Dusk

Chapter 25

“I’VE BEEN THERE,”Kosar said. He could not look at any of them, because the memory of Kang Kang was not something to be shared. “At least, I’ve been near there, and that was enough. It’s not… right.”

“And a river that runs uphill is?” Trey asked.

“Kang Kang has never been right,” Kosar said. “What we saw back at San was a travesty, but one with a very human cause due to what the Mages did. A’Meer, Hope, you must have heard the stories? Those mountains are not meant for humankind, and they should have never been a part of Noreela. They harbor things that should not be and which we can never know. A’Meer? Haven’t you heard?”

“Of course I have,” she said quietly.

“Hope?” Kosar asked.

The witch shrugged, shook her head. “I’ve heard a thousand tales, but never from someone I believed had truly been there. Men have always tried to impress me, women to make me jealous or mock me. I’ve heard more stories than I’d care to recall, but I don’t believe any of them. But I do know part of what you say is true, at least: Kang Kang is not of this land.”

Rafe sat silently on his horse, the others glancing up at him, down again, trying to make sense. He offered no response to Kosar’s argument. He had stated his aim, and it seemed that he had no inclination to discuss it further.

“Rafe, New Shanti is where you’ll be safest, I have no doubt of that,” Kosar said. “A’Meer has told me a lot about her people, their ways and their aims. They’re the opposite of the Red Monks. They’ll do anything- anything -to keep you alive and safe. A’Meer herself almost died trying to do so, you know that as well as anyone. Imagine ten thousand A’Meers fighting for you.”

“A million A’Meers could fight for me,” Rafe said, “and I’d be grateful. They could protect me and hide me, but in the end only magic can save itself. That’s why I need to go to Kang Kang.”

“Is it the magic telling you to go?” Trey asked.

“It doesn’t tell me to do anything. It can’t. It has no mind, nothing controlling it. Perhaps it leaves hints, offers suggestions, but they’re not orders. I don’t want to go there any more than you, Kosar, but I simply know it’s the safest place for me right now. The right place. If there’s going to be a war because of me, I’d rather be away from everyone else.”

“We should move,” A’Meer said. “We can talk about it while we’re walking.”

Kosar went to touch her arm but she was already turning, heading off ahead to scout the ground. She had her hand resting permanently on her sword hilt, as if certain that they would be battling again before the night was out.

RAFE SAT INthe saddle and moved in time with the horse. He had ridden a horse virtually every day back in Trengborne, either going out into the fields to take food to his parents, giving a lift to one of the elderly villagers as they went to and from the market, or simply exploring the hillsides of the wide valley. His mother had often told him that he learned to ride before he started walking. His horse back there had been a dappled Rhoshan, crossbred with a more common Laphal, but still with thoroughbred blood running through its veins, its race memory no doubt giving it dreams of running wild across the Cantrass Plains. He had named her Suki, and he had regarded her as a friend. She was not his and his alone-the poor farmers owned very little, everything was for the use of all-but she was his favorite, and he always believed that she gave a snort of pleasure when he approached, saddled her up and guided her out of the stables. Her Rhoshan blood made her less easy to control, but Rafe had liked that. They had ridden many miles together. He hoped that she was not dead. But it was a vain hope. The stables had been locked, and after the Red Monk visited their village there was no one left to open them.

Thinking of his life in the village comforted Rafe, because it made him feel more like himself. By dwelling on the hard days in the field he found that his own personality came to the fore once again. He rediscovered himself in those memories, pleased to realize that he had been there all along. Driven into hiding, perhaps, by the thing rising in his mind. Shocked into dumbness by its power. It was huge, intimidating, humbling and terrifying, but Rafe was still Rafe. This thing inside him was using him for a ride, just as he had once used Suki. He only hoped that the mutual admiration was the same.

He had lied to Trey, and he did not know why. The magic had not told him to go to Kang Kang, because as yet it did not possess a voice, but it had strongly suggested that path to him. In his sleep, in his unconsciousness-and in his mind’s eye now if he chose to look in and down toward that deep, dark place-its guidance toward those distant mountains was obvious. Behind them was heat and poison, ahead was danger and conflict, and it was only in the direction of Kang Kang that a successful outcome seemed possible. Just as he had lied to Trey, Rafe had no way of knowing how honest these visions and perceptions were. He did not know this magic. It was as much a stranger to him now as it had been back in Trengborne, as he hid beneath his home and watched the Monk slaughter his parents, heard it whispering to him up out of the grass, the stones, the ground itself. It was greater than it had been, vaster and more complex, and it seemed to expand every second, threatening to burst his mind should he dwell upon it too much. But still it was a mystery. He hoped that he would understand very soon.

He had lied to Trey, and he wished he could lie to himself as well. He wished he could believe that he and his small band of protectors controlled their own destiny, making decisions and planning their own path, instead of letting this mindless, unfathomable power give its own direction, aiding them at moments not of his choosing, turning him into nothing more than a horse to be steered and coerced the way its master desired. He had thought to wake and cure Alishia, but the magic told him no. He wanted to empower himself ready for a fight with the Monks, but the magic gave him nothing. He was controlled, totally and utterly, and whatever end was destined for him filled him with dread.

That was why he had lied to Trey and the others. He could keep the feeble truth from them, at least.

“MONK!” A’MEER HISSED.

Kosar dropped to his knees beside the Shantasi, turned, raised his hand. The others stopped, the two horses snorting and stamping hooves as they sensed sudden fear in the humans.

“Where?”

“There.” A’Meer pointed straight ahead at a darker shape in the shadow of a tall tree.

Kosar had to squint, and then he saw the movement, the gliding shadow closing rapidly. “Oh shit,” he said.

“Keep to me,” A’Meer said. “We attack together, score as many hits as quickly as we can. Damn, I can’t see a thing!”

“There’s more of them,” Kosar said, his heart sinking, his whole body sagging in defeat. He did not want to know what it was like to take a sword between the ribs, yet his mind was reaching ahead, imagining the next ten minutes. “There, look to the left. Two hundred steps away.”

“I see them.”

“We can’t fight them in the dark,” Kosar said. “We’d stand a much better chance if we could see them. Damn the clouds for hiding the moons tonight!”

“It can’t end like this!” A’Meer said. “It’s so pointless. ”

“You need light?” Hope said. The witch had crawled up between them and now she knelt, shrugged her shoulder bag off and delved inside. “Close your eyes for a second so that you can adapt. Perhaps it’ll blind them for a few moments, give us the first strike.”

Kosar saw the shadows gliding in across the ground, moving from cover to cover, hoods and cloaks making them all but shapeless… but there was no mistaking their intent. He obeyed the witch and closed his eyes.

