“And what do you believe, Drun?” said Wen, eyes watching the priest shrewdly.

“I believe we all return to the sun. Perhaps it is different for every man.”

“Maybe so. I have seen the dead though, but I have yet to see paradise or peace.”

Drun nodded, and turned his eyes to the distant peaks. “Pray that you don’t tomorrow. We need you still.”

“My altar is my sword. Does that bother you?”

“As you say, every man has their own beliefs.”

All the warriors had risen now, and donned their armour and taken up their packs and weapons. Ice Walker approached them, with another beast who had introduced itself (like the rahkens, the younger warriors had no gender) as Roamer, and spoke with swift hands.

“Time to go. They want to be in the mountains by nightfall. It will be a long day.”

“I don’t know. When you reach our age,” said Wen, “days somehow seem too short.”

Drun, feeling the pain in his gut take hold again, paled but held himself straight. He could only agree.

Klan arrived at the coast with little fanfare.

The void had been more disconcerting than usual, the haunted voices that drifted to his ears through the darkness somehow tortured, and he sensed in them rising fear. He did not know why. Perhaps, he thought to himself, it was because of his increasing power. It was unknown, and troubling, but he concerned himself with it no more. The space between worlds would forever be a mystery, and he was no student to waste time studying the phenomena of the disembodied voices. Leave that to others. He had more pressing worries.

The Sard had arrived. It was an unknown quantity that affected his goal directly.

The air by the coast was brisk, invigorating. He did not have the time to take pleasure in its cold caress. Around him, at the cove, were signs of battle, a scene of death frozen for all time, or at least until the return. Then things would warm up enough to thaw even the frozen wastes. The dead that littered the cove would fester and split open, decomposition finally destroying the tableau of carnage that greeted his arrival.

He stalked the beach, looking carefully at the frozen bodies. A sword thrust, he saw, brushing snow from the chest of one of his soldiers. Clean through, he noted, turning the body with some effort. An incantor, throat slashed. Another clean cut. The story was the same no matter where he looked. Too few bodies. Some must have been washed out to sea. But not since death. Almost immediately they would have been frozen. His enemy had landed, and somehow overcome his casters. There were only two ways to overcome his casters — with stronger magic, or a well aimed arrow. None of the dead sported arrows. He could only imagine that it was the Sard wizard.

Together, with Shorn, and their mysterious companion, they had slaughtered all his warriors. Powerful adversaries indeed.

He was not annoyed. He was piqued. The loss of more of his elite bothered him, as did the power that the Sard obviously wielded. The warriors, Shorn, famed as he was, worried him. Somehow, although he was merely a man with sword, he continued to elude his grasp. His ally, though, the Sard…he was something to be reckoned with.

Klan knew all about human power. For centuries, the Protectorate had tried to stamp it out. But like a roach, it survived, against all odds. Sometimes he wondered. Was it more powerful, more dangerous, than the arts his own kind used? Were the legends true?

He kicked a body with mild manners, and opened the portal.

They were coming to him. All he had to do was prove ready. There was no more time, or need, for subtly.

It had been the hardest week of Tirielle’s long flight to date. The wildlife shunned the forest between Beheth and Arram, as if sensing the darkness to the north.

Tirielle had wondered many times if it was some enchanted laid down for an age by the Protectorate, magic lasting from the dawn of time, stilling the forest so that they could hear the whisper of any approach through the silence.

Food had been scarce, a forage woefully sparse. She had lost weight, she knew, and felt hunger gnawing at her insides most days. Now the end was in sight. They had ridden as hard as they could to reach this point. Hiding out, in a hollow a mile from Arram, hiding under the noses of the very hunters that sought them.

All they had to do was top the rise, and shout ‘here we are!’ and the mighty warriors of the Protectorate would be upon then.

Sometimes Tirielle longed to do just that. To end it all. She was tired, so tired, of the battles never fought, the war waged in hiding and silence, ducking, avoiding confrontation, sneaking through the back door. She wished it was all over. It was such a long road to travel. But when she felt despair welling from the black places in her mind she quelled the thoughts as best she could, with comfort from her friends, kind words from Roth, and memories of her father. It was her father who had taught her to be strong, to understand the tricks a mind could play on the unwary. Her father, who had made the ultimate sacrifice in the fight for freedom, the fight for justice, in a town far to the north. They had suffered more than most at the hands of the Protectorate. What had he done, though, in the end? He had saved the town, but the Protectorate had covered up, and without his strong voice against them, there was no one left to stand for the abused, to fight for justice for the meek.

She missed him daily, but never more so than when she felt despair, for she knew that even as a memory he was trying to raise her spirits, telling her to remember what made her human. It was the difference between humans and the Protectorate — compassion. The drive to do what was right, to fight against the fear and stand true, stand tall, in the face of oppression, despite of terror and human frailty. She understood her weakness.

In the face of her fear, and her tiredness, she consoled herself that she was human. She gave thanks that she could feel such emotions, that she could feel love, and anger, and hate. Her emotions ranged wide and free, and that set her apart from them. She had her father to thank for his wisdom, for the power to fight her own innate weaknesses and the drive to overcome them.

But it was so hard sometimes. Now, despite her fear, she knew she must enter Arram, not as a councillor, without title, just a sneak thief hiding in the dark places where the enemy dwelt.

Disper crawled back to the hollow, somehow managing to keep his cloak clean through the dirt. Tirielle started at his sudden appearance.

He gave her a quick smile, and turned to the Seer.

“I cannot see it, Sia. Are you sure it is there?”

“It is. I can see it in my mind. A small culvert, leading underground. It is there.”

Tirielle’s horse snickered. She placed a calming hand on the mare’s flank. Another friend to leave behind. She supposed, after losing Unthor, she could bear the lose of another horse. Horses, after all, were not people.

No Protocrat would imagine that they would have headed for Arram. The Protectorate in their hubris would think it insane that any human could gain entrance to their stronghold. But the Seer had seen the way. In her eyes, the future was solid, a thing of startling clarity. She had seen much, but told little. Tirielle watched her companion as she tried to give the Sard more accurate description of where the forgotten entrance was. That she could see the future she could believe. That the Seer could be mature enough to know how much, or how little, to tell them…that was remarkable. She was but a girl.

“I will move closer,” he said out loud in response to the Seer’s suggestion.

“Might I suggest, Disper, that you remove your cloak to do so? You shine like the sun.”