The Maelstrom

~ 9 ~ Hunted

The blood drained from Madam Petra’s face. “Are you certain, love?”

Katarina nodded.

“Clones,” said Max quietly. “I fought one in Prusias’s Arena, but there are others.”

“Two others,” said the smuggler knowingly. “I saw them once at a reception. They’re the crown jewels of the Workshop’s genetics program. But the rumor is that things went amiss. The Workshop attempted modifications and something went wrong. The clones became too dangerous, impossible to control. Homicidal. They killed several engineers and destroyed half the creatures in the exotics museum. I’d heard the Workshop had given up and were trying to find a buyer. The Atropos must have acquired one—perhaps the pair.”

“So you know about the Atropos,” said Max.

“Of course I do,” replied Petra coolly. “There’s quite a price on your head, my dear. And if I’d had the good sense to alert someone as soon as I knew you were in my home, I might be sitting on a mountain of gold instead of fleeing from my burning house in this ridiculous balloon. You owe me a new estate, Max McDaniels.”

But Max’s mind was working too quickly to address her lost fortune. That Madam Petra could not be trusted was plainly evident; she had even greater incentive to betray him than before. He glanced at the pinlegs. It was imperative to transport the mysterious creature and David back to Rowan as soon as possible. David had mentioned another tunnel in Raikos, and they were drifting toward that eastern province, but he also considered Sir Alistair and Kolbyt’s warnings. Yuga might have reduced the area to a wasteland. David’s tunnel might not even exist anymore.

“What’s the date?” he wondered.

“December eighth,” replied Madam Petra. “Why?”

“Prusias expects an answer by solstice,” said Max. “That leaves just a few weeks. We’re relatively close to a place that might magic us to Rowan, but it’s near Yuga. What have you heard about her?”

“Aamon certainly gave her a wide berth,” replied Madam Petra. “His armies abandoned the Iron Road altogether and invaded Blys over open country. Supposedly she’s in Raikos, but whether she’s near Taros or Bholevna, I don’t know.”

At the mention of these cities, David stirred. Grimacing, he tried to sit up and fell back against the wicker basket. Despite the cold, his face was hot with fever.

“Bholevna,” he murmured weakly. “My pack …”

Max knelt by his friend and inspected the bandages, which were already damp with clotted blood.

“We left your pack in the wagon,” said Max. “It’s back at Piter’s Folly. What about Bholevna?”

“Tunnel …,” David whispered.

“The tunnel’s near Bholevna?”

David nodded and gestured weakly for Max to come closer. The boy’s bloodstained fingers plucked at Max’s sleeve, fumbling about until they caught hold of his hand.

“Hold it tight,” David whispered.

Max did so, wrapping both of his warm hands around David’s cold one. The sorcerer’s lips twitched, mouthing silent words over and over. Max began to feel light-headed. His head swam as David slowly leeched energy from his body like some sort of vampire.

A sudden surge of energy departed Max, pumping through his fingertips like waters bursting from a dam. David’s hand seized up as though he’d touched an electrified fence. The boy’s legs kicked against the pinlegs case, harder and harder. Max tried to tear his hands away, but he was weakening rapidly.

“Pull him off!” he wheezed.

Instantly, Toby changed from a lutin to a chimpanzee. Max felt the primate’s powerful hands grip his and pry them from David’s. Baring his teeth like a wild animal, David kicked and struck out at Toby, thrashing about the balloon’s compartment as though possessed.

“What’s the matter with him?” shrieked Toby, pulling. “He’s—”

Max toppled heavily onto his side. The motion and the smee’s efforts finally broke the connection, and David collapsed back against the wicker basket, struggling for breath. Smoke rose off the sorcerer’s clothes as though they’d been thrust into an oven.

“I’m sorry,” he gasped. “I—I should have known … my God!”

The boy lost consciousness, his nose whistling as it often did whenever he was deeply asleep. Madam Petra crept over to Max, crouching over him and peering at him closely.

“Are you all right?” she asked tentatively.

Max nodded blandly. His wits were wandering, but he was profoundly wary of betraying any weakness to the smuggler. The woman had just lost a fortune; should she deliver Max McDaniels and David Menlo to the Enemy, she might regain it tenfold. Gathering himself, Max stood on shaky legs.

