“How long is it since you’ve been to Hess?” Kosar asked.
“Seventy years,” she said. “And now I return with the news my people have been awaiting for so long.”
“Can they help us?” Kosar asked. “Will they hide us, protect us? Can they hold off the Red Monks, the Mages?”
A’Meer glanced at him, and in the moonlight her skin was even paler than ever. He did not like the smile on her lips. “You’ve seen how a Red Monk fights,” she said. “Given magic, the Mages will be like tumblers to the Monks’ ants. There are thousands more like me in New Shanti, trained to fight specifically to defend magic should it arise. We’re a very spiritual people, we were never meant to fight; look at me, my build, how small and weak I look. Perhaps that’s why we make such good warriors: we’re not made, we make ourselves. And to answer your questions, yes, we can defeat the Red Monks. But the Mages… if they catch Rafe before New Shanti can protect and hide him away.. . they’ll push us into the sea, just as was done to them at the end of the Cataclysmic War.”
“I’m just a thief,” Kosar muttered.
“And Rafe’s just a farm boy!” A’Meer snapped. “That doesn’t mean he shouldn’t be special.”
“And I am?” Kosar whispered. “Tell me, how am I special? I can barely hold a sword straight because of these fingers, and I have no idea about any of this. The witch knows more than me, and I trust her about as much as I would a Violet Dog.”
“You’re special to me,” A’Meer said.
Kosar was shocked into silence. It was the first true indication she had given since their last night in Pavisse that she had any of her old feelings left for him. She had become a stranger over the past few days, and although there had still been an aura of friendship he had thought her affections lost, shattered by her admission of who she was, killed by the enormity of events surrounding them and steering them on.
They walked on into the night, not knowing what waited ahead of them, nor what followed behind.
WHEN MORNING BROKEand cast its cleansing light across the grasslands, Rafe woke up and said that he wanted to go to Kang Kang.
Tim Lebbon
Dusk
Chapter 24
LENORA LED THEMages’ advance force across the Bay of Cantrassa and approached the mainland of Noreela. They flew low. Their objective was to secure a landing area at Conbarma for the Krote army following on in ships, and as such one of their main aims was to preserve the element of surprise. She knew that there would be a fight once they alighted on Noreelan soil, but it had to be contained, a skirmish rather than a battle. Their landing had to be kept secret for as long as possible.
Lenora had listened for her daughter’s shade. There were hints and flushes of presence, but she could not be certain that these were not manufactured in her own mind. There you are! the shade said, and Way away, so far away, and See me hear me find me. But these words made little sense, and Lenora found no comfort in them at all. If anything, they disturbed her more than she could have imagined. If they were the words of her unborn daughter’s shade, then there was no warmth or sense of belonging there for her. And if it was not the potential of her dead child’s voice, then Lenora was mad. So she listened, doing her best to keep her watchfulness subdued; it was the Mages’ bidding she was here to oversee. Her own aims-her own lust for revenge-had to remain at the back of her mind. For now. But there would come a time. ..
The huge hawks were tired almost to the point of death. They had lost some over the Bay, rescuing the Krote riders whenever possible, and now their force was reduced to around eighty hawks and ninety warriors. The hawks were almost finished, but the Krotes, tired and hungry though they were, perked up at the first sign of land. They knew that there was a fight ahead, and fighting was their life.
Seaweed bobbed on the waves below them, and a few scraps of wood from some wreck, and then their shadows touched a small flock of birds that could have only originated on land. The Krotes called to one another, laughing, singing, making warlike melodies with the metallic impact of sword on knife, stabbing at the failing hawks to add their wounded voices to the song. The horizon concealed land, but they knew it was not far away. After so long in the air these warriors were more than ready to feel firm ground beneath their feet, and enemy flesh around their blades.
They came across a small fleet of fishing boats, and their howls froze the fishermen and women where they stood. Lenora sent five hawks down. The Krotes let loose arrows and poisoned stars, and bodies splashed into the water. A few halfhearted arrows met them on their second approach, but it only took two more passes to ensure that everyone on the boats was dead. Their blood up, the Krotes turned the hawks landward once again. Behind them the fishing boats bobbed with the current, their contents soon to rot in the sun.
Conbarma was a fishing village with a huge natural harbor. It had a massive capacity for ships of all sizes, the docking mole had been built and extended over the last thousand years, and it had long been decided by the Mages that this would be the ideal point for invasion. Mage spies had drawn maps of the land beyond the village; it was relatively level, the buildings low and well spaced out, and the village itself was peopled by fisher folk and a few dozen lethargic militia.
Lenora ordered the hawks in low. The Krotes were not expecting any significant resistance, yet they executed a perfect attack. To fail here would be to leave the Mages’ fleet, and their soldiers, open to attack as soon as they touched Noreelan soil.
The great creatures were seen over a mile out. As they drew nearer, Lenora heard shouts of panic from the village and saw people running through the streets. She veered her hawk away from the initial hail of arrows and bolts, and then she gave the order to return fire. The invaders let loose with their own crossbows and the air was thick with screams of the dying. Several hawks circled back and landed at the harbor, disgorging Krote warriors, who immediately went into battle, screeching in delight as their swords found flesh and bone.
Most of the hawks could barely move from where they had landed, such was their exhaustion, and they became targets of the villagers’ fury and terror. One was trapped in a net and hauled into the sea to drown; another had its limbs and tentacles hacked off until it bled to death, whining pitifully for its master to come and save it. But the warrior it had carried into the fray was already streets away, busy with his killing.
Lenora and the remaining hawks flew over the village, circling to disgorge perfectly aimed bolts and arrows before flying on. They passed the outskirts of Conbarma and kept going over the low hills and shallow valleys, until there were no signs of habitation below. They spread out, flying left and right and curving back toward the coast, forming a wide perimeter.
They landed. Solid ground felt good beneath Lenora’s feet, and she staggered slightly as she found her land legs. It did not take long. You feel so strong, a voice said in her mind, but perhaps she had thought, I feel so strong. “Yes,” she said, agreeing, whatever the case. “Strong, and ready for a fight.” She called to those Krotes to her left and right. “This is just the beginning! Weeks of this to come. Weeks!” They cheered and raised their unsheathed swords. And then, Lenora thought, I can fly on to fight my own battle.
Your own battle, the shade in her mind echoed. And Lenora decided then that, whether it was her daughter’s shade or her own mad voice, she would listen to it until the end.
Lenora and the dismounted Krotes waited in a curve around the village’s outskirts, counting the seconds and minutes until they were sure that their comrades would have completed the entrapment. It was peaceful this far inland-no screams or sounds of fighting reached them from the harbor-and Lenora listened to the sounds of nature. Birds sung in a nearby swatch of bushes. Gulls cried overhead, and a moor hawk circled way up high, spying on these new invaders without fear. Her warriors had fallen silent, and she thought perhaps they too were listening to these new, pure sounds. Back on Dana’Man there was little wildlife, and what did exist was unpleasant and often dangerous. The normal noises back there were cracks and groans as the glacier rumbled its timeless way seaward, and the solitary cries of the snow wraiths they had never, ever seen in three hundred years.