Hops says a few escaped over the city's west wall, Iggy had said. And they managed to break through one of the barricades at the south end of the district. A trickle more got out there before it was shored up. But that's it. The rest were probably—
She saw Cosani's shy smile as she gave Lyseira the grey dress.
The rest were—
Matheson's triumphant roar as he wrote his name for the first time.
The rest—
She clenched the page, her vision blurring with useless tears.
Why? Why would they do this? Do they hate the poor that much? Do they hate the Bahiri? Why?
The question was impotent; in the face of such devastation it hardly mattered. Gial had said, You'll have to kill us. He'd said, Bring your fire. He'd known what the Church was from the first. He had never asked why.
The first tear hit the page, blotting the ink.
Tears? she demanded. They were killed, slaughtered like animals, and I'm crying?
I did it to them!
She had been so eager to save them, to be some Hel-damned messiah, that she had drawn the attention of the Tribunal and killed everyone she'd met.
Seth had warned her. Cosani had warned her. But she'd craved a purpose. She'd wanted to make things right—first for Helix, then for Cosani and all of Red, but ultimately, more than anyone, for herself.
She wanted to slap herself, to shriek and tear her hair out.
Because her faith was so important. Her understanding of Akir had to be made whole. There was no risk too great, if it meant a chance at destiny. No danger she would spare her friends, if it might mean realizing her purpose.
She'd been more reckless than Syntal had ever been.
And where was Akir now? Where was He, the omnipotent, omniscient Father, He who had told her to call the manna that became the death of everyone who touched it? Where had He been while the people she had fed, body and mind, were massacred? Had He given her two fire miracles that left her blind, and figured He was done? Had He watched, impassive, while they slaughtered children in His name? Why? What was the goal? Teach them, then kill them? Give them hope, so their deaths would be that much more bitter? Give her hope, a false sense of worth and purpose, only to blast it to ash?
Why?
Did He hate them all as much as the Church did? Was she a toy to Him, a thing to be tricked for His amusement? Was the Fatherlord laughing right now? Had He seen it all, planned it all?
Why?
She screamed. Until her throat was raw and her lungs spent, she screamed.
Then she screamed again.
"There was a reason," Angbar whispered.
He was supposed to be on third watch. It was the dead of night. Seth was awake, of course, but patrolling—orbiting the camp like some distant moon.
She felt his hand on her shoulder as she lay, curled up, beneath a thin blanket. "It's all right. You don't need to say anything. You probably shouldn't, you'd probably just ask me questions I can't answer. But there was a reason for everything. We just can't see it yet."
She would've taken his words as a foregone conclusion three days ago. Of course there was a reason. There was always a reason.
Not tonight. Not anymore.
"I shouldn't have run," she whispered. "I should've been there."
"When they attacked?" Angbar said. "No. I was there, Lyseira. I saw it. Syn and I—I thought we were dead. They shot us."
"If I'd been there―"
"If you'd been there you'd have been shot, too. You were blind by then anyway—Seth told me. Even if we'd all been there, all we could've done is escape. We couldn't save everyone."
"I wish we could have tried," she insisted. "I wish I had done something. I wish I'd helped. I wish . . ."
Such impotent words. I wish.
"I wish they'd caught me."
Crickets hummed an indifferent symphony. Screams echoed in her thoughts.
"No," Angbar finally said. "You don't."
iii. Helix
Rain woke him. The clouds had rolled in overnight, painting the grasslands grey. Their horses milled about, grazing.
He sat up to seek out Lyseira. Her screams had haunted his dreams all night. She'd refused to talk to anyone since, and he was worried about her—but his eyes snagged on his cousin, awake and huddled into herself on a rock, eating the morning's manna.
"Syn," he said, prompting a glance from her. "Are you . . . well?"
She shook her head and opened her mouth to answer, then bit it closed as a familiar spasm rocked her. When it passed, she said, "Iggy and Lyseira are helping some. Otherwise I'd still be . . ." She didn't finish the thought.
