long, remember? You might walk the border between lands, but you’re still flesh and bone, a mortal man. Even using Ruling to balance the power of Termin Mystt it isn’t something you’ll be able to endure for long. You remember why you did this, right?’
‘You’re fussing like an old woman,’ Isak growled. ‘I’ve forgotten nothing.’
‘So you remember you will have to give this up?’ Vesna persisted.
Isak shrugged. ‘Soon this will all be over, one way or another. It might not be quite the Age of Fulfilment some hoped for, but there’ll be a resolution between us, Azaer and I have ensured that.’
‘And we will win,’ Vesna said firmly, ‘never doubt it. Azaer has nothing to match our power and-’ His voice wavered, but he finished, ‘and I refuse to allow Tila’s death to be in vain.’
Isak winced at the mention of her name. ‘I feel her death on my shoulders,’ he whispered, ‘and Mihn’s too. How many others do I bear? What chains of responsibility will I have to drag after my Final Judgement?’
‘You’ll not bear them alone,’ Vesna declared fiercely. ‘There’s an army of us behind you, all those marked Ghosts and Hands of Fate: they’ve embraced your fate and your burdens too. The ivory gates will shake as we march up Ghain’s slope, but it’ll not be for long years yet, my friend.’
‘Think so? What place in this life will I have afterwards? On that day, victory or no, the Land’ll be done with me.’ He raised a hand to stop Vesna as the Mortal-Aspect began to argue. ‘You think you can change what I am? I was born for this Age, and this Age alone. Once the Land’s remade, my purpose is done — I’m done. But I’ve lived long enough with Death’s hand on my shoulder and Death’s Aspects in my shadow, and my friend, I don’t fear it. Part of me craves some form of relief from all this. I’ll give up the sword easily enough, my friend, or it will give me up.’
They came to a stream running merrily through the moorland that ran east from Leppir Manor. The ground was studded with clumps of purple heather, rejuvenated by recent rain. Twenty yards beyond the stream, half- concealed by the grass, was a lichen-clad stone circle the height of a man’s knee. Isak didn’t enter, but placed his left hand on one of the stones and bowed his head as though in prayer. That done, he turned to face Vesna and sat without reverence on the stone.
‘Calming the local Aspect?’
Isak nodded. ‘Two, actually — a lord and lady, for want of better words. The circle’s dedicated to some Aspect of Nyphal, a safe rest for travellers unwelcome at the manor.’
‘And the other?’
‘The river-spirit — a son of Vasle.’ Isak smiled in his crooked way. ‘Both are weak, they were even before the Gods drew on their Aspects at Moorview. The union’s probably all that’s keeping them from being hunted by daemons each night.’
‘I’m sure Tila would have found great romance in a union of competing Gods,’ Vesna said.
‘No doubt, but my mind’s on other things right now.’
Vesna squinted, trying to see Isak’s expression.
‘We’re about to have a visitor,’ he said by way of explanation, looking up at the sunset sky past Vesna’s head. ‘I wanted to have this conversation away from the others.’
As Vesna looked up, he saw a dark shape in the sky that soon resolved into two shapes with outstretched wings. With his divine-touched senses he reached out and tasted magic on the wind, the scent of large creatures and a dry, ancient odour that he recognised all too easily.
‘What do you want with him?’ Vesna demanded before the pair of wyverns reached them. ‘You surely can’t plan on trusting a madman?’
‘It’s not a question of trust,’ Isak replied, still watching the wyverns. ‘He carries a Crystal Skull, so he’ll be involved before the end, one way or another.’
Hulf crept to Isak’s side, pressing up against the white-eye as his natural boldness faded in the face of those enormous predators. The wyverns shone blood-red in the evening light as they wheeled around the stone circle and dropped lightly to the grass beyond. Golden eyes peered rapaciously at them as the beasts folded their wings and settled themselves.
