‘Fear makes you call out for those you love, Unknown. To be saved and be saviour. That’s how we found each other again. And when the skin of the dimension was finally torn, we could sense you too. And Denser. You represent the end of a path and we found we could travel it, though it is like clinging to a rope in a hurricane. We dare not let go. Souls cast into the void will never be found and will roam without rest.
‘None should suffer that. Not even the most evil of men.’
‘But they are suffering it, aren’t they, Hirad?’
A tear fell from Hirad’s eye and ran down his pale cheek to drip onto the table top.
‘Thousands of years and countless souls. No wonder the demons tried so hard to open the door to the dead. So many are already lost to the void and immeasurably more will follow. Any who cannot find a path back to the land where they once lived will become victims.’ Hirad looked up and he was pressing his jaws together to hold back a sob or worse. ‘You can hear them scream when they are torn away. Each one like a piece of skin ripped from your living body.’
Sol heard someone coming through the back gate and it reminded him he needed Jonas or young Hirad to go and ask for Denser up at the Mount of Xetesk. Just a short and familiar walk.
‘What can be done?’ asked Sol. ‘Who is this enemy? Why do they attack you?’
‘I have no answers,’ said Hirad. ‘We cannot see or feel them. All we know is that they are tearing our resting places apart and that they are following the fleeing dead too. We have to find a way to stop them. Should they wish to plunder Balaia too, we could all be lost.’
‘But you have no reason to think that they will.’
‘And also none to think they will not.’
‘What do they want?’ Sol’s delight at Hirad’s return had given way to a chill anxiety.
‘I don’t know, Unknown; I’m dead. We don’t spend our time gazing out at the living and being happy for your continued life, you know. Can you imagine how frustrating that would be?’
‘We need Denser,’ said Sol.
‘Then it is fortunate that Denser is here already.’
Sol turned. Denser was walking around the bar, Diera following him. She was wringing her hands and had obviously been crying. He looked much as ever: frowning, severe and with the cares of the world on his shoulders.
‘Pull up a chair. Diera will furnish you with a goblet, I’m sure,’ said Sol.
He tried to catch her eye but she would not humour him. Instead she walked behind the bar and stooped to get a goblet for Denser.
‘I’m here because Diera believes you have finally taken complete leave of your senses.’
Denser sat next to Sol and stared at the merchant, nodding minutely.
‘But you don’t think so, Denser. Do you?’ said Sol.
‘It is hard to know what to believe.’ Denser glanced over at Diera. She was watching, listening, reluctant it seemed to come closer. ‘Your wife was very upset. She didn’t say much about why, just that you had caved in, just like she feared you would.’
Denser sucked his lip and turned to glare at Hirad.
‘You know, I don’t appreciate total strangers grinning at me like they’ve known me all my life,’
‘Don’t you recognise me, Denser?’
‘No. I would have thought that was obvious.’
Sol found himself smiling and tried to cover it.
‘Well, it’s no surprise,’ said Hirad. ‘This isn’t my original body after all. But I have to be honest, Xetesk-man, the years haven’t been kind.’
Denser gaped. ‘What?’
‘Beard’s gone grey, you’re looking a bit paunchy in the cheeks and you’re probably bald under that skullcap. Mind you, I see you’ve been promoted. Congratulations. Good to see you finally made something of yourself.’
Hirad pointed at the embossed bronze circle on the front of Denser’s skullcap, which denoted his position as Lord of the Mount of the College of Xetesk.
Denser’s eyes had narrowed and his cheeks were pointed with red.
‘Clearly, you’re angling for a matching wound on your right-hand side. Who is this cretin, Sol?’
‘You ought to recognise the lack of tact if nothing else,’ replied Sol. ‘This is Hirad. Or rather, Hirad’s soul in the body of a dead merchant. ’
‘God’s falling, it’s pathetic,’ muttered Diera from the bar. ‘See what I mean, Denser?’
