‘They’re comin’,’ Sour announced.
‘All right.’ He waved to Ostler and Dee. ‘You two, take off. We’ll cover you.’
The two sheathed their swords, picked up the litter, and ran.
He and Sour started after, more slowly, interweaving a mesh of Meanas and Mockra with hidden snares of Thyr from Sour.
‘I think they’re good,’ Sour panted. ‘What a punch that gal has! My ears are still ringing.’
‘Focus on the job,’ Murk growled.
‘Right. Still, great legs on her.’
Together they spread such a maze of confusion, distortion and misdirection that Murk was certain no one could possibly win through. Yet whenever he cast his awareness to their rear he found them, and closing.
‘Can’t shake ’em,’ Sour gasped, near exhaustion. ‘How’re they doin’ it?’ He sounded close to weeping his fear and frustration.
‘Must have a tag on us somehow. Somethin’ …’ Murk hit a fist to his forehead. ‘The damned shard! They’re tracking it. Must stand out like Burn’s own tits. Gotta change the plan.’
Sour halted, hands on a broad leaf cut by deep serrations as long as a murderer’s blade. ‘How’s that?’ he asked.
Murk gestured ahead. ‘Tell Dee to turn the game.’
‘On it. Just like that time in Mott.’
Murk snapped his fingers to urge his partner on. ‘I told you never to mention that Hood-damned place!’
Sour hurried away, muttering, ‘Okay, okay. Just ’cause the apes caught ya! Sheesh.’
Dee and Ostler took charge of the ambush. They impatiently waved Murk and Sour to the litter. Moments later a skinny gangly fellow came crashing through the brush to run right into Dee, who wrapped a forearm round his neck. The fellow squawked but quietened down when Dee pressed the blade of his heavy parrying gauche to his bulbous Adam’s apple.
Two more figures emerged and the first punched Murk’s breath away because he recognized him from stories he’d heard. Skinner. Fucking Crimson Guard renegade. What was he doing here? He’d heard they’d left Jacuruku. This could be it for us. We’re outclassed.
So struck was he that he missed something and now Skinner charged Ostler.
‘Gotta do it, Murk,’ Sour whimpered, revealing that he also knew whom they faced.
He said some stupid last words and took them into Shadow.
They emerged still within the confines of the forest of the Azathanai. The image of Celeste shimmered here as if awaiting them. ‘Hello,’ she greeted them, smiling, pleased to see them. ‘Who are those others?’
‘They’ve come to take you away. Bring you to your … ah, parent.’
The girl-shade giggled. ‘Parent! How quaint. I’m sorry, Murk, but that comes nowhere near our relationship.’
Distracted, he murmured, ‘Well. Have to start somewhere.’ Can’t stay here – gonna be entombed for ever by these damned trees. ‘We have to move,’ he told Sour who answered with a you’re damned right nod.
A patch of the woods nearby roiled and blurred as if melting. Murk stared, stunned. I don’t fucking believe it! The Crippled God priest appeared and lunged for the litter. He and Sour eyed the rearing dark figure of Skinner who emerged looking like the ghost of Hood himself. The Crimson Guard Dal Hon gal followed but the transition was hard on her: she fell to her knees, gagging. Still, her D’riss Warren sizzled about her as an aurora of blue flames.
‘Sacred Queen,’ Sour squawked, a hand going to his mouth.
Murk shifted to kick the damned priest away.
‘Do not move,’ Skinner warned.
The priest was untying the straps. Murk couldn’t help trying to smack him aside. He saw the surrounding branches and roots stirring, but slowly. Far too slowly. To one side, the flickering image of Celeste watched the newcomers as if they were rare exotic animals while none of them even spared her a glance – not even the priest. They can’t see her either. Only I can. Her choice, I suppose. And this filthy priest is about to get his hands on her! Have to do something.
That they had physically brought the shard through into Shadow gave him an idea. It ought to bring someone who could stand down even Skinner. Abyss, from the stories and rumours he’d heard among those who knew Shadow he could stand down anyone.
The Crimson Guardsman said something but Murk wasn’t listening; he was concentrating his power. Because he had nothing to lose, he sent a summoning. The instant he did the D’riss mage was on him. She hit like an avalanche and all he knew was a hammer slamming into his stomach knocking him backwards, then a spike driving into his head. Everything was lost in a burning sea of pain.