Vorizh Vukotic slipped to the ground and shrugged off the oversized cape that hid his pale skin from the sun. Despite his efforts, the skin across his eyes and nose was as dark as Isak’s arm; they’d seen that streak on Zhia’s face often enough. Underneath the cape was the familiar black whorled armour Aryn Bwr had forged for each of the Vukotic family, contrasting with Eolis’ white grip, visible over Vorizh’s right shoulder.
‘Lord Isak,’ Vorizh called, bowing with all ceremony to them, ‘do you now accept my gift?’ He gestured to the second wyvern, which was weaving its head from right to left. At first it watched Isak as if he were a rabbit coming into striking distance, but under Isak’s scrutiny the wyvern furrowed the ground with its claws and ducked its head low.
Vesna realised the creature was nervous in Isak’s presence — or the sword’s, at any rate.
‘I’ve enough to do without learning to handle such a creature,’ Isak said eventually.
‘Then what is it you want of me? My sister is already your servant, and she is skilled in most disciplines.’
‘I have something I need you to do.’ Isak gestured to the stone circle and stepped inside it, Hulf still at his heel. ‘Come inside. I’ve seen to it the local God won’t object.’
Vorizh cocked his head at the white-eye, intrigued at last. ‘If you want a vampire bound,’ he commented with a trace of contempt, ‘I believe my sister’s tastes run more that way than mine.’
Isak ignored the comment; she’d heard worse from saner men over the millennia. ‘It’s dusk,’ he explained. ‘The shadows are at their longest now, and I’d prefer not to be overheard.’ A spark of magic left his blackened fingers and danced around the circle, leaping from stone to stone until a haze filled the air between each one. ‘Circles can be used for protection as well as binding.’
Vorizh inclined his head and joined Isak inside, and Vesna followed a moment later. As he passed through the barrier Isak had created Vesna felt a frisson of energy run over his skin and a sudden whisper of wind through grass filled his ears until he was on the other side and then there was calm again: a magic-dulled stillness.
‘And now,’ Vorizh said, ‘what service can I render to one who commands Gods and frees daemons?’
In the depths of a thicket a hundred yards from the stone circle, someone watched, a shadow on their shoulder that brushed the figure’s pale skin with spidery claws. ‘What bargain with Vorizh must be kept even from his companions?’ the figure wondered, eyes fixed on the stone circle. ‘After all we’ve seen at his side?’
‘ One the boy would be a fool to trust in, ’ the shadow replied, ‘ but he can feel the end drawing near. I so prefer desperation in my enemies — all the better to let them seize their undoing. ’
The two men faced each other, neither speaking. A space had been cleared in the town square, and soldiers crammed every side-street, watching the silent meeting of two weary but unbowed men. The elder looked small in his armour, the wrinkles on his face more apparent when viewed opposite the scars of the younger man. He was more heavily armoured, his banded pauldrons and solid breastplate bearing a fanged skull device. His younger opponent wore leather armour stiffened by grooved steel rods. They both carried Menin steel half-helms.
A cold wind drove down from the north, stretching out the banners that flew proudly from the town’s tallest buildings, fluttering madly in their reach for freedom, though beyond these walls they would be burned or trampled into the dirt. Here was their last bastion.
‘You come as his envoy?’ General Arek asked at last. All around him, hands tightened on grips as they awaited the reply.
Amber shook his head, slowly, regretfully. ‘I come as a Menin.’
‘You come to join our stand?’
‘No.’
‘Then what?’ There was no rancour in the general’s voice, none of the antagonism Amber had expected, no interest nor passion; the man was playing his part. Beyond the fatigue in his eyes, Amber saw relief, and the promise of a longed-for end.
There is no such promise for me.
‘I come to save the lives of these warriors. I come to lead them back across the Elven Waste and return them to their homes,’ Amber declared, loud enough for all to hear.
‘You will lead them against our enemy?’
‘They are no longer the enemy; they are the victors in our war. All that remains is the long march home, to follow in the footsteps of our ancestors.’
Amber could tell from the tense silence that the significance was not lost on anyone there: the Long March
