by David Hair
His case made, he surrendered his fate to chance and a bearskin with blood in his nostrils . . .
*
Kemara strained up the next slope, Moss beside her. After five hundred miles, one more hill meant nothing to her travel-hardened body, but somehow, this felt like the most important mile of all. The bridge was growing larger and brighter as the clouds cleared and ringlight illuminated the landscape. Then they entered a dark cleft and found it was lined with more of the ancient, weathered poumahi poles leading down to the bridge.
She glanced at Moss as they went down the defile and onto a platform, to see his normally impassive face was lit with wonder. Before them, at the foot of the giant span, two great statues like dragons of Pelarian myth brooded, but these had an alien cast to them – not Pelarian, but something centuries older. The emerald moss covering them was glistening wet and with the mist wreathing them like smoky breath, she could almost believe they lived.
Beyond them was the bridge they’d seen, rising in a gentle curve that ended at a giant gatehouse protecting the old city. The span was wide enough for two wagons – and more importantly, it looked intact. And above and behind loomed the ruined city and the impossible floating rock on which the chained citadel stood, defying gravity.
It’s incredible, she thought, like stepping into a dream.
Even better, she couldn’t see any enemy soldiers, only dead leaves and windblown dirt clogging the bridge’s walls. Nothing stirred on it, or behind them. ‘Is it safe?’ she murmured, loath to speak loudly in such a place.
‘It’s safe,’ Moss said, with unsettling certainty. She almost didn’t recognise the patient, stolid man who’d been flirting gently with her ever since he woke in her cart. This man oozed capability and danger – and all trace of a sailor’s rolling gait was gone, which unnerved her somehow.
‘We should wait for Vyre,’ she suggested.
‘He’s coming,’ Moss replied, stroking the muzzle of the dragon statue on the left. ‘The earliest tales I remember were of dragons who took human form and taught us sorcery. Some say all sorcerers are of their blood.’
There was an underlying passion in his voice as he spoke, a cold hunger that suddenly made Kemara glad she’d remained wary of his advances.
‘Come,’ he said, ‘let’s walk this bridge and ensure it’s safe.’ He held out his hand, uncharacteristically masterful, and although she didn’t dislike such a trait – certainty was an attractive quality in any man – it wasn’t the him she thought she knew.
‘Hands free,’ she told him curtly. ‘We don’t know what’s here.’
He pulled a wry face and she couldn’t tell if he was hurt or amused. Then he spun round and marched between the brooding dragons, and out onto the mighty span. She found herself trailing him, feeling like an intruder, as they crossed the threshold of a lost world.
*
The planetary rings glowed above the silvery arch of the great bridge Raythe was making for – as Above, so Below. Raythe was running now, gambling that if Kemara and Trimble had passed, it was safe, and conscious that time was running out – if Kemara walked straight into the hands of the Bolgravian sorcerers, she wouldn’t stand a chance.
They should have waited, he fumed. Why the krag didn’t they wait?
He jumped a small stream, clambered up a rise, then leaped down onto what turned out to be an old road that dipped into a poumahi-lined cutting leading right to the bridge itself. Drawing his sword, he emerged on a ledge, where he was confronted by two emerald dragons.
Magnificent, he thought, then turned his attention to the bridge: a hundred yards ahead of him, right at the apex of the bridge’s arch, he saw two figures silhouetted against the city beyond. He hurried after them and halfway there, risked a low, urgent call.
When she heard him, Kemara stopped and turned – just as a prickling sensation he knew all too well rippled over him from behind. When he spun round, he saw two robed figures, pale orbs glowing in their cowls, now stood between the dragons, facing him. They started carving blue lines in the air, whispering, ‘Fear.’
No, it wasn’t ‘fear’, it was Vyre.
They know my real name.
They were Izuvei, fanatics who sacrificed body and soul for power: the sort who’d ripped apart Colfar’s front lines. And they were too strong for him alone.
‘Cognatus, animus – scutum,’ he cried, and a sorcerous shield flared around him as he drew his pistol and took aim, though the range was chancy. ‘Don’t take another step,’ he warned.
‘Yield, Vyre,’ his target rasped contemptuously. The scorn in the ancient female voice was justified, for he knew he had next to no chance of hurting them from here.
