Redemption

Prologue

She opened her eyes to a wide empty sky, pale as watered milk. She was lying on her back and the air was dry and cold and a strange taste of ash and bitter salt coated her tongue. Her left hand throbbed with pain. With a soft groan, she rolled to her side and sat up. The ground was made of gritty eggshell-like sand that rasped beneath her. She cradled her left hand. A spherical burn was seared across it, raised and pink. She held her arm against her chest and stared around.

There was nothing in all directions, just a flat white wasteland. A distant sound like wind soughing through branches raised the hairs on her neck and a nameless dread rose in her. She couldn’t remember how she had got here, or what day or year it was.

She couldn’t remember her name.

Her heart vaulted in panic and she scrambled to her knees; the bare skin of her legs and arms was covered in white dust, and her breast heaved with quick breaths.

‘Where am I?’ Her whisper was harsh, cracked and small in the emptiness.

‘Nowhere.’ A voice answered.

She whipped around. A man lay behind her. Tall, his dark hair sprayed with that same white dust. His limbs were splayed as if he had no life left in him.

‘Who are you? What happened, where—’ Her words were lost as he let out a shout of laughter edged with rough mania. He stared up at the sky, laughing, laughing but there was no joy in the sound, only a bereft kind of futility.

‘Stop it!’ she shouted. ‘Who are you? What is this place?’

His laughter subsided and he rolled his head to look at her, his eyes so dark as to appear black. ‘You should know, my child. You brought us here. This is the place where nothing began. Nothing is.’

Child? She felt no kinship to him but there was something there, something she couldn’t identify that told her they shared a bond, but a bond that was far from anything good. ‘How long have we been here?’ she said.

‘Forever. A moment. It doesn’t matter.’ He closed his lids. ‘Time has no meaning.’

‘Do you know who I am?’

He laughed again. Tears came from his eyes and ran down his thin cheeks but he kept laughing, just lying there laughing up at the unending sky.

She got to her feet, unsteady, wavering, blinking in the harsh light. The skirt of her dress was slashed to ribbons and her feet were bare. Her skin puckered in the frigid air. All around stretched nothing, a great plain of nothing, sand that was like earth but not, crystalline beneath her bare feet, grinding to a white dust that covered her legs, her arms and her face.

She could discern no horizon, no sun, and no source of the flat whitish grey light. The man still chuckled, softer now, at a joke she couldn’t understand.

Her hand throbbed harder.

What had happened to her? She studied the burn, stared hard. From nowhere a breeze blew against her legs, fluttering the ripped fabric across her thighs. With it came memory; a battle, sunlight blinding on sword and arrow, blood in the sand and the screams of the dying, a host of serpents and the wind in her face as she flew with them, the Birthstone whispering. The Four Gods, their power terrifying; her brother running toward her lit from within by his own killing power, god-like himself; and then Tallis staring at her across the sand, appalled, betrayed, and the shudder as her blade pierced the Stone.

Her breath caught. She staggered and gazed out at the nothing and whispered, ‘Shaan. My name…’

The man stopped laughing and the white dust rasped as he drew himself up. She stared at him. Understanding unfurled in her mind and she trembled.

‘Azoth?’

He regarded her with weary knowing. ‘Welcome to the Void, my love.’

Chapter 1

At dawn Tallis went out again to hunt. He made his way quietly from the cave he shared with his mother in the Jalwalah Well, dropping the door hide covering behind him with care in case the sound woke those in the neighbouring quarters, and followed the winding narrow tunnel from the living areas toward the Great Cavern. Softly glowing oil lamps lit the way at intervals but he could have navigated it with his eyes closed. He trailed his hand along the stone and counted the bumps and cracks in the wall, the tiny fissures that grazed his fingertips, just as he had when he was a child. The sharp bitter green scent of the lamp oil filled his nostrils and he was reminded of running here with Irissa chasing him, Jared ahead, his shadow bouncing along the wall and their laughter echoing through the tunnels. How old had they been—seven, eight?

