“We need the worst, the most tangled and confused of the ruins,” said Taim as he sheathed his sword. “The harder the going, the less likely we are to be seen or to stumble across trouble.”
Orisian nodded. K’rina was still pulling against him. It seemed, though, that she did not understand what it was that restrained her. She did not look at him, merely strained against his grip like a sheep snagged on some thorn bush. When he followed the line of her gaze, it led him to the dark knot of taller, more massive ruins in the city’s heart. That was where she wanted to go. That was where whatever called so insistently to her would be found.
VIII
Kanin rose feebly through oceans of pain. He was made of it, and inhabited it. The light he ascended towards hurt him. The hard stone he began to feel beneath him woke aches in his muscles. And his hands… his hands gathered into them all that ocean through which he swam. They were like fire.
He moaned as he forced open his crusted eyes. The pain of his maimed hands was beyond anything he could have conceived of. There was nothing else save that searing, pounding, crippling torment. All that he saw and heard came to him through the howl of agony, rendered all but senseless by its journey.
Shraeve was standing before Aeglyss. Saying something, angry. The na’kyrim simply stared at her.
Shraeve shouted at him. Kanin could not make out what she was saying. Her anger could not penetrate his pain. But then, though his lips did not move, Aeglyss spoke, and Kanin could hear his words, for they were of the same stuff as his pain, and thus within him. A part of him.
“The Shadowhand is dead. I can’t remember… did I tell you that? He died. And was glad of it. I tasted him as he faded into… into the Shared. Into me. No, it doesn’t matter. He served his purpose. He did what I required of him.
“As did you, my fierce raven, until this… this doubt entered into you. What happened? Is it too bright for you, this light you have helped to reveal? I tell you there is no more need for armies or for wars, that the victory is already won. But you don’t understand. You don’t hear. Very well. Very well.”
Something else amongst Kanin’s pain then. A flow, a gathering of force. Shraeve had gone down onto her knees. One hand reached impotently towards Aeglyss, the other fumbled at the hilt of one of her swords.
“I knew you would turn against me eventually,” Kanin heard the great voice say, almost sad. “The last of them, perhaps, but in the end… the same. But I can heal you of this betrayal, Shraeve. The Shadowhand is gone… that fragment of my will I lodged in his mind is returned to me. I can give it to you, and bind us closer than ever before. I can give you back that faith you have lost.”
Shraeve was sitting back on her heels, her spine arching, her head tipping back. Her arms fell limp at her sides. Her mouth was open, and though Kanin could hear nothing from her, he thought she might be screaming.
“Yes…” the halfbreed’s voice whispered in the bones of Kanin’s skull. “You don’t have to leave me yet. Never. You’ll stay at my side. Can you see, Thane? Do you see? This is what your sister submitted herself to. She became a part of me, as she could never have been a part of you.”
Kanin fainted away at that moment, but the refuge of insensibility was fleeting. He was called back, dragged back into that foul hall of pain and cruelty and horrors. Aeglyss had not moved. Shraeve was striding towards the door. Kanin knew-or was shown-that the Inkallim was no longer as she had been. Though he saw two people before him, there was but a single will.
“We might need her yet, Thane,” the monster murmured inside him. “There is an… intent. Somewhere near. Intent. Not fierce, not burning, but clear. Becoming clear. I feel it but cannot find it. We will see. You and I. We will see.”
*
Never had Eska moved with such care and precision. A near-lifetime of training, of submission to the strictures and teachings of the Hunt, went into her every delicate step over the loose rubble. She judged every fall of her foot with minute attention; assessed and refined her balance constantly. She passed across the treacherous territory of Kan Avor as silently and slowly as would a cat suspecting the presence of an unprepared mouse.
She did not return to her previous vantage point. To do so would be absurdly reckless, and though her emotions were running high, they were not yet so incapacitating as to rob her of all sense. She found instead a more distant but well concealed perch. There was an empty courtyard that must once have been colonnaded, for there were the stumps of columns, like a line of dead trees. Set into its furthest wall were shelved alcoves in which she guessed statues once had stood. Those statues were long gone, and Eska crouched in place of one of them, half her own height above the ground. She was in shadow there and confident none but the most acute of eyes would uncover her.
From that secluded nook she could gaze out across the ruined court and through a gap in the opposite wall-originally a window perhaps, but now roughened into a ragged hole-into the street beyond. Thirty paces up that street, in her line of sight, two Battle Inkallim stood outside the door from which she had seen the halfbreed emerge to confront Kanin oc Horin-Gyre. The door, she assumed, behind which the na’kyrim now lurked, somewhere in the crumbling palace. She meant to put an end to him-was determined upon it as she had been upon no other task in her life-but would do so meticulously. Carefully. And that required the removal of those who would protect him.
She had seen no sign of other Inkallim on her approach to this hiding place. Had seen in fact hardly anyone who was not obviously sick in body or mind or both. The whole city had declined into a kind of demented lassitude. Whatever unnatural pall of corruption lay over the place-and she could feel it herself, feeding the turbulent emotions within her-had defeated and destroyed all save a handful of its inhabitants.
She set one bolt down on the ledge at her feet. Held another between her teeth while she cocked the bow. Everything was done slowly, with small movements. She had nothing and no one to fall back on this time. There could be no mistakes.
She took aim. She visualised the flight of the bolt, its dipping flight across the courtyard, through the window, out into the light and on into flesh. It was clear in her mind’s eye. The man she had taken as her target was looking away, talking to his companion. She exhaled, waited for a single heartbeat and released the bowstring. As soon as it was gone, she knew it was a good kill. If the man did not make some sudden, unexpected move, he was dead.
She lowered the crossbow and levered its string back into place. She did not watch the first bolt’s flight as she reached for the next, but she listened attentively and was rewarded with the thud of its strike and the cry of surprise that greeted it. She raised the reloaded bow and settled herself for the second time.
One of the Inkallim was down, moving fitfully and, she could tell from those movements, hopelessly. The second was running down the line of her aim. He was good, she acknowledged. Alert and fast. She fixed her eyes on his chest, just off centre, and exhaled.
The Inkallim veered abruptly out of sight. She could hear him for a moment, but then even that clue was taken away. She dropped lightly to the ground. Her spear rested against the wall by the alcove, but she left it where it was for now. If he got close enough for her to need a spear, she would most likely be in fatal trouble anyway.
She strained her senses, reaching out to gather in any traitorous sound or glimpse that might offer itself. Nothing came. She turned slowly, crossbow poised. Nothing. She waited.
The Inkallim came rushing from behind her. She heard his boots on the stone slabs. She spun and looked into his eyes, and the crossbow trembled in her hands as it loosed its cargo. The bolt knocked the raven off his feet. Eska puffed out her cheeks.