The Horsemen raced towards her, surrounded by flashes of lightning. People ran past, fleeing the square.
There is me, she repeated, and clenched her fists.
A Ahmud Ki stood on a pile of rubble several paces from the glowing portal and studied the pulsing light. It shifted and rose, and the flashes of lightning quickened, and the wind picked up, buffeting his thin frame. ‘I know what you are,’ he murmured as the light suddenly raced towards the city.
‘They’re coming!’ Chase yelled.
‘Where’s Meg?’ Cutter asked.
A Ahmud Ki watched the blue light expand, and as the beings took shape at its centre he was startled to see four Horsemen. There had been only two in Se’Treya. Where had the others come from? Thunder cracked overhead, shaking the earth under him.
‘What do we do?’ Chase cried.
‘You do what Meg told you to do,’ he answered, looking at the youth’s troubled face.
‘Are you coming?’ Inheritor called above the wind.
‘Of course,’ A Ahmud Ki replied. ‘Last,’ and he smiled, appreciating their concern but dismissing it.
Lightning shattered the sky. Thunder roared.
‘Hurry!’ he yelled at the others. ‘Now!’ And he scrambled down the stones.
Following A Ahmud Ki’s direction, Blade Cutter stepped through the portal, followed by Inheritor, who was clutching the canvas bag, Runner and Chase.
A Ahmud Ki paused to look back at the Horsemen bearing down on the city. He saw the cruel, jagged armour of his old enemy shining with the blue magic Mareg must have infused into his creatures. The city buildings in their path were igniting and dissolving in icy flames. Just as the Horsemen were to pass over the palace, A Ahmud Ki stepped into the portal and was gone, the stones where he had stood a moment before melting to dust.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Port of Joy was being consumed. The Northern Quarter, the old palace, King’s Bridge were gone, dissolved in the swathe of light that marked the Horsemen’s path through the city. How could she stop them? The only way was to fight.
Meg focussed on the amber within her and fired a pulse of gold energy at the rider on the left. To her astonishment the energy ball passed through him harmlessly. The Horsemen’s response was immediate, however. All four reined in, their horses pawing at the air, lightning sparking around and through them. Their armoured heads turned towards her.
How small I must look, standing alone in this market square, she realised. How can I fight something that nothing can harm?
The quartet rode towards her at a steady walk and she racked her mind for spells to use against them.
Only Abreotan’s sword can slay them, she remembered. Then: You are a Dragonlord, A Ahmud Ki had told her. No one is more powerful.
She spread her arms and imagined a great wind punching at the Horsemen, but while the wind she conjured roared across the city the Horsemen came on steadily, unruffled by the force streaming around and through them.
They stopped at ground level, their restive horses snorting gouts of blue fire, and a warrior dismounted. He approached, unsheathing his sword, his intention clear. Recalling what she could of the ancient languages she’d read in the Khvech Daas library, Meg focussed her mind and said, I will not let you destroy this city. The warrior stopped within a sword’s length of her, and Meg readied a spell to escape. I order you to return to Se’Treya, she projected, summoning all her power. You know who I am.
The warrior lowered his brutal sword and lifted his visor, revealing the faded remnant of a once-handsome face: a young man with eyes that reminded her of A Ahmud Ki’s, although his features were heavier, his body chiselled into the shape of a man bred to fight, supremely fit. Who are you? he demanded.
Her mind flitted through her options. Your master, she replied.
No, the warrior said coldly. We are our own masters now.
I called you before, she reminded him. You obeyed me.
That was before, he said and lifted his sword.
She imagined herself on the southern bluff, and an instant later was there. She felt a brief disorientation, then turned to look back at the city. The blue light brightened as the Demon Horsemen galloped its length, ascended in the south and wheeled around to ride back over it. Bolts of lightning smashed into stone and set wood alight, and fireballs of blue flame exploded randomly, igniting factories and houses and shops and markets. Meg glimpsed tiny figures in the flashes, running desperately, dissolving into dust. The Horsemen swept north then turned again. The Seers had prayed for the Last Days and Paradise and this was the outcome: wanton, brutal destruction, a city laid to waste; the death of thousands of innocents as well as the sinful. She remembered the teachings she had endured during her brief time as a Jarudhan acolyte so long ago, the prophecies of doom in The Word. Like all of the acolytes and the Seers, she had read the words prophesying the Last Days, but never had she envisaged anything like this.