“I’m fine,” he lied. “David used me to strengthen himself. It caught me by surprise.”

The smee changed back to a lutin and examined his hands. “I didn’t know David was so strong!”

Max said nothing, seizing the opportunity to gather himself. Leaning over the basket’s rim, he allowed the cold gales to clear his mind while he gazed out at the gray clouds and the faint, gray-green landscape far below.

The winds howled at such heights, whipping through the balloon’s rigging with a stinging mix of ice and sleet. Katarina was sitting quietly, curled next to her mother, who was ministering to her burns and soiled face. Gazing back down, Max tried to estimate their speed as the balloon carried them east over a series of small lakes and hardscrabble hills. For the moment, they were traveling in the proper direction, but the winter winds were capricious. He hoped whatever David had done, whatever energies he had sourced from Max, would enable a swift recovery. They might need Rowan’s sorcerer to summon a breeze to blow them toward Bholevna. Easing down, Max rested his back against the basket and closed his eyes to think.

Are my own clones working for the Atropos?

What should we do if Yuga has destroyed David’s tunnel?

How did our enemies know we were at Madam Petra’s?

His next realization was that someone was shaking him.

Night had fallen. The burners’ golden light danced on the smuggler’s face as she crouched above Max and tugged at his cloak.

“Wind’s changed,” she said. “We’re drifting north. Something’s happening below.”

For several seconds, Max merely blinked at the woman and tried to piece together where he was. His face was numb from the cold and he was disoriented not only from ordinary exhaustion, but also from the aftershocks of David’s spell. Nodding dumbly, he pushed himself up.

Below was a sea of clouds. In the moonlight, they appeared like herds of soft, silvery cattle drifting over the slumbering earth. Peeking here and there through the gaps was the edge of a great city, a sprawl of twinkling lights in clusters and spokes and patterns. Above the winds and the creak of cordage, Max heard droning calls, as if the clouds were lowing in their dark pasture. Was he still dreaming?

“What city is that?” he murmured.

“That’s not a city,” breathed Madam Petra. “It’s an army.”

Rubbing his eyes, he peered again, reminded suddenly of Mina’s accounts of the many worlds, half veiled within the summoning circles. The lights might have been such a place, thousands of fireflies hovering over some dark, primeval marsh. They were so tiny, so distant that Max imagined the smuggler was joking until he heard the lowing again. Slowly but surely, his wits returned as the freezing winds cleared away the cobwebs.

The sound was not lowing cattle; it was the call of war horns. There must have been hundreds of them—perhaps thousands—all blowing in unison far below. At ground level, the volume must have been deafening, a din to herald an End of Days. As Max watched, many of the lights began to move, creeping north.

“Can they see us?” he wondered.

“I doubt it,” said Madam Petra. “We must be a mile or more up, and there’s cloud cover. The burners are small … even if they saw us, we’d probably just look like a tiny star.”

“A tiny star that’s moving,” said Max.

“An army that size isn’t concerned with a moving star; it’s concerned with other armies.”

Madam Petra snatched Max’s spyglass as soon as he produced it. Leaning out from the balloon, she scanned the landscape below. She was silent for several minutes, sweeping the glass across the lights, which were converging into distinct patterns and formations. Focusing on a shimmering cluster, she shook her head and returned the glass to Max.

“Prusias is here,” she said grimly. “That’s his palanquin in the central column. Do you see it?”

Max spotted it right away, a section where many lights were crowded like honeybees congregating around their queen. The rolling palanquin must have been enormous, but still it was dwarfed by the surrounding sea of banners and torches. There must have been a quarter million troops below, not even counting the siege engines and supply wagons, cooks, engineers, carpenters, blacksmiths, servants, and God knew whatever else accompanied an army of such size. Max’s initial impression had been correct. This was indeed a city—a creeping city bent on conquest. The horns had ceased, replaced now by the tolling boom … boom … boom of drums to set the march. As they sounded far below, the columns tightened and the army curved to the northeast, following the line of a river as it stretched toward Dùn and the border with Aamon’s kingdom. The smuggler’s voice tickled Max’s ear.