His eyelids turned red as light burned in from outside. He heard something hissing like a huge snake and could not stop himself from looking. The light blinded him for a moment, and he brought up his free hand to shield his eyes, keeping his sword at the ready. Fire danced in the sky, balls of flame leaping left and right, seemingly bouncing from each other and then ricocheting elsewhere, dodging and lighting the landscape. Kosar gasped, mesmerized for a few seconds by the display, but then Hope clapped his shoulder and whispered in his ear, “It’s just chemicala.”

A’Meer was standing, facing the shapes that had been stunned into immobility by the sudden illumination. There were six of them, hoods hiding their faces but not their intent. Swords drawn, the Monks readied themselves for the attack. In the sparkling light their cloaks seemed redder, the heathers about their feet a brighter purple. Even the smell of the undergrowth seemed richer. Or perhaps this close to death, Kosar was seeing and sensing with a startling clarity.

A’Meer loosed an arrow into the first Monk, reached back, plucked a new shaft from her quiver, fired, reached, drew, fired. In five heartbeats she had put an arrow into each shape, and they barely moved.

“Passed right through,” Kosar said. There was no blood, no sign of any wounds. “The arrows went straight through.”

A’Meer paused, then drew and fired again at the first Monk. The arrow struck its face and exited behind its head, hood flapping as its feathered tail flicked it. The shaft struck a rock way behind it, snapping in two.

“So is this bad magic back so soon?” Hope said, aghast.

Trey stood beside them, his disc-sword unsheathed and glinting in the reflected light of Hope’s chemicala. “They’re not moving,” he whispered. The only sound was the hiss and spit of the fireballs.

“Why aren’t they attacking?” Kosar said. He remembered the Monk in Trengborne, unhindered by the arrows sprouting from its head and body, driving forward with renewed ferocity each time it was struck.

A’Meer fired three more times at the first Monk, each arrow passing through the shape, none of them leaving any apparent wounds.

“Waiting for us to use all our arrows?” Hope said.

“Are they really there?”

“If not we’re all having the same nightmare.”

And then the Monks moved.

As one they slowly sank down to the ground, their legs parting and spreading as if melting into the cool soil. They kept their form as they slid down, and Kosar even saw the glint of their eyes as cloaks and hoods were plucked apart at the melting point. Whatever went to make up the Monks shimmered and undulated, flowing out from where the shrinking forms stood and covering the ground around them, glittering like a million eyes in the night.

Hope’s lights were fading.

“It can’t be,” the witch said, disbelief making her sound so young.

“What?” Kosar asked.

The shapes were almost completely gone, the hoods still red, eyes and red faces still there as they sank into the shifting ground. They looked liked six individual puddles, but each one moved a hundred ways at any one time, covering the grasses and stones but never stealing their shape, a coating rather than a covering. Once the Monks had gone, the stuff grew dark, and in the fading light of the floating fireballs they looked like splashes of shadow looking for a home.

“Mimics,” Hope said.

As if her utterance had galvanized them, the shapes drifted together, formed one mass and then moved quickly to the right, heading west, disappearing into the night.

Hope’s chemicala finally died and plunged them into a greater darkness than before. The four drew back to the horses and stood protectively around them, facing out, waiting for their eyes to adjust.

“What exactly did we just see?” Kosar said. He wanted a response from anyone, but his question was directed at Rafe. “Rafe, what was that?”

“I don’t know,” the boy said from his horse.

“Mimics,” Hope said again.

“They’re a legend,” A’Meer said, but the uncertainty in her voice was obvious.

“Of course they are!”

“I’ve never heard of them,” Kosar said. “I’ve traveled, but I’ve never seen or heard of anything like that.”

“Mimics!” Disbelief and delight vied for dominance in Hope’s voice. “I’ve heard of them a few times, even met an old woman who claimed to have seen them once, but I never believed I’d ever see them myself.”

“But you did believe that they existed?” A’Meer asked.

“I’m a witch,” Hope said. “I have a very open mind.”

“But why Monks?” Kosar asked.

“A warning.” The witch fell silent, perhaps realizing that the mimics’ appearance was not really a cause for celebration.

“They showed us six Monks, then they headed west,” A’Meer said. “If it’s a warning, I wonder how near they are?”

“And why would the mimics warn us?” Rafe asked.

“I think you should know that, boy,” Hope muttered. “It seems news of our journey and what we carry is reaching far beyond the human world.”

“Whatever and why ever, we should be moving, not standing around talking,” Kosar said. “If these things came to warn us, there must be good reason. Unless they’re a part of it. What if they’re with the Monks?”

“I’m sure they’re beyond petty allegiances,” Hope said. “They’re as far from us as we can imagine. Hive organisms. We probably just saw more mimics than there are people alive in Noreela now. They have their own reason for issuing such a stark warning, and that’s the magic that Rafe carries.”

“But they could just as easily be leading us to the Monks, not from them.”

“I’m sure they could have destroyed us themselves. I’ve heard stories.” Hope said no more, but the silence implied tales too gruesome for the telling.

“Well, let’s move,” A’Meer said. She took up the two horses’ reins and led them forward, walking straight toward where the mimics had manifested just moments before.

They followed. Kosar looked down at his feet, trying to see whether the ground had changed where those things had melted down into a moving carpet of life. Was the heather stripped to the stems or made richer? Was the soil denuded of goodness or enriched? But darkness hid the detail, and his feet were only shadows moving him ever onward.

AS THEY WALKEDTrey took a finger of fledge. It was very stale now, bitter and sickly, and he felt his mind swaying as it cast itself from his body. He kept walking, kept his eyes open, and he only had to move slightly to touch on Alishia.

Are you there? he thought. Are you still alive?

Still here, still alive, but I’m being filled! Her voice was very distant, and it sounded very young.

Alishia! Trey called in his mind.

She shouted back, but it was not any louder.

What’s happening? Trey asked. I’m all alone out here. I miss your company, and you sound strange, lost-

Lost and found again, Alishia whispered. Never really lived, but now I’m filled with everything.

Something came at him then, something huge and dark and not of Alishia at all. It expanded out of the tiny flickering light of her limitless mind, and he retreated before it. There was no real sense of malice in its presence, but there was an intense pressure. He gave in to it. Withdrew. Fell back into his own mind and opened his eyes, and he looked straight at Rafe where he sat astride his horse thirty paces ahead.

He looked, and he wondered just what was going on inside the boy’s head.

THEY WALKED THROUGHthe night, glancing nervously to the west every now and then, expecting to see the shapes of real Monks manifesting from the shadows and rushing them with swords drawn and murder in their eyes. They needed to stop and eat, rest, sleep, but the warning had to be taken seriously. The faster they moved now, the better their chance of escape.

“What do we do if we do come up against Monks?” Kosar whispered to A’Meer.

