raids ain’t the same as those supervising patrols, and most likely there’ll be more differences.’
‘And yes, it means some commissars don’t care so much for the mysteries, so they’re probably in this for more simple reasons,’ Isak finished.
‘Good news at last,’ Zhia concluded with a smile. ‘If someone tries to kill us before we reach the ziggurat, I might not have to eat the girl before we get there.’
On the fourth day they were forced to camp under a canopy of tall pines. Zhia retreated into a double-layered tent to hide from the sun while the others cooked or lay out in the tree-filtered light. Isak and Fei Ebarn managed between them to coax a deer close enough for Leshi to shoot, whereupon half the party set about butchering it and cutting half of the meat into thin strips to dry above the fire while the rest roasted below.
After an hour of activity, they were finished and sat down to eat, tearing apart blackened hunks of venison with their teeth to expose the more succulent meat below. The humour of the group was markedly improved now they had settled into a routine to match the strange nocturnal life Vorizh Vukotic had forced upon them.
After he’d finished eating, Veil lay back against his pack with a satisfied sigh and loosened the adapted vambrace that had been made for him, with its twin prongs extending past his wrist. ‘So what happens to the people of Vanach once we’re done here?’ the King’s Man asked. ‘If this place is built around a lie, does the lie collapse?’
‘Not if Isak plays it right,’ Zhia said through the open entrance to her tent, which had been angled away from the sun to keep her from being burned. She watched her lover pull a cigar from inside his brigandine and blew a kiss towards him; a wisp of smoke drifted through the air and settled on the cigar’s tip to light it for him. ‘Only the commissars know what to expect at all, and all they know is what Vorizh has left for them on the inner walls of the ziggurat.’
‘So we sell them another lie?’
Zhia raised an eyebrow. ‘Unless you have a spare army hidden about your person? We give them hope, something these people have lacked in a long time. The commissars can hardly argue with their mysteries being fulfilled and their saviour leaving to pursue the work of the Gods — certainly not if it leaves them in charge with an even greater mandate than before.’
‘How long does hope last?’
‘Ten thousand days,’ Isak mumbled, lost in the lazy glow of the fire’s embers, ‘longer than good intentions.’
Mihn reached out and put up a hand on his friend’s arm, but only succeeded in startling the white-eye; his flinch prompted Hulf to wake and wriggle up closer, thumping his tail against the ground until Isak reached out to him.
‘Long enough for the Land to have changed,’ Mihn said with finality. ‘Whether or not we are left to see it, the faith of Vanach will be overturned by what comes. There will be no exceptions.’
Before anyone could respond Legana began to click her fingers. With no time to bother with the slate hanging from her neck, the Mortal-Aspect pointed out through the trees with an urgency that needed no words.
Leshi was guarding that flank of the camp; he was already moving silently from tree to tree. He worked his way forward, bow at the ready, but he made no attempt to draw it fully yet. The others went for their weapons. A muffled curse came from Zhia’s tent, but Doranei turned to the entrance and motioned for her to stay where she was. If her help was truly needed at this point in the journey they had sorely underestimated the Commissar Brigade; they didn’t want to risk her getting burned by sunlight anywhere there were religious fanatics.
Isak closed his eyes and opened himself to the magic in his Crystal Skull, but before he could reach out to the Land around them he realised Zhia was doing the same. With a deftness that astonished him, he felt the vampire’s mind sweep past him and catch him in her wake, bringing his thoughts with her as she danced between the trees. Her touch was as cool and smooth as the emerald set in Eolis’ hilt, as unyielding, but just below the point of discomfort.
He fought the urge to resist, knowing she was the stronger and posed him no threat, but it proved nearly impossible: her perfume filled his nostrils and grew thick in his throat, but it could not obscure the scent of a vampire that his white-eye soul screamed to kill. It was a faint and ancient odour, the tang of old blood mixed with the more familiar taste of magic, and something else he couldn’t identify.
For a moment he managed to block out Zhia’s nature, and he glimpsed a party of men in black hoods advancing on them from the left, but then it all became too much and he had to tear himself from her magical grasp. He fell to his knees, gasping and shivering as he tried not to retch.
Zhia returned to her scouting; it took her only a few heartbeats to sweep the whole area; with his senses still open to his Skull Isak could almost follow the slight disturbance of her mind through the afternoon air.
‘ Ten coming in on our flank with crossbows,’ she said in his mind and pointed Isak towards the group he’d seen, ‘ and another twenty spearmen moving from the north.’
Isak repeated the words out loud and Vesna pulled his breastplate over his armoured arm and let Doranei strap it around his body. ‘Daken, Mihn, Tiniq — flank the crossbows; Ebarn, you draw their attention, and Shinir, get up a tree with a bow.’
The Farlan woman nodded and grabbed her weapons. She had been born with some natural magical talent, but her tough upbringing had made her an Ascetite rather than a mage, turning the magic inwards and giving her unnatural physical skills instead. With little apparent effort she scampered up the bare trunk of the nearest pine and found herself a good position from which to shoot. Leshi, their other Ascetite, had already half-vanished into the forest; crouching in the lee of a great pine trunk, the ranger’s mottled brown cloak blended into the bark, and combined with his preternatural stillness made him easily missed by any scanning eyes.
‘Legana, stay here and look helpless in case any slip past,’ Vesna ordered. She was beautiful enough that they’d most likely want to capture rather than kill her, and anyone coming within reach of those knives was as good as dead.
‘Doranei, Veil, keep close behind me; Isak, head away on our right flank. We go as fast as we can. I’ll punch through the spear-men and we’ll come at them from the back while Isak lights them up.’
Nods all round and weapons drawn showed his orders were understood. Each of them looked serious, grim- faced. Without a mage the attackers were never going to win the fight, but that wouldn’t be much consolation to anyone who lost a friend in the process.
‘Let’s move.’
Isak watched Vesna lead the way across the needle-carpeted forest floor. The Mortal-Aspect moved as silently as the tattooed King’s Men, running at a crouch in the direction Zhia had indicated. Isak went slower, knowing he was less stealthy than the others, but making sure he’d be in position when Vesna attacked. The enemy had split their forces: they no doubt wanted to spread panic with the crossbows first, so the larger group wouldn’t be expecting to be attacked themselves.
Behind him Isak sensed Ebarn embrace the energies in her Crystal Skull, her magic unfolding like a flower with its sharp tang overlaying the forest’s resinous scent. He stumbled and nearly fell, his mind alive with sudden memories, as Doranei ducked down behind a tree, sword held low at his side. For a moment he was on the south trail, east of Helrect, where he’d first seen Doranei’s black sword, where he’d first tasted magic filling his mind.
I’d been hoping for the scent of pine again, the forests of home no different to these. In his mind there was a blank emptiness at the heart of his memories, a picture torn in half where a man he couldn’t remember was lost from his memory.
Carel, his name was Carel.
Reminding himself didn’t matter, however; the memory was lost from Isak’s head no matter how much Vesna or Mihn told him of the veteran Ghost. A dull throb flourished in the back of his head, the numb pain of ice pressed against skin that always came on when he tried to remember things that were lost, as if the holes in his mind opened onto a void where even warmth was dead. A part of him feared the cold would consume him if he tried to look into that void too long.
I’m dead to him; he’s dead to me. ‘Balance in all things,’ Isak whispered.
The pain fled and he found himself blinking out across the forest floor at the still figure of Vesna, half- armoured, half-God.
‘We must find balance,’ Isak continued as though repeating a charm against sickness, ‘before hate, before rage or revenge. I’m nothing without control and the Land’s a wasteland without balance.’
