Tim Lebbon - Dawn

The Krotes gave them a wide berth and let them continue on their way.

NOREELA CITY HAD many hidden places. Not only did streets and alleys cross and confuse themselves with courtyards and squares, but steps and tunnels led below buildings, entering those unknown areas beneath foundations where walls far older than the city still stood and the languages written on the walls were long forgotten. There were caves and catacombs even deeper, home to dropouts and the dregs of society: fodder, fledge miners driven mad with the fledge rage, Bajuman and criminals. These stretched the length and breadth of Noreela City and perhaps farther, with entrances hidden in the basements of taverns, houses and tumbled temples to ancient gods. Many knew of these places, but few talked about them openly. Some said that there were creatures guarding the entrances, monstrous hybrids of wolf and snake that could move through narrow spaces, yet take off a man’s head with one bite.

When the Krotes found these entrances, they closed them forever. But not before guiding a few of the reanimated dead inside first.

WHEN LENORA FOUND herself at the city’s southern gates there were hundreds of Krotes already out on the plain, resting under the light of the moons. Their machines steamed and clicked where they cooled in the long grass. She passed through the remains of the gates and welcomed the sudden cool breeze flowing in from the west. The smoke was stinging her eyes and the constant stench of blood was making her queasy. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, and when she opened them again there was a little girl watching her from a hundred steps away.

The girl stood still. She was wearing a white dress stained with a spray of blood across one shoulder. She stared, her hands fisted at her sides, her blond hair hanging in loose braids at either side of her face. From this distance Lenora could not see her eyes, but there was no smile. There wasnothing. The girl stared as though she could not even see the burning city. “That’s not you,” Lenora whispered.

She rode on, lowered her machine to the ground and dismounted. She closed her eyes. Not you, she thought. You’re not here. When she looked again the little girl was still there, and still not the thing haunting Lenora.

The old warrior looked around. To her left a Krote sat beside his machine, rubbing his hands with a scrap of cloth. He was breathing so hard that she heard it above the burning city. However hard he rubbed, the blood remained. Farther away, two more Krotes were standing before each other, not talking. One looked down at his feet, one stared up into the strange sky, both of them lost for anything to say.

Breaking through these stunned silences were the victorious calls and cheers of other warriors. Some rode across the fields on their blooded machines, others dismounted and shared stories of the slaughter. But it was the silent Krotes that troubled Lenora the most because she knew that, like her, they were looking inward.

A sudden queasiness hit her, bending her double as her stomach clenched and vomit exploded from her mouth. She spat, vomited some more, wiping away the mess and feeling it burning on her skin. There was blood in there, and perhaps some of it was her own.

And then something else arrived.

They’re here! Lenora thought. And as she stood and wiped her mouth, the death moon was obscured as the Mages flew in.

Tim Lebbon

Dawn

THE MOL’STERIA DESERT began surprisingly quickly: one moment there was more grass and heather beneath their feet than sand; the next, the only plants they saw ahead were occasional sproutings, like hairs growing from boils on an old man’s face. The Red Monk walked ahead, stomping through sand and hardly seeming to notice the change.

But Kosar did notice. He had been smelling hints of the Shantasi spice farms for several hours now, and it seemed that walking on sand opened the desert to his senses. Heat hushed over him, still radiating from the deep sands even though the sun had been gone for more days than he could count. The sound of their footsteps was dampened, and the Monk looked like a red wraith floating ahead of him. Moonlight turned the ground gray. Kosar had never been to the desert, and the sense of danger was palpable. It was a place of unknown things that hid from sight behind the dunes or buried beneath the surface. Any of these things could be dangerous. All of them could be, and Kosar walked with one hand resting on the hilt of his sword. Not that I could do much, he thought. If something like that sand demon rose against us, it would be down to the Monk to protect me. He was tired, exhaustion wearing down on him and weakening his legs. He thought he had at least one cracked rib, a heavily bruised nose and cheekbone and a stab wound in his back that refused to stop bleeding. He chewed more of the paste Lucien had made for him, but the pain was tenacious. It found its way through the drugs.

The sand produced a strange heat. He could feel the warmth rising up from the ground and touching the sweat on his skin, turning him cold. But he could also feel the intense chill of the clear dark sky, threatening to suck heat from his body and leave him cold and dead. It would not take long for his corpse to be covered by the shifting sands. He wondered how many other luckless travelers lay dead beneath his feet, and he started watching the ground before him for protruding bones or mummified skin.

They walked from loose sand to hard, a compacted surface that was cracked from lack of moisture. Thin, spiky plants grew from these cracks, their pale roots exploring across the surface of the ground as well as below. In some of these roots Kosar spotted the skeletons of small rodents, wrapped tight. He wondered whether there were larger versions of these plants out there somewhere.

Lucien Malini kept a steady pace that Kosar knew he would not be able to maintain forever. He was thirsty and hungry, weak and tired, and he had no wish to die in the desert. A’Meer may have once walked these sands, and he did not want to melt away beneath her memory.

The Monk stopped. There was something to its left-a large, bulky shadow that seemed to be moving slightly, tipping from left to right. Kosar closed his eyes and opened them again, making sure it was not simply his heartbeat shuddering his vision with every thump.

Lucien turned and stared back at him.

Perhaps this is it, Kosar thought. A sand demon ten times bigger than the last, and the Monk knows it’s all over.

“You don’t look like you can walk much farther,” Lucien said. He spoke quietly but his voice carried, unhindered by echoes.

Kosar shook his head, panting.

The Monk motioned him forward and pointed at the shadow with his sword. “We have transport,” he said.

Kosar walked to the Monk. This thing killed A’Meer, he thought. He needed to remind himself of that from time to time.

Standing beside Lucien, he looked at the shape that sat a dozen steps from them. It was large, low to the ground, dark gray and still shifting from left to right. There were protuberances on both sides that appeared to be legs, and it seemed that its head was beneath the sand.

“What is it?” Kosar asked.

“I’m not sure of its name,” Lucien said, “but I know it can get us where we need to go faster than walking. Especially with you like that.” One nod at Kosar encompassed the thief ’s entire range of injuries and weaknesses.

“You made me like this,” Kosar said.

“No, I saved you. The Breakers would have killed you in the end.”

“So you killed their children as well?”

Lucien stared at him, his Monk’s eyes dark pits in the scarred ruin of his face. “Breaker children are dangerous too,” he said. “Just one of them would have bettered you in a fight.”