A Day of Fallen Night (The Roots of Chaos)

For a time, Tunuva slept as if she lay beneath the waves. When she opened her eyes, Esbar lounged beside her in the bed, stroking her hair. Her smile was a sunrise. Tunuva reached for her with a sigh of relief. Esbar had come after her, because she loved her, and she loved Siyu.

As their lips met, Tunuva tensed. Somewhere, bees were humming. They swarmed from Esbar, from her throat, deep into Tunuva. She woke with a gasp, chest heaving, cold all over.

‘Tuva?’

Canthe raised her head. The fire had almost died, leaving the shadows to swallow the room.

‘It’s all right,’ Tunuva said. ‘Just a dream.’

She sat up and drew her bare knees to her chest. ‘Do you want to share it?’ Canthe asked, turning on to her side.

Tunuva let her cheekbone rest against the wall. Speaking of it felt like betraying Esbar, but she wanted it out of her head, in the light. ‘I have been having nightmares about Esbar.’

‘What happens in these nightmares?’

‘She hurts me.’ Tunuva kneaded her forehead. ‘I don’t know why I would imagine such things. She has given me no cause to fear or mistrust her. It . . . troubles me.’

‘I knew a snowseer once. A wise woman of Hróth,’ Canthe said. ‘She told me dreams are the truths we bury.’

‘Ez would never harm me.’

‘Not intentionally. But she has to put duty first.’

‘Our love for the Mother comes above all.’

‘Some loves must come very close.’ Canthe knelt by the fire and slid wood from the alcove beneath. ‘I know the sisters of the Priory believe no one should cleave too close to their own flesh. That must have been hard to remember, when you lost your son to the Lasian Basin.’

Tunuva closed her eyes. She felt the cold mud of the hollow again, the rain on her skin. The smell of clay. Leave me, she had whispered, while Ninuru lay down beside her. Let me die.

Ichneumons do not let little sisters die.

‘You must have learned a great deal about siden,’ Tunuva said, wanting to change the subject. ‘Do you know why the Womb of Fire made a beast like the Nameless One, yet also lights the orange tree?’

Canthe sat back.

‘Siden trees – and mages – are the only natural outlet for the magic in the Womb of Fire. We let it wick away enough to stop itself burning too hot,’ she said. ‘The Nameless One was a miscreation. An affront to nature, made when that magic rose too quickly.’

‘Then we are not like him, we mages.’

‘No. We take only what siden is offered.’ Canthe drew her fingers through her damp waves of hair. ‘Tunuva, what will you do if Siyu doesn’t want to return to the Priory?’

Tunuva looked away. ‘She is still a child,’ she murmured. ‘I can’t leave her alone in the world.’

‘We will find her,’ Canthe said. ‘I promise.’

Tunuva wished she could believe it. Canthe made it sound like truth.

****

At dawn, she woke to find Canthe already dressed in leather sandals and a gown of sunset silk, combing her hair. ‘Good morning, Tuva,’ she said. ‘I have new garments for you, so we might blend in.’

‘Thank you.’ Tunuva rolled the stiffness from her shoulders. ‘You went to the merchants so early?’

‘After you fell asleep. There is a night market here.’

‘Do you speak Carmenti?’

‘Yes, but most people here speak the Taano dialect of Lasian.’

Tunuva dressed in a tunic of pleated linen, with light trousers beneath, and tied on her armguards. Instead of taking the sandals, she pulled her dusty boots back on, and her riding coat, to hide her spear. Finally, she picked up a length of what she thought, at first, was soft brown wool – except that when she held it to the light, it turned to spun gold in her hands.

‘Sea wool.’ Canthe set her comb aside. ‘I thought it would suit you.’

‘Canthe, I can’t accept this. Sea wool costs—’

‘It’s cheaper on the coast, and I’ve saved coin. What point is there in wealth if one can never share it?’ Canthe asked. ‘You’ve been kind to me, Tuva. Kinder than anyone has been in a long time.’ She smiled a little. ‘You know, in my day, it was an insult to refuse a gift.’

Tunuva relented with a smile of her own. ‘Thank you.’

