There was no rekindling of life for the mother. She lay inert, already beginning to pale with the chalky whiteness of death. Her mouth was slack, her eyes glazed. The despair of her helpers was palpable, and it gripped him, too. A clamp fastened on his heart.
His veins coursed with ice. Feeling a sense of loss far greater than the sorrow of a mere onlooker, he moved nearer.
He was stopped by a chorus of shouts from outside. The old man clutched the new-born tighter to his chest. With fearful expressions the midwives turned their heads to the door. The shouting was louder. He stared at the occupants for a second before leaving the hut.
Outside was all commotion. Men running, yelling. Some throwing saddles onto horses; others already mounted and wheeling, churning mud. Through the trees he glimpsed the riders he’d seen on the road. A multitude, closing at speed. The men of the camp, hopelessly outnumbered, scrambled to face them.
A few gazed at the sky. It was filling with a presence, a brooding. But only he could truly see the malevolent horde of black wraiths gathering overhead.
The old man came out of the roundhouse. He held the child, wrapped in a bloodied blanket. Pausing for an instant, he surveyed the scene, and looked ruefully to the ominous skies. Then, hugging the bundle, he sped with surprising agility into the woods, away from the attackers.
Suffused with a blistering radiance, the shadow beings loomed overhead. They were malleable, assuming an infinite variety of grotesque forms. As they dived, blinding currents flowed ahead; terrible energies that rent the air itself. Bolts of fire sloughed from them, and lethal radiances pulsed. They fell as a living rain of death.
And as above, so below. The horsemen were sweeping into the clearing. They came with dreadful cries and scything blades. Few as they were, his kinsmen stood ready to meet them. From the land and from the heavens, battle was joined.
Flame and steel rolled in to engulf him.
He came to, biting back a scream.
Someone’s hand was on him. He snatched their wrist and held it like a vice.
‘
Ow!
You’re
hurting
me!’
Caldason blinked into focus. ‘Kutch? What the
hell
are you doing? Don’t you know it’s dangerous to-’
‘You were shouting fit to bring the house down. I heard you from upstairs.’
‘I…I’m sorry.’ He let go.
Kutch rubbed his wrist, looking pained. ‘What was it? Another one?’
‘Yes.’ He sat up and shook his head to clear it. ‘A…dream, or whatever they are.’
‘Sounded bad.’
The Qalochian nodded. ‘And different.’ A thought struck him. ‘What about
you
? I mean, did you see anything? Were you-’
‘No, I didn’t share it. Not this time. It’s happening less now I’ve stopped spotting so much.’
‘You still think there’s a connection?’ He swung his legs off the cot and stiffly rolled his shoulders.
‘Well, it started when I began training as a spotter. I can’t think of any other way I’ve changed.’
‘You’ve changed in lots of ways since we came here, Kutch.’
‘Have I? How?’
‘Mostly for the better.’ He put on a weak smile.
‘You said it was different. The dream.’
The smile faded. ‘Yes. Some of it was familiar.
Too
familiar. But there was something new.’
‘What?’
Caldason stood and walked past him to the window. It was early light, and Valdarr’s streets were already bustling. For the most part, genuine humans milled below. But there was much of the phantasmal, too. Many illusions were obvious. Others might be mistaken for flesh and blood by a casual observer. Bursts of light marked the appearance of new glamours. Equally numerous were the implosions of non-light
indicating their demise. A flock of birds flew across the grey sky. Perhaps they were real. He couldn’t tell.
‘Reeth?’
‘The visions have shown me my death many times,’ Caldason said, his eyes still on the scene outside. ‘Well, what should have been my death. Now there’s something else.’
‘Whatever it was, you seem pretty shaken by it.’
‘I think I saw how I came into the world. And how my coming into it killed the woman who birthed me.’ He turned to face the boy. ‘I was responsible for my mother’s death, Kutch.’
High above, the birds flapped lazily towards the rising sun.
8
Thousands of birds darkened the watery sky.
They circled an area that had a comparatively sparse population, despite being in central Bhealfa. What drew them in such vast numbers was easy pickings. Not just the countless worms churned up, but the profusion of refuse left by the cavalcade they followed. For the birds, it was a never-ending banquet. Although it was not without its dangers. Wild dogs and feral cats were attracted by the feast, too. And the humans in the great procession used hawks and archers to reduce the flocks, and for sport.
The birds’ other rivals were the armies of scavengers living in the convoy’s wake. These men, women and children existed in a hierarchy as rigid as that of the wider society that shunned them. The lowliest, the dung gatherers, roamed on foot, their carts and wagons being employed to carry the valuable fruits of their labours.
The niche above them was occupied by the rag pickers. Notwithstanding their job description, they ferreted out anything of value from the general detritus. Fuelled by stories of discarded coins, and even jewels, many pickers had the mentality of gold panners.
Occasionally, they came across a dead body. These were the result of execution or exile, which amounted to the same thing if the accused was cast out from one of the convoy’s higher places. Some were suicides of people who came to prefer death to the regime’s haphazard cruelty. Once stripped, the bodies were left for the carrion crews. Spurned by everyone, these motley bands contained many outcasts; sufferers of unsightly diseases and the mentally unstable who could find no other employment. They survived by selling the corpses back to their often aristocratic families for decent burial.
The travelling artisans considered themselves far superior to the scavengers, pickers and body snatchers. Carpenters, builders, thatchers, wheelwrights, blacksmiths and a dozen other trades made up their ranks. Their bread came from offering to make good the damage caused by the passing of the procession. A handful of sorcerers of dubious repute were loosely affiliated with this group, promising the afflicted charms to avert such disasters in future.
Being more prosperous than the baser camp followers, the artisans could afford magic, if largely rudimentary. Glamoured bird scarers were part of their cache, and every so often they let one off to have a few minutes’ respite.
So it was this brisk dawn. A hex ignited an ear-splitting salvo. Flaming, multicoloured tendrils jabbed the sky, dispersing their squawking targets. The birds escaped to higher reaches, to regroup.
One scavenger took the racket as a signal to straighten his aching back for a moment. He raised a hand to mop his sweaty forehead, despite the morning chill. Grabbing a breath, he gazed at the source of his livelihood, perhaps a mile distant, and felt the familiar
thrump-thrump-thrump
through the soles of his feet as it slowly moved away. He never ceased to be awed at the spectacle, the chaos. Or to be grateful that
it fed him. It was a miracle, a gift from the gods. This clandestine economy built on the foolishness of one man widely considered insane.
Some likened Prince Melyobar’s roving court to a sow nurturing her incalculable litter. The less benevolent saw it as a bloated leech gorging on the blood of all around it.
Melyobar’s palace was a capricious affair. Huge, as befitted the ego of its master, the structure expressed his aberrations, too. It was a rare angle that struck the eye as true. There was an over-abundance of towers and spires. A host of statues stood on its battlements, uniformly freakish or alarming. It bristled with defences and scaling obstacles. Everything was embellished, carved, tinted, bedecked and overlaid with precious stones and valuable metals. The impression was of a spiky cake iced by a demented chef.