“Wait, we’re here. I feel it, Argeon is certain. It’s deeper.”

  “Deeper? We’re not standing above an old crypt, are we?” Notch asked.

  “I don’t think so.” Sofia bent by the stone bench. “Another secret?”

  “Why not?” Notch said as he joined her, sifting through the mud with his toe. Emilio had headed for one of the nearby buildings and was searching each base, his dark cloak causing him to blend into the shadows.

  A branch creaked. “Tell your friend to return; I have my arrow drawn.”

  Notch stood, hands spread. The voice had spoken Anaskari without accent – it was unlikely that whoever lurked in the tree above was Ecsoli. Sofia was standing, moving only slowly, keeping her face – and Argeon – turned from the voice in the tree.

  “We are not the enemy,” Notch said, lowering but not sheathing his sword.

  Leaves rustled. Glittering eyes in a shadowed face appeared above, then the owner paused. “Notch?”

  He frowned. “Yes?”

  More rustling and a short figure dropped to the ground with a little grunt, bow in hand. “It’s Dilo.” She smiled as she moved closer. “Have you come to help us get rid of the blue-cloaks?”

  “Dilo?” It was hard to tell in the moonlight but she appeared older than her years, more careworn all of a sudden. Moreso. And yet, he hadn’t seen the girl since he and Wayrn helped the children beneath the city slay the creature.

  And since then she’d survived two invasions – of course she’d be changed.

  “I said that already. Who are your friends? What did you do to your arm?”

  He motioned to Sofia, who’d removed the mask before she turned.

  “This is Sofia Falco, the Lord Protector’s daughter and the man approaching us is Emilio, Captain of the Honour Guard. And yes, we’re going to help the city.”

  If their stations impressed Dilo, she did not reveal it. “Good. We need more swords.”

  Notch completed the introductions. “Dilo, I’m glad to see you alive. What of Tenaci and Kael? Do you know, is Metti safe?”

  Dilo’s expression darkened. “Kael did not escape but I can take you to Tenaci and Metti.” She pointed to the rear of the closest home, where Emilio had been searching. “Down there.”

  Dilo led them to the stonework where she shifted a pile of shrubbery, which had the appearance of dense debris, and pulled open a hatch. “We’ve been here for...weeks I think. It’s hard to be sure.”

  “Did the Ecsoli drive you out?” Notch asked.

  “Not at first. More creatures appeared. Mostly smaller ones. We had to find a new place under the city. But then the blue-cloaks came.” She took a lantern from a hole cut into the wall and led them down a flight of stairs and to a door which had been recently reinforced with steel bands. The stairs might have troubled him, but he was pleased to find that whatever had been in the draught Mayla gave him for his arm helped his leg too.

  Dilo knocked and a young voice answered. “Who is it?”

  “Dilo.”

  The door opened, revealing a boy. He looked them over but at an impatient gesture from Dilo, stood back. Firelight from a broad hearth lit a large chamber, which had once been a cellar, if the opposite set of stairs leading up was any indicator.

  The room had been divided into sections by makeshift screens and blankets. Children slept within the divisions, many without blankets. One girl clutched a bright red apple to her chest as she slept.

  Near the fireplace rested a large chair with deep armrests and a stool. Metti sat sunken into the chair, dressed in her black robe. A thin trail of steam rose from a hunk of bone clasped in one hand and the other held a cup. Her head lay back on the headrest, eyes barely open. Her mask-like face was the same as the last time he’d seen her – stretched and almost shiny in the firelight.

  A power radiated from her but not one of forcefulness, one of quiet.

  Guingera rose from the stool. His head was bandaged, as was his arm – angry-red skin visible beneath the edges. Another victim of the fires then. The man spoke, his voice low. “She is trying to rest.” His own eyes were lined with deep circles.

  “They’re fine, Guingera.” Dilo said. “It’s Notch and some people from the palace. They’re going to help.”

  “I recognise them, Dilo – and it doesn’t matter. Metti is trying to rest.”

