Does anything suffice? No, that is too easy. Think on your answer, woman. He deserves that much at least. ‘It is a natural thing to fear death,’ she said.
‘It is.’
‘And so it should be,’ grunted the one named Cage. ‘It’s miserable-look at my company-I can’t get rid of these ugly dogs. The ones you leave behind, woman, they’re waiting for you.’
‘But without judgement,’ said the grey-eyed soldier.
The one-armed one was nodding, and he added, ‘Just don’t expect any of ’em to have lost their bad habits-like Cage and his eternally sour bile. It’s all what you knew-who you knew, I mean. It’s all that and nothing more.’
Kalyth did not know these people, yet already they felt closer to her than anyone she had ever known. ‘I am becoming a Destriant in truth,’ she said in wonder. And I no longer feel so… alone. ‘I fear death still, I think, but not as much as I once did.’ And I once flirted with suicide, but I have left that behind, for ever. I am not ready to embrace an end to things. I am the last Elan. And my people are waiting for me, not caring if I come now or a hundred years from now-it is no different to them.
The dead-my dead-will indulge me.
For as long as I need. For as long as I have.
The soldier gathered his reins. ‘You shall find your Mortal Sword and your Shield Anvil, Kalyth. Against the cold that slays, you must answer with fire. There will come to you a moment when you must cease following the K’Chain Che’Malle; when you must lead them. In you lies their last hope for survival.’
But are they worth preserving?
‘That judgement does not belong to you.’
‘No-no, I’m sorry. They are so… alien-’
‘As you are to them.’
‘Of course. I am sorry.’
The warmth was fading, the snow closing in.
The riders wheeled their lifeless mounts.
She watched them ride off, watched them vanish in the swirling white.
The white, how it burns the eyes, how it insists-
Kalyth opened her eyes to bright, blinding sunlight. I am having such strange dreams. But I still see their faces, each one. I see the barbarian with his filed teeth. I see scowling Cage, whom I adore because he could laugh at himself. And the one named Mallet, a healer, yes-it is easy to see the truth of that. The one-armed one, too.
And the one with the falcon’s eyes, my iron prophet, yes. I did not even learn his name. A Bridgeburner-such a strange name for soldiers, and yet… so perfect there in the chasm between the living and the dead.
Death’s guardians. Human faces in place of the Reaper’s shadowed skull. Oh, what a thought! What a relief!
She wiped her eyes and sat up. And a flood of memories returned. Her breath caught and she twisted about, finding the K’Chain Che’Malle. Sag’Churok, Rythok, Gunth Mach… ‘O spirits bless us.’
Yes, she would not find Kor Thuran, the K’ell Hunter’s stolid, impervious presence. The space beside Rythok howled its emptiness, shrieked his absence. The K’Chain Che’Malle was dead.
Scouting far to the west, out of sight-but they all felt the sudden explosive clash. Kor Thuran’s snarls filled their skulls, his rage and baffled defiance-his pain . She found she was shivering, as bitter recollections assailed her. He died. We could not see who killed him.
Our winged Assassin has vanished. Was it Gu’Rull? Had Kor Thuran committed a transgression? Was the Hunter fleeing us all and did the Assassin punish him? No, Kor Thuran did not flee. He fought and he died guarding our flank.
Enemies now hunt us. They know we are close. They mean to find us.
She rubbed at her face, forced out a broken sigh, the echoes of the K’ell Hunter’s terrible death still crowding her mind, leaving her feeling exhausted. And this day has only begun.
The K’Chain Che’Malle faced her, motionless, waiting. There would be no cookfire this morning. They had carried her through most of the night, and in her exhaustion she had slept like a fevered child in Gunth Mach’s arms. She wondered why they had set her down, why they had not kept going. She could feel their nervous impatience to be off-away-the disaster of failure stalked this quest now, closer than ever before. As huge and imposing as they were, she now saw them as vulnerable, insufficient to this task.
There are deadlier things out there. They brought down a K’ell Hunter in a score of heartbeats.
Yet, as she rose to her feet, a new assurance filled her-gift of her dreams, and though they might be nothing more than fanciful conjurations, false benedictions, they seemed to give her something solid, and she could feel her frailty falling away from her soul like a cracked seed husk. Her eyes hardened as she regarded the three K’Chain Che’Malle.