He nodded, raised a hand to sign for a halt. Everyone crouched, hands going to weapons.
‘Where?’ Mara whispered to Petal.
The big man lifted his chin to one side. ‘Right over-’
Something came streaking down to hammer into Skinner and the two went careering off through the brush, rolling and crashing. Mara had a momentary glimpse of a shape that resembled a woman, yet not a woman, something half else.
Everyone set off in pursuit.
They found Skinner engaged in a tug of war with a woman smeared in dried mud and wearing only a loincloth. What was even more astonishing to Mara was that when she yanked upon the chest she pulled Skinner entirely off-balance. And she recognized the woman: she’d been trapped among the Dolmens of Tien the last time they saw her.
‘Let … go!’ she panted, snarling. ‘This one is mine.’
The Disavowed encircled the two, weapons out, but unsure whether to rush in. Skinner let go one hand and lashed out with a punch to the woman’s head that made Mara wince.
All that happened was that the woman stilled. Her eyes grew huge, like twin black pools, and she drew herself up as if insulted. ‘You dare … again!’ She raised a hand and backslapped Skinner across the face. The blow echoed through the trees and sent him tumbling. She raised the chest. ‘At last,’ she breathed.
‘Get her now!’ Jacinth shouted. Hist and Shijel closed.
The woman laughed and jumped up the trunk of a nearby tree. Mara stared, astounded, as she pulled herself up one-handed and leaped from limb to limb.
Next to her, Petal stroked his wide chin. ‘An impressive display,’ he murmured.
Jacinth helped Skinner to his feet. ‘Bring her down!’ he roared to Mara.
She nodded and let out a wary breath. Very well … but can we take her? She focused her Warren.
Far above in the upper canopy the woman laughed wildly and shook the chest. ‘Sister Envy!’ she shouted to the sky, ‘I am coming!’ And she leaped from her perch.
Mara flinched, but as the woman fell her shape transformed into something else, something sinuous and dark russet-red that flapped huge wings, driving Mara to cover her face from the dust. When she looked back the long writhing form was diminishing in the sky, forelimbs clenched round something small and gleaming.
‘Most impressive,’ Petal repeated. ‘Sister Spite. Envy, I think, is in for rather an unpleasant surprise.’
Skinner roared, enraged, and punched the tree, leaving a dent in the thick bark.
‘Now what?’ Mara murmured to Petal.
‘I am not certain. But I do believe that we still have to establish whether K’azz truly is here.’
At that name Skinner’s head snapped round. He marched to Petal and stared up at him; Skinner was one of the largest men Mara knew, but Petal was simply a giant both in girth and in height. After a moment, their commander nodded and crossed his arms. ‘That is for you, Petal.’
The big mage’s eyes slid to Mara. They held fear like twin cornered mice. Why the dread? Ah, of course … Ardata will be waiting.
* * *
The mound Saeng and Hanu kept to was broad enough to be dismissed as a mere natural undulation in the jungle floor. The canopy rose seamlessly from the forest of the surrounding lower tracts to top the higher ground just as densely. As she walked, Saeng wondered whether, from far enough away, an immense pattern, rather like a many-rayed star, might be visible in the rise and fall of the canopy height.
They followed the rise for two days, angling southeast. The way was not easy as the passage of centuries had not been kind to the earthwork; streams cut through it creating steep-sided gullies. In places it had been levelled entirely in broad swampy lowlands. But after continuing on, they found it once more as the land gently rose again.
Each night Saeng lay awake for some time beneath the cover of the densest trees while the inevitable rain poured down. She watched the olive-tinged clouds and the glowing Visitor, immense and ominous, glaring down upon them. Would it really come crashing into the earth? And if so, where? Right on top of them? She hardly believed the Thaumaturgs would call it down directly upon themselves. In which case, being next to them might be a very safe place to retreat after all. Not that it would matter. She imagined that such an impact would annihilate everything across the land in ferocious firestorms.
On the third day she glimpsed through gaps in the canopy some sort of tall rounded structure far ahead. Hanu paused and gestured. The land rose here; jumbled age-gnawed stone blocks might have once described a set of rising levels, or wide stairs. Jungle choked them now. A curtain of hanging and ground-crawling lianas draped the rise. Clinging orchid blossoms dazzled her with brilliant crimson, pink and white. Hanu pushed aside the hanging mats and led the way.
The ground appeared to level here to a wide plateau that stretched as far as she could see. Far off, perhaps at the centre, was a structure. They advanced, Hanu drawing his yataghan. After a time she realized they walked the remains of a concourse. Statues lined it, barely visible through the undergrowth. They appeared to depict monsters or daemons of some sort, all bowed or kneeling. Defeated enemies? Enslaved forces? It was all so long ago she had no idea what they might reference.
The concourse traced what might once have been a moat but was now just another stretch of wilderness, albeit wetter than its surroundings. It led to a wide arched gate in a wall of dressed cyclopean stones. The arch was strangely pointed in a style she did not recognize.
Here Hanu pulled her behind the cover of the nearest of the mature trees that had pushed their way through the laid stones ages ago. He motioned to the ground close to the gate. She could just make out deep cuts and prints in the loamy soil. A line of many wheeled wagons or carriages had entered before them.
The Thaumaturgs were already here.
A black despair of exhaustion pulled on her. After all this! She pressed her head to the tree trunk. She’d counted on getting here first to sabotage or wreck any possibility of the ritual, but they had lost too much time. Now the Circle was here and had already begun.
Hanu squeezed her shoulder and gestured that they should move. She shook her head. There was no point now. What could she possibly do against the entire Circle of Masters?
Hanu unceremoniously picked her up and marched off to the side, tracing the outer wall.
‘What is it?’
‘I do not know. We’re not alone out here. For some time it’s been bothering me. Perhaps we’re being followed.’
She covered her face to fight back tears. ‘Well — it’s all over anyway.’
‘Not yet.’
‘Hanu … You don’t understand …’
‘I know you shouldn’t give up before the battle is joined.’
‘It’s not that simple!’
He was jogging now, hunched, leaping tall snaking roots and fallen rotting tree trunks. They rounded the corner of the overgrown walls to find an exact replica of the side they’d quit. The structure, it appeared, was completely symmetrical in all directions. He set off again at a run. Saeng braced herself with an arm at his armoured neck.
They came to another gate, this one facing north. From the untrammelled ground it appeared that no one had come this way for a very long time. Hanu set her down. ‘I know we should at least reconnoitre,’ he sent, then he motioned for her to follow him at a distance, and edged forward towards the gate.
The interior was a series of narrow courts separated by walls and gates. Covered walks lined the walls. Carvings depicted a series of battles against inhuman forces, giants and half-humans such as those she’d met populating the jungle today. Saeng was reminded of the ancient legends of the God-King as a great conqueror who subdued the entire continent. It occurred to her that what she was looking at here was a record of human ascension. Perhaps they revered him because he had won them their lands.