‘What about? He barely listened to me before we set out for this wasteland. Do you honestly think after all we’ve been through he’ll suddenly want to open his heart?’
Tuung grunted. ‘We don’t even know what we’re doing now, or where we’re headed.’
‘We’re going home to Villjamur,’ Verain replied.
‘What, just like that? We fuck off into these Realm Gates, get the shit kicked out of us, have most of our order slaughtered before our eyes in the most scarring manner imaginable, and we just fuck off back home again?’
His reminders of the horrors they experienced were not welcome. ‘Expeditions fail all the time. Explorers get lost and turn back. Ships catch the wrong winds, get dragged off course — these things happen, it’s life. We tried, we failed. We’re still alive.’
Tuung grunted again: ‘That may be true. But most explorers know where they’re going, know what they’re getting into — have a choice. Do we? Do we have any idea what Dartun is up to?’
Verain looked to where Dartun was still staring at the group in the distance.
‘They’re coming now,’ he announced.
Verain approached Dartun and hesitantly placed a hand on his arm. If he felt her gesture, he didn’t show any acknowledgement. ‘Who are they?’ she asked.
‘The Order of the Dawnir. Papus. Her cultists are coming to confront us.’
She didn’t ask how he knew. She didn’t want to know.
She’s come, at last… Verain felt a pang of relief. The last time she had seen this woman, Verain had revealed many of Dartun’s nefarious activities, including the intention to explore the Realm Gates. She had not betrayed her lover — she merely feared for everyone’s safety, her own included. He had become obsessed with becoming immortal once again, and he didn’t seem to be thinking right. Now she had come to take them back to Villjamur and Verain hoped their encounter would be peaceful.
‘She must have been trying to stop us seeing the otherworld,’ Dartun said, ‘or maybe she wants a resolution to our years of feuding. Perhaps she caught wind of my experiments on the dead, who knows. A little late for either, I suspect. It all seems so… petty.’
Tuung traipsed forward, rubbing the back of his head. ‘Uh, we’ve not got any relics that work, Dartun. They were made redundant on the other side of the gates. I’m not sure what you want us to do exactly, but we’re not in a great state to engage in combat.’
‘He’s right,’ Verain said. ‘We shouldn’t fight them.’
‘We won’t need relics,’ Dartun declared. ‘I can handle this miserable woman on my own.’
Verain opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out. Dartun began walking forward on his own. No one followed him. The weather settled: clouds had dissipated from the immediate area, leaving a beautiful and unusual lilac glaze to the scene, and wind licked up tiny wisps of snow. Dartun marched about fifty or so paces into isolation, down into a very slight gully, but his torso still clearly visible.
And waited.
The figures in the distance vacated sleds, then slowly huddled into formation, before moving to meet him.
Verain watched, her heart thumping, her nerves getting the better of her. ‘Surely we should do something?’ she pleaded with Tuung.
‘You heard the man,’ Tuung replied bitterly. ‘Sod all, is what we can do. Besides, the relics aren’t working, are they? Most of the weaponry has been deactivated, so unless you fancy using something as primitive as a sword… Way I see it is like this: if he lives, great, we stick with him and go home. If he gets killed, we still head home in some way, only as prisoners.’
One of the others grunted a laugh, but the rest stared at the ground or deep into the distance — anything to face the reality of what was happening. Her attention moved back to Dartun, who was still in the same pose, still standing defiantly, his cloak wafting in the breeze while further along the slope the Order of the Dawnir were slowly closing the distance.
*
They must have appeared like a local tribe the way they were wrapped in dark furs and waxed capes. Papus made her cultists pull in closer, tighter, cautious of any relics Dartun might activate.
The arrogance of the man! Papus thought. Through the telescope she could just see him standing there, waiting for her, almost without a care in the world.
Is he smiling?
She put away the telescope and gripped the new relic in her pocket, a Skammr, something she had worked with for some time, though not been able to use until now. The device was constructed so that she could disable all other relics within the immediate vicinity, completely muting the power of the ancients for just a short period. Though untested in the field, she knew it would work, though it could only be used sparingly, and given that Dartun had presented himself as a vulnerable target, she didn’t even think she would need it more than once.
What if he was surrendering? she thought. Would he willingly seek to hand himself in — could he be tired of being out here? Others from his order seemed to be loitering by the sleds up the hill, so this didn’t appear to be an aggressive manoeuvre. And where were the rest of them, for that matter? The Order of the Equinox ought to have been much larger than what was gathered here.
Every step closer presented to her a confirmation it was indeed Dartun. When they were about fifty paces away, she held an arm out to halt her entourage. ‘I think it’s best if I initiate contact alone,’ she said.
‘Please, Gydja,’ someone said — Bael, one of the younger women in her order. ‘Not after what happened to Minof. This man is deeply untrustworthy.’
Papus considered the point and observed Dartun, who stood waiting for her, nonchalantly. ‘All right, we go on as a group.’
Defiantly, and as much in unison as they could manage, the cultists marched as one, as the Order of the Dawnir, to police this rogue cultist.
Forty paces away, Dartun called over to her: ‘You must truly love me, to come so far.’ She heard his hollow laugh echoing across the ice.
Arrogant swine, she thought. Dartun had found a flat section of thick ice within a gully, which looked like the snow had settled on a small lake with a few cold-crippled trees poking up from their white smothering. His shadow was bold across the ice.
She commenced her well-rehearsed statement. ‘Dartun Sur, Godhi of the Order of the Equinox, you are-’
‘You do love stating the obvious, Papus,’ Dartun interrupted. ‘Why have you come out here?’
‘We’re here to bring you to justice, Dartun, as simple as that. In the name of this Empire, we request that you return with us to Villjamur in order to face charges for your crimes.’
‘And what crimes would they be?’ Dartun replied, glancing up and down their row of cultists, a smirk on his face.
‘Animation of the dead, for one thing,’ Papus sneered. ‘You have abused your position as a cultist and breached our ethical boundaries.’
‘Sod you,’ Dartun spat, ‘and your ethical boundaries.’
How dare he talk to me like this. Papus wanted to get this man back to Villjamur immediately. She peered to her left, shading her eyes from the glare. One of her order stepped forward: it was Telov, a chunky blond man with a weather-beaten face. He withdrew from his furs a set of chains that began to glow and splutter with a fierce purple light.
‘I would strongly advise against using that,’ Dartun growled.
‘Why? You’ve no relics,’ Papus observed. Dartun merely stood there, his hands by his sides, and only then did she think it strange he was not wearing as many layers one might expect for such freezing conditions. His dark cloak barely clung to his somewhat tattered frame. Admittedly he did not look his best — his clothes were torn, and she could see exposed skin in places, and in others… was that metal showing through?
Telov held the neutral ends of the chains out cautiously in front, and it was clear from his movements that his nerves were getting the better of him. She had wanted to capture Dartun for so long and now this seemed an anticlimax. Was this legendary cultist simply going to let himself be taken back to Villjamur?