She did not reply for a long time. He was about to move on when she sighed. “There’s not much we can do,” she said. “I can fight them as I’ve been trained, you can join in with whatever passion you feel for our cause, perhaps Hope can poison them again or use chemicala. Trey… he’s a miner, not a fighter. Perhaps we’ll make a dent, and maybe we’ll put back the inevitable for a while. But we’ll die, Kosar. They’re difficult enough to defeat on their own. If we meet them in any great numbers, we’ll all die.”

“And Rafe?” Kosar asked. “What if Rafe joins in the fight?”

This time A’Meer’s silence stretched on, and Kosar did not ask her again.

“KANG KANG,” RAFEsaid. “That’s the only safe place for me to go, and the only way any of us will survive. Without me, Kosar and A’Meer can make it to Hess much faster.”

“I’m not leaving you,” A’Meer said.

“I’ll look after him,” Hope said. I will, she thought, better than you with your swords and arrows. I have much more than that. I have passion. I have a reason.

A’Meer shook her head. “I’m not leaving him. Not with you, not with anyone.” She raised an eyebrow, inviting any challenge to her statement.

At sunup they had climbed a small hill, and now they rested on its summit. From there they could see in every direction. North, back the way they had come, a great mist rose from the land and touched the clouds, linking sky to ground. To the east were rising hills that grew gradually higher until, beyond the horizon, they fell down into the Mol’Steria Desert. South lay scrubland and copses of trees, weak-looking and in need of more than water. In the distance, hazed by heat, the first signs of the town of Mareton was miraged above the ground. And west, where they watched for the approach of the dreaded Monks, grasslands stretched as far as they could see, rolling toward the horizon and offering myriad hiding places.

Hope scanned westward with her spyglass, a present from one of the many men she had entertained. Her indulgence for this particular gift had gone much further than she would ever have liked, but it was worth the cost. For a few transitory moments of degradation she had this tool, something that brought the distance near and could give almost as much advance warning as the fledge miner’s drugged visions. Hope no longer trusted Trey’s addled mind. Only minutes ago he had returned from another trip, unable to tell them anything they did not know. He had seen the red smear of blood across the land-Monks, he told them, hundreds of Monks swarming over hills and through valleys-but he did not know distance, direction or location. He could not even be sure that it was now he was seeing, and not the past or some clouded future. She had developed a grudging belief in his intentions, but his supposed talents were on the wane. She had seen his eyes when he came back, but he would not meet her gaze.

The others did not see things her way. She left them to their thoughts. She was only a witch and a whore, after all; why would they listen to her?

So she watched, and felt Rafe’s gaze on her back. He needed her help to reach Kang Kang, and she would give it, with or without the others. Without, she thought. Really, I’d prefer it without.

She had heard more stories than she cared to admit about that mysterious mountainous region to the south, and the Blurring that may or may not exist beyond. Kosar had been right in his assessment of Kang Kang’s wrongness, but only in part. While his judgment was based on a very subjective fear of Kang Kang and what may dwell there, Hope’s knowledge was more deeply rooted in the place itself, a more objective view. She was not only afraid of the place, but also aware that Kang Kang was afraid of itself. In those mountains of madness, fear was a tactile presence, as prevalent as air or grass or rock. It could be lapped up or cast aside, but everyone that made the journey discovered it at some point. That was why few who found Kang Kang ever came back. It was a wild animal, driven mad by its own ferocity and consuming everything.

“If we’re here to look after Rafe, surely we should listen to his reasoning,” Hope said at last. Her words broke an unsteady silence, one waiting to be ruptured by argument. “He’s the carrier of the new magic, he’s the one we’re prepared to lay down our lives to protect. If he wants to go to Kang Kang, I see no way we can refuse him.”

A’Meer, leaning back against a tree with her eyes half closed, waved a hand as if at a worrisome fly. It was a dismissive gesture, and the Shantasi did not even honor Hope with words to accompany it.

“What?” Hope said. “What, Shantasi?”

“Hope.” Kosar was standing by the two horses, checking them over, examining their hooves. “Rafe is the carrier, but does that necessarily mean…?” He trailed off, looked down at the ground, back to the horses.

“Mean what?” Hope said.

Rafe raised his head and opened his eyes, staring in interest at the thief.

“Kosar?” A’Meer said.

The thief turned back to them, and Hope was surprised at the determination in his eyes. Whatever he had to say, he believed it totally. “Well… does being the carrier mean that he is any more special in himself?”

He glanced at Rafe, then away. The boy returned his glance with resolute interest.

“You told us yourself that it’s a thing inside you, Rafe, that you have no control. It’s another life living alongside yours, independent, a child sharing your life force and growing separate from you. But like a mother is not the child, so you aren’t the magic. Can you really claim to know exactly what it wants?”

All eyes turned to Rafe. This is where it has a chance to show itself and cast out doubt, Hope thought. She felt a tingling in her limbs at the idea, a tightening of her scalp, as if a lightning storm was gathering above the hills. This is where things change.

“I’m as important as anyone who has knowledge,” Rafe said. “Your mind is separate from the rest of you, Kosar. Your shade is still within you, somewhere, a remnant of your potential hiding behind your bones and within your blood. Yet without one, the other will change. Without me the magic will be free, but as vulnerable as a newborn baby. There are things out there that would eat it.”

“I didn’t mean…” Kosar said, looking down at his hands, picking horsehair from the wounds on his fingertips. Then he looked up again. “You never used to talk like this. You’re a farm boy, Rafe.”

“My eyes are being opened,” the boy said. He looked at each of them for a couple of seconds, even the unconscious Alishia propped against Trey’s side. “I know you all have doubts,” he said. “And so do I. The thing inside me has done a few tricks to try to help us on our way, but it’s been a long time. We’re blinded to miracles. Sheltered from the truth. But believe me when I say I know what is right.” He looked at A’Meer. “Believe me.”

“I don’t know-” the Shantasi began.

“We’re blinded,” Hope said. “Blinded by what we can’t believe, just like Rafe said. We’ve all heard of the old magic and what it could do, but do we really believe? You, A’Meer. Can you really believe?”

“Of course,” the Shantasi said, but they all knew the doubt in her voice. She looked away, out between the trees.

“Not far from here,” Rafe said, “there’s a place that will make you all believe.” He closed his eyes, and suddenly the life seemed to drain from his face, skin growing sallow and lined, flesh sloughing down, as if he aged ten years in ten seconds.

“Rafe!” Hope said. No! she thought, darting to the boy, holding his arms, pressing her ear to his mouth. The others were on their feet, gathering around. The witch felt Rafe’s breath in her ear, warm on her cheek and neck, and she closed her eyes, wondering what could pass between them should she remain this close. Here, now, inside him, a hand’s breadth away… but it was not really that close, she realized. Magic was still an infinity away. Even though out of all of them she believed the most, still it was as far away as ever.

“He’s asleep,” she said quietly, trying to hide her disappointment from the others. Her confusion. Her yearning.

I’ll stay with you, Rafe, she thought. I believe you, and I’ll stay with you whether I eventually have what I want… or not.

