Quotl drew on his pipe, savoring the taste of the smoke as he sucked it into his lungs and held it before exhaling slowly into the night. The air was chill, the sky clear, the stars brittle overhead. A sickle moon hovered over the horizon, casting little light. He sat, legs crossed, near the edge of the southern ridge of the Break, the Shadow Moon Riders’ encampment behind him. Below, beyond the bottom of the landslide, the fires of the Painted Sands and his own Thousand Spring Riders were bright sparks on the blackened desert. He couldn’t see the network of ditches and barricades they’d built over the last few days in preparation for the defense of the Break, but he knew they were there.
He also knew they wouldn’t hold.
He frowned as he heard footsteps behind him, turning as Azuka settled down beside him a few moments later. The younger shaman did not look at him, head tilted toward the stars above and then the fires below.
Annoyance tightened Quotl’s chest. “I came here to be alone.”
“No,” Azuka countered. “You came because the Wraith army will arrive tonight. You are not the only one who can read the signs.”
Quotl scowled, then took another draw from his pipe. “Even the clan chiefs can see the signs.”
“True.”
After a long moment of silence, the sounds of the dwarren encampment behind them quiet and removed, Azuka motioned toward the fires below and the distant northern ridge where Claw Lake camped. “Will we be able to hold them?”
Quotl sighed. “Only Ilacqua knows the outcome, and even he seems uncertain. I have given the Cochen and the other clan chiefs what advice I could, based on the signs. I’m certain the Archon has done the same.”
“But will it work?”
Quotl turned, chewing on the end of his pipe. In the darkness, even sitting a few hands apart, he could barely see Azuka. He considered telling Azuka the truth, but like Tarramic, he didn’t think Azuka wanted the truth. He wanted reassurance.
Quotl settled for the middle ground. “As you said, Azuka, you can read the signs as well as I.”
Azuka grimaced.
Quotl turned away, drew on the pipe again, but winced and tapped the ashes from the bowl onto the rocky ground before him. The smoke had turned bitter.
A moment later, something flew past overhead, wings flapping like the folds of a tent belling in a breeze. Both he and Azuka shot startled looks skyward, caught a shape blotting out the stars above. They watched it as it cut westward swiftly, then banked, circled back around, and vanished to the east.
“They’re coming,” Azuka murmured.
Quotl pointed with his pipe. “They’re already here.”
Far out beyond the fires of the dwarren encampment below, firelight had begun to flicker in the darkness, so faint it could only be seen when Quotl shifted his eyes slightly to one side. But as they watched, the light grew and spread north and south. Below, drums suddenly sounded, announcing the army’s arrival in case those on the ridge hadn’t yet seen it, but also warning the Cochen and his forces to the south. The edge of the army advanced, until Quotl tensed and thought they didn’t intend to stop, that they’d attack tonight, in the darkness. Behind, the Shadow Moon Riders stirred, many of them coming to the edge of the cliff to watch, their presence felt more than seen. Conversations sifted through the night, broken by grim laughter, the sound of hands slapping backs in encouragement, but the humor was forced.
Everyone fell silent when the torches of the Wraith army finally halted, the faint cry of a horn piercing the night, echoed from the north and south. Quotl relaxed.
“There are so many,” Azuka said.
Quotl grunted, stuck his pipe into its leather holder slung around his neck, then stood, placing a steadying hand on Azuka’s shoulder.
“Come. We must make certain the shamans are ready. The Wraith army will not wait. They will attack tomorrow.”
“Quotl, wake up.”
Quotl grunted, one hand reaching up to grasp Azuka’s shoulder unconsciously as he jerked out of sleep. Azuka’s eyes were wide with fear. “What is it? What’s happened?”
Azuka shook his head. “It’s dawn. The army-” He swallowed. “The Riders are gathering.”
“Dawn?” Quotl bolted upright, gazed blearily about the tent, rubbing at a twinge of muscle in his back. He blinked at the faint light-
Then suddenly remembered where they were, what awaited them.
He scrambled to his feet, began gathering his scepter, his satchel, tucking his pipe bag inside. He’d slept in his clothes. “Why didn’t you wake me earlier?” he demanded harshly, searching for the smaller totems tucked into pockets and braided into his beard.
“You worked late into the night, preparing,” Azuka snapped back. “I thought to give you as much rest as possible.”
Quotl growled, surprised he’d been able to sleep at all. “I don’t need sleep. I need to be prepared! And now-”
The hollow cadence of drums interrupted him. He listened intently, then swore and shoved past Azuka and out of the tent.
Three other shamans stood outside, all looking east, toward the backs of the dwarren army and the sound of the drums. All of the dwarren within sight were looking in that direction.
“I brought you your mount,” Azuka said as he emerged from the tent behind him.
Quotl spun and saw five gaezels waiting to one side. Without a word, he sprinted toward his mount, paused a moment to pat the beast’s flank, then swung himself up onto its back, careful of the horns. The animal danced beneath his weight, then pawed the ground, neck straining forward.
