Blood and Bone

CHAPTER VIII

In the end, Jatal found that the council took very little convincing. The various Adwami family heads were easily steered towards considering further advance into Thaumaturg territory — half-drunk as they were with the heady ease of their victory in crushing and pillaging Isana Pura. He and Andanii took turns guiding the debate, at times staging confrontations and disagreements over this or that minor point in the order of march, or the division of spoils. Such quarrels the minor houses eagerly fixed upon and fanned, pleased to think they were driving a wedge between the Hafinaj and the Vehajarwi. A perception he and Andanii were pleased to allow them.

Eventually each family secured its division of the loot, including slaves, and sent them rearward in one long straggling caravan of guarded wagons and carts. Watching the various men-at-arms securing the accumulated boxes and crates of silver and gold jewellery, fine cloths and the best furniture, Jatal almost laughed aloud at the ridiculousness of it. Somehow, it now struck him as absurd, this squirrel-like fixation upon the accumulation of goods and objects, even though just a short time ago he too would have been among those evaluating the merits of this silver fork versus that.

What had changed, he wondered, as he sat watching, his hands crossed over the pommel of his saddle, his helmet pushed back high upon his head. Was it he? Or perhaps the object that he fought for had changed. Gold, rubies, jewelled daggers, fine robes or engraved leatherwork: none held the appeal they once commanded when compared to a certain bright smile and eager, challenging gaze.

It struck him that the heat of his desire could perhaps be no more than this substitution of one object of possession for another. And perhaps it was. He pressed a sleeve of his robe to his face to wipe away the sweat and the dust. He found that the question troubled him not, although he knew that it should. No matter. They had cast their lots together. Their fates would rise or fall upon the success or failure of this throw. Having up until now lived the careful and considered life of a student and scholar, he found this new audaciousness and daring quite, well, delicious.

Jatal pulled his helmet down and turned Ash to face the column. Yet could this be nothing more than the oh-so-clichéd exhilaration and allure of the illicit affair?

He gave Ash a sharp knee to urge him on, and, for the first time he could remember, found that he wished he could just turn off his damned mind. Suddenly he saw all his second-guessing, quibbling and differing analyses of any given situation as the weakness his brothers had always mocked him for.

Is this because only now have I found the passion and ambition they were born with?

Oh, shut up.

He returned to the van of the column. Here, at the very head of the troops, because no family of the concord would now allow any other family the honour, if only symbolic, of leading, rode the Warleader, with a small troop of guards and staff. Then came Jatal and Andanii as co-leaders of the Adwami Elite — the name Andanii had seemingly invented at the first council gathering after the sack of Isana Pura.

And what a stroke that was. Jatal had since found himself besieged by requests to place this son or that within the ranks of the ‘Elite’.

It was a wonder to him that no one else saw how hollow and absurd it all was. Other than Andanii, of course. And perhaps this foreigner warrior. How he had arched one bristling brow at that word, elite. He saw it for the shabby vacant trick that it was. He had merely pursed his wrinkled lips and pinned Jatal with that knowing glance.

Yet we all have our secrets, do we not?

Jatal nodded to Andanii who rode surrounded by her honour-guard. She blew out a frustrated breath and waved a hand to call attention to the column’s crawling advance. He nodded his commiseration.

I see that no ragged shaduwam march with us.

And which army, I wonder, is the real one?

Andanii, he knew, was emphatic that they discover more about this foreign mercenary commander. And so that is what he would pursue during this march north. The evening meals were far too public for any meaningful discussion. The gathered family heads watched each other like a clutch of baby birds jealously measuring the attention and feeding each one received. Certainly not the place to probe the foreigner regarding the shaduwam and the seeming pact, or understanding, he had somehow managed to strike with them.

Until then, he would maintain his public face and play the game of alliance-building among the various jostling families, together with his outward frostiness towards Princess Andanii and her family allies, however stupid and unnecessary the entire puppet show seemed to him.

That evening, during the interminable dinner in the massive main tent, he waited and watched until the Warleader excused himself early, as was his habit. Shortly afterwards he too begged off listening — yet again — to another of Ganell’s stories, and exited the tent.

The night was quiet and dark, half overcast by high thin clouds. The eerie arc of the Visitor waxed now brighter than ever. It lanced across the sky like a tossed torch. Would it smash upon them in the flame and destruction so many dreaded? Perhaps their unparalleled foray into northern territory was merely the realization of this heavenly portent of apocalypse — for the Thaumaturgs, that was. Jatal wrapped his robes tighter about himself against the chill evening air and made for the Warleader’s tent.

Guards called for him to halt at the entrance and he waited while one enquired as to the Warleader’s disposition. To one side, the hulking Scarza sat against a saddle, his rather stubby legs stretched out before him while he ate. Jatal offered him a brief bow of acknowledgement, to which the half-giant raised the haunch he gnawed upon. Shortly thereafter, Jatal was waved in. A mercenary guard used the haft of his spear to hold aside the heavy cloth flap. Jatal ducked within.

The interior was much darker than the general encampment, with its torches planted between the tents and the Visitor glaring down upon them all. Here, a single lamp on a side table cast a small globe of amber light that hardly touched the canvas ceiling and walls. His first impression was that the sparsely furnished tent was empty, and then movement from the shadows revealed the Warleader crossing into the light. He wore now only a long linen shirt over trousers bound by leather swathing, and faded hide moccasins. It might have been a trick of the uncertain light, but it appeared as if the thick canvas of the tent was moving where the Warleader had been. He went to the table and poured himself wine from a tall cut crystal decanter. Peering over his shoulder at Jatal, he hefted the heavy vessel. ‘Spoils of war,’ he observed.

‘A very beautiful prize.’

The Warleader gestured to a leather saddle seat against one wall. ‘Thank you,’ Jatal said.

‘Drink?’

‘Yes, thank you.’

The old man selected another glass. The tent was ripe with the lingering spicy smoke that the man doused himself with, but Jatal thought he could detect another scent amid the heady melange. A familiar one he could not quite place.

The Warleader crossed the tent to hand him a tumbler filled with red wine. ‘You have changed,’ he said as he seated himself. He stretched out his long thin legs and held his glass in his fingertips on his lap.

‘Oh? How so?’

‘When I first saw you, you were an innocent soul.’

Jatal decided it was his turn to arch a brow. ‘And what am I now, pray tell?’

The man cocked his head on one side and studied him anew. Jatal felt as if the inhumanly cold and lazy eyes were dissecting him, laying exposed his every self-doubt, ambition and lie. ‘You are now a political soul. May the gods forgive you.’

Jatal took a sip of the wine while he considered that and grimaced his distaste: the red was as thick and sweet as blood. The Warleader raised a hand. ‘My apologies. I should have warned you. This is a strong fortified wine. It is like the truth … not to everyone’s taste.’

Jatal forced the sip down yet kept hold of the tumbler, if only so as not to offend his host. ‘When I arrived I was nothing more than the youngest of my father’s sons, the least of the brood, with no hopes or prospects. Then I was happy buried in my books and studies.’

‘And now …?’ the foreigner prompted. Yet Jatal heard no interest in his voice; if anything, the man sounded bored, or disappointed.

‘Now I find myself swept up in a gamble more insane and foolhardy than any I could have ever imagined. Even the ancient lays and stories of the old heroes cannot compare to this audacious throw. Sometimes I fear the very gods have caught their breath.’

The old soldier’s gaze had drifted down to his glass, which he lifted and finished in one last gulp. Then he gave a heavy sigh. It seemed to Jatal that the man must have heard such last-minute qualms a thousand times before. ‘You have doubts and worries,’ he said, sounding utterly wearied by Jatal’s doubts and worries. ‘That is only normal for any man or woman cursed with intelligence, such as yourself. As to this gamble, or throw of the dice, as you put it … every battle is a risk. That is why sane men prefer to avoid them.’ He held out his open hands, the empty glass loose in one. ‘However, I have spent an entire lifetime — that is, my entire life — pursuing such risks and ventures and I can assure you that this is a sound one. If we can keep these Thaumaturgs on the run there is a good chance that within a month they will no longer be in charge of their own country.’ He leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees and dangled his large hands. ‘And so, my prince of the Hafinaj. You came here to speak to me … what is it you wish to say?’

Fascinated by the fish-like dead eyes Jatal could not find his voice. Was this what passed as the man’s candour, or his mockery? Was he not taking any of this seriously? Jatal could not shake the feeling that he was being played with. The suspicion stoked his anger and he found the resolve to blurt out, ‘What are the shaduwam to you?’

The Warleader tilted his head. His dusk-grey eyes slit in thought. He sighed, then pushed on his knees to stand up and crossed to the side table. He poured another glass of the thick treacle-like wine. Turning, he tossed the drink down and sucked his teeth in a hiss. ‘What are the shaduwam to me?’ he repeated, musing. He leaned back against the table, crossing his arms. ‘They are as nothing to me. I would not care one whit should they all be swept from the face of the earth tomorrow. Is that enough of an answer for you, my prince?’

Jatal studied the man as he turned to light one of several tall yellow candles that cluttered the table. He gathered the impression that this man wouldn’t care a whit should just about any or every thing be swept from the face of the earth, very probably including Jatal himself. A detached part of him wondered whether this was calculated to intimidate or impress. In any other man he would assume so; yet this one struck him as different from any other he had ever met. One who did not give a damn what he or anyone else thought. And so he decided that in fact, no, this foreign Warleader was not trying to impress or intimidate or overawe him in any way at all. That would presume that he cared, when he very clearly did not. So he opted to pursue the issue, if only to shake the bushes, as they say, to see how the man would respond. ‘You have formed no agreement with them, then? No sort of alliance?’

‘I did not say that,’ the man answered flatly. He waved a hand to direct the fumes of the candle to his face and inhaled.

Ye gods, this man is difficult! Jatal set his glass aside. ‘Care to provide the particulars?’

The man shrugged his shoulders, still wide and powerful despite his age. ‘Certainly. They approached me and explained that while you noble Adwami might have foolishly and shortsightedly rejected the offer of their support, they would advance in any case. And would strike to achieve their goals.’

‘So, an alliance.’

‘Not at all. Convenience. When the lion strikes, the jackals and vultures also get their share.’

‘I’m sure the shaduwam do not see themselves as jackals or vultures.’

‘I am certain as well. Yet that is irrelevant.’

Jatal sensed more here than was being admitted, but he could not press further at this time. And in any case, this explanation could adequately serve should the relationship ever become known. He studied his hands clasped on his lap. ‘I see. Thank you, Warleader, for the intelligence. However, may I suggest that in the future you convey to the council all information regarding the campaign?’

The Warleader regarded him from heavy-lidded eyes. Like something inhuman — a creature of legend or myth. ‘And just who would you suggest I report to?’ he asked, rather drily.