THEY STAYED ONthe hillock just long enough to have a bite to eat and a brief rest. Trey chewed more stale fledge and told them that the land was still smudged red, bleeding eastward, although he did not know how far away that blight lay. He grew quiet when Kosar asked, shook his head and looked at Alishia where she sat slowly fading away. They had all tried to feed the unconscious girl, force water down her throat, but with her mind torn to shreds her body had lost the survival instinct. Food fell from her mouth unchewed, and water drained away down her chin. And there was something else. They could not be certain, but she looked younger than she had before, smaller. Lessened by her experiences, perhaps… or maybe something else.

When they set off again, Kosar was consumed by a dreadful sense of foreboding. He looked at them all-Hope, Trey, Alishia, the terrifyingly normal Rafe and A’Meer, the woman he perhaps loved-and they were friends and strangers. For an instant they were characters in a story of his own devising, so close that he could never know anyone better, yet so unreal that their impending loss was a blankness within him. He walked close to A’Meer, brushing her arm with his, trying to see a similar recognition of their fate in her eyes, finding nothing.

Rafe’s request and the discussion back on the knoll still lay unresolved. Yet they headed southeast, their route taking them nearer and nearer to New Shanti and A’Meer’s intended destination. Rafe sat astride his horse and quietly let himself be led, though now there was a definable tension in the group. Rafe’s words seemed to echo back at them from the land: There’s a place that will make you all believe. Kosar had no idea where or what that place was-none of them did-but they all looked with new eyes now, trying to find hidden truths between blades of grass, epiphanies floating in the sunny air with the dust and pollen. Kosar hoped that they looked with better eyes… but still he feared that it was greed that drove some of them, guilt others. The purity of their intentions was yet to be proven.

Around midday they paused by a small stream so that the horses could drink. Kosar filled his water canteen upstream from the horses, splashed his face and neck and gasped as the cold water bit through the grime of the road. It had been a long time since he had felt like this. He had worked hard in Trengborne, but it had been a more comfortable life than he had realized at the time. His muscles truly ached, stretched and turned in ways they had long forgotten.

“We’re off course,” A’Meer said. She was standing in the shade of a large boulder, measuring its shadow with her eye, glancing up at the sun. “We’ve turned due south.”

“I never noticed us changing direction,” Kosar said.

“None of us did.” A’Meer glanced at Rafe and then walked away, sitting by the stream and drawing her sword. She plucked at her finger and blood smeared the blade. In the sunlight it spread thin and fine.

Nobody said any more about their change of direction, but as they set off again A’Meer led the way, heading away at a noticeable angle from the route they had traveled thus far. Kosar walked with her, but did not ask. Voicing his fear would confirm that control was slowly being taken from them, that their route was being planned and controlled by forces other than their own. That was not something that he wanted to hear.

They dipped into a shallow valley and followed the stream along its base, picking pale fruit and berries from the few errant trees that survived. Kosar sniffed at them. They smelled fine, but he saw a dead rabbit and something larger, longer dead, so he threw the food away. The stream led past small hills and back into the open plains, where to the east they could still spy the foothills of the mountains bordering New Shanti. Ahead of them now lay Mareton, the small town perched on the edge of the Mol’Steria Desert. It was here that they would take on supplies for their final journey across the sands. It was almost two hundred miles to Hess.

“Not far from here,” Rafe said suddenly, looking southwest.

“We have to go to Mareton,” A’Meer said, “stock up with water and food for the crossing, maybe get some fresh horses.”

“Not far from here, just a few miles that way, and something will open your eyes,” Rafe said again. “I don’t know what, and I don’t know how. I only know it to be true. A’Meer… a few miles.”

A’Meer glanced at all of them, and her eyes never changed when she looked at Kosar. He felt a brief kick in the stomach from that, confused and sad. “We can’t waste any time!” she said. “The Monks could be right behind us. They’ll have our trail now, and they won’t stop, not even out in the desert. Our only hope is to get out there before them, make a head start across the sands.”

The others were silent, waiting for Rafe or A’Meer to say something more.

It was Trey who spoke at last. “I want to see what Rafe means,” he said. “If it’s something so wonderful, maybe it will help us all.”

“And maybe it’ll kill us,” A’Meer countered. “None of us know anything about what’s happening here! I have to take this boy to Hess and let the Mystics figure it out. We go a few miles off track, that’s more chance that the Monks will trap and kill us. Perhaps we have the advantage right now-a head start, a few miles maybe-but what happens if we go off on some fool’s errand to see some mysterious ‘thing’? Remember what those mimics showed us? Monks. Closing in from the west. Trey’s seen the same! And you, Rafe… after all that, you still want to head that way?” She pointed southwest with her drawn sword, and it whispered at the air.

“He’s the reason we’re all here,” Hope said, “and I’m for following him.”

“He’s led by something mindless!” A’Meer said. “Soulless.”

“But it cares for us all,” Rafe said. “It would not lead us into ambush. Most of all, it cares for itself.”

A’Meer looked at Kosar, and for the first time since leaving Pavisse there was something of friendship in her eyes, an old knowledge, language without words. But why now, and why here? Because this was when she needed him most.

Kosar felt sick. “I’ll go with Rafe,” he said. “I believe it’s the right thing to do, A’Meer. Just a few miles, to see what’s so important. Then we can all finally decide what to do. And if Hess is still the best idea, I’m with you all the way.”

A’Meer cursed, shook her head and stormed off southward. She went a few dozen paces and then squatted down, the weapons at her belt scarring the ground. There was no pride, no dented perception of leadership, Kosar knew that. A’Meer simply wanted to do what she thought was right.

She turned around at last, stared back at them, and then past them. Her eyes grew wide and her jaw slackened. “Exactly how far is this place?” she hissed.

“I don’t know,” Rafe said, “but we can make it, and then I think it can get us away.”

Kosar turned his back on the Shantasi and looked the way they had come. At the head of the shallow valley they had just emerged from, maybe two miles distant, several red specks were moving slowly down the heathered hillsides.

“Then lead the way!” A’Meer said, standing. “Hope, on the horse with Rafe! Trey, up with Alishia.”

“I can’t ride fast,” the miner protested.

“Learn!”

A’Meer came back to Kosar, panting, and he caught the tang of her sweat in the air. It was a familiar smell and it brought flashbacks, pleasant even in the circumstances.

“You make me hard dressed like that,” he muttered, and to his delight A’Meer laughed out loud.

“We never did get to dressing up, did we?” she asked. They stood side by side, staring at doom as it pursued them across the landscape.

“Never really needed to.”

“No.” She shook her head and leaned in to Kosar, kissing him on his neck. “I love you, you old thief.”

He answered with a smile.

“And now,” she said, “I suppose we see just how much Rafe knows about what he carries.”

Kosar heard the horses moving off behind them, and he and A’Meer turned and followed in their wake.