The wrap appeared delicate, yet as she drew it around her shoulders, she could feel how well it would warm her when night fell. She would give it to Siyu, when they found her. Siyu had always loved beautiful things.

‘Before we leave, I want to show you something.’ Canthe went to the balcony door. ‘This inn is called the End of Edin. Do you know it’s the most expensive in the city?’

Tunuva canted an eyebrow. The night had been comfortable and quiet, but she had seen far grander establishments across Carmentum. As if reading her mind, Canthe beckoned.

‘Trust me.’

She kept her hand out. When Tunuva stepped on to the balcony to join her, all the breath left her chest.

Daybreak had cast a blush across the desert. From this high on the Lonely Hill, they could see over the city wall, to a sea devoid of water – a sea of purple wildflowers. They bloomed around a monumental arch of pale and weathered rock, which swept as wide as a small mountain.

Like a desert rose, it had been cut and windblown into being, a thousand feet in height or more. Beyond it, the land broadened into salt flats, pure white as far as the eye could see.

‘Ungulus,’ Tunuva breathed. ‘And the Eria.’ She held the balustrade. ‘I never thought to see it.’

‘I doubt that there is any grander sight in all the world.’

Tunuva stared at it until her eyes hurt. The endless salts the Joyful Few had somehow conquered. She could not imagine the fear Suttu the Dreamer must have felt, facing such a journey.

‘Come,’ Canthe said. ‘Let’s find Siyu.’

****

The air was still a chilly haze at this hour of the day. They descended the steps, into the morning bustle of the city, where people waited at the wells and a mirror temple was opening its doors. As she and Canthe walked north, Tunuva tried to catch a glimpse of every face, but soon found it impossible. Already there were thousands of Carmenti on the streets.

‘We’ll start with the bakers’ guild,’ Canthe told her over the din. ‘It isn’t far.’

It had a domed roof and two windcatchers. Tunuva waited outside, grateful Canthe had come. Every sister could track, but Tunuva had always been inclined towards introspection and stillness, calmest in forest and mountains. Cities overwhelmed her senses.

Esbar had never had that trouble. Apparently, neither did Canthe, who seemed perfectly comfortable. When she returned, she said, ‘None of their bakers have a son named Anyso. Plenty of Carmenti bake without joining, but guild bakers sell from one street, which would have made things easier. We’ll have to try there, and see if anyone happens to know of a family in the trade who lost a son. I’m certain that news would have spread.’

An inviting scent heralded the street. Here, bakers made every sort of bread, spading hot loaves from stone ovens and griddles while the Carmenti lined up to break their fast. Canthe spoke first to a muscular man, who shook his head at her description.

Tunuva tried not to give in to her fear that this was a lost cause. Carmentum had a population in the hundreds of thousands, and they were trying to pinpoint just one family. They had walked almost the whole length of the street before something made Canthe stop.

She spoke to a baker who wore an antique Libir necklace, her curls piled up and held in place with a wide band of cloth. The woman spoke to Canthe in Carmenti, her expression strained.

‘I have their names,’ Canthe said to Tunuva. ‘His parents are called Meryet and Pabel, and they have a bakehouse in the stonecutters’ district. It’s across the Jungo, near the harbour.’

‘You’re certain it’s them?’

‘They have three children, including a son named Anyso, who disappeared in Lasia last year.’

‘Take me there.’

The Jungo ran shallow and green, a braided river thirsting for the rains that seldom fell on this city. They took an arched white bridge and walked in the direction of the port. Canthe paused every so often to ask questions, and they were pointed to the bakehouse.

The right street was shaded by its own buildings. Outside the bakehouse, a girl with brown hair was hunched a bench, a familiar baby nestled into her embrace. Tunuva stopped, heart in her middle.

‘Excuse us,’ Canthe said in Lasian. The girl startled. ‘Do you know a baker named Meryet, or Pabel?’

‘Yes. I’m their daughter,’ the girl said. ‘Did they send you?’

Tunuva and Canthe exchanged a look.