The sight of three children huddling at an intersection immolated by a fireball ignited her rage. She burst into flame herself and flew like a fiery comet at the Horsemen, colliding in mid-air with the central rider. As she hit him, her heat was swallowed by his iciness; a terrifying sensation that sent her spiralling wildly out of control, and she arced across the city, rapidly losing height. With a supreme effort, she gathered her senses and became a magpie, rolling twice as she struggled for control. Stabilised, wings beating furiously, she banked and climbed, defiantly fighting the wind and rain that were gathering momentum in the storm. As she peaked and gazed down at the city, her heart sank. The four Horsemen were continuing their methodical and swift destruction of the city as if her attack hadn’t happened.
Buffeted violently by the wind, she descended to a hilltop a short distance from the city outskirts where she resumed human form, shivering at the memory of what it had felt like to pass through the Horseman. Erin was right. Her magic was useless against them. There were only two remaining options. When the Horsemen returned to Se’Treya, she could hunt down the Seers and kill them before they summoned the Horsemen again. Or she could have the sword reforged.
The first was the only real hope. Reforging the sword, according to the texts, was impossible without Elvenaar blood, and the Elvenaar and their Aelendyell descendants had been dead for a millennium. And even if the sword could miraculously be reforged, who would wield it against the Horsemen? Her? I was never a warrior, she thought, remembering her brief, frightening experience on the battlefield outside the Whispering Forest when she was sixteen. And now I’m simply too old. Perhaps A Ahmud Ki. But she hadn’t seen anything of the warrior in him either. That left someone like Inheritor, or perhaps a soldier from the ranks of the Ranu army, someone A Ahmud Ki could recommend.
The Horsemen made another pass over the city, but her engulfing sense of impotence rooted her to the earth. She should have made portals for everyone. If she had thought of that strategy earlier, the thousands who had perished would have survived. Instead, she had selfishly saved her family and friends. She had to find the Seers now, at all costs, and put an end to the senseless slaughter. As soon as the Horsemen withdrew, she would begin her search.
The Horsemen reached the southern end of the city for what she guessed had to be the last time, and she expected them to vanish as they had when she had called them all that time ago. She was surprised when their light remained static in size and intensity. They hovered above the southern bluff briefly, then swept out to sea, pursued by the storm. The Ranu fleet, she remembered, and imagined the chaos and terror that would befall the hapless sailors in the churning ocean. The distant clouds rippled with lightning for a short time, and then the Horsemen returned to the sky above Port of Joy, their blue halo expanding instead of diminishing as it should have with their imminent return to Se’Treya.
As Meg tried to comprehend what she was witnessing, the words of the Horseman who had tried to kill her echoed in her mind: We are our own masters now. The import of the stateme
nt crystallised in her understanding. The Seers were not going to send the Horsemen back. They really had begun the Last Days in earnest. She was not witnessing the end of Port of Joy. She was witnessing the beginning of the end of everything. The Horsemen would turn the living world of people into an empty, dead world of grey dust and bone-dead trees—a mirror of Se’Treya.
Meg searched the immediate hillside for a pair of trees to frame a portal, created it, and stepped into the village of Littlecreek.
‘How long do we have?’ Inheritor asked, his eyes fixed on the blue glow on the horizon.
‘At the speed they’re moving, perhaps until morning,’ said Meg. She glanced at her friends and family, their faces shadowed in the flickering firelight. ‘Maybe a little longer.’
‘You won’t stop them, even if you do find the Seers.’
Everyone turned to A Ahmud Ki. ‘How do you know that?’ asked Cutter.
A Ahmud Ki’s face was all sharp angles, like a mask of evil in the firelight shadows, and Meg saw traces of the Demon Horsemen in him.
