staring, her chest heaved with her huge breaths.
She didn”t know what to do. She still could not order a single thought, let alone decide on
a course of action.
Jeqial, one of the cook apprentices, darted into the kitchen from outside. He ran into a
side room where everyone stored their cloaks and outdoor sandals, then came out almost
instantly, his cloak about his shoulders. He grabbed a hessian bag of root tubers that one of the
gardeners had only brought in an hour previously, dumped the tubers onto the floor, then
hurriedly filled the sack with a flask of wine, some bread, some fruit that was sitting on a serving
platter to one side.
Then he saw Hereward.
“Hereward,” he gasped, now twisting the neck of the sack closed and tying it with twine.
“We have to get out of here.”
Where? she thought, unable to articulate the word.
“We have to go!” Jeqial said. “Didn”t you see what—”
He stopped. It was perfectly obvious that Hereward had seen.
“We have to go,” he repeated more slowly, emphasizing each word.
“Where?” Hereward managed to say.
“I, ah…east. Far away.”
East? Hereward thought. East into the dry horror of the Melachor Plains? “Perhaps
Isaiah will be back,” she said. “The army…”
“They are months gone, Hereward. Perhaps they are dead. We need to get away from
here now! If we stay…”
If we stay… Hereward”s stomach literally heaved at the thought of what would happen if
they stayed.
“They won”t cross the water,” she said. “The Lhyl will protect us. They—”
“They will find a way to cross eventually,” Jeqial said. “Stay here and die if you want,
Hereward. I am going to live.”
And with that he was off.
Gradually the kitchen staff returned. Some sat or stood like Hereward, stunned and
unable to think or act. Others did as Jeqial, grabbing what they could and running…where, Hereward was not entirely sure, but running.
After what appeared to Hereward a very long time, she rose, clutching at a table for aid in
getting to her feet.
She must have been crouched down for hours—her legs and back were stiff and cramped.
“We have to aid ourselves,” she said to no one in particular. “No one will come to help
us.”
“Isaiah—” said one of the cooks, a man called Heddiah.
Hereward gave a small shake of her head. “Isaiah won”t come.”
“He has an army,” said Ingruit, a vegetable preparer.
“He and they are either dead or they have forgotten us,” said Hereward. “We must shift
for ourselves.”
“We need to leave, then,” said Heddiah.
“Yes,” Hereward said.
“East—” Heddiah began.
“No,” Hereward said. “Not east. Where in the east? Into the Melachor Plains? Into the
mountains where live the bandits? In one we”d starve or die of thirst within a week, in the other
we”d be murdered before the Skraelings had their chance at us. And in both, we”d stand no
chance whatsoever once the Skraelings manage to get across the river. Have you seen how many
of them there are? Millions! Millions! ”
Hereward stopped, appalled at the note of hysteria in her voice.
“No,” she continued, now controlling her voice and trying to inject as much persuasion
into it as she could. “Not east. Even if we were left alone, or if we survived the Melachor Plains,
it would take us many weeks before we reached any kind of safety.”
“Where then?” said a woman called Odella.
“North,” Hereward said. “North, up the River Lhyl.”
“But the Skraelings are just across the river!” said Heddiah.
“They can”t touch us,” said Hereward. “Not on a boat. We just don”t touch the western
shore…we can’t touch the western shore, ever. Even if somehow, somewhere, the Skraelings
manage to cross the river and surround us on both sides, they still can”t reach us in the middle of
the river. It is the safest place.”
There was silence as people considered her arguments.
“We take a boat,” Hereward continued, “and with the winds driving southwesterly we
can tack upriver, many leagues each day. We can reach the north within…what? Ten days?” She
actually had no idea, but no one contradicted her.
“And then?” said Odella.
“And then we go wherever is safest. By the time we reach the north we will have a better
idea of what is happening. There will be news.” How they were going to gather news and
information when they were stuck in the middle of the river Hereward did not know. But there
would be news somewhere, somehow, surely. “We can make a choice then. But at least it is far
away from here. We cannot stay here.”
