Dolga looked over his shoulder and studied the healer's gawping expression of puzzlement. The Dauwark smirked with satisfaction, his creased eyes twinkling.
'Think on that, impetuous Rovann, and then ask yourself why Jolm would rather ride for the Ruin with the Gilt Plates at his side than wait for the Duke.'
And with that, he went to join his men.
'It's a tribal war!' hissed Samine, leaning over in the saddle as they rode. 'A struggle for dominance of the Krune being played out here, hundreds of miles from their domain.'
'But why?' Chalos asked. 'Doesn't it risk the fury of the Ten Plains King? He wouldn't take kindly to Duke Elas sending Jolm and his men to their deaths, jeopardising the war for the sake of a tribal spat.'
They were heading for the edge of the Dallian Woodland, following a trail known to the Gilt Plates. The enormous Dauwarks moved on all fours like bears, keeping pace comfortably with the shadamars.
'Where do you think the order came from?' she retorted. 'Think, Chalos. Who sent the Gilt Plates so far ahead of the rest of the army? The Duke. And who commands him?' She raised a slender finger aloft to emphasise her words. 'The Ten Plains King! The whole sorry mess flows back to him.'
'So we ride with those the most powerful man alive wants dead,' said Chalos miserably. 'Fantastic.'
'It makes a grim sense,' said Samine. 'If you think like an emperor. When the Riln fall to us, the Spine of the World will be under the King's banner. Then, what need will he have of monsters like the Dauwarks? Or of men like Jolm? In wartime, such fighters are useful assets. But in peace? They are potential rebels. Maybe even rivals. Why not ensure that they are annihilated during the war? Especially when it buys you the everlasting gratitude of the Tarukaveri, who will dominate the Krune territories in the absence of the Tarukataru.'
Chalos was silent as his mind reeled. He felt Samine's hand close over his and looked over to see concern on her face. He took one hand off the reins of his shadamar and traced a line over her knuckles.
'So what do we do?' he asked her.
'I've been thinking about that,' she said, lowering her voice even further. 'Ride out with me.'
She took her hand away and cantered out from the middle of the column to the frayed edge where sherdlings and Krune mingled, their formations loose. The two Rovanns dropped back, putting some distance between themselves and their comrades, ensuring neither the Black Talon nor the Gilt Plates were within earshot.
'We're slingers,' she said 'That makes us rare enough, and useful. We could leave in the night, when we next make camp. Sneak out and ride south, towards Agryce. Say we got separated during a raid. They won't punish us too severely. They need my might and your healing.' She shrugged. 'If anything, they'll be glad to see us.'
'And if Jolm's men caught us deserting?'
'We would need to make absolutely sure that didn't happen,' she said. 'They'd kill us.'
'But you could kill them,' he replied, thinking aloud.
'Yes.'
He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, his eyes closed.
I can't fault her reasoning. If the Ten Plains King wants Jolm and Dolga dead, then their fates are already sealed. Even if we make it to the Ruin, the King will just hold his forces back while the Riln take their time slaughtering us. At least if we make for Agryce's force, we have a chance of survival. And we are slingers, as she says. That makes us prized assets.
Mysa was flitting from tree to tree, building up her stamina. She hopped off a branch and swooped down, making a sherdling duck in such panic that he nearly fell off his shadamar. When the crow landed bodily on the healer's shoulder his eyes snapped open.
'Gods and bones, Mysa! Your claws!' he gasped.
'Sorry, Chalos,' she said, adjusting her grip. 'I came in a little fast. So exhilarating, flying again. To be free, arcing through air! Oh, like a soul freed from flesh!'
'You nearly were a soul freed from flesh, remember?' he chided. 'Don't wish for a fate you just narrowly escaped.'
'Fair enough,' she said, with a ruffle of feathers. 'Now, what were you two talking about? The mysteries of love? The merry dance of man and woman?'
Samine giggled. It took Chalos some time to realise that her own Accomplice was talking to her, hanging half-out of the saddle-bag, tongue flicking across its lips.
Probably teasing her about the same damn thing.
'No,' he said. 'Actually, we were talking about survival.'
'Ah, a plan has been hatched! What is it?'
