increasingly bitter cold. About him, the few civilians and soldiers who survived bunched
together for security and warmth and similarly trudged forward, defending themselves from
never-ending attacks by groups of Skraelings, losing a few more comrades with each attack.
Malat thought there must be a trail of blood leading back to whatever remained of
Pelemere.
That they survived at all was due to the Icarii. Not only BroadWing EvenBeat, the man
who had warned them of the Isembaardian invasion into the Outlands, but several score of others
who had joined him. They warned of approaching Skraelings, scouted clear routes through the
territory ahead, and they were skilled bowmen and women, attacking Skraelings from above.
They”d lost a few of their number, and Malat, as Georgdi, was incalculably grateful to them.
They could have fled, this was not their fight, but they didn”t. They stayed, and helped, and died,
and Malat, who”d never had much respect for the birdmen, now admired them immensely.
But he still didn”t think any of them would survive.
Winter closed in with tight, cruel fingers. Every few days heavy snowstorms enveloped
them, and in those storms…
BroadWing said ghosts lived in them. Perhaps the ghosts of Icarii long dead, he didn”t
know, but they were almost as terrifying as the Skraelings, although they did not attack or maim
or murder. They simply terrified with sudden appearances, their ethereal faces materializing in
the snow before vanishing again, always accompanied by the barely audible beat of wings, and a
constant undertone of whispering…
Malat could not understand how any of them would survive. If, by some miracle, they
outran and outfought the Skraelings, and if these snow ghosts finally left them alone, then they
still had a million Isembaardians with which to cope.
Their world was falling apart, and Malat did not think anything left within it could
possibly endure.
Alm Georgdi was the first to hear the beat of approaching wings.
He was huddled in front of a campfire, his face haggard, his hands trembling from both
weariness and cold.
He looked up, hoping it was not bad news.
BroadWing EvenBeat landed a few feet away, staggering a little. He was exhausted, as
was everyone else.
“Georgdi,” he said.
Georgdi grunted. Bad news, then.
BroadWing staggered forward, almost collapsing as he sat before the fire. His face was
white with cold and fatigue.
“Georgdi,” he whispered.
“What is it?” Georgdi snapped.
“The Skraelings,” BroadWing said. “The Skraelings…they have abandoned the Central
Kingdoms.”
Georgdi stared at BroadWing, not able to understand what the birdman said. Abandoned
the Central Kingdoms? “They”ve returned to their frozen wastes?” he said.
“No,” BroadWing said, “they”ve swarmed into the FarReach Mountains. Every last one
of them. The mountains are covered with them.”
“What…why?”
“They are moving en masse into Isembaard,” BroadWing said. “For the moment we”re
safe. From the Skraelings, at least.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Sky Peak Passes
Lister stood with Eleanon, Bingaleal, and Inardle on a snowy platform high in a narrow
gorge within the northern FarReach Mountains.
Below them the last ten thousand or so of the Skraelings swarmed southward.
Millions had passed by in the last day or so, desperate to reach DarkGlass Mountain.
They were now moving supernaturally fast, almost flowing over the ground, pulled by Kanubai”s
power. By now, Lister reckoned, the first waves of Skraelings would be seething almost to the
gates of DarkGlass Mountain.
He could hardly bear to think of what might be happening to northwestern Isembaard as
the Skraeling nation swept through.
Above them, snowflakes drifted gently down from heavy clouds, settling on rocks and
clinging to crevices.
As they settled, very slowly they transformed into ice-covered lumps.
The Lealfast nation. Hundreds of thousands of them covering the FarReach Mountains.
This was as far south as they, or Lister, would come. Isembaard might have a few more weeks,
but then it would be Kanubai”s and DarkGlass Mountain”s entirely.
Lister sighed. “It comes to pass then. The Skraelings hurry to their true lord.”
“Pity the Isembaardians,” said Eleanon, watching the Skraelings. “ They can have no idea
of what is about to descend on them.”
“Isaiah and I could not warn them,” Lister said quietly. “Isaiah did what he could to get
as many of his people out of the area as possible. The Salamaan Pass will remain open for a
week or so for refugees, but then…”
“Then the Lealfast will do what they have to in order to keep these northern plains free,
for as long as possible, from the armies of Kanubai,” said Eleanon.
