Sara Douglass – The Serpent Bride – DarkGlass Mountain Book 1

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