“Still believe Rowan can win?”

Max said nothing but watched Prusias’s legions coursing north like streams of glowing lava. Leaning against the basket, Madam Petra brushed against him.

“The king still bleeds, you know,” she said. “His wounds won’t knit. My contacts say you carry a blade that nearly took Prusias’s heads, one by one. Rumor has it the malakhim have to replace his bandages thrice a day lest they soak through and frighten off all his little concubines. Can you imagine? The King of Blys sullen on his throne while those wraiths attend him like anxious nursemaids!” The smuggler laughed like a mischievous girl. “Poor Prusias, no wonder he’s grown so ill-tempered! I should like to see the weapon that could hurt one such as he. Do you have it here?”

She was standing very close, beautiful and wicked by the light of the burners. The others were asleep, snoring beneath piled blankets while Toby dozed as a luxuriant ermine. When Max did not respond, Madam Petra gave a nostalgic smile.

“It’s so strange to think that you were Bragha Rùn,” she reflected. “I saw three of your victories in the Arena. You fought like a god—so strong, so quick. Your matches were poetry. The whole kingdom was dying to know who was beneath that frightful mask.” Leaning close, the smuggler searched his face. “There’s something in you that isn’t in those clones,” she concluded with a whisper. “Something immortal …”

She stared at Max as though he were a piece of art, a prized jewel she’d salvaged from her smoldering safe back in Piter’s Folly.

Max’s tone was sharp. “I’m not some moonstruck politician or Workshop admirer.”

The smuggler’s smile vanished. “You misunderstand me, Max.”

“I think we understand each other perfectly, Madam Petra. I’m taking my friends and the pinlegs back to Rowan. You and Katarina will be welcome if you choose to come with us. At Rowan, you’ll have land of your own and whatever protection we can provide.”

The smuggler gave a wry laugh. “And if we choose not to settle in a doomed realm?” she inquired, blinking sweetly.

“You can do what you like,” replied Max. “But until we’re on our way home, you and Katarina are staying with us. I won’t have you running off and raising the alarm.”

“You think I’d betray my own kind to the demons? How uncharitable.”

“You were fleecing your own people on Piter’s Folly. I don’t pretend to know what you’d do or who you’d sell. But you won’t sell us.”

“So Katarina and I are hostages?” she asked, obviously bemused. “Let’s see if I understand this properly. You sneak into my home, bring assassins to my door, steal my pinlegs, and hold us against our will, but I’m the criminal?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Max, returning the smile. “You can lodge a complaint with the Director.”

“You know, I met her once at a party,” recalled the smuggler. “Beautiful woman; terrible shoes—”

Just then, something heavy struck the basket, nearly upending it. Stumbling at the impact, Madam Petra toppled out, catching its rim with her fingers. She clung to the bucking balloon as if it were a life raft.

“Get it off me!” she shrieked, her face white with terror.

Lunging over the side, Max seized the smuggler by both wrists and wrenched her up. Something dark was clinging to her lower legs. A screeching filled the air as something else collided with the balloon from above.

Heaving Madam Petra back into the basket, Max saw what had been clinging to her. At first he thought it was a baka, for the creature also had batlike wings that scratched and snared on the wicker. But as it raised its bloody, raptorlike face and hissed, Max saw that it was a Stygian crow—a rare breed of evil creature he’d read about in one of David’s books. It was three times the size of its natural namesake and had a fiery core that shone through thin, membranous patches along its rib cage. Its talons were enormous, and these had raked the smuggler’s legs cruelly. The creature had released the woman, however, and was now hopping about the basket like a ravening vulture, stabbing its beak at Katarina, who screamed and kicked at it. More screeches sounded in the air.

Max’s first swing of the gae bolga sheared cleanly through the creature’s neck. The headless body spun away from the girl and staggered toward Toby. The smee was now wide awake and hysterical, shielding David and pleading with the creatures to go away as they swarmed about the balloon like moths around a flame. Some rocketed past while others swept up to seize hold of the ropes and rigging. Slashing at those within reach, Max had slain half a dozen of the creatures, but he could hear others atop the balloon, their claws pinching and scrabbling for footholds on the slick material. Already the wind was howling through a score of tears and punctures. The balloon was losing altitude.