‘Hazen, is it?’ Canthe said, sitting beside the girl, who answered with a small nod. ‘We didn’t come from your parents, but to ask after someone who may have approached your family for shelter. Her name is Siyu.’

Hazen peeked up at them with dark, bloodshot eyes. She looked about thirteen. ‘Who are you to Siyu?’

‘I’m her aunt,’ Tunuva said. ‘This is my friend.’

‘She was staying with us.’

‘We’ve been so worried about her,’ Canthe said. ‘May I ask why she came to you?’

‘My brother, Anyso – he disappeared up north in Dimabu. We waited and looked for as long as we could, but we ran out of money. Siyu wanted to tell us what happened to him.’

‘What did happen?’

Hazen swallowed. ‘Our parents always warned him not to go into the Basin, but he wanted to explore. He got lost for weeks, and came out on the other side, in the village where Siyu lived,’ she said. ‘She helped him get better. All that time we thought he was dead, he was staying with her. He did try to get back to us, but a snake bit him on the way. A poison snake.’

Tunuva felt as if she were still in a nightmare. Never had the Priory been so entangled with outsiders.

‘Siyu asked to stay with us. She said I was an aunt,’ Hazen said, looking down at Lukiri. ‘We gave her my brother’s old bed.’

‘Where is Siyu now?’ Tunuva asked gently.

‘We had nowhere for her ichneumon. Siyu found a place for it to sleep under the docks, but you can’t keep that big a secret here. The Master of Beasts must have got word. He catches animals, makes them fight. When his hunters came, Siyu fought them with a spear, but there were so many. My parents tried to help. The hunters took them away.’

Tunuva tensed. ‘Siyu, too?’

‘I heard them say she’d go to the Liongarden. I don’t know where they put my parents.’

‘Hazen, did the hunters see you or your sister?’ Tunuva asked. The girl shook her head, tears in her eyes. ‘All right. Stay here. When we have Siyu and Lalhar, we’ll come back and take you somewhere safe. Do you have any other family in the city?’

‘Our uncle.’ Hazen looked at her. ‘How long will you be?’

‘We’ll come back as soon as we can.’ Tunuva held out her arms. ‘Let me take Lukiri.’

Hazen handed her the baby. Lukiri peered at Tunuva and smiled, reaching a hand for her face. ‘Hello, little sunray.’ Tunuva gave her a gentle kiss. ‘It’s all right. You’re safe.’

****

‘The Liongarden was a pastime of Gulthaga,’ Canthe called as they crossed a market square. ‘They would pitch warriors against wolves and bears and other beasts, either for glory or punishment. Inys and Yscalin had such places, too – I hear the Malkin Queen enjoyed a baiting.’

Tunuva followed, Lukiri tied to her with the shawl. ‘The Carmenti tolerate a violent thief in their midst?’

‘The Master of Beasts claims he buys legally, but the hunters are all in his pocket. I should have thought of it myself.’ Canthe skirted a cart of dyed silks. ‘You’ll really go back for the girls?’

‘Yes.’

Saghul would have counselled her against further involvement, but she could hardly abandon two children. Helping them was the least she could do, to make up for it all. She would find their parents or take them to their uncle, and that would be the end of it.

Please, let that be the end of it.

Her first sight of the Liongarden stopped her in her tracks, making Lukiri blink. Carved of liverish sandstone, at least a hundred feet tall, the hulk of a building stood out like a snapped bone among the small Carmenti houses, carved with bestial reliefs. This must be some attempt to resurrect the stonework of Gulthaga, along with its bloody traditions. Canthe led her away from the entrance, where people showed tokens to enter.

‘We won’t get through there. Each token is numbered.’

They followed the curve of the outer wall and stole down a set of steps to the undercroft. Tunuva lit the way, revealing a heavy door. Reaching into that deep place, she turned her flame red and curled her hand around the padlock. The iron melted to the floor, leaving her fingers unscathed.

She hefted the door open. Beyond stretched a barrel-vaulted chamber, where daylight shone through grates in the ceiling and beasts were locked in cells. An olyphant, staring out with sad, flyblown eyes. A desert lion. A grimy white bear, far too thin, with a cub.