Not waiting for the others, Quotl allowed it the lead.
It dug in and leaped, Quotl hunching down as far as its horns would allow. Shouts rang out from behind. To either side, he saw others scrambling to mount, some already sprinting toward the two gathered clans, but most of the dwarren were already on the battlefield.
Quotl cursed himself. He must have slept through the initial call of the drums.
He slowed as he reached the back of the army, the Riders parting for him and the four shamans behind him. Within moments, they were at the front of the line.
Quotl brought his mount up short.
Across a stretch of dry scrub, tufts of stubborn grass, and the hastily constructed defenses they’d dug into the red rock debris of the eastern edge of the plains, the Wraith army waited, a black line of nearly indistinguishable figures against the hazy, yellow dawn. Winged birds wheeled overhead, nearly three dozen of them, too large to be any bird that Quotl knew of. His eyes narrowed, dropping to the group at the front of the army, picking out riders on horseback and bulkier forms, more massive than the mounts. Others moved across the desert rock, but they were too small in shape to see clearly.
He scanned the nearer dwarren line, found Tarramic a hundred stretches distant, standing out in front of the line with a smaller group beside him. Quotl pulled his gaezel’s attention right and nudged the animal forward, arriving at a brisk trot.
“Where have you been?” Tarramic demanded. Panic edged his tone.
“Preparing,” Quotl growled back. “The shamans of Thousand Springs are ready.”
Tarramic looked as if he’d argue, then shot Corranu, the clan chief of Painted Sands, and his head shaman a quick glance. He glowered at Quotl. “What of those on the heights?”
“They know what to do. What of Silver Grass?”
“They were in position and waiting at last report.”
“Then we are as ready as we will ever be.”
Tarramic nodded. “And Ilacqua? The gods of the Four Winds?”
“The ground has been blessed by the Archon, the appeals made to the gods last night after the Wraith army arrived.”
Tarramic turned to face the silhouette of the army in the distance. The sun had begun to rise over the horizon, a heat shimmer making the army indistinct. “May Ilacqua guard us all,” he murmured.
Quotl looked toward Azuka, reaching into his satchel to pull out a small knife. Peyo, the head shaman of Painted Sands, did the same, kneeing his own mount closer to Quotl’s.
“I see the hulking forms of the terren from this distance, and I assume there will be kell. The two usually come as a group. We can handle the stone-skinned and the diggers. But what of the dreun?” He jerked his head toward the creatures flying overhead.
Quotl kept his eyes on the ground. “We will have to rely on our archers for those.” When Peyo shifted uncomfortably, he added, “They have the arrows from the forest. They know what to do.”
“And if there are urannen among the army?”
“Pray we have enough arrows.”
A sudden horn call split the air from the direction of the Wraith army. Tarramic instantly motioned toward the Rider beside him, who pulled a drum into his lap and pounded out a short rhythm. Behind, a much larger drum passed the message along to the rest of the army, and Quotl felt the tension on the air triple. The apprehension pushed against his skin, shimmering in his perceptions like heat waves, fraught with fear and smelling of sweat and dust and leather.
He suddenly, desperately, wanted the reassuring feel of his pipe in his hand, the tang of willow bark burning his throat and lungs.
Then, abruptly, the Wraith army began to move.
Tarramic barked an order, the drum carrying the cadence to the army behind, and then Tarramic and Corranu-the two clan chiefs-suddenly broke away, Tarramic riding south, Quotl and the rest of the Thousand Springs entourage following an instant later, Corranu and Painted Sands heading north. As they charged across the rocky soil, Quotl heard a battle roar from the clan behind him, rising higher and higher, pushing him and the others at the forefront forward. His heart hammered in his chest and air still chill from the night seared his lungs. At his side, Azuka suddenly raised his scepter and cried out to Ilacqua, to the Four Winds, his words lost in the thundering of the gaezels as the main portion of the army caught up with its clan chief.
They swept across the desert, dust rising behind them, swinging out and around the ditches and ridges and onto the flat beyond. The Wraith army rushed forward to meet them. To the north, Quotl could see Painted Sands mirroring their maneuver, their plume of dust rising to obscure the single colonnade of natural rock that had survived the landslide and stood up like a finger from the desert floor, the cliffs of the Break behind.
As they drew nearer, the riders on horseback became visible and Quotl’s heart shuddered, his eyes widening in shock.
“Alvritshai!” Tarramic roared from the front of the line. “Alvritshai ride with the Wraiths! We have been betrayed!”
The resultant roar drowned out the sound of the drums, even as Quotl noted that among the Alvritshai riders were the terren and the kell, and outdistancing them all were the gruen, the sleek feline creatures racing for the dwarren front lines.
It didn’t make sense. The Alvritshai with the creatures of the Turning? They’d fought the urannen and the Wraiths after the Accord had been signed, had suffered as much or more than the dwarren when the power of the Wells had been released. The dwarren had been able to retreat to their warrens to escape; the Alvritshai had not. And why would the Alvritshai attack from the east, from the wastelands?