Beneath the coldly evaluating stare, Jatal cleared his throat. ‘Why, myself, of course. As the council’s representative.’

A smile that was more like a death’s grin came and went from the man and he looked almost saddened. ‘You see, my prince, I was right about you.’

More uncomfortable than ever, Jatal rose, collected his glass, and crossed to replace it on the side table. ‘Good evening, Warleader. Perhaps we could retire together again, to discuss other, more pleasant matters. Philosophy, possibly? Or history?’

The man suddenly appeared wary. As if Jatal had just somehow challenged him. He retreated from the table, waving vaguely. ‘Of course. It would be my pleasure.’

Jatal accepted the dismissal — this was, after all, the Warleader’s tent — and turned to go. Pushing aside the heavy cloth it occurred to him that he had glimpsed not two used glasses upon the side table, but three.

That night he waited long after the mid-hour but Andanii did not appear.

* * *

The native chief, or warlord, Oroth-en, had sent one of his warriors ahead to give notice — and no doubt warn — of their advance. He then guided their column through the forest. Between the thick tree trunks, Murk caught occasional glimpses of the local warriors. They moved with as much ease and familiarity as any of the wild inhabitants of the woods, which, he reflected, in fact they were.

They came to a natural meadow of stiff knife-edged grasses taller than Murk’s head and here Oroth-en had them halt. He indicated that the majority of the company should wait there while Yusen and a few chosen attendants should accompany him. The captain signed to Burastan to remain, then gestured Murk and Sour forward.

‘I don’t like it,’ the Seven Cities woman muttered aside to Murk.

‘Our friend can’t very well lead a pocket army into his village. As far as he knows we might just up and take over the place.’

She wrinkled her nose in annoyance. ‘Why would we want his wretched village?’

‘Well, for one thing they have food in their wretched village. Which is a lot more than we have. And second, they’re probably always fighting their neighbours for territory and resources and such. It’s a way of life.’

The tall woman wasn’t convinced and she snorted her derision. ‘Resources? What resources?’ She waved to the tangled trees. ‘This is a wasteland. It’s like one of our Seven Netherworlds, only here on earth.’

‘Burastan, Lieutenant, they’re here and that means this ain’t no wasteland. Get it?’

Then Yusen urged Murk on again, but he flicked his gaze to the travois and its wrapped burden. The captain frowned, uneasy, then let out a breath. He signed to Burastan: guard it. The lieutenant nodded her understanding.

Murk peered around for Sour but couldn’t find the man anywhere. Finally he spotted him bent down all the way to his stomach studying a fat blossom growing out of a notch in the roots of one of the trees. To Murk, the sky-blue flower appeared almost obscene the way its swollen petals seemed to burst from the tree. He pulled his partner up by the collar of his rotting leather hauberk. ‘What in the name of D’rek are you doing? Let’s go.’

‘Ain’t never seen one like that afore,’ Sour explained as he dragged him along.

‘This ain’t no natural philosophy hike, Hood take you!’ Murk growled. ‘Stay focused.’

They caught up with Yusen and Oroth-en, and the village elder led them on.

Through the afternoon he began to see more and more signs of human occupation. The seemingly meandering way they walked met a narrow path and this in turn merged with a definite trail travelled enough to expose naked beaten dirt. As they went, Sour kept pointing out more and more of the fat, vaguely hand-shaped, dusty blue blossoms. Some clung to the trunks of trees or hung from branches overhead. He kept grinning and winking at Murk, as if he’d put them there himself.

Murk just rolled his eyes. Fine, so they grow around here. Big deal.

‘Climbing Blue!’ Sour suddenly announced as he walked along, all hunched and side to side in his bow-legged gait.

Murk scowled his annoyance. ‘What’re you going on about?’

The mage waved a hand, flapping his tattered leather and mail gauntlet. ‘Them flowers. I’m gonna name them Climbing Blues.’

‘Climbing-’ Murk caught himself almost taking a swipe at his partner. ‘You can’t just up and name some plant! What makes you think you can do that?’

‘ ’Cause I discovered it. That’s why.’

‘Discovered it? You didn’t-’ The astounding claim stole Murk’s breath. ‘Idiots tripping over things is no way to hand out names. And anyway, what about these local folks? Don’t you think they know it? Or have a name for ’em?’

Sour scrunched up his already wrinkled face, thinking. ‘Well … we don’t know any of that, do we?’

‘Oh, so because of your ignorance their hundreds of years old names for everything get tossed aside. Well, that’s just great.’

‘Well, maybe I’ll ask then!’

‘Well, fine! Go ahead.’

‘I will.’

‘G’wan.’

Sour opened his mouth but he and Murk noted Yusen glaring back at them and both hunched guiltily. They passed another of the blue flowers and Murk quelled an urge to kick the damned thing.

Later Sour bumped him then flicked his eyes aside. Murk followed his gaze to catch a fleeting glimpse of one of the locals watching from the dense cover. After this he spotted a number of them. They carried bows and braces of javelins, or short spears, on their backs. Murk had yet to see any signs of metal on any of them — weapons or armour.

Then, with startling suddenness, they emerged into a village. It was arranged in a great oval hacked out of the surrounding jungle. Its centre was an open clearing dotted by fire-pits. The circle of huts all faced the clearing. Most of the huts stood upon short poles and most were no more than walls woven through with branches of broad leaves. The roofs were thick layers of thatched grass.

The villagers stilled, watching them, silent. Some tended low fires, or beat gathered branches. Some were sitting hunched over making implements, weaving plant fibre twine, or carving sticks — making arrows or darts, perhaps. Many lay in hammocks within the airy huts. An old woman pounded a mortar with a pestle, both made of wood. All wore little more than simple loincloths together with numerous ornaments, amulets or charms, tied to legs and arms. Bright stones glimmered from the ears and noses of some. Naked children watched from the open doorways of the huts. Some sort of welcoming committee waited in the clearing.

Murk cocked an eye to his partner, who nodded, but then shut his eyes, his hands twitching at his sides, and abruptly fell to the ground. Murk froze, surprised, then rushed to help him up. The little man fought for a moment, flailing his arms. After this he calmed to peer about, surprised. Blood ran in a crimson torrent from his nose and he wiped it away with the back of his grimed gauntlet. ‘Gods! That ain’t never happened afore!’ he told Murk, stunned wonder in his voice.

Yusen peered down at them, his gaze narrow with worry. ‘You okay?’

‘Yeah.’ Sour straightened up. ‘Okay.’ He sent Murk a significant look, signed, ‘Her.’ ‘Was just surprised by somethin’, is all.’

Murk said nothing, but he was quite alarmed. Her! So it must be true, this antipathy between Ardata and the Queen of Dreams. ‘Did you get it?’ he asked, trying to keep his voice casual.

While Oroth-en watched, Sour straightened his torn hauberk. ‘Yeah. I got it … Barely.’

‘Okay then.’ Murk gestured, inviting Yusen to keep going. The captain flicked his gaze between the two mages then nodded his cooperation. He continued on.

The warriors, both male and female, crowded round Oroth-en. None looked happy. One young fellow spoke, and thanks to Sour’s efforts Murk could now understand their language: ‘Why have you brought these Isturé demons?’ this one challenged. ‘They will murder us!’

‘I do not believe these are of the Isturé,’ Oroth-en answered, calmly enough.

‘They are like,’ another observed. ‘They carry iron.’

‘True. They are foreigners. Most foreigners carry such things. That is their way.’

‘If they are not of the Isturé, then we should kill them and take their iron,’ one of the female warriors declared.

‘Their numbers are too many,’ Oroth-en explained.

‘Numbers? How many are there?’ another demanded.

‘Many hands.’

This quietened the warriors for a time. Then the female warrior who had spoken before, hefty and scarred, eyed Yusen and scowled bitterly. ‘I see. So … what are their demands?’

Sour’s brows shot up and he looked to Murk, who raised his gaze to the open sky. Why does it always have to be me? He stepped forward, his hands open. ‘Do you understand me?’

All gathered went quiet once more. Oroth-en turned to regard him, and even his gaze was now suspicious. ‘Why did you not reveal this before?’ he asked, quite coldly.

‘Because only now can I do so.’ He gestured to Sour. ‘My partner and I are what we call mages. You understand mages? Yes?’

Oroth-en edged backwards, eyed him and Sour anew. ‘You are shaduwam?’

Shaduwam? Ah — shaman. ‘Yes … of a kind. You have your own shaduwam, yes?’

The warriors exchanged uneasy glances, but none said anything.

So. Something here. Something they won’t reveal. Fine. None of my business. He addressed Oroth-en. ‘We are lost and hungry here in this jungle. We ask your aid. Aid in returning home. And food — whatever you can spare.’

Oroth-en turned to his warriors. ‘You see? They come as guests asking our help. Are we so heartless as to turn them away?’

The large female warrior scowled her displeasure. Her hair was a great mass of locks about her head and shoulders, and her cured leather shirt, her armour, strained to contain her chest. She planted the butt of her spear and tossed her heavy mane. ‘So might the snake beg entry to the hut.’

‘Then keep an eye upon them, Ursa.’

‘I shall!’ and she fixed her critical gaze on Murk.

It seemed to him that Oroth-en hid a quirk of a smile as he half turned away. ‘Very good. Come, guests, sit and eat with us,’ and he gestured to the largest of the huts, the main house, perhaps.

The meal was the oddest one Murk had ever had, or failed to have, as he actually ate almost none of it. They sat in a great circle on a raised floor of woven mats over slim wooden poles. He and Sour translated for Yusen, as Sour wasn’t about to attempt to raise his Warren again. Food was carried in and served round on broad leaves that went from hand to hand. One ate with the right hand and received the leaf with the left. Children tottered about in between, begging titbits from everyone, but only peering fascinated at the strangers.

He wondered how to get any of this food to their companions now squatting in the jungle, waiting. From the lean figures of these natives he could guess that there was hardly enough to go round as it was. How could they possibly take on fifty additional mouths? They’d probably have to completely despoil the surrounding acres to manage it. And then there’d be nothing left.

Yet he was reluctant even to name what came across his lap as ‘food’, let alone try it. Some leaves arrived heaped with what looked like inoffensive mashed plant matter, pulped roots perhaps, yet smelled vile, or crawled with ants. He thought the ants nothing more than an unavoidable nuisance until a leaf arrived with a great steaming heap of them cooked in some sort of a sticky sauce. Much worse was to come. Leaves covered in beetles and fat white grubs, still writhing, that the locals popped down like candies. Then more of the vegetable mush which they gathered up in their fingers like porridge. Murk didn’t know what was more disgusting: the idea of eating these dishes, or the sight of Sour eagerly sampling each and every one that came by.

Eventually, he could stand it no longer and he sent a dark scowl of disgust Sour’s way. ‘Gods, man,’ he hissed, ‘do you really have to?’