“How far away, do you think?” he said quietly.

“Maybe two miles. I saw at least a dozen of them in the valley alone. There may be more moving in from the west, heading to cut us off.”

“There’s no hope against that many, is there?”

A’Meer did not answer for a while, and there was only the horses’ hoofbeats and their own footfalls as accompaniment to their desperate flight. “Well,” she said at last, “no hope unless Rafe is right. And in that case, who in the Black knows just what we’re about to see?”

Who indeed? thought Kosar. Perhaps no one.

Or perhaps only the Mages.

THEY RAN. THEhorses, exhausted though they were, seemed to pick up on their fear, because they put on a burst of speed that took them way ahead of Kosar and A’Meer. A’Meer cursed and struggled to keep up, but Kosar urged her to slow, conserve her energy. They might have a long run ahead.

For a while they moved silently, A’Meer breathing fast but steady beside him, Kosar doing his best to regulate his breath, control his pace, rarely looking farther than the next few steps. He did not know just how long he could do this. It was not something he wanted to dwell on. He glanced up at the two horses, still way ahead even with their doubled cargos. Hope and Rafe were in the lead, their gray dappled horse stepping confidently and calmly, while behind them Trey seemed to be letting his own mount follow the first, hanging on gamely to the reins, bouncing awkwardly, trying to hold Alishia upright between his arms while doing his best not to tumble from the saddle. He could fall, Kosar thought, he and Alishia could fall away and the horse will bolt. What then? Leave them? It was not an idea he wanted to entertain, but now the thought was there, in the background.

He realized very quickly that A’Meer could use her Pace to leave him behind in the blink of an eye. Yet she stayed back with him. That shamed and pleased him in equal measures.

They followed a rough path through the heather for as long as they could. Evidence of wheel ruts hid beneath new growth, and though that made the going underfoot hazardous it was still easier than running through knee-high bracken. The horses seemed to keep their footing easily, but more than once Kosar stumbled and fell, rolling as well as he could to control the impact. A’Meer stopped to help him up, then ran on without a word. Kosar’s first few steps after these tumbles were tentative and slow, ready for the burning pain of a broken ankle.

What then? he thought. Leave me behind?

He realized then just how desperate the situation was. He glanced back but the hills they had just left were hidden by a fold in the land, the progress of the Red Monks out of sight. They could be closing quickly, or falling behind. Or perhaps they had not even seen them. But that was a vain hope, and one that they could not allow.

Trey shouted from up ahead. His saddle had slipped sideways and he clung on desperately to the horse’s mane, arms pressed around the unconscious girl as the land strove to pull them down. The horse stopped, reared, stamping its feet and flinging its head, doing its best to shake its two passengers free.

Kosar put on a burst of speed but A’Meer reached them first. By the time he caught up she had calmed the horse, tightened the saddle, muttered something to Trey and sent them on their way.

Hope and Rafe had not slowed down.

“What did you tell him?” Kosar asked as he and A’Meer ran together once more.

“I told him if he falls, we’ll leave him.”

The rough path they had been following faded away into the ground, displaying no final destination, no reason at all for being. Brackens grew up around their knees, sometimes reaching their thighs, and progress on foot was hampered, fronds whipping at their legs and tangling around their ankles.

The horses cantered on, their long legs finding no hindrance.

“Hope is pulling ahead,” Kosar said.

“Yes.” A’Meer’s bare lower legs were already whipped from the plants, long bubbled lines of blood marking where the skin had been scored. She seemed not to notice.

“Perhaps we should call to her to slow down.”

“Don’t think she would.” She cursed as something shifted beneath one of her feet-a rock, a plant, a surprised creature-and went sprawling, outstretched hands fending off the worst of the impact.

Kosar stopped and went to her, holding her beneath the arms to help her up. Her elbows were bloodied and she had a cut above one eyebrow, blood dripping down across her pale skin.

From behind came a cry. Too loud for a human, too mad for an animal, too filled with rage to be anything other than a Monk. Kosar looked back up the gentle slope they had just run down. There was no movement, save the twitching of bracken in the gentle breeze. The sun was behind him, throwing his shadow back the way they had come and he had a brief, crazy image of the Monks catching it, twisting it into their grasp and hauling him down, falling on him with swords drawn.. .

“I see nothing,” he said.

“They don’t call to each other without reason,” A’Meer said. “Come on. Hope and Rafe have gone.”

Kosar looked ahead in panic. A few hundred steps away a wood began. He saw Trey’s horse swallowed by shadows beneath the trees, and then he and A’Meer were alone in the landscape… and yet not. Behind them was the very real presence of the Red Monks, a huge weight bearing down in the sunlight. Unseen as yet, but obvious as a shadow on the sun.

The two ran on, raising their legs high with each step to try to clear the plants and prevent themselves from tripping.

There was another cry closer behind them, this one not muted by any folds in the land, but Kosar did not turn to look.

By the time they reached the woods, he was aware of the silence around them. The singing of birds, the rustle of creatures in the undergrowth, the breath of the breeze whispering its way across the land… it was only their sudden silences that made them obvious. The land held its breath as he and A’Meer passed from sunlight to shadow.

The darkness felt no safer.

There may be more moving in from the west, heading to cut us off, A’Meer had said. Perhaps they were here now, Monks hiding between trees and in hollows in the woodland floor, waiting to rise up in ambush as soon as they were all within their bloody red reach.

No cries from ahead, no sound of a fight.

There won’t be, Kosar thought. They’ll slaughter Rafe and Hope, Trey and Alishia without a sound. They’re not fighters. A’Meer is the only fighter here. Even I carry a sword only by default, not because I have much of an idea of how to use it.

“It’s hopeless,” he muttered, and as if in response there came more cries from behind, three or four Monks breaking the silence with their unnatural screams as they pelted downhill toward the woods.

“It’s all down to Rafe, now,” A’Meer said. “Maybe we should pull back, try to hold them off?”

“What?” The idea terrified Kosar. The thought of entering into battle with the Monks here, between the trees, while the others rode on ahead was awful. Suddenly faced with the prospect of self-sacrifice, he knew just how much he wanted to live. A’Meer may have stated her purpose and aim, but he had never promised to die to save anyone.

They ran between trees, jumping fallen boughs, skirting around rocky outcroppings, forging on almost blindly. To be cautious of what might may lie in wait ahead would only give the Monks time to catch up. They ran headlong into unknown dangers to escape the certain death on their tails.

“Perhaps not,” A’Meer said. “Let’s see where Rafe is taking us first.”

They splashed through a small stream, noticing the disturbed sediment where the horses had recently crossed. Pausing briefly, Kosar heard the sounds of the horses’ progress in the distance. He wanted to call out for them to slow down, but fear kept him silent.

