Dawn, page 39
“Why are you doing this?” Alishia asked. She felt tears threatening, and she bit her lip to hold them back. She had no wish to show weakness before this…soul. I’m talking to the land itself, and I’m speaking its language, and I’m too proud to cry for Noreela.
“Because things are so different. The Womb has birthed many times before, but it has never been seeded from outside. We have never let anything in. Yet events roll, and new things happen, and new magic will arise from this. An evolved magic. And we are responsible. We’re the soul of the land, after all.”
“But why the offerings? Why can’t you just help me?” The first tear slipped from Alishia’s left eye.
The man watched the tear trace a path through the grime on Alishia’s cheek. She felt his gaze upon her, touching her skin, and the pressure of his presence was too great to bear. She started to shake, and he backed away, merging into the shadows between two blackened book stacks. He became little more than a shadow himself.
“Because of that tear,” he said. “Because humans suffer. And in suffering, you may at last find your soul.”
And then he was gone, and Alishia was left alone in her void of burnt memories.
HOPE SAT BENEATH the false daylight and held the dead girl on her lap. The valley containing the Womb of the Land was silent compared to the rest of Kang Kang. Gone were the grinding of rocks, the hushing of shadows rubbing together, the breath of the wind and the calls or cries of things killing or being killed. An occasional breeze stirred the long grass and sent waves across the slopes, but it was virtually silent. Even the shifting grass chose not to whisper. The only definable sound in this strange valley was the sobbing of an old woman.
If she truly had seen the Mages passing them by back there in Kang Kang, then they had not yet found this place. She didn’t know whether that was even important anymore.
She had been to see the entrance to the Womb of the Land. It was unremarkable; a cave, a small stream running from it. She had carried Alishia in her arms, and even thirty steps away she knew that she would not be able to enter. The shadows in there were too solid. She threw a stone and it disappeared inside, but she heard no echoes. She dipped her toes in the stream. But she would not drink of that water.
So she had moved away again, sat back down, and now she waited for what would happen next.
Alishia moved. Hope held her breath, grasped the girl tighter and looked down. The girl’s face was still slack and pale, mouth hanging slightly open, but one of her eyelids had raised to reveal the dark half-moon of her pupil. Her eye turned, centered on Hope. Her lips twitched. Another adult tooth fell from her mouth, and a single tear left her eye. It ran a clear path down the girl’s dirty cheek.
“You’re alive!” the witch said. She hugged the girl to her, breathing in Alishia’s breath and looking around to see if the world looked any different. But we’re here! she thought. We’re at the Womb of the Land. Surely everything will change now? Surely the magic will come back and everything will be better? But the very idea of that felt impossible. How could anything really be better, ever again? The witch felt the power of the girl in her arms, radiating out in waves now that she had returned, but Hope herself was still a false witch without charms or tricks. She was the last of her line, destined to die cold and alone. Even if Alishia fulfilled whatever vague destiny she had discovered, Hope would be no part of it.
She remembered rising from the pit of the dead Sleeping God and lashing out at Trey. A moment of violence, a flash of red in her mind, and since then she had cast it deep, not wishing to dwell on the fate of the fledge miner. Out of every bad thing she had done in her life, that act had damned her forever.
“Do what you came here to do!” Hope said. Even though her voice was low, still it sounded loud in this narrow valley. “Do it! We’re here, we’re at the Womb, it’s over there behind us and I can see the darkness inside.”
“We wait,” Alishia whispered. “We can’t get inside until…”
“Until what?”
“I’ll know when.” Alishia tried to sit up in Hope’s arms but the witch held her tight.
“It’s right there!” Hope said. But she looked into the cave mouth thirty steps away, and its darkness suddenly seemed more solid than any of the rocks surrounding it.
“Be content with waiting and they’ll let us,” Alishia said.
“The Shades of the Land?”
“Yes, them.”
Hope helped Alishia sit up in her lap, and for a while she knew what it would have been like to have a child of her own.
