Akratil’s smile was feral, like a wolverine savoring a kill. “Some I … spoke with.”
“Yes.” Bemnida ducked her head in agreement. “But the others, those we fought here … They
“Perhaps those little dwarvish folk warned them.”
“How?” she asked. “What few we left alive were surely trapped in their tunnels, in the hills. How could they have brought word? They used no riding animals and this is a wide world-how could they have traveled so far in time?”
Akratil nodded. “Indeed. So, how did the others know? Save they do own some scrying.”
Bemnida, encouraged, said, “And more. Such magic as enabled them to fashion that gate and flee our wrath.”
“And that,” Akratil said. “Which was surely great magic.”
Bemnida nodded.
“Great as mine?” asked Akratil.
“No!” Bemnida shook her head vigorously, soft golden hair flying in a cloud about her bloodied face.
Akratil spoke as if she had voiced no denial. “Great as that Power we serve?”
Again Bemnida shook her head, her denial louder now. “How could that be? Is the day mightier than night? I say, no-that the darkness conquers light, and that we are the darkness of all the worlds’ light, and the Power we serve is surely the greatest of all.”
“But they escaped us.” Akratil’s voice softened, a vocal caress, as if he whispered endearments to a lover. “We came to this world and have conquered all until now. Until we came through those hills and fought these folk. None others have stood against us, none others have escaped us.”
Bemnida said nothing.
Akratil said, “Think you some other Power aided them, Bemnida?”
“It is not my place to say.” She bowed her head.
Akratil reached out, setting a talon to her chin, raising her head until she looked into his eyes again. A droplet of bright blood welled from his touch, trickled unnoticed down her slender throat. “It would seem that you alone own the courage to speak, to think. And now that you have begun, I’d hear the rest.
Bemnida’s eyes flickered around. The surrounding horde stood silent, attentive as a wolf pack awaiting the kill. The moon was westered past the Maker’s Mountain now and shadows flung from the hills, the serried peaks bathed in patterns of silver and jet. Into the silence an owl hooted three times. Bemnida said slowly, “Perhaps there was a Power; perhaps they called on it.”
“Perhaps.” Akratil chuckled softly. “After all, is there that Power we serve, why not another?”
“Yes.” Bemnida essayed a smile that failed to reach her troubled eyes.
“And that Power effected their escape?” Akratil said. Bemnida said, “I suppose it was so. How else could they flee?”
“Save aided by a Power great as ours.” Akratil nodded thoughtfully. “Save aided by magic great as mine.”
Bemnida sat her strange mount in silence.
Akratil said, “Which cannot be. There cannot be a Power greater than that we serve, nor magic greater than mine. Are we not that dark side of all beliefs-counterpoint to the feeble imaginings of the creatures we destroy- were we not created to reive worlds in dark judgment of betrayal and dishonor? Was it not dishonor and betrayal called us here?”
“So it is,” Bemnida agreed, lowering her head. “It is as you say.
“Even so, they did escape us!” A man, torn-faced and bloody, urged his mount from the throng. He wore armor dented in battle, carmine in color. “And to me that suggests such a Power as Bemnida speaks of. Think on it, Akratil: are they protected by some Power equal to our own, then surely it were better we leave them go. We were never defeated before-only now-and we’ve not the means to chase them. I say we let them go.”
Akratil said, softly, “Is that your true thought, Yuell? That we leave off our duty, forsake our honor?”
Yuell shifted nervously in his saddle. His mount pawed the trampled ground. He said, “It is. You saw the gate they made, and you know we cannot follow them. Whatever Power guards them must surely be great as ours, and has closed that pathway.”
Akratil said, “Perhaps,” and looked to Bemnida. “What think you?”
“That we have a duty,” she said, “and can we pursue them, then we must.”
“We lost many here!” Yuell gestured about the Meeting Ground. “Too many! I say we look to other worlds.”
“I’d have these folk,” Akratil said, a gauntleted hand closing as if it crushed some soft thing. “I’d not so easily admit defeat, nor betray our cause.”
“They’re gone!” Yuell argued. “We know not where-only that they are gone beyond our taking.”
“How say you?” Akratil asked Bemnida.
And she answered: “That you are our leader, and I shall follow you down all the roads of time and space, to all the worlds.”
“Then kill me this upstart.”
Bemnida’s blade swung clear of the scabbard in a fluid motion that delivered the edge to Yuell’s neck in a swift, sweeping arc that severed the skull from the body and sent it rolling across the grass.
From the arteries of Yuell’s throat thick columns of blood fountained high, black in the moon’s light, lesser spoutings from the veins. His body jerked, dead hands tightening on his beast’s mane, so that the creature roared and bucked, tossing the corpse clear of the saddle. It landed heavy and still, the carmine armor all streaked with gore. The head came to rest against a tussock that held it staring sightlessly at Akratil, the blank, dead eyes fixed on his. The mouth was stretched wide in a rictal smile that seemed adoring.
Akratil, too, smiled, and touched Bemnida fondly. “That was well done.”
“Thank you.” Bemnida sheathed her blade, and gestured at the snarling lion thing: “Calm it.”
A Breaker whose armor was all jet black save for the crimson sigils on chest and back ran forwards, bearing a long pike. He prodded the animal, shouting, and it ceased its rumblings and retreated slowly.
“Take that away.” Akratil pointed at the corpse, the head. “Feed it to the animals.”
He waited until that task was done, then faced the horde again and said, “There was magic employed here, that these folk escaped us. But there exists no magic greater than mine. Nor any Power greater than that we serve.”
He danced his weird horse around, and from the horde came a great shout of agreement. He let it ring awhile, then raised a gauntlet, motioning his followers silent.
“These folk have escaped us-for now! But amongst them are some I’ve spoken with in dreams, some who take our way. Some, I know, have chosen our path. They’re mine: I’ve their scent in my nostrils, and I can find them. I can find them in the night, when they sleep; and when they dream of conquest and vengeance, they leave their spoor on the shadow trails, along all the roads of blood and darkness. They shall show us where they are, and bring us to them.”
He smiled a horrid smile, his face still handsome but also torn and burning, as if the malign purpose that made him what he was shone through, the skull beneath the skin exposing its deformity.
Bemnida stared at him, adoringly.
“We shall leave this world, to find the other where our prey had gone. They shall not escape us! Set up the pavilions here, and feed the beasts on the fallen. We wait here until I find the way. But know this-I
Tomas Var had not thought to see Salvation again.
On his return to Evander he had delivered Andru Wyme’s messages to his commanding officer and given his own report, then gone about his duties thinking he had seen the last of the New World. Grostheim and its occupants held no great attraction for him, and did he occasionally wonder what fate befell Arcole Blayke, he surely felt no desire to again cross the Sea of Sorrows. He had found himself posted to garrison duty in the Levan and assumed, with the countries conquered in the War of Restitution now pacific, that he might look forward to a slow rise through the ranks. He found himself thinking, for the first time in his life, of settling into some permanent
