She drew nearer, and her eyes were the same. Torn through by fury. One blazed yellow, the other was quicksilver.
Horror filled Tanakalian at the moment of recognition.
The Wolves of Winter – they are within her. They are there, inside her – those eyes! They stare out at me from the Beast Throne. Fanderay. Togg. Our gods are among us
.
All strength left his limbs when those terrible eyes fixed on him and sank into his skull like fangs, forcing him to his knees.
All at once she stood before him. Those fangs dug deeper, tearing into his brain, ripping loose every secret, every hidden hunger. Raping him with cold remorselessness. As if he was carrion. Something washed back, thick as blood, and it was filled with contempt. An instant later and he was dismissed, made irrelevant. Her gaze lifted past him, to the Grey Helms – and he knew that they too knelt, abject, helpless, their courage drained away, their souls made cold with fear.
When she spoke in their minds, the voice was a multitude of howls, a sound more terrible than anything they had ever heard.
‘
I am the voice of the Wolves of Winter. Listen well to these words. We will
not
be judged
.’ She looked down at Tanakalian. ‘
You would wield my swords, mortal? Are you the one to lay waste to a thousand realms in my name? I think not. Pettiness consumes your thoughts. Vanity commands your every vision
.
‘
Look well upon this child. She is Setoc. Destriant. She is our voice. She is our will
.’
The girl raised her eyes once more, addressed the entire army. ‘
Your kin kneel before the Forkrul Assail in the palace of Kolanse. The Assail would force the Perish Grey Helms to serve them, and they eagerly
await your arrival, and the moment when you, too, must kneel in obeisance
.
‘
This … offends us
.
‘
When Sister Reverence summons Destriant Setoc, when she seeks to wrest this army from us, she shall know the wrath of the Wolves
.’
One of the officers suddenly found the courage to call out, ‘Blessed Wolves – do you wish us to destroy the Forkrul Assail? Did the Mortal Sword speak true?’
‘
Around us, mortal, there are only enemies. But
we
are among you now, and in the moment of battle the ghosts shall rise, in numbers beyond counting, and before us every army shall fall. Before us, every city shall burn. Before us, there shall be slaughter to redress the balance
.
‘
Think on your faith, my children. Think well on the imbalance of which I speak. The millennia of slaughter at your human hand. We shall give answer. In every realm, we shall give answer!
’
Before the power of his gods, Tanakalian bowed his head. To hide his eyes. He was seething, his time of glory ripped away from him, his dreams of power stolen, his ascension left in ruins by this … this
girl
.
She had walked past him now, into the midst of his soldiers. But no, they were no longer his, were they? ‘It will not end this way,’ he whispered. ‘
It will not end this way!
’
She staggered away, blood pouring from her wounds.
Gruntle sought to rise, to lift his huge form one more time, but will was not enough. The pain was fading, a dullness seeping in, and in his bloodied nostrils all he could smell was burned fur, scorched flesh. The time surrounding him now, slowly closing in, seemed a force vast beyond countenance. It felt thick, unyielding, and yet he could see its expanse, the way it stretched behind him – but not ahead. No, there, almost within reach, it vanished into dark mists.
If he could, he would have laughed. The irony of life’s end was found in all the truths suddenly discovered, when it was too late to do a damned thing about them. It was said that in the moments before death, there arrived an acceptance, a willingness to see it come to an end, and an indifference to the anguish and grief of the living.
If I have let go, why can’t you? It’s these truths, you see, and my helplessness in answering them. I would laugh, but in laughter there is pain. I would bless, but in blessing there is loss. This is not how anyone wants it. But then, it never is
.
Don’t you see that, Stonny? In all your fraught moments – and isn’t every moment fraught? – in all of them, you miss the chance of peace. The calm of all these truths, the ones us dying discover, and even then we can say nothing. Offer nothing
.
This time. It’s all past. No. It’s
my
past. And with it, I can do nothing
.
They had fought with terrible savagery. For how long he could not guess. Two indomitable beasts spilling out their hot, steaming blood, lashing out in rage, staggering in pain. Claws tearing, slashing deep. Fangs punching through hide and thick muscle. The stone floor of the chamber had grown slick, the air hot and fetid.
And overhead, looming above the ruined carcass of the Azath house, the huge wound fulminated, the edges burning, sizzling as if weeping acid.
Gruntle did not even see the moment the first of the dragons came through. He and Kilava were locked together, claws raking each other’s flanks down to the bone, when something like a hurricane wind slammed them down on to the unyielding ground. Pulverized rock billowed out, filling the chamber even as enormous cracks opened on the rough walls.
Stunned by the thunderous concussion, Gruntle pulled away from Kilava. Yet the rage would not leave him, and he felt his god howling somewhere deep inside his chest – a creature held back for too long by Kilava’s denial – and now it clawed its way free. She could no longer resist him, could no longer find the strength to defy what was coming.
I warned you
.
The dragon filled the chamber, impossibly huge, wings hammering at the walls. Gruntle understood, then, that the creature was trapped – by the ancient, heavy stone of the cavern walls. It needed to unleash its sorcery – to shatter these confines, to open the way for the hundreds of other dragons crowding the gate.
He must strike now.
The roar that tore out from his throat was Trake’s own, a god’s call to war. The power within him becoming a thing of agony, Gruntle’s limbs coiled, lowering him into a crouch, and then he leapt.
The dragon’s neck arched, the head snapped down, jaws opening wide.
He slammed into the creature’s neck. Claws sinking deep, his fangs burying themselves in the dragon’s throat. Scales broke as Gruntle’s jaws tightened, closing on the windpipe.