Somewhere behind him a baby wailed and a knife of aching loss sliced through him, his skin puckering with memory and sadness. Jared would never see children of his own run these tunnels. And Tallis doubted he would either. Even if by some chance Irissa was still alive, why would she want to be with him, the one who had ended her brother’s life?

He increased his pace. Too many memories here. Too much loss.

He emerged from low dwelling tunnels into the Great Cavern of the Jalwalah Well. A circular space, the stone walls of the cavern soared high overhead, curving up and disappearing into darkness, openings in the walls leading to more dwelling caves and the honeycomb of hot springs beneath the earth. In the centre the communal fire pit was large enough to roast an entire muthu and beyond it was the opening to the desert, a great semi-circle that framed the dark dawn sky. There were few moving about. Only those preparing the first morning meal, his mother, Mailun, among them. Busy kneading bread, she saw him and motioned him over with a tilt of her head, but he pretended not to understand, lifting a hand in greeting instead and hastening out. He had not spoken to her for several days, making sure she was asleep or out whenever he came to their cave. He wasn’t ready yet to think about the visit to the Baal that Miram, the new Jalwalah leader, was expecting him to make, and that would be the first thing she would ask him about.

He passed from the dim light of the Well and out into the marginally lighter day. The air was cold, the sun a thin line of orange on the horizon and the sand, a chilly crust, crunched under the thin soles of his boots. Two young clansmen talking quietly by the cave mouth, spears in hand, shifted their gazes as he passed and an old woman drinking a cup of kaf and watching the sunrise set her mouth in a judgmental line. He felt her eyes on his back as he skirted the side of the Well.

The monolith of the Jalwalah Well rock rose high above him, emanating stored warmth against the morning chill. Being back here brought with it a fair share of bittersweet pain. Memories of all that had been lost since the gods had come. Bloodshed. Loved ones sent to Kaa. The Jalwalah had lost many of their warriors in the battle with Azoth but the arrival of the Four Gods and their razing of the battlefield had wiped almost all of them out. Now they had perhaps seventy, if he counted the youths who had stayed behind. It was the same for most of the other clans, worse for some. The Baal, with their greater number, had the most left. But even that was too few. As for the rest of Saranthium outside the desert, the gods were bonding or killing them all, town by town. How long until there were none left to take? Or the gods found a way around the invisible barrier that kept them out of the desert?

He passed the small camp of a group of wetlanders from Galicia. They had set up their tents not far from the mouth of the Great Cavern, close enough to access all they needed but still keep themselves separate from the clan. There were several other camps like them spread around the Well. Survivors, refugees, from the gods’ march across the lands—those who had been lucky to be distant enough to escape the collection of souls. Those who could make it ended up here or with the Baal. The other clans had so few survivors from the battle that they could not cater for any more mouths—or they didn’t want to.

A young woman stirring a pot over a fire looked at him as he passed. She wore a headscarf in the manner of the Free Lands and quickly cut her eyes away when he met hers. All knew him now but none would speak with him, which suited Tallis well enough. The last thing he wanted was to have to answer questions about what he might do about the gods. He had no answers for anyone. He had failed. He had not stopped the Four Gods returning, he had not won the battle for them. He could not help them and Shaan was gone. His twin, his sister, was lost. He had nothing more to give.

Asrith has seen none. She speaks but no semorphim answer. Marathin’s hissing serpentine whisper filled his mind.

Mark her position, Tallis said. We go regardless.

He increased his pace, leaving the tents behind until he was around the other side of the Well. She waited facing away from him out to the desert, a massive humped shadow in the sand near a dried thorn tree.

He ran his fingers lightly across her hide as he walked along her length, feeling the connection between them deepen at his touch, her skin rough and hot. The serpent was older than many but it didn’t show, not yet, not like it had on Nuathin, Azoth’s ancient and favourite serpent. Nuathin’s scales had been reduced almost to grey by the passage of time but Marathin’s deep green hide glinted in the growing light, rich with oil and musk. She was of middling age for a serpent, perhaps six hundred or so, he wasn’t sure. She turned her head and watched him from one eye, blowing hot air from her nostrils and disturbing the sand.

The hunt goes slow for us, she said. Will we keep going?