But there was no time. No time to think, no time to plan, no time to pray.
The gruen hit the front dwarren, leaping up from the ground and attaching themselves to the Riders, and before the first screams could cut through the thundering hooves of the gaezels and the charging horses, the Alvritshai behind slammed into the dwarren line.
Quotl found himself in a crush of bodies, gaezels attempting to leap forward through the press. Within ten feet of his position, dwarren were roaring and hacking at the Alvritshai and the gruen. The taint of blood flooded the air, but Quotl was too distant to use his knife. Dwarren blades rose and fell and the eerie, high-pitched screams of dying gaezels shivered through Quotl’s skin. Steel clashed, the Alvritshai mounts in the front rearing and kicking. Close by, one of the dwarren ducked beneath the flailing hooves and gutted one of the steeds, then was crushed with his gaezel under the falling horse.
Quotl began chanting, raising his scepter, and felt the dwarren around him respond, surging forward as those shamans nearby took up the chant.
Then, two Riders away, a pack of the gruen appeared, their black, hairless bodies swarming over a Rider and his mount in the space of a breath. The dwarren roared, hacked at the gruen bodies as they raked him with their claws and latched onto his arms and armor. The Rider’s gaezel shrieked and panicked, eyes rolling white. It tried to leap away, but there was no room.
With a startlingly quick move, one of the gruen seized the dwarren by the throat with its teeth and ripped it away.
Before the body had begun to sag, one of the gruen emitted a harsh chittering sound-
And then they all launched themselves deeper into the dwarren lines.
One leaped straight for Quotl.
He cut off his chant in mid-verse and swung the scepter, catching the gruen in the side. It barked in pain, slamming into the back of the Rider beside him, but twisted and jumped to Quotl’s mount, going for Quotl’s face.
Quotl brought his knife up. The impact with the creature jarred his hand, but he felt the blade sink deep into its chest. It hissed and reached with its claws, already dying, but Quotl thrust it to the side with disdain.
A sense of calm enveloped him, one that he experienced with his meditations and spirit journeys. Except here there was no smoke to help disassociate himself from his body so he could join the spirit world. He drew in the energy of that calm anyway, began to slash at the gruen with a cold, methodical detachment. The creatures’ black blood flew, coating the blade, his fingers, making his hand slick, but he didn’t stop. He tightened his grip and brought his scepter to bear, the gaezel beneath him reacting to his movements, shifting left and right as if it sensed his needs, leaping forward into gaps or rearing back and turning. It snorted and pawed the ground, ducked its head and used its horns, impaling gruen and scoring jagged cuts along the Alvritshai horses if they pressed too close. Quotl focused on the gruen, left the Alvritshai to the Riders’ blades, and found himself muttering chants from the histories as he struck, lines from the oldest records, from the time of the previous Turning, the words taking on the distinct accent of the Ancients, punctuated by a slice of his knife or the impact of his scepter. And the gruen appeared to be reacting, flinching away from the words with hisses or sharp cries.
As he fought, continuing the chant, something new intruded on the calm that enveloped him. It seeped up from the ground, enfolding him in a warmth that radiated from within, that suffused him, tingling in his fingers and pulsing with his heart, tasting of silt and heat-baked rock. All of the aches and pains of the ride and of age were absorbed by the warmth. He felt alive, one with the Lands. He could hear the rock beneath him, taste the wind against his skin, smell the sun, and feel the grasses growing around him, even as he fought the gruen. The power of Ilacqua and the Four Winds flowed through him. He thought at first the sensation came from the Archon, but he could feel the head shaman’s power radiating from the south, where he and the Cochen waited for their signal. This power didn’t come from the Archon, it came from the Lands.
And the Wraith army was a malignancy on the Lands, a repulsive growth that needed to be excised. He could sense the individual creatures of the Turning-the gruen, scrambling across the earth around him and swarming the dwarren on all sides; the dreun, circling and diving at the army beneath, leather wings raking the air; the terren, massive rocklike bodies cracking the stone beneath their feet as they trundled forward-and rage ran hot and fluid through his blood. He began to spit the words of the Ancients, his blows more vicious, more ferocious. He urged his gaezel toward the creatures nearby, seeking them out, crushing them beneath his scepter, severing them from the Lands with his knife. He could not sense the Alvritshai as he did the others, so he blocked them out, focused on the malignancy, on the disease, destroying it before it could infect the Lands.
Then, abruptly, his gaezel stepped back and he found himself in a pocket of calm, his breath heaving, his heart thundering through his body, throbbing with power. The front line lay ahead, at least thirty dwarren between him and the nearest part of the Wraith army. All of the gruen on his part of the line were dead, their lithe bodies trampled underfoot as the line surged back and forth. A few fellow dwarren and their gaezels riddled the ground on all sides as well, blood seeping into the red soil. He glanced up at the sky, was shocked to see that hours had passed. The dwarren line had been pushed back nearly to the makeshift defenses. They’d held out longer than he’d thought.