  The girl folded her arms. “We need the help. Metti needs the help – she’s only exhausted because she has to hide us all the time.”

  He growled but turned to Metti and whispered something.

  Her eyes fluttered. When they opened it was to widen a moment, and then she closed them, but a small smile, the barest upturning of her lips, appeared on her unnaturally still-face.

  “Notch, Sofia – I am glad you have returned. And you, Captain Emilio.” Her voice competed with the crackle of the fire. “Welcome.”

  “How can we help you?” Sofia asked.

  “Protect the children for me.”

  “I have Argeon and Father has Osani,” Sofia said.

  “Good.” Worry-lines in her brow eased. “Bring him here – you need to see what I do.”

  Sofia glanced at the steaming bone. “What you do?”

  “In hiding this place from the Ecsoli masks,” Notch said.

  “You too, Notch,” she said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Give me your arm,” she said. “I can feel the break from here. Guingera?”

  He produced another piece of bone from a bag near the chair, frowning as he placed it in her hand and stepped back. Notch moved forward to stretch his arm before her as best he could. She placed her free hand upon his elbow.

  “This will not hurt,” she said. Steam rose from the bone, warmth spread and he tensed. “None of that.”

  He exhaled and the heat intensified until the ache disappeared. By the time she released him it was gone and his flexibility was as normal. “Thank you,” he breathed.

  “No need, Captain. Now, lend me Sofia.”

  “Of course.” Sofia knelt beside Metti and the two spoke softly. When it became clear the conversation was not going to be short, Notch turned to Dilo.

  “Is Tenaci here?”

  “I’ll take you to him.”

  Notch followed the girl toward the other stair, leaving Emilio to stay with Sofia. The steps led up to a dark, empty-seeming room lit by one window only. Just at the edge of the square of pale light on the wooden floor, a short figure sat on a crate.

  “Ten,” Dilo spoke softly.

  He shifted on his seat. “I’m awake.”

  “I know that. We have a visitor,” Dilo said as they reached the boy.

  “Notch!” Tenaci leaped up, throwing his arms around Notch’s waist.

  “You’ve grown, Tenaci,” he said, slapping the boy’s shoulders. “Are you looking out for the others?”

  “I am. We post a watch day and night.” His expression fell. “But we need help, Notch. Has Dilo told you about Kael?”

  He nodded. “I’m sorry.”

  “We couldn’t think of anywhere else to go but Metti said she’d look after us. At first we couldn’t find her. The whole seamstress shop was gone, but Dilo spotted Guingera coming out of one of the houses nearby. We were lucky. The blue-cloaks were getting angry at us.”

  “Angry?”

  “I told you before, Notch,” Dilo said. “They drove us out.”

  “But only when we couldn’t find that thing they wanted,” Tenaci added.

  Notch glanced out the window to the empty street, then back to Tenaci. “What did they want?”

  “Something made from bones,” Dilo said. “They argued about it. One thought they should have been able to find it without our help.”

  “They made us memorise its description,” Tenaci continued. “It was ‘a large bone basket banded together with silver’ and it had a funny name.”

  “Crucial,” Dilo said with a nod. “That’s what they called it.”

  “Crucial?” asked Notch.

  “No. It was the ‘Crucible’ that they kept saying,” Tenaci said.

  Dilo sniffed. “They have funny accents, all right?”

  Tenaci ignored her. “The one with waves on his chest offered us a gold piece each if we found it – with five pieces for the one who brought it to him.”

  Dilo’s eyes were bright. “And then, once the one with the waves left, one of the others took me and Ten away from everyone else and offered us double what the first blue-cloak offered.” Her shoulders slumped. “We tried real hard at first but it wasn’t anywhere.”

  “They threatened us after that and said instead of gold, they’d kill us if we didn’t find it,” Tenaci said. “And so we escaped.”

  “Do you know what they wanted the Crucible for?”

  “They never said but they were desperate for it.”

  Footsteps interrupted. Sofia skidded to a halt at the top of the stair. “Notch? Notch – Metti says the Ecsoli are closing in. Come on.”

