“There was no discussion. You told me what I had to do, nothing more. But you’re wrong. You shouldn’t make me go.”
“The others need to be warned. Right away.”
“You will be alone,” she insisted. “It’s too dangerous.”
He almost laughed, but instead he simply patted her head. “I’ve been alone for a long time, Catalya. I’ve been alone for more than ten years. I know how to take care of myself.”
She shook her head in denial. “Not with this thing. This thing is different. Worse than Krilka Koos or anything else we’ve come across. You almost died the last time. Do you remember who saved you?”
He backed her away. “I remember. Now go. Do what you have to do, and I’ll do the same.”
He turned then and walked away, ignoring her calls to turn around, to come back and stop being foolish. Before he was far enough away to miss it, he heard her crying.
He remembered it now. She was so strong, so confident in what she could do, but she was still emotionally vulnerable, whether she cared to admit it or not. It was in the nature of who and what she was. It was a part of being human.
He should know. When the bridge went up and the world exploded in fire and smoke, he had cried for Fixit.
He broke away from his reverie and began circling the burial site, searching for tracks. He found them easily enough; others would have missed the telltale scrapes entirely. There were several sets of tracks, all identical, but it was the ones that led off to the northeast in the direction of the caravan that determined his path. These were the ones that mattered. He had already decided that the demon would follow the caravan and its children, would continue to pursue its culling of those unwary enough to get within reach, always hoping its efforts would eventually bring Hawk out to face it.
There was real danger in that happening, of course. Both Angel Perez and he had warned the boy that under no circumstances must he attempt to settle this business on his own. If he were lost, the entire caravan and perhaps the future, as well, were lost. He might want to stop the killings, might desire revenge, might even think that there was something he could do to change things, but he must not act on those impulses.
Hawk was a gypsy morph, though, and in the end he would do whatever he decided needed doing, no matter what anyone said. He was formed of wild magic and was unpredictable. He would only listen to them for so long.
Which was why Logan had to find the demon first.
Which was why he would track it until he caught up with it.
It was a calculated risk, but nothing else had worked. This demon was skilled at hiding its presence and staying all but invisible. Guards and search parties did not seem to trouble it. There was an obsessive quality to its hunting of the children; it would not quit until it got what it wanted. It had come for the gypsy morph, and it meant to have him.
Logan walked back to the Ventra and stood beside it for a moment. He would catch up to the caravan by nightfall tomorrow if he traveled steadily. He might even catch up to the demon by then, as well. He would have preferred to travel afoot, but the Ventra would allow him to cover ground faster. The risk in driving was that it didn’t allow him to read the demon’s signs of passage as carefully as he would have preferred, which meant he might miss something. Still, he would have to make the best of things.
He drank from his water bottle and thought about how skewed things had gotten. What had begun as a simple enough task—to find and guide the gypsy morph and those it led to a safehold the morph would find—had evolved into a complex struggle for survival involving thousands of children, an entire nation of Elves, and various other species of mutated humans. His original charge had been altered so often that he was no longer certain exactly what it was. He supposed it was still the same, only grown larger.
He started to climb back into the AV when something in the distance caught his eye. He froze, one foot already inside the vehicle, and stared at the sky.
A hot-air balloon hung silhouetted against the western horizon, floating slowly on the sluggish air. He blinked in disbelief, watching its progress.
It was coming his way.
No, he thought, it isn’t possible.
Praying at the same time that it was. Praying with every last shred of faith he could muster that he wasn’t mistaken. Watching the balloon grow larger, settling lower in the sky as it neared him, the details growing sharper, more certain.
Until at last there could no longer be any doubt.
It was Simralin.
TWENTY-SEVEN
A FTER HE HAD HELD HER for long minutes, needing the feel of her body pressing against his own to make her presence real enough that he could accept it, grateful beyond anything words could express, he asked her to tell him everything. She did so as he drove the Ventra in pursuit of the demon, eyes on the rough terrain as he listened, searching for tracks, for sign of his quarry’s passing, his hands steadied by their grip on the wheel in a way they might not have been if they were only resting in his lap.
He had been so afraid of losing her, of having to live without her, of the consequences of his decision not to insist that she come with him. He had been terrified, and now he could breathe again in a way he hadn’t been able to in many days.
She seemed aware of this, and she touched him frequently, smiled often, and reassured him that she was really there. She was feeling the same way he was, he told himself, as much in love with him as he was with her. He couldn’t have explained how he knew this beyond what his instincts and his heart told him. It was in things that would have been barely noticeable to others—the small gestures, quick asides, and momentary glances. It was in the changes in her tone of voice when she spoke and in the silences in between. In these little things, seemingly unimportant and fleeting, everything was made known. It was cemented by her physical closeness to him, by the fact that she had come back from the precipice on which he had left her standing, alive and well, a whole person still despite the terrible struggle she had been through.
Almost no one else, he thought, could have done what she had done and lived to tell about it.