There were old paths in here, worn over time until tree roots showed through and nothing grew anymore. Kosar wondered who had passed this way before, recently or in forgotten history, and whether any of them had been as desperately frightened as he was now. They followed one such trail that led deeper into the woods and deeper into shadow. Other tributaries led off, twisting away between trees and behind banks of giant ferns and other, more dense undergrowth. Their destinations remained hidden, never to be known. Kosar had once liked to tread such routes, enjoying the discovery around each bend, relishing new experience. And he had forged his own paths across the land, steered himself to follow many mysteries and tales, and routes such as these had once been his life. Now he wished only for familiarity and safety.

To his left, a narrow path faded away into shrubbery, plants touching across it now but the ground still worn down to the hard mud beneath. Rock was exposed, some of it sharpened by some crushing impact. Whose footfalls could have done that, Kosar wondered? Farther along, the remnants of an old fence had rotted into the ground but a gate stood firm, an intricate iron construct forming a decorative entry into nothing, because only more forest stood behind. It would have looked the same from both directions. To keep in or keep out?

The trees grew suddenly denser as they entered an area of the woods given over to pine, and here the horses’ trail was easier to follow. A trail of fresh breakages-scars on trunks, snapped twigs and branches scattered across the ground-marked the route Hope and Trey had taken. The forest floor was churned up, fresh disturbances in the pine needles marked by the darker stains of dampness below, and the bewitching shifting as wood ants found themselves exposed to the light. They reminded Kosar of the mimics, so many parts to such a complex creature.

“Here,” A’Meer said. “Take this!” She handed him a small wooden ball from her belt. “Don’t touch the wire, it’ll take your fingers off. Wrap it once around that tree there, knee height, and pull hard. It’ll hold fast.”

She hurried off at a right angle to their path, turning and twisting between trees, hand trailing behind her as she let out a length of almost invisible wire. Kosar did as she had instructed, passing the wooden ball once around the tree and pulling. The wire attached to it-thin, sharp, deadly-bit into the bark with a soft hiss. The wooden ball looked like a knotted wound in the tree. When the wire had played out A’Meer secured her end and then signaled for them to continue.

“They’ll smell our trail,” she said as they ran together once more. “The horses’ breath, the blood from our scrapes. They’ll be running fast. It won’t stop them, but it may slow down one or two.”

“How many more tricks have you got?” Kosar asked.

“Not many.”

Another cry rose up behind them and the tree canopy came to life as birds took flight, fleeing in silent panic as if keen to keep their presence a secret.

“If only we could fly,” A’Meer said.

Kosar took the lead. Spiderwebs wrapped themselves across his face and tangled in his hair, and now and then he felt the harder impact as a spider came along for the ride. He wiped them frantically away, remembering the slayer spider that Hope had left in her rooms for the Monks. There was no telling what unknown species this wood might harbor. Trees reached for him too, small branches only becoming apparent as they drew lines of blood into his cheek or clawed for his eyes.

Shadows moved to their left and right. Things following their progress, perhaps. Or maybe tricks of the light.

“I don’t know where we are,” Kosar said. “I’ve never traveled these woods. I’ve been south of here to the borders of Kang Kang, but I never came this way. There’s no way of telling how far these woods continue.”

“Far enough,” A’Meer said. “Long enough for us to have to face the Red Monks in here. The forest is many miles deep-I was here years ago, just after my training was finished and I went out of New Shanti-and there were things here even then. Now… more time has passed. The land has changed even more, and old maps no longer hold true. Maybe they’re all gone.”

“What things?” Kosar asked. “Why didn’t you say?”

“I never saw them properly, not even back then. And I can’t say they were a danger. But they gave me bad dreams.”

As if on cue the two of them stopped running, squatted down, listened to the noises around them. From ahead they could hear the horses crashing onward, not far distant. Behind them, the way they had come, all was quiet; the forest silenced by their own passage, perhaps, or because of what followed.

Something whispered.

“What is that?” Kosar said, but A’Meer did not answer. She glanced at him and then looked away, eyes downcast as if ashamed of something terrible and secret. He reached out to touch her, fingers stretched, blood on his fingertips… and then he stopped.

They gave me bad dreams, A’Meer had said.

And the whispers made themselves known to Kosar.

Never said sorry, never told Father why I did it, killed his sheebok, cut out its heart to take away to the woods with my friends, never admitted my guilt even though there was blood beneath my fingernails and the stink of death about me, rot in the creases of my skin, pain and guilt in my eyes when I woke up… afraid of him, frightened of his big hands and his angry shouts, but there was worse than Father’s rage, frightened of my friends, of the things they did in the woods, the things they did with that girl and that sheebok’s heart and those knives, those knives… frightened but compliant, watching them empty the heart over her breasts and cut her there, the blood mingling, watching from the trees, hard, young and hard… and when they came into her and she screamed they didn’t hear my own petty cries of pleasure and shame… but they knew I watched… they always knew I watched…

“Fuck,” Kosar shouted. “Fuck!”

A’Meer held him and whispered in his ear, trying to calm him. “It’s all right, don’t shout, let it come, accept it and let it come and it’ll flow away, it’ll hide again. Truth is only what you want to make it. They’ll leave you alone soon, Kosar…”

Always regretted leaving him behind, that broken boy cowering in the pits of the Poison Forests, waiting to die… but his leg was broken, and I’d never really wanted him along anyway, just too afraid to say no, didn’t want to hurt his feelings… I’d saved his life after all, and he thought he owed me, wanted to repay me for saving him from those tumblers in the Widow’s Peaks… so he came along and I slipped and he fell too, and I never should have left him… said I was going for help, going to find someone to help me pull him out of there, but I knew he’d be dead by nightfall, no way a boy like that could fight off the poisonous things that live there, those birds those bats those spiders… left him to die, and not because I was scared and not because I couldn’t have gone back… simply because I didn’t want him with me anymore…

It came again and again, the voice of his sickly conscience, the mad mutterings of guilt, the secret shadows of rejected experience admitting culpability for things he had long ago shut away, driven down, buried deep in denial, clothed in ambiguous memory and turned into tales once heard, not created himself.

… should have put it back, never should have taken it…

“Kosar, breathe, let it come, they’ll lose interest soon.”

… meant so much but I never told her, and look what happened, look what happened to her!

“Oh Mage shit,” A’Meer whispered, tortured by whatever guilty secrets plagued her own mind. Her grip on Kosar never eased.

Forgot again, always forget, never found it in myself to remember just that one special day for my mother, always let it slip away and then fooled myself that look in her eyes was a calm acceptance when I apologized, not disappointment, not sadness…

Kosar vomited, the sickness and rot of hidden memories and mistakes flooding his mind and purging his body. A’Meer still held him, groaning and cursing, fighting whatever foul thoughts had been dredged in her own mind. He heaved again and bent double, watching vomit speckle the pine-needle carpet, a big beetle scurrying away with its back coated in his stomach juices. All his bad thoughts crowded in and buzzed him like moths to a flame, some of them battering against his skull and knocking themselves away, others remaining there to fly in again and again, reminding him of all those bad things.

