before. And to fight is to die. To run is to live. Please, the next question.’
‘Halis of Ysundeneth.’ Fat like a human. Bulbous face. Loose clothing failing to hide a shameful body. And a voice that grumbled deep in the throat. He had probably never even entered the canopy. ‘What I cannot leave behind is everything I own. A significant part of Ysundeneth. Houses, warehousing, the dockside marketplace. None of these can I transport by ship to Balaia. How will I be compensated? How will all my workers be paid if I have no business?’
‘You will still be alive,’ said Lysael. ‘It is all anyone will have.’
‘No, no, no, no.’ Halis wagged a stubby finger. ‘I have worked all my life to attain my position in the city. You will not take that from me with one sweep of the hand.’
‘I offer no one anything but survival for now. Money, possessions, all will mean little. You have to understand, Halis, that we will all have to start again should we be lucky enough to live at all.’
‘Preposterous. That I should be expected to simply abandon all I have built. I will not do it without guarantees of future ownership in this fabled Home you speak of.’
Lysael was lost for words but there was enough support in the crowd for Halis’s point of view. Auum moved smoothly in front of the high priest, stopping a hand’s breadth from Halis’s nose. The fat man barely saw him coming and raised his hands as if in defence.
‘Then stay,’ said Auum, never taking his eyes from Halis but speaking for the Caeyin. ‘Be king of the city. Own it all. Count your riches. But know this. When the ships sail, there will be no escape from the Garonin. No deals to be done with them. No money to be made. They will move through here as easily as your hand brushes aside ears of corn in a field. And they will leave nothing behind. Not your buildings. Not your marketplace, not your flesh though you are possessed of enough of it. Any who stay will die. That is my promise.’
‘You cannot know that,’ said Halis, the stridency gone from his voice. ‘Like Girales said, there has to be another way.’
Auum grabbed Halis by the lapels and jerked him forward.
‘You know me. I am Auum, Lord of the TaiGethen. I faced them once before. More than two thousand years ago. In our former home, our beautiful, peerless former home. Now burned beyond recognition, repair or recovery. I fought them with every skill I possess and with the blessing of Yniss to guide me. I fought them with thousands at my left and right. Our numbers should have overwhelmed them then as should our passion and our determination to save our lands.
‘But they did not. Tens of thousands died at their hands when they should have been journeying to their new home, far from these beasts. They died because people like you did not understand like you do not today. And I? When all was surely lost and all I could do was save as many as I could, I ran for my life. I ran because there was no other way to survive. We ended up here, sharing with the humans but at least we were alive. It is the same today, but today I will not let my people die in their thousands to serve such as you. Today we will run because tomorrow we must live. The elven race must endure.’
He let Halis go and turned to face the Caeyin.
‘Any further questions?’
Chapter 8
Ilkar couldn’t sleep. The skin in which he found himself kept him from comfort and his mind blazed with the pain of expulsion from his rest. Tonight, though, there was something more. Far beyond his subconscious, deep in his soul, that part of him forever tied to the elven nation bade him journey to stand with his brothers and sisters. He stood on the college walls and looked south, tasting the air.
The pull was distant. Distant enough to be denied. To go would be pointless. He would be too late. Yet still he rose from his bed in a servant’s chamber beneath the tower of the Lord of the Mount and walked out into the quiet of Xetesk’s night. He stared into the southern sky while his soul yearned to be lying beneath it.
There was an easing to his pain, just for a heartbeat. A knowledge that he had no need to travel. It should have made him glad but it did nothing but increase his desperation for them all. The elves would come to him. They were leaving Calaius. And that could mean only one thing.
‘Looking for some company?’
Ilkar turned. For a moment he didn’t recognise the man before him but then he put a name to the crooked smile he saw.
‘Hello, Hirad. Insomnia got you too, has it?’
‘I don’t know about that but I can’t sleep.’
‘That was a joke, right?’
‘You and your fancy words. How are you feeling?’
‘Dreadful,’ admitted Ilkar. ‘This isn’t much fun.’
‘You know you don’t look so good.’ Hirad strolled up and patted Ilkar’s cheek. ‘You’ve looked better. When you had pointed ears.’
‘I’ll take that as a compliment. Fancy a stroll around the streets? We might even drop in for a drink at The Raven’s Rest. I quite fancy staring at my picture and reminding myself how much better-looking I was than you.’
Hirad looked dubiously out over the walls and into the quiet streets. There was plenty of noise echoing around Xetesk. Plenty of light and smoke too.
‘Bit of an atmosphere out there, don’t you think?’
‘Hmm. Not everyone is pleased to see the dead walking about.’
‘I can’t say I blame them,’ said Hirad. ‘I just wish they’d see we have no choice. Come on, let’s go. Might get to the inn before closing time if we’re lucky.’
‘I think he might serve us after hours, Hirad.’
The two old friends in strangers’ bodies trotted down the stairway to the courtyard and out onto the apron before the college. The Thread ran left and right past the gates. They turned right, heading down a gentle slope along the narrow winding road towards Sol’s inn. The air was warm but carried a current of disquiet across the whole of the city. Three hundred and more dead had returned — figures were tricky to establish — and much of the living population had not taken to the events terribly well.
‘What do you think they’ll do?’ asked Hirad.
The Thread was quiet. A few individuals and small groups wandered here and there and the cloak of the night meant no one could tell if they were living or dead unless they came good and close.
‘You know what they’ll do. They’ll head out and try and fight.’
‘It’ll be carnage.’
‘Will it?’ Ilkar felt the pain in his body easing as they neared the inn. ‘We had no defence but we had no magic and weapons either. Perhaps Xetesk will turn them aside.’
‘You don’t believe that. None of us do. We have all felt their power and it translates into something simply too big to handle.’
Ilkar nodded and sighed. ‘You’re right of course. But we have to hope, don’t we?’
‘What we have to do is get the returned dead and their loved ones away from here. This place is a target. West is the only sensible option. Beyond the Blackthornes and into the Heartlands of Wes.’
‘Well, we’re going to the right man to get that sorted out.’ Ilkar shuddered. ‘Damn but that felt strange. Do you-’
Bull’s-eye lantern beams stabbed out from the left from one of the many side streets leading off The Thread. Temporarily disoriented, Hirad and Ilkar backed across the street to the right. Ilkar could just about see the shapes of men spilling into the street behind the lanterns. He shaded his eyes and immediately began casting to form the spell shape for a defensive wall. He heard Hirad drawing his sword.
‘Get behind me, Ilkar,’ he said. ‘This smells very bad.’
The two of them had stopped retreating, leaving space to their left and behind, where their shadows on the buildings gave away their status.
‘Want to run?’ asked Ilkar.