But when Quotl faced east, he saw that a significant portion of the Wraith army hadn’t joined the battle. At least a third still waited, watching from a distance. These were not mounted like the Alvritshai, and something about their stance was odd. Like the Alvritshai, though, they did not reek of wrongness. He could not sense them through the earth or the air.
“Quotl!”
He turned as Azuka rode toward him at the back of the fighting. The young shaman was covered in blood, a gash along his forehead bleeding down into his beard. His scepter was slick with the black blood of the gruen.
When Azuka came close enough to see him clearly, shock registered on his face and he drew back in uncertainty. “Quotl?”
“What is it?” Quotl asked. His own voice thrummed on the air, vibrated through his body and caused his gaezel to shift in place.
Azuka swallowed, as if to steady himself. “Peyo doesn’t think Corranu and Painted Sands can hold much longer.”
Quotl glanced toward the northern line. It had given more ground than Thousand Springs, the Riders nearly to the ditches and mounds of earth. “Tell them to order the retreat. I’ll inform Tarramic.”
Azuka spun his mount and sprinted toward the northern line. Quotl watched a moment, feeling the gaezel’s hooves trembling through the soil, then turned to find Tarramic.
The dwarren clan chief was engaged in the midst of a roiling battle with the Alvritshai. Even as he watched, Tarramic-mouth twisted in an animalistic snarl-stabbed his sword into a mounted Alvritshai’s side, his other hand grabbing the pale-skinned rider’s armor and pulling him down from his horse. Blood splattered Tarramic’s face, but as the horse the Alvritshai had ridden was cut down, more Alvritshai slid forward to take their fallen comrade’s place.
He would never reach the clan chief in time. Not through the chaos of the fight.
He spun and found one of the younger Riders who carried a drum. Kneeing his mount forward, he ground to a halt in the rocky soil at the Rider’s side and pointed with his blood-soaked staff at the edge of the fighting. “Call the retreat!” When the Rider flinched, eyes going wide at the sight of the head shaman, he barked, “Now!”
The Rider fumbled with the drum, brought it around and pounded out an unsteady rhythm. Quotl didn’t wait, racing down the length of the army’s back, roaring, “Retreat! Fall behind the defenses!” his voice throbbing with power, reverberating on the air. Those at the rear of the army turned startled glances back at him, hesitating as the drumbeat steadied and began reiterating the command. All along the line, the shamans took up their head shaman’s call, scepters raised, and slowly Thousand Springs began to pull back. To the north, Quotl heard the drums of Painted Sands echoing the call, saw the Riders breaking away and fleeing northward around the ditches, others heading directly toward them, leaping their depths with their fleet gaezels. Quotl found himself surrounded, his own gaezel snorting and stamping the ground as the dwarren retreated, but he did not allow his mount its head. The Wraith army had begun hounding the retreat, the Alvritshai leaping forward to seize the advantage, cutting down dwarren as they turned, the front of the line fighting hard to hold them back while seeking an opportunity to flee. To the north, the mixed creatures of the Turning roared in triumph, the terren and gruen breaking formation as Painted Sands gave up completely and ran, a few dwarren stout of heart overwhelmed in instants. In the south, the last line of dwarren in Thousand Springs held more firmly, intent on giving their fellow dwarren the greatest chance possible of reaching the defenses before the Wraith army.
Including Clan Chief Tarramic.
Cursing, Quotl kicked his mount forward, passing through the last stragglers racing for the ditches. As he drew up behind Tarramic’s position, he bellowed, “Tarramic! Retreat! Pull back now!”
He saw Tarramic’s attention waver, knew that he had heard. But the clan chief roared and dove forward, attacking with a vengeance.
Growling in frustration, Quotl reached for the power that suffused him, sank into the earth beneath on instinct, seized the patterns he found there, and without thought twisted.
The earth beneath the Alvritshai forces shattered, flinty stone shards flying upward into the Wraith forces like daggers. Horses screamed and reared, throwing their riders to the ground as they kicked the air with their hooves. The dwarren who had engaged them a moment before shied back, a few caught in the edge of the destruction, the gaezels milling in confusion.
Quotl himself felt a moment of utter shock, slicing down through the power that pulsed through his body, followed by a wave of weariness, but there was no time to evaluate it, no time to think. He raised his scepter and pointed toward the defenses behind them. “Retreat, you gods-damned fools! Now, before they have time to recover!”
A few of the Alvritshai already were, rallying around those who had been at the back of the Alvritshai forces and had not been caught in the blast. Riderless horses bolted across the plains behind them, but there weren’t enough dead to shift the tide of battle.
And there were still the reinforcements waiting beyond.
As soon as Tarramic broke and tore toward the ditches, his entourage covering his withdrawal, Quotl jerked his gaezel about and sprinted toward the dwarren regrouping behind. The ditches and mounds of dirt stretched across the earth in an arch over a thousand strides long, a swath of flat land before the landslide began sloping toward the plains above. He could see the archers of Claw Lake lining the cliffs to the north, Shadow Moon to the south. Any of the Wraith army that passed the ditches would be in range of the archers. The confrontation on the plains had only been a delaying tactic; it had never been meant to hold for long. The real defense would now begin.
