shaky breath, and he kissed her.
He did not mean to kiss her, and yet he found himself holding her against him, his hands stroking her back. She wrapped her arms around him and her eyes closed, and her body was soft and warm under her silks.
“We will find life,” she whispered.
They lay upon a fur blanket, pulled another blanket atop them, and moved in the soft warmth and shadows. His blood burned and his body ached as he tugged at her sash. Her silks came free, and her hands ran across him, pulling the lacing of his tunic and breeches, and soon they were naked under the furs, their lips trailing across skin, meeting in a clash of warmth, and parting to explore before meeting again. She lay atop him, their chests pressed together, and he closed his eyes and whispered her name as he loved her.
They clung together, warm in the cold night, desperate for each other as their boat moved downriver … heading deeper into shadow and the fires of war.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
THE IRON ROAD
“Furry sheep droppings, she’s scary when she does that, isn’t she?” Sitting cross-legged on the rocky ground, Cam shuddered. “One of these turns, she’s going to spin around and toss those things into our necks.”
Sitting beside him, Linee gave a small whimper. “Don’t say that. Please, Camlin. Suntai is scary enough without you saying these things.” She glanced at the three nightwolves who stood nearby, feeding from bowls of meat and bones. “And it’s bad enough we have to share the road with those … those hairy things.”
They had been traveling the Iron Road for many turns now—Cam wasn’t sure how many, because his hourglass kept falling over in his pocket. Judging by the waning moon, they’d left the crater half a month ago. During all that time, Suntai—their guide, their protector, and their terror—had barely said a word.
“Look at her sat up there,” Cam whispered. “Does she even eat or sleep? I don’t think I’ve seen her do either.”
Linee stared down into her bowl of salted beef and boiled chickpeas, part of their dwindling supplies of Timandrian goods. “Of course she eats and sleeps. She has to. She’s not … not a ghost.” Linee shivered. “Right?”
Cam himself had no appetite and shoved aside his own bowl. He stared up at the Elorian woman. About twenty yards away, she perched upon a milestone, one of the tall boulders that marked distances along the Iron Road. Suntai. Alpha female of the Chanku Pack. The most terrifying woman Cam had ever met—and he’d suffered Bailey’s kicks about a hundred times.
But Suntai … this woman was even worse. Bailey would scold him, wrestle him, kick him, and one time—when he’d accidentally broken her childhood doll—she had given him a bloody lip. Cam had learned to tolerate Bailey’s aggression, believing that deep down she was his friend, that she cared for him despite her outbursts. Suntai, however, was a different story. Suntai held him no love. If Suntai got upset, Cam felt that she wouldn’t just smack him—she’d stick her throwing stars into his neck.
The tall, armor-clad woman was sharpening those throwing stars now, running their edges against a stone again and again. Each stroke gave a hiss like a dying man. Her white hair billowed in the breeze, a sheet like gossamer, and the moonlight reflected against her armor of steel scales. Her back was turned to Cam, for which he was grateful. Suntai was pretty enough, what with her large indigo eyes, high cheekbones, and pale skin, but whenever she gazed upon him, her face spoke only of scorn.
She thinks Linee and I are weak, Cam thought, watching her. And maybe she’s right. We’re no warriors like her.
It didn’t help that Suntai—who was almost as tall as Bailey—towered above him and Linee. Standing a humble five feet and three inches, Cam had rather enjoyed his stay in Pahmey; many Elorians there had been his height, even some of the men. Back in Fairwool-by-Night, Cam had been the shortest man around—shorter than most of the women too. On the streets of Pahmey, he had almost begun to feel confident about his height.
Ferius just had to destroy the only place where I felt good, Cam thought with a sigh. And now I’m stuck here with these two—one who terrifies me, the other who barely stops crying.
As if to confirm his thoughts, Queen Linee began to weep again. Cam had lost count of how many times she had burst into tears along the Iron Road. The wolves, hearing her whimpers, raised their heads from their bowls.
“I’m scared and I’m cold and I want to go home.” Linee tugged at Cam’s sleeve. “Please, Camlin, please can we go home? Can you take me back to Kingswall to my gardens and pet puppies and flowers? Please. This place is just … just horrible.”
On their journey so far, Cam had rolled his eyes so often he was surprised they hadn’t fallen out. He rolled them again. “First of all, I told you—nobody calls me Camlin but my mother. Call me Cam like everybody else. Secondly, you know we can’t go back. You know we have to keep you hidden. What do you think would happen if you returned to Kingswall, your husband dead and Sailith running the show? Do you think they’d let you play with your puppies and flowers?”