He came to holding his head. He unclenched his arms and peered up, blinking. They were still in Shadow. Celeste stood over him, studying him with her big green eyes. ‘You are in pain?’ she asked.
His head felt like it had cracked open. He swallowed the pasty coating in his mouth and ventured a weak, ‘Yeah …’
‘It appears quite incommoding. Not a good adaptation.’
‘What was that?’ Sour asked. ‘You okay?’
He shifted to sit up – carefully. ‘She’s here. You can’t see her?’
Sour peered around. ‘No. I guess only you can.’
‘Ah. So … give it to me. What happened.’
The fellow rubbed his bulbous nose, smearing his green and grey face paint. ‘Well. The scariest guy I’ve ever seen showed up and kicked them out of Shadow.’
‘He was here? He came!’ And I missed it! I can’t believe it! How could I—A thousand unanswered questions. What an opportunity … He shook his head and winced.
‘Yeah,’ Sour answered, then he frowned, confused. ‘Who?’
‘Edgewalker.’
Sour’s brows, one higher than the other, rose. ‘Oh! I heard a him. I hear he’s the worst reason you should never trespass in Shadow.’
‘That is how you know this being, then?’ Celeste asked. ‘A menace?’
Murk blew out a breath while probing the back of his head. ‘Yeah. Why?’
‘He is not threatening. He only makes me sad.’
Murk gave her a hard glance, but, seeing that she would say nothing more, turned his attention to the surrounding forest. ‘The trees aren’t moving against us,’ he murmured, surprised.
Sour nodded, eager. ‘Yeah. Your Edgewalker guy told them to leave us alone.’
Murk jerked, amazed, then held his head to contain the blazing pain that spiked there. He told the forest of the Azathanai to leave us alone? Who is this guy? He’d heard stories, of course. Garbled versions that circulated among the apprentices and equally absurd speculations in written legends. How it had been he who had slain the first king of Kurald Emurlahn, Elder Shadow, and how he was now cursed to wander it for ever. Or that he had shattered Emurlahn in the first place, damning himself in the process. And now Celeste says he makes her sad. No one knew the truth of all those events lost so far in the mists of the ancient past. And Edgewalker himself certainly wasn’t talking.
Sour wiggled a finger in his ear, studied it then flicked it. ‘But he only did that ’cause I promised we’d go soon.’
Yes. They couldn’t hide here for ever. Edgewalker might be able to restrain the forest, but Murk had his doubts about the Hounds, should they come sniffing. ‘Can you disguise her presence? Hide her?’
His partner cocked a brow. ‘It, you mean. Don’t ya?’
He waved a hand impatiently. ‘Whatever.’
Sour took a deep breath, his scrawny shoulders rising and falling. ‘Nope. Too powerful.’
‘No? Just like that? Think of it as a professional challenge.’
‘I just ain’t got the pull, Murk. Sorry. Maybe it – she – can help.’
Murk managed not to slap his hand to his head. What a fool he’d been! Somehow he’d fallen into treating her, it, as some kind of helpless ward he’d picked up. He shifted on his knees to regard her more directly. Seeing him turning to her she sat on a log and clasped her hands on her
knees, regarding him intently. Murk felt his mouth go dry. ‘Celeste,’ he began gently, ‘we need you to hide your presence. It would be a great help to us.’
A frown creased her pretty features. ‘I do not think I understand you. Hide myself? However does one do that?’
Right. How to explain? Throw a blanket over oneself? Abyss, she don’t even know what a blanket is! He cleared his throat. ‘These people searching for you. They want to take you away. We need to make it hard for them to find you …’
She was picking at the rotting bark of the log, her head lowered, seemingly embarrassed. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I have been thinking. I’d like to explore more of that entity, that awareness I spoke of, and that would mean seeking it out. I would be hard to locate, exactly, then.’ She dared a glance to Murk, almost coy. ‘Do you think I could?’
Gods above, help me. What to say? Should she? Would I just be serving my own interests to say yes? But how should I know? Dammit! I’ve had no training in raising a damned child god! ‘Well,’ he began. ‘I guess that if you would like to then perhaps you ought to have a try at it …’
She beamed a smile and clasped her hands exactly like a child delighted. ‘Oh, thank you, Murk. I shall.’ The ghostly transparent casting that was her presence thinned then, dimming until it faded away entirely into nothing.