  “What?” he dashed to the window, peering out.

  “No – with their masks. We have to get everyone out of here.”

  Chapter 32.

  For days and nights Ain had tried to teach the other Pathfinders how to protect the people, and each time, despite progress, it had not been enough to save lives. Each night, the darklings came and tore into tents and flesh alike, flinging sand and blood everywhere.

  They attacked at random, coming and leaving as they saw fit. Ain witnessed them pass by screaming children and attack the elderly. Another shape tore across the sand, as if in desperation to reach a young warrior from the Western Clan, bypassing a young family and two seasoned warriors, for a lad only a few years younger than Ain himself.

  When he closed his eyes to sleep afterwards, Silaj clinging to him, he saw only splashes of red on darkness. It was all senseless. Evil. As they killed and disappeared, they filled the paths. The paths, which were once beautiful, were now tainted with the darkling’s poison.

  And he loathed them for it; for driving his people from their homes.

  Now he knelt in the sand, a day from the Wards, his blue cloak one of several that caught the breeze beneath an overcast sky. The storm had abated and he no longer had to shout.

  “Dig deep into the sand this time,” he said, shoving his own hands into the silky grains. “You’ll feel the paths but don’t follow them, don’t measure them, just try and hold them. I imagine coils or rope and then I twist my wrists, but it’s really what I do in my mind. The same focus that goes into reading the paths is spent on closing them off.”

  Majid nodded but beside him, the older man, the heavy-set Dakka, gave a curse. “Every time I think I’m close, it just slips away,” he said.

  “For me too,” said Dakka’s apprentice. “It only worked that one time, the first night.”

  Majid put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Because you were protecting someone.”

  “But not everyone.” The boy’s face was a little stunned still.

  “No-one can do that, lad,” Majid said. “Not even the great Hero, Ain of the Cloud,” he said with a grin. It was meant to lift everyone’s spirits, but Ain only looked away.

  “Keep going,” Dakka urged.

  “There’s not much more to say. We just have to practice.”

  A cry came from the rear of the camp.

  Attack.

  Ain spun, running for Silaj’s tent. “The Elders,” he shouted.

  “On my way,” Majid replied.

  Hopefully Dakka and his apprentice would fare better this time – and if the Sands hadn’t abandoned them, it would be the last attack before the Medah people reached the Wards. Ain slipped through the rush of men and women, warriors lining up to circle their loved ones. Several had swapped bows and swords for stones, taken from a deposit they’d passed earlier – the ruins of an old settlement. Would it work? Who knew? But it was worth trying.

  Screams rose and he ran harder, feet digging into the sand.

  Silaj met him at the opening to her tent, where she and her mother had taken shelter during every attack. Her eyes were wide and the wind tossed her hair about. He took her in his arms. “Inside, quickly.”

  “Be careful.”

  He could only nod. If he answered, he’d only tell a lie – something she knew, from the look in her eyes. Everything he did was a risk; it had to be if he was going to protect anyone. Ain planted his knees in the sand and drove his fists after.

  Paths thundered.

  Patterns clashed and spun, old and new. But the darklings latched onto a path and sent rippling stabs of pain along. It was these paths that he gripped – with one he wrapped the coil around his forearms and gave a mighty heave. The path faltered but the darkling continued on its way. Ain ground his teeth. Again he twisted his wrists, as if to snap the path but it did not stop the darkling. As if...as if the darkling were maintaining it, using it to navigate.

  And it was – Ain froze. They all were.

  Somewhere behind him, deeper in the camp, Majid had snapped off a path and a darkling wandered in the sands. Dakka and his apprentice were struggling, same as Ain, with darklings that seemed to have learnt something in the time since the last attack.

  Down a line of tents, sand flew and the shouts of fleeing people rose. A blur of white, red and black appeared between tent lines as the darkling charged toward him. Ain squeezed the sand with a cry of his own.

  “Back!”

  The path wavered then the darkling rushed forward again.