But Denser didn’t hear her. He was staring at Hirad, one hand absently scratching at his beard.
‘It is technically possible, you see,’ he said as if to himself. ‘How are you doing it? Is the heart beating?’
‘Not yet,’ said Hirad. ‘If it was, I’d die again, pushing blood out of this wound.’
‘Well, we can soon fix that. Tell me how it works?’
‘One soul leaves, another enters. Mine in this case. I was attracted to the body and filled it. I don’t know how. Ilkar probably does. But it isn’t too badly damaged or sick inside so I can hang on. Just about. But it hurts. I can make it move as if it were my own. But I need to get the heart to beat soon or Ilkar says I’ll decompose.’
‘Bloody hell, you smelled bad enough when you were alive,’ said Denser.
Hirad chuckled. ‘This body is altogether more fragrant.’
Denser stretched out a hand and felt Hirad’s neck for a pulse.
‘Amazing,’ he muttered.
‘Are you all right, Denser?’ Sol put a hand on Denser’s arm.
‘You see, the thing is,’ said Denser, ‘I’ve got about fifty reports from around the city of dead people walking and talking. That’s just in the last day or so. It’s making people nervous, as you can imagine. And there’s something a little closer to home too. I’ve got a five-year-old girl up at the Mount claiming she’s Erienne.’
Chapter 4
The heat intensified still further. Steam billowed under the canopy. The orange glow of fire stretched in a broad arc east to west. Thick dust blew on a scorching wind. The flat clang of the Garonin harvesters thudded across the sky and under the earth. The roar of great beasts meshed with the crash of falling trees that signalled the death of the rainforest.
A face appeared in front of Auum’s. Streaked with ash, eyes white and wide in the fire-backed half-light.
‘They have breached the outer ring. We have had to fall back.’ The Al-Arynaar warrior gripped Auum’s shoulders. ‘We have barely given them pause.’
‘Yet every moment buys time for our people. What of the Temple of Ix?’
The warrior shook his head. ‘Gone before those inside even knew what was upon them. Behind the fire, all is scorched and ruined. Auum, we cannot stop them.’
‘I know that. We all know. Our task is to fight, die if we must, and pray our souls find the path to Shorth, though our enemies stand before us after death as they do in this life. Keep moving, keep hitting. We need to try and take down at least one of the machines. I will join you.’
Auum took the warrior’s face in his hands and kissed his forehead. ‘Faith, my brother. We knew this day would come.’
The Al-Arynaar nodded, turned and ran back towards the enemy, shouting others to his side. The din of conflict, screaming and fire was an assault on the ears. Auum looked about him. Everything they had was here. Every TaiGethen cell, every Al-Arynaar warrior, every ClawBound pair that answered the call to muster. And it was not enough. Ysundeneth, capital of Calaius, was only two days travel north. Beyond it, nothing but the southern ocean and seven days sailing to Balaia.
‘Rebraal!’ called Auum.
The leader of the Al-Arynaar was striding towards him. Blood matted the side of his face and leaked from beneath a bandage wrapped around his head.
‘Auum, I thought you gone to oversee the Harkening.’
‘Be assured, I will arrive there at the last possible moment. There is still damage to be dealt here. Listen to me. The Temple of Ix is gone.’
Rebraal closed his eyes briefly.
‘Then we are silent,’ he whispered. ‘Balaia will not know what is coming.’
‘They may already have arrived there,’ said Auum. ‘Tell me your news.’
‘Everything we could retrieve from the remaining temples is nailed into crates and on wagons. All headed for the docks. The statue of Yniss at Aryndeneth has been lifted successfully and is already aboard ship. At least the Elfsorrow will not return unless the statue is broken again. All that could not be moved can only be lamented because it will inevitably be lost.
‘So much of ourselves will be gone. And the people are confused and scared. They do not understand why Yniss will not act to save them. Many will perish unless the teachings of the ancients excite them to do what they have to do in order to survive. The ClawBound are doing all they can to bring the words home but I fear not all our ships will be fully laden. And there is tragedy in that.’
