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He’d done that much. One pass. Enough.
Time to flee.
Corabb Bhilan Thun’alas leaned forward, and bared muddy teeth.
Spirits below, it is good to be alive!
The detonation should have killed Fiddler. There was fire. Towering walls of sand. The air concussed, and his breath was torn from his lungs even as blood spurted from his nose and both ears.
And the body lying atop him seemed to wither in shreds.
He’d recognized the voice. It was impossible. It was… infuriating.
Hot smoke rolled over them.
And that damned voice whispered, ‘Can’t leave you on your own for a Hood-damned minute, can I? Say hello to Kalam for me, will ya? I’ll see you again, sooner or later. And you’ll see me, too. You’ll see us all.’ A laugh. ‘Just not today. Damned shame ’bout your fiddle, though.’
The weight vanished.
Fiddler rolled over. The storm was tumbling away, leaving a white haze in its wake. He groped with his hands.
A terrible, ragged moan ripped from his throat, and he lifted himself onto his knees. ‘Hedge!’ he screamed. ‘Damn you! Hedge!’
Someone jogged into view, settled down beside him. ‘Slamming gates, Fid-you’re Hood-damned alive!’
He stared at the man’s battered face, then recognized it. ‘Cuttle? He was here. He-you’re covered in blood-’
‘Aye. I wasn’t as close as you. Luckily. ’Fraid I can’t say the same for Ranal. Someone had taken down his horse. He was stumbling around.’
‘That blood-’
‘Aye,’ Cuttle said again, then flashed a hard grin. ‘I’m wearing Ranal.’
Shouts, and other figures were closing in. Every one of them on foot.
‘-killed the horses. Bastards went and-’
‘Sergeant! You all right? Bottle, get over here-’
‘Killed the-’
‘Be quiet, Smiles, you’re making me sick. Did you hear that blast? Gods below-’
Cuttle clapped Fiddler on one shoulder, then dragged him to his feet.
‘Where’s the lieutenant?’ Koryk asked.
‘Right here,’ Cuttle answered, but did not elaborate.
He’s wearing Ranal.
‘What just happened?’ Koryk asked.
Fiddler studied his squad. All here. That’s a wonder.
Cuttle spat. ‘What happened, lad? We got slapped down. That’s what happened. Slapped down hard.’
Fiddler stared at the retreating storm. Aw, shit. Hedge.
‘Here comes Borduke’s squad!’
‘Find your horses, everyone,’ Corporal Tarr said. ‘Sergeant’s been knocked about. Collect whatever you can salvage-we gotta wait for the rest of the company, I reckon.’
Good lad.
‘Look at that crater,’ Smiles said. ‘Gods, Sergeant, you couldn’t have been much closer to Hood’s Gate and lived, could you?’
He stared at her. ‘You’ve no idea how right you are, lass.’
And the song rose and fell, and he could feel his heart matching that cadence. Ebb and flow. Raraku has swallowed more tears than can be imagined. Now comes the time for the Holy Desert to weep. Ebb and flow, his blood’s song, and it lived on.
It lives on.
They had fled in the wrong direction. Fatal, but unsurprising. The night had been a shambles. The last survivor of Korbolo Dom’s cadre of mages, Fayelle rode a lathered horse in the company of thirteen other Dogslayers down the cha
Herself and thirteen battered, bloodied soldiers. All that was left.
The clash with Leoman had begun well enough, a perfectly sprung ambush. And would have ended perfectly, as well.
If not for the damned ghosts.
Ambush turned over, onto its back like an upended tortoise. They’d been lucky to get out with their lives, these few. These last.
Fayelle well knew what had happened to the rest of Korbolo’s army. She had felt Henaras’s death. And Kamist Reloe’s.
And Raraku was not finished with them. Oh no. Not at all finished.
They reached a slope leading out of the defile.
She had few regrets-
Crossbow quarrels whizzed down. Horses and soldiers screamed. Bodies thumped onto the ground. Her horse staggered, then rolled onto its side. She’d no time to kick free of the stirrups, and as the dying beast pi
Then the side of her head hammered against rock.
Fayelle struggled to focus. The pain subsided, became a distant thing. She heard faint pleas for mercy, the cries of wounded soldiers being finished off.
Then a shadow settled over her.
‘I’ve been looking for you.’
Fayelle frowned. The face hovering above her belonged to the past. The desert had aged it, but it nevertheless remained a child’s face. Oh, spirits below. The child. Si
She watched the girl raise a knife between them, angle the point down, then set it against her neck.
Fayelle laughed. ‘Go ahead, you little horror. I’ll wait for you at Hood’s Gate… and the wait won’t be long-’
The knife punched through skin and cartilage.
Fayelle died.
Straightening, Si
Sixteen left. The Ashok Regiment had fallen on hard times. Thirst and starvation. Raiders. This damned desert.
She watched them for a moment, then something else drew her gaze.
Northward.
She slowly straightened. ‘Cord.’
The sergeant turned. ‘What-oh, Beru fend!’
The horizon to the west had undergone a transformation. It was now limned in white, and it was rising.
‘Double up!’ Cord bellowed. ‘Now!’
A hand closed on her shoulder. Shard leaned close. ‘You ride with me.’
‘Ebron!’
‘I hear you,’ the mage replied to Cord’s bellow. ‘And I’ll do what I can with these blown mounts, but I ain’t guaranteeing-’
‘Get on with it! Bell, help Limp onto that horse-he’s busted up that knee again!’
Si
I should be dancing. The bloodied knife fell from her hands.
Then she was roughly grasped and pulled up onto the saddle behind Shard.
The beast’s head tossed, and it shook beneath them.
‘Queen take us,’ Shard hissed, ‘Ebron’s filled these beasts with fire.’
We’ll need it…
And now they could hear the sound, a roar that belittled even the Whirlwind Wall in its fullest rage.
Raraku had risen.
To claim a shattered warren.
The Wickan warlocks had known what was coming. Flight was impossible, but the islands of coral stood high-higher than any other feature this side of the escarpment-and it was on these that the armies gathered.
To await what could be their a
The north sky was a massive wall of white, billowing clouds. A cool, burgeoning wind thrashed through the palms around the oasis.
Then the sound reached them.
A roar unceasing, building, of water, cascading, foaming, tumbling across the vast desert.
The Holy Desert, it seemed, held far more than bones and memories. More than ghosts and dead cities. Lostara Yil stood near the Adjunct, ignoring the baleful glares Tene Baralta continued casting her way. Wondering… if Pearl was on that high ground, standing over Sha’ik’s grave… if that ground was in fact high enough.
She wondered, too, at what she had seen these past months. Visions burned into her soul, fraught and mysterious, visions that could still chill her blood if she allowed them to rise before her mind’s eye once more. Crucified dragons. Murdered gods. Warrens of fire and warrens of ashes.
It was odd, she reflected, to be thinking these things, even as a raging sea was born from seeming nothing and was sweeping towards them, drowning all in its path.