‘Raythe,’ Kemara called, hurrying towards him. Trimble was close behind her.
But the Izuvei weren’t waiting: they unleashed a burst of unseen energy which slammed into him, sending coruscating sparks skidding across his translucent shielding. He staggered backwards, almost falling, but somehow his shield held.
Now the Bolgravian sorcerers started advancing, chanting and carving sigils in the air. They were clearly anxious to prevent him melding with Kemara, although they were likely already wrapped in one of their own.
In an attempt to buy time, he went to fire his pistol, but that same invisible force smashed down on his wrist, almost breaking it, and red hot pain seared his vision as the gun dropped harmlessly to the stone.
But Kemara was close and shouting her own summoning words: ‘Kaneska alla mizra!’
His wrist was agony, but Cognatus was in him and he pulled himself together. Carving a rune left-handed, he began, ‘Cognatus, impet—’ but another unseen blow burst over him, sending him reeling, then a second battered him to the ground. He glimpsed Kemara, struggling against shadows, her eyes bulging at the strain, and Trimble was behind her – but surely he should be in front? And he was holding a flintlock, cocked and ready . . .
Kemara, he shouted through the nebulum, the meld! He reached for her with his mind, even though it already felt too late—
—when something fell like a comet from the darkness and with a ferocious roar, slammed into the back of the male Izuvei. Someone shrieked and Raythe saw a large figure plunging a long, lethal claw into the man’s chest.
The sorceress gasped and clutched her own breast, as if she and her partner shared the same heart, but the beast had already turned its attention to her: jaws snapped and wrenched, tearing her throat out, and she crashed to the ground.
Growling, the beast ripped a chunk of flesh from the body and started gorging on the bloody tissue.
Vidar . . . he’s lost himself . . .
Then a shot rang out and slammed into the bearskin, knocking him off his feet. Snarling weakly, Vidar tried to stand and failed; his shape was losing definition.
Raythe spun, expecting to see more Bolgravians appearing over the apex of the bridge, but it was Moss Trimble, holding a smoking flintlock.
‘Kragga,’ he snarled, snatched up his own pistol and thumbed back the hammer – but before he could fire, Trimble had tossed his emptied weapon aside and grabbed Kemara, locking her in a chokehold with her body shielding his. He placed a stiletto against her left breast. ‘Drop your pistol, Vyre, or she’s dead.’
‘Vidar?’ Raythe called over his shoulder, keeping his gun aimed.
Vidar raised his head and croaked, ‘Trimble . . . is Zorne.’ Then he fell onto his side and lay there unmoving.
Trimble is Zorne. Toran Zorne.
‘So,’ Raythe said, his voice surprisingly steady, ‘we now have a face to the name.’
‘You knew my name already?’ Trimble – Zorne – said curiously. ‘How?’
‘I was tipped off by friends in Otravia.’
‘I shall be interested to learn who. You still haven’t dropped the pistol,’ he added, gouging the stiletto into Kemara’s breast and drawing blood. ‘Next time it goes all the way in.’
Raythe took aim at the spy’s face. ‘You’re goin
g to kill her anyway.’
Kemara tried to speak, but Zorne’s forearm tightened, choking off her words. ‘Why should I? I’m not finished with her,’ he said flatly. ‘Five seconds.’
‘If she dies, you die.’
‘I don’t think so. Four.’
Behind Raythe, Vidar groaned faintly. Bearskins took a lot of killing. But healers didn’t . . .
‘Three.’
Does she have anything? Because I don’t. The praxis is too slow for this work . . .
‘Two.’ Zorne gave a faint smile. ‘One . . .’
‘All right!’ Raythe blurted, lowering his pistol.
‘Well chosen,’ Zorne said, as if praising a child. ‘Drop the gun and back away.’
Raythe looked at the pistol, then at Kemara, thinking, He’s going to kill us both in the end anyway. For a moment he reconsidered firing, but he was a lousy shot left-handed. He placed the gun down, then backed up towards the unconscious bearskin, telling himself, While there’s life, there’s hope.
‘Thank you,’ Zorne drawled, reversing his grip on the stiletto – and slamming it up to the hilt in Kemara’s chest. She convulsed as blood bloomed on her bodice and Zorne dropped her like she was garbage, pulling out the thin-bladed dagger as she flopped lifeless to the stone.