HOPE SPOKE LITTLE, and for that Alishia was glad. The girl was weak and frightened, her bones ached, her muscles knotted and cramped and her scalp itched as her adult’s hair turned into the hair of a child. I’m getting smaller and smaller, she thought, and for the first time she truly contemplated the eventual end of the process. Would it hurt? She hoped not. But the parting words of the Shades stayed with her. And in suffering, you may at last find your soul.
They remained there for some time, waiting for something to happen. Hope found the berries in her pocket and they ate them. They were sweet and sickly, but they both relaxed when the fruit seemed to fill their bellies and take away the cramps.
Alishia drifted in and out of a sleep so deep that it bordered on unconsciousness. She expected to find herself in that giant, dead library again every time she closed her eyes, but she did not return. When she awoke she could not recall any dreams.
As her mind drifted to Trey and what might have become of him, she heard the sound of something approaching the valley ridge.
“What is that?” Hope said.
It sounded like many feet hitting the ground at the same time, impacts gentle, their progress rapid. It began as a scratching in the distance, and within a few heartbeats it was right above them, threatening to force its way from the darkness surrounding the valley and birth whatever made the noise into the light.
The witch stood and brandished the disc-sword, but Alishia knew that it would have no effect against whatever was to come.
“It could be the Mages,” she said. “Or it could be something come to save us all.”
On the valley ridge above them, a shadow emerged from the surrounding dusk of Kang Kang.
THEY’RE COMING. The words were whispered along the line from the east, and Kosar heard them and passed them west. They’re coming.
The sounds of the battle in the north had ended an hour before, replaced by the dull, solitary whistle of wind finding channels between rocks. Snow danced across the foothills of Kang Kang, whipping into spirals here and there when the breeze became trapped. Some of these flitting figures seemed possessed of a strange purpose, and Kosar wondered exactly what he was seeing. Snow wraiths? Or wraiths in the air revealed by the snow? None of them came close to him, and they all faded away after a few heartbeats.
“I can’t see anything in this snow,” Lucien said.
“We’ll see them, I’m sure. They won’t be sneaking this way. They’ll be charging.” Kosar placed his hand flat against the ground. “Can you feel that?”
“What?”
“The ground is shaking.”
“Noreela is afraid,” Lucien said, and for some reason the comment gave Kosar a boost of confidence. If the land itself is afraid, perhaps it will do something to help.
A few moments passed and Kosar stared north, down the hillside and across the plains that ended at the fiery horizon. There was still no movement, and he began to wonder what the Mages’ dark magic could do. Would it make the advancing Krote army invisible? Were they even now crawling carefully up the slopes before them, reaching out, probing with swords until they held every Shantasi warrior a slice from death?
The ground shook some more, and now there was a rumble to accompany it.
“That came from behind!” Lucien said.
“No!” Kosar turned, hefting his sword as though expecting to find a Krote standing behind him. Shantasi all across the hillsides were doing the same, breaking cover and finding new shelter that protected them against an attack from uphill instead of downhill. “This can’t be them!” Kosar said.
“Then what—” Lucien’s words were swallowed by the thunder of what came over the hilltop above them.
Tumblers. Dozens of them, maybe a hundred, pouring over the crest of the hill and bouncing down toward the remnants of the Shantasi army. Some of them were larger than any Kosar had ever seen, the height of three men, and they trailed spiked whips and barbed limbs behind them, slapping at the ground to adjust their downward path.
Scores of Shantasi shouted and turned to run down the hillside. Many more stood their ground and prepared to fight. Kosar knew that both courses of action would be hopeless.
“They’ve got the tumblers fighting for them,” he said. This was the end. These things would snap up hundreds of Shantasi, then they would turn and come back up, then down again, crushing the warriors onto the hides and piercing their bodies with hooks and spikes. They would join the dozens of other corpses already carried by these ancient things, and their steady decay would match that of Noreela.
The lead tumbler reached the first of the Shantasi…and passed them by. Others followed, some of them bouncing over the shapes crouched on the hillsides, others swerving to avoid warriors standing ready to fight.