‘These are not holy creatures sent by your god,’ he said. ‘They are the constructs of the last Dragonlord who made them out of his hatred for humanity. They were called Dammeraag warriors when they were living flesh and blood a thousand years ago, and even then they knew only one thing—how to kill. Now Mareg has resurrected them and ordered them to destroy everything. Your Seers have unleashed a power they couldn’t imagine and one they cannot control.’
Cutter turned to Meg. ‘Is this true?’
‘Yes,’ she said.
Silence enveloped the group gathered at the fire in the tiny village.
‘The sword can stop them,’ said Chase. ‘Isn’t that right?’
‘The sword needs a blade,’ Meg said.
‘Then we need a weapon smith,’ said Cutter.
‘There are many men who can make blades,’ added Inheritor.
‘It’s not an ordinary blade,’ said Meg, cutting through their enthusiasm.
‘There’s a talented blacksmith at Wallaby Flat,’ said Inheritor. ‘My father used to commission him to—’
‘It’s not a mortal blade,’ A Ahmud Ki interrupted angrily. ‘You’ll never reconstruct it.’ And he walked away from the fire before anyone could ask him to explain his sudden anger.
‘What brought that on?’ Inheritor asked.
‘I’ll speak to him,’ said Meg, and she disappeared into the darkness.
‘I can tell you why the blade can’t be reforged,’ said Chase to Inheritor, and began to relate what he knew from the time he, Swift and Meg had spent with Erin in the Khvech Daas library.
With the moon and stars veiled by cloud, Meg used a night-vision spell to find A Ahmud Ki. He stood at the tiny wooden bridge by the creek. To her surprise, Whisper was sitting at his feet. He didn’t turn as she approached. Water trickled over roots and stones, and away in the distance, where the blue glow lit the horizon, thunder rumbled.
‘Are you all right?’ she asked as she stood beside him.
‘There has to be another way.’
‘Than the sword?’
He snorted. ‘Where is Mareg? I didn’t find him in Se’Treya. Why is he hiding?’ He turned to face her. ‘Why is he letting his creatures loose now?’
His face and the world were shades of grey in her night vision, as if the colour had been drained from everything. ‘You think the Dragonlord is still alive and behind all this?’ she asked.
A Ahmud Ki shrugged. ‘I don’t know. But what else could it be?’
‘I thought King Dylan was meant to have slain the Dragonlords?’
‘Did you read that?’
‘No.’
‘Legends have strange ways of changing the truth,’ he replied. ‘Where is this library you visited?’
‘In the old Ashuak capital, Chuekwer.’
‘Did you read everything in the collection—everything about the sword? Were there Aelendyell records? Elvenaar texts?’
‘There were hundreds of texts,’ she told him. ‘I didn’t have time to read everything. But Erin did. He’s read them all.’
‘Who is Erin?’
‘The keeper of the library. He inherited it.’
‘And he’s still there?’ Thunder punctuated his question.
‘Yes. Why?’
‘Send me to him.’
‘Why?’
‘There may be an answer you overlooked. I can read Elvenaar. I know what I’m looking for.’
‘If there was something more, Erin would have told me,’ she replied.
‘If you asked the right question,’ he argued. ‘You forget that this is the weapon that trapped me in Se’Treya. I was the one who found out where Abreotan had hidden it in the ruined castle of Cennednyss and I sent Dylan to find it. I know more about this sword than anyone. There’s more to it than just a blade, Meg, much more. Send me to speak to Erin. If there is another answer I’ll find it. I promise.’
‘Is there time?’ she asked.
‘Send me!’ he pleaded, but there was a ferocity in his voice that startled her and she stepped back.
‘Look!’ he said, pointing to the west. The blue glow seemed to be growing. ‘That’s all that will remain of this world if you don’t send me. I’m your only hope. You know that. In your heart you know it. I know it too.’ His voice softened. ‘Please, Meg. Send me to this Erin. If there is any other answer, I’ll find it.’
‘But the time?’
‘I’ll be back before dawn. Trust me. I know what I’m looking for. I know exactly what I’m looking for.’ He grasped her arms and the energy leapt between them.
She tried to read his face, afraid her night vision would limit her ability to see the truth, but in her heart she knew he was right. He was their last hope.
‘I’ll make a portal to the library and leave it open for you to return,’ she said. ‘Erin won’t be expecting you.’