The dragon reared in shock, and with the convulsive motion blood poured into Gruntle’s mouth. As he clung to the creature’s writhing neck, his weight began to pull the dragon down. Wings cracked on the stone floor. Talons gouged wounds in the rock and then scraped frantically. The impact when the dragon struck the ground almost tore Gruntle loose, but he managed to hold on, the muscles of his shoulders, neck and jaws bunching until they creaked. He could hear the desperate wheezing of breath, and tightened his death grip.
The dragon reared a second time, lifting Gruntle into the air.
And then Kilava struck him with all the force of a battering ram. The dragon’s throat was ripped wide open in a torrent of gore, but Gruntle was falling, Kilava’s own fangs scoring deep across his shoulder blades.
They pounded against the stone floor, burst apart, Gruntle scrabbling to find his footing, twisting to find Kilava – to kill her once and for all—
The dying dragon was not yet done. Its jaws slammed down on Gruntle. Fangs long as scimitars impaled him. He was lifted from the ground, and then flung through the air.
Bones exploded inside his mangled flesh when he struck the wall. Leaving a glittering crimson streak, he slid down the stone to slump gasping, too broken to move.
The dragon staggered, head swinging round, eyes blazing as they fixed on him. Jaws opened, and sorcery roiled out in a torrent.
Gruntle heard Trake’s death cry, and that howl itself seemed to catch fire in the conflagration of draconic magic. It raged around him, tore deep into his ruined body. And all at once his god left him, stumbling away, away from this realm. A trail, another cave, a place of darkness, a place to lie down and die.
Again. You damned fool. You never learn. And now … now it’s too late
.
The dragon careened against the far wall, sank down, spilling out the last of itself.
But above it, in that tearing wound, another was clawing its way through.
The cavern simply disintegrated as Eleint sorcery annihilated the last barriers surrounding Starvald Demelain. Beyond, the deep snows erupted in clouds of scalding steam. The ground itself was torn away, leaving nothing but swirling chaos.
In clouds of spinning dust and pelting rubble, in the wild fires of chaotic magic, the dragons returned to the world.
In my dreams, a blackened cat, a thing lying bleeding, gasping, dying. Blackened. In my dreams, I saw not her, but myself
.
Dear Kilava, you did warn me. And I did not listen
.
And when I warned Trake, Tiger of Summer and god of war
, he
did not listen. You fool. You needed wisdom in the one you chose, Trake. Not just another damned version of you. With all the same, useless, deadly flaws
.
All that time, stretching away behind me now. Solid as stone, every shape, every rise and every dip, worn away in these winds of dying. Stonny, see what I have done? Or failed to do. You were right to refuse
me. I always thought bigger than I could deliver. I always wanted what I could not hold
.
And I saw it in your eyes – the day I stood before you, when I promised that I would come back. I saw in your eyes you knew I wouldn’t. You knew you would never see me again. Ah, my love, so many truths, come too late
.
And this love, it is the last thing I have left, the last thing to hold on to. All I ever wanted – feel it slip away, slip away
.
Woman, you should never have let me go. I should have given you that power over me. If I had, you would’ve understood. You would have believed my love for you. And if you had believed, in that moment … I would have believed, too. How could I not?
This is my fault. I saw that then and I see it now. My fault
.
Stonny, my love, I am sorry
.
Time, that stretched behind him for ever, that closed in and became solid, that beckoned ahead with a darkness almost within reach, then ended.
By the time she staggered to his side, she saw that he was dead. Sembled into her Imass form, she sat down weakly beside his carcass, lifted her gaze to the empty, dust-wreathed sky.
The last of them, gone now. Out into the world. She had known that there would be hundreds of them, but still, the sight of that exodus had stunned her.
Blood pooled beneath her, mixing with that of Gruntle, this noble fool lying so still beside her. There was nothing more heartbreaking than to look upon a dead beast, a thing stripped of its terrible strength, its perfect majesty. And there was something still crueller when that beast was a hunter, a predator.
A rival
. Not killed for food. No. Killed for existing, killed for the presumption of competition.
The predator fights to the last. It refuses to surrender. Hunt it down. Corner it. See those bared fangs. Listen to its fury and its fear and its noble defiance
.
You understood all of this, Gruntle. You understood the inescapable, profound tragedy that is the beast that hunts, that dares to challenge our domination
.
I did not mean to take your life
.
She knew she was badly hurt. She knew she might not survive this. Even without the power of his god – whom she had kept away until the dragon’s arrival – he had been … extraordinary. Had he not turned upon the Eleint …
yes, he would have killed me
.
Gruntle, I will remember you. This I swear. Here, in the cracks in my heart. I will curse Trake until the end of my days, but you, brother of the hunt, I will remember
.
Hearing a scrabble of stones, she lifted her head.
The pair of emlava had returned, and now edged towards her. She sensed their distress. Their grief. ‘He lives,’ she whispered. ‘My husband lives. For now. As for what comes …’
I wish I had an answer
.
The realm was dying on all sides. Disintegrating into dust, as all dreams must do, when the last dreamer is gone.
When she leaned back, closed her eyes, she felt the world shifting beneath her. So … gentle now, sweet as the rocking of a ship.
Husband. Was I wrong to do this?
She looked over to see the two sabre-toothed cats lying down beside Gruntle’s carcass. As if to give him warmth.
As if to make him their own.
‘Not even the dead know the end to war.’
Iskar Jarak
‘
WHAT ARE YOU DOING?’
Withal cinched tight the last straps, and reached for the black-scaled gauntlets. ‘I can’t just sit here any more,’ he said. ‘Since it seems we’re all going to die anyway.’ He glanced up at her, and shrugged.