'Nor did any of his army. I'm sorry for what you are about to see. I'm sorry anyone ever has to.'
Arducius didn't really understand. Next to him, Mirron was rubbing her arm nervously and Gorian too, was playing with his old burn scar.
'How many were there?' whispered Ossacer. Jhered set his jaw and followed Icenga and Harban from the passage.
'More than sixteen thousand.'
Arducius emerged into a scene of devastation. At first he thought it must be winter because the trees were denuded of their leaves and the ground was covered a dirty white. But then he looked again and had to put his arm against a boulder to stop from falling. The trees had no leaves because they were blackened burned stumps. And it wasn't snow that covered the ground. It was bones.
They lay deep and jumbled on the valley floor and were scattered up the sides before they were lost in the higher trees where the fires had not reached. He could see whole skeletons of men, dogs and horses only a few yards from his feet. And he could see where animals had tried to drag them away, breaking them and leaving limbs, skulls and shards of bone covering the burned ground.
He moved a couple of paces down the slope and looked left and right. The defile stretched away further than he could see in both directions. And the only breaks in the carpet of bones were where the wheels or timbers of wagons jutted out.
Arducius swallowed. At his feet was a rounded stone. It was smeared with filth. And now he looked a third time, he could see that the forest of twigs he thought had fallen from the trees when they burned were arrows. Broken buckles, shards of blades, twisted hilts, torn shields and snapped spears reflected the harsh sunlight. As useless and dead as those who had carried them.
His eyes misted with sudden tears. 'So much waste,' he said.
He pushed out with his senses. He was surrounded with the grey and dark of a scene shorn of the energies of life. It was cold and rotten. But there were lifelines here. Countless thousands of them just below the dead surface. Tiny energy packets among the debris of the slaughtered. Mirron had seen it too and with a gasping voice, she said:
'They're moving. The bones are moving.'
Arducius shut away the power and stared down at the thick carpet of skeletons and bones. They were shifting. It was slight but it was there, like they were being pushed from beneath.
'Don't get too close,' said Jhered. 'The gorthock might have picked the bones clean from above but the rats are still doing their work beneath.'
'It's so dark,' said Ossacer. He had his back to a tree and his sightless eyes were flickering everywhere, while his face screwed up and his fingertips sampled the air. 'Like the Omniscient has turned His back on this place.'
'But there is still power here,' said Gorian.
'What?' Arducius turned and stared. Gorian was crouching near the edge of the sea of dead.
'Something I can't describe but there's something, isn't there? Can't you feel it?'
'It's just the rats,' said Arducius.
'No,' said Gorian quietly. 'The dead have their own energy.'
'What are you talking about?' said Arducius. 'It's grey. It's dark and it's cold. Your senses are playing tricks.'
Gorian straightened. 'Perhaps you're right.' He smiled and wiped his hands on his tunic. 'It's probably the shock of all this.'
'Two legions, two alae,' said Kovan. 'What must they have felt?'
'Goslander, Gesternan, Estorean, Tundarran, Caraducian.'
Arducius started at that. Jhered saw it.
'Yes, my Ascendants,' he said. 'People from your own country. Slaughtered as they did their duty. Like rats in a trap. No mercy, no prisoners. All they wanted was to return to their families. Just like you.'
He let the words hang in the air. They were as uncomfortable as the clouds of flies buzzing over the remnants of rotten carrion.
'Was General Jorganesh your friend?' asked Mirron.
Jhered nodded. 'Twenty years and more. A great general. But even the great can be ambushed. He didn't deserve this. No one does.'
'Why didn't they surrender?'
'You cannot surrender to a rain of firestones, a thousand dogs and an enemy thirsting for your destruction,' said Harban.
Arducius felt sick. He tried to imagine the horror and the terror. The noise and the panic. He stared again at the tumble of bodies and the skulls with empty sockets. The hair that still clung on, ruffling in the breeze. A mass of citizens plucked from their lives and abandoned. Lost and godless. An endless march of the dead.
'It's time we were moving,' said Jhered. 'The Tsardon that did this are heading for Gestern.'
'They are mustering in central southern Atreska,' said Harban. 'Waiting for the Tsardon marching in from Scintarit.'
Jhered frowned. 'Mustering? That doesn't make sense. Why wouldn't the army that did this not move to attack the eastern edge of Gestern's border and let the second force attack elsewhere? Why are they waiting? They must know the Gesternans can't hold them on two fronts. Not with Jorganesh gone.'
'It is our belief they will all attack on the western seaboard,' said Icenga. 'But we don't have confirmation. Our scouts and watchers have not travelled that far into Atreska.'
'Still, that's some scout network you have,' said Menas.
Harban shrugged. 'Our mountains are high and our magnifiers are powerful. And we must know what passes our borders.'
Jhered shook his head. 'This doesn't make sense,' he repeated. He turned to Icenga. 'I must see.'
Icenga nodded. 'Our route will grant you that opportunity.'
They shouldered their packs and set off. Arducius turned his back on Lubjek's Defile with a shudder but the nausea did not pass.
'How does it make you feel, soldier-boy?' Gorian asked Kovan. 'Bet you don't want to join the legions now.'
Arducius's heart fell but Kovan did not snap back. Rather, he looked across at Gorian with an expression bordering on pity.
'That is how I would expect a coward to think,' he said. 'But it makes me even more determined to fight for the Conquord and stop it happening to those I love.'
'Well said, young Vasselis,' said Jhered.
They retreated up the valley and walked back inside the mountain.