We go until I say it is enough. He strengthened his command and she lowered her head fractionally and snapped her teeth. Arak-ferish, she whispered.

Tallis slid a hand up toward the nubs of her wings and stepped on her foreleg to climb up onto her back then felt a presence behind him. He paused and stiffened, knowing who it was.

‘Mother…’ He faced her, one hand still on the serpent. ‘You followed me.’

Mailun’s voice was guarded. ‘You should eat before you go.’ In her hand was a cloth-wrapped package on top of a small earthen pot.

He held back his sigh. ‘I’m not hungry. I’ll find something on the way.’

‘What, a mar rat? They’re skinny this time of year. Take this and—’

Annoyance flared and he answered roughly, ‘Bakriss, mother!’

She made a sharp, angry intake of breath. ‘What did you say? Was that the serpent language?’

It was. He had used the serpent tongue without thinking and a brusque command form as well. ‘Just … nothing mother, sorry.’ But his tone belied his words. He was irritated, on edge, and didn’t know how to stop.

She gazed at him with concern. ‘You spend too much time with them, Tallis.’

‘The more time I spend with the serpents, the better I understand them. Hunting is a good way to do it.’

‘But we have enough food,’ she said, frowning and jiggling the package. ‘You don’t need to hunt today.’

‘I’m not looking for food.’ He finally took her offering and stowed it in his pack.

‘You’re still looking for Rorc and Irissa?’ Her tone softened. ‘Son, I hope every day that at least one of them will come back to us, but it’s been three moons, and you saw what the gods did at the battlefield.’

‘Some did survive, and it’s a long way from the battle at the Scarp to the clans, a long way on foot, they could be out there.’ He paused, unwilling to lie to her. ‘But that’s not why I’m going now.’

Understanding dawned in her eyes. ‘You’re looking for more serpents.’

‘I need them, if we’re going to get Shaan back.’

His mother glanced at Marathin’s turned head. ‘You don’t need the serpents, Tallis, you need your sister.’

Tallis clenched his fists. Why couldn’t she understand? The strange dark power inside him ghosted along his veins, increasing his agitation. ‘They could help us.’

‘Might help us, or might try to kill us—many of them were with Azoth, remember that.’

‘And some of them came to my call,’ he said.

‘And have you found them, any of them?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Let them be son! Please, I don’t want to lose you to a search that is leading nowhere …’ She put out a hand to him. ‘Don’t go. What if the gods discover you searching?’

‘The gods can’t enter the desert, Mother,’ he replied stubbornly.

‘But they hold everywhere else. Everyone believes the serpents deserted these lands, why can’t you? They were Azoth’s creation, why would they listen to you if you found them?’

The pain in her eyes shredded him but he turned his back and climbed up on Marathin. ‘I’m sorry, but I have a … bond with the serpents, I know how to speak to them. If I can find them I can make them listen.’

‘Son—’

‘Stop!’ He barked the word at her then bit his lip hard in shame. ‘Mother, please,’ he said, trying to soften his tone, but the power that coursed beneath his skin made his voice rough. ‘I don’t expect you to understand.’

‘I don’t.’ Mailun’s expression was filled with sadness. ‘I only wish you put as much effort into finding your sister as you do the serpents.’

Tallis was rocked by her accusation. ‘I look for her every day, all the time, mother. I miss her, more than you know. I need to feel her in here—’ He splayed a hand over his chest. ‘It’s like missing a limb, but she’s lost and finding the serpents could help bring her back.’

‘You must visit the Baal,’ Mailun insisted. ‘The Seer can—’

‘What would be the point? I was there for weeks, near on two moons, and achieved nothing.’

‘You achieved certainty that the Prophet’s Ring could be what we need to bring her back,’ Mailun said. She put a hand on his leg, staring up at him on the serpent’s back. ‘Please, come back with me, try again.’

He exhaled sharply. ‘What good will going over and over the same ground do?’

‘The Seer, Veila, still has not read all the Prophet Scrolls. There could be more in them.’

‘And if she finds something she will tell me,’ Tallis answered. ‘Mother, you know the Ring is in Salmut. I cannot fight the Four and the Birthstone to retrieve it, I need the serpents’ help. I have to find them.’