“Maybe they’re running from something,” Lucien said. “Something happening in Kang Kang.”
Hope, Alishia and Trey, Kosar thought, but then another idea hit him. “More Shantasi weapons!” he said.
Lucien shook his head. “No one controls the tumblers. Not even the Shantasi, with their weird ways. Even in a time of magic the tumblers were always their own.”
“You’re an expert?” Kosar said. “Don’t tell me…you read about them at the Monastery.” He crouched down as a tumbler came close, thundering past faster than any horse could run. He caught a whiff of old rot and aged bones, and then it was away, leaving a pitted trail in the sprinkling of snow where its hooks and spikes had dug in. His heart thumped in his chest. He actually felt thrilled. “What are they doing?” he shouted at Lucien, raising his voice above the cacophony of the tumblers’ charge.
Lucien raised his head above the rock. “We’ll see,” he shouted back. “They’re heading north!”
The last of the tumblers passed by and continued down the slope, dodging Shantasi and plowing furrows in the damp ground. The bones crushed into their strange hides flashed yellow and white in the moonlight. They rumbled north across the plain, and minutes later Kosar saw the first blossoming explosion of a Krote machine meeting its end.
“In the name of the Black, they’re helping us!” Kosar said. Shouts rose up from the Shantasi scattered across the hillsides, cheers and calls, and metal gleamed as swords and slideshocks were waved in celebration.
“They’ll still get through,” Lucien said. “The Krotes will sweep the tumblers aside, and they’ll get through.”
“But every second counts,” Kosar said, and he laughed. Actually laughed. And it felt so good, he did it some more.
LENORA LED THE charge, riding her machine hard toward the first low hills of Kang Kang. She expected the second Shantasi attack to come at any moment. If they had any sense of war at all—and she knew that the Shantasi had found cause to fight many times through their history—they would have a second line of defense between here and Kang Kang, probably upon those first low slopes. They would have had longer to dig in and prepare defenses, and they would have seen the signs of their First Army’s destruction. Anger and fear gave a soldier more power. Hate drove him or her harder. This coming fight would be more vicious, but Lenora was not afraid of that.
She was afraid of failing to fulfill the task given her by the Mages.
And the more it spoke, the more she was afraid of that voice. It was telling her truths she did not wish to hear. The more it spoke, the more she felt her determination bleeding away. Is this the life I’ve missed? it said. Is this all you have become?
But I’ve become powerful, Lenora thought.
You’ll become nothing.
And Lenora remembered Angel’s vision of the lake of blood, with nothing left of Noreela.
She was suffering. To drown the discomfort, she sought the pain of others.
Her machine ran, untiring and eager to do her bidding. She thought, Left, and the thing veered to the left, dodging a small hillock with an ancient ruin scarring its summit. Right, she thought, and the machine curved right, leaping a dry streambed and landing so gently that Lenora barely felt it touch the ground. It’s like a part of me, she thought. But the shade of her daughter, that was the part of her missing, the part she should be pursuing. I don’t want you, she thought. And I’ll come to find you soon…Leave me alone…Stay with me. Her thoughts were as chaotic as war, as random as an arrow striking her or missing altogether. Peace was something she feared she would never find, even when all the fighting was done.
And then she saw movement to the south.
Ducianne rode alongside her across a wide, flat expanse of dried marsh. “What in the Black is that?” she shouted.
Lenora knew. She had seen some once before in Robenna, years before she became pregnant. One of them had taken a child from the village. Even then, she knew that they were too different to ever understand.
“Tumblers,” she said.
“So let’s take them!”
“Ducianne!” Lenora shouted, but Ducianne goaded her machine on, riding directly at the advancing wall of tumblers that streaked toward them. They jumped here, rolled there, twisting and turning their routes to confuse the Krotes. But the Krotes’ blood was up. All of them were tainted by battle, some of them bearing wounds, a few carrying the stumps of arrows buried in arms or shoulders. It would take a lot to panic them now.
“Ducianne!” Lenora shouted. “Attack together. Not on your own!”