The whispering began to fade away at last. It did not vanish completely-it never would-but reduced in volume until it was a hush in his ears, and then a feeling deeper down, and then nothing, not disappearing, simply becoming too quiet and deep for him to want to hear.

“Why didn’t you warn me?” he said, spitting the foul taste from his mouth.

“How could I?”

Kosar looked up at A’Meer and saw that she had been suffering as well, face pale, eyes moist. He wondered what secret shame she had been facing only seconds ago; he did not wish to ask. He turned and looked in the direction the horses had taken. “The others?”

“If the things in these woods get them too, I’m hoping that the horses will go on while they’re remembering.”

“Bad things. All bad things for you?”

A’Meer nodded, looked away, turned and scanned the woods behind them.

“Why? Why? ”

“Perhaps it’s how they feed,” she said. “There are plenty of strange things we know about-skull ravens, tumblers-and some, like the mimics, that are little more than myth. There must be many more that are still hidden to us. Especially since the Cataclysmic War. It’s not just the landscape that’s suffered since then, changed.”

Kosar shook his head to rid himself of those rancid images and guilts. It only served to mix them up some more. “I can’t stand this,” he said, moaning and holding his head.

“Kosar, they’re here!”

A’Meer drew on her bow, let an arrow fly. Something screeched from between the trees, and Kosar saw a red flash behind some shrubs, twisting and wavering in the dappled forest light.

“Come on,” A’Meer said. “We have to catch the others!” She ran past him, grabbing his elbow and spinning him so that he was facing the right way. “Now!”

He followed her, imagining that he could leave those foul thoughts of his behind, stewing away into this weird forest floor along with his puddle of vomit.

What manner of things…? he thought. And then the idea came that they would prey on the Monks as well… and that, maybe, they would slow them down.

HOPE WAS SCREAMING. Not aloud, not through her mouth, because the slew of recollections was drowning any physical response. She was screaming inside.

And still the whispers made themselves known.

I slid the stiletto in too late, waited until he came, and maybe I enjoyed it? Maybe I wanted to feel him flooding into me, wanted to see the rapture in his face before his eyes sprang open at the pain, the realization of what I’d done to him? I could have done it sooner, but he was pounding into me, hard, harder, and then when he grunted I raised my hand and slid the blade into his back, pushed hard, so hard that it cut from his chest and pricked my neck… and his eyes opened, and I had killed him, he knew that already, could feel it, the blood bursting inside and stilling his heart, and even as I met his gaze I felt sick with what I had done. Not his fault. He hadn’t made me do anything. I had invited him in. And in his final exhalation, that last grumbling breath from his slack mouth, there hid none of the truths I believed would be there…

“Not me!” Hope hissed. “Not me! I didn’t do it, not on purpose-not me, it was… everyone before me!” Ancestors, she thought. They made me do it. Those real witches who mocked me by passing down their name to my pitiful, fraudulent self.

Her horse ran on, Rafe held her around the waist, and the opening up of the foulest corners of her mind continued.

He was a bad man anyway, he deserved what those things did to him, I could never have unlocked the door and forgiven myself if he escaped

…

I like it, I like it, I can’t help that, I can’t help that they’re alive when I eat them…

He’d have still paid me, still screwed me, even if he had known. .. it wasn’t my fault… by then nothing would have stopped him, not even the knowledge of what I had…

Hope cried through eyes shut tight.

Behind her, Rafe said nothing.

HE FELT THEthings in the shadows probing him, finding his mind and then scampering away in alarm. They spun away between the trees, dug themselves back down beneath the leaves and needles where they slept for years on end. They were terrified. They had found him, but as those unknown things plunged their tendrils deep into his mind, they discovered something else entirely.

The magic, new and fresh, yet with a history older than they could understand or accept.

Their shock turned to terror when it unveiled itself to them. Its own history-its failings, its shame, its eternal guilt-was laid bare, just for an instant, but long enough to force the creatures away. Perhaps to drive them mad.

Rafe did his best not to see.

TREY RODE HARD, Alishia slumped between his arms. Mother! he thought, wretched and alone. Mother! Sonda! He pulled a handful of the final fledge crumbs from his pocket, and though they were white and stale he swallowed them quickly, whimpering as forgotten deeds were laid out for him to view afresh.

“No!” he shouted, and the gone-off fledge plucked him from his mind and sent him hovering above the pounding horse. He looked down at himself, sitting upright and holding tightly on to Alishia, and he tried to lose himself in the void of her mind. If I get in there, he thought, they won’t be able to get at me. They’ll never reach the heart of me. If I can get in there…

But inside, touching Alishia and listening to her screams of mental anguish-and then hearing what came next-he began to wish he had stayed put.

I never lived, Alishia whimpered, never saw, never went out to experience! And here and now I’m dying, that thing as good as killed me, I would have known what was happening if I’d relished life rather than locked myself away, those books, gone to black and no more, only in my head. And they were only books! And now-

Her voice paused, humbled by the sudden, massive presence that arrived in the tattered remnants of her mind. Trey shrank back. Alishia did not even know that he was there. And then she screamed, driving him spinning helplessly through the forest, past the Monks pursuing them, losing himself as the fight went on around them.

Trey’s physical body slumped on the horse, the saddle slipping sideways again. His eyes turned up in his head. And then Alishia screamed out loud, a wretched wail that spooked their horse and made the whole forest hold its breath for an instant.

Trey’s eyes sprang open. And as the horse twisted and turned between the trees, he began to cry.

A’MEER TURNED AGAIN, knelt down as Kosar ran past her, fired an arrow. A Monk screamed as the shaft found its mark. She moved too fast for Kosar to see, pacing from tree to tree, loosing arrows and flitting across the ground like a shadow.

“Run hard!” A’Meer said. “Catch up. I’ll try to draw them off.”

“No, I-”

“Go!” She glared at him, then leaned forward and pushed him roughly away. “Just go, Kosar. If those mind-things got to Trey and Hope as well, they’ll need guiding. I’ll catch up with you. Life Moon be with you.” She slipped away between the trees, bent over. Her last few words had not sounded convincing.

Head still reeling from the onslaught of hidden memory, Kosar did as A’Meer asked. He watched her for a few seconds more-running from tree to tree, pausing, firing an arrow, making an intentional noise as she stumbled over a protruding root and rolled through a tangle of old twigs and branches-and then he forced himself to turn away, hurrying as fast as he could after the two horses.

Every movement now had the feeling of desperation. A’Meer’s departure gave Kosar the impression of a last-ditch attempt to give them more time, though for what none of them knew. Rafe’s imaginary destination, perhaps? The place where he could save them? For the first time ever, Kosar realized, they were actually submitting themselves to the safety and protection of this new magic brewing and hiding away inside the farm boy. It had revealed itself to them already, but unbidden, manifesting of its own volition rather than revealing itself at their request. Now they were going where Rafe said it urged him go, and with every step they took they went farther into the unknown.