‘Do you think I would ask you to go alone?’ Mailun drew back. ‘But it’s better to keep looking for answers in the scrolls than to pursue the path you are on. The serpents are unknowable, son, they are a god’s creation and their loyalty to Azoth cannot be undone.’

He took in a long breath. ‘I’m going now mother, you best step back.’

Her face tightened and she stayed staring up at him for a moment, before with a thin mouth she said, ‘How long will you be gone this time?’

‘Some days, I’m not sure. I’m going to check on Balkis as well, now please.’

She paused, clearly wanting to say more but she stepped back, her expression unhappy.

Go! He voiced to Marathin and the serpent leapt upwards, wings beating the air, swirling sand, and as one they veered off to north.

* * *

Mailun watched him leave. It was as if she was watching him falling slowly from a cliff but could do nothing to save him. Nothing she said or did made any impression on him anymore. He spent most of his time with the serpents, ignoring the requests from herself and Miram to spend more time with his people. The clans had been decimated, and were mostly leaderless now and he, one of the few who could take on that leadership, had spent more time on the backs of the serpents than on the ground. She thought she’d lost him before, when he’d left and she’d had to follow him to Salmut to bring him home, but now where he went she could no longer follow. The gods’ heritage, wrought from her own ancestors, was too strong in him. Azoth’s heritage was too strong. She was afraid of what he was becoming. She turned back toward the Well and strode through the Great Cavern, to see Miram coming from the tunnels toward her.

‘He’s gone again?’ the clan leader said as they met.

Mailun nodded. ‘He said he will see Balkis.’

‘Well at least in that he keeps to what is needed. Perhaps the wetlander will send us more to look after.’ Miram cast a quick tight smile at a young pregnant girl going toward the fire pit for food. ‘But it worries me, Mailun. He spends too much time with the beasts, too much energy trying to draw them back. Most of those left in the clans have accepted, or at least tried to accept, your son’s abilities with the beasts. They know how much they owe to them from the final battle, but still, it is so different from our long-held beliefs.’

‘Yes well, everything changes, and they should remember that it is the clan Guides who have brought all this upon us. The gods are their creations, their mistake.’

Miram put a hand on her arm, compassion in her eyes. ‘I know, we know, but that doesn’t make it easier. We are trying.’

Mailun felt her fears press hard and resisted rubbing at her aching head. She sighed. ‘I’m sorry, I am overburdened with worry. Tallis is still holding to his idea that he could enlist a host of serpents to attack the city of Salmut and retrieve the Ring.’

‘Who’s to say he won’t succeed?’

Mailun looked at her in surprise and Miram said, ‘Maybe it is the Guides’ wisdom showing him the way.’

‘If it is and they lead my son to his death it will be yet another mark I hold against them. No—’ she gripped Miram’s arm as the woman made to speak, ‘—don’t tell me to curb my tongue. You know what costs they have wrung from me.’

‘They have wrung great costs from us all.’

‘Yes but how many can say they have taken from them two heartmates and a daughter? No,’ she shook her head, ‘I’ll go on my own to the Baal, today, Miram, I won’t wait any longer. If the Salmut seer has any answers for me I have to know.’

Miram nodded. ‘I’ll send two youths with you who are due to go back to the Baal, I need a few packages taken and cannot trust them to go on their own. They are barely in their fourteenth year and well you and I both know how boys of that age will go.’

‘Will they be ready?’ Mailun said. Now she’d decided, she wanted no delays.

‘They will be. I’ll have them meet you in the Great Cavern.’

Mailun agreed to the boys’ company and moved swiftly to pack a small bag for the trip.

* * *

Tallis and Marathin flew fast, passing over the invisible border between the Jalwalah and Halmahda lands by late afternoon. Below, the clan’s herds of muthu roamed the groves of thorn bush, feeding on the hoar grass that grew in the dry sand. The Halmahda had lost many in the battle at the Scarp and they were closer to the borders patrolled by the gods’ servants. Now only a handful of families remained at the Well. The ring of high rock that enclosed their stone-hewn homes was meagrely guarded and one lone clansman raised a spear at him as he passed over. He looked small and too vulnerable in the vast land.

