with Beami, who had taken charge of the group, and a meeting was organized for the morning, so that they could brief him on their findings. She warned him that he might not understand the sheer complexity of techniques on offer. Miffed by the usual arrogance of these people, he decided he would never properly understand what cultists got up to anyway.
That same evening Brynd leaned against the ice-cold battlement, and necked a shot of vodka for warmth, to relax. And with one eye fixed on the horizon in case… just in case. In this bleak weather, there wasn't much to see.
Just what was the enemy's motivation? Assuming these Okun had come from somewhere not part of the Boreal Archipelago, why had they needed to invade and wipe out the population of Tineag'l?
*
A key piece of information came to Brynd, just after dawn.
Marine vehicles of an unknown variety had been spotted by garuda surveillance. They were not longships, and were thought not to be constructed of wood. No sails or visible crew either, merely a dull humming sound as they thundered their way across the narrow channel towards the city. Garudas confirmed that the vessels were moving slowly, even pausing mid-crossing so that more of them could gather. They massed like a school of titan sharks, twenty by the beginning of the missives, then fifty by mid-morning. But they had not yet reached the city, and that was the main thing. It meant he still had time.
Brynd ordered his elite troops to assemble within the hour, and dispatched messengers and criers to all the northerly districts of the city.
Bells tolled across Villiren.
F ORTY-TWO
Randur stood on the deck, wincing into the light. To his surprise, he did this a lot, staring into the red sun. There were vague comforts to be discovered in deep contemplation, and up here he felt he had found time to slow himself down and grow up a little. How his life had turned so bizarre and out of context, he didn't know, and he vowed to seek out a quieter existence in future. All he needed was a place by the coast, maybe a decent local tavern in which to lose the years. Enough of the constant pressure; maybe those people in that tavern back on Folke weren't so wrong in their attitude after all.
Under the dying rays of the sun, the Exmachina continued drifting above the cloud base, heading towards the mountains soaring up through it from the southern coast of Y'iren. They pierced the cumulus, icebergs in the sky.
Then Randur noticed something different from the panorama: one of the taller peaks appeared to be peeling fragments from its highest ridge. Vast clumps of earth were breaking off and hanging in the sky alongside. And some impossible force was keeping them afloat.
'Artemisia,' Randur called out to the empty deck.
A moment later, a hatch burst open and the woman-warrior came up to him. He didn't even need to say anything. She tilted the end of her telescope and sighed. 'This is something to cause concern,' she decided, then dashed back along the deck.
A moment later there was frenzied activity in the skies above the ship as the Hanuman fluttered manically, unbuckling their excitement, and the Exmachina began to slow its pace and veer off-course.
Eir and Rika joined him, and gripped the railing as the ship's motion readjusted. 'What's going on?' Eir said.
Randur pointed to the huge unfalling clumps of land.
'What is that?' Eir whispered. She had a way of showing her apprehension by rubbing her arm above her elbow, as if she felt cold.
The wind accelerated because of the change of direction, sending his hair in tendrils across his face. 'Whatever it is has sent Artemisia legging it, which doesn't bode well.'
Artemisia returned with an armful of items.
'Keep these on and you'll be fine.' She offered some masks of red mesh that fitted over their mouths, crafted from no material he knew of, and they dutifully secured them. Randur discovered that his breathing was just as easy.
The looming peaks sailed towards the ship, and small dark objects could be seen above and below, skittering and darting about in ragged patterns of flight.
'What are those things?' Randur asked, his voice slightly muffled by the mask.
'Those vessels, they are called Giasty – literally earth cities, although little lives there. The structures you will see on them are, in fact, largely constructed of human bones, which should, I hope, give an indication of how they view your species. Human bone is valued as a building resource in our world. And those things you see flying about are called Mogilal – they are quite a menace. And, I fear, they have been waiting for us.'
'Are they the creatures you are fighting?' Randur asked.
'My world is, yes.' She unsheathed her blades with a zing, and Randur took a step back as their arc whipped past his face. If Artemisia herself was anything to go by, these other creatures would probably be violent.
'Should we be doing anything to help?' Randur glanced towards the girls, whose gaze was locked on the drifting island. He drew his own sword, and Eir, alert to his gesture, followed suit, but the dismissive glance from Artemisia suggested that such weapons would be of little use.
A fizz across the sky, a high-pitched whistle, and something slapped into the ship below. Artemisia hastily put on her own mask, fabricated from the same red mesh. She seemed to wait for…
Two deep thuds, then stillness.
Another object streaked across on an upward trajectory, visible white trails carving up the sky… towards the ship, above the ship, then the Hanuman clustered around it and screeched, and something exploded in a smoke- plume. Bits of flesh began to litter the deck.
Artemisia began shouting orders in some unknown language, waving her swords at the Hanuman who seemed utterly stunned by what was going on. A flock of them clustered as one mass, and waited overhead. The next projectile they dealt with better: slowing it significantly, then gently steering it away from the ship till it dropped over the side.
The warrior turned to the three humans. 'Do not move. Do not inhale when they explode. Do not remove your masks or you will not be able to speak afterwards.'
They nodded in silent affirmation as Artemisia took several big strides towards the centre of the deck. The sun was nearly below the clouds, extending the woman's shadow bold and long.
Time after time the Hanuman steered the projectiles away from the ship and into harmless oblivion, and occasionally there were explosions from down below, well out of sight.
Both blades drawn, Artemisia waited like a prophet as the Hanuman circled in the air above. Her hair stirred in the wind.
The land masses came close enough so that Randur could perceive settlements on them, weird esoteric homesteads and other structures that cluttered up the rockscape. They seemed too bizarre to be real.
A smaller fragment of land peeled away from this one, then drifted like a bubble towards the Exmachina. A shadowy figure stood on top of it.
Across the intervening sky. Then alongside.
The figure banked alongside the large vessel and hopped aboard with a thud as it touched the deck. As tall as Artemisia, white-skinned and gold-armoured, the thing took three steps forward and Artemisia backed away cautiously, enticing it further into the centre.
Then it happened strangely:
The combatants slowed and juddered in and out of time and location, flickered from one part of the deck to another, appearing each time in different fight poses as if racing and grappling with each other through incomprehensible zones of space, a fight spiralling through dimensions that were impossible.
The third pose: blades locked at the far end of the ship, silhouetted against the red sky.
Flicker.
