Tim Lebbon - Dawn

“Some,” Kosar said.

“Who did you kill?”

“Red Monks.”

Schiff fell silent, but his two companions broke into laughter, even the nervous woman. “Red Monks!” she said. “I’d have like’d to have seen that!” Her laugh broke into a cackle, reminding Kosar of Hope. Where is she now? he thought. I hope she’s safe. I hope she’s looking after Trey and Alishia.

“Bring him!” Schiff said. He stood and held the sword before him, turning it this way and that as he inspected its surface, its cutting edges, the designs on the hilt and the sweat-darkened leather looped a hundred times around the handle.

“It needs blood,” Kosar said.

“It’ll have it.” Schiff tapped the sword against his face, neck and chest, creating a mess of metallic notes.

The other two Breakers hefted Kosar to his feet and shoved him toward the lip of the ravine. For a terrifying instant he thought they were simply going to push him over and let the jagged rocks do what they would not. But then he saw the path cleverly concealed behind a pile of rocks at the cliff edge and, their way illuminated only by the flickering light of the two huge fires, they began their descent to the ravine floor.

Kosar was still dizzied from the blow to his head. He spat more blood and wondered what would become of it. Would it soak down into the sand, solidify, form part of a stone that would perhaps be found in ten thousand years? What would that finder of the future think of a stone with teeth shards and fossilized blood seaming it? They could build a story about him, and it would be far from the truth.

Or maybe a sand rat would lick up the bloody splash, teeth specks and all, and Kosar’s spit would end up as rat shit.

Fate had many tricks in store, and the future felt so insecure.

Breakers did not welcome strangers. Halfway down the sloping path, Kosar became certain that if he let them reach the ravine floor he would be dead within the hour.

“MAGIC’S BACK IN the land,” he said. “The Mages have it. I was with the boy it was being reborn into, and they stole him away and killed him and took it for themselves. They made the skies grow dark. It’s the beginning of their revenge.”

“Shut up, scummer!”

Kosar felt A’Meer’s sword prick his back and urge him on. He winced at the feeling of metal parting his skin, and the warm dribble of blood that followed. At least the blade’s blooded, he thought. The wound was not deep but it stung. Schiff’s voice had changed. Before it had been dismissive and harsh, now there was more thought behind it. He’s going to kill me, Kosar thought. For some reason I scare him, and he’ll kill me as soon as we get down, run me through with the sword A’Meer gave me, but he’ll do it in front of his Breaker clan to show that he’s protecting them from whatever new rot has set into the land.

“Why don’t you believe me?” Kosar said.

“Move on or I’ll help you on your way.”

“You’ve been looking for it forever, and now when it’s actuallyhere, in the land instead of rotting away in old machines that were dead before you were an itch in your father’s cock, you’re not even close to ready-”

The sword pricked in again, digging into Kosar’s right shoulder above the shoulder blade, splitting skin and flesh, and Kosar fell forward and spun at the same time, landing on his side and kicking out at Schiff’s legs. The path cut into the side of the cliff was barely wide enough for two people and, with the other Breakers behind him, Schiff had nowhere to go. Kosar was confident that one good kick would send the Breaker tumbling from the path.

His right foot connected with Schiff’s left leg. Schiff did not move, and Kosar cried out as pain tore up his leg and into his hip. He kicked again and Schiff stepped back, swinging out with the sword, sweeping it across the path in an arc that would take off Kosar’s foot. Kosar pulled back, cringing as the wound in his shoulder gushed. More blood spilled, he thought. I can’t have much left. The sword scraped across the path and sparks flew.

Schiff grinned. He moved back a step or two, forcing the other two Breakers back behind him, and pulled at his trouser leg. It rose away from his foot and gathered at his knee, and Kosar saw the fires reflected on the metal skin of his leg. “Machines give us everything we need,” he said.

“But I’ve seen them alive,” Kosar said. And for the first time, he saw something like belief in the Breaker’s eyes.

“I’m going to fucking kill you, scummer,” Schiff whispered.

“Why?” Kosar said. He was bracing himself against the ground, testing his right arm to make sure he could lever himself upward. The wound on his shoulder was painful, but it didn’t appear to have damaged the muscles. As soon as Schiff was distracted he was going to launch himself at the big Breaker and shove him from the path. Easy, he thought. Piece of piss, as Hope would say.

Schiff seemed unable to answer Kosar’s question.

Kosar glanced over Schiff’s shoulder at the woman. She looked confused, and scared. “Because with magic back, your lives mean nothing,” he said. “That’s why. I’ve brought a truth you can’t bear.”

“Schiff, what’s he-?”

Schiff turned, already starting to shout at the woman, and Kosar pushed himself up from the path. A stone rolled beneath his hand, his shoulder jarred and the wound seemed to stab at him again. He cursed and pushed harder, tearing a muscle in his shoulder and adding to the pain already nestling there. The woman’s eyes opened wider as she stared past Schiff at Kosar. Kosar saw fire reflected there, yellow then red, as though her eyes were slowly filling with blood, and Schiff started to turn back, sword rising, legs bracing, mouth opening in a scream of rage and realization. He believes me, Kosar thought, and I’ve made his life meaningless.

Kosar stood and drove forward, striking Schiff across the nose with his elbow and feeling the crunch of cartilage giving way. The Breaker’s piercings tinkled and scraped as they were ground together.

Schiff roared, swinging his arm, but Kosar had pushed himself into the Breaker’s fighting circle and the sword slapped harmlessly across his lower back. Five heartbeats, he thought, that’s all it’ll take, five heartbeats to draw back and stab in and then A’Meer’s father’s sword will gut me. He thought much, much more in those few moments, a slew of images rather than words: Rafe raising the boat from the River San; watching A’Meer in the Broken Arm without her knowing he was there, the way her plaits swung, her constant wry smile; running across the plain toward the Gray Woods, fearing the Monks behind them and having no idea of what they were about to face; the machines, rising; the Mages, falling out of the sunset; the darkness. And he realized that he had never been this close to death before.

The other male Breaker screamed.

Kosar looked over Schiff’s shoulder.

The Breaker was behind the woman, ten steps back along the path, and he was staring down at a sword protruding from his chest. Behind him, a flash of red. And above this confusion of colors, a face, teeth bared and eyes blacker than mere darkness.

“Monk!” the woman shouted. Her voice was low and rough, as if her throat were already slit.

The Red Monk lifted the Breaker with the sword through his chest, pivoted and leaned forward. The man shrieked, waving his arms and legs, then slid from the sword and fell. When he struck the rocks his scream ceased, replaced by the thuds and crunches of his body tumbling to the foot of the cliff.

The woman backed toward Kosar and Schiff, but the Monk was on her quickly, a blur of robe and glittering sword sweeping her from the cliff path. She did not scream as she fell into the dark.