gate — if that is what the glow promises. She imagined what a trial must await them. Rowing through a millennia of debris! Pushing rotting vessels from their path. Who knew how long it would take. But they were Avowed. They would win their way through… eventually. No task could daunt them; what was time to them? It was a perspective natural to Shimmer now, but one she knew others, mortals, could not possibly understand or share. She suspected it made the Avowed something of an alien kind apart.
She peered back to the swath of wreckage the entrance of their three vessels had cut. So, Mael. You strand us here then dangle escape in the distance. Why? To what purpose?
A lesson perhaps, yes? Pass through, Avowed. But do not return.
Reaching the coast, they turned south, keeping to the screening cover of the treeline. Badlands and Coots scouted and hunted game while Stalker walked with Kyle who fumed, feeling useless, his swordarm in a sling. Now that the pressing rush to flee for his life had passed, the plains youth had begun to wonder now about his circumstances and these worried him. In fact, they struck him as damned mysterious. What had the Avowed mage, and the shaman meant about his having some sort of protection? Who could that be? Or what? And, though he did not want to be ungrateful, why were these three men taking such trouble to help him? Their desertion seemed real; but why now and with him? But could this not have been their best chance? Four do stand a better chance than three. And Stalker did say the Guard were quitting the land for Quon in any case…
Kyle stopped. Stalker continued on for a moment then stopped himself, resting a hand on the bole of a pine. ‘What is it?’
Shrugging, Kyle adjusted the folds of his sling. ‘I was just wondering — you said the Guard were leaving when you volunteered to track me down. But how then did they plan for you to link up with them?’
Stalker pushed up his helmet, wiped the sweat from his brow. Only now you've worked your way through to that? I thought it would be obvious…’ The scout took out a waterskin, squeezed a stream into his mouth. He offered it to Kyle who shook his head. He waved to the sea shimmering in the west. ‘We'd bring you to the coast, take a small boat and sail for Quon.’
‘Not funny, Stalker.’
The scout brushed droplets from his moustache, smiled, then looked around for a place to sit. He selected a moss-covered rock.
‘Apologies.’ He pulled off his helmet and rubbed his sweat-slick hair. ‘Don't worry, lad. Just a joke.’ He invited Kyle to sit. ‘Naw. We've left the Guard for sure. No future in it.’
Kyle sat. ‘What do you mean?’
‘No chance for advancement, hey? And they're crippled anyway. Doomed to rot unless something big happens to shake them up.’
‘The Avowed don't strike me as rotting. They're strong.’
The scout waved that aside. ‘Not what I mean. I mean they're blind to the present. Stuck in the past.’ He rubbed the pouch hanging from his neck. ‘It's as if they're walking backwards into the future — you know what I mean?’
How much Kyle understood must have shown on his face for the scout took a deep breath and tried again. ‘You asked about Badlands and Coots. Well, we
Kyle nodded. ‘I see — I think.’
A thin, wintry smile. ‘Never mind. Let's see what we got left to eat.’
They sat in the shade of tall cedars, chewed on smoked rabbit then ate wild berries of a kind unknown to either of them. Kyle thought maybe it was the berries that had been giving him the runs. While he sat letting the cool breeze dry his back and hair, Coots lumbered up.
‘Ain't disturbing your Hood-damned dinner party, am I?’
‘Nope,’ said Stalker. ‘Have some berries?’
‘No, They twist up my guts awful.’
‘Is that why you're here,’ said Stalker, ‘to tell us all about your digestion?’
Coots pushed a hand through his curly grey hair. ‘Since you asked, my digestion's been the shits since you dragged us on this Poliel-damned expedition. It's a damned disgrace.’ He winked to Kyle. ‘This fellow's got the organizational skills of a squirrel in a cyclone.’
‘That your digestion acting up, Coots?’
‘No. You'll know it when
‘So what's the news then?’
Coots knelt to his haunches. The plain leather vest he wore made his arms look enormous while leather bands strapped them above and below the elbow. He took up a handful of branches that he broke in his wide blunt hands. ‘We've found a pitiful little fishing village on the coast. As rundown as you can imagine. But they've got a sweet-looking new boat just sitting there ready to be pushed down the strand. It's like a damned gift from the Gods.’
‘And that's what worries you.’
‘Yeah. Makes me all queasy — but maybe that's just my innards clenching.’
‘OK. We'll keep watch for a while. You and Badlands first.’
‘Aye, aye.’
To Kyle, ‘We'll wait here, hey? Then we'll steal our boat.’
‘OK. But, I have to warn you, I don't know a thing about sailing ‘n’ such.’
Stalker and Coots exchanged amused glances. ‘That's OK,’ said Stalker. ‘’Cause neither do we.’
BOOK II
These stories of one-time Trell or Thelomen occupation of our lands are utterly false. There never have been, nor are there any, systematic eliminations or nefarious schemes to eradicate any race. All these rumours are the inventions of our enemies intended to stain us. I ask you, if such peoples once lived here, where are they? Where have they gone? What has become of their works?
CHAPTER I
After the melee
All is quiet -
Just me
And the Eel.
