cost of its release more than a single broken bone? He recalled when all this had first started, down in the cellars of Tashijan. The finger that hadn’t healed.
What had gone awry?
“Once we reach our main camp,” Sheershym said, “I’ll attend your injuries. See what I can do to help.”
Tylar merely nodded.
“We had such hope,” the master mumbled.
Tylar glanced at him, hearing the pain.
“When we spotted your flippercraft, we believed it marked the end of the Huntress’s reign. And if not that, then at least rescue.”
Harp snorted. In the end, it had been Tylar’s party that had needed the rescuing.
Sheershym pointed ahead. “Once safe, you’ll have to explain how the Godslayer ended up in Saysh Mal. I wager it wasn’t a chance visit.”
Tylar nodded. “I’m afraid we may need more than your hospitality. Do you still have those old maps of the hinterlands?”
The master’s brow crinkled as he looked over at Tylar. He slowly nodded. “Our camp is secure. It is madness to think to venture out there.”
“Madness seems rampant of late across Myrillia,” Tylar mumbled darkly. He ended any further discussion by drifting back along the line, favoring his knee. He settled next to the litter bearing Brant, still borne by Krevan and Malthumalbaen.
Dart walked on the far side. “He continues to slumber,” she reported. “Though I heard him mumbling in his sleep. I thought he was asking for my help. But then he seemed angry, mumbling about letting someone burn.”
Tylar frowned, recalling a similar cryptic utterance. The words had stayed with him.
HELP THEM…FREE THEM… LET THEM ALL BURN
He also remembered Mirra screaming at him. Kill the boy…before he wakes them! What did any of it mean? What was it about Brant? He found his gaze drifting to the one thing that tied him to all this.
The stone rested at the hollow of his throat.
Dart noted his attention. “It is pretty-”
Tylar glanced to her.
Her eyes remained on the stone, then slowly shifted to him. “Do you think it’s true? That the stone came from the home of the gods.”
Tylar realized the weight of those words to Dart, a child of these same gods. If the Huntress was correct, the stone was also a piece of her lost home, a world she’d never seen.
Until now.
Her gaze returned to it, her face worried yet frosted with wonder.
Rogger broke the spell, ambling up to them, nose crinkled. “Do you smell something burning?”
Dart gaped at the swath of ruin ahead. It cut through the jungle, a river of black rock, steaming, cracked in places to reveal its molten, fiery heart. They gathered on one bank, still green, though tributaries of burnt forest stretched outward. They had edged along one such tributary to reach this place. The firestorm, ignited by the molten flow, had burnt the jungle down to the loam, leaving stretches of forest charred to trunks, blackened spires spreading in great tracks, eerily reminiscent of the stakes back in the Grove.
At least there were no bodies here.
“What happened?” Tylar asked, voicing aloud the question for all.
Harp stood beside Dart. He pointed to the south, to the headwaters of the black river. A mountain rose into the sky, far taller than the peaks across the river. Snow crowned its summit, glinting in the sun.
“Takaminara,” Dart whispered, naming both god and mountain. She remembered Brant describing it earlier, the sleeping volcano. It slept no longer.
“She saved us,” Harp said and pointed across the ruin. A bit of green forest could be seen on the far side, pinched between the western mountain ranges. “We fled toward the hinterland beyond the Divide, where the mountains fall into the lower wild lands. But the Huntress found us. She led two hundred of her best against us. Two hundred against three score. We were too young, too old, too weak. We would never make the hinter in time. Neither could we withstand such a force against us. So we kept running well into the night. First one moon rose, then the other. We helped each other as best we could, but as we reached the foot of the western mountain passes, the weakest, the oldest, the youngest began to falter on the steeper slopes. All seemed hopeless.
“Then in the darkest part of the night, the ground began to tremor. Leaves shook, trunks cracked. And behind us, the land split open in a thunderous crack. Fiery rock surged up, brilliant in the darkness. It separated our group from the hunters, raising a river between us, impassable. The hunters were driven off with flame and clouds of brimstone. The wound in her land sent the Huntress deep into seclusion.”
Harp stared toward the mountain. “She protected us, sheltered us.”
“Why?” Dart asked. “It is not her realm.”
“Takaminara might have sensed the corruption here,” Rogger said. “Probably had an eye turned in this direction. Perhaps she had witnessed enough slaughter, so lashed out as best she could to protect what was left.”
“Or shake the Huntress back to her sensibilities,” Tylar said. “The Huntress is a god of loam. To tear her realm must have struck her like the lash of a whip, one that cut deep. No wonder she retreated into hiding, to lick her wounds.”
Krevan overheard their conversation. “But why did Takaminara act at all? It is rare enough for a god to assault a neighboring realm. And that one, buried in her mountain, barely acknowledges the outer world as it is.”
Harp turned from his grateful gaze upon the mountain. “Whatever her reason, she saved us. The Huntress avoids this place. Refuses to let her hunters cross. Our camp on the far side remains secure. But we don’t know how long such fear will last. Or if Takaminara will act a second time to protect us. For days afterward, her volcano rumbled, yellow steam issued from a thousand cracks. But now the mountain sleeps again.”
Dart heard the worry in his voice.
“And it’s safe to cross now?” Malthumalbaen asked, carrying the rear of Brant’s litter, eyeing one of the glowing cracks.
“If you know the right path,” Harp said and started across the rock.
Dart followed. “Where are we going?”
Harp pointed to the two tallest spires ahead. The tips of the peaks glowed above shrouds of mists and smudgy smoke. “Our camp lies between the Anvil and the Hammer.”
Rogger squinted. “In other words, within the Forge?”
Harp glanced back and nodded.
They continued in a stretched line across the frozen black river. Dart felt the heat of the rock through the soles of her boots. All around, thin vents wept steam, smelling of brimstone and staining the surrounding rock yellow, turning the cracks into festering wounds.
Pupp kept close to her side, sensing her unease, glowing a bit brighter as if challenging the heat with his own molten form.
On the opposite side of Brant’s litter, Rogger dropped closer to Tylar.
“The Forge,” the thief whispered to Tylar and nodded toward Brant. “Where the boy and his father found Keorn’s burning form. Seems we’ve just about come full circle.”
“But where from there?” Tylar mumbled. He held his wrapped hand over his left side, favoring it. His limp had grown much worse.
Behind them, a sharp trill of a jungle loon rose from farther out in the forest, as if calling to them, warning them.
Ahead, Harp glanced back, eyes narrowed with suspicion. He didn’t say anything, but he increased their pace.
Words died among them as the heat rose and noxious seeps tainted the air. Ahead, the green beach beckoned with a promise of shade and dripping canopy, but it grew too slowly.
With no choice, they marched onward as the sun sank before them. The twin peaks of the Forge-the Anvil