The skinny fellow cocked one walleye, half a black beetle pinched in his fingers, chewing. ‘Wha’?’

He leaned closer, lowering his voice. ‘Eat, man. This … stuff.’

Sour popped in the last of the huge beetle. ‘Stuff?’ he said around his mouthful. ‘It’s food. This is what they eat!’

Murk flinched away, wincing his distaste. ‘Yeah … but how can you?’

‘Food’s food, friend.’ He tapped a dirty finger to his temple. ‘It’s all in the mind.’

From where he sat down the circle Yusen raised a hand in the sign for manners, then turned to Oroth-en who sat next to him. ‘Thank you for the meal,’ he said, loudly. ‘It is greatly appreciated.’

Oroth-en translated for everyone and they all smiled and nodded, then proceeded to push more of the heaped leaves on them. Sour sat up and spoke to Oroth-en: ‘May I go to thank those cooking?’

The elder appeared quite bemused by the request but waved his agreement. ‘Of course.’

Sour ambled off. Watching him go, Murk frowned his confusion. What in the name of all the gods is he doing?

Movement on his other side distracted him and he turned. He almost jumped to see that now sitting next to him was the considerable bulk of the woman warrior, Ursa. Gone was the thick leather shirt, the skirting and the weapons. The woman now wore a simple cloth wrap tied at her immense breast. She glowered down at him.

He decided that he ought to take Yusen’s warning to heart and so nodded a polite greeting. ‘Yes?’

‘You are not eating,’ she accused him.

Smiling and giggling, women round him held out the leaves of insects and pulped plant matter.

He struggled for a time, desperate to find a reason, only to finish, lamely, ‘I am not hungry.’

‘You will need your strength for the trial ahead, little man.’

Murk felt his brows climb. ‘Oh? Why?’

‘Why? Have you not guessed?’ The women nearby hid smiles behind their hands. He eyed them all. A terrifying possibility began to form in his mind.

‘You are the first foreigner sorcerer male I have met,’ the woman continued, undeterred. ‘I have heard all sorts of rumours about your kind. That your members are so tiny you can only bugger boys. That those sorcerers to the west have sworn off all mating whatsoever. And that the shaduwam to the south slice them off entirely!’ She made a cutting motion with her fingers across Murk’s lap. He flinched away, almost slapping his hands down to cover his crotch. The women, young and old, giggled anew.

‘So which is it?’ she demanded.

‘Which what?’

‘Which are you?’

‘Me?’ He peered round and caught Yusen’s amused gaze. He glared in response then turned to Ursa. ‘I’m quite healthy in that — area, thank you. No need to wonder.’

She looked him up and down, as one might a horse at auction. ‘I will decide that, foreigner. Now, come with me.’

‘Come with … you?’

She stood to peer down at him from over the wide shelf of her bosom. ‘Yes! Come. Let us see how much of a man you are.’

Well — how could he let such a challenge go unanswered? He stood also, and bowed his farewell to Oroth-en who answered with a nod, the same small smile at his lips as had been there before. He’d known all evening. Next to the elder, Yusen used the marine sign-language to send: onward!

Murk gave his own emphatic sign to the captain then followed the big woman out.

Much later he was thoroughly exhausted, content and dreaming when the very floor of the hut seemed to rise up and throw him aside. He sat up, dazed, to see Ursa tying on her wrap.

‘I heard something,’ she whispered, snatching her spear. ‘Something I’ve never heard before.’

‘What?’

‘Quiet,’ she hissed.

Then he heard it, a bright sharp blare; and knew what it was. He fumbled for his linen trousers and stumbled down from the hut into the starlit central clearing. Here the villagers gathered, peering about, quite terrified. Hopping to slip on his boots, Murk found Yusen and Sour. ‘The rally horn!’ he called.

Yusen nodded, grim. ‘They’re under attack.’

Oroth-en came pushing his way through the clamouring crowd. ‘What is this noise?’ he demanded.

‘Our friends are being attacked.’

‘Attacked?’ the elder repeated, quite surprised.

‘Will you guide us back, please?’

Oroth-en instantly set aside his confusion to nod his agreement. ‘Of course. Collect your weapons.’

Yusen gave a quick bow of thanks. He turned to Sour and Murk. ‘Get your gear then return here.’ Both turned and ran. At the hut Murk found Ursa pulling on her thick leather skirting and shirt. ‘What are you doing?’ he demanded as he sorted through their commingled gear, all tossed down together in the heat of their first round of lovemaking.

‘I am going.’

Murk pulled on his laced shirt. ‘No, you’re not. Stay here. It’ll be dangerous.’

‘Dangerous?’ The woman let out a great braying laugh and slapped him on the shoulder so hard he almost fell over. ‘You have no idea how dangerous it is out there, foreigner.’ She hefted her spear. ‘Come!’ and she leaped from the hut.

Oroth-en and a portion of the village’s warriors guided them through the woods. The moment Murk slipped under the surrounding jungle edge he entered a deep shadowed darkness. He gestured, summoning Meanas, and cast a Shadow-derived mage vision over Sour and Yusen, who signed back indicating that they had it. He then hurried to Oroth-en’s side.

‘As a mage, a shaduwam, I can help you see in the night-’ he began, but the elder waved the offer aside.

‘No need. We have no difficulty.’

Indeed, now that Oroth-en said this, Murk realized that his warriors and scouts had all dodged ahead, slipping into the dark with ease. The fact of this now troubled him as he jogged along, struggling to keep up. Soon his breath came short — he was in poor shape after so many days of privation.

Blasts of munitions now echoed from the jungle far ahead. The shockwaves raised howls, cries and shrieks of protest from the many night-creatures. Swarms of bats churned overhead, disturbed from the highest reaches of the canopy. Damn. Gettin’ serious. Who’s attacking? Another village?

Ursa emerged from the brush to come to his side. ‘What is this new noise like thunder, lover?’ she demanded.

‘Munitions — ah, powerful blasts, like magery.’ She grunted her half-understanding. ‘Watch out-’ but she was gone again, dodging into the thick fronds of the undergrowth.

Gods damn them! No one’s listening!

It began to rain. The advance was a nightmare of flashing bodies dodging between trees, slapping branches and dripping leaves. He turned his ankle on a fallen log and limped along as best he could. All around him the locals sent up war whoops and yipping challenges to the night. They clashed the hafts of their spears against the shells and lattices of sticks they wore woven over leather as armour.

Why are they making so damned much noise? Then it came to him — putting up a scare. They were hoping drive off the attackers. He lent his own voice to the shouts.

Far too long later, long after the distant clash and eruptions of munitions had died away, Murk emerged into the meadow and stepped on to the torn mud of the aftermath of battle. Members of the company knelt with those fallen, wrapping wounds or comforting ones too far gone. He sought out Burastan. He found her with Yusen, her face slashed and the cloth and armour of her arm ragged and torn as if some sort of animal had been raging at it.

‘Who was it?’ he demanded, barging into their conversation.

‘Creatures,’ she answered, exhausted. ‘Half-human, half-monster.’

‘D’ivers? Soletaken?’

Her answer was an unknowing, utterly spent shrug.

Nearby, Oroth-en listened to reports from his scouts who slipped into the clearing, whispered to him, then sped off once more. His warriors helped guard the clearing’s perimeter.

‘You have a count?’ Yusen asked Burastan.

She nodded, wiped a bloodied sleeve across her face. ‘Some fifteen seriously wounded. Eight dead.’

Murk peered about for Sour and spotted him already tending to a wounded trooper. Good. The man wasn’t much of a bonesetter, but he was the best they had — gods help them. Strangely, two of the locals were kneeling there helping with the binding and treatment and they appeared to be debating techniques with him.

He then began hunting through the tall grass for the litter and its perilous burden. The troopers had obviously hidden it away, but the power of the object glowed like a dazzling ember in his mage-vision, guiding him. He found Dee and Ostler standing guard.

He asked Dee: ‘Did it … do … anything?’

The big swordsman eyed him as if he were an idiot. ‘Whaddya mean?’

He turned away. ‘Never mind.’

While he was walking off the swordsman called, ‘I will tell ya this, cadre. They wanted it. Them beasties wanted it.’

Murk offered a nod for the information — accurate or not. A thought came to him and he paused, considering. There was someone else he could question here regarding the attack. It — she — had been gone lately, and he was frankly quite happy to leave things at that. But perhaps …

‘Celeste …’ he called through Meanas. ‘Celeste … are you-’

He broke off because in his mage-vision he could see the faint jade glow of something approaching through the grasses. The image of a young girl. Nearby, Dee and Ostler acted as if nothing were happening; they were obviously completely unaware of its — her — presence. He moved off into the dense grasses for more privacy.

He was terrified to have to talk to this thing. Who knew what she might do? She might get annoyed by something he said and blast him from the face of the earth with the flick of a finger. Yet out of everyone here he was the one who ought to be doing this, and so he remembered his mage training and struggled to relax his mind into the state of ‘forced calm’.

The diminutive flickering image stopped before him. She peered about curiously with her big child-like eyes as if fascinated, yet completely mystified, by the mercenary soldiers coming and going. Closer now, he was struck by something familiar in the simple straight style of her hair and plain peasant clothes. She looked like a farm girl from northern Quon Tali. Had it taken this image from his mind? But then he remembered that she’d mentioned another.

‘I am here,’ she said. ‘I have always been here. Whether you were aware of me or not.’

‘I see. So, did you see the attack?’

She frowned prettily. ‘Attack?’

Queen give me strength! How can I put this? ‘Others came. Creatures different from us, and there was fighting. Many were hurt.’

She peered up at him with a directness of gaze that made him want to flee. ‘You are all alike to me.’

Murk felt the strength leaving his knees. Ye gods! Try another tack! ‘So, what have you been doing — if I may ask?’

‘There is another here. A different sort of entity. I have been trying to understand it.’

Ah. Ardata. ‘Yes?’

She shook her head with an awed expression oddly appropriate to a child’s face. ‘Its awareness exists on a level incalculably far beyond you or me.’

Murk flinched as if struck. What? Is this what we are facing?

He asked, his voice faint, ‘Any … progress?’

‘I am wary. I wonder — how might the process of becoming able to understand this awareness, this entity, cause a change in me? And do I wish to be changed?’ She peered up at him suddenly then, as if pleading, appearing so very vulnerable. ‘What would you do?’

If Murk had been terrified and appalled before, all was as nothing compared to what now overwhelmed him. Gods above and below! What to say? And will it be the right choice? Perhaps they had something here that could counter this goddess’s power … Use her? How could I even consider such a thing? Am I no better than what I’ve heard of these Thaumaturgs?