Now Hereward stood on the riverboat”s deck, looking at the Skraelings hungering on the
far bank. That terrible day in Aqhat seemed a year away now, although it had only been a matter
of a few short weeks. The remaining kitchen staff had eventually agreed with Hereward that the
boat north would be the safest and quickest, if the most terrifying, means of escape. They had commandeered a riverboat large enough to hold their party—some twenty-eight, counting
spouses and children—and had set sail northward. Five or six of the men had river experience,
and they quickly taught the others how to steer and set the sails so they could tack into the wind
and sail north against the Lhyl”s gentle current.
The winds had not been as good as they”d hoped, and they had not traveled as fast as they
had expected, but at least they had kept safe. They were careful to stay in the center of the river
where the water was deepest and where the riverbanks were each some twenty paces away.
Skraelings haunted the western bank, hordes of them, scores of tens of thousands of them,
hungering for the Tasty! Tasty! Tasty! that the boat held. The Skraeling whispers pervaded the hull of the boat, and everyone had to grab what sleep they could while the terrifying whispers
slid cold and malicious about them.
Hereward hardly slept. It was dusk now, and Odella had called her a while ago to come
and eat with the others.
Hereward wasn”t hungry. She felt that if she took her eyes off the Skraelings for just one
moment then they would attack.
Somehow they would find their way over the water.
If she did sleep, Hereward had nightmares of waking to find them crawling over her, their
terrible claws sinking into her flesh…
She”d come to hate Axis SunSoar and Isaiah. Somehow she”d managed to associate her
current plight with these two men.
Whoever had heard of Skraelings before Axis arrived in Aqhat?
And why had Isaiah deserted them? Why had he taken everyone who could possibly have
saved the people of Aqhat north into the lands above the FarReach Mountains?
Hereward had also come to loathe her father, Ezekiel, although she had never felt much
affection for him. Ezekiel had always been so distant, and Hereward felt that he only concerned
himself with her out of a sense of resigned duty. She was a bastard and had no place in his life.
Ezekiel had a wife and legitimate children.
Those children, her half-brothers and sisters raised in luxury and privilege, lived in
Sakkuth, well away from this place.
All of them had left her and her friends to manage as they may.
The Skraelings roiled and whispered on the far bank. Their long, thin arms reached out
for her, their jaws drooled, their teeth caught the last of the light, and their tongues bulged
obscenely from their mouths.
Hereward had never felt so alone and so hopeless in her life. She had never been able to
even imagine feeling this way.
After a moment, she turned, and walked belowdecks to join the others in their evening
meal.
CHAPTER SIX
The FarReach Mountains and DarkGlass Mountain, Isembaard
It was almost dawn when Eleanon and Bingaleal heard Inardle approach their eyrie atop
the mountain.
“Is Lister still asleep?” Eleanon said as Inardle crouched down beside them, and she
nodded.
“He stayed awake for hours, wondering about the pyramid, sending his senses scrying
south,” she said.
“And?” Bingaleal asked.
“He felt nothing other than the fact of Kanubai”s death,” Inardle said. She paused,
looking at the faces of the two birdmen, trying to read their expressions. “And you?”
Eleanon and Bingaleal glanced at each other.
“We”ve been waiting for you,” Bingaleal said. “Three are more powerful than two.”
Inardle nodded, relieved and pleased that they had waited. They must, like her, and like
Lister, be desperate to discover precisely what had happened at DarkGlass Mountain.
“Should we do this?” she said.
“Are you having doubts?” Eleanon said.
Inardle gave a short laugh. “Of course! And you have no doubts? Don”t tell me that.”
“We need to know,” said Bingaleal. “There is only one reason we have come on this
adventure south with Lister. To grab some power and destiny for ourselves. Maybe this Lord of