ECHOES OF THE GREAT SONG by David A. Gemmell

‘Yes, lord,’ they said in unison. Both were glad to be leaving the ice.

For an hour the chest continued to hum, showing no sign of full recharge. Weariness had long since returned to Questor Ro, but he could not yet go back to the ship. The box-holder stumbled, then righted himself. For a moment only the lights flickered on the pyramids. Questor Ro trudged over to the man and relieved him of the box. ‘Go back to the ship,’ he said. ‘You are useless here.’

‘Thank you, lord,’ said the man.

Questor Ro stood with the box in his hands, feeling the gentle vibration of Communion. Some sixty miles away, buried beneath the ice, the Great Pyramid was even more closely linked to him now. And less than a mile from the pyramid was his home, and the icy, unmarked grave of his beloved wife Tanya and his children. Questor Ro sighed.

‘If I could I would have died with you,’ he whispered.

Chapter Four

Karesh Var heeled his pony into a run and led his men out onto the plain. Far ahead he could see the outline of the black ship against the white ice and just make out the tiny insect figures upon the glacier itself. Why did they keep returning to the ice? What were they looking for? he wondered, as his pony steadily closed the distance between his riders and the coast.

Two years ago just such a ship had moored in the bay. Karesh Var and one hundred men had arrived as it raised its anchor and set sail towards the north. All the nomads found on the ice were holes, as if made by tent pegs. Nothing else. He and his men had dug around for a while. But there was nothing to find. It was perplexing.

As he neared the coast he slowed his pony, raising an arm for the twenty riders to follow his lead. Karesh Var’s keen dark eyes scanned the ice. Only one Blue-hair could he see, a small figure with a forked blue beard. The others were ordinary men. Karesh Var was nervous. Legends told of the great weapons of the Blue-hair, bows that sent bolts of light into the enemy, open­ing great blackened holes in the chests of warriors, bursting asunder breastplates of bronze. They spoke of black swords that shimmered with lightning, swords that could cut through metal as a wire slides through cheese. Karesh Var had no wish to tackle a foe armed in such a manner. And yet, and here was the quandary, his young men were fighters. Indeed they loved to fight. They were, he had decided long since, men with little imagination.

‘We would ride into Hell for you, Karesh,’ young Jiang had told him once. He had smiled and patted the boy’s shoulder. The young were made for such futile gestures, for they believed in immortality. They were convinced -just as he was once convinced – that the power that flowed through their veins would flow for ever. They gloried in their strength, and even mocked older men who could no longer ride as hard, or hunt as well as they. As if those men had chosen to grow old, or in some way had allowed age and infirmity to overtake them.

The young riders who followed Karesh Var wanted to attack the Blue-hairs, to destroy them and thus earn glory back in the village. Karesh Var would also like to destroy them, for had they not brought the world to calamity? Were they not the bringers of ice and fire? Even so he had no wish to lead his men into a battle that would end with the slaughter of his riders.

With these sombre thoughts in mind he saw two men walking towards the riders. Neither were Blue-hairs. Karesh Var drew rein and waited for them. One was tall, his long dark hair tied back in a ponytail. He wore no armour, but a short sword was belted at his side and he carried in his left hand an ornate golden bow. Karesh Var narrowed his eyes. The man was carrying no quiver of arrows. He transferred his gaze to the second warrior. This one was shorter and stockier and held a small single-bladed axe in his right hand.