And yet … gods, the temptation! Imagine. The right word here or there and who knew how much power might be his …

He drew a shuddering dizzying breath. ‘I, too, would be wary. As you are.’ He swallowed to ease the tension banded about his chest. ‘I would wait. Watch. Until I knew more about — well, about everything.’

She’d been nodding solemnly with his words and brushing a hand through the grasses. ‘Yes. That was what I was thinking.’ She smiled shyly up at him. ‘Thank you. Your words are a relief.’ She waved her hands as if to encompass all their surroundings. ‘This is all so very new and strange.’

‘I’m sure it is.’

Still nodding distractedly, she wandered off, and Murk watched her go until the glow faded away into nothing and he knew she was gone. He rocked then, almost tottering as his knees wobbled. He doubled over, hands on thighs, and breathed deeply. K’rul guide me! Had that been the right choice? Had he let an unmatched opportunity slip through his fingers? Time would tell. Still weak-kneed, he went to find Yusen.

The captain was standing with Oroth-en. Both were silent, watching the woods. They seemed much alike these two, both guarded and stingy with their words.

‘They have fled far,’ Oroth-en told Murk and he nodded, having already surmised this. He addressed the elder. ‘What are they?’

‘They are the children of the Great Goddess. Queen of the Forest.’

‘Why did they attack?’

The man frowned his uncertainty. The lines and swirls tattooed in blue around his mouth exaggerated the expression. ‘I am not sure. You are foreigners, invaders. They are perhaps defending their lands.’

‘Do they attack you?’

‘They are a danger to anyone in the woods.’

‘But do they attack your villages?’

The suggestion surprised him. ‘Goddess, no. Why should they do that?’

Exactly, Murk thought. Something utterly outside your experience. Why should they? And we possess far more fighting men than you, my friend. He faced Yusen. ‘While it’s dark I want to try to contact one of them. Feel them out.’

The captain’s expressive brows shot up, but he nodded. ‘If you think you can handle it.’

‘Yes — well, I think so.’

‘All right.’

Oroth-en’s gaze had been moving between them, narrowed. ‘What is this?’

‘I’m going to go out for a chat.’

The elder jerked a curt negative. ‘I cannot countenance that. It would be very foolish. They are angry. Something has disturbed them.’

I think I know what that is. ‘Don’t worry. I can take care of myself. I am shaduwam, remember?’

The warlord was unconvinced. He shook his head, very worried. ‘Do you know the fate of all the shaduwam, your mages, Thaumaturg or otherwise, who dare enter Himatan?’

Murk knew he was about to find out — and that he wouldn’t like it.

‘The forest consumes all, foreigner.’ He raised his arms to the surroundings. ‘Everyone and everything is consumed. No matter how powerful they may think themselves. The only way to survive here is to accept this. As we have.’

Murk cocked an eyebrow, but that was all. He was too aware of the precariousness of their position to openly argue with the man. He knew his environment, after all. And they were his guests. ‘Well …’ he said, offering a considered nod. ‘I’ll keep it in mind.’ He saluted Yusen. ‘Cap’n …’

Yusen just waved him on.

Before he reached the jungle verge a spear haft suddenly snapped across his path and the broad bulk of Ursa blocked his way. ‘What is this I hear of you going alone to the children of the Great Queen?’ she rumbled.

‘I can speak to them.’

‘And they can eat you, lover.’

‘Do not forget I am a shaduwam. I will be safe.’

She shook her head stubbornly, refusing to move from his path. ‘No others have been. Not Thaumaturg or otherwise.’

Murk sighed. Just what I need — a protective mothering lover. Nothing else for it.

He raised his Warren and entered Meanas. To Ursa’s eyes it was as if he simply disappeared. ‘Great Mother!’ he heard her exclaim as he hurried on round her. He hadn’t really disappeared in truth, merely used a weaving of shadows to hide his presence. He no longer dared enter the Shadow realm of Emurlahn proper.

Enmeshed in his shifting slithering cloak of shadows he jogged past scouts watching the dense jungle. He spotted Sweetly up against the wide trunk of a tree. The scout’s gaze seemed to follow him and he raised a hand to tap one ear while shaking his head. Murk just grimaced. Making too much damned noise. Fine. Fucking show-off.

He continued on for nearly the rest of the night. By this time, the nightly rains had long since moved on to the southwest. The bright waxing moon had set. Yet the stars remained sharp and the great hanging arc of the portent hung luminous enough to send shafts of jade light down through the canopy. Murk followed the tuggings of his Warren until he sensed the presence of one of the creatures. Here he stopped and crouched among dense broad fronds to weave a sort of sending of Shadows that would speak for him. He worked to weave the slippery half-light until a shifting presence of dusk hovered before him. It rippled as if in some sort of unearthly breeze, perhaps crossing from Emurlahn. This he sent off towards the D’ivers, or Soletaken, or whatever it was, while drops of cold rain fell on his neck and shoulders from the leaves.

His Warren poised, Murk peered through the Shadow-weaving, searching until he found the creature, sprawled, wounded, panting among twisting roots of a dense grove of golden shower trees. It was human, vaguely, but barely so. A sort of half-bird thing, his upper torso feathered and his head that of some species of bird of prey with a savage curved beak and blood-red eyes. Those eyes followed the slow drifting advance of Murk’s weaving.

‘Compared to the Thaumaturg army of peasants and farmers,’ it said, its voice harsh but weak, ‘you foreigners fight well.’

A Thaumaturg army? Now? ‘Why did you attack us?’

‘Why?’ A stuttering that Murk supposed was laughter shook it, followed by a convulsion of pain as it huddled into a tighter ball. ‘Why? You ask such a stupid question? You invade our lands. You trespass without our leave. And then you have the nerve to think yourselves the victims?’

‘We are trying to get home.’

‘Home? This is not your home. You do not belong here. And you bring this thing with you! We do not want it. Take it away! Go away. Leave us in peace.’

Peace? Gods and demons! ‘I’m sorry. We didn’t know. We do not think of this — a jungle, a wild land — as peaceful.’

‘You are foreigners. Yet we all live the same lives. We are born, we strive, we die. The difference is we do not make war upon our land. We accept it. We are at peace with it.’ The creature’s gaze shifted from Murk, as if peering above him. ‘And here comes peace for me now.’

Struggling to see through the obscuring sending, Murk flinched as something fell upon the thing. A much larger beast, this one scaled mud-grey and olive-green. It raised its bloodied fanged snout from the carcass now clenched in its taloned feet. Nictitating opalescent eyes stabbed at Murk through the sending.

‘You are near, mage,’ it hissed. ‘I can smell you.’

Uh-oh. Time to go.

Sliding from shadow to shadow, Murk succeeded in returning to the clearing where the troop had re-formed a cordon of guards. He slipped through to appear next to Sour — who made a show of casual recognition of his presence without looking up from his work cleaning a ragged savage gash down a merc’s leg.

A touch miffed — how did the man always know? — Murk crouched beside him. ‘Need any help?’

‘No. These local boys and girls really know their stuff.’

Murk poked a finger at the leaves and moss gathered on peeled strips of bark. ‘What’s this?’

‘Local medicines. From what I understand they get all they need from the plants ’n’ such around.’

Murk grunted as an idea struck. ‘No shaduwam.’

‘Exactly. Don’t need ’em. Everyone knows their stuff and can collect it free of charge.’

He eyed the ugly ragged tear of parted flesh across the woman’s lower thigh. ‘Nasty wound. Nails and talons. Not like a clean sword cut.’

Sour nodded as was his wont: sourly. He whispered, low, ‘Anywhere else I’d say goodbye to the leg. But these locals claim this stuff will hold off any fever and rot.’

‘Let’s hope.’ Murk gave the merc a reassuring nod. She was a swordswoman named Cryseth, hailing from the island of Strike in Falar. ‘Have this bound up and good in no time.’

She gave a taut answering jerk of her head and mouthed through clenched teeth, ‘An even exchange, mage.’

Murk continued his nod. Yes, an even exchange. I’ll do my damned best. ‘Where’s the cap’n?’

Sour tilted his head aside. ‘Chattin’ with Oroth-en. Something ’bout boats.’

‘Right.’ He rose but Sour grabbed hold of his jerkin.

‘You get through?’ he asked, low, now pointing his bearded chin towards the litter.

‘Yeah.’

‘And?’

‘Neutral. So far.’

The little man let out a thankful breath. ‘Good. Later.’

Murk grunted an assent and headed off through the tall grasses. His jerkin, he noted, was now smeared in clotted blood where his partner had clenched a handhold. Not a goddamned sign, please, Enchantress.

If Oroth-en and the captain had been talking they weren’t now. Yusen looked stymied, rubbing his neck. The elder appeared wary and watchful. Catching sight of Murk the captain nodded a greeting while Oroth-en’s surprise was softened by a crooked smile.

Yusen cleared his throat. He appeared to have come to some sort of decision as he crossed his arms and gave Murk his full attention. ‘Your report, cadre?’

Murk couldn’t help raising a brow, but declined to comment — for now. Cadre now, is it? ‘They want us gone, sir. Was a warning more than anything else.’

The man did not appear impressed. The long lines that framed his mouth, now partially hidden behind a salt and pepper beard, lengthened as he frowned. ‘So I gather.’

‘I mean it wasn’t random, or hunting, or feeding. Was defensive.’

Now Yusen’s brows wrinkled in disbelief. ‘Defensive? They attacked us.’

‘In defence of their lands. They call us invaders. Trespassers.’

The man peered about as if searching for something. He waved a hand to the surroundings. ‘Trespassers? It’s a jungle. An empty blasted wilderness. There’s nothing here.’ Murk flicked his eyes aside to Oroth-en. ‘Other than a few locals, of course,’ Yusen added, quickly.

If the elder understood he did not show it. He did incline his head, however, as if granting the point. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘we are here. I agree with the shaduwam. The children of the forest hope to turn you back. You are invaders. Only those countenanced by the Queen may enter here. As for us, we too are children of these lands. Our blood and bones come from it. And in time, we all shall return to it. This is how it should be.’

‘But not us …’ Murk prompted.

The warlord gave an amused half-smile. ‘Do not be deceived, Shaduwam. The jungle will eat you just as readily. Even if you are invaders.’

‘Eat?’ Murk answered. ‘You make it sound as if it were some sort of a huge beast …’

‘It is.’

‘Oroth-en and I were discussing boats,’ Yusen cut in, impatient.

‘Yes?’

‘They don’t have enough.’ Yusen held Murk’s gaze, his expression flat, as he added, ‘And it would take a very long time to make more. Many days.’

Murk understood the man’s meaning and gave a small answering nod. And in the meantime feeding us would consume everything these people have.

‘What is your advice, cadre?’ Yusen asked, his words very slow and solemn.