No . . . Kemara . . . no—
‘Poetic,’ Zorne remarked in a flat voice. ‘I have now killed both your women. Tami is rotting in a mud pool near where you bathed.’
Tami’s face flashed before Raythe’s eyes as he sagged. ‘You bastard . . . ’
‘No, I am legitimate,’ Zorne said, and his voice remained flat, atonal. ‘Good family. Full of love.’ It sounded like a fiction. The Ramkiseri agent held up the stiletto and said, ‘Mutatio gladius,’ while tracing a complex multi-rune.
In seconds, the stiletto grew into a sword, a feat Raythe had heard of but never seen. And even as he stared at the Ramkiseri, a Bolgravian company clattered down the defile behind him, guns raised and bayonets fixed. The trap slammed shut.
Raythe felt his heart tear with loss: the deaths of Tami and Kemara, and the knowledge that he’d failed everyone, including his daughter – and they would all suffer for his failure.
His despair turning to sudden fury, he snarled, ‘Come on, then!’ Reaching across his body, he drew his sword left-handed and gripping it awkwardly, he charged forward.
Zorne spun his conjured blade gracefully and came to meet him.
*
There came a time when prayers weren’t enough, and Mater Varahana had reached that point. Prayer needed faith, and her shallow pool of belief was running dry.
The planetary rings lit her way as she passed from tent to tent, talking to those within, bolstering courage where she could. Frightened wives and grandparents were cradling scared children while the menfolk preparing to fight made their peace with Deo. Everyone made her welcome: they wanted to be reassured that Paradise awaited them, that Gerda loved them and would lift them on high – and that miracles were real and Rhamp and Duretto would be able to out-fight a Bolgravian regiment while Lord Vyre found them a way out of this trap.
It was emotionally exhausting, but it left her no time for her own fears, which was a mercy.
But sometime after midnight, on a lonely path between sentry posts, she ran out of distractions.
She clutched the nearest poumahi and sank to her knees in the sopping wet grass, dry-retching until she regained some semblance of calm.
‘I never wanted to be a priestess,’ she groaned. ‘I just wanted to learn the truths of the world.’
Her old life in the Magnian Royal Library flooded back to her: a pampered existence of parchment and old leather and ancient scholars who knew everything and loved to share it. It had been a brief, golden period in her life – and in the history of Magnia too, before the Bolgravians yoked scholarship to the empire and declared ‘dangerous’ knowledge must be suppressed. She knew exactly what would come tomorrow: the Bolgrav soldiers would butcher the men, then round up whoever was left and the ‘fun’ would begin. Those who died would be the lucky ones.
Deo, Gerda, help me . . .
But she was all prayed out. The litanies had never been real to her, for Deo was a lie, every scholar knew that.
But I do believe in peace, and in doing our best for each other. I believe in the goodness of people, even though evil is real too. It doesn’t come from Deo or the Pit, it’s all our own . . .
When she finally opened her eyes again, she saw that the carving on the poumahi she was embracing was an image of Kiiyan, the Goddess of Mercy. Weirdly, it was the serene, alien visage of the Aldar goddess which gave her the strength to rise.
It felt so unfair that she would never get to explore the city on the other side of the ravine, or learn the lost secrets of the world. I’ll die on the threshold of wonder, a frustrated scholar who spent her last years parroting scripture when I should have been living . . .
She took a deep breath and resigned herself to her brief future. Right now, people needed her. And she could always find a pistol and choose her own ending.
As she neared the gates, she spied shadowy movement around Rhamp’s pavilion, which was lit from within by dim lanterns. She hesitated, doubting her welcome, for Rhamp saw her as a rival and enemy and his men, typical soldiers, were a mix of superstitious need and brutality. She was more likely to face derision and hostility than gratitude.
‘It is my duty to spread the love of Deo,’ she quoted silently. ‘There will always be those who refuse to hearken, but they should not steal my tongue.’
Steeling herself, she approached – and stopped dead when she heard an unfamiliar voice saying, ‘Yuz, Kapitan Rhamp, you have seen sense.’
The Bolgrav accent froze her soul.
‘You say one third of people follow you?’ that voice went on. ‘Those others will fight, yuz?’
