Later, when Osidian insisted they must sleep high in the watch-tower, Carnelian gave in, hardly heeding his arguments. Something about the need to maintain the awe with which their men regarded them; how else could they expect their obedience in a battle against his brother, the Gods on Earth?
Morose, Carnelian shared some render with him on the heliograph platform. There was nothing else left to eat. He hardly looked up at all at the dark mass of the sartlar clothing the land. He returned to his cell and gave one-word answers to Poppy’s questions. As he lay trying to sleep all he could see was the sartlar child’s bright, human eyes.
For the next two days they marched along the road. Carnelian was relieved to be back in the tower of Earth-is-Strong with Poppy near him and away from Jaspar. Always, as far north as he could see, sartlar were streaming from the west along the tracks between the hri fields towards the road, concentrating along its margin as if they were sightseers coming to watch a procession pass by. He could not understand how they found their way, for he had summoned them to come to a watch-tower now away in the south.
The hri in the fields ahead turned brown, then yellow, then white as if the land itself was ageing before his eyes. As the green in the world faded, the hope it had brought faded in his heart and memory. Everywhere water-wheels were still. The rain wind picked up steadily. Wafts of dust came dancing from the south-west, cavorting and gyrating in spirals that thinned as they reached for the dead white sky. Then, as they passed a watch-tower near the middle of the third day, the wind angered to a gale that made Earth-is-Strong’s mast rattle in the cabin. A great front like a frothing wave came rolling towards them, eating up the sky.
‘A sporestorm,’ Poppy said, eyeing it with alarm.
‘Just the earth turning to dust,’ Carnelian said, but as it broke over them the day turned to red dusk.
Each day they woke to a thin violet light oozing from the east. The mosaic of the camp came apart even as the dragon rampart broke into its cohorts and loomed up towards the road to follow Heart-of-Thunder north. Dozing in his command chair, Carnelian rarely saw the auxiliaries pouring after them in their column. The nearest dragon seemed like some rock rising up out of the sea. The leftway, a seawall slipping slowly past, faded away into the murk ahead. All sound was muffled, only the nearest murmurous swell of sartlar noticeable.
As the midday sun diffused orange in the haze above, they could look forward to reaching another watch-tower. Like some vast and lonely tree it would loom ever more distinct until its grim bulk was threatening to topple onto them. There, upon the leftway, leading a squadron of riders, Fern would meet them and confirm the land ahead was clear. This done, he would hurtle off with his escort, heading for the tower beyond the next, which he would occupy, spying out the way ahead as best he could until their rendezvous at the same time the next day.
The march would leave the midday tower and soon they would once again be adrift in the ghostly land. Well before nightfall another tower would begin to solidify ahead. Though weary of sitting in his chair, Carnelian would still eye it with some dread. For there, just below its branches, he would have to spend another night of dreams.
When they reached it, while Earth-is-Strong and Heart-of-Thunder remained on the road beside the watch-tower, the other dragons would descend to the earth, fanning out across it to form the margin of a new camp, pushing deep enough into the sartlar to bring the stopping-place cisterns within their curve.
Krow was always there on the road to greet them, having set off at dawn to keep watch from that tower. Sometimes, he and Carnelian would exchange a few words but, mostly, he left Krow and Poppy to each other. He would climb to the summit of the tower as if ascending to his execution. Often he would reach the heliograph platform in time to watch the disturbance the dragons made ripple away to the vague margins of the sartlar multitude. Sometimes he would imagine the tower and camp had just that moment risen up from the depths of the sea. He would sit there watching the auxiliaries pouring off the road into the camp until the dusk bruised the murk purple. Only then would Osidian appear upon the platform and they would share some render. Carnelian loathed the stuff, but there was nothing else and so he ate just enough to sustain his strength.
At last, beneath a starless sky, the time would come he most dreaded. He would descend and the world would close around him to become nothing more than his cell. Every night it seemed to be the same cell. He had tried to catalogue their differences, but it was their similarity that dominated his mind. It was hard to believe he had ever left that cell. As if the journey of that day had been merely a recurring dream. When Poppy appeared he was pleasant enough, but always claimed exhaustion so that he would not have to talk to her. He feared he might pass on his misery to her and so lay down and faced the same stone wall and tried to stay awake until morning. He dreaded the ambiguities of his dreams for they cheated him of certainty about that which he had set in motion.