He startled her a second time by leaning forward to kiss her forehead. ‘I will do what has to be done,’ he said. ‘I will find another answer.’
They separated and Meg crossed the bridge to the hut that had belonged to Keeper Shepherd. In the doorway she conjured a portal. A Ahmud Ki joined her, took her hand and kissed it gently. ‘I’ll find another answer,’ he repeated, kissed her cheek, released her hand and stepped into the light.
To Meg’s astonishment, Whisper scampered after him. Why had Whisper always been willing to follow A Ahmud Ki? What did the rat know that she didn’t? Her hand and cheek tingled with the memory of his caress. Away to the west, the blue light flickered and expanded again.
Trackmarker was the first to spot the approaching Kerwyn soldiers on horseback in the early morning before sunrise. He alerted the others, but Meg urged everyone to stay inside the huts while she went to meet them alone.
Cutter protested, as did Chase, Hunter and Trackmarker. All of them carried peacemakers.
‘I don’t want a scene that could turn ugly,’ she told them. ‘Stay out of sight, please. Let me see who they are first.’
The men wanted to argue further, but she ignored their protests and walked out of the hut into the centre of the road. She counted six riders, all wearing assorted remnants of the Kerwyn uniform that showed them to be Shadow’s men. That made her wary. They slowed their horses to a walk and came towards her, reining in ten paces short. The man at the centre of the group was familiar—and when she spotted the scar running across his face she recognised him as Passion’s torturer. She noted that he also recognised her because his hand slid to the small peacemaker in his belt.
‘Don’t be stupid,’ she warned. ‘The war ended days ago. Look behind you and you’ll see something much worse.’ The still-dark sky to the south-west was a roiling mass of stormclouds, lightning and distant thunder.
He sneered. ‘That’s the work of the Seers. I have nothing to be afraid of.’ He drew his peacemaker and took aim at her. ‘This will guarantee me endless wealth and status.’
B
efore she could cast her spell, the village echoed to the boom of peacemakers. Warlord Fist jerked upright in his saddle, jerked again, and slid from his horse, landing in a crumpled heap. Two other soldiers also fell. The remaining three wheeled their horses and rode for safety, but a second volley from the huts dropped two more, leaving a solitary rider to gallop away.
Meg turned to see Cutter, Chase, Trackmarker, Hunter and Keeper lowering their weapons. ‘There’s been enough killing,’ she scolded.
Chase went to Fist’s corpse and spat on it. ‘He deserved a worse death than that,’ he pronounced and looked up at Meg who was glaring at him. ‘You know he did,’ he said, and stalked towards the hut where Passion, Ella and the others were waiting. Then he stopped and yelled, ‘They’re coming this way! See?’
Everyone looked towards the rapidly expanding blue light in the west and knew he was right.
‘They must know where we are,’ said Cutter.
‘Or they’re moving more quickly than we anticipated,’ Inheritor suggested.
‘Either way, we can’t stay here,’ Wahim said, expressing everyone’s thought.
‘Meg?’ Inheritor asked. ‘Where will we go?’
‘North,’ she said. ‘We’ll buy some time.’
‘What about A Ahmud Ki?’ Cutter said.
‘He’ll be safe with Erin.’ She looked towards Keeper’s hut, where the portal was shining, and sighed. ‘Tell the others to gather whatever they can. Take utensils from the huts and any food. I don’t know what my home village is like any more.’
‘That’s where we’re going?’ Cutter asked.
‘Yes.’
Cutter went to leave, then paused and turned back to her. ‘Is there any hope?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said quietly.
Cutter nodded. Meg watched the old man’s bulky figure limp away, remembering the handsome young warrior she had met all those years ago. Age takes no prisoners and treats no one kindly, she decided.
She crossed the bridge to the portal. Where are you? she asked silently. One option was to take everyone to the Khvech Daas library; the Demon Horsemen would never find them there and they could buy enough time to find a way to defeat them. She chided herself. There was no other answer; the sword was the only way to stop the Horsemen. She knew that. But could it be reforged without Elvenaar blood? Had she or Erin missed a crucial detail that only A Ahmud Ki might find?
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