But just because I have to protect her doesn’t mean I can’t try to talk some sense into her.
Unfortunately, every time he thought about saying something his words caught in his throat.
He watched Ijanna while she ate, but she was so exhausted she didn’t even seem to notice. They were both covered with sweat and dust, and it was clear from the lines under her eyes that she needed sleep. Firelight reflected off her pale Allaji skin. She’d undone her braid a few days ago, so her blonde hair hung loose down around her shoulders. Her deep crimson eyes shone like gems in the night.
Goddess, I don’t know what to do.
In the end it seemed he had little choice. Ijanna had told him it was the Veil that had placed the compulsion for him to serve and protect her, and if he resisted he’d die. The truth was he didn’t want to fail her, but the thought of resurrecting the Unmaker’s servant twisted him from the inside out.
The sun turned molten as it set, a yellow stain in the brick red dusk. The Bonelands always seemed to be covered with shadows, and the air was dry and course in spite of their proximity to Thorn Lake and the River Black. Kath drank sparingly from his canteen and licked his dry lips.
“
Once we’re past Kaldrak Iyres,” Ijanna said quietly, “we should slow down. I don’t think I can keep up this pace.”
“
Well,” Kath said, “
you
set it.”
“
I know. And I’m sorry.” She smiled. He liked being on friendly terms with her and able to talk again, even if he couldn’t bring himself to say what really needed to be said.
Being friends isn’t going to help much when things get more complicated.
“Well, we probably shouldn’t go
too
slow,” Kath said. “The Bonelands are dangerous.”
“
We’ll stick close to the western trade roads as long as we can,” Ijanna said. “We’re bound to find a caravan so we can get fresh supplies. As we go further north I’ll steer us clear of the Razorcat hunting grounds and Dust Men tombs. We’ll also avoid the ruined cities.”
Kath stood and stretched. He heard animal calls in the distance: not wolves, but something bigger.
“It would be nice to sleep with a roof over our heads,” he said.
“
Trust me, the ruined cities of Gallador are the most dangerous parts of the Bonelands. Which is…unfortunate.” She leaned back and looked out over the darkening landscape. The sun was setting fast, and the world looked like a black sea. Kaldrak Iyres’ ghostly fires reflected off the surface of the massive lake. For a moment Ijanna’s eyes strayed to the twin blades she carried, the weapons she called the
thar’koon
, which he knew were somehow leading her to the women they sought.
“
What’s wrong?” Kath asked.
“
Nothing,” she said.
“
Ijanna…”
“
We’re going to Corinth,” she said, and she looked at him. “That’s…not good.”
“
Did the blades tell you that?” he asked. “Just now? Is Corinth where the other Skullborn is?”
“
Yes.”
Kath swallowed.
“Corinth is supposed to be haunted, isn’t it?”
“
Yes,” Ijanna said with a nod.
Kath tried to suppress a shudder. There would be no avoiding it, not if that was where the blades told her to go.
“We’ll be okay,” Kath said. Ijanna gave him a questioning look. “I promise,” he said.
I don’t know if you’re crazy or not
, he thought,
but I’ll give you this, Ijanna – you’ve certainly made life more interesting.
Eight
That night, Ijanna slept worse than any other since leaving Ebonmark. She had no nightmares or visions, but her slumber was fretful and uneasy. On several occasions she woke in a panic, her eyes darting about, convinced she’d been woken by some threat coming at them from out of the night. Kath was always ready with his axe in hand to go and inspect whenever she thought she sensed something in the darkness, but they were alone.
She’d never been more grateful for her turn to take watch, even if Kath had been reluctant to let her have one since he knew how little she’d rested. Eventually exhaustion forced him to sleep, leaving Ijanna up alone, nervous and on edge. All through that next morning she moved as if half-asleep, barely registering their position as they stayed in the shallow valleys and crested buttes west of Kaldrak Iyres, avoiding the roads and watchtowers scattered across the countryside.
She stumbled a few times, and she was grateful Kath was there to catch her. The chill of the early morning air was all that kept her awake, and she regretted the fact that very soon the atmosphere would be scorching.
Kaldrak Iyres faded from sight. They followed the western trails, which eventually cut to the north. It was a long day’s walk through scrub oak and blasted stone, and they passed clefts in the earth that looked deep enough to swallow ships, but they managed to side-step those rifts with relative ease and make their way down to the wide trade roads. They camped around mid-day in the shadow of a dead oak.
After Kath acquired some hard provisions and salted beef from a traveling merchant with a mule-driven cart and a burly man-at-arms as his protection – Ijanna remained hidden in case those men knew of the bounty Mez’zah Chorg had put on her head – they headed northeast, away from the road and into the flatlands.
Gallador’s unnaturally hot weather, especially for such a northerly place, was only one of its many curses. The regions to the west were arid and cold and received snow, but the northern wastes were all desert. The atmosphere was so dry it seemed ready to combust, and the heat they’d trudged through along the River Black was nothing compared to what they felt as they entered the Bonelands.
The rocky terrain gradually gave way to smoother and softer ground, dark soil filled with sediment and bone. The air grew stale and murky and the sky was dark, peppered with black clouds Ijanna knew were toxic to the unprotected, which was why she shielded the two of them the moment the first one came into view. Low hills seemed to move in the distance, and long-blasted roads sank into the black sand. The ruins of collapsed towers and shattered buildings littered the wastes, so hollow and decimated they were likely to topple in a strong wind.