'Promise not to reveal it to anyone?'
'Chalos, you jest! Who could I tell? I am heard by none but you!'
'Just checking.'
He leaned his head over and she nestled into his neck.
'We're thinking of waiting until next camp and then sneaking out to join Agyce's host. Or the Duke's. Whichever we find first,' he whispered conspiratorially. 'This battalion is doomed.'
Mysa mulled this over for all of a heartbeat.
'So,' she grated. 'You and the Dread Spear are going to wander the Woodland alone, in the vain hope that if and when you do find the rest of the Krune, they'll welcome you with open arms? And what of the Riln that infest this place?'
'What Riln?' he frowned, irked by her pessimism. 'We've killed them in droves, they don't bother us any more.'
'Ah, but that's because they fear the Black Talon, and probably don't feel too keen about attacking the Gilt Plates in close quarters either,' the crow said. 'But two Rovann, a skinny boy and a pretty girl, both swordless, not a breastplate between them? Why you'd be stuck full of arrows before Jolm even knew you were missing.' She clacked her beak dismissively. 'It's a stupid idea.'
Chalos tutted and called over to Samine, who was muttering something to Sixt. The iguana had just finished climbing up onto her shoulder, having advanced in quick, jolting movements.
'Well, what does your Accomplice say?' he asked.
'Sixt says I'm blinded by love and that my womb is doing the thinking now my brain's flooded with sodden thoughts of rutting and marriage.'
Chalos blushed.
'He can be blunt,' the Dread Spear shrugged. 'Sorry, I should have probably warned you. What about your bird?'
'She thinks it's stupid.'
'Maybe she's right.'
'Yeah.'
They rode on in silence for a while, the plan slowly disintegrating in their minds until it was barely a memory. The idea of escaping Jolm's fate – to which they were now inextricably bound – was abandoned, along with hope. Resignation settled into their hearts. It was a heavy weight, yet hollow as a cage.
But as misery and hopelessness gnawed at him as he rode, Chalos glanced up and saw Samine as a light that shone, tearing through murk, warming his bones and re-igniting his weathered and dimming soul. It was love, he knew. It was within him, working to change him from the inside out. He watched her ride, the world around them seeming to blur and become indistinct.
This is no place for love, he thought. Here in this world of empires and dominance, slaughter and greed. Love is not a thing men like the Ten Plains King approve of. There's nothing in it for them, no new territory, no grand throne, no tributes or tithes. Love is something foreign, from outside this mean and treacherous world.
He rode on in sullen silence, wondering what hope there was for love, for its blossoming and survival. Love, in the circus of death... an intruder that if caught would be humiliated and destroyed.
With every fall of shadamar hoof the canopy was becoming less dense and the bare blue sky more visible. The trees were thinning too and the chaotic landscape had begun to even out into a roughly flat slope that led up towards the Riln Plains. There were fewer branches to be ducked and roots to be dodged and spirits seemed to be improving. Nevertheless a dark cloud hung over the company. Even with the hulking warriors of the Gilt Plates alongside them the Krune still seemed to be making a peace with death, preparing themselves for the inevitable.
The know, Chalos realised, watching the soldi
ers as they rode. They know that they have been sent to the front lines to die.
The more he thought about it, the more it made sense. The Duke had sent the Gilt Plates far ahead of the rest of the army, where the Dauwarks had been horribly vulnerable. Even reckoning for their prowess and indefatigable nature, it seemed a cold-blooded move designed simply to expose them to slaughter. And now Elas had done the same to Jolm and his host, sending the detachment of Black Talon after the Gilt Plates with little or no intelligence about what they would face or what terrain they would have to negotiate.
It stood to reason that the Duke would simply be relating the orders of the Ten Plains King himself. Which meant that Jolm and Dolga had offended him in some way. Samine was convinced that there was a tribal element to the Duke's trickery, that he and Agryce were conspiring against Jolm because they were Tarukaveri. Chalos could not fully accept that, but only because he did not know what tribe the Duke belonged to. With some resignation he realised that he might never learn the truth. The game was being played on a board he had never even glimpsed, attended by players he had never met, who had gathered in a room he could not access. He was a mere mage, a civilian in an army of countless souls of many disparate races and creeds, brought together by their mutual fear of the Ten Plains King and his merciless bodyguards, the Fenc. His fate was in the hand of a stranger he would never encounter.
