and then, like a cork from a bottle, like fell back from the bridge. On open ground the Sard could bring five horses to bear, and Roth, too, was a dervish among them. It never seemed to tire of the slaughter.
The last of the soldiers fell to Quintal’s sword. A few had been knocked over the side of the bridge, and were floundering in the deep, filthy canal. Disper rode forward, and Carth and Typraille mounted. j’ark was revived and Tirielle’s heart leapt with relief. She loved him and she did not care if the emotion was not returned. She would be torn apart again, should he fall. She had only ever loved one man before, and she had thought her heart would wither in sorrow when he had died. She could not bear such a loss again. If only she could hold her love in, be cold, barren…but she could not. She was a creature of passions.
He had to be helped into the saddle, but once there he seemed to revive a little. He looked like a beggar in his blood soaked and filthy cloak, compared to the Sard in their shimmering white cloaks, but his head was held high, and even with his pale face she thought him the most beautiful sight she had ever seen.
But there was no time for fancy.
The Sard wheeled. Ordinary tenthers appeared, if tenthers could be considered an ordinary threat, streaming out of the alleyways and thoroughfares of Beheth’s city streets. At least they had been distracted, searching the west of the city for Roth. The eastern gates should still be clear…
Tirielle noticed how quiet the city was, as though it held its breath. She did not blame its people. If she had any sense, she too would be cowering in the safety of her own home. She heeled her horse and followed the Sard as fast as her mare could go.
They rode hard, horses flying over the cobbled streets of Al’rioth Avenue, down into the east road, heading for the eastern gates. People were beginning to stream into the city at the gates, unaware of the battle behind them. With many a cry of ‘make way!’ and ‘move aside!’ they broke through, bewildered people leaping clear, only to land hard on the flagstones that lay on the eastern road. A wagon turned ahead, and the Sard’s horses cleared it in easy jumps. Tirielle’s own mount was already lathered, but she put her head low and let her have her head. She felt the mare’s muscles bunch underneath, and with a great whoop she was clear, the great east road before her.
Her horse was urged on by fear. The mare could sense the wrongness pursuing them. The Protectorate did not ride horses for good reason — horses hated them.
Suddenly they were through the gates. To the north, Tirielle saw there were more of the red-robed warriors streaming toward them. She made out a wizard among them.
They were finished. She felt despair rise up within her, threatening to buck her from her horse, but she was stubborn. If the Sard would not give up, neither would she.
The wizard raised her hands, shouting an incantation to the sky. An unnatural darkness fell around them, the air thickening. Her horse seemed to slow, even though she could still feel the mare labouring beneath her. Then a shaft of sunlight broke through the sudden cloud, lighting her way. It covered the Sard and her with its beautiful, cleansing glow. The cloud, and the Protectorate, fell behind and they burst into clear sunshine. Disper came alongside her galloping horse and touched its flank. The mare bucked and sped on with a new lease of life. Trees blurred as the horse ran.
They were free!
It almost felt like she was flying. j’ark pulled alongside her, and Dow broke the horizon. The day brightened.Then Tirielle heard the howling from behind. The harsh barking of the Protectorate’s warhounds followed them as they reached the temporary safety of the woodlands.
Bayers on the loose. Would it ever end, she thought with tired anger. With a look at j’ark, swaying on his stallion beside her, she wondered if she wanted it to.
There was so much to live for.
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Carious and Dow shuddered, sending waves to their last son, the remnant of a bastard people. They come, they said, arise, they screamed, and under the frozen earth and ice the revenant stirred, hearing the messages. Something started within its fearsome breast, a vision of a land it had never known grew in power and its limbs trembled. It awoke, sore, confused and above all angry.
Its slumber disturbed, it raged against the chains that held it. It stretched and snarled and tore at its breast. From within, a feeling grew. It had not the intelligence or wit to understand what stirred, but long dormant, this felt like spring. A whispered drop of rain on a parched arroyo…an ancient member stirring with forgotten heat suddenly rushing through the blood…a tremulous first beat of a new heart…
And the vision came in floods, searing it deep within. A distant past, or Rythe’s future, laying in wait among the vast wastelands of the stars.
A sun burning with bright fury. Barren land, scorched clean of life, fading to yellow, then red. Dirt turned to dust, blown on the desolate winds. Where once deep seas flowed and ebbed, bringing with them food and life, commerce and piracy, adventure and exploration, nothing remained but towering mountains, no longer submerged to pointing in accusation at an uncaring sky. Crevasses and trenches that led to the deep now let forth the planet’s molten bile, bilious gases joining with the poisonous air that flows on the frightful winds.
Light turning to white, bleaching the landscape. Life had long fled, but its legacy remained. Sad monuments, reaching to the burning skies. Stone follies crumbling under the heat, sand and dust pulling them into a dry, loveless embrace.
Nothing remained, except the memory of the sun. A pale dead womb in a cold grey sky.
The revenant saw the vision of the past — the vision of a future yet to come. And in its wailing, in its violent terror, it tore the chains that bound it, and screamed under the earth.
Above land, where mortals toiled beneath the suns, its cry was heard. The revenant was awake, the warning was in the earth, and sky, blown on the wind. It would allow them no more sleep. While it had slept, beneath the earth’s cold hands, they, too, had closed their eyes. They had forgotten.
Now, they would remember. It would show them what was to come.
Chapter Sixty
The ground trembled beneath Klan’s feet, a slight shock, nothing more. It was not uncommon for the grounds to shift in the south lands.
Nonplussed, he set to his work. It had put him off his stroke, he saw. With a small incision, he corrected his earlier mistake as well as possible, under the circumstances. It was at the periphery, and could easily be covered, should it come to that.
“Such luxurious hair. It is a shame that it would outshine the others. I cannot make them jealous. None must stand out, none must be made to feel inadequate. Such a delicate matter, but you will understand. Harmony must be preserved.”
He smiled kindly into the staring eyes. The eyelids drooped as he pulled the forehead forward, but he could read the terror there. Iraya Mar’anthanon had failed her masters, and for that he was performing his task while she still lived, but he felt little rancour.
A small tremor underfoot made his blade slip again, and he slipped while undergoing a delicate procedure around the left eyelid, causing him to nick the eyeball. Viscous fluid seeped forth.
He swore roundly.
“I wanted you to watch. To see yourself being born again, to see yourself as you will live in eternity. But no matter, you still have your other eye.”
He resumed his work, cursing the shifting floor.
Eventually, Iraya was devoid of all pretence. A pure, expressionless mask was all that remained, held proudly in Klan Mard’s delicate fingers.
“There,” he told her. “Isn’t that better?”