Sheeit. We are in formal crisis-of-command mode now. He rubbed his slick greasy forehead and winced as the night chittering of the insects suddenly grated on his nerves. They were returning to full blasting force now that the clearing was quiet. Gods, I’m tired. Only a few hours of the night left. What to do? Every option has its problems. Best to cut our losses, I say. ‘I advise heading back to the coast. We build our own craft then skirt around the shore to the west.’

Oroth-en held out his open hands. ‘You may stay with us, of course — but it would be difficult.’

Yusen shook his head. ‘Our thanks, but we are too many for you to take in. You hardly have enough as it is.’

‘The land will provide. We will forage more widely.’

‘I am sure you are capable. But we would not trouble you so.’ The ex-officer squinted aside. ‘No. We’ll head southwest. I understand there’s a borderland there. A cordillera. We’ll trace it south. Stay under cover.’

Murk nodded curtly. There we have it. The man’s done his job — made a command decision. Glad I’m not the one to have to. He saluted. ‘Seventh Army, yes?’

Yusen’s answering salute was more of a dismissal. ‘We’ll head out tomorrow.’

Murk gave a grin. ‘Aye, aye,’ and headed off in search of Sour. He looked all over through the trampled stands of grasses of the meadow but found him nowhere. He came across mercenaries lying asleep here and there, wounded men and women sitting up in pain, and their guards plus the local warriors keeping watch on the jungle verge. Where had the fool got to, he wondered, when a spear haft across his chest halted him once more and a great tall familiar figure smothered him in a hug and lifted him from his feet.

‘Ha! Returned from the depths of the jungle, I see. Alone you treated with our wild kin, hey? Who else could do such a brave thing!’

Murk pushed himself free of the embrace. ‘Yes. Hello, Ursa.’

She stamped the butt of the spear to the ground. ‘Hello? Is that all Ursa gets from her man? You will give me much more later, yes?’ and she cuffed him, almost knocking him from his feet.

‘Absolutely. Looking forward to it,’ he murmured, then, louder, ‘I’m searching for my partner, Sour. Seen him?’

She wrinkled her broad nose. ‘The smelly fellow? Yes. Headed off with the scouts.’

Murk was surprised. ‘What’s he doing?’

She waved her irritation. ‘Asking a lot of foolish questions.’

‘Ah. Well. I will see you later then.’ He began backing away.

‘Yes! Till then!’

‘Right.’

As he walked away he heard her shouting to her comrades: ‘All alone he went! What a man! Who else would dare such a thing? Did I not choose well?’ He hung his head and felt his shoulders falling. Mercenaries nearby offered merciless grins. Some blew noisy kisses.

Then he ran into Burastan. The Seven Cities woman wore only her loose silk shirt and linen trousers. Her long dark hair hung dishevelled down over her shoulders and her arm was tightly wrapped. She seemed to glower at him, frowning. Annoyed, he snapped, ‘What are you looking at?’

‘Just trying to figure out what she sees.’

He pushed past her. ‘Thanks a lot.’ He happened to glance back and saw her still watching after him. What in the Abyss? Maybe it’s as they say: there’s nothing that interests a woman more than another woman’s interest.

He sat down in a nook of two roots of a tall wide tree. What the locals called a strangler fig. Here he sat, unable to sleep, and dawn was just a few hours away in any case.

It was after dawn that Sour emerged from the jungle verge accompanied by a gaggle of Oroth-en’s scouts. The mercenaries were already up building cookfires, readying equipment and changing bindings on wounds. Murk pushed himself up on to his numb tingling legs, stamped them, and headed over.

‘Where were you, dammit?’ he demanded, storming up. Then he paused, startled, as his partner turned to him. Gone was his rotting corroded helmet. His greasy curly mop of hair was pulled back and tied. And his face was painted in an approximation of the locals’ tattooing. Murk looked him up and down, unable to contain a sneer. ‘What’s all this? You’re no local.’

The man blinked his bulging mismatched eyes. ‘No. But these folks know what they’re doin’ so I figure-’

‘Well don’t. Everyone’s going to laugh at you and you’ll make us look like idiots. Now wash all that off.’

Sour’s pleased expression dropped and he kicked at the dirt. ‘I think it’s kinda like camouflage, their tattooing ’n’ all,’ he said, his head lowered. ‘I think it could help us, you know.’

‘You just look like a play-acting fool.’

Now Sour twisted his mud-caked fingers together, picking at the dried dirt. ‘I was just thinking that since they get by maybe we should look at how they do things, you know. Like their medicines!’ He shot a quick glance up. ‘You should see what they got out here. It’s amazing! They say there’s this one flower, and if you …’

He trailed off. Murk was shaking his head in obvious disapproval. ‘What’s got into you, Sour? You don’t sound like the man I used to know.’ He raised his hands. ‘Okay. Fine. So they’re new and different and interesting. That doesn’t mean you have to go all gushing puppy-eyed on them.’

‘I wasn’t …’

But Murk wasn’t looking at him any longer. Another figure had emerged from the verdant ocean-green of the hanging leaves. A smeared mixture of the ochre-red soil merged with the thick grey-green of clay covered the man from head to foot. Beneath this layer he wore only a light leather hauberk and a hanging skirt of loose cloth that fell to his knees. Leather swathing wound round his calves down to leather sandals. Twinned long-knives hung on two belts round his waist, and he carried a spear that was nothing more than a stripped branch. This he stamped into the ground as he halted before them. The twig clenched between his teeth slowly lowered.

‘What?’ the man grunted, and moved on past.

Sour was fairly hugging himself in suppressed glee. ‘You was sayin’?’ he prompted.

‘Nothing,’ Murk snapped, and he walked away.

* * *

A river stopped their eastward advance. They came upon it suddenly — as one comes across everything suddenly in the deep jungle. Pushing aside wide leaves, Hanu nearly pitched forward down the steep cliff of its shore in a repeat of his plunge into the sinkhole. As it was, he pulled himself back by grasping handholds of the thick leaves and wrenching the brush and nearby trunks. This set off an explosion of startled birds that spread their squawking and squalling alarm in all directions.

Among the dispersing storm Saeng glimpsed crimson longtailed parrots that glided across the river, a gyring flock of brilliant emerald parakeets, and many sunbirds with their bright gold breasts. A shower of flower petals followed the birds’ sudden flight. They floated down to cover Hanu’s glittering armour in a layer of even more intense sapphire blue and creamy gold.

‘Sunbirds!’ Hanu sent to her, pointing. Saeng nodded and covered a smile at the image of a yakshaka warrior decked out like a giddy child during the spring festival of Light. ‘Didn’t Mother say those birds were sacred to the old Sun worship?’

Saeng lost her smile. She shrugged her impatience. ‘They’re everywhere. Anyway,’ she gestured angrily to the sluggish course of the river, ‘how’re we going to get across that?’

‘I don’t know.’

Saeng agreed with the wariness she heard in her brother’s thoughts. She knew that others were not afraid of water, but her people were taught to avoid it as treacherous and the carrier of disease and sickness. She didn’t know anyone who could swim. As to boats or canoes — she’d never even seen one. And Hanu, well, he’d sink like a stone.

‘I suppose,’ Hanu continued, ‘we trace the shore and hope to find a village. They might have canoes.’

‘You can’t cross that! You’d sink … wouldn’t you?’

He edged back from the shore and started pushing his way south, clearing her a path. ‘Can’t be helped.’

Saeng followed, picking her way through the serrated knife-sharp edges of the broad leaves. ‘Hanu,’ she asked after a while, ‘in all that time,’ cruel gods — twelve years! Has it truly been that long? ‘was there anyone for you? A girlfriend? Perhaps even … a wife?’

He paused in his heaving aside of the thick brush. In his broad armoured back, hunched now, she read an aching sadness. Ancestors knew what emotions might have overcome her should she have dared to touch upon his thoughts. As it was, an image flashed across her mind of searing hot metal and, bewildering to her, an even more painful sense of burning shame. He turned to her, sap running in thick clots down his armoured arms, his helmed head lowered.

‘We are not allowed such things,’ he finally communicated, allowing only a tight sliver of a channel from his thoughts. ‘Our loyalty is to be absolute.’

‘Yet you … deserted.’

‘They were too late. I had already pledged my loyalty.’

Something in that frank declaration disturbed Saeng and she backed away. ‘To … me?’

Perhaps it was the closeness of their linked thoughts, but he seemed to understand her unease and he swept an armoured hand between them as if to diffuse her disquiet. ‘As your guardian, Saeng. You yourself conspired in this, yes?’

Yes, poor Hanu, I did. What choice did you ever have? There, you have found it. My true distress. You have spoken it. My guilt in your bindings. If not for them you never would have …

But she could not continue. Could not say it even to herself. And so she turned away to fiercely wipe her eyes, her lips clenched against sobs that tore at her throat. Oh, Hanu! What have I done to you …

Yet her brother continued, unaware. ‘All those nights, Saeng. Watching. Guarding you. After a time I saw hints of the passing spirits as they came to you. So many! The Nak-ta all pledging their service and loyalty … to you. I knew then that you were special. That the most important thing for me would be to somehow serve as well. And I know now what you were, are, to them. And to me.’

Terrible gods, give me the strength! Saeng forced herself round to face her brother — she owed him that. She pulled the back of her hand across her eyes to clear them and stammered, her voice almost strangled with emotion, ‘And that is?’

‘Our priestess, Saeng. The Priestess of Light come again.’

‘No.’

‘What else?’ He swept his heavy arms wide. ‘Is all this for naught? This upheaval? A great change is pending — I heard it whispered among the Thaumaturgs. They fear some rising power. Could this not be you?’

She backed away in earnest now, shaking her head. ‘I do not seek power.’

‘Whether you seek it or not, it is on its way. Best be prepared then, yes?’

‘Best listen to the lad,’ a new voice snarled down upon them and they started, peering about. Hanu’s broad yataghan whispered from its oiled wood sheath. Then Saeng spotted the source among a dense tangle of hanging lianas: some sort of long-limbed golden-haired creature peering down with its glittering tiny black eyes. ‘Who are you?’ she demanded, lifting her chin.

With startling speed the creature descended hand over hand to settle with a heavy thump. It straightened its hunched shaggy back to stand fully as tall as the towering Hanu, then stretched extraordinarily long hairy arms and exposed yellow fangs in a grin. It reminded her of a monstrous gibbon.

‘Listen to the freak,’ it said and jerked a thumb at Hanu.

Caught utterly surprised, Saeng almost choked out a laugh. This thing calls Hanu a freak?

Remembering her prior encounter with these children of the Queen of Witches, Saeng found her courage and kept her gaze steady. ‘What do you want?’

‘I have come all the way down to the profane earth to give you warning.’

‘Warning? About what?’

‘This.’ And the creature thrust out one impossibly long arm to slam Hanu in the chest, sending him flying backwards into the brush. With his other arm he reached out to wrap a long-fingered hand round Saeng’s arm and dragged her close. A flip and he now had her leg and he dangled her in the air before his grinning face. ‘What would you do, child, were I to do this to you?’