In the neighbouring cell the three homunculi slept together. He had long ago put aside his fear that they might betray them. The duststorms made it impossible to use the heliograph or the flares. Besides, what could they tell the Wise that they did not already know?
Through the other wall Osidian and Jaspar shared a cell. A near-dead thing, Jaspar was carried up and down each watch-tower locked within a Sapient capsule that had belonged to one of Legions’ Seconds. Sometimes, through its ivory skin, Carnelian could hear mumbling. The same mumbling he could hear now, though he pressed his hands against his ears. Those mumblings that fed not only Osidian’s dreams, but his own. He pulled his hands free and tried to listen instead to the murmuring of the sartlar, or the squealing water-wheels with which they were drawing up water to quench their oceanic thirst. While at the same time he clung to the edge of his own black well into which he knew he must eventually fall.
Blearily, through his bone screen, Carnelian watched the tiny figure grow more distinct beneath the bulk of another midday tower. When that figure became two, he narrowed his eyes, thinking he was mistaken. Soon he saw it was not only Fern waiting for them, but, beside him, a smaller figure that seemed in comparison a child. It could only be Krow. What news had he brought from the next tower?
As Earth-is-Strong came to a halt behind Heart-of-Thunder, Carnelian could just make out Osidian’s voice emanating from his dragon tower as he questioned Krow, who was on the leftway looking up at him. Strain as he might, Carnelian could make out nothing of the youth’s answer. Osidian said something that caused Krow to bow and fall back. A while later, Heart-of-Thunder’s mirrorman began signalling with his arms. Carnelian watched his Lefthand reading the signals. At last he turned. ‘Master, you’re to assume command of the host.’
Carnelian began relaying a reply, but then he saw Heart-of-Thunder’s brassman falling and Osidian walking out upon it. Soon he had descended to the road. Frustrated, Carnelian waited. Osidian appeared from behind the monolith onto the leftway, a flood of Marula and aquar pouring out after him. Soon, riding away, they were fading into the haze.
Carnelian moved Earth-is-Strong past Heart-of-Thunder, then led their army along the road. All that long afternoon he kept his gaze fixed on the leftway, waiting for Osidian’s return or, at least, some messenger, but all in vain. So it was that, when he saw the world ahead darkening, for a moment he thought it was approaching dusk. Except that the west was still glowing orange. As they drew nearer, he saw the earth crusted with shanties and realized they had reached the outskirts of some vast and gloomy city. The sartlar slowed as they poured into ditches and along alleys like a wave infiltrating a pebble beach. Carnelian searched for signs of anything living, but the hovels seemed abandoned. Even though they were now leaving the sartlar behind, he did not slow Earth-is-Strong and led the army deeper into the city. A region solidified ahead from which rose several spires. He shuddered, having the impression they were approaching the eaves of some murky forest. It occurred to him that, perhaps, he should order the flame-pipes of the leading dr
agons lit, but the city seemed dead. The two nearest spires grew branches and slowly resolved into watch-towers, one on either side of the road and each rising from a dark rampart. He detected movement there, upon the leftway, beneath the rightmost tower. He breathed a sigh of relief, certain they must be his people. He gained confidence in that feeling with each lumbering step his dragon took. At last they came close enough to see a figure waving.
‘Krow,’ said Poppy, and so it was. Carnelian gazed at the dead city and made his decision. He ordered the army to a halt, then, leaving Poppy in the care of his Righthand and Earth-is-Strong in the care of his Left, he bade the homunculus follow him and together they climbed down to the road. Before them the two watch-towers faced each other, each rising from a forbidding rampart, each standing guard upon a massive gate. His heart misgave. These were surely legionary fortresses. He listened for the enemy, but the only sound was thunder fading back along the road as his dragons drew to a standstill. He set off to meet Osidian.