This is war, then. A single path straight down the enemy's throat, a place where truth is invisible.
'Get ready,' Mysa said, shuffling on his shoulder. 'We're about to step out of the Dallian Woodland and onto the Riln Plains.'
'Thank whatever gods are listening,' said Chalos with a relieved sigh. There was something evil about the great forest, he was sure of it, and could not shake the feeling that it had something to do with that miserable relic of a monastery that had served as their camp the previous night. What had lived there? Why had it been so thoroughly abandoned?
One day I'd like to know. Just to put my mind at rest.
'Look, Chalos! Light!'
The bird was certainly excited, hopping from foot to foot in glee. The canopy parted and a grey sun loomed into view. The trees had now thinned out completely and only a few stunted ones were visible up ahead, lonesome and ill-looking, crooked trunks mottled with brightly coloured fungi. Looking down, Chalos could see that they were now riding on patchy yellow grass. He glanced back, seeing a few lines of Black Talon surrounded by sullen sherdlings, with some lumbering bear-like Dauwarks amongst them. The forest was a black bar woven with slick emerald branches and vines. Now, riding out of it, he could appreciate afresh its unnatural density.
'The Duke's still in there,' said Samine, riding alongside. 'With Agryce. Doubtless their scouts are staring at our backs.'
Chalos shivered and turned to Samine, his mouth dry.
'There is one thing that's bothering me,' he said. 'Let's say the Duke did send Jolm and his men to die, along with the Dauwarks. Why send us?'
'What do you mean?' the Dread Spear frowned.
'Well, we're not Tarukataru. We're not even Krune. The Duke specifically commissioned us to Jolm's host.' He shrugged. 'What did we do wrong?'
Samine looked down at her satchel, where Sixt was shuffling about. The iguana's inscrutable face appeared, tongue flickering across gnarled grey lips. The Dread Spear mumbled something under her breath.
'What did the lizard say?' Mysa asked.
Chalos saw the fear pass across Samine's narrow face.
'What is it?' he asked, riding a little closer.
'Sixt thinks we're here for two reasons,' Samine replied, suddenly pale. 'Because we're Rovann and because we're slingers.'
'The King wants us dead too?' Chalos laughed bitterly and shook his head. 'We should be honoured he even knows we exist. Anyway, what does a lizard know about it?'
'He spent goodness knows how many nights skulking around the Duke's tent,' Samine said. 'He has good ears, my Accomplice.' She sighed. 'It took the Ten Plains King forty years to pacify the Rovann,' she said. 'Forty years, kingdom by kingdom. And the last, they only bowed to him because they knew they had no chance against him.' Her gaze now swept forward over the gently undulating plains. 'The Riln are Rovann, like us,' she continued. 'Though we might hate them, they are more like us than any of the peoples of the Ten Plains.' An ashen look befell her. 'The gods know, they are more like us than the King himself.'
'He isn't like anyone,' Chalos said with a barely suppressed shudder. 'They say nothing like him has ever lived before, or will again.'
Their eyes met.
'That's what I mean, Chalos. The Ten Plains King arrives here with his army, smashes the Riln wherever he finds them, starts to slowly and surely conquer the last enemy his empire faces. Thinking that victory is inevitable, he decides to use the war to rid himself of potential troublemakers. Jolm, a hero of the Tarukataru... the Gilt Plates... Tankanis, a Flint Wizard, one of the very last of his ancient kind... and us, a pair of skilled Rovann magicians.' Her eyes narrowed and there was a steel to them that unsettled Chalos. They shone with fatalism. 'When the Riln kingdom falls, the Ten Plains King will have dominion over the Spine of the World. Nothing will be beyond his reach. But such a large empire will be hard to manage. His forces will be spread thin and those he trust will have their hands full. How can the Fenc police an empire twice the size as it is now? There will be rebellions all over the place. Some small and manageable, others...' She waved a hand. 'Imagine the Krune rising against you, and the Rovann. Imagine the Dauwarks joining in.'