Auum inclined his head. ‘Tragedy lies all around us already. Go to the ships. I will bring our warriors to you when we can do no more but die.’
‘Do not overstay your welcome in the faces of our enemies.’
‘Tual will guide my hand; Yniss will guide my mind. I will not fail.’ Auum turned to his TaiGethen cell. ‘Tai, we move.’
The three TaiGethen flowed over the parched ground and out of the forward camp that now lay less than a mile from the invasion front. Ahead of them through the withering rainforest were the orange glow of the burning canopy, the stultifying heat that pushed on before it and the last desperate defence against the Garonin.
Auum ran slightly ahead of Ghaal at his left shoulder and Miirt at his right. It had been hard learning to trust a new cell but he had chosen well, he believed. Now would be the test to end all others.
The land they trod was no longer their own. Auum knew they were moving south but no scent, no trail and no recognisable set to the foliage remained. He could no longer read this place. It had ceased to be their home, more alien than Balaia, to where the survivors would flee. Yniss had surely turned his back on them, unable to assist.
Smoke choked their lungs. Ash lay heavy in the air and crumbled underfoot. The green beauty was gone along with Tual’s children, the forest denizens, replaced by a churned, dead land. The war had been lost the moment that Garonin had landed. All that was left now was survival.
The fight against the Garonin was confused and it had to be that way. The warriors of the TaiGethen and Al-Arynaar used the density of the canopy as best they could, keeping the enemy guessing. But with every Garonin pace forward, that density lessened and the fire that came in its wake took more lives.
Auum ran past an elf lying prone, his back a mass of charred flesh. Another tended to him but it would be hopeless. Not even magic could save him, and magic was being taken from them.
‘Keep tight,’ he said. ‘Strike in, turn out. No hesitation.’
A series of white lights flashed through the trees at just above head height. Like teardrops but slicing horizontally, ripping through bark, sundering timber to pulp and bringing down mighty trunks. Fires leapt up where the teardrops impacted. Fire dampers ran in, those that still lived.
Warrior elves in deep green and brown camouflage clothing and paint criss-crossed his path. They were close now. The thud of the machines, the roar of the fires and the steady crump of beasts treading the ground filled the air.
‘Do not be afraid to die,’ said Auum. ‘Our souls are promised to Shorth and he will find them.’
But images of the priestess in the temple of Shorth crowded into Auum’s mind and he found himself doubting his own words.
‘Yniss protect us,’ he whispered. ‘Your servants.’
And there they were. Garonin.
Auum stopped in his tracks, feeling a unique sense of fear. Just like before. Ancient history repeated.
‘It’ll never be over, will it?’ said Miirt, her voice steady.
‘They may not have changed. We are different,’ said Auum.
‘They do not need to change,’ said Ghaal, who had stopped a pace ahead of him.
Auum followed his gaze. An arc of soldiers protected three harvesters, each pulled by two of the great beasts. Hanfeer, the elves called them. Created for this single purpose. The harvesters were huge, bulbous skins taut with the pressure of the gas they contained. Their funnels belched waste into the sky, sensors sought new pockets of mana to exploit and the rumble of another detonation cloud built above.
The massed hundreds of warrior elves faced no more than sixty of the enemy and yet they were losing the fight here and on four separate fronts of which Auum had certain knowledge. The rainforest was being laid to waste.
‘This is not as before,’ said Auum. ‘This level of destruction. This number of soldiers.’
‘They come not just to harvest,’ said Miirt. ‘Their memories are long and bitter.’
God’s Eyes castings struck at three enemy soldiers advancing on the left flank. One went down. The other two staggered and were driven to their knees under the force of the assault, their armour flaring a blinding white. Immediately, two TaiGethen cells sprinted in, backed by a number of Al-Arynaar warriors and mages.