Even so, she had not survived unscathed. There was blood and dirt on her ripped clothing. Save for her adzl, her weapons were gone. She had been wounded several times, although she had cleaned her injuries and bound them up. She had not eaten in more than a week save for what she had managed to forage. Her face was gaunt, her cheeks hollow, and her eyes haunted.
Even in this condition he found her the most beautiful woman he had ever known.
AFTER HE LEAVES HER days earlier in the mountains of the Cintra, she goes back in search of Arissen Belloruus and the others who remain behind to defend against the demon army. She is with another dozen or so Trackers and scouts, all of them mindful of the need to find routes of escape for those who fight to provide cover for Kirisin’s escape.
They encounter resistance almost at once, the once-men under demon command flooding through the trees and rocks in an unstoppable torrent. The Elves under her command take cover and fight back with bow and arrow and javelin, slowing but not stopping the attack. Gradually, they are forced to give ground, unable to get through or stem the tide. They back their way clear of the forests and up into the rocks, counterattacking the entire way. The once-men try to get at them, but fail. They lack automatic weapons or even blades in most cases and are forced to rely on pieces of pipe and lengths of wood. These poor weapons are useless against the experienced and well-trained Elves.
Still, Simralin and her companions cannot reach the main body. They cannot even determine where it is. The shouts and cries of battle seem to come from all sides, and the trees hide the truth of what is happening.
“Chenowyn!” she calls finally to one of her scouts. “Climb higher into the rocks and try to see what is happening!”
The other woman is gone at once, and Simralin moves the rest into a position where the rocks narrow down into a space barely wide enough for two abreast to pass, and she
chooses to defend there. Their attackers may find a way around them, may even cut them off, but for now it is the best they can do. The once-men are still streaming out of the trees, seemingly without order or leadership, consumed by their efforts to find their quarry, scattering this way and that like wild things.
Then, before Chenowyn can report back, a large body of Elves bursts clear of the trees into open ground below, colliding with the once-men that have gotten around behind them. Other once-men erupt from the forests, a massive force of attackers. The Elves try to stand and fight them off, but there are too many. They give ground quickly, retreating toward the rocks and the high ground that Simralin and her companions occupy.
She makes a quick head count and doesn’t get past a hundred.
Where are the rest?
She doesn’t like to think about the answer. Instead, in an effort to make a difference, she takes her own small force down out of the rocks in a counterattack that catches the nearest of the once-men by surprise and opens a path for the beleaguered Elves. She sees the King then, trying to rally his soldiers. He is bloodied and disheveled, and he fights with short swords in both hands. The once-men recognize that he is the leader and try to get at him. But Home Guards surround the King protectively and fight them off. Sporadic gunfire erupts from the trees, but it doesn’t seem to have any effect on the combatants.
“Home Guard!” the big Tracker Eliasson roars from just below her, throwing back the creatures that come at him. “To me, Elven! To the rocks!”
The Elves hear and see, and in a tangled body they begin to fight their way toward him. Simralin pulls her diminished force—now down to eight—into the shelter of the rocks, where they use longbows on the once-men in an effort to help. But it makes scant difference. The forest below is alive with others, masses of them pouring out of the trees, too many to count or stand against.
Arissen Belloruus is still trying to pull back, to fight his way free with his Home Guards.
Hurry, Arissen, Simralin pleads silently.
Chenowyn is back beside her, as white as a wraith at the new moon. “What have you seen?” Simralin demands of her.
“There are thousands more.” Chenowyn has to shout to make herself heard. “So many they fill the forest at every turn. We cannot hope to stop them all.”
“Stay here.” Simralin is already moving. “Keep the way open.”
She is down out of the rocks in seconds and charging across the open spaces toward the Elves below. Dozens have gone down, their numbers diminished as if by magic. The trees continue to bleed once-men, an endless stream of bodies exploding out of the shadows in a cacophony of screams and waves of wild-eyed madness. More Elves go down, fighting to the end, dying on their feet. The Home Guard surrounding the King is reduced to less than a dozen, separated from the main body of Elves fleeing for the path she has opened for them.
Get out, Arrisen, she wants to scream at him, but knows she will not be heard.
An instant later a burst of automatic weapons fire erupts from the edge of the trees and a creature only vaguely human pushes out of the woods with a huge double-barreled killing machine that spits fire and death everywhere. Most of the Home Guards collapse. The King goes down as well, dropping to one knee, head lowered. He is spitting blood.
“Arissen!” She screams his name aloud.
The creature has raised its arms in triumph and is howling with glee when the first arrow pierces it through its right eye and knocks it backward a step. It tears the arrow free, heedless of the pain, but a second arrow spits its throat and a third buries itself deep in the hairy chest. Eliasson is fitting another arrow to his bow when the creature staggers and sinks to the earth and does not move again.
Simralin is fighting to reach the King, but she is already too late. The last of the Home Guards are cut down, and the once-men fall on Arissen Belloruus like wolves. The King disappears beneath the swarm and does not reappear.
