They could smell her tears. Their child was in pain, and so the wolves spun their spiral ever tighter. Bringing their heat, the solid truth of their existence-and they would bare fangs to any and every threat. They would, if needed, die in her stead.
And she knew she deserved none of this.
How did you find me? After this long? I see you, grey-nosed mother-was I the last one to suckle from your teats? Did I drink in all your strength until you were left with aching bones, failing muscles? I see the clouds in your eyes, but they cannot hide your love-and it is that love that breaks my heart.
Still, she held out her hand.
Moments later she felt that broad head rise beneath it.
The warm, familiar smells of old assailed her, stinging her eyes. ‘You must not stay,’ she whispered. ‘Where I go… you will be hunted down. Killed. Listen to me. Find the last of the wild places-hide there for ever more. Be free, my sweet ones…’
She heard Cafal awaken, heard his muffled grunt of shock. Seven wolves crowded their small camp, shy as uninvited children.
Her mother moved up closer, fur sliding the length of Setoc’s arm. ‘You must go,’ she whispered to the beast. ‘Please.’
‘Setoc,’ said Cafal. ‘They bring magic.’
‘What?’
‘Can’t you feel the power-so harsh, so untamed-but I think, yes, I can use it. A warren, close enough the barrier feels thin as a leaf. Listen, if we run within it, I think-’
‘I know,’ she said in a croak, leaning her weight against the she-wolf, so solid, so real, so sure. ‘I know, Cafal, the gift they bring.’
‘Perhaps,’ he said in growing excitement as he tugged aside his blankets, ‘we can get there in time. We can save-’
‘Cafal, none of this is for you. Don’t you understand anything ? It’s not for you!’
He met her glare unblinking-the dawn was finally paling the sky-and then nodded. ‘Where will they lead you, then? Do you know?’
She turned away from his despair. ‘Oh, Cafal, you really are a fool. Of course we’re returning to your tribe’s camp. No other path is possible, not any more.’
‘I–I don’t understand.’
‘I know. Never mind. It’s time to leave.’
Destriant Kalyth scanned the south horizon, the blasted, unrelieved emptiness revealed in the toneless light of the rising sun. ‘Where then,’ she muttered, ‘are my hands of fire?’ She turned to her two exhausted companions. ‘You understand, don’t you? I cannot do this alone. To lead your kind, I need my own kind. I need to look into eyes little different from my own. I need to see their aches come the dawn, the sleep still in their faces-spirits fend, I need to see them cough the night loose and then piss a steaming river!’
The K’Chain Che’Malle regarded her with their reptilian eyes, unblinking, unhuman.
Kalyth’s beseeching frustration trickled away, and she fixed her attention on Sag’Churok, wondering what he had seen-those fourteen undead Jaghut, the battle that, it was now clear, completely eradicated their pursuers. This time, anyway. Was there something different in the K’ell Hunter? Something that might be… unease?
‘You wanted a Destriant,’ she snapped. ‘If you thought that meant a doe-eyed rodara, it must finally be clear just how wrong you were. What I am given, I intend to use-do you understand?’ Still, for all the bravado, she wished she had the power to bind those Jaghut to her will. She wished they were with them right now. Still not human, but, well, closer. Yes, getting closer. She snorted and turned back to study the south.
‘No point in waiting round here, is there? We continue on.’
‘ Destriant, ’ Sag’Churok whispered in her mind, ‘ we are running out of time. Our enemy draws ever closer-no, not hunting the three of us. They hunt the Rooted, our final refuge in this world. ’
‘We’re all the last of our kind,’ she said, ‘and you must have realized by now, in this world and in every other, there is no such thing as refuge .’ The world finds you. The world hunts you down.
Time, once more, to ride Gunth Mach as if she were nothing more than a beast, Sag’Churok lumbering at their side, massive iron blades catching glares from the sun in blinding spasms. To watch small creatures start from the knotted grasses and bound away in panic. Plunging through clouds of midges driven apart by the prows of reptilian heads and broad heaving chests.
To feel the wind’s touch as if it was a stranger’s caress, startling in its unwelcome familiarity, reminding her again and again that she still lived, that she was part of the world’s meat, forever fighting the decay dogging its trail. None of it seemed real, as if she was simply waiting for reality to catch up to her. Each day delivered the same message, and each day she met it with the same bemused confusion and diffident wariness.