Down, down the balloon swept and spun toward the earth, curving away north as it was buffeted about by the icy gusts. Max could see stars through holes in the balloon’s fabric as it strained to hold together. The crows screeched and struggled to hold on, their belly fires burning like bright furnaces.

“Hold on to anything you can!” Max shouted, skewering another crow and stumbling back to seize several ropes. The balloon was impossible to steer, but Max had glimpsed a lake glittering below and prayed that they might reach it. Thrusting the ropes in Petra’s hand, he stumbled as the balloon bucked in a sudden gale and nearly sent the pinlegs tube skittering over the side. Max snatched out his hand and caught it, cradling it under his arm and peering over the basket’s edge. The army was much closer now, individual torches visible to the naked eye as they plummeted down. They would end up crashing into its midst, unless …

“Toby!” Max yelled, cutting away the ballast of sand bags. “Become something big—something with wings that can slow down our fall!”

“What do you want?” cried Toby. “There’s only so much—”

“ANYTHING!”

The smee leaped out of the balloon, hovering momentarily with a look of terror upon his ermine face. They quickly left him behind, spinning like a top as the ruptured balloon plunged to earth. The Stygian crows had now abandoned their crashing quarry, their silhouettes turning lazy circles against the bright moon. The balloon had drifted a mile or two east of the marching army, but the ground was already racing up to meet them, a blur of snow-sprinkled terrain that was dotted with lakes and pine forests. One of the lakes was just ahead, but their altitude was dwindling rapidly. By now, the balloon was no more than a charred and torn sail dragging against the wind. Across the basket, Petra was huddled around her daughter. Max did the same with David, propping the unconscious boy up in his arms and praying that they struck water.

And then, almost imperceptibly at first, they began to slow.

Above them, Max beheld a pair of wings, stretched as wide and taut as a glider’s. A gargantuan albatross had snatched up the remains of the balloon and ropes in its talons and was breaking their fall. The bird’s wings were twenty-five feet across, and yet it could only dampen the speed of their descent. The smee squawked with the strain, his voice warbling as the balloon’s trajectory smoothed and they were skimming twenty feet above the lake Max had sighted. Just a little slower and they could safely—

With a screech, the albatross abruptly dropped the balloon and they crashed into the water.

The initial shock of impact was replaced by brutal cold, needle stabs of pain as Max tumbled about in the shallows of the icy lake. He saw stars as his head struck something, a log or fallen tree. He groped for air, felt it rush into his lungs as he finally broke the surface. A hand brushed his and he glimpsed David sinking back below. Seizing his friend, Max raised his head out of the water and began swimming toward shore.

It was hard going. The chain shirt was an anchor about Max’s neck, pulling him ever down into the reedy depths. He kept his eyes fixed on the stars, glittering beyond the billows of his sputtering breath. Gasping and straining, he towed David to shore.

Madam Petra and Katarina were already there, shivering on the banks and sorting through the wet baggage they’d managed to salvage.

“The p-pinlegs?” asked Max, chattering in the frigid cold.

Petra could not speak but merely pointed out toward the lake.

“Get in the woods,” said Max, nodding toward the nearby trees. “Start a fire.”

“The army,” gasped Petra. “They’ll be coming. We have to hide!”

“It w-won’t matter if we die of cold,” said Max. “Can you carry David?”

The smuggler nodded, buckling only slightly as Max slung the boy over her shoulder. She walked briskly to the woods, Katarina staggering along in her wake. There was a coughing sound near Max’s feet. A beaver was waddling out of the shallows, looking cold, wet, and miserable.

“Toby,” said Max. “Are you all right?”

“I think I broke something,” the smee groaned, limping.

“Petra’s gone ahead to start a fire,” said Max, quickly pulling off cloak and hauberk. “I’m going back for the pinlegs.”

Before the smee could respond, Max dove back into the lake, stretching out for the ruptured balloon that was floating atop the icy waters like a lily pad. The cold was like an iron vise clamped about his chest, each stroke squeezing the life out of him. At last his hand touched the balloon, fumbling about until he found a rope. Taking hold of it, Max filled his lungs and dove straight down.