By midnight they were near the edge of the Shalneef’s lands and camped for the night in the lee of a sand hill that protected one of the outer wells. Marathin lay at his back providing both protection and warmth but Tallis’s dreams were full of serpent voices. More and more he felt them when he slept, as if his power was searching for them as soon as his conscious mind was docile. It made for a restless night and he woke before the dawn with dry aching eyes and a dull head. The air was cold, the fire he’d lit long burned to ashes. Marathin was still at his back, watching the sun rise, the heat of her beating away the chill.

Many semorphim voices in the night in your mind. She swivelled her great head to stare down at him with one green eye.

You heard them? Tallis stretched his stiff neck and rolled his shoulders.

Only as an echo from your mind, Ferish, but they are far and hidden.

And did you recognise any of them?

She snorted. My hive is gone, Ferish, only Haraka calls me. You are the crest—recognition is your trial, not mine. Irritation shimmered from her and Tallis exhaled. Again he’d annoyed her with the wrong question. There was a lot to learn about what it meant to be the crest of a hive of serpents. He watched the line of the horizon as it was slowly limned with the first glow of the day. The scent of the desert washed his lungs, dry, tinged with a sharpness of his fire. He closed his eyes and pushed his senses out, searching but not expecting to find anything. All the sounds became heightened. The breeze brushing sand, Marathin’s breaths, the soft scratching rattle of a thorn bush in the wind, and underground the sound of a mar rat coming out from its burrow toward the day.

He reached for his bow. The rat wasn’t far, just beyond the sand hill, and it would be good to do something as simple as hunt for food. He walked barefoot, making no sound around the leeward side of the dune. Sand stretched empty away, silent and yielding; he crept forward and stopped by an outcrop of rock, and lifted his bow.

The animal pushed a nose then half its body from the burrow, facing away from him. Tallis shielded himself away from its senses, locking in his power. He aimed down the arrow, felt for the heart of the small defenceless thing. The world narrowed to the creature’s heartbeat, rapid and small. He released the arrow on a breath. It struck true and the mar rat fell dead to the sand.

He lowered his bow and stood for a moment, not moving. It seemed he heard the echo of Jared’s voice, laced with amusement, say to him, ‘Not bad dung face, now do it again and you’ll be getting closer to my tally.’ A flicker of a smile against white teeth, his many braids clinking with metal cuffs.

An ache filled Tallis’s chest. It wasn’t the first time he’d imagined his earth brother’s voice. Sometimes that voice sounded all too real. Attar had told him once that those who didn’t seek the proper training to deal with their ability to speak with serpents went mad. Violent. Seeking their own deaths. Perhaps it was finally happening to him.

He wasn’t sure it worried him.

Death links us, Marathin hissed from the other side of the sand hill. The hive’s many are never truly gone.

Tallis didn’t reply. Sometimes the serpent was too astute for his liking. He collected his kill, gutted and cleaned it and restarted his fire, cooking the meat and eating it quickly while the sun rose.

They flew on for another day and night and Tallis felt the pressure easing in his chest as they neared the clan border. Lately being around anyone in the clans was like a weight around his neck. The weight of his failure to save them. To save his sister. His disappointment in himself was so thick it was almost as bad as the clan blood he still felt on his hands. He could barely look anyone in the eye. No matter what they said to him, that the gods had been too strong, that they had no chance, it didn’t matter. He knew, felt, there should have been something he could have done.

They crossed the southeast edge of the Goran Ranges where it pressed hard against the clan border and thick forests spread toward the Eastern Reach. The gods had not come here yet. There were few towns among the wilderness, only Hull and Venin on what used to be the Free Lands side of the forest. The few sparse unnamed settlements deep in the woods survived. Others further west had been taken early but past the central settlement of Sarassi the woods became thicker, crowded with treacherous ravines, hidden caves and impassable thickets of the poisonous fir bramble. The people who lived among these most remote areas had done for centuries and were well suited to avoiding entrapment. Alone