Osidian was there on the edge of the heliograph platform with Morunasa. As Carnelian approached them he became aware of the city stretching off in all directions.
Osidian acknowledged him. ‘Behold the city of Magayon.’
A charred, ruined labyrinth lay directly below, another on the other side of the road. At the heart of each the circles of cothon wells. Fortresses, then, torched by their legions before they left, no doubt to deny Osidian equipment and supplies. More watch-towers clustered where the road reached a junction with another running off into the west. Duststorms had already begun to bury Magayon. Carnelian recalled with melancholy the ruins he and his father had seen on their way to the election. He searched along the northern road for enemy legions or any other sign of life. The horizon there seemed to be sucking ink up from the land. ‘Burn-off?’ he said, wondering.
‘If so, Seraph,’ said the homunculus, in a low voice, ‘it would be unusually early. Generally the stubble is not burned until the Rains approach for fear the earth, unfettered, will turn to dust.’
Carnelian glanced down at the little man, wondering if he was being ironic, but his face was grave. Carnelian returned his gaze to the north. There was an obvious conclusion. ‘They intend to starve not only us, but our sartlar.’
Osidian came alive and half turned to him. ‘A sign of weakness.’
Carnelian gazed at the profile of his mask. ‘What do you mean?’
The mask turned to him. ‘If my brother has commanded the earth be burned before us, does it not suggest he fears us? You should be happy, Carnelian. It seems your sartlar strategy has disconcerted him.’
Carnelian could see no cause for happiness. ‘Whatever Molochite may be feeling, surely he has succeeded-?’
Osidian’s mask jutted towards him. ‘In what?’
Carnelian could hear in Osidian’s voice the madness rising. ‘How far are we from Osrakum, my Lord?’
Osidian’s hands tensed. ‘More than twenty days.’
‘How do you imagine we could cross a charred wasteland for more than twenty days with millions?’
Osidian became a motionless doll. ‘I’ve faith our Lord will provide,’ he said in Vulgate.
Morose beside them, frowning as he gazed blindly out over the abandoned city, Morunasa gave a slow nod.
Carnelian lolled in his command chair. He had slept even worse than usual. Haunted by the dead city, he had wandered lost in nightmare labyrinths. Waking, he had led the army through a gate, past the junction with the western road and north between the mudbrick tenements with their blind windows and the alleys between them choked with the red dust that made them seem to be running with blood. The screams of Osidian’s flame-pipes had echoed through Magayon. He had joined Poppy to watch the leftway wall crumble under the fiery onslaught. Like a collapsing seawall it had released a torrent of sartlar. They had watched them infest the city even as their flow caused the gap in the wall to widen.
Tenements gave way to hovels, then the whole termite architecture gave way to middens. Through the haze, the city boundary ditch was approaching. Beyond its neat edge the land ran charred and dismal as far as he could see.
It was Poppy who pointed out how the world seemed to have been turned upside down. Red sky above; black earth below. As the sartlar riptide crept across the land, their feet became blackened, then their legs right up to their bellies, so that they were transformed into creatures divided equally between the new earth and sky.
As the days passed, Carnelian watched the sartlar, waiting for them to weaken, watching for those that would fall behind, searching for signs that famine was winnowing their millions, but each day they maintained their tidal surge.
At last he was driven to pay another visit to the dragon wall. Again he spied on them from the shelter of a dragon. Slumped on the ground, their heads hung weary, but he could see no stick-like limbs, no bellies pregnant with hunger. He retreated back into the camp and wondered if the blackened hri was still capable of providing sustenance. He found a bush and reached out a gloved hand to its fruiting head. At his touch it crumbled to a charred chaff that blew its powder away on the breeze. He tried to take hold of a leaf, a stalk, but, at his touch, each became just a brief stain upon the air. The hri was nothing more than a black ghost.