The basket was swinging slowly in the depths like a pendulum suspended by the balloon on the surface. Max felt frantically about the basket’s interior, swimming around inside and groping blindly for the pinlegs tube. After several minutes, his lungs were afire. He abandoned the dive and raced back to the surface.

A glimpse of stars, the rush of oxygen into his lungs, and he dived once again, feeling his way down the ropes to the basket. Once there, he gazed desperately about the water and saw nothing—not even a trace of moon or starlight that filtered through the surrounding blackness.

With frantic concentration, Max enveloped his hands with witch-fire. He’d never tried to do such a thing underwater and wasn’t certain that it would work, but sure enough the eerie blue flames kindled from his fingers, a swirling, incandescent blaze that sent bubbles hissing up toward the surface. Battling the cold, he paddled through the lake’s depths, his hands like two ghostly flares as he searched the weeds and wreckage.

On his fourth dive, Max found it. The pinlegs was peeking out from a nest of reeds on the lake’s bottom, a dim glint of metal at the very limits of the witch-fire’s radiance. Even as Max seized it, he felt the strange creature kicking and scrabbling against the tube’s interior. Clutching it tightly, he rocketed to the surface and swam for shore.

Had Petra not called out to him, Max might have wandered about the woods until he collapsed. He was delirious with cold, his skin blue and his mouth frozen into a horrid grimace as he stumbled about in search of his companions. Taking his hand, the smuggler led him to a small hollow, shielded from the wind by a close stand of pine trees. Some dead wood had been heaped in the hope of a fire, but the fuel was wet and they’d been unsuccessful.

Max was so desperate for warmth he dropped the pinlegs tube and promptly seized hold of two logs. Again, witch-fire coursed from his fingers, bathing the wood with flames. Seconds later, they were hissing and popping, fully ablaze as he stood holding them.

“They’ll burn you!” exclaimed Madam Petra, swatting the wood out of Max’s hands. They fell onto the other logs, catching into a small fire as Katarina fed them with strips of bark and kindling. Max stood right next to the pile, even as it grew to a crackling blaze that sent plumes of sparks and embers cascading over his legs.

Slowly, warmth returned, seeping into his bones to chase away the mortal cold. Gazing down, he saw the others gathered about the fire. Madam Petra and her daughter had undressed down to their underclothes, drying their other garments on an array of rocks and logs that they’d dragged over. Toby was sniffing gingerly at his injured leg, inching ever closer to the heat. David was still unconscious but breathing evenly. Madam Petra had removed his wet clothes as well, and Rowan’s sorcerer lay in naught but his underwear, the firelight dancing on the shiny ten-inch scar that ran down the center of his chest.

Max stood staring at the flames for another five minutes. When life finally returned to his fingers and limbs, he squeezed the remaining lake water out of his clothes and threw them directly on one of the smaller logs. When they began to smoke, he removed them and slipped them on.

“Look after them,” he said, buckling the gae bolga to his side. He nodded to the longsword lying by the smuggler’s boots. “Do you know how to use that?”

Madam Petra nodded.

“Good.” He nodded. “If I’m not back by dawn, strike out for Bholevna. There’s a shortcut near there—a way to get home. David knows where it is and how to use it.”

“But where are you going?” asked Katarina, sounding frightened.

“Back to the lake. They’ll be coming soon.”

Indeed, they were already on the scene when Max emerged from the wood. He saw the riders milling about the lake’s shoreline, a score of dark figures seated on horseback while one waded into the moonlit water and cast a hook at the balloon. When the hook caught, the soldier tied it to his saddle and swatted his horse’s flanks. It trudged forward on the icy banks, dragging the balloon and basket into the shallows. The riders’ attention was fixed on the lake; none were watching as Max slipped from the woods and stole closer, keeping to the brush and bracken.

He was now within twenty feet of the closest, an armored vye sitting atop a destrier bred to handle the creature’s weight. In his taloned hand, the vye held a long spear. He shifted uneasily in his saddle, gazing back toward the trees.

