The bear-head hood covering Ut’el’s head dipped as he gave his assent. Pran advanced to press his hand to the Bonecaster’s forehead. It seemed an instant later that the Kerluhm Bonecaster snapped backwards as if having received a blow from a hammer. He raised his hands to his face and studied them. His sockets were empty pits, but it seemed to Shimmer that open wonder and amazement filled his features. ‘Who gave the T’lan Imass this gift of hope of a realm for our spirits?’
‘We name him the Redeemer.’
At that, the Kerluhm Bonecaster appeared to flinch, stricken by pain. He bowed to Silverfox. ‘I can do naught but strive to honour it,’ he murmured, his voice even more faint and breathless. He turned to the one named Lanas, who waited, immobile, her incisors bright in the hard light of the heights. ‘You knew of a realm where we might find peace after the Vow … yet you withheld it?’
‘We each sought to serve the Vow in our own way.’
The Bonecaster shook his lean desiccated head beneath its hood of curving bear fangs. ‘I thought such hope long gone from us, Lanas. Yet it lives again and I repent of my despair. Think on this during your ages-long imprisonment.’ He swept his hand and the Imass dissolved into a scarf of dust that the wind immediately scattered across the snows.
Ut’el turned to Silverfox. He knelt on one knee. ‘We of the Kerluhm offer ourselves to your judgement, Summoner.’
Silverfox laid a hand upon his bear headdress. ‘There can be no punishment worse than that which the T’lan have already endured tenfold, Ut’el. Stand with me. The Kron and the Ifayle welcome the Kerluhm.’
Ut’el stood and he and the two other Bonecasters grasped one another’s forearms: Pran Chole, and the other Shimmer now recognized as Tolb Bell’al, whom she had met on an ice-floe during their journey to Jacuruku. The Summoner, she noted, looked to the other woman, the short powerful one with hair like a long black mane that whipped in the wind. This one stood rigid, her arms wrapped tightly about herself, her cheeks wet. For an instant she appeared familiar to Shimmer; a ghost memory of having seen her before drifted across her awareness, only to waver away. Somewhere — she’d seen her before — she was certain.
As if summoned, this woman now strode towards her. An unreasoning urge to flee grasped Shimmer’s throat. She couldn’t breathe and she felt the hair rising upon her arms and neck in terror. Something awful is coming, she realized. Yet her feet in their frayed boots remained frozen to the ice, her lips numb with cold, and her arms heavy — so very heavy.
The woman faced Shimmer and K’azz and Blues and Cal-Brinn, lined up as they were to challenge the Kerluhm should they attack. Yet there was no hint of challenge in the woman’s wind-darkened features. No, what horrified Shimmer was the sadness there, the open compassion in her dark eyes.
The woman said to Silverfox, over her shoulder: ‘One more task awaits you before we may go, Summoner. One I do not envy you.’
Silverfox drew a heavy shuddering breath. Her hands closed to pale fists at her sides. ‘This is not my burden, Kilava,’ she answered, resolute.
The woman named Kilava closed her eyes for an instant, let her arms fall. ‘But it is.’ She added, ‘I’m sorry.’ Yet to whom she was apologizing was unclear to Shimmer.
Swallowing through her dread, Shimmer addressed K’azz: ‘What is this?’
The man was holding himself rigid. His hollowed cheeks and bruised sunken eyes made him look so very ill. Was this what they were speaking of? That he is near to death? ‘I’m so very sorry, Shimmer,’ he answered, his voice choked and ragged. ‘This wasn’t what I wanted — please believe me.’
‘What is it, please?’ she begged.
Silverfox seemed to drag herself to stand before them, flanked by Tolb Bell’al and Pran Chole. She studied them each in turn and the anguish in her eyes terrified Shimmer. ‘The Crimson Guard,’ she murmured, nodding to herself. ‘If only we had met earlier. I would have recognized it immediately, K’azz.’