Jhered pushed their pace hard. He felt too far from being able to help There was something he was missing and it irritated him. He didn't know why but he felt that a view of Atreska's southern plains would give him inspiration. Or bring him fresh dread. The war was outpacing him and he hoped he hadn't made a monumental mistake by believing in the Ascendants. God-embrace-him but at the beginning of this year, he would have believed only in the sword and the horse to beat back the Tsardon armies and bring Yuran to justice. A madness had possessed him.
And yet there was something about them. About their growing willingness to follow him and their unspoken belief in their largely untested powers that gave him heart. They could make rain and fire and bring growth to trees. It was extraordinary. But with the heart he took, there was anxiety. Because it was a huge step from bringing a flower to bud to stopping an army in its tracks.
Harban and Icenga took them higher again. Inside the mountain paths, the air chilled and the passages themselves became plain and rough. They were forced to make climbs up rock ladders and traversed two deep caverns within the mountains on narrow stone and wood bridges.
This was the furthest edge of the Karku domain and the sudden cold when the paths ended was a shocking reminder of the coming of dusas. It took them three days. Days in which the Ascendants at last ceased their complaining about the paths they took and the blisters on their feet. Days in which Kovan Vasselis drew into himself as the shock of what he had seen, and the reality of the fate of the legions for which he had trained, hit home. He had walked apart from the Ascendants for much of the time. He had hardly even spoken to Mirron, let alone the others.
Jhered left him to it for a while. But when their furs were gathered about them tightly once more as the passage climbed to a freezing grey opening, he sought out the boy's state of mind.
'They can fool themselves Jorganesh's army is somehow not even real. It is far enough removed for them to ignore the fact of individual suffering in others. But you. It isn't the same for you, is it?'
Kovan didn't speak for a while. Seventeen years old and young enough never to have heard of the slaughter of a Conquord army, let alone seen it for himself.
'It just makes me so angry. They don't understand and they're already smiling again. All that's happened . . . Kessian, the Chancellor as well. How can they ignore it all? This is reality and they don't seem to care.'
'It's a hard lesson, Kovan,' said Jhered. 'And they do care, but they feel the need to hide from it all. Remember, they have been torn from their lives and they are so much younger than you in so many ways. They are still children, despite all that they have learned. You are a man. And a soldier. Don't let their reaction upset you. Tell me how you feel.'
Kovan glanced behind him. The Ascendants were chattering. Jhered had learned to block out the incessant noise that resounded like the scratching of rats in the passageways.
‘I
am scared and it shames me,' he said. 'Gorian was right. It does make me fear joining the legions.'
Jhered stopped and waved Menas and the Ascendants past them. He took Kovan's shoulders and made the young man look at him.
'There is no shame in fear,' he said. 'Your father has told you this, I am sure. Fear makes us wary, keeps us alive. And you should fear joining the legions and serving your time. It is harsh and hard. Men and women die in battle. Death on the field might be glorious in song but it is hideous when you are standing in its midst.
'True courage comes when fear is faced, understood and accepted. You fear death. We all fear death. But we fear more the price that failure would bring our families and our Conquord. That you admit your fear shows courage. Only a fool denies it. And fools are always the first to die. You are young and brave, Kovan Vasselis. I am both glad and proud that you are with us.'
Kovan's face beamed his pride and relief. He nodded and his heaving breath clouded deep in front of his face.
'Thank you. Thank you.'
'Ask Roberto Del Aglios what happens to him even now after every battle.' 'Why?'
'Just ask him.'
Outside, the freezing air of the early morning seared into Jhered's lungs. The sun was strengthening and the snow that they had seen as they climbed had all but stopped. By midday, it would be a glorious, late solas day. The passage emerged on to a tight ledge above which steps were cut into the mountain, climbing to the peak that was still several hundred feet away.
They looked out and down onto the sweeping plains of Atreska ten thousand feet below them. Much of it was obscured under a thin layer of cloud but Harban was confident that it would burn away. He and Icenga were already climbing above them, their energy boundless, their feet sure on the icy surface.
They were sheltered here, behind a jut of rock. But the peak was exposed and the wind was howling around them, ready to pluck the unwary from their path and cast them down. Despite their acclimatisation, the air felt very thin and Ossacer looked pale.
'You go no further,' said Jhered.
'I have no intention of doing so,' said Ossacer. 'I just wanted to breathe the mountain air.'
'Well, now you have. Now get back to the intersection. All of you.'
Ossacer shook his head. 'We're all right here. Anyway, I'm going to help you.'
Jhered raised his eyebrows. 'Oh, really.' 'I'm going to try something.' 'Up here? Must you?'
Ossacer had a determined look. 'You want us to try new things. You said so on the ship.'
'Well yes, but that was storm, barrier and fire. I don't think this is the place.'
it isn't dangerous. It'll give us more eyes. Closer to where you want to look.'
‘I
f it works,' said Jhered. it'll work,' said Arducius.
Jhered shrugged. 'Fine. Fine. Just don't get careless and fall. And don't tire yourselves out. We aren't staying here long. Menas, stay with them. Kovan, come with me. I could use your opinion.'
He saw Kovan's smile and Gorian's scowl and sighed inwardly. He jabbed a finger at the errant Ascendant. 'Don't go running off.'
The trip to the summit was a slog of over an hour. The Karku had kicked footholds in the deepest ice and saw them up the hardest sections but still the ascent was painfully slow. The wind was far stronger than Jhered had imagined and he was forced to keep his head down and his body close to the ground. Behind him, Kovan's pace was dogged and determined.
The peak itself was a small sloping plateau on which the Karku had built a circular stone shelter. Jhered and Kovan slumped gratefully inside it, gasping in breath and reaching out their hands to the small fire that Icenga had prepared from a stock of wood. The flames guttered in the thin air but the warmth was wonderful.