Torrent stared up at her. An old hag crackling with venom and rage. Her dead breath reeked of serpents among the rocks. The onyx knuckles of her eyes glistened with the mockery of life. ‘Perhaps,’ he said, ‘you were once all those things, Olar Ethil. But not any more. It’s all torn away from you, isn’t it? Scattered and lost, when you gave up life-when you chose to become this thing of bones-’
That hand lunged down, closed about his neck. He was lifted from the ground as if he weighed less than an orthen, flung away. Slamming hard down on one shoulder, breath whooshing from his lungs, half-blinded and unable to move.
She appeared above him, rotted teeth glittering like stumps of smoky quartz. ‘I am promised! The Stone Bitch shall awaken once more, in plague winds and devouring locusts, in wildfires and drowning dust and sand! And you will fall upon each other, rending flesh with teeth and nails! You will choose evil in fullest knowledge of what you do-I am coming, mortal, the earth awakened to judgement! And you shall kneel, pleading, begging-your kind, human, shall make pathos your epitaph, for I will give you nothing, yield not a single instant of mercy!’ She was gasping now, a pointless bellows of unwarmed breath. She trembled in terrible rage. ‘ Did he speak to you? ’
Torrent sat up. ‘No,’ he said through gritted teeth. He reached up to the swollen bruises on his throat.
‘Good.’ And Olar Ethil turned away. ‘Sleep, then. You will awaken alone. But do not think you are rid of me, do not think that.’ A pause, and then, ‘He is filled with lies. Beware him.’
Torrent hunched forward, staring at the dew-speckled ground between his crooked legs. He closed his eyes. I will do as you ask. When the time comes, I will do as you ask.
She awoke to the howling of wolves. Setoc slowly sat up, ran a hand through the tangles of her matted hair, and then drew her bedroll closer about her body. False dawn was ebbing, almost drowned out by the glare of the jade slashes. As the echoes of those howls faded, Setoc cocked her head-had something else stirred her awake? She could not be certain. The stillness of night embraced them-she glanced across to the motionless form of Cafal. She’d run him into exhaustion. Each night since they’d begun this journey he’d fallen into deep sleep as soon as their paltry evening meal was done.
As her eyes adjusted, she could make out his face. It had grown gaunt, aged by deprivation. She knew he’d not yet reached his thirtieth year of life, but he seemed decades older. He lay like a dead man, yet she sensed from him troubled dreams. He was desperate to return to his tribe.
‘ Something terrible is about to happen. ’ These words had ground out from him again and again, a litany of dread, a chant riding out his tortured breaths as he ran.
She caught a scent, a sudden mustiness in the cool, dry air. Visions of strange fecundity fluttered across her eyes, as if the present was peeling away, revealing this landscape in ancient times.
An oasis, a natural garden rich with colour and life. Iridescent birds sang among palm fronds. Monkeys scampered, mouths stained with succulent fruit. A tiny world, but a complete one, seemingly changeless, untouched by her kind.
When she saw the grey cloud drifting closer, inexplicable bleak despair struck her and she gasped aloud. She saw the dust settling like rain, a dull patina coating the leaves, the globes of fruit, the once-clear pool of water. And everything began to die.
In moments there was nothing but blackened rot, dripping down the boles of the palms. The monkeys, covered in oozing sores, their hair falling away, curled up and died. The birds sought to flee but ended up on the grey ground, flapping and twitching, then falling still.
The oasis dried up. The winds blew away what was left and sands closed about the spring until it too vanished.
Setoc wept.
What had done this? Some natural force? Did some mountain erupt to fill the sky with poison ash? Or was it a god’s bitter breath? Had some wretched city burned, spewing acidic alchemies into the air? Was this desecration an accident, or was it deliberate? She had no answer to such questions; she had only their cruel yield of grief.
Until a suspicion lifted from beneath her sorrow, grisly and ghastly. It… it was a weapon. But who wages war upon all living things? Upon the very earth itself? What could possibly be won? Was it just… stupidity? Setoc shook herself. She did not like such thoughts.
But this anger I feel, does it belong to the wolves? To the beasts on their forgotten thrones? No, not just them. It is the rage of every unintended victim. It is the fury of the innocents. The god whose face is not human, but life itself.
She is coming…
Setoc caught a host of vague shapes in the darkness now, circling, edging closer. Curious in the manner of all wolves, yet cautious. Old memories left scars upon their souls, and they knew what the presence of these two-legged intruders meant for them, for their kind.