At the end of the chamber, several cages were empty, the doors left open. Tunuva picked a tuft of brown moult from the last one.

‘Lalhar.’

‘The fight must have begun,’ Canthe said. As if to confirm it, cheers went up somewhere above. ‘We must hurry.’

‘You’re no fighter. Stay with Lukiri.’

Canthe nodded. Tunuva passed her both the baby and the shawl, then ran up a slope, back into the midday heat.

Inside the Liongarden, a great awning shaded tiers of stone benches, which held thousands of people. On the sand below, Lalhar swept her tail. Blood matted her fur, and her flesh was badly torn in several places, bite marks on her flank.

Three lean wildcats circled the ichneumon. A fourth lay dead, and the survivors all bore wounds, but they kept prowling, not seeming to mind a whit that Lalhar was larger by a head and shoulders. A familiar young woman stood with the ichneumon, spear in hand, poised to strike.

With her sharp hearing, Tunuva caught a bored voice, speaking Lasian with an accent: ‘Time to give up, young tamer. Spirited though you are, you will not survive much longer against my cats.’

She could see him now: the sallow, bearded man seated on a balcony. A red cloak was draped over one shoulder, a shade darker than his hair, and his polished gold coronet was fashioned like a serpent eating its own tail. A servant held a small canopy over him.

Siyu was trembling. ‘Not without my ichneumon.’ Her voice shook. ‘Let us go, and I will not kill you next.’

‘My ichneumon. I paid its weight in gold,’ the Master of Beasts said, silken. ‘Can you pay me that much?’

Siyu spun her spear around herself before driving its tip towards him with a shout of defiance, and despite the fear, despite her frustration with Siyu, Tunuva felt a hot surge of pride.

It faded when one of the wildcats charged. Tunuva nocked an arrow, drew and loosed, movements her muscles knew by rote, and it thrashed to the ground, roaring in pain and fury.

Siyu whipped around. Claw marks striped her chest and arms, leaking blood, and her shoulder had been mangled.

‘Tuva?’ she cried.

Excited shouts. Tunuva ran forward, snapped her folding spear to its full length, and threw with all her might. It struck a second wildcat through the hind leg – a bad enough wound to lame it, not kill. She wrenched the spear free and rolled, just in time to stop the smallest of the three predators from tearing into her.

Reeking breath gusted on her face as the wildcat gnashed at her across the haft of the spear, and huge paws wrestled with her shoulders, claws ripping deep into her arms. Blood flecked its whiskers. On any other day, Tunuva would have admired the creature.

As it happened, she was having a bad day. She dropped her shoulder and threw the beast over her back, while Siyu fought the other. Cheers and applause came bursting from the spectators. The wildcat let out a deafening snarl.

‘Peace, now, queen,’ Tunuva said softly. ‘Let us be friends.’

The wildcat bared long yellow teeth at her. She was thin from hunger, wounded and baited. Tunuva held her amber gaze, circled with white fur, and knew she would try again.

She hunched low, hackles raised, growling from deep in her throat. When she swiped with a massive paw, Tunuva thrust with the spear, warding her off.

‘Enough,’ she snapped at the Master of Beasts. ‘Your hunters stole this ichneumon.’

‘I will not accept slander, warrior. I purchased the beast in good faith. These people have gathered to watch it fight.’ He drummed his long fingers on the arms of his seat. ‘If neither of you can compensate me for what I paid for this rare beast, then—’

‘I will pay.’

Tunuva turned. Canthe was walking across the blood and dust, skirts fanning in her wake, Lukiri still in her arms. Taking advantage of the distraction, Siyu edged closer to Tunuva.

The Master of Beasts elevated a pierced eyebrow. To him, Canthe must look like a Carmenti noblewoman, in her yellow sand-washed silks and fine jewellery. ‘And who are you?’

‘Someone who has what you seek,’ Canthe said. The wildcats retreated from her, snarling. ‘But my suspicion is that you do not need gold, Master of Beasts. You crave the riches and glory this sacred animal can bring you for months, and then you want her bone.’