From the brush a groan sounded. The creature’s bright black eyes slid aside. ‘Shall I twist his head off?

‘No! Please. Don’t. I beg you-’

It shook her. ‘Beg?’ it snarled, offended. ‘You’re in the jungle, child. Begging won’t serve. Did Citravaghra teach you nothing?’

‘Citravaghra?’

The creature brought its hand to its mouth to mimic long bared fangs. ‘The Night Hunter.’

Ah. So that is his name. ‘He spoke to me. He said I — that I had power.’

‘Exactly!’ The beast tossed her high then caught her leg once more, jerking her neck fiercely. ‘Do not move,’ he suddenly warned, pointing aside.

Craning her aching neck she spotted Hanu, weapon readied, facing the monster.

‘So,’ it continued, eyeing her now. ‘Have power, do you?’ It drew her closer to sniff at her face. Its breath was repulsive. ‘Let’s see it. Come on.’ It shook her anew.

Knives of pain slit into Saeng’s neck. ‘Please don’t do that.’

‘What? This?’ It dangled her even more savagely.

Blasted insulting creature. Fine! I’ll give you power. Saeng reached within herself, remembering the guiding words of her countless tutors to form and concentrate her inner wellspring. Then she gathered all the energy she envisaged dwelling within and sent it lancing at the beast.

A great clap of displaced air boomed before her and the ground leaped up to smack her in the back. She lay for a time, dazed, then slowly straightened, groaning and dizzy.

‘Saeng …’ Hanu murmured, awed.

Before her a great swath had been cut from the ground. It gouged a path through the brush to end at the base of a towering tualang where the broad bulwark of its arched roots had absorbed the blast. But not without damage as a bright fresh crack now curved up its tower-thick trunk. Branches and leaves pelted down from on high. On all sides roars and shrieks and squalls of protest sounded into the waning afternoon light.

Movement and a scrabbling of nails on bark and the gibbon-like creature emerged from among the buttressing roots. It slapped a hand to its head. ‘That’s … a start,’ it gasped, breathless.

‘A start to what?’ Saeng demanded. ‘Speak!’

The beast began edging up the trunk by feeling behind itself with its elongated hands and feet. ‘To what is to come.’ It grinned, baring its teeth.

Saeng closed on the giant of a tree. ‘And that is?’ she shouted up at the creature.

Now close to the mid-canopy heights it called down, mockingly: ‘Something for which you must prepare.’

‘Not good enough,’ she snarled to herself. Hanu had come to her side but she pushed him back. ‘Prepare for this, you insolent ape!’

She pooled all her resentment, rage and frustration into one concentrated searing spark and threw it against the base of the tualang.

The release tossed her flying backwards. The next thing she was aware of was Hanu pulling her upright and steadying her. She stood with his aid, blinking, dazed. ‘Look!’ he urged, sounding almost fearful.

The immense straight length of the tall emergent tree was swaying and bending like a whipped sapling. Hanu’s strong arm urged her back now as bursting explosions shook its base and, one after another, each of the broad arching supporting roots snapped.

Slowly, the great sky-tall stretch of its trunk came tilting down through the canopy, which it crushed and parted with ease. The trunk, far broader round than any hut, slid off its fresh stump, shaking the ground, and seemed to simply lie down across the jungle like a giant taking its ease. Reverberations of the series of crashes echoed from all about. Yet this time the surrounding leagues of forest were utterly silent, as if shocked, or disbelieving.

Strangely, the only thought that came to her was: I hope I fall as gracefully.

At her side, Hanu raised his yataghan blade to examine it, shook his helmed head, and sheathed it. ‘You hardly need my protection, Saeng.’

‘But I want it.’

He grunted something that might have been a shy sort of gratitude. ‘Well.’ He invited her forward. ‘Let’s see how our friend fared.’

He helped her up the great tilted base with its torn roots like severed arms reaching to the sky. Together they walked the length of the trunk. It lay as a clear easy path through the crushed tangle. Close to where the crown had snapped away they found the beast. It lay next to the slim bole, one arm beneath it, blinking up at them. ‘Shouldn’t go throwing trees at people,’ it croaked.

‘What do you know?’ Saeng demanded.

It tugged on its arm. ‘Ah, well. Nothing, really. Serves me right. Just what the seers among us sense. A terrifying thing is coming. And you may play a part.’

She knelt to better peer down at it. ‘What is your name?’

‘My name? Varakapi.’

‘And what is this terrifying thing?’

‘Saeng …’ Hanu murmured, calling her attention.

‘This thing?’ the creature answered. A fresh grin grew, pulling its black lips away from its prominent fangs. ‘Why, that most terrifying thing of all. Change, of course.’

‘Saeng …’ Hanu urged anew.

She straightened. ‘What?’ He lifted his armoured chin ahead. She turned to squint into the deepening honey gloom of dusk. The fall of the giant tualang had parted a swath of the jungle and now she could glimpse a section of the river. There, in the far distance, a bizarre feature seemed to overtop its flat course. It took some time for her to understand what she was looking at as she’d never before seen one of its type. It appeared to be an enormous bridge.

She glanced down to ask Varakapi of it but snapped her mouth shut. He was gone. She snorted her grudging half-admiration. Cunning beast. Yet not truly a beast. A man-ape, child of the jungle, ward of the Queen of Witches, Ardata.

It was long after dusk when they reached the structure. Saeng was in an awful mood. The last stretch had been the worst she’d experienced yet: low-lying swampy ground plagued by biting insects. She was filthy with sweat and reeking mud. And the evening downpour was gathering in rumblings and distant flashes of lightning. The wide causeway that led to the bridge emerged from the muck as if from the sea. Saeng imagined the river must have flooded countless times, or shifted its course, since the edifice was built. Indeed, huge jungle emergents crowned the causeway. They had pushed aside its cyclopean blocks the way a child might knock over toys. The river coursed ahead, silent and dark.

‘We may just make it …’ Hanu murmured.

‘Not tonight. Not in the dark.’

He glittered now in the night. The rain had cleaned the dust and mud from his inlay mosaic of semi-precious stones. Sapphire, emerald and gold flashed keenly as he moved. He gestured aside. ‘Perhaps there is cover from the rain below.’

‘And beasts.’

‘Nothing you cannot handle, Saeng.’

She followed, wishing she shared his confidence in her abilities. There was cover where the wide arch of the stone bridge cleared the shore, but there was also thick clammy mud that weighted her sandals. Hanu led her to a modest hump where the mud had dried to a hardened cracked surface. She spread her thick sleeping blanket and sat, tucking her legs beneath her.

‘I will try to find dry wood,’ Hanu said and pushed off through the tall stands of grass and cattails.

Once Hanu had been gone for a time the dead came.

Saeng turned her face away; she did not want to deal with them now. Their endless demands and neediness. Who would have imagined that the dead should be so needy? But they were. They did not know the meaning of the word surcease. Which was probably why they wandered, ever searching — searching for something they would not even recognize should they find it.

They watched her silently from among the brush. On all sides their sad liquid eyes implored her. Girls mostly here. Young women. ‘What do you want?’ she hissed, keeping her gaze lowered.

‘Help us,’ they whispered in her thoughts, pleading.

‘How?’

‘Help us.’

The barest hint of their longing and profound grief touched her then and she felt tears mark their hot descent down her cheeks. ‘Go away. I cannot help you.’

‘Help us.’ Something disturbed them then and they retreated into the gloom. Their fading was like a heartbreaking sigh in the night. Hanu emerged from the dry brush to set down an armload of driftwood. He started preparing a fire.

After the blaze came alight, he sat back to regard the surroundings. ‘This is a sad place,’ he said.

‘Yes. The misery here is so strong even you can sense it, Hanu.’ She edged closer to the fire to dry her skirts. ‘It seems that for many centuries this bridge has been a favourite site for suicides. Both voluntary and involuntary. Young girls mostly.’

‘Involuntary?’

‘Yes. Pregnant, or lovesick, or just plain despairing, they drowned themselves here. Or were drowned.’ She rubbed at her neck. ‘I can feel them, Hanu,’ she said, her voice growing ever more faint. ‘Hundreds of hands at my throat, choking. I am peering up through the water at the faces of brothers and fathers, some rapists, some not. I know that later I will be blamed for my own death. But the most tragic thing is, Hanu, that even now, I still love my family. Even as they-’

‘Saeng!’ Hanu exclaimed, horrorstruck. ‘Do not torture yourself. There is nothing you can do.’

‘They seem to think there is.’

‘Well … they are mistaken.’

Saeng didn’t know if they were or not — no doubt they pleaded for help from everyone who could sense them. She lay on her side and pulled her legs up close to her chest, tucking in her skirts around them, and stared into the dancing flames of the fire. Something ought to be done. She just had no idea what.

Hanu straightened and turned to face away from the fire.

‘You still will not sleep?’

‘No. I will keep watch. The … treatments … and conditioning leave me able to answer that need while remaining awake.’

‘I see.’ She wanted to say she was sorry, but worried that perhaps she shouldn’t. After all, this was how he was now and nothing could be done.

With the dawn they ate a very meagre meal of a few remaining scraps of dried fish, the last of their rice and foraged overripe fruit. Then they walked round to climb up on to the broad course of the stone bridge. Saeng had no idea how old it was but was certain her people could never have raised such an immense edifice. It was ancient, then, and cyclopean. Like a mountain of stone laid across the river. Yet some sort of equally vast trauma appeared to have assaulted it. Wide columns and plinths to either side lay fallen or sheared, broken ages ago. The arches no longer ran true, but had been pushed to the side as if a giant had heaved against them. From the silts of the flood plain a massive stone face stared at the sky, its eyes now clumps of grasses, its lips buried in the mud. Cruel, that face appeared to her. Or perhaps merely unfathomable. Saeng brushed at the eternal clouds of insects that surrounded her, while shimmering dragonflies darted about partaking of the massed offering.

Hanu stilled. A man stood awaiting them in the middle of the bridge. With a hand at his back, Saeng urged him onward.

‘Greetings,’ the man welcomed them, bowing. He was old, dressed in rags that might have once been robes of some kind. His wild hair was a halo about his sun- and wind-darkened wrinkled features and his eyes and grin had a touched, manic look to them. ‘Please, accompany me. We get so few visitors. It is an honour! Please,’ and he gestured, inviting.

In answer Hanu drew his yataghan and pressed its honed point to the man’s bony chest. ‘Hanu!’ Saeng cried.

‘He is one of them.’

‘Thaumaturg?’

The old man nodded jerkily, grinning his antic manic grin. ‘Yes, yes. Such things cannot be hidden from our very own servants, yes? Yes, once. Now I am not. I fled them — but I could not escape them. Yes? You know what I mean. Follow me!’ And he turned abruptly, heading off with a quick shuffling gait.

