‘What’s that to us?’ Coumby asked, and there were gasps then. ‘What’d you do if we all sat here, lass, as we are, and did nothing to help you?’
Even Brynd raised an eyebrow, anxious to see how she would take such talk.
Rika smirked, then laughed. ‘You would probably all die, and I would do nothing to stop that from happening.’
‘Tough talk for just a pretty thing,’ another merchant said. Coumby laughed into his own smoke.
‘What is your name?’ Rika asked.
‘Broun, Hant Broun,’ the red-bearded rake of a man replied.
Rika looked to Artemisia and all she did was nod: the massive warrior stepped towards the merchant, hauled him spluttering from his seat and thrust him against the wall. He skidded smoothly up the obsidian surface as Brug leaned casually out of the way. With one arm thrust against his throat, Artemisia reached over her shoulder with her free hand and drew a sword out with a slick zing, and held the point to Broun’s throat. Not one person tried to rescue Broun, whose legs kicked back against the wall to support his weight.
‘Um, Lady Rika. .’ Brynd hissed. ‘Call her off — we need these people on our side.’
‘We need no one,’ she whispered bitterly. ‘They should fear us.’
‘These men would rebuild our world for us!’ Brynd snapped.
Rika said nothing but stared angrily at the table. Brynd called for Artemisia to release her grip, and the warrior woman simply removed her hand and let Broun crumble to the floor before she walked back to Rika’s side under the gaze of everyone in the room.
Great, just great, Brynd thought.
‘This,’ Rika said, ‘this is an example of what will happen to us all. See the might we are dealing with? This is someone who is on our side, who wishes to make a peaceful union with our nations. You can either work on your own, as you have always done, or for once you can put aside your own little empires and join together.’
‘You mean,’ Coumby said, ‘unite to protect yours.’
Rika turned and glared at him, before nodding. ‘If that is what you wish to call it,’ she said, ‘but what other option have you to hand? None, I can tell you that much. Either you unite for just a short period, with great rewards at the end of it for those of you who do, or all you’ve ever worked for will be destroyed anyway. We will have creatures much stranger-looking than Artemisia here coming into our world and destroying everything you have ever achieved, not to mention your friends and your family.’ As the room fell silent, Rika moved towards her chair and sat down. ‘Everything will be wiped out. Now, we need supplies, we need a building programme, we need jobs and most of all an army kitted out to defend our shores. Put simply, we need your money.’
Brynd watched these impassive faces show sudden concern. At one end of the room, Broun was now on his feet, dusting himself down before he snuck out quietly, without his dignity. Someone nearby chuckled.
‘I’m in,’ Coumby declared, ‘should the offer suit me. We can help each other. To our mutual benefit.’
Following Coumby’s lead, a few other merchants threw in their hand, obviously wanting a slice of whatever was on offer.
‘See, commander?’ Rika whispered. ‘A stern word and a little force is sometimes required. They need fear in them.’
‘Of course,’ Brynd replied. ‘Well put, Lady Rika.’
THREE
A river of refugees, forty thousand long, stretched across the bleak landscape of Jokull, while in the distance in the direction of the ruins of Villjamur, a sky-city hovered, a black smear against the sleet-filled sky. There was a strange ambience to the scene, one of a people resigned to their fate, yet possessing an urgency to move nonetheless. It was as if they had accepted they would die, but didn’t want to — not just yet.
Fulcrom, one-time investigator of the Villjamur Inquisition, now resigned but somehow with more authority than he’d ever wanted, turned his horse around to face the other horizon — in the direction of their travel. There were a few hills with patches of forest to navigate through, but other than that there was merely the endless tundra stretching into the distance. In front of him, a flock of geese arced a slow circle then — for a brief, dreadful moment he thought they were something else coming down to the ground.
In the periphery of his vision, a black-clad girl with a dark fringe bounded towards him.
‘You miss me?’ Lan asked.
Fulcrom broke into a reluctant smile. ‘Did it all go OK?’
‘Sure, not as much trouble this morning as last night. There are no serious threats at all.’ Her slender face was caked in mud, her hair dishevelled. Lan’s black outfit, once the hallmark of a Knight of Villjamur, was now a meaningless costume, though her deeds were still the same: pulling people out of harm’s way. There was still plenty of work for her.
‘Hmm,’ Fulcrom muttered.
‘What?’
‘I don’t like it when there are no threats. That usually means something’s about to happen.’
‘Ever the optimist, aren’t you?’
‘I’m merely being rational. It’s not right when there are no signs of life up there,’ Fulcrom said, indicating the sky-city. ‘Whenever there’s been a calm before, a blistering attack follows. Why should now be any different?’
‘Well, in quiet periods we can get people moving quicker than before,’ Lan suggested. ‘We can get further along. That’s something, surely?’
‘I know,’ Fulcrom sighed. ‘I just wish we had more of these vehicles. We just seem to be bringing more communities on board every hour. I didn’t even realize Jokull was this populated until now. Anyway, where’s Tane?’
‘I’ve no idea,’ she said. ‘He was with me when I ran from the confrontation last night, but I’m much quicker than him over any distance. I just assumed he’d make it back OK.’
Fulcrom nodded and regarded the scene. As if becoming sucked into a moving tide, people were being dragged into the ongoing mass of humans and rumels. A few thousand had become tens of thousands — twenty, then nearer thirty, as the villages and hamlets emptied themselves of people desperate to avoid the devastation heading their way.
At first Fulcrom was in shocked awe of the tide of new refugees. Then he realized that their presence here was, ultimately, a good thing. It meant that their civilization might survive a little longer.
‘What’s next?’ Lan asked, jumping effortlessly up onto Fulcrom’s horse behind him. She moved one arm around his chest and squeezed him closer. It made him feel normal again — albeit for a brief moment — though Lan hadn’t quite been normal since they’d left the remains of Villjamur. She’d been thriving out here; her confidence had reached new heights, the people had seemingly forgotten or ignored the recent revelations about her past.
‘Just keep going, I guess,’ he replied.
‘We’re nearly at the coast though. Then what? Will the sky-city follow us? Do we go across the water?’
Fulcrom held up his hands. ‘I’m hoping Frater Mercury will sort something out.’
‘That’s a bit like praying for divine intervention,’ Lan commented. ‘I didn’t have you down as a particularly religious man.’
‘That was before we had someone who’s practically a god by our side,’ he replied.
‘Speaking of which, what’s he been up to?’ Lan asked.
‘Oh who the hell knows? I tell him what I need, he delivers it if he feels inclined, though sometimes I’m not sure he even hears me. So, essentially, that’s why I have some hope that we’ll be fine when we hit the water.’
‘So you can be an optimist,’ she joked and kissed the back of his neck.
There were twenty-two earth carriages now, twenty-two behemoths constructed by Frater Mercury from the very fabric of the land. They had risen up from the ground with mud dripping off like water, and wheels had been created from debris and somehow bound to these enormous clumps of land.