He gained his feet and glanced at the others. None of them save Angbar would even look at her. He'd expected an argument when she woke. The icy silence was nearly worse.
"We . . ." He gestured. "Angbar told us everything."
She chewed, swallowed, clenched her jaw against the pain. "And?"
He spoke before thinking. "And? That's all you have to say?"
"What else would you have me say, Helix?"
"How about, 'I apologize'? 'I should've told you'?"
She scoffed. "You never would've come if I'd told you."
"You don't know that," he retorted. "By God, what is it with you? Eighteen years and still you don't trust me—and I should've been allowed the choice, Syn! I risked my life coming here!"
"Yeah. It was―" She grimaced and clutched at the rock, fighting to stay upright. The manna she'd been holding tumbled into the grass. When she caught her breath, she said, "It was really dangerous for you."
He glowered. "Look. I'm sorry you're in pain. But it doesn't change what you did. It wasn't my choice to―"
"Well, it wasn't mine either!" she snarled. "My choice was to stay!" She glared at Angbar. "I got you out. I even gave up the books." Back to Helix. "But you want to talk about choices?"
Another seizure hit her, sent her sliding to her knees in the grass and left her panting. "Ensilla," she gasped. "Iggy, I need more ens—oh, God!" The words dissolved into a low moan.
"Iggy!" Helix called. He couldn't argue with such agony.
"I don't have that much," Iggy said as he dug into his pouch. "We've got to ration it."
"Well, give her what you can!"
As he mixed the medicine, Lyseira knelt next to Syntal and prayed again to help ease the pain. "Eat what you can," she said stonily afterwards, picking up the spilled manna. "Your body still needs food."
She tried. Choked down what she could. But when Iggy was ready, she drank the ensilla and begged Angbar, again, to put her out.
When the camp fell quiet, Helix said, "Do you have enough to last to Ordlan Green?"
"Maybe," Iggy said doubtfully. "But we need to push faster."
Helix started saddling his horse. "Then let's push."
iv. Iggy
They were four days across the plains, as the shadow of the Scar grew in the west. A towering mountain capped the range at its northernmost end, its peak lost to the clouds, that made the others look like foothills. It reminded Iggy of Thakhan Dar, the mountain beneath which he'd grown up in Southlight.
Moshun Dar, he realized. Thakhan Dar's sister to the northwest. He'd heard of the thing before, but had never in all his life expected to see it. Where Thakhan Dar marked the southeastern corner of Darnoth, Moshun Dar was said to mark its northwestern. Beyond Thakhan Dar lay only sea; beyond Moshun Dar, only the Waste.
That's how far we've come: the whole span of Darnoth. It seemed impossible. Yes, it had grown warmer as they'd gone north, and the accents of some of the pilgrims outside Tal'aden had been a bit peculiar—here they measured years in summers, rather than winters. But in the distance, he saw smoke lines from the same kinds of little villages that dotted the countryside in the Shientel Valley—villages not too different from Southlight. The children there grew up beneath the watchful eye of their own giant mountain, just as he'd grown up beneath his.
The one notab
le difference was Ordlan Green. It spilled out of the Scar like a verdant flood, growing closer by the day. He knew it on sight, because he saw it every night in his dreams.
I'm coming, he'd told the voice last night.
From the east, it had answered. Yes. Hurry.
They found an old dirt road wending westward; little more than a foot trail, really, but it got them out of the treacherous grass, nearly doubling their speed. Traffic was rare, and when the trail led toward a village, they went around. Fewer eyes meant fewer questions, and they weren't lacking for provisions—there were enough creeks along the way to keep everyone's water skins full, and Lyseira called manna every morning.
The young woman had been unusually quiet since Tal'aden. All of them had approached her at one time or another since her wrenching screams, but she'd refused conversation. Instead she spent the evenings by the fire, engrossed in Syntal's newest book.