Ducianne turned on her machine and grinned, pulling back slightly so that she fell back in line with Lenora. Other machines rode up beside them, forming a long, snaking line that advanced quickly southward.
“Don’t be so keen,” Lenora called.
“Well, I—” Ducianne shouted, and the first of the tumblers struck the front of her machine.
The joint impact was tremendous. The tumbler was crushed flat and shattered, lifting high over the front of Ducianne’s mount and sweeping her from its back. Lenora glanced around in time to see her friend ripped apart, torso and head spilling in different directions amidst a rain of old bones, torn vegetation and new blood. The machine was split as well, its ruptured parts rolling onward in pursuit of Lenora, finally exploding in a geyser of blue flame as the magic that held it together failed and faded. Lances of cobalt light probed out, sparking here and there where they impacted the ground, and a ball of fire burst from the machine’s dying heart.
Lenora faced forward again, and sadness at the loss of her friend was cut short by what she saw: a field of tumblers coming at her, stretching left and right as far as she could see.
The two main forces of machines and tumblers met. The sound was tremendous, a mixture of machines roaring, tumblers thumping at the ground, Krotes screeching and fireballs and other ventings finding homes. The ground shook and the air sang with the tunes of war. Very soon the two opposing lines had disintegrated, turning into a pitched battle that spread quickly across the dried marsh.
Lenora swerved left to avoid a tumbler and drove straight into another. She tried to pull her machine up short but its momentum carried it on, front legs extended to ward off the huge rolling thing. When they struck, Lenora was thrown forward. She grasped one of her machine’s forelimbs, swinging around and kicking out at the tumbler. It started squirming and flexing, whipping at her with hooked limbs, but her machine unleashed a dozen spurts of flame from slits above its eyes. The tumbler’s limbs were severed and fell burning between the battling giants.
Lenora took the opportunity to scramble onto her machine’s back, ordering it to reverse as she did so. It tried, shaking with the effort, but was held tight. She leaned forward and hacked with her sword. The tumbler squirmed some more, trying to drive its barbs and hooks into the machine but failing to penetrate deep enough to take hold. Lenora sliced through its remaining limb, reaching farther and stabbing at its hide. She saw the bones of dead people in there, one recent skeleton smiling at her with leathery lips and waving a loose forearm.
Fire, she thought, leaning back and closing her eyes. The machine breathed fire and the tumbler lit up, rolling back and trying to extinguish its burning side by crushing it into the ground. And more. The machine coughed again, and the tumbler was aflame, crackling and spitting as its ancient insides ignited.
Lenora did not wait to witness the tumbler’s demise. She rode to the giant machines bearing the cages of the dead, instructing their riders to release the cargo. Wooden limbs were lowered, ropes cut, metal chains severed, and a thousand dead Noreelans tumbled from their incarceration. They rolled from the body pile, rising dozens at a time and moving forward into battle. They passed by any Krote or machine they met, bearing down on tumblers already in their sights. Some carried swords and knives, others had fashioned clubs from thigh bones or spears from sharpened sticks. None of them possessed weapons that would hurt a tumbler.
But Lenora had not released these dead to attack the tumblers. She wanted to smother them.
She rode back into battle, dodging past the stumbling dead. Several tumblers ahead of her lit up from the inside as blue fireballs penetrated and exploded, their bone cargoes silhouetted against the flames. Inside, the bones were shattered and scattered, but those on the outside were more complete. Some of the tumblers seemed to scream, but the sound felt the same as the voice of Lenora’s shade: in her mind, deep down. Wondering whether she was the only one to hear, she screamed back.
Lenora saw the first of the dead crushed into the ground by a huge tumbler. Several of them remained squirming in the dirt, but a couple were pressed onto the thing’s hide, its barbs and spikes jutting from their already rotting bodies. There was little blood. The thing rolled on…and then stopped. It started to shake. Its limbs whipped back across its own body, hooking into the moving corpses and tugging away, as if to remove them. But they were stuck fast.