  Ain gathered coils of the thumping path around his arms, each strike of the darkling’s unseen feet jolting his body. He twisted, bringing his hands together until the path looped between his hands. Pain roared into his limbs and he bit his tongue at a sharp, jolting pulse. The tang of blood filled his mouth.

  Still the darkling swirled forward, mere yards away now.

  Ain flung his hands from the sand and, still holding the path, hurled them back down with a scream of frustration, pouring all his anger and hatred after. As if he’d snapped a length of rope, the concentrated surge of his hatred shot forth in an invisible wave that nonetheless crackled in the air. It struck the darkling.

  Bone and blood exploded.

  Pieces splattered across the tents and fragments struck his arm where he shielded his face. A deep hollow remained where the darkling had been and a huge pink-streaked lump of bone rested in the centre of the hole.

  “Ain!” Silaj screamed from with the tent.

  “I’m safe,” he called. “Stay inside.”

  He crawled forward, pausing when something became clear. Cheers were rising from everywhere and the paths were no longer sharp, darklings were fleeing. Why? Surely not what he’d done...and yet, there was no darkling before him.

  Instead, a hunk of bone bigger than his fist, with the look and shape of a heart.

  “A heart of bone.” Just as Eyali said.

  A shadow stood over him.

  Silaj.

  “What did you do, Ain?”

  He reached for the heart – still, dead, no more than hard bone. “I don’t know.”

  ***

  In the shade of Elder Raila’s tent, Ain placed the bone heart on the table before the two Elders as he finished his tale. “I do not know if I could do it again, but at least they can be defeated.” He took a long drink from his cup. Precious water.

  Fai rubbed his knobbly hands together. “It is hope.”

  Raila nodded. “And Majid was again able to close the paths, preventing others from attacking.”

  “What of the people who died?” Ain asked.

  Raila sighed. “We do not have accurate numbers yet, but dozens no doubt. Less than it might have been, had you not acted when you did. You have done well, Ain.”

  “Thank you, Elder.” He could not draw his gaze from the pink bone. “But I must do more next time. We’ll reach the Wards before nightfall, won’t we?”

  “Yes. And I know what you will say, Ain.”

  “You do?”

  “I believe so. You will say the people have lost any desire to attack the Anaskari, instead they fear now only for their own lives.”

  “And well they might do,” Fai added.

  “I would say that,” Ain said. “And more. I still believe that there is no place for us there. The desert is our home – but not while the darklings stalk us. Anything we do now must be temporary.” He met the eyes of those gathered. “And worse, I am coming to believe that the darklings are tied to something in the City of Secrets.” He gestured to the table. “All the Anaskari magic seems to centre around bone.”

  Raila blinked. “You think they have sent the darklings? That the Anaskari were also responsible for them in centuries past?”

  “Not directly, no.” He rubbed his thumb along a palm, easing muscles too long clenched, then shrugged. “Maybe not at all. But King Oseto and his people are too worried about the invasion to be responsible now. But, instead, what if their magic, what if the death of the Sea Beast has...woken something?” As Ibranu had appeared to warn them.

  Fai leant forward. “Like your engineer’s warning?”

  “Yes.”

  “What are you suggesting, lad?”

  “That once we pass the Wards, we consider fortifying ourselves within the mountains of the Wastelands until a smaller party can discover the truth behind the darklings.”

  Silence in the tent.

  “And if I read you correctly again, Ain,” Raila said, “if you led this party, could you leave your people exposed?”

  “Majid is stronger than me. He has learnt quickly and can teach others.”

  Raila folded her arms, tapping a finger against a band of silver. “Fai?”

  “I will send people with Ain, should he leave. It is a large thing to ask.”

  Elder Raila made a sound of agreement. “If you leave Majid behind, who would you take?” She paused. “Assuming the Elders agree to your idea.”

  If only Schan were back from the Snake Clan. Was he even safe? His party probably faced their own trials. “Wayrn, the Envoy. He speaks Anaskari for a start.”

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117