‘It is mine to do with as I please. Still, I will accept no stains on my reputation.’ The Master of Beasts leaned out from his balcony. ‘Let me make you an offer that satisfies us all.’

They never did find out what he was going to offer.

Tunuva heard them first – the screams. A hush fell on the stands. The wave of unrest built and rumbled like thunder, tens of thousands of terrified cries.

The Master of Beasts rose. Before him, the Liongarden was still, save the tense rustle of voices in the stands, sounding for all the world like bees.

Suddenly the canopy above was torn in two. Darkness blocked the sunlight – and then something landed on the sand, making the ground tremble. Tunuva Melim could only stare, for here was the thing she was born to destroy, dropped from the desert sky.

Time seemed to slow in that first moment, as she took in as much detail as she could. Her bones had known it was coming, but seeing it was another matter. It had the shape of the Nameless One, horned and with spines on its back – except that its hide was brindled, the scales like burnt wood, and its front limbs were one and the same as its wings.

A wyrm.

Its searing gaze went to the Master of Beasts, isolated on his balcony. He stood bloodless and stiff, the grey in his eyes almost swallowed by white. The creature reared on to its muscular legs and spread its wings wide.

When it roared, the wildcats joined it, backs arched, ears flattened. The Master of Beasts had no time for last words before its throat glowed like a coal, and fire came hurtling from its mouth.

Siyu gasped. So did the spectators – those who could. The blaze cooked the Master of Beasts like a steak before it swept across the stands, setting hair and clothes aflame. Now more wings sliced overhead, and the sky was twisting and writhing with monsters. Tunuva took Siyu by the hand and pulled her towards the underground chamber.

‘Lalhar, Canthe,’ she shouted, ‘to me!’

The wounded ichneumon shadowed them, sporting a limp. ‘Tuva, the girls,’ Siyu cried. ‘We have to get the girls—’

‘I know.’

Tunuva towed her through the tunnel of animals, breaking cages open as she went. ‘Go, now, king of beasts,’ she urged the desert lion. ‘No one brings you to your knees.’

Growling, the lion stood.

Siyu ran up the steps ahead of her. They emerged into beating sunlight and turmoil – Carmentum, stripped of order, harrowed by wyrms. Talons snatched at people and livestock, lifting them from the paving stones. Long tails smashed into houses. Red fire exploded across every street, feasting on both the quick and the dead, setting the trees aflame.

The Priory had never anticipated this. For five centuries, its warriors had waited for the Nameless One, knowing they stood ready to defeat him – one wyrm, never hundreds.

No story had warned of that.

The wildcats ran past, along with a pack of painted hounds, barking in a frenzy. Spear in hand, Tunuva followed Siyu. Instinct told her to stop and fight to the death, but this was not a battle she could win. Better that she survived, to warn Esbar.

She caught the waft of brimstone. Turning, she tightened her hands on the spear. A creature was lumbering up the next street.

It had clearly been a lioness once. Some nightmarish force had bloated it – stretched out the spine, the claws, the neck. Its head was set too high, swaying as a hooded serpent did before a strike. She remembered the ox, the tormented ox that had hatched in the Priory.

This beast fixed its soulless gaze on her, teeth skinned and smeared with gore. She ran straight towards the creature, slewing her body straight between its legs. Behind her, Siyu sliced at its flank, while Canthe hurried past its other side, protecting Lukiri.

They found the little street crumbled, and a winged beast dying on its shattered roofs, brought down with a harpoon. ‘No,’ Siyu cried. She dropped her spear. ‘Dalla, Hazen—’

She started to grab desperately at the rubble. ‘Siyu.’ Tunuva restrained her. ‘Siyu, it’s too late.’

‘I have to look!’

‘Listen to me. They might have got out and gone to their uncle. I hope so. If not, they are dead.’ Tunuva grasped her elbows. ‘I have to leave now, to warn the Priory. Come with me.’

Siyu stared back at her, her eyes full. ‘Did you kill him, Tuva?’

‘No, sunray. Saghul ordered it. I’m sorry.’ Tunuva looked her in the eyes. ‘Please, Siyu. Don’t run from who you are.’