Murk sat back on his haunches. He felt saddened. Would he never see her again? He assumed it was just was well – who knew what awful future blunders this sidestepped. And yet he felt a strange sort of disappointment. Was that it? Just like that?
‘What happened?’ Sour asked. ‘You look all lost.’
He peered about the woods. ‘She’s gone.’
His partner frowned. ‘What? Gone gone? Where?’
‘Waiting for us to call her back. I think.’
‘I’m all for goin’ too. Don’t want to meet those damned Hounds.’ He added, eyeing him critically, ‘And if she is gone then that’s all for the best, man. Playin’ with fire, I say.’
Murk shook his head; he couldn’t muster the resentment for a fight. ‘I know, I know. We’ll go back. Yusen must be getting worried.’
Sour let blow a long breath. ‘Any chase you walk away from is a good chase. That’s what I say.’
The scouts found them and brought them to Yusen who had relocated camp to another clearing. A doubled picket let them through and the commander met them fully armoured, helmet under an arm. A small grin of vindication plucked at his lips but the worry remained in the many deep wrinkles around his always tightened eyes. ‘You made it,’ he said. ‘Good.’ Only gripping the poles of the litter stopped Murk from saluting. ‘But, ah …’ He eyed the litter and the blanket-wrapped object tied down with bits of rope and strips of torn cloth.
They set the litter down. ‘We think they won’t be able to spot it again. Not easily, anyway.’
Yusen grunted his acceptance of this. ‘And the they? There’s wild talk of the Crimson Guard.’
‘Ex-Guard. Skinner and his command were disavowed by K’azz. Stories were they’d left Jacuruku. I guess they’ve come back.’
‘All the more reason for us to leave,’ Yusen said, scratching his unshaven chin.
‘With permission, sir,’ Murk ventured, ‘they can probably guess we’re headed west. They’ll keep an eye out.’
Their commander frowned his displeasure, but Murk knew it wasn’t directed at him; it was at their situation. ‘Looks like we have the proverbial tiger by the tail,’ he murmured.
‘Aye, and we can’t let go.’
‘So? What’s your answer?’ And I hope to Fanderay you’ve got one.’
Murk shared a look with Sour, who urged him on. ‘Well … rumours are that there was some kinda falling out between Skinner and Ardata. It looks to me like he’s hunting this to maybe use against her …’
Yusen pulled his hand down his chin, nodding. ‘So. The enemy of my enemy …’
‘Yeah.’ Murk shrugged apologetically. ‘Best I can do.’
‘It’s a plan.’ The ex-officer gave a curt nod of acceptance. ‘Always good to have one of those.’ He raised a hand and signalled. Burastan, Sweetly and others jogged up. ‘We’re headed east, double-time.’
Sweetly’s gaze swung to Murk and Sour and the twig that had been standing straight out from his clenched lips slowly fell. The expression that compressed the man’s face was far from sweet.
Murk raised his open hands as if to deny all responsibility. The scout didn’t buy it. He went off, shaking his head in disgust.
‘East,’ Burastan repeated in disbelief. ‘Further into Himatan …’
‘Yes.’
‘You’re certain?’
‘Quite, Lieutenant.’
Her disapproving gaze raked Murk and Sour. ‘Very good, sir.’
Murk offered another apologetic shrug. Man, we’re not winnin’ any popularity contests round here, that’s for sure. Nothin’ new in that. Soldiers are a notoriously superstitious lot. Bad luck and setbacks always get laid at the feet of the mages. Just how it is.
* * *
Rough seas kept Ina below for days on end. The Seguleh were an island people and she was used to sea-travel, but a deep ocean crossing was new to her. And she could freely admit it was a terrifying experience. Here was an enemy no matchless skill with any blade, or exceptional mental focus, could defeat.
She regretted yet again not apportioning slightly more time to her sea-going practice and experience as she leaned over a bucket sloshing with her own vomit and coughed-up bile, her mask pushed up high on her brow. Well, one cannot know the future. Nor prepare for every eventuality.
