The Were cowered, ears flat against its skull. “Eight,” it whimpered in angry protest. “There were eight!”
Eight?
“No,” Ushahin whispered. “Malthus’ Company … Malthus’ Company numbered seven.”
Baring teeth, the young Brother showed him, putting the pictures in his mind, as the Were had done since Oronin Shaped them. There were eight, and the eighth a Staccian, tall and stricken-faced, a burning brand in his hands. A blow struck when the Brethren expected it not. Sparks against the darkness. A branch, a twig to turn a flood.
“Why?” Ushahin groped for a thread of mortal thought. “Why?”
“We have done.” Emboldened, the young Were reared on its haunches, spat its words, red tongue working in its muzzle. “This says the Grey Dam! No more debts, no one’s son. There were eight! We will Hunt for us, only, and fight no more!”
Done.
A slash of talons, a bounding leap. Claws scrabbled on sandstone, and the Were was gone, leaving Ushahin bereft, aching in the cold light of dawn, at last and truly alone.
“Mother.” He whispered the word, remembering her scent, her sharp, oily musk. How she let him seek comfort in her form, burying his aching, broken face in her fur. How her hackles raised at any threat, menacing all enemies and affording him safety, a safety he had never known. He had healed in her shadow.
The Grey Dam is dead, the Grey Dam lives.
Not his.
His shoulders shook as he wept. The Ellylon could only weep for the sorrows of others, but Ushahin the Misbegotten was the child of three races and none, and he wept for his own bereavement.
When he was done he gathered himself and stood, and began to make his long way toward Darkhaven, to the only home left to him.
THERE HAD BEEN A CRY, filled with rage and defeat, when the path was severed. A single cry, echoing in Vorax’s head, filling his skull like a sounding drum. Through the Helm of Shadows he heard it, filled with an eternity of anguish.
Ah, my Lord Satoris, he thought, forgive us!
It anchored him, that cry, kept his feet solid on the rocky floor of the cavern. It gave him a strength he had not known he possessed and kept him tethered to the Marasoumië. He felt it happen, all of it, as Malthus wielded the Soumanië and wrested control of the Ways from them. And there was only one thing he could do.
Through the eyeslits of the Helm, the node-lights twitched in fitful pain and he saw what he could not see with his naked eyes, the truth no one dared voice. The whole, vast network was dying, aeon by aeon, inch by inch. The Sundering of the world was the slow death of the Marasoumië. Not now, not yet, but over ages, it would happen.
Vorax could not prevent it, any more than he could prevent Malthus from seizing control of the Ways, from closing their egress and sending the army of Darkhaven into flailing chaos. All he could do was hold open his end of the path.
He did.
And he gathered them, scattered like wind-blown leaves through the Ways. It was not his strength, this kind of work, but he made it so. He was one of the Three, and he had sworn to protect his Lord’s fortress. What did it matter that his belly rumbled, that the long hours ground him to the bone? He was Vorax of Staccia, he was a colossus. A battle may be lost, but not the war, no. Not on his watch. The army of Darkhaven would endure to fight another day. Like a beacon of darkness, he anchored their retreat, bringing them home.
They surged into the Chamber of the Marasoumië—Fjel, thousand upon thousand of them, stumbling and disoriented, filled with battle-fury and helpless terror. Elsewhere, a struggle continued and he felt the Ways flex and twist under a Soumanië’s influence. Malthus remained at large. It didn’t matter, that. Only this, only securing the retreat for the tens of thousands of Fjel. Node-points flickered out of his control, slipping from his grasp. It didn’t matter. He was the anchor. Wrestling with the portal, he held it open, seeing through the Helm’s eyes the fearful incomprehension of the Fjel. So many! It had been easier with Ushahin anchoring the other end.
On and on it went, Fjel streaming past him, until he saw the last, the hulking Tungskulder who was Tanaros’ field marshal, who had brought them home to Darkhaven intact. And in Hyrgolf’s countenance lay not incomprehension, but a commander’s sorrowful understanding of defeat. No Fjel tramped behind him. He was the last.