‘He is mad,’ Hanu whispered.

Saeng merely arched a brow. ‘What makes you say that?’

‘No — I am certain. It is one of the curses the Thaumaturgs level against any among their number who disagree, foment trouble, or desert the common orthodoxy.’

Following along, Saeng answered, ‘Wouldn’t it be easier just to kill them?’

Hanu’s armoured boots scraped over the huge paving stones. He walked with his hands clasped at his back. ‘No. You miss the point entirely — which is to your credit. You do not understand cruelty. The Thaumaturgs value their thinking minds above all else. To have that torn from you is punishment indeed. Also, keeping such unfortunates about is most instructional to the rest of the rank and file, yes?’

Saeng shuddered. ‘You are right. I do not understand the regimen of cruelty.’

‘For that I am glad.’

The madman waved them on, grinning like a child on his birthday. ‘Come, come. Follow my lead.’ He sidled up close to Saeng and lowered his voice as if conferring a secret: ‘Though in truth you cannot, as I think differently now and see things which my blinkered brethren are incapable of.’

Saeng nodded her guarded agreement. ‘Of that I have no doubt.’

‘Exactly! And so I must thank them. The method of instruction may be vindictive and inexcusable but in this case it has led to enlightenment.’ He opened his hands as if to express the obviousness of it. ‘You see?

‘Yes. I … see.’

‘Excellent! It is a shame, really. I am suffused with pity for my brothers and sisters who can only writhe like blind worms in the mud while I now soar among boundless vistas.’

‘Where are you taking us?’ Ahead winds shivered the massed emerald jungle canopy. A storm of crimson and gold flower petals came showering down in the gusts like swirling flocks of birds. Hanu brushed them from his shoulders. The priest held out his cupped hands to gather a few stray petals.

‘Tears of Himatan,’ he said, offering them to Saeng.

‘Pardon?’

‘Flower petals. This is what they are. Tears of Himatan.’

Saeng hadn’t heard that old superstition since she sat listening to ghost stories as a child. A stray thought — a touch mocking — moved her to ask, ‘And what does Himatan weep for?’

‘For her children.’

That answer made her shiver and the small hairs of her arms and neck actually stirred. Mad, she told herself. The man is mad.

Once they were clear of the far end of the cyclopean bridge the forest engulfed them once more and Saeng felt chilled to be among the gloom and dappled shadows. She missed the clean heat of the sun and the woods that had seemed so full of life next to the river — so many new bird calls. One possessed a piercing rising and falling whistle that made her jump each time it let loose.

Carefully, Hanu gestured aside. Two children, a boy and a girl, had emerged from the dense brush. Seeing them just after the madman’s odd pronouncement unnerved Saeng even further. They wore only the very traditional, even outmoded now, loin wrap. Their hair also had been prepared in the old style that one only hears of in the folk tales: the head shaved but for a single small tightly braided queue hanging on one side. Each held out a circlet woven of pink and orange flower blossoms.

‘Please, take them,’ the Thaumaturg said.

Saeng felt positively alarmed now, but offered the children a smile then bent low. The girl slipped her lei over her head. Hanu merely peered down at the boy. Saeng gestured for him to comply. His stance betraying a sigh, her brother took the lei and slipped it over his helm.

‘Now you are our honoured guests,’ the mage announced. ‘Come. A banquet is being prepared. A momentous event is to come. Sit, rest, enjoy.’

The children led them off the raised causeway into the dense jungle. If there was a path here Saeng could see no sign of it. Then she smelled the familiar homey scent of wood smoke and cooking — or thought she did. Perhaps it was merely the memory of such things that had come to mind. Ahead rose the peaks of some ten or twelve huts standing tall on their poles, as in the traditional construction. The children ran ahead, scattering chickens. Pigs, captured wild ones, rooted under the huts. Each was secured by a rope of woven twine.

‘Come, come,’ the mage urged and he motioned to a hut where the villagers were gathering. The men and women all looked as if they had been taken straight from some old story from her childhood: hair brush-cut severely short, both men and women, and all in plain blue-dyed shirts. Each bowed to Saeng and Hanu, who answered. They motioned to the main hut’s short set of stairs, inviting them in.

Here Saeng paused. So far she had been willing to go along with whatever emerged from the jungle. Some encounters seemed more or less random — such as their meeting with Varakapi — which could have occurred at any day or time. But other meetings seemed fated, or unavoidable. As if they’d been arranged by someone or something. What, or who, that might be Saeng had no idea, though she had her suspicions. The encounter with the man-leopard Citravaghra had possessed that flavour. And she felt it here again, as well. She was inclined to cooperate in that she sensed nothing malign in the attention. Yet it was of course disturbing that she could not yet understand — nor yet know even whether she was capable of understanding.

And as the demented Thaumaturg was a demonstration: some lessons can be most harrowing indeed.

And so she mounted the stairs and took her place on the mats arranged in a broad oval. The mage sat on her right while Hanu took her left. Children came bearing banana leaves, which they laid before each person at the banquet. Then came rice steaming in wide clay pots. Saeng sampled the rice and the stewed meats and spiced vegetable dishes before her but tasted none of it. Flowers adorned every selection. Indeed, a few of the dishes mainly comprised edible flowers. And blossoms adorned every child and adult present.

Outside night fell quickly and torches on poles were lit against the dark. The bright jade glow of the Omen had been haunting the west and now with the darkness it came to dominate the night far more brightly than any full moon. Saeng squinted at one of the open windows, troubled. The Banner, or Scimitar, seemed unaccountably intense this evening. She raised a hand to the west. ‘What do you call that light?’

The Thaumaturg’s manic features turned down and he sighed heavily, as if suddenly overcome by an unbearable sadness. ‘That is the coming judgement of the High King, Kallor. This night it shall fall.’

Saeng dropped the ball of rice she had gathered in her hand. The room darkened as her vision closed to a tight tunnel and a roaring swelled in her hearing as if the descending Omen itself were crashing in upon her. She lowered her head, blinking, and forced the air deep within her chest.

‘Saeng?’ Hanu enquired from her side. She raised a hand to reassure him. Now she knew why the food tasted of nothing and why the smells seemed only remembered. All were ghosts. The people. The children. Even the village itself. Gone, long gone. Wiped from the earth.

She took a long slow breath to calm the fluttering in her chest then shot a glance to the mage. ‘When?’

He raised his head to the west. ‘Soon,’ he sighed. ‘Any moment now.’

Saeng was appalled. She swept a hand over the banquet. ‘Then why this? Why not flee now?’

‘There is no time. And nowhere to go. What I argued against has come to pass.’

‘Then … why …’ Again she gestured helplessly to the gathered bounty.

The madman smiled his understanding. ‘We celebrate the High King. Under him we have known centuries of peace and we honour him now. It is our way of saying farewell.’

Saeng could only blink at the mage. ‘You … honour Kallor?’

Now he studied her as if she were the touched one. ‘Of course.’

She turned from the madman. ‘Hanu,’ she began, uncertain how to convey this.

‘Yes?’

‘This insane Thaumaturg says-’

A blazing emerald light pierced the hut and Saeng broke off to cover her gaze. All stood to face the west, hands and arms shading their gazes. A pillar of green light now dominated the western horizon only to fade to nothing even as Saeng glimpsed it. All was complete silence, for the jungle had stilled in every direction. Eerie it was, the unnatural quiet. Saeng blinked, blinded, as after staring at the fire at night.

‘Now it comes,’ the Thaumaturg breathed into the silence.

Saeng turned on the man. ‘Tell me what to do! What must I do to avert this?’

‘I do not know what you must do, High Priestess. I can only say that you must not despair. What rises must fall only to rise again. What has gone shall come again. It is the way of the world.’

The surrounding treetops now stirred and groaned in a rising wind and Saeng knew that what was on its way was far more than a strong wind. She took hold of the man’s tattered shirt front. ‘What does this mean? Platitudes? I asked you to help me, damn you!’

‘Saeng?’ Hanu asked again. ‘What is going on?’

The man’s gaze was fixed far beyond her. ‘Yea,’ he murmured, ‘those who reach for fire shall be destroyed by fire. For she is the Destroyer and the Creator and in her dance are we revealed.’

‘What? Babbling …’ Saeng’s attention shifted to the west where a moaning now climbed to a roar as of continuous thunder. Around her parents held children, faces pressed to faces; loved ones hugged, crying and rocking. Then a wall of churning and billowing darkness hammered through the jungle verge, obliterating it, and Saeng screamed.

* * *

Mara fell into thin ochre-red muddy soil and rotting leaf matter. Convulsing, she dry-heaved, her body attempting to rid itself of any possible ingested toxins, yet her stomach was empty and so only sticky acid bile burned on her tongue. She spat and gagged.

Birdsong assaulted her ears, along with the whirring and buzzing of countless insects, including the startlingly loud cicadas, which she found particularly maddening. Lurching to her feet she staggered, hands mimicking strangulation. ‘Where is he!’ she slurred and spat, wiping her mouth. ‘I’ll fucking kill him.’ In the distance, through the fronds and tree trunks, she glimpsed Thaumaturg soldiery marching single file. Labourers passed, bent almost horizontal beneath the tump-lines of enormous loads.

‘He’s run off,’ Petal groaned from nearby.

She searched for and found the man lying like a beached whale. For a moment she entertained the idea of attempting to help him up, reconsidered. There was no way she could budge that great bulk.

Skinner arrived then, and clasping the man by the robes at his shoulder, hauled him to his feet. ‘We are returned,’ Petal announced, peering about.

‘Indeed,’ Mara murmured, but only half scathingly. She’d learned more of the man during this mission than she’d ever known before — or in truth had bothered to know before. While he might be awkward, plodding and pedantic in his mannerisms, he was also no fool. She might have been wrong to be so dismissive of him all these years. He was loyal, and conveniently apolitical. Perhaps she should dedicate some time to finding the lever that would bind him to her. If she could then cajole Red to her side … then … then she would have real clout and could consider intervening in command decisions. If necessary. For Skinner’s own good, of course.

A Thaumaturg officer approached, pushing aside the ferns and hanging vines. He saluted Skinner. ‘Master Golan has a standing order that you report at once, sir.’

Skinner did not answer the salute. ‘Fine,’ he growled. The officer inclined his head and marched stiffly away. Skinner indicated the column. ‘They are making even less time than I’d imagined.’

‘None will see daylight again,’ Petal affirmed.

‘Well then,’ Mara said, and she invited Skinner onward. ‘Things are proceeding nicely.’