“They’ve fled into the woods,” he growled. “We should be after them already!”

Another turned his dark face at his comrade and bared his jagged teeth. “They’ve fled on foot, fool!” the vye sniggered. “We’ll have them soon enough. You heard the captain; he wants the humans and the flying machine. Start the chase alone if you’re so eager.”

“But the battle—”

“Can start without us. We get a lucky plum of an assignment—one that whisks us from the front lines—and you want to get it over with? Slow and easy, friend—a bit of luck and we’ll rejoin ranks after Aamon’s crushed. You want to be in the thick when those scuttlers are set loose?”

“No.”

“Then shut it. A nice long chase over wild country is just the thing.”

With a grunt, the vye turned back to watch the balloon as it was dragged to the water’s edge. Once his back was exposed, Max stole forward and slipped the gae bolga between the vye’s ribs. The blade hummed in Max’s hand, growing warm as Max quietly tipped the vye back off his saddle. The attack was so smooth and quiet that the vye’s horse hardly stirred. Such mounts were used to the din and clamor of battle; the scent of blood did not spook them.

But the scent did spook the vyes. Max had silently slain three more before the wind changed and carried the smell of death to their comrades. They whirled about just as Max smacked the flanks of the closest horse and sent it cantering into their midst.

As the vyes charged, Max met them head-on, a lethal blur of motion nearly too fast for the creatures to see, much less strike. He evaded each spear point and cavalry saber with fluid ease as the Morrígan’s blade struck home time and time again. It clove metal in two, shearing through helmets and hauberks in a scream of red sparks. The hunters had become the hunted and the battle devolved into a massacre. When only four vyes remained, they tried to flee.

Max raced after in pursuit, desperate to let none escape and return with greater force. The last made it no farther than the other side of the lake before Max ran its destrier down, tearing the vye from the saddle and ending his life with a savage stab through the heart. It was all over in minutes.

Panting, Max stood and scanned the surrounding country. Every sense was electric and terrifying; his fingers twitched as the Old Magic howled within him—always pushing, straining for total control. The gae bolga burned in his hand. It whispered to Max, urging him to hunt down Prusias and finish what he’d started. He could destroy the King of Blys and save Rowan this very night. Who cared if he ultimately fell in battle? People would sing of Max McDaniels for a thousand years—the boy who slew the Great Red Dragon.

What are you about? Answer quick or I’ll gobble you up!

The wolfhound’s challenge echoed in Max’s mind.

“I’m a god,” he whispered, steam coursing off his body. “A god of war and blood and victory. Every day I grow stronger. I’ll drive every army before me. My enemies will know fear like they’ve never known it before.…”

Visions appeared before him: Prusias’s palace engulfed in flames, the marids’ crystal towers crashing down into the sea. One by one, Max would conquer the other kingdoms. And when he had broken all resistance and sent all evil things slinking back into the shadows, David would set things aright. David would pick up the pieces and govern and heal the hurts of the world. The Great War could start tonight. Prusias was so … very … close.

Night was waning when Max finally put the visions and whispers to rest. He had remained absolutely still throughout this silent battle, a brooding statue locked in a struggle to master the forces within him. The Old Magic wanted so desperately to break free, to purge Max of everything human and mortal, weak and loving. He had struggled all his life to keep it bottled up, to divert these energies and control them until they subsided. But the Old Magic was growing stronger … and in the gae bolga, it had a new and potent ally. Unless Max discovered new reserves of will, this was a battle he would someday lose.

But he would not lose it tonight. Max gazed down at the blade in his hand. It was such a grisly weapon, and now there was blood frozen on its blade, lacing the metal like red syrup. For the moment, the Morrígan’s presence was subdued, but Max knew it was forever lurking, forever poised for its next victim and opportunity. Looking down, Max stared at the body of the last vye. His teeth were bared in a death grimace, the yellow eyes staring blindly at a barren elm. His mount was nearby, quietly nosing about for grass and nettles as its hooves scraped through the crusted snow. Gazing about, Max saw a score of dark, motionless shapes scattered about the shoreline.

He dragged the vyes into the lake, letting the water buoy the bodies until he could shove them farther out. Their armor sank them to the bottom, burying each in a grave of silt and reeds.