Linee only cried harder. “They have to. I’m their queen, I—”
“You were their queen,” Cam said. “And Ceranor was their king, and you saw what happened to him.”
Linee stared up at him with huge, horrified eyes. “I … Camlin—I mean, Cam, how…” She covered her face and wept silently.
Cam cursed himself, guilt rising through him. Maybe he shouldn’t have said those words. It couldn’t have been too pleasant for Linee to see her husband slaughtered, after all, especially not with her so young and naive. Linee was perhaps two or three years older than Cam, but internally she was still a child. He awkwardly touched her shoulder.
“I’m sorry, Linee. Please stop crying. Look around you—it’s not that bad out here. The stars are pretty once you get used to them, don’t you think?”
Linee only shook her head and kept her face hidden. With a sigh, Cam looked around him. He himself had thought the Iron Road frightening at first, but he’d come to see its beauty. Black plains of rock sprawled into all horizons, shining silver where the moonlight hit them. Hills rose in the east, nearly invisible in the shadows. The sky spread like a great bowl, strewn with millions of stars, some bright, others small and clustered like clouds of dust.
Between earth and stars stretched the Iron Road, the great south-to-north highway of the Qaelish Empire. When Cam had first heard of the Iron Road, he’d imagined a road like the ones back in Timandra, wide and smooth and cobbled, only maybe the cobbles would be forged of iron rather than stone. But in truth, it was barely a road at all, just a string of milestones running endlessly north and south. Each milestone rose several feet tall, smoothed and topped with a glowing blue rune. Suntai now sat upon the nearest milestone; others stretched beyond her. Cam could count seven stretching north; the eighth lay beyond the horizon, but Cam knew it would be there. They had passed many already. Each milestone they rode by, he would peer at the glowing rune, struggling to understand the source of its light.
“Magic,” Suntai had once said—one of the only words she had spoken on the journey. Cam had tried to ask how the magic worked, but she had only shot him a withering glare, and he’d dared not ask questions since.
A falling star streaked across the sky, then another, then a third. Cam touched Linee’s shoulder and spoke softly.
“Some stars are falling, Linlin. Want to see?”
She shook her head mightily and finally removed her hands from her face. “No! And I told you, don’t call me Linlin. That’s a stupid name for babies, and I’m not a baby.” Her voice rose and her cheeks flushed. “My name is Queen Linee or Your Highness. I’m still your queen, Camlin Shepherd, and—”
Her voice died and she paled.
Cam turned to see S
untai stomping toward them.
Rage twisted the tall Elorian’s face. She growled, revealing very white and very sharp-looking teeth; her canines almost looked like fangs. She seemed like a nightwolf, and she clutched the hilts of daggers.
“Lower your voices!” she said in her tongue; Cam spoke enough Qaelish by now to understand. “You disturb the nightwolves. When you cry, it makes them nervous.” She glared at Cam. “Tell the little girl to be quiet, or I will cut her tongue from her mouth and feed it to the wolves.”
Cam gulped and turned to look at the former queen. Linee perhaps did not speak Qaelish, but she seemed to need no translation. Face almost as pale as an Elorian’s, she covered her mouth with her palms. She trembled and a tear streamed down her cheek, but she made not a sound.
“Good,” Suntai said. “And keep quiet. Now stand up. We’ve rested long enough. Onto the wolves. We ride again.”
Suntai spun away, stepped toward her white nightwolf, and stroked the beast’s fur. She whispered soothing words into the animal’s ear and then climbed into the saddle. She stared down at Cam and Linee, hand caressing her katana.
She thinks us weaker than pups, Cam thought, gulping. And maybe she’s right. As strange as Suntai was to him—with her fierce ways, oversized eyes, and many weapons—they must have seemed just as strange to her, darker and weaker and prone to laughter and tears. We must seem like children to her.
Reluctantly, Cam rose to his feet and stuffed his emptied bowl into his pack. He approached his own nightwolf—or at least the one Suntai let him ride. It was a shaggy gray beast, its withers the height of Cam’s head. It took several attempts—Linee pushing him—to climb into the saddle. He reached down, grabbed Linee’s hand, and helped her climb into the saddle before him. She wriggled into place, and he placed his arms around her waist.
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