He focused on the ditches a moment before his gaezel tensed and leaped the first, landing with a jarring thud on the far side, sprinting for a breath, two, then leaping over another. Quotl grunted on the last leap, steering his mount toward the bulk of the army, saw Tarramic doing the same to one side. They arrived at the same time.
“What shattered the ground?” Tarramic asked, an edge of fear in his voice.
“The will of Ilacqua,” Quotl answered.
Tarramic spun toward him, the rest of his leading Riders milling around behind him. The clan chief’s eyes narrowed, tense, then widened in awe. “What’s happened to you, Quotl? You’re…” He groped for a word, shook his head when he failed.
Quotl recalled Azuka’s reaction, knew that something about him had changed, although he didn’t know what. But he could hear it in his voice, knew that he had caused the earth to shatter.
“The gods are working through me,” he said, trying to stem the flood of panic in his chest. He’d said it softly, but most of those near heard, spreading the word through the ranks in a nearly visible ripple. Quotl frowned in annoyance, catching Tarramic’s gaze. “The defenses,” he prodded.
Tarramic snapped out of his awe, although Quotl could still feel its brittle edge as the Riders watched him out of the corners of their eyes. “Prepare to defend the ditches. And call in the archers.”
Half of the Riders dismounted and scrambled over the earthworks, the other half herding the gaezels a short distance away before converging on the open area between where the ditches ended and the cliffs of the Break rose to the south. Painted Sands had already begun digging in to the north. From behind, the small group of archers from both clans who had waited in reserve trotted forward and arrayed themselves behind the lines.
“Is it the Archon?” Tarramic asked. “Is he channeling Ilacqua’s power through you?”
Quotl’s skin prickled at the gruff awe in Tarramic’s voice, but he paused, took a moment to test this newfound strength. He could sense no connection between the power flowing through him and his sense of the Archon to the south. “No, it is not coming from the Archon. It’s coming from the Lands.”
Tarramic merely frowned. In the distance, the Alvritshai and the rest of the Wraith army had broken off their attack on the retreating dwarren and reassembled, the reinforcements that waited behind moving forward. As the new forces merged with the rest, close enough to see now, Quotl realized why they had appeared so strange.
“Orannian,” Tarramic spat.
Quotl grunted in agreement. The dwarren histories spoke of those with the skins of lizards. They had once been like the dwarren, but they had been changed by the cataclysmic Shattering that had destroyed the world and reshaped it. How the Shattering had come about, and how it had changed the world, was unclear, those oldest of oral histories fragmentary and obscure, but the mentions of the orannian were not.
And yet, Quotl could not sense them as he could the rest of the creatures of the Turning.
He frowned, but tore his attention away from the gathering forces. Wounded were dragged from their gaezels and led away, although there were few. Most of those grievously hurt had been left behind on the broken rock now beyond their reach, and those who’d managed to escape to the ditches weren’t wounded enough to be pulled from the ranks. Some of the shamans were passing among the Riders with vials from the Sacred Waters, the pink-tinged liquid healing the least of the wounds so they could continue fighting; others were passing out food.
Quotl felt sick at heart over those left behind, but there was nothing that could be done.
Azuka appeared with water and dry flatbread, handing it out among Tarramic’s entourage. The clan chief drank, handing the skin to Quotl. “It will be a small reprieve,” Tarramic said, voice somber. “The Wraith army already gathers.”
Warning drums sounded. The dwarren shifted where they stood, restless, eyes on the enemy. Quotl raised his head to the sky, the midday sun high overhead and shimmering down with a relentless heat he could feel against his skin. The power that suffused him had abated, but he could still feel it, thrumming in his blood.
Alvritshai horns cut across the desert. Tarramic tensed. The Wraith army marched forward, but this time the dwarren did not rush out to meet them. Drums sounded again, dwarren readying in their trenches, those to north and south scrambling to mount.
Tarramic glanced toward Quotl. “Can you do what you did before again?”
“I don’t even know how I did it the first time.”
“The Archon is going to be furious.”
Something seized in Quotl’s chest. He suddenly regretted his announcement earlier that the gods were working through him. But what other explanation was there? He had never done anything like that before, had only felt the gods’ presence during spirit walks and meditations in the keevas. This had been different. This time, that presence had filled him, and he had used it to kill the gruen, to shatter the earth.
He shuddered at the ramifications, both for the Archon and for himself, then calmed himself. The Archon hadn’t retained his position this long without knowing how to manipulate the clan chiefs and the head shamans. He would undoubtedly claim the power had been channeled through him. Only Quotl could gainsay him, and Quotl had no aspirations for the Archon’s position. He could let the Archon claim responsibility.
Yet even as he relaxed, a pang of uneasiness threaded through him, of doubt. This power should have manifested itself through the Archon, not through Quotl. What did it mean that it hadn’t?
On the desert, the Wraith army suddenly broke into a run, the orannian outpacing the rest. As they approached, they spread out, the Alvritshai and other creatures coming up behind.