Ijanna’s fear slowly melted away while they walked. The trek was long and tiring, but since horses were the preferred prey of Razorcats and Iron Scorpions they decided not to bring any mounts – it seemed foolish to invite danger in a land where trouble was practically expected at every step. They were bathed in sweat, but they had a good supply of water, and the one benefit of the constant black clouds was that at least they didn’t have to worry about direct exposure to the sun. Grey and black dust kicked up around their feet as they walked. The land between the ruins was stark, like the surface of a black moon.
Ijanna walked in a haze of fatigue, but she was comfortable with the knowledge that she and Kath were safe, at least for a while. Few brigands rarely strayed so far north, and by early afternoon they were too far from Kaldrak Iyres to worry about being reached by the eyes and ears of the Phage. The burning fear of what she might find in Corinth clutched in her chest like a razored breath, but Ijanna did all she could to ignore it. Sadly, it didn’t work.
Near sundown, after a long but eventless day spent crossing the bleakest lands north of the Heartfang Wastes, Kath slowed his pace. The enormous soldier was constantly checking their surroundings and watching for signs of trouble.
“
What is it?” she asked.
Kath stopped, and Ijanna walked up beside him and looked out over the lands to the south. The golden-black desert was peppered with burned hills and sand-blasted stone ruins.
“I think we’re being followed,” Kath said. “A small group, maybe six or seven strong.”
“
Where?”
She didn’t see anything moving. The sun’s glow was dulled by the slow-moving clouds, and the land itself was so dark it looked like a sea of oil.
Kath kept his eyes to the distance and leaned in close until their faces almost touched. She felt his breath and smelled his dank sweat as he carefully pointed towards the horizon. After a moment she saw them: several distant figures moved at the edge of a far hill, barely visible as they slowly crept across the landscape. Kath must have had the eyes of a hawk to pick them up at that distance.
“
Oh no,” she said. “It could be travelers, if we’re lucky, or bandits if we’re not.”
“
I think they’ve been following us for a while,” Kath said.
Ijanna looked around. There were broken buildings and tower shells in the distance, but nothing they could take shelter in before the strangers caught up with them. If they were pilgrims or explorers then there was nothing to worry about, but if they were something more…
A strange roar carried across the plains. At first Ijanna took it for wolf song, but after it carried on for a few moments she realized it was human. Kath clenched his axe.
Ijanna’s heart froze. She knew that cry, though she’d only heard it once before. She’d hoped never to hear it again.
It was the war call of the Chul. They’d found her.
Nine
He lives in the company of wolves.
They make their home in a blighted grove of twisted trees and dim pools. The alpha takes a different bitch every night – unlike other wolves, they don’t mate for life.
Little they do is normal.
He fights to enter the pack. Only a young pup, he’s survived the harsh tests the betas have subjected him to, their grueling battles and challenges. They push him ahead in the worst weather, piss on him and bite him and mangle him until he’s at the edge of death, then abandon him and leave him to make it back on his own. Try as they might, they haven’t killed him yet.
He runs with them and sleeps with them and eats with them even though he’s smaller than the others, different, at least for now. He has to prove himself, especially to the one who found him and brought him in.
The world is icy blue, washed over with frozen water. The black moon hangs low in the pale sky, casting shadows instead of light. The pack is smaller than it had once been, as many of them have been killed by hunters, but those few who remain are strong.
He smells a familiar presence among them. His hackles rise and he feels an urge to rip something, to tear into flesh. Only the rules of the pack which he so desperately seeks to join keep him from tearing out his old enemy’s throat.
The remains of a dead child lie on the ground, a small feast. He
’
s only permitted to chew on the greasy remains, for the choice pieces are reserved for the older and more powerful members of the pack, the alphas and betas, not an omega like he. He’s so hungry he doesn’t care, and he devours what little he’s allowed with ravenous glee. The skin is sweet, like sugary pork, so soft it melts in his jaws. Eating the child has a sort of euphoric effect, for it fills him with a sense of peace and calm he hasn’t known in a long time.
He has memories of pain. Blades and blood, screams and fire. Another child, dead by his hand, only that one he didn’t eat.
He’s still hungry, and grows hungrier by the minute. He knows he will never be sated, but that doesn’t stop the yearning. He growls, demanding the other’s shares.
They aren’t going to give up their meat. They greedily claw at the child’s corpse and tear it to ribbons. Blood sluices and freezes to the frozen earth. He smells it burning through the ice.
He turns away, the remnants of his small meal dangling from between his teeth. He doesn’t need them. He’ll find his own food.
He leaves the smell of the slaughter behind, the scent of his foe. He knows he’ll return, but not yet, not until he’s had his fill elsewhere.
He returns to the cold and lifeless wastelands. The blue desert looks like perfect snow. There’s no sign of life that he can sense or smell, but the hunger drives him on. He’ll kill whatever he has to.
Ten
Azander Dane woke with a sense of dread. He wasn’t sure what he’d been dreaming about, but he was exhausted and afraid and felt like he hadn’t eaten in a week. He wanted to attribute it to the stress and fatigue from his harrowing experiences in the City of Scars, but something else was amiss. The cold fear and ravenous hunger he kept waking to wasn’t natural, and it worried him.
Like I don’t have enough to worry about already.
They were entering cursed territory. The Bonelands were hard on the body and mind, and if he wasn’t careful he and Kruje could wind up as two more victims to the dry and craggy wastes.