Varahana went rigid, praying to Gerda that she’d misheard, knowing she hadn’t.
‘Few of them can fight, Lord Persekoi,’ Elgus Rhamp rumbled. ‘If you let my men keep their weapons, we’ll stand aside. When the rest see the way of it, they’ll capitulate.’
‘Of course,’ the Bolgravian drawled. ‘But ringleaders must be captured or killed. I have names: Vyre, Duretto, Vidarsson, Solus. And the Mater, of course. She must be made example of. Church belongs to Empire.’
‘There’s no one on that list we’d mourn,’ another voice put in: Bloody Thom.
‘Aye,’ Crowfoot added, ‘but Vyre, Vidarsson and Solus are on their way to the bridge – with Moss Trimble, one of your sailors.’
‘They are awaited,’ the Bolgrav replied. ‘We have Izuvei sorcerers, and soldiers also. “Moss Trimble” is ours. He has done well to bring us here to remarkable place. Empire will reward all.’
Perspiration beaded on Varahana’s scalp.
Trimble is a spy? Dear Gerda, and he fooled us all. He must have revealed himself to Rhamp when we were cornered, offering him a chance of survival . . .
‘My men control the main entrance,’ Elgus Rhamp told the Bolgravian. ‘Give me half an hour to prepare and we’ll open the gates and join your attack, Lord Persekoi.’
‘Excellent,’ Persekoi drawled. ‘I return to my camp. So we say . . . half of hour, yuz?’
‘Done,’ Elgus Rhamp answered, and other voices muttered agreement.
She’d heard enough. Before the men left, she was carefully retracing her steps, terrified lest she trip on a tent peg or run into a guy rope and betray herself. The moment she was clear, she pulled up her hood and hurried away, a hundred plans bubbling through her mind. They all came down to one thing.
I have to tell someone . . . But Raythe, Vidar and Kemara were gone. It has to be—
That thought was not yet fully formed when a dark shape appeared before her, hard hands clasped her arms and a sharp voice murmured, ‘Whoa, there, Mater. Are you all right?’
‘Jesco!’ Varahana blurted, and because there were no unbelievers in a bat
tle, ‘Thank Deo and Gerda!’
*
Zar and Banno stared at the newcomer in absolute shock.
She was a woman, for one thing – young, perhaps eighteen, but in her prime, muscled like a warrior. There was no doubt of that, because all she wore was a shoulder cloak made of feathers, and a beaded skirt with a narrow bodice.
Moreover, she was of no race Zar knew. She was beautiful: her skin was a deep brown, her frizzy hair black, her nose squat and her lips thick and full, and she had the power and grace of a lioness. Her face was tattooed around the cheeks and chin with the same swirling designs found on the poumahi carvings. She had a two-handed wooden weapon, a strange thing like a spear, which she gripped by the sharpened end, brandishing the long, polished wooden shaft like a blade.
‘Re-oko, kono mon kinjuru, sha,’ the woman shouted, shrugging off her feather cloak and going into a fighting crouch, her eyes blazing.
‘What?’ Banno gaped.
‘Tata’ki, moshi ma haru,’ she snarled, stamping her foot.
‘What in the Pit is she saying?’ Banno asked nervously.
‘I don’t know,’ Zar replied. ‘I’ve never heard a language like that.’
Banno hefted his flintlock and took aim. ‘Back off,’ he called. ‘Back off, or I shoot!’
The woman didn’t appear to understand; she just stamped her other foot, swirling her wooden weapon with astonishing dexterity.
‘What do I do?’ Banno whispered. ‘I don’t think she even knows this is a weapon.’
The young woman stalked forward, raising her strange weapon to high guard. She looked magnificent, and utterly alien.
Zar caught Banno’s arm. ‘Don’t shoot her.’
‘What do I do if she attacks?’ he asked, lowering his flintlock.
‘Protect yourself – Oh! I have an idea.’ Raising both hands, she called, ‘Animus, Adefar—’ and as her familiar rushed in, her night-sight deepened and she felt a rush of sensations, most emanating from the stranger. Now she could smell the girl; her body had a herbal scent to it, like rosemary. ‘Ignus,’ Zar added, and flames burst into life above her hands.