“Forgive my ignorance,” Sigoral said. “But did the Seer predict any of this? His writings have long been banned in the Empire.”
“He tried to warn the world of what was to come,” Preacher replied. “Though there were few who listened.”
“I have read all the Seer’s words, more than once,” Braddon said. “Don’t recall mention of anything that resembles what’s happening right now.”
Preacher fixed Braddon with a bright-eyed stare of the kind Clay had last seen during their previous visit to Krystaline Lake. “Then you should have read deeper, Captain,” the marksman said in a low, intent voice. “For it’s all there. The Travail is at last upon us and are we not seven in number?”
Braddon gave no reply causing Loriabeth to pipe up. “What’s that gotta do with anything?”
“The Seven Penitents,” Braddon said. “The Seer claimed that when the forces of darkness rise up during the Travail they’ll be opposed by Seven Penitents.”
“Seven Righteous Penitents,” Preacher said, the volume of his voice climbing a notch. “Chosen from amongst the great throng of sinners to stand against the ravaging tide.” He paused, gaze unfocused but gleaming. “I see it now. Though I hid from it for many years. Though I sundered myself from the church and sought death in the Interior. Though I have revelled in slaughter of drake and Spoiled and sullied my soul in the revelling, ever has the truth of the Seer’s word pursued me, until now, at last it finds me.”
He stood, raising his arms, hands outstretched, fingers spread wide. “Will you pray with me, brothers and sisters?” he said, head lowered. “Give thanks to the Seer for his guidance and seek his blessing for the task ahead.”
Loriabeth exchanged a brief glance with Clay and her father before getting to her feet, lip curled in distaste. “Fuck off,” she said wearily before going to her bedroll.
“Wait a second, cuz,” Clay said, bringing her to an uncertain pause. He rose to his feet and went to clasp Preacher’s outstretched hand. The marksman gripped it with all the fierceness of a man clinging to wreckage in a stormy sea. “Thank you, brother,” he breathed, head still lowered.
“Well, why not?” Clay said, looking at each of them in turn and holding out his own hand. “Reckon we’ll be needing all the help we can get before long.”
It was Kriz who took his hand, albeit with a bemused smile. Braddon moved to clasp Preacher’s other hand, extending his own to Skaggerhill, who took it after a moment’s hesitation.
“Lieutenant?” Kriz said, holding her hand out to Sigoral.
The Corvantine frowned in rueful resignation before joining his hand to hers, muttering, “A man would find himself hung for this in the Empire.” He turned, hand raised expectantly to Loriabeth. The distaste still lingered on her face, though the sneer had disappeared now.
“Ma never had no truck with such nonsense,” she said, crossing her arms. “Neither do I.”
“Please, Lori,” Braddon said. “It’s just for a second.”
Loriabeth raised her face to the sky, breath misting a little in the chill night air as she let out a soft curse. “As long as he don’t take all night about it,” she said, moving to join hands with Sigoral and Skaggerhill, closing the circle.
“The final resting place of the Seer is unknown to this day,” Preacher said, raising his face, eyes still lit by the same glow of conviction. “For that was his wish. ‘Make no idols of me,’ he said. ‘My words are my temple and my testament.’ The Seer offered no false promises, no empty lies, that those who followed his words would earn an eternal place in another world or riches in this one. His message was simple: The Travail is coming. And now it is here. Of the Seven Penitents he said only this: ‘When the storm winds born of the Travail blow hardest, when the flames reach highest, when the screams of the damned grow loudest, then will the Seven Righteous Penitents rise. Long will they travel and much will they suffer, but it is they who will quench the flames and silence the screams, though it cost them all.’”
“Well, that’s cheery,” Loriabeth muttered.
“We are Seven!” Preacher said, Clay wincing a little as his grip tightened. “Joined in purpose and now joined in faith. I know the Seer blesses our endeavour.” He lowered his gaze once more, saying, “Heed the words of the Seer.”
“Heed the words of the Seer,” Braddon repeated, Clay and the others doing the same.
Silence reigned for a time as they stood there, holding hands in silent contemplation until, from somewhere out on the darkened plain, there came the shrill cry of a drake.
“Shit!” Loriabeth drew both pistols and threw herself flat, the circle breaking apart as the rest of them armed themselves and hunkered down. “Sounded a mite too high-pitched for a Green,” she said.
“Plains Green,” Skaggerhill said, drawing back the hammers on his shotgun. “Little smaller than jungle Greens, but a good deal more cunning. They move in packs of six or more and hunt at night. Most likely caught the scent of the Cerath we rode here on. Be after the young ’uns.”
“And if they ain’t?” Clay asked.
Skaggerhill sighed and reached for his pack, placing it in front of him and laying the shotgun on top. “Then we’re in for a very long night.”
Either through blind luck or disinterest they spent a nervous night untroubled by any Greens. Clay eventually ordered the resumption of the watch rota and each of them managed a few hours’ sleep before dawn. They set off after a short breakfast of canned sea rations washed down with a larger-than-usual quota of coffee to stave off the lingering fatigue. It took two of them to carry Kriz’s apparatus, the bulky device lashed into a tarpaulin suspended between two poles. Clay had been taking his turn lugging the apparatus when they came upon the body of a juvenile Cerath.
Flies buzzed in greedy swarms around the empty cavity of the animal’s stomach and the many wounds that scored its hide. “Like I said,” Skaggerhill commented, “after the young ’uns.”
“Got a dead Green over here,” Braddon said, pointing to something in the long grass near by. “Looks like its head got stoved in. Guess momma Cerath got herself some vengeance.”
“You wanna stop and harvest it?” Skaggerhill said. “Won’t take too long.”
“No,” Clay said. He grunted and settled the poles on his shoulders before resuming the trek. “The lake’s only a coupla miles away, and we already got us a decent stock of Green.”
Krystaline Lake came into view just after noon, the plains suddenly descending in a gentle slope towards the shore that stretched away on either side. The water was as blue and deceptively inviting as Clay remembered, and at this latitude so broad that the jungle covering the eastern shore was lost to view.
“We’re gonna need another boat,” Braddon said. “Or at least a raft.”
“Need some notion of where to look first,” Clay said as he and Sigoral set the apparatus down. “I’ll trance with Miss Lethridge toni—”
The rush of fear hit him like a punch, sending him to his knees, a pain-filled yell escaping his clenched teeth as thoughts that were not his own flooded his head: A great host of aquatic Greens, seen from below, sediment billowing, Jack’s huge heart hammering in alarm as he let out a plaintive warning cry.
“Clay?” his uncle was at his side, holding him as he convulsed, Jack’s need for reassurance dominating his thoughts.
STOP!
Clay forced the command through Jack’s terrorised babble, reaching into the core of his mind to crush the worst of his fear. Jack calmed, his huge body ceasing its desperate coiling as he sought to conceal himself in a cloud of raised sediment. Clay had Jack cast his gaze upwards once more, seeing that the Green pack had passed overhead now. They were clustering together on the surface a short way off, forming some kind of barrier. Clay turned Jack about, seeing the narrow hull of the Superior cutting the surface towards them, its wake diminishing as it came to a halt. Jack’s incredible hearing was full of the massed clicking and chirping of the Greens directly to the Superior’s front and keen enough to detect a similar cacophony of another pack behind. From the way the sound echoed around he was also able to deduce they were in a narrow channel.