With relief, Vorax relinquished the last vestiges of his hold and let the Way close. His thick fingers shook with exhaustion as he lifted the Helm from his head, feeling it like an ache between his palms. He needed sleep, needed sustenance—needed to pour an ocean of ale down his gullet, to cram himself full of roasted fowl, slabs of mutton, crackling pork, of handfuls of bread torn from the loaf and stuffed into his mouth, of glazed carrots and sweet crisp peas, of baked tubers and honeyed pastries, of puddings and confits and pears, of anything that would fill the terrible void inside him where Satoris’ cry still echoed.
“Marshal Hyrgolf.” Was that his voice, that frail husk? He cleared his throat, making the sound resonate in the depths of his barrel chest. “Report.”
“We failed,” the Fjel rumbled. “Malthus closed the Way.”
Vorax nodded. It was what he had known, no more and no less. He wished there was someone else to bear the details of it to Lord Satoris. “And General Tanaros?”
The Fjeltroll shook his massive head. “He stayed to safeguard our retreat from the Counselor. Neheris spare him and grant him a safe path homeward.”
Ah, cousin! Vorax spared a pitying thought for him, and another for himself. He was weary to the bone, and starved lean. Sustenance and bed, bed and sustenance. But there would be no rest for him, not this day. Lord Satoris would demand a full accounting, and he was owed it; pray that he did not lash out in rage. Their plans were in ruins, the Three had been riven. Malthus seizing control of the Marasoumië, and Tanaros lost in the Ways, with no telling whether either lived or died, and the Dreamspinner stranded in Rukhar. A vile day, this, and vilest of all for the Sorceress of the East. Beshtanag would pay the price of this day’s failure.
At least the army had survived it intact, and there had been no Staccian lives at stake. He ran a practiced eye over the milling ranks of Fjel and frowned, remembering how the army had scattered like wind-blown leaves throughout the Ways, how he had tried to gather them all.
Something was wrong.
Vorax’s frown deepened. “Where’s the Midlander?”
“WHERE ARE WE?” THERE HAD been a cavern, and an old man with a staff; a terrified crush of flesh. That was when the world had gone away, carried by the General’s shouting voice. He remembered the rushing force, the terrible sense of dislocation, and then the fearsome impact. Blinded by the throbbing Marasoumië, jostled and swept away, thrown down and unhorsed, Speros of Haimhault had landed … somewhere. He found his feet and staggered, flinging out both arms, hearing his own voice rise in sharp demand. “Where are we?”
“Underearth, boss,” a Fjel voice rumbled.
There was an arm thrust beneath his own, offering support. Speros grabbed at it, feeling it rocklike beneath bristling hide, as he swayed on his feet. “Where?”
“Don’t know.”
“Where’s the General?”
“Don’t know!”
“All right, be quiet.” Speros squinted, trying to clear his gaze. They were. in a vast space. He could tell that much by the echoes of their voices. Somewhere, water was dripping. Drop by drop, slow and steady, heavy as a falling stone. The mere scent of it made him ache to taste it. “How deep?”
There was a shuffling of horny feet. “Deep,” one of the Fjel offered.
It was a pool. Blinking hard, he could see it. A pool of water, deep below the earth. And above it—oh, so far above it!—was open sky. It must be, for there was blue reflected in its depths. Kneeling over it, he made out a dim reflection of his own face; pale, with dilated eyes. “Water,” he murmured, dipping a cupped hand into the pool.
The water didn’t even ripple. As if he had grasped
an ingot of solid lead, his weighted hand sank, tipping him forward. He gasped, his lips breaking the surface of that unnatural water, and he understood death had found him all unlooked-for. How stupid, he thought, trying in vain to draw back from the pool.
One breath and his lungs would fill.
A wet death on dry land.
Then, pressure; a coarse, taloned hand tangled in his hair, yanking his head back and away from the deadly pool. He came up sputtering, his neck wrenched, mouth heavy with water.
“Careful, boss.”
They were Gulnagel Fjel; lowlanders, the swift runners, with their grey-brown hides, lean haunches and yellowing talons. They could take down a deer at a dead run, leaping from hill to hill. There were four, and they watched him. Having saved his life,