“Kanubai will do everything he can to get to Elcho Falling,” said Lister. “He”ll need to
attack before the Lord of Elcho Falling attains his full strength.”
“We will do everything we have to,” said Eleanon, “but we pray to all gods above, and to
the Star Dance that runs through our souls, that the Lord of Elcho Falling rises soon. Without
him we are all doomed.”
“Lister!” said Inardle. “What is that?”
At her alarmed voice, everyone looked to where she pointed.
A black shape climbed up the steep slope of the gorge on which they all stood. From this
distance it looked half bat, half spider, and it certainly moved with the speed and agility one
might expect from a creature bred from those parents, but as it grew closer the figure resolved
itself into that of a man wrapped in a black cloak (albeit still climbing with the speed and agility
of some creature of the night), a satchel slung over his back.
Lister laughed, and relaxed.
“It is one of my comrades,” he said. “You have not met him, for he has been in Escator
these many years past.”
Within minutes the man had climbed to join them. Tall and spare with thick dark hair
over lively eyes, the man embraced Lister, then shook the hands of the Lealfast present as Lister
introduced them. “This is Vorstus,” said Lister. “He has been „minding” Maximilian.”
“I have watched the Skraelings pass by,” said Vorstus. “It is all happening, then.”
“You seem somewhat delighted at the notion,” said Inardle.
“You haven”t been stuck in Escator these past thirty odd years,” said Vorstus. “I”m dying
for a bit of excitement.”
Inardle gave him a strange look, then raised an eyebrow at Eleanon.
“Maximilian will need you soon,” said Lister. “It is difficult to imagine that Isaiah has
not yet broached the subject of Elcho Falling with him.”
“Elcho Falling,” Vorstus said. “I cannot wait.”
“As he said,” Lister remarked drily, “he”s the one who has been stuck in Escator all these
years while we have had the delightful company of the cursed Skraelings.”
“Where is Isaiah now?” said Vorstus.
“Somewhere close to the Sky Peaks Pass,” said Lister. He rubbed his hands together, as if
suddenly tired of the cold, windy vantage point they occupied. “Shall we join him, then?”
Northwestern Isembaard, from the western banks of the Lhyl to the far western branch of
the FarReach Mountains, was a roiling nightmare. Skraelings—or what had once been
Skraelings—had seethed out of the FarReach Mountains and washed down over the northern
plains of Isembaard like a rotting inundation of death. Many people had died under the sudden,
unexpected onslaught, although some managed to escape west into the mountains, but within a
day of the creatures emerging from the FarReach Mountains, northwest Isembaard was utterly
lost.
The first wave of dog-headed creatures had reached DarkGlass Mountain a week or so
after they”d crossed into Isembaard. They seethed over the glass pyramid, climbing over each
other in order to reach its capstone, then sliding down the far side. Within moments the entire
pyramid was covered with a writhing mass of gray, partly transparent creatures, their dog
muzzles slavering in excitement.
Deep inside DarkGlass Mountain, Kanubai raised his own muzzle and howled.
The mass of Skraelings covering the pyramid screamed at the sound echoing beneath
their bodies, and they tore off thousands of the plates of glass in their desperation to find the
shafts that led directly into the Infinity Chamber.
Where waited Kanubai.
When the first creatures arrived in the chamber, they abased themselves before Kanubai,
rolling over on the floor and presenting their bellies to him, that he could suckle from them all
their life”s blood.
By morning, when Kanubai would have had the opportunity to suckle lifeless a few
thousand of the creatures, a devil-sun would rise over Isembaard, and it would emerge, not from
the east, but from DarkGlass Mountain.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Entrance to the Sky Peak Passes, the Outlands
From the Salamaan Pass, Isaiah”s vast army moved inexorably north. Adab and Margalit
fell with nary a murmur. Neither port nor city had been built to withstand sieges, and they had no
military defense, for all the fighting men were west with Georgdi.
No one had expected a threat from the south.
No one, for a moment, thought to try and resist this juggernaut, sweeping through like an