There is nothing Simralin can do. She backs away, calling the rest of the Elves to her, those she can still see amid the carnage, those who are still standing. Maybe half are able to reach her, breaking clear of their attackers. The rest are lost in seconds, buried in the monstrous swarm of bodies that converge on them and bear them to the earth.
She retreats into the rocks with those who remain alive, and they turn their weapons on their attackers. There are so many of them by now that it is virtually impossible not to hit something, and dozens collapse as they surge toward the defenders.
“What do we do?” Chenowyn shouts in her ear.
Indeed. What is there to do? The King is dead and with him almost the whole of his command. Kirisin is safely away, and there is nothing left for the Elves who remain but to fight to save their own lives. A reasonable choice, but flight seems the better option.
“Fall back!” she shouts.
She leads them up into the rocks, through the narrow defiles and rugged terrain, knowing the best ways to go to keep the enemy from massing in pursuit. They may come after the Elves—indeed, they almost certainly will—but they will have to do it in ones and twos. That gives the Elves a chance. There are fewer than fifty of them now, and once they manage to put some distance between themselves and their pursuers, they can go to ground, can find places to hide where they will never be found.
But first they must get clear of the fighting.
For a time, it appears they will. The passage they follow is riddled with dead ends and side trails that go back the way they have come, and if you didn’t know the way, as she did, you would become quickly lost. Their pursuit falls away and then disappears entirely. They continue to climb into the mountains, and she knows that when they reach the high desert beyond, they will be able to use the ravines and ridgelines to hide themselves as they make their way eastward. They will not turn south until they are safely clear of the roads that Kirisin and Logan will have taken. Those roads are too easily discovered, and they would be run down before they reached Redonnelin Deep. Better to fade into the barren landscape beyond, where trails are much harder to find and tracks may be more easily disguised.
“We’ve lost them,” Chenowyn declares with a grin after they have crested the mountains and can see the eastern slopes and the desert beyond.
Indeed, they have. But the demons that control the army have thought ahead to this and sent winged creatures to track them. The creatures swoop down in attack not a mile beyond the rim, when they are still descending the exposed rocky slopes of the higher elevations. They rip and tear at the Elves, who try in vain to protect themselves. The winged creatures are swift and their strikes precise. Several of the Elves are wounded and one is killed before their attackers fly back the way they have come.
Simralin knows what will happen next, and there is no defense against it if they stay together.
“We must separate into smaller groups,” she tells them. “No more than half a dozen each. Then we must fan out and go to ground. The winged things will guide the once-men to where we are, if we give them the chance. We do better by separating. Stay hidden until nightfall, then make your way north to the river. Track it east until you find the camp or signs of its passage. Track it from there to those who will be helping Kirisin.”
They embrace, all of them, before setting out. They do not know which of them will survive this. Some will not. Some will never be seen again.
Eliasson takes one group and is gone. Chenowyn chooses to stay with Simralin. She is not a leader and has no desire to start learning to be one now. With another three in tow, they head directly east into the badlands of the high desert, working their way quickly across a long stretch of flats to where fissures and upheavals have changed the terrain into a jumble of ridges and ravines. They travel through midday, and then Simralin takes them several miles down a dry wash strewn with small rocks. Before the wash ends, they climb out again and turn down a slide that leads to a carapace; here they find an overhang and take shelter.
They stay all night, peer
ing into the darkness, listening to the silence. At one point, they hear screams, but the screams come from a long way off and it is impossible to determine their direction. They take turns standing watch. They wait to be discovered.
When morning dawns, though, they are still safe. Simralin goes out for a quick look and comes back right away. Smoke rises from several places west, closer to the mountains. The smell is of burning flesh. The winged creatures patrol the skies in ones and twos, visible in all directions, even east. They must stay where they are until it is dark again.
They pass the day in misery. The sun beats down on the empty terrain and turns it into a furnace. The air is so stiflingly hot and dust-filled that they choke on it when they breathe. They have almost nothing to eat or drink, but they share what they have. Simralin knows where to find water farther north, but it is a long journey. She knows, as well, where they can find another of the hot-air balloons the Trackers have stashed across the Cintra and north. But the balloon is slow and cumbersome, and it is no match for the winged creatures if they spy it.
She tells the others she has made a decision. When night comes, they must leave their hiding place. If they stay, they risk discovery. Hiding is no longer an option. The once-men are actively hunting them, using the flying creatures to ferret them out. Worse, they have almost no food or water left, and the circle of predators is tightening. They cannot risk staying where they are. Their choice is simple: they can try to reach water, or they can try to reach the hot-air balloon.
Her companions choose the balloon. Anything that will get them away from the Cintra quickly.
When it grows dark, she leads the others out from their hiding place and onto the flats. The sky is clear and filled with stars, but the moon hangs low and distant against the horizon, reduced to a tiny sliver. The balloon is perhaps three days off, if they travel steadily. She chooses a route that takes them east through the high desert and away from the larger body of their hunters. The flying creatures, if they sight them, will not be able to bring the once-men right away. But she knows, as well, that any sighting is probably the end of them. Once seen, they can be tracked from the air until help arrives, no matter how long it takes.