The sky was growing light by the time he rounded up two of the great black horses. He had hoped to bring more, but the animals were trained for war, for attacking another’s mount in the midst of a chaotic battlefield. Without a rider to control them, they grew aggressive whenever another stood too near. Max could only manage two. Holding their reins at arm’s length, he led the gigantic horses back into the woods.

Madam Petra was pacing anxiously when Max returned. Their hasty camp was packed and most of the embers were buried beneath dirt and snow. David was bundled in blankets, lying next to the beginnings of a travois so they might drag the injured boy over the snowy ground. The smuggler glanced up, looking utterly spent.

“I’d almost given up on you,” she muttered before eyeing the horses. “They only sent two?”

“Twenty.”

“And they are …?”

“Dead,” replied Max curtly, bending down to inspect Toby. The smee had taken his native shape and was warming himself by a pyramid of embers.

“Don’t fret,” declared the smee bravely. “I’ll be all right and war stories work wonders with the ladies. I can tell them all about how I saved you from going squish!”

Max grinned and crouched over David.

“You changed his dressings,” he observed, examining David’s wounds.

“Did you think we’d leave an injured boy to die in the wild?” the smuggler snapped. “Katarina tended to him all night.”

Max thanked the girl, who merely stared at Max with a glassy, curious expression.

“You killed them all?” she wondered.

Max looked away. “More will come,” he said. “We have to be off and quickly. We’re still much too close to that army. Bholevna’s north of here?”

Madam Petra nodded.

“Well,” said Max, “these horses might be big, but they’re still just horses. You and Katarina can ride one and I’ll take David on the other.”

“So I don’t have to be a steed?” said Toby, audibly relieved.

“No,” said Max, scooping him up. “You’ve earned a ride in style.”

Within ten minutes they were packed and mounted with Max balancing David on the saddle in front of him. The Kosas were clearly expert riders, sitting easily on the great horse and stroking its braided mane. Max noticed Madam Petra staring curiously at him.

“Letting us ride together?” she wondered, a faint smile on her lips. “Not afraid we’ll gallop off?”

Max nodded toward the travois. “Not anymore,” he said, taking up the reins and spurring his horse ahead.

They rode throughout the morning and into the afternoon, the horses picking their way through forests and along snowy streams, cantering whenever it was possible. While David dozed, Toby nestled in the folds of Max’s hood and bombarded him with reflections about casino odds, the meaning of life, and his fondness for baked potatoes.

“But I have to enjoy them on the sly,” the smee reflected sadly. “Otherwise everyone looks at me like I’m some damned cannibal. Why, that goose Hannah once caught me feasting on one and practically—”

“So, what’s the matter with you?” interrupted Max, growing weary of these ramblings.

“There’s nothing the matter with me, sir!” thundered Toby. “Potatoes are an entirely different species!”

“No,” said Max. “What’s injured?”

“Oh,” sniffed the smee, lying back. “It’s my latissimus nub. The right one can flare up whenever I carry something heavy. Nothing a hot bath and some Epsom salts can’t cure. Perhaps Madam Petra can give it a deep tissue massage. I don’t want to boast, but the woman can’t keep her eyes off me.”

Max sighed. The smee persisted.

“Oh, I know what you’re thinking,” he declared. “ ‘Come off it, Toby old chap—the woman’s merely staring out of revolted curiosity.’ And perhaps you’re right. But I’ve seen that look before, my boy, and it almost always precedes a scandal.”

“Dear Lord …”

The smee was still telling tawdry tales when Max reined their horse to a halt. Madam Petra and Katarina had dismounted up ahead and were standing where the forest opened onto a broad valley dotted with little lakes. The sun was already setting, flooding the west with brilliant bands of pink and orange. But in the east, the sky was strangely, unnaturally dark. There, above the distant hills and river valleys, an amoebic mass was floating like some vast cloud of volcanic ash. It might have been fifty miles away and still it dwarfed the landscape, a roiling storm that flickered with glimmers of heat lightning as dust clouds and debris swirled beneath. A sound carried to them on the wind, a faint but unmistakable moaning.

The storm was Yuga.