The unnatural ensorcelled vessel rode the waves high and buoyant like a cork. And these deep-ocean waves rolled like prairie hills beneath its keel. Ina felt as if she were riding an impossibly fast horse up and down mountain ridges. The incessant rocking made her dizzy.
During one of these moments, when she sat back wiping her mouth after dry-heaving yet again, her stomach long empty, she sensed her mistress was no longer alone. Who is it this time? she wondered, straightening her mask. Hood? The Sky King? Legendary Mother Dark?
It occurred to her that given who had visited perhaps she ought not be quite so offhand. She climbed the ladder and determined to be utterly resolute no matter who or what appeared.
Legs braced, one hand on the wet cord-wrapped grip of her sword and the other shielding her vision from the dashing spray that surged over the sides, she made her way down the long featureless deck. Her mistress stood as usual near the flat pointed bow, her clothes soaked and clinging to her, well, rather plump and matronly form. Yet she stood with arms crossed, legs shoulder-width apart, as firm as if she’d been built into the carpentry of the vessel.
Standing opposite her was the oddly contrasting, yet strangely complementary, figure of a squat man. He was mostly bald, with a bulbous nose and a sack of a face, barefoot, in an old stained vest and tattered pants held up by a rope belt. Had she not known otherwise she might have mistaken the two for an impoverished old married couple. Yet imposing strength communicated itself from the man’s broad humped shoulders and wide gnarled stonemason’s hands.
He nodded her a greeting, and what might have been warmth softened eyes the colour of ocean depths. ‘Ina of the Jistarii. Welcome,’ he said, his voice somehow carrying easily over the groans of the vessel, the crashing spray, and the bow hissing through the mountainous waves.
The Enchantress spoke without turning: ‘You may go.’
As an answer Ina planted her feet more widely and crossed her arms. Her mistress gave an exasperated wave. ‘You see?’ she told the man. ‘They never do what you want them to.’
‘Our problem in a walnut, T’riss,’ answered the man. ‘Always has been.’
‘You know my answer.’
The fellow wiped a blunt paw across his unshaven jowls. ‘It’s not for everyone,’ he said, ‘especially coming from you.’
‘It’s time.’
‘Bu
t can you convince her of that?’
The Enchantress shook her head. ‘I cannot convince her of anything.’
‘At least we are in agreement on that,’ the man muttered darkly. ‘Once you land and enter that jungle you’ll be beyond my help. Beyond all our help.’
‘I know. Rather convincing, that … wouldn’t you say?’
A wince of pain crossed the man’s ugly features and he half turned away. ‘I do not like it,’ he said, as if confessing to the waters. ‘Yet I will not try to stop you. We’re cowards, all of us. In the end we’re just damned cowards.’
‘Not at all, Bugg,’ the Enchantress answered. And she embraced the man, who did not raise his arms. ‘You have changed though change is terrifying.’
He edged his face away even further but not before Ina glimpsed tears in his eyes – though it might have been the spray. Those tears shook her more than anything she heard or half understood here. What she gathered was that her mistress was journeying into great danger.
Reaching round, the man grasped her mistress’s hands and held them between his. After a time he peered up into her face, his gaze searching, and said, ‘Come to me afterwards … yes? We have much to speak of.’
Ina heard beneath the request the unspoken: you must survive …
Her mistress answered, ‘Yes. I shall.’ But what Ina heard was, I will try …
This ugly lumpish fellow, Bugg, pressed the Enchantress’s hands to his lips, then walked off the edge of the deck to disappear into the waves.
Only a quick sign from her mistress stopped Ina from throwing herself after him. ‘He’ll drown! Will he … not?’
Hugging herself, the Enchantress shook her head. ‘No. That, Ina, was the one some name the god of the seas.’
‘That fellow?’ She wiped droplets of spray from her chin. ‘His real name is Bugg?’
The Enchantress smiled. ‘Really, Ina. Don’t you know he is worshipped as the god of a thousand names?’
Oh yes. She’d heard that. God of a thousand names and faces. Well, there you are. And not all are going to be handsome, are they? Then it struck her that in such a manner – a thousand different experiences – might one come to know humanity far more richly. The life experience of a crippled poor child would, after all, be far different from that of a pampered merchant prince. ‘He has empathy for us,’ she murmured. ‘For what it means to be human.’
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