That night she finally spoke, her voice listless and drab. "I think this is it." She didn't wait for anyone to acknowledge her. "'Master these chants,'" she read, "'and seek the fourth wardbook in the dark of the dragon.'"
"So there is a fourth." Seth's voice held an edge of disdain.
"'Dark of the dragon'?" Helix looked at Angbar, who shook his head. "What does that mean?"
"Never heard of it," Angbar said. "Sounds . . . difficult."
"That's all it says." Lyseira closed the book, leaned back against one hand, and rubbed her eyes with her knuckles. "If it was so Hel-damned important, you'd think he might have provided a little more detail."
"Maybe it meant something at the time?" Angbar offered. "Syntal said the books were really old, that Lar'atul lived thousands of years ago, at least. Have you ever read anything in the Chronicle that―"
"I don't know." Lyseira batted his questions away. "I don't know. I'm done for tonight."
The dark of the dragon. Iggy hadn't spoken during the brief conversation, but he filed the clue away. Seek the fourth in the dark of the dragon. He had no idea what it meant, either. The important thing was that she'd found it.
I could tell Seth to burn it now, he thought. We have the clue; we could destroy the book before Syntal can learn the chants. That might be the best of all worlds—they could continue restoring the Pulse, while preventing anyone from learning the chants themselves. But as soon as he had this idea, he knew it wouldn't work. Lar'atul had said to master these chants before following the clue—they were probably needed, somehow, in order to gain the next wardbook.
Iggy clenched his jaw. In his heart, he hated this as much as Seth did. There was a part of him—probably a part his father had made—that wanted to destroy the book, to make sure no one could ever find the next one. The second book had unleashed a swarm of fire trolls on Shepherd's Hill, and God knew what else on the rest of Darnoth. The third had awakened something in Ordlan Green, something that called to him every night.
What would the fourth do? The fifth?
The tenth?
Helix was right—this was bigger than they were. They were just a bunch of kids from a village in the middle of nowhere. This shouldn't be their choice.
He worked his mouth, carefully loosening his clenched jaw. Are you done? he accused himself. Is the whining over?
"Same," he said, agreeing with Lyseira. "Wake me for second watch."
At midmorning the next day, they reached a graveyard of slaughtered trees.
Stumps pockmarked the grass, which had turned from the waving blades of the open prairie to the more tangled mess of a forest undergrowth. Huge swaths of it had been burned or beaten down, leaving raw welts of black earth—much of it mangled by boot marks and wheel ruts.
The place reeked of old death, the stumps of the slain trees standing mute testimony to the massacre. There would be no trial for those who had committed this atrocity, no justice for the legions of living beings destroyed or driven from their homes by man's naked greed.
"Iggy?" Helix asked after a few minutes' ride through the site. "Are you well?"
He knew it was futile to explain, even to Helix, but his horror overcame him. "How could they do this?" he managed. "How could they . . . just . . ."
"Industry," Seth said. "Plenty of coin to be made here."
"And we're just coming out of winter." Helix made his voice gentler than Seth's. Of them all, he was the only one to whom Iggy had even tried to explain himself. "Maybe they needed firewood?"
Sure. Taking wood—sometimes you have to. He thought of the simple litter they had rigged up for Syntal, to bear her through the journey.
But that had been made from trees already fallen. This was worse, this . . .
He followed the butchery westward with his eyes. Every inch of it appalled him, and it stretched for miles. This was more than they needed. This was murder. Waste.
Anxiety clawed through his chest, a mingled rage and abhorrence he hadn't felt since Keldale. I can't do this, he thought. I can't . . . oh, God, I . . .
None of his friends even saw it. He had stumbled into a killing field, and none of them even saw it.
I can't stay here! He pulled Chuckler to a halt.
You can, his mother whispered. You must.
Nausea scrabbled at the back of his throat. His gut clenched. Look at it! he demanded of the wind. Look―!
I see it. She took his chin, tilted his eyes to the green swell of Ordlan Green. Why do you think they call you? They woke to this horror a week ago. They are terrified. They need you.