Lukiri choked on the smoke and ash as she cried. Trembling, Siyu watched Canthe shush her.

‘The Mother needs her warriors,’ Tunuva told her. ‘We are the only ones who might be able to stop this.’

‘Esbar won’t forgive me.’

‘Esbar is Prioress. She must.’

‘Siyu,’ Canthe said, ‘you have a home. The sort of home I have walked the world to find.’ Lukiri clutched her dress, whimpering. ‘Don’t throw it away. Don’t choose to live as I have.’

Siyu swallowed, her mouth tightening. A tear washed a line of dust from her cheek.

‘I’ll come.’

Tunuva nodded. She took Siyu by the hand again, and this time, Siyu gripped hers tight.

They wove through narrow alleys and emerged near the harbour, where all was uproar. Frantic people swamped the boats or thrashed into the shallows. As Canthe led the group along the beach, a surge of screaming made Tunuva stop. Through a smog of smoke and dust and ash, she saw another monstrous form, soaring from the Halassa Sea.

This time, she chose a barbed arrow. She held the draw until the beast was close enough for her to count the spines on its back. This had never been anything but a wyrm, she was sure – no trace of ox or lioness, nothing of the natural world. Only the face of the enemy.

She let fly.

Her arrow found its eye. Its wrawl of pain stiffened the hair on her arms. The press of bodies hardened as the Carmenti shoved and scrambled, crying out when the wyrm crashed into the waves.

‘Tuva,’ Canthe said, ‘hurry. We’re close.’

She led them back to the streets. Black smoke boiled from the buildings, so much of it that dusk mantled Carmentum. Long ago, its people had agreed to cast off the gold helm of monarchy. Now there was no rule but fear.

Camels were snorting in terror, horses pulling carriages in flames, bodies smoking where they fell. Keeping hold of Siyu, Tunuva imagined it all as a fever dream, and the city wall as the threshold between trance and truth.

Siyu took Lukiri as they fought towards the city gate. All around, voices, mad with dread, crowds of Carmenti. Tunuva tried to shut them out. Too many lives. Too many deaths. They were penned, choking the throat of Carmentum. Still limping, Lalhar barked to forge a path, and then they were out, back into the waste, no shelter from the open sky.

The war was here.

At last, after five hundred years, it had come.

They ran, Lalhar panting in distress, too weak to bear even one rider. ‘Tuva,’ Canthe shouted.

Tunuva spun, an arrow ready. When she saw, she lowered the bow, her arms turning to stone.

Whatever had appeared in the Liongarden, whatever was burning Carmentum – those were nothing in comparison to this.

This, this beast was the spit of the Nameless One. Four legs, wings that could throw a city into shadow, a tail as strong as a battering ram, and two horns, fearful to behold. Like the smaller creatures, it seemed hewn from the earth itself, its hide like ironstone. Its claws and the baleful spikes on its tail were metal, formed deep in the world.

In a single breath, the wyrm torched through a hundred fleeing Carmenti. The flames came as if from the Dreadmount, destroying all they touched. Tunuva drew on her siden and enfolded the others in a warding.

This plain was now a hunting ground.

The firestorm tore around her shield. Even wrapped in the fist of her magic, the heat almost brought her to her knees. She was deep in the heart of a sun, hearing Siyu gasp for breath. As soon as it stopped, they kept going, while the wyrm slowly wheeled back, too massive for swiftness.

When it saw them again, its eyes burned so hot Tunuva thought they would spark. In the face of its terrible breath, she crouched, so she needed less siden to cover herself.

They had to reach the cave where she had left Ninuru. It would keep them safe until the monster had its fill of violence.

In the third wave of red fire, Tunuva shook with the effort of holding up her warding. Siyu called a weak one with the remnant of her magic, but she was untaught. It thinned dangerously on one side as she tried to shield Lukiri on the other, her right arm blistering in the heat. Tunuva widened hers.

The wyrm covered the sun, then swooped low. Its shadow grew large before it landed in front of them, hard enough that the ground shuddered and Lalhar lost her footing. Tunuva nocked two long arrows and loosed them at its chest, where its heart must burn.

