The dragon’s talons spread wide, and then closed again.
Moments later, with savage beats of its wings, the creature lifted higher into the sky. One of its companions swung close and then, as the first dragon’s jaws snapped the air in warning, away again.
A rider came alongside Spinnock, and he saw that it was Sergeant Bered. He shot Spinnock a wide-eyed look. ‘Nine!’ he shouted.
‘What?’
‘Nine of them! And then it closed!’
Spinnock twisted round, but at that moment his horse reached the high grasses and plunged into the mouth of the nearest trail. The tall, razor-edged stalks whipped and slashed at him. Spinnock was forced to drop his visor and keep his head down as his mount galloped deeper into the Fate.
The ground shook to a succession of concussions, and the wind redoubled, flattening the grasses on all sides.
Glancing back, he saw the first and largest of the waves pounding over the boulders, knocking many aside as if they were but pebbles.
The silver walls rushed across the dead ground, and struck the edge of the grasses.
A flash lit the air, blinding him. He heard shouts and then screams, and then his horse was tumbling, and he was spinning through the air, landing hard on the flattened mat of the grasses. Skidding, feeling countless blades slicing through his leather armour as if they were sharp iron, Spinnock kept his forearms against his face. He rolled and came to a stop.
He was facing the way he had come, and he stared in disbelief.
The Vitr thrashed against an invisible wall, delineated by the edge of Glimmer Fate, and there the silver water climbed and lunged, only to be flung back. Wave after wave hammered against this unseen barrier, and each spent its power in raging futility. In moments the sea began its foaming, churning retreat.
Spinnock sat up, surprised that no bones had broken. But he was slick with blood. He saw his horse stagger upright a dozen paces away, to stand trembling and streaming red from its wounds. On either side other Wardens were appearing, stumbling over the flattened grasses. He saw Calat Hustain, cradling an arm that was clearly broken between shoulder and elbow, his face cut open as if by talons.
Dazed, Spinnock looked skyward. He saw a distant spot, far to the south now, marking the last dragon visible in the sky.
Nine. He counted nine.
Hearing a horse upon the road behind him, Endest Silann moved to the shallow ditch to let the rider past. He drew his cloak tighter about him and pulled up the hood to send a veil of shadow over his eyes. Three days past, he had awakened alone in the historian’s room to find his hands bound with bandages, to take up the blood that had wept from them.
There had been a faint sense of betrayal in this, given Rise Herat’s promise to abide, but upon leaving the chamber and finding himself in a corridor crowded with half-panicked denizens, and learning of the frightening manifestation of darkness in the courtyard, Endest pushed away his disappointment.
The Consort’s dramatic return had reverberated throughout the Citadel, and it seemed that the conjurations of that day were far from done. He had felt Night’s awakening, and then had fled, like a child, the flood of darkness that took first the Citadel, and then all of Kharkanas.
Carrying nothing, he had set out upon the river road, sleeping in whatever remaining hovels he could find amidst the grim wreckage of the pogrom. He saw no one for long stretches at a time, and those he did come upon shied from his attention. Nor was he inclined to accost any of them, hungry as he was. They had the furtiveness of wild dogs and looked half starved themselves. It was difficult to comprehend how quickly Kurald Galain had surrendered to dissolution. Time and again, as he walked, he had felt tears streaming down his cheeks.
The bandages still wrapped about his hands had become filthy, freshly soaked through with blood each night, drying black in the course of the day. But he now walked clear of the sorcerous darkness, and still as the forest was, with its burnt stretches and scorched clearings, he had found a kind of exhausted peace in his solitude. The river upon his left marked a current that he felt himself pushing against on this road. He had begun this journey knowing nothing of his destination, but he had realized that that ignorance had been a conceit.
There was but one place for him now, and he was drawing ever closer to it.
The rider came up from behind and Endest heard the animal’s pace slowing, until the stranger appeared alongside him. Endest desired no conversation and cared nothing for the rider’s identity, but when the newcomer spoke it was in a voice that the priest knew well.
‘If we are to adopt the habit of pilgrimage, surely you are walking the wrong way.’
Endest halted and faced the man. He bowed. ‘Milord, I cannot say if this path belongs to the goddess. But it seems that I am indeed on pilgrimage, though until you spoke I knew it not.’
‘You are weathered by your journey, priest,’ said Lord Anomander.
‘If I fast, milord, it is not by choice.’
‘I’ll not impede your journey,’ Anomander said. He reached down and drew out from a saddle bag a leather satchel, which he threw over to Endest. ‘Break your fast, priest. You can do so while you walk.’
‘Thank you, milord.’ In the satchel, there was some bread, cheese and dried meat. Endest partook of this modest offering with trembling fingers.
It seemed Anomander was content, for the moment, to keep pace with Endest. ‘I have scoured this forest,’ he said, ‘and have found nothing to salve my conscience. No birdsong finds me, and not even the small animals spared by our indifference remain to rustle the leaves at night.’
‘The meek of the realm, milord, have but one recourse to all manner of threat, and that is to flee.’
Anomander grunted, and then said, ‘I’d not thought to include the forest animals, or the birds for that matter, as subjects of the realm. It is not as if we can command them.’
‘But their small lives, milord, tremble atop our altars none the less. If we do not command with the snare and the arrow, then we speak eloquently enough with fire and smoke.’
‘Will you lift back your hood, priest, so that I may see you?’
‘Forgive me, milord, but I beg your indulgence. I do not know if penance awaits me, but this journey is a difficult one, and I would not share it for fear of selfish motives.’
‘You choose, then, to walk alone, and to remain unknown.’ Lord Anomander sighed. ‘I envy your privilege, priest. Do you know your destination?’
‘I believe I do, milord.’
‘Upon this road?’
‘Just off it.’
Something changed in the First Son’s voice then, as he said, ‘And not far, priest?’
‘Not far, milord.’
‘If I made a spiral of my search,’ said Anomander, ‘I now close upon a place where I believe it ends. I think, priest, that we will attend the same altar. Will you make of it a shrine?’
Endest started at the notion. He fumbled to close the satchel, and then made his way over to Anomander to hand the leather bag back. ‘Such a thing had not occurred to me, milord.’
‘Your hands are wounded?’
‘No more than my soul, milord.’
‘You are young. An acolyte?’
‘Yes.’ Bowing his thanks for the food, Endest returned to the side of the road.
They continued on in silence for a time. Ahead, the track leading to the estate of Andarist appeared, flanked by burnt grasses and the skeletal remnant of a fire-scorched tree.
‘I do not think,’ said Anomander, ‘that I would welcome a consecration in that place, acolyte, even could you give it. Which you cannot. The only holy object in the ruin before us is an Azathanai hearthstone, and I fear to come upon it now, and see it broken.’
‘Broken, milord?’
‘I also fear,’ Anomander continued, ‘that my brother is not there, when I can think of no other refuge he might seek. I was told he chose the wilderness for his grief, and can think of no greater wilderness than the house where his love died.’