He heard a scream from behind, high and filled with pain, and as it turned into an animal roar he knew it was a Monk. Another arrow found home, he thought with a smile, and then he frowned as he wondered just how many shafts A’Meer had left. Once she ran out she would resort to her crossbow, and then after that, the sword. By then she would be surrounded. And soon after that, she would be dead.

He followed the trail left by the two horses. He wished their track were not quite so apparent. He would have been able to follow far subtler signs, but as it stood, the Monks could not help but see the route they had taken. The forest carpet was churned up, twigs and branches broken, and here and there Kosar spotted smears of blood on the tips of thin branches, drips on the forest floor. Some of them were already attracting the ants.

He ran hard. He had never felt so exhausted. His heart pounded at his chest, trying to grab his attention. A pain bit into his hip, bending him to the left, but he never let up. To pause now would be to deny the advantage A’Meer had given him by staying behind.

More sounds came from somewhere behind him in the forest: a scream or a shout; something falling heavily, as if from an uppermost branch of the tallest tree; whisperings, urgent yet still secretive; and then the unmistakable sound of battle. Sword on sword. Shouts, grunts, screaming as sharp edges struck home.

Kosar paused, drew his sword and then ran on. A’Meer would not thank him if he returned to try to help. And really, what help could he offer?

From ahead came the sudden sound of a horse rearing up. Someone screamed, though he could not tell whether the voice was male or female. And then the horses were running again, their hooves drumming on harder-packed earth.

Kosar hurried on, ducking beneath branches, skirting around a huge writhing ant mound that had been smashed in two by the fleeing horses. And then he emerged suddenly from the pine forest into a deciduous woodland-the trees more widely spaced, the ground harder, shrubs and tangles of fern growing here and there-and he saw what had startled the horses.

All color had gone. The trees, leaves and trunks, the ground, ferns and shrubs and thorny bushes on the forest floor, the vines hanging from high branches… all color leeched away, leaving the whole landscape a uniform, dull gray. Texture and dimension were picked out only by the fall of sunlight, the distinction of shadows. A bird flew from one high branch to another, calling in a weak, croaky voice, and its color was the same.

Kosar gasped, paused, fell to his knees on the forest floor. The leaves there, left over from the previous winter, had taken on this sickly hue. The ants that crawled over and under the leaves were like speckles of ash migrating across the ground. A beetle here, something larger there-a scorpion, perhaps, or some huge insect-all tinted with shades of gray. He closed his eyes, held out his hand and opened them again. His skin was browned, leathery from the sun, his nails black with filth, and the blood that continued to drip from his fingertips was a stark red against this nothingness.

Kosar sighed with relief, stood and ran on. He felt like an invader here, unnatural and alien, whereas it was the place itself that was so wrong. There had been no fire. The leaves still seemed alive, and they even retained a healthy sheen viewed from certain angles, but something had stolen their color. He kicked the leaves at his feet, wondering whether color had been washed away into the ground, but only the compacted dark gray of the dried mud beneath revealed itself.

The trail was harder to follow in here-the trees grew farther apart and there were no broken branches to show the way, no churned ground-but he could hear the horse now, so he followed his ears instead of his eyes.

There were no longer any noises behind him. He was either too far away or the fighting had finished. He could not bear to imagine what that could mean.

At last he saw the horses ahead, swerving around a huge old tree, disappearing again behind foliage. He ran on, the sighting giving him extra strength for this final sprint. It took another hundred steps to catch up, during which the surroundings hardly changed at all: no color; no sound; no hint of pursuit. When he was finally close enough to make himself heard, he stopped and spoke as loudly as he dared.

“Trey!”

Trey’s horse skidded and reared slightly, snorting foam from its mouth and nose, and Trey turned in his saddle.

“Kosar! Where’s A’Meer?”

“Fighting the Monks,” he gasped. “Make Hope stop, just for a moment.” Trey nodded and rode on, trying to catch up with Hope and Rafe where they had moved ahead. Kosar looked around at the forest behind him before following at a trot. He found them waiting beside a fallen tree, the horses wide-eyed and snorting with panic and exhaustion. Hope looked pale and startled, her tattoos knotted around her eyes and mouth. Rafe’s expression was unreadable.

“The Monks are in the woods,” Kosar said. “A’Meer is trying to draw them off. Rafe, where are we going? Is this it?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “But I don’t think it’s very far.”

“What’s wrong with this place?” Hope asked. “What’s here?”

“Another bit of the land gone bad,” Kosar said, kicking at the gray leaves at his feet. They crackled and spun in the air, shedding gray dust like ash.

“Not that,” Hope said. “Back there, in the pines… those whispers. Did you…?”

“Yes,” Kosar said, catching her eye and then looking away. “A’Meer knew of them.”

Trey made a noise-a laugh, a sob-but none of them said any more about what they had seen, felt or remembered.

“We really need to get wherever we’re going, Rafe,” Kosar said. “I don’t know how long A’Meer can fool them or hold them back.” They all looked uncomfortable at A’Meer’s actions, as if it was already certain that she had sacrificed herself for them.

“Not far,” Rafe said again.

“Swap with me,” Trey said. He carefully dismounted, letting Alishia slump forward in the saddle until her head was resting against the horse’s mane. “She screamed back there,” he said. “They got to her too, even deep down where she is. That’s good, isn’t it?”

“Maybe,” Kosar said. He mounted the horse, put his arms around Alishia and held the reins to either side of her. He glanced down at the miner and smiled. “I’ll take care of her,” he said. Trey frowned, smiled, plucked his disc-sword from his back and looked to Rafe and Hope for direction.

“That way,” Rafe pointed. “The woods stop very soon, and then we’ll see where we’re heading.”

“And where is that?” Kosar snapped. He surprised even himself with the anger in his voice. He was becoming furious at being led, steered, pointed left and right as if by a child playing with wooden toy machines, replaying their own versions of the Cataclysmic War. And though he was scared of what Rafe carried, he was angry also at being kept in the dark. “Where are you taking us, Rafe? Ask that thing inside you and-”

Rafe frowned. “A graveyard,” he said.

Filled with questions, none of them spoke.

Hope led off, driving the horse slightly slower than before. Panic was still there for all of them, but it was more controlled now, more ordered.

Kosar spurred his horse on, clasping the comatose girl between his arms. There was hardly any weight to her at all. He was surprised that she was not dead. He wondered what was going on inside her head, whether those whispering things had invaded as deep as her dreams, and he hoped that she was well.

Trey ran alongside, his long legs eating up the ground.

Ahead, Rafe rested his head against Hope’s back and seemed to sleep.