“They’re going to hit on all fronts,” Tarramic said.
To their right and slightly behind, a drum suddenly thrummed and two hundred archers snapped their bows to the sky, arrows already placed. The drum thudded again and bows creaked as they were drawn. The whirring release sounded like a thousand birds taking sudden flight. Quotl watched the arrows arc over the ditches, some of the winged dreun banking out of the way with harsh shrieks. They fell in a deadly hail, another swath of arrows already launched, but it didn’t slow the Wraith army down at all. They struck on all three fronts almost simultaneously.
Deep within, Quotl felt the power he held swell as his heart quickened.
Siobhaen cursed and Colin spun to find her stumbling down the last of the massive ridge of shattered stone that encircled the center of the city. It was like a wave caused by a rock cast into a pool of water had petrified in place. Debris avalanched down with her, disturbed by her feet. Eraeth took a step toward her as she neared the bottom, but she caught herself against a boulder twice Colin’s height, what had once been part of a building based on the detailed carving etched across one face.
She straightened and muttered, “I’m fine,” annoyance making her voice taut. She wiped sweat from her face with one hand.
Colin glanced toward the midday sun, felt the grit of dust mingling with the sweat on his own face, then focused on the broken towers ahead.
They’d found shelter in one of the half-collapsed buildings in the outskirts of the city when darkness fell, using the walls to conceal their fire. The night had turned chill. During his watch, Colin had ascended to the precarious height of the wall-the roof had caved in uncountable years past-and searched the wide valley that cupped the ancient city for signs of life, for evidence of the Haessari and the Wraiths and their armies. Most of the city had been lost in the darkness, the ruined buildings not even shapes in the scant moonlight. But the center of the city had glowed with a pale, bluish light, the shattered towers silhouetted in the distance. Colin had felt the power of the Source from his perch, had felt himself drawn to it. It had throbbed in the ground beneath him, and he knew he sensed the lake far beneath the surface, the reservoir that gave the Source its power.
And it was still awakening, its power growing. He shuddered at its strength.
That power had held his attention for at least an hour. He’d studied it, tested it, tasted it, trying to determine how he would manipulate it when the time came. Part of its power was already in use. He could sense the flow that attacked the Seasonal Trees. He would have to block that, but it would not be enough. The Source needed to be balanced with the other Wells. It needed equilibrium.
And it needed protection from interference by the Wraiths.
When he’d finally learned what he could from a distance, he’d turned his attention back to the city. It had been still, dark, lifeless. But to the north, fire dotted the landscape. An entire array of light, flickering against the black backdrop of the night. It had taken him ten minutes to realize that the fires weren’t spread out flat over a wide plain, as he’d first assumed, but were vertical.
Like the dwarren in the subterranean warrens, the Snake People lived in the cliffs surrounding the city. He’d wondered briefly why they hadn’t taken over the ruins themselves. Some of the buildings were still mostly intact, especially near the outer edges of what he’d come to think of as the city proper. The destruction where they had camped had not been as prevalent as what they’d passed through at the city’s edge. But as the city emerged into dawn’s light, he’d suddenly realized that he wouldn’t want to live in the city either. Even now, what had to be thousands of years after its fall, he could feel ghosts in the streets, in the buildings, as if an energy had been absorbed by the stone and was still seeping out. An energy that had nothing and everything to do with the Source.
He’d been concerned that he’d react to that energy as he had within the caverns of Gaurraenan’s halls, but he hadn’t felt time tugging at him as it had in those frigid chambers. He wasn’t certain why. Except that the energy here felt… dry, used up, and old. The stone within the mountains to the north had been vital, thick with a visceral sense of blood.
They’d headed toward the Source at first light, Colin pointing out the direction of the Haessari’s city. They’d kept as many of the intact buildings between them and the cliff faces where the Haessari lived as possible, even though they hadn’t encountered any of the Snake People in the city at all.
As soon as they descended from the strange ridge of stone debris, the nature of the destruction changed. The buildings they’d passed through before had collapsed, ceilings and walls buckling inward as time clawed and ate its way through the structures.
Not so here, Colin thought as Siobhaen dusted herself off and joined him and Eraeth at the edge of the inner city.
“It’s as if all of the stone here simply… fractured,” Eraeth said, waving a hand toward the debris field that spread out before them. “As if it splintered and the pieces were thrown aside.”
Siobhaen knelt and picked up a shard of rock at her feet. She hissed as she touched an edge, blood welling against her fingertip. “It’s sharp as a blade.”
“The entire central city is fractured,” Colin said, motioning toward the stumps of the towers. “Unlike the outer city, the towers were sheared off, their tops blown off by some central source.”
“The Well?”
Colin shook his head. “I don’t know. Perhaps. Whatever it was, it destroyed the city completely. And the Source appears to be at the center of the destruction.”
Neither Alvritshai said anything, both scanning the distance with shaded eyes. Then Eraeth strode forward, down the debris-covered street that appeared to head toward the confluence of the two rivers and the tallest of the truncated towers.