‘You are the Summoner,’ he said, his voice hardly more than a groan.
‘Yes. So the task must fall to me though I wish it otherwise.’
Something in what they were saying made Shimmer dizzy; the thing lurking behind their words threatened her so much she thought she would lose her reason. She raised a hand, pointing to Kilava. ‘I have seen you before …’
The woman nodded. ‘Yes. Once. The day of your Vow — Shimmer, is it? That day your Vow touched upon Tellann and so I came to witness.’
Touched upon Tellann … the words spun like a destroying whirlwind in Shimmer’s thoughts. Echoes of their Vow washed over her. Eternal opposition …
The woman addressed K’azz: ‘What do you think lent power to you Avowed? Sustained you all this time?’
K’azz nodded, his eyes downcast. ‘I knew. For some time, I have known.’
Silverfox gently raised a hand and pressed it to K’azz’s forehead. ‘Though it brings me terrible pain to do so, I welcome you, K’azz D’Avore, Commander of the Crimson Guard.’
Tolb Bell’al inclined his ravaged skull. ‘We of the Ifayle are also saddened, yet we welcome you gladly. Long has it been since we have welcomed a new clan among the T’lan Imass. We offer our greetings to the K’azz T’lan Imass. The Red Clan.’
‘Gods above and below,’ Shimmer heard Blues moan.
‘We thank you,’ K’azz answered, the words jagged with suppressed pain. Then he turned to her, took her hand — his fingers so cold. ‘I’m sorry, Shimmer … please …’
But she hardly heard him. The thing in her mind was close now. The truth she did not want. It all made sense now. Now she knew why she’d run from this knowledge. Avoided it at all costs. Why she’d refused to see it. She understood, and could see the truth of it. Her hand rose to press against her chest where, weeks ago, a blade from the Sharr attack had struck, and she knew. She finally accepted that for some time now — she’d been dead.
With that giving up to the fact, that yielding, came darkness and nothing more.
*
When Shimmer collapsed into her commander’s arms the man gently lowered her to the ground and the others, Blues and Cal-Brinn, knelt with him next to her. Kyle could only wonder on the shock of such an unveiling. The Crimson Guard Vow — a curse in truth, just like that of the T’lan. He shook his head at the horrifying injustice of it. Then jerked, startled, as the Jaghut elder raised her arms, calling: ‘Summoner! We have delayed here too long.’
Silverfox spun from the kneeling figures, sudden panicked awareness in her face. ‘T’lan guard us!’ she ordered.
The ranks of the Kerluhm came clattering forward across the rocks to form a broad defensive circle around the Crimson Guard and the Jaghut elder and her descendants.
Fisher, Jethiss and Kyle pushed forward into the circle. Moments later the Icebloods, the three of the Sayer, and the son of the Heels, joined them.
Beyond the nearest boulders and debris of this high shoulder, all round them, there rose ash-grey shapes from among the fallen rocks. Kyle had never seen them before, but he immediately knew them for what they were: the slate-hued, thin and elongated shapes of the Forkrul Assail. He also knew at that moment that it was unlikely that they would get off the mountain alive.
The alien figures remained immobile, as if carved of stone themselves. The Imass waited, obsidian and flint swords readied. Kyle drew the white blade and to his astonishment — and extreme discomfort — saw the attention of the Forkrul shift to him as their slit eyes all moved at once.
Jethiss moved to confront them but Fisher snapped up a hand to grasp his arm, pulling him back. ‘Not yet,’ he murmured, ‘if you must at all.’
The Andii eased backwards, acquiescing to the bard’s urgings — at least for now.
The Forkrul then raised arms to point up the slope to a higher ridge of stone. Kyle glanced up to see two there waiting. Stones crunched as the Jaghut elder passed through the circled Imass. She paused then, looking back to them. ‘One from each of us gathered here must come,’ she said. The words troubled Kyle in that he sensed something deeper behind them. Something profound and ritualized.