The wind gusted, snapping his sleeves. They need you.
Friend? Chuckler whispered. Should we turn back?
Do you see it? Iggy asked the animal, desperate.
I see the stumps, he whickered, but not like you. He arched his neck, reaching to nuzzle Iggy's hand. I can only imagine.
Can you hear her?
Who?
The mother. The Pulse.
No, Chuckler admitted. But I can hear you.
Iggy nodded, fighting for breath. Then he locked his eyes to distant Ordlan Green, and pressed forward.
The road got wider, as did the crossroads. Slaughtering trees was indeed a booming business, it seemed, requiring more established paths. This sped their travel further, and at Iggy's insistence, they pressed on through lunch; he couldn't fathom the possibility of eating surrounded by such death. They stopped only to administer Syntal's medicine and prayers, then kept on.
"Where is everyone?" Helix asked around midafternoon. "I haven't seen anyone today. Have you?"
He looked at Iggy, who shook his head. They'd seen the odd traveler here and there in the first few days, but there was no one out here now.
And stranger still, the killing fields here held not only stumps but fully butchered logs, trimmed of their branches and ready for hauling. He had been so busy fighting his nausea, keeping his eyes on his goal, he hadn't even noticed. Whoever used to be here left their goods behind.
An hour later, they came across an overturned wagon—an omen that raised a chilling memory of the road outside Shepherd's Hill. Its load of logs had spilled across the road when the wagon tipped. The drivers were gone, but the dried bloodstains in the front seat told their fate well enough.
"This happened days ago," Seth said.
"Bandits, maybe?" Helix paled. "You don't think―"
Seth shook his head. "No burn marks. It wasn't trolls." He picked at one of the blood stains, then panned his gaze over the side of the road. "But it wasn't bandits either. The bodies were dragged."
Angbar looked at Iggy. "What are you getting us into? Are you sure about this?"
More sure than ever. "I know it's ugly. But I don't think we've got anything to worry about."
"What do you think it was?" Angbar said.
The wood, fighting back. The Pulse had grown louder over the day, as they'd drawn closer to Ordlan Green. There was something special about the place, something deep and powerful. "Can't say," he lied. "But my gut says it was angry about the trees. It won't hurt us."
"No more secrets"? he accused himself. Remember that?
And there wouldn't be. He'd share his ideas, when the time came—but for now, he didn't want to make anyone more nervous than they already were.
Another mile up, the road hit a four-way crossing. A sign posted at the corner indicated Upper Gressington to the north, Keener's Road east the way they'd come, and Greydew Village to the south. The western marker had originally read Morrison Logging Camp, but a new message had been written over it with red paint.
Stay away. Stormsign.
The thrum of the Pulse was so strong from that direction, he could feel it reverberating in the earth.
"Iggy . . ." Helix started, shaking his head.
"Stay if you need to. I won't make you come." Iggy urged Chuckler forward. They were close now.
The path of devastation led into the trees. An hour before sundown they finally reached the ruins of a simple logging camp, half a mile into the forest.
Shreds of tent fabric fluttered in the breeze, caught on the branches of downed tree trunks. Wagon wheels and shattered axles littered the area, wagon beds bleaching in the sun like the skeletons of beached whales. And blood—there was blood everywhere, stained into the grass and the dirt, a dozen smears of it leading straight into the trees as if the wounded loggers had fled into the forest . . . or their bodies had been dragged there.
No sooner had this thought occurred to him than a beast emerged from behind one of the wagons, a hulk of fur and teeth so massive that at first his eyes refused to admit what they were seeing. Grizzly bear, he thought as his blood ran cold, but how could it be? It was simply too big. From the tree line behind it came others, all with mouths large enough to tear off his head in a bite, paws massive enough to send him flying.
How stupid are these people? the frontmost bear whispered as it lumbered out from behind the savaged wagon.
I'm not hungry yet, one of the others said. Give them a warning.
The beast in front reared onto its back legs, towering fifteen feet or higher. Then it roared.
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