Master Golan’s covered palanquin was now no more than a sagging chair on poles. He sat in it glowering down at them and slapping a horsehair switch about his head and shoulders to ward off the hanging clouds of insects. ‘And where have you been?’ he demanded. ‘Perhaps it is an amusing idiosyncrasy of mine, but I prefer my allies to be present at my battles.’

Skinner gave a vague gesture. ‘We were pursuing leads. There have been many attacks, then?’

The Thaumaturg’s wide frog mouth clamped shut and he frowned, seemingly uncomfortable.

A scrawny clerk nearby cleared his throat. ‘Attacks from the Witch-Queen’s creatures have in fact fallen off sharply.’

Master Golan glared at the man.

Skinner gave a slow nod of agreement. ‘Excellent. Our approach is working, then. Anything else?’

‘No,’ the Thaumaturg allowed, almost choking on the word. ‘That is all. You will notify me when you next plan on wandering off pursuing these, ah, leads. Yes?’

Skinner half bowed. ‘Yes.’

‘Very good.’ Master Golan waved the switch. ‘You may go.’

Walking away, Skinner ordered Mara, ‘Find me Jacinth and Shijel.’

They met together in conclave around a fire that, like all those kindled here in Himatan, generated far more smoke than any appreciable heat or flame. Skinner stood, helm under an arm, his thick dirty-blond hair flattened with sweat. He was growing a full ruddy-blond beard as well. No scabbard hung from his weapon belt; he’d thrown it away as useless. While everyone else’s armour and fittings betrayed the green, black and ochre-rust of corrosion from the constant damp, the glittering black mail that swept down to his ankles revealed no such deterioration. It occurred to Mara that perhaps it was enamelled, or consisted of some sort of non-metal layering. A hardened resin, perhaps.

Shijel had discarded any pretence to armour and wore now only a hauberk of banded layers of leather, and a scarlet silk sash over wide black trousers pulled tight at the ankles by tall sandals. His twinned Untan duelling swords were thrust through the sash. The man had always dressed his black hair straight and long. But now because of the lack of water for washing and the crabs and lice that infested everyone, he had hacked it all off and now stood with a stubbled scalp, scraped raw and clotted by dried scabs of blood. His lean wolfish features held a barely suppressed impatience.

Red, the company’s third surviving mage, stood wrapped in his tattered old camp blanket. The grey stubble of a beard, as no one was shaving any more, lined his sunken aged cheeks. The patches of iron-grey hair on his mostly bald pate stood unkempt in all directions. His rheumy eyes, however, still held their usual humour. As if this were all one big joke — on them. Petal stood next to him, appearing even greater in bulk for it. He nibbled on a yellow star-shaped fruit taken from the jungle.

Jacinth came to stand next to Mara and she nodded her greeting. The lieutenant’s thick auburn hair was piled up high off her neck and held there by long metal pins. Her armour of leather scales, enamelled bright crimson and engraved in intaglio swirls, appeared no worse for wear. She must oil the damned suit every night. So far Mara had always got along with her, or at least Jacinth was no more dismissive and scornful of her than of anyone else. Everyone knew there was only one reason why she stood now with Skinner — because Shimmer had not.

‘Casualties?’ Skinner asked her.

She frowned a negative, to which Skinner grunted his acceptance. This was as much cooperation as the swordswoman ever allowed; she’d probably tell the god of death to piss off.

‘We’re wasting our time here,’ Shijel growled.

Skinner scratched his chin beneath his beard. His gaze remained on the smouldering fire, thoughtful.

Petal cleared his throat, cautiously. ‘I am of a mind with our weaponmaster,’ he put in.

Shijel appeared quite surprised. ‘You are?’

‘How so?’ Skinner asked, not looking up.

All other eyes turned to the big man and his cheeks flushed. He picked at the fruit. ‘Well, clearly Ardata’s attention is not here — yes?’

Jacinth rolled her eyes to the branches of the jungle canopy arching above. Mara took it upon herself to prompt, ‘Yes?’

‘Just so.’ Petal nodded, his fat neck wobbling. ‘So. The question implied by this is — just what is commanding her attention?’

Skinner’s gaze rose, slit now almost closed. ‘I see your point, Petal.’

The fat man was nodding even more vigorously, his chin doubling and tripling. ‘Yes. We were perhaps wrong to so casually allow a certain thing to wander willy-nilly through the jungle. What if it should fall into her hands? Would this not complicate things?’

Mara started, surprised. Ye gods! Why didn’t I think of that?

Skinner was stroking his chin, his gaze on the shadowed recesses of the jungle. ‘Thank you, Petal. Perhaps I was too hasty earlier.’ The big mage hunched his rounded shoulders, keenly embarrassed by the praise. ‘Now we just have to find that damned priest.’

‘I believe he travels with the labourers,’ Mara supplied.

Skinner gave a curt nod and a wave, indicating the end of the meeting. Everyone went their own way.

* * *

Many generations ago the fisherfolk of Tien learned not to fool with the field of towering dolmens that lay on this spit of land. It was not for them. Foreigners, however, appeared to never learn better. Every few years or so ships would come and these foreigners would unload their cargo of weapons and metal equipage. Then they would troop inland.

Mostly they returned much diminished in treasure and in blood. Sometimes they never returned. Often these visitations were accompanied by unnatural lights and sounds, or low clouds in which shadowy shapes moved. Sometimes even the earth itself shook. When this happened the fisherfolk hid in their huts, clutched their idols, and prayed to every god and demon in existence that they be passed over.

And so it was even stranger than usual that the low churning clouds should return so long after the latest batch of foreigners had fled. Flickering aurora-like flares cast their glow against the night sky and muted roars and cries terrorized everyone. The earth even shuddered now and then. The clustered households, hardly a village, gathered to decide what to do. Mostly they yelled and wept and struck one another but out of the free-for-all emerged the sound consensus that most societies reach: that the weakest and least important of them should go have a look.

So useless Gall, mostly just called Lackwit, was kicked from the hut and told to go or never be fed again. He cried and clutched the doorpost, but a well-placed bare foot to his face sent their brave scout on his way.

He blubbered and wiped the snot from his face as he staggered up the dunes into the storm of winds and dark roiling clouds. Fiercely blowing sands struck him, as would be the case in any normal windstorm. But this one raged only over the dolmens and not further up the spit in either direction. He tied a scrap of rag over his mouth and nose and leaned into the wind. It was dark now. Churned sand and dust mixed with the clouds to paint everything a dirty yellow. The inconsistent winds gusted fiercely only to suddenly die out to nothing. Gall was reduced to crawling on all fours.

He banged his head into a stone and lay with his arms wrapped around his throbbing skull. After a time he opened his eyes to see that he’d found a dolmen. He could make out other noises now over the booming winds: what sounded like great snarling roars of rage such as those from some enormous animal. Like a bear, was all that he could think of. Except much larger. Large enough to shake the earth.

Yet occasionally other sounds emerged from the dark. What sounded like a woman’s cries of pain and grunts of effort. Or dark cursing in words he could not understand. This confused him as he lay behind the cover of the dolmen, until he hit upon the image of a woman cornered by a bear. Another image briefly came to mind, of a bear and a woman mating, and even though the idea aroused him he set it aside because he wanted to be the one mating with the woman. This happy idea emboldened him to crawl closer.

Ahead, the storm of dust and thrown sand thickened to a near soup of darkness. Yet he could still make out something thrashing within: rearing, reaching, writhing. Unfortunately, it didn’t resemble either a bear or a woman. The only thing it reminded him of was either a monstrous bat — as he thought he’d glimpsed something like a webbed wing — or a snake, given all the flailing and twisting.

Then a limb emerged above the thickest roiling clouds of dust. It kept on rising, uncoiling, and at its end was an immense dagger-like head. All thoughts of bears and women and bats and snakes slid from Gall. It was something he’d heard told of and described in the stories he loved to listen to at night. A naga. A lizard-snake of the sort who served the Night-Queen, ruler of all the jungle. Caught here in the dolmens. Was that what this field of dolmens was? A huge trap for these creatures? Was this why they’d never seen one before?

The head and long neck thrashed, straining from side to side. Unseen wings pumped, churning up a massive billowing dirty yellow mass of sand and dust that stung his slit eyes. An unnerving groan of grinding stone rose then. A shearing sound, like rock in pain. A great tall silhouette in the darkness shifted. One of the dolmens fell inward, sliding into its separate piled sections. Something struck the ground nearby, in a meaty thump and shush of dry sliding sand and gravel, followed by silence.

The dark cloud slowly dispersed as the sands and dust came drifting down. The inner central ring of gravel appeared to have returned to its normal smooth calm. Heat radiated from it, though, like a stone taken from a fire. To Gall it felt as if he were pressing his face right up against a hearth.

A groan and a cough sounded from somewhere among the standing dolmens. He was encouraged once again, for it sounded like a woman. He searched among the forest of pillars. First he found the missing one. Or rather, where it had once stood at the very edge of the central ring. Now nothing of it remained. Gall wondered where it had gone. Had the naga flown off with it?

Then he found her. The woman. And she was naked! Despite his recent terror Gall’s member stirred to urgent life. Now they would mate. He would tell her he rescued her from the naga — just as in the old stories! He, Gall, naga-slayer!

The woman pushed herself upright and peered about. Gall’s member wilted as he saw how her eyes sizzled like the sun touching the horizon and how the sands smoked beneath her. Those eyes found him and their hooded gaze seemed to lacerate him like knives. He fell flat to his stomach, cringing and whimpering.

With his hands over his head he could only see the ground nearby. Here bare feet stopped and the goddess — perhaps the Night-Queen herself — spoke: ‘I would take your pitiful rags but I see that you’ve peed in them. And worse.’ The feet moved on.

After a time he worked up the courage to raise his head. She was gone. Perhaps the naga had come and taken her too. Or perhaps she rode it like a horse. There were stories of that too. But no, her footprints were clear. She was headed south. Of course! Back to Himatan! Where else would such a one go? Or come from, for that matter.

Gall headed back to the shore. He was frowning and distracted as he tried to work through what he’d seen. It was a labour he was unaccustomed to and it made his head hurt. At the hut the others confronted him.

‘What did you see?’

‘Were there foreigners there?’

‘We heard a yell in the winds — was that you crying for your mother?’

It was a strange sensation for Gall to suddenly discover that everyone was depending upon him. He realized that he didn’t want to let them down. And so he clenched his hands and brows and began, slowly, choosing his words with great care: ‘I believe a powerful spirit wandered out of Himatan and was trapped by the dolmens. It escaped and returned to the jungle.’

The others stared, stunned and amazed by the most eloquent and cogent speech they’d ever heard from him. Then as a group they fell upon him, beating his back and head with their fists and kicking him.

‘Fool!’

‘Liar!’

‘Expect us to believe that?’

‘You never even went, did you!’

Crouched beneath the flurry of blows, Gall wished then that he’d stayed with the whole naga-slaying and mating story instead.