But the healer was pressing his hands to his eyes.
'Is this you talking, or Sixt?'
'The Tarukaveri abandoned their pride to the King,' Samine continued, ignoring his question. 'But Jolm's tribe serves because it chooses to, not because of fealty.' Now she sighed, shaking her head. Her long auburn hair, bound in a neat tail, swung from side to side like a pendulum. 'It all makes sense now! Jolm's hatred of Agryce, the Duke's betrayal of the Tarukataru, the King throwing the Gilt Plates into the midst of an unknown enemy... we were sent ahead of the army to die, or at least to be broken. Even if we do survive this, our spirits will be cowed. We will hang our heads in mute obedience the next time we see the King's banner, for all the fight will have been smashed out of us.'
I'm not sure of that, my love, Chalos thought. You might lose heart. Me too. Even the Tarukataru Black Talon warriors, and their new Dauwark friends. All of us might one day break down and weep beneath the harsh whip of war. But not Jolm.
Somehow the healer knew this to be true. The lieutenant had survived into adulthood despite his afflictions, a remarkable feat in a society that cast its sickly babes off cliffs. The Krune took pride in physical perfection and considered any sort of deformation a profound weakness that could not be indulged. Yet Jolm had not only survived but had risen to prominence within a major tribe. Chalos could only imagine the strength of will that must have taken.
I hope the King knows the kind of enemies he may be making.
As if on cue, thunder broke to the west. The entire column froze and turned to face the mighty black mountains. Huge clouds of purple fire pulsed, the noise a series of deafening hammer-blows. Ten blasts sounded in perfect rhythm followed by ten more. Even here, miles away, the earth trembled, causing shadamar to adjust their footing.
'The King faces the Riln again,' said Mysa.
'Whose magery is that?' asked Chalos.
'Could it be the Ektan?' Samine pondered. 'It looks exotic enough.'
Carried on the wind was an eerie wail, a chorus of terror and woe. Squinting at the jagged line of silhouetted crags, Chalos saw another wave of concussive blasts lift a veil of powdered stone into the air. It was like watching a giant hand sift for gold. The layer of grit rose and fell, disintegrating before his eyes. And then he realised what he was watching. The astonishingly potent wave of magery was not lifting rock away from the surface of the mountains, but people. Thousands of people. They rose like flakes of
ash blown by a godly breath and scattered as they fell.
'It's a slaughter,' Chalos breathed.
'It's a privilege,' Samine corrected him. 'Few have ever seen the Ektan. Fewer still have witnessed their true power. Those storms we saw as we passed through the Woodland, that was just Rovann slingers, mages like me clashing with the Riln. But this,' her eyes were wide and unblinking, reflecting the violet blooms of cataclysmic sorcery above. 'This is the power of the Ektan. There is nothing like it anywhere in the world.'
Even the Wielder – whatever he is – must balk at this show of might, Chalos thought. How could he not be pulverised to dust along with the rest of the Riln?
He thought back to that night in the forest when they had heard the mysterious Wielder fighting with the army in the mountains. For a time Chalos had entertained the notion that this Riln hero, with his prodigious abilities, might turn the tide against the warriors of the South. After all, he had single-handedly defeated a Flint Wizard and routed the Gilt Plates. But now, watching the Ektan pummel an army of Riln soldiers, he found it hard to believe that anyone could withstand the Ten Plains King and his horde of servants. Not even the fabled Wielder.
Is he up there now, dodging fire? Or has he fled?
There was another option, of course – that he had been killed already, just another speck flung from the mountains by the merciless barrage of unnatural thunder.
He could hear another sound, now. A clamour from deeper in the peaks. Rising steadily, gushing with its own power. Cheering. The army of the South had vanquished its foe. The battle was won.
Or so the King's men believed.
A sound like a whipcrack high in the mountains sent the whole of Jolm's force flinching. The cheering in the peaks stopped dead. For a dreadful moment all seemed to pause, suspended, time itself taking a breath. Chalos stared, his shadamar whining beneath him. To his right, Samine leaned forward intently, eyes narrowing.
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