A moment later, Colin and Siobhaen followed.
They wound through the streets, the construction of the buildings changing as they passed from section to section. A dark red stone was used in one area, replaced in another by basalt, then a dirty white with flecks of quartz that glinted in the sunlight. Even shattered, they could discern different styles. In one district, the sandstone had been carved into blocks, in another, mudbricks. As they neared the dry riverbed, the buildings appeared to have been formed from living rock itself, sculpted like clay, what remained smooth and seamless.
They reached the riverbank, rock walls hemming the ancient water in and thick stone supports for docks and bridges jutting up from the cracked and brittle riverbed beneath. Eraeth pointed to where one of the bridges remained mostly intact and they skirted the dry river’s edge to reach it.
“We’ll be exposed,” Siobhaen said as they stared across its length. Portions of it had been sliced away in the fracturing of the inner city, chunks of thick stone lying in the riverbed below, but a path still existed all the way across to the city. The width of the bridge was immense, at least eight wagon-lengths from side to side.
Eraeth shrugged. “As exposed as we’d be crawling across the bottom of the river below. I don’t see any way to approach that isn’t exposed.”
Siobhaen frowned. “We haven’t even looked-”
“We have no choice,” Colin interrupted. “We need to cross. It may as well be here. I’ll go first, in case the bridge isn’t stable.” He knew he’d survive the fall; the Alvritshai wouldn’t.
But the stone of the bridge held.
On the far side, they slid from the end of the bridge into what Colin guessed had once been parks, the open areas littered with the bases of statues and what might have been standing pools of water or fountains. Everything was dry, and nothing grew in the patches of dirt and sand. They passed beneath massive arches, into the shade of the towers, taller than even Colin had imagined. Awe claimed him as they walked through the curved and winding streets, staring up. The towers must have stood higher than those at Terra’nor, higher than even the Alvritshai ruins in the northern wastelands. He approached the base of one, brushed his hand along the strangely textured surface, frowning until he recognized the patterns. It appeared to be petrified bark, and as he stepped back and stared up the length of the building, picking out the gaping shadows of windows along its side, he realized that the entire building was shaped like the bole of a tree.
Turning, he scanned the nearest buildings, Eraeth and Siobhaen standing to one side, confused.
“The buildings weren’t built,” Colin said abruptly. “They were grown.”
When the two Alvritshai’s frowns deepened, he motioned toward the building behind him, then the others. “Look at it! This one is like the trunk of a tree, the wood solidified into stone now. And that one there is made of thousands and thousands of vines, entwined to form walls, ceilings, windows, and doors. Even the balconies are formed from leaves.”
“And that one is like a stalk of grass,” Siobhaen murmured.
All three of them spun, searching the towers with new eyes, but eventually Colin felt the pull of the Source again, now so close he could feel the tug of its current drawing him closer and closer to its center. Not strong enough yet that he couldn’t resist it, but insistent. A sense of urgency pulled at him as well, and he wondered how the dwarren fared with the Wraith army in the west, how the Seasonal Trees fared against the onslaught of the Wraiths and the Source. He tried to shrug the concerns aside, as he’d done since they’d reached the Confluence and he’d found that the Trees were under attack, but he couldn’t. He suddenly wished he had a way to communicate with the dwarren and the humans in the southern Provinces, even with the Alvritshai and Aeren. But he couldn’t. He was isolated, alone, and he had no way of knowing whether the Trees had already fallen or there was still hope.
In the end it didn’t matter.
He turned from his scrutiny of the towers and focused on a break in their soaringing heights. He could feel the emptiness that lay there, an emptiness that was slowly being filled.
He needed to stop it, at whatever cost.
Shrugging the awe of the city to one side, he descended the wide circular steps that led to the entrance of the tower and headed toward that emptiness, toward the pull of the Source, letting it draw him to its center. Behind, he sensed Eraeth and Siobhaen following. They drew their cattans, the bows gifted them by the forest slung across their backs. Colin gripped his staff tighter, but he saw nothing moving, nothing waiting in the gaping windows above or the mouths of the doors below.
They reached the center of the towers and halted. They stood on the lip of an oval depression, the ground sunken, wide stairs leading down to a low, roofless building of the same shape. The inside of the building was swallowed in darkness and the slanted shadows of the towers. Its white stone sides were cracked like an egg. Chunks of shattered crystal lay across the entire depression. A faint bluish glow emanated from the top.
“The Source is inside,” Colin murmured.
“How do you know?”
“Because I can feel it.” He could hear it in the edge of his voice as well. It sounded heavier, huskier, the pull of the Lifeblood strong. He hadn’t felt so close to losing control since he’d first left the Well nearly two hundred years before. Like then, his body trembled-with power, with urgency, with need. He could taste the Source, the mixture of loam and snow thick on his tongue. His hand tightened and flexed against the wood of his staff and he tried not to shudder.
Beside him, Siobhaen said, “It’s strong. Even I can feel it. I sensed the Well in the northern wastes. But this… this I can feel, throbbing in my gut.”
