Tim Lebbon - Dawn

“Let him speak,” Kosar said. “His cause is our cause right now, you know that.”

“He killed A’Meer,” O’Gan said. That was cruel. He held Kosar’s gaze.

“He killed her when our causes were conflicting,” Kosar said.

“You trust the Monk?”

“No, but I trust in his obsession. And he’s never told me a lie.”

O’Gan steered his creature away for a while, conversing with several running Shantasi in their clear, clipped language. Then he moved back alongside their mount. “So tell us,” he said, looking ahead.

“I know only of where the Womb is supposed to be: in the southern reaches of Kang Kang, but close to this end. North of there is where the Krote army will try to enter, if they know of the girl by now, that is. If not-if their cause is still the destruction of New Shanti-then we’re going the wrong way.”

Kosar turned and searched for a glimmer of humor in the Monk’s face. He found none.

“We have our scouts,” O’Gan said. “We’ll know soon enough.”

More Shantasi veered away and headed north. “So what are they harvesting?” Kosar asked again.

O’Gan rode ahead and called over his shoulder, “I told you: weapons.”

LATER, WHEN THE first hills of Kang Kang appeared in the gloom to the south, they paused for a rest. Kosar and Lucien sat beside their ride, watching the Shantasi slumping to the ground, glugging water, chewing on dried meats and panting at the cool air. Some of them steamed. No fires were lit and no camps were set, because they all knew that they would be moving on again soon. A few glanced at Kosar and the Monk, but they looked away quickly. Most of the warriors seemed absorbed in their own thoughts.

So like A’Meer, Kosar thought. He was watching a female warrior, taller than A’Meer had been but possessing the same long hair and sharp features. She checked her weapons while she ate; drew her sword, pricked her finger and resheathed it. She was unaware of Kosar’s observation and he felt like an intruder, but there was something about the unconscious grace of her movements that gave him comfort. She was confident and assured, at ease with her weapons and unquestioning of the task they had been set. Kosar looked down at his hands and gave the warrior her brief privacy.

O’Gan came to them, flanked by several Shantasi, who glared at Lucien with barely disguised hatred. Have they come to kill him? Kosar thought, and he was surprised at the panic he felt.

O’Gan knelt beside Kosar. “How do you feel?” he asked.

Kosar shrugged, trying not to wince at the pains from across his body. “Fine,” he said. “Never better.”

“Good. I want you and the Monk to go south with a complement of Shantasi into Kang Kang. We’re splitting in two: two thousand will remain here, awaiting the word of scouts and ready to move wherever necessary to ambush the Krotes. The other two thousand will go into the foothills, spread out and hide. If they get through us, they’ll have another surprise awaiting them when they enter the mountains.”

“How do you know we’re at the right place?”

“I don’t,” O’Gan said. “But the going ahead is tough. A scout returned and said that twenty miles from here, the land has been stripped bare as far as she could see. Down to the bedrock. Not an easy route for whatever machines the Krotes may have.”

Kosar nodded. “You’re staying here?”

“I will lead the First Army. I assumed you and the Monk would want to accompany the Second. And if he…” O’Gan looked at Lucien and started speaking to him. “If you really know the location of the Womb, it would be best for you to be with the Second Army.” The Mystic shook his head and looked down at the ground. “Who knows what may happen if they break through to Kang Kang? There are so many factors unknown: we don’t know where the girl is, whether she’s still alive, whether she and the witch even know where the Womb is. We know so little.”

One of his commanders spoke in Shantasi, and O’Gan looked up again. “He’s asking whether you can fight.”

Kosar nodded. “I’ve learned a lot.”

“Good. Well…” He raised one corner of his mouth in a sad smile.

“Thank you for believing me,” Kosar said. “It doesn’t feel quite so hopeless.”

“You’re a liar,” O’Gan said, but his voice was light. He looked up at the darkened sky, then north toward where the Krotes might soon emerge from the night. “I never thought it would come to this,” he said. “The bulk of the Shantasi fleeing. We were always the strong ones. If only we’d stayed together…if the Elders had faced their fears…” He looked away, shook his head, perhaps embarrassed at saying so much in front of this stranger. Then he looked directly at Kosar, and fear and doubt were obvious in his eyes. “We have absolutely no idea what we’re about to face,” he said quietly.

“You have your ways and means.”

O’Gan nodded. “We do. You’re right. And you’ll see more of them soon. Good luck, Kosar.”

Kosar nodded. O’Gan stood and walked away without looking back, and Kosar sensed that the Monk was about to speak.

“Silence,” the thief said. “Can’t you hear that silence? It means the land is dying, but for now it’s just…peaceful.”

A few minutes later the order came to rise, and the Shantasi army split in two.

SOUTH OF MARETON, Lenora sent scouts ahead of the Krote army. Several flew, several rode their machines hard across the landscape, and she told them to return upon first sighting of any Shantasi.

She was happy to admit her nervousness to Ducianne. The Mol’Steria Desert was to their left, a looming presence that wafted the scent of spice and the feel of great wilderness, and out there might be the Shantasi. Angel had dismissed them as pale-faced freaks, but Lenora knew that they were true fighters, and the most likely to offer any real resistance against the Krotes. But with her nervousness came a sense of keen anticipation. A real fight, she thought. Not just a slaughter. Something worthy of what we’ve trained for.

Don’t forget me, a voice reminded her. But Lenora shook it off, saying, Of course I can’t forget you.

In the midst of the Krote army rolled the great constructs that transported the dead from Noreela City. Their bodies had started to stink already, yet still they moved and squirmed, eager to fulfill the unnatural killing desires that had been instilled in them.

After a day’s fast travel, the desert smells began to fade, and Kang Kang loomed like a massive hollowness ahead of them. This was when the first and last of the scouts returned. His machine limped on three legs; where the fourth had been was a gaping hole, dribbling foul innards that could have been blood or molten rock. The Krote upon its back was spiky with arrows, and his head was missing a great slab of scalp and flesh, exposing his skull to the cold.

“Shantasi…and…” he said as Lenora rode to him, and then he died and fell across the machine’s back.

Ducianne appeared at Lenora’s side. “Must have been a good fight,” she said, glaring at the dead Krote.

“He’s the only one to return. The flyers would have been here before him if they were coming back. But the Shantasi made an error letting him escape; they’ve lost their surprise. Whatever ambush they plan, we can be ready.”

“They have something that can kill our flyers?” Ducianne asked.

“We can never think of ourselves as unbeatable.”

“I do!” Ducianne laughed, then looked at the dead scout again. “So, we ride straight in?”

“No. Hold position here. Three hours, that should be long enough.”

“The flyers?”

Lenora called the flyers’ captain through the voice box, and they brought their machines down to land in a semicircle before Lenora. There were about thirty flying machines in all, some with wings, others with hollow appendages that gushed flame and gas when they were airborne. They clicked and creaked as their Krote masters awaited Lenora’s orders.