One arrow rang off its armour, while the other shattered. Forsaking the bow, Tunuva elongated her spear and pictured herself in the War Hall with Esbar. She slowed her breath. Calmed her soul.

Do not be afeared. The Mother’s words filled her mind. You are the very sun made flesh.

Wide as three men, the tail came rushing towards her. She ducked it. Scorching wind howled in its wake, making her nape burn. Taking aim, she hurled the spear at the underside of its jaw, finding her mark. The wyrm roared in rage. It countered her with a furnace, and once again, Tunuva met it with all the power she could bring to bear.

By the time the smoke cleared, she was on the ground, drenched in sweat and shuddering. The creature bared rows of teeth, each longer than her arm. Blood seeped down the haft of the spear.

‘Die.’

That voice was so deep – the breath of an earthquake – that it took her a moment to recognise the word, through the haze in her mind. Ersyri, it speaks Ersyri. Its eyes were empty yet aware, blind instinct with an edge of malice. Tunuva stared up and into them, drained. How does it know a human tongue?

Already she had burned through half her store of magic. In training, she had learned to recover, but never had she faced an enemy like this.

‘Get up,’ Siyu sobbed. ‘Tuva, get up!’

The wyrm opened its cavernous maw. Tunuva lifted her hand for one more warding – she was sure that one more was all she had left – when a white streak of fur leapt upon the beast.

Ninuru.

She ripped at the wyrm, clamping her jaws on its wing. Her claws were fully out, hooked deep between its scales, as if they had been made to fit. The wyrm managed to shake her off, but Ninuru twisted straight back to her paws, bounding in front of Tunuva. Her hackles were up, her fangs bared to the root, and she made sounds Tunuva had never heard, deep snarls and chattering shrieks. She was no match for it in size, yet she squared up to the monster.

Once its head came low enough, Tunuva reached up and wrenched her spear free. Tarlike blood streamed from the wound, sizzling where it struck the ground.

Thick armour covered most of the wyrm, but when the Mother had fought the Nameless One, she had spotted a weak spot under his wing, where scale became limber flesh. Tunuva knew she had to strike it there, or in its eye. She found the strength to stand and face the beast.

It shifted its attention to her.

In that same moment, Lalhar sprang forward.

The wyrm caught her and crunched down, and Siyu screamed in anguish, as if its teeth had pierced her, too.

‘Lalhar!’

The young ichneumon whined and fell limp, her ribs caving under the weight of that bite. Yowling in fury, Ninuru pounced again, clawing up the wyrm, tearing and biting the spines of its face, seized by primeval wrath. Lalhar slipped from its mouth and hit the ground.

‘Lalhar!’ Siyu fell with a cry on her ichneumon. ‘Lalhar, no—’

‘Siyu, move,’ Tunuva barked.

Siyu turned, trying to protect Lalhar with her smaller body. The wyrm bore down on her, its teeth dripping blood, and cracked its jaws wide as a cave, to swallow her entire.

Canthe stepped between them.

Straight away, the wyrm looked from Siyu to her, nostrils flaring. Canthe betrayed no fear. She lifted her left hand, and a winter sun rose between her fingers. No, not a sun – a white orb of lightning, an exploding star. It was cold and blinding.

Nothing like fire.

Tunuva stared in disbelief as a redolence sharpened the air, metal and rain and bitter almonds, knifing forth with beams of light. As the glow became unbearable, the wyrm threw up a wing and screamed, and Tunuva buckled to the ground, her blood spurning the brutal power spilling out of Canthe.

It is not siden, was her last thought. There is another magic . . .

Her own siden recoiled into its deepest vaults. She heard Siyu collapse beside her, Lukiri screaming, and then Canthe erupted with light.

****

The smoke mounted, the ashes fell, and soon the sky turned red. The cries took half a day to wane. By nightfall, they had reached the south end of the Erian Pass – two mages on foot, one on the ichneumon, and the child in a sling, no longer weeping.

And Carmentum was just as it had been before the Yikalese had built it – a ruin at the end of the world, silent and alone.