He was still grinning when an arrow entered his throat and punched up through the roof of his mouth and into his brain.
The second soldier looked round as he staggered back, his hands twitching.
‘What’s wrong, Tarvic?’ called Milis. As Tarvic fell back, his head bouncing from a jagged white rock, Milis saw the arrow and his mouth dropped open. The fear surged through him and he began to run. An arrow chipped him from the rock to his right and flashed by his face. Legs pumping hard, Milis sprinted towards the cave. Something hit him hard in the back, but it did not slow him.
The cave entrance loomed and twice more he was struck from behind, but there was no pain and he made his way into the security of the tunnel. Safe at last, he slowed his pace.
His face crashed into the rocky floor as the ground leapt up at him. He tried to rise, but his arms had no strength. He began to crawl, but hands pulled at him, turning him over.
‘The Vagrians are coming,’ he said.
‘I know,’ said the Vagrian, drawing his knife across Milis’ throat.
He was alone, as he had always been alone. He sat by the murky waters of a lily-covered pond and stared at his reflection in the silver steel blade of the hunting knife. He knew he was a monster; the word had been hurled at him since the beginning – along with stones, spears and arrows. He had been hunted by horsemen carrying lances, by wolves with sharp fangs and cunning minds, and by the long-toothed snow tigers which came down from the mountains with the winter ice.
But he had never been caught. For his speed was legend and his strength terrifying.
He pushed his broad back against the bole of a willow and lifted his great head at stare at the twin moons high above the trees. He knew by now there was only one moon, but the pupils of his huge eye could never focus as true eyes. He had learned to live with that, as he had learned to live with the other savage gifts nature had bestowed on him.
For some reason his memory was sharper than most, although he did not realise it. He could remember vividly the moment of his birth, and the face of the old woman who guided him into the world from the black-red tunnel of the Void. She had screamed and let him fall and he had hurt himself, twisting his arm under his body and hitting the edge of a wooden bed.
A man entered then and picked him from the floor. He had taken a knife, but another woman’s scream had stopped him dead.
For a little while he remembered feeding at the breast of a dark-haired, sad-eyed young girl. But then his teeth grew, pointed and sharp – red blood had mixed with the milk and the girl had cried as she fed him.
It was not long before he was carried out into the night and left under the stars, listening to the sound of hoofbeats fading into the distance. Fading, dying …
Still the sound of hooves on dry earth filled him with sadness.
He had no name and no future.
Yet something had come from the mountains and drawn him into the darkness …
There were many of them, skittering and screeching, touching and pinching, and he had grown among them through the Darkness years, rarely seeing the light of day.
And then, on a summer morning, he heard a lilting cry from Outside echoing down a crack in the rocks and reverberating in the tunnels of the mountain heart. He was lured by the sound and he climbed out into the light. High overhead, great white birds were wheeling and diving, and in their cries he felt his life encapsulated. From that moment he saw himself as Kai and he spent many hours each day lying on the high rocks watching for the white birds, waiting for them to call his name.
Then began the Long years as his strength grew. Nadir tribes would gather near the mountains and pass on to greener meadows and deeper streams. But while they camped he watched them, seeing the children at play, the women arm-in-arm and laughing as they strolled.