He returned to the watch-tower, brooding on the miracle of how the sartlar found food in a dead land. His mood darkened further as he passed through the Marula, at whose heart many Oracles lay in the fevered birthing sleep. At least upon the tower summit he could unmask, though he and Osidian had to turn their backs upon the west with its dust-pelting wind. Fishing within his render sac, he drew up a gobbet of meat. Reluctantly he put it in his mouth. Its saltiness stung his tongue. The gelatinous mass came apart under the pressure of his teeth. He jerked forward, spitting out the chewed meat. It was disgusting.
‘You’re right. This stuff is sickening,’ grumbled Osidian, though he continued to eat. He needed to; he was still cadaverous.
Carnelian rose, putting his mask up as a barrier against the sandblast of the wind, and surveyed the scarlet multitude. ‘They’re consuming each other,’ he said, the taste of the render still in his mouth.
‘What?’
Carnelian turned to Osidian. He let the mask fall. ‘That’s how they’re surviving. They’re eating each other.’
Osidian frowned, then began nodding. ‘The Lord provides.’
Carnelian was outraged. ‘Doesn’t it appall you?’
Osidian shrugged. ‘They’re beasts.’
Carnelian was feeling queasy and wanted to be alone. He began walking to the platform edge.
‘You haven’t eaten anything,’ Osidian called after him.
Carnelian kept walking. He wondered if he would ever be able to eat render again.
Waking, it took him some moments to realize he was not in the cabin of the baran. The sound of the sea. The swaying. The sandy wind lashing the dragon tower like spray. Disappointment tore at him. His father was not there to make things right.
He cast a jaded eye out through the bone screen at the blood-red world. The sartlar swarmed the earth like cockroaches. He felt lightheaded. He had not eaten anything for days. Even the hunger pangs had faded. His body ached so that he wondered whether this was, at last, the burning in his blood that was proper to one of the Chosen. There was a dark pinnacle ahead, vague in the ruddy twilight. A watch-tower he would sleep in. He would be initially dizzy when he rose from his command chair. The climb up through a tower now exhausted him. His fear of nightmares was now balanced by a horror of lying awake. Sometimes, in the night, he was sure he could hear the wet sounds of the sartlar feeding.
In his cell, Carnelian woke sensing something had changed. The world seemed brighter so that, for a moment, he almost could believe the long days of red twilight and dust had been nothing more than a nightmare. He rose. A window in the stone wall gave out into clear blue. He was drawn to the freshness of that colour. Below, the camp was in the shadow of the watch-tower.
Only the dragon towers reached high enough to catch the first gold of the sun. Beyond stretched the sartlar: an indigo sea. Their murmur reached him.
‘The wind has fallen,’ he muttered, lost in wonder.
‘What is it?’ said a voice.
He turned to see Poppy. ‘Come and see for yourself.’
She rushed to the slit and pushed her head into it to breathe the cool, clear air. He left her there, put on his hooded cloak and picked up his mask.
‘Where’re you going?’ she said.
Carnelian pointed upwards.
‘I’ll come with you.’
Together they left the cell, climbed the ladder to the tower roof, then the staples up onto the platform. As Carnelian stood up he gasped. His mask forgotten, he gaped, turning slowly on the spot to take it all in.
‘So many!’ Poppy exclaimed.
Carnelian’s attention was drawn to the south-west. There, the hem of the sky was steeped in ink. At first he thought the darkness was because the sun was still low – so low it spilled the legs of their shadows over the platform edge – but though the indigo west was brightening fast, the stained horizon stayed obstinately black.
‘The Rains,’ said Poppy.
Her look of wonder suggested she had not imagined that rain ever fell upon the Guarded Land. In truth, he had forgotten how late it was in the year. He looked back at the angry horizon.
‘Look there.’ Poppy was pointing northwards. Another band, but this one was of gold. Carnelian forgot to breathe.
‘What is it?’ Poppy said.
The fear in her voice wrenched the answer from him, though he could not look away. ‘Osrakum,’ he said, in Quya, then, in Vulgate: ‘the Mountain.’
He stared at the Heaven Wall. He could not quite believe he was seeing it. A part of him had been convinced he would never do so again. It was like the longed-for face of a lost lover but, if so, it was a lover who had betrayed him.
‘Osrakum.’ Voiced behind them almost as a groan of pain.
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