Eraeth frowned.
Below, Colin thought he caught a flicker of movement in one of the shadows. He stepped forward, taking the first step down toward one of the entrances, but Eraeth’s hand on his shoulder halted him.
The Protector shook his head. “I’ll go first, Siobhaen behind, you in the middle. We don’t know what we’ll find down there.”
Colin shot a glance toward Siobhaen, her expression hard and unforgiving, angry that Eraeth had taken the lead, but in total agreement. Both of them had set aside the awe and immensity of the city as he had earlier. They were House Phalanx members now, guarding their lord.
Colin nodded grudgingly. “Very well.”
They moved swiftly down the stairs, noted other entrances at regular intervals around the building as they did so. Eraeth kept ten paces ahead of Colin, motioning him back if he came too close. Within moments they were at the edge of the building. If there had been doors, they were nothing more than dust now. The entrance yawned open, darkness lay beyond. Eraeth signaled to Siobhaen, who nodded, sweeping their surroundings as Eraeth ducked into the building. Colin held his breath, listening intently, breathing in the dusty rock scent of the dead city, tasting the Source. He pushed down his sense of unease and urgency. His heart thudded. Sweat dripped down his face.
He gasped when Eraeth reappeared. The Protector motioned them inside.
Colin slid into the shadows, the air within much cooler. They passed through an empty corridor, small chunks of rock littering the ground where it had fallen from the cracks riddling the ceiling. They passed through dimly lit rooms, Eraeth moving silently ahead before waving them forward. The walls were mostly blank, the rooms empty, except for an occasional vivid flash of color from painted murals or the remnants of a shattered pedestal or column. Doorways were rectangular, walls smooth, ceilings arched and high.
Then Eraeth halted at a doorway wider than the others. After a long moment, he pulled Colin closer, both crouching down low.
The room beyond was vast, open to the sky, wide tiers like round steps leading down to a huge Well, at least twice the size of the one in Terra’nor. The bluish glow emanated from the Well, but the level of the water within was too low to be seen.
Colin scanned the far side of the Source. Entrances similar to the one they crouched near circled the Well. Huge chunks of crystal littered the floor; remnants of what Colin now realized must have been a crystal dome over the Well. Alcoves dotted the walls, whatever they had once held now gone. He saw no one within the space-no Wraiths, no Shadows, nothing.
The Source pulled at him, called to him.
“I need to see the Lifeblood,” he whispered, more to himself than to Eraeth, and then he stood.
Eraeth grabbed his shirt and shoved him toward Siobhaen, who reached to hold him. Without thought, Colin seized time, felt the heady rush of the Lifeblood as he did so, felt its power surging through him, ready to slip from the two Alvritshai guardians to reach the Source, but with an effort that left him heaving he fought off the reaction. He knew by Siobhaen’s widened eyes that he must have blurred, that his intent had been obvious, but he ignored her betrayed look and waved Eraeth out into the open chamber, gesture curt. He leaned against the wall as Eraeth turned, tried to control his breathing, his heart, and focused on the Protector.
Eraeth stepped toward the Well cautiously, sword ready, eyes searching constantly. He spun as he moved, checking all directions, slipping between the crystal shards and stone debris as he neared the lip of the Well. Colin’s unease grew, along with the urgency, prickling along his skin. The Source hadn’t been completely awakened, but it was close. He could sense it nearing its peak. The currents he had followed to reach it had begun to slacken. He needed to stop it now before the Source filled completely.
He needed to seal it away.
He pushed away from the wall, Siobhaen hissing disapproval as he stepped through the doorway, Eraeth already at the lip, a sheer drop to whatever lay below, no ridge of stone like at Terra’nor. The Protector had relaxed, brow creased in confusion as his sword lowered.
“I see no one,” he said, “which makes no sense. The Wraiths should be here.”
The unease crawling across Colin’s shoulders intensified as he stepped out from the shelter of the doorway and wound his way toward Eraeth, an unease he suddenly recognized. He’d felt this way once before, recently, in the northern wastes.
He heard Siobhaen scrambling to keep up behind him.
“They are here,” Colin said. “They would never leave the Source undefended. They know in order to affect the Lifeblood I need to be here, at the Source, to touch it. This is a trap. They’ve known we were coming for days.” Nearing Eraeth, he suddenly raised his voice, shouting into the depths of the collapsed dome. “Haven’t you, Walter?”
Both Eraeth and Siobhaen shifted into guarded stances, all three of them scanning the vastness of the space. His shout died, no sound replacing it except a hollow gust of wind blowing through vacant windows.
Broken a moment later by a low laugh.
Walter abruptly blurred into existence near the top of the steps, his gray-brown cloak settling around him as he halted. He regarded them silently, smiling, darkness swirling beneath the skin of his face.
“Yes, Colin, I have been waiting,” he finally said. “We’ve all been waiting.”
And then, along the entire breadth of the steps surrounding them, Shadows emerged into the faded sunlight.