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III
“You’ve never heard of it before?” Orisian asked. Yvane shook her head. “I’d never have believed it possible. I hardly believe it is possible, even now.” She was walking alongside Orisian’s horse, trudging up the long, bleak track to Highfast. Her tolerance for riding had been thoroughly exhausted, and no one made any protest at her refusal, for she did not slow their progress. All of them, horses included, were bleary and sluggish. It had been two nights now since any of them had had any meaningful rest. Above, clouds spun and churned about the Karkyre Peaks. Gusts of eye-watering wind came tumbling down from the heights to sting their faces. Slabs of snow were scattered all across the mountains, clinging to whatever seams in the rocks gave them purchase and shelter. Most of the snow had been scoured from the track, but sometimes, when they were in the lee of some huge ridge or cliff, there were drifts deep enough to make progress painfully slow. “We saw it, though,” Orisian said. “We did. We saw something done for the first time, as far as I know, in all the world, in all its history. Myself, I was happier when I thought such a thing impossible. He is stronger than the Anain. He—one man, one na’kyrim—has killed…” She splayed her hands, as if pushing away words, or thoughts, that she could not accommodate. “It doesn’t change anything,” Orisian said. “No?” Yvane grunted. “Tell your Fox friends that. They may disagree.” Orisian glanced ahead towards Ess’yr and Varryn. They were thirty or forty paces further up the track, pushing on, heads down, with more stubborn resilience than anyone else could manage. Neither of them had spoken of what they had seen in those woods, when the Anain had appeared before them, and died. They alone had seen it killing the Black Roaders, and Orisian could barely imagine what that must have meant for them, to witness first the waking of the forest, and then its destruction; to see one of the beings they considered tutelary spirits of their lands, their lives, snuffed out like the feeblest of candle flames. Who, Orisian wondered, did the Kyrinin imagine would protect them from their restless dead, if the Anain could no longer safely venture near the surface of the world? “But still,” Orisian said quietly, “it doesn’t change anything.” Yvane looked at him. He met her gaze without flinching, and saw nothing in her of the fire, the challenge and argument that had so often been there. She was instead thoughtful and grave. After a time, she pursed her lips and looked away. “The Anain know now that they can’t oppose him. If they thought to use K’rina against him… Now they ca
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The doors of Highfast were closed. They stood tall and narrow, ancient but firm. Thick snow was falling as Orisian led his company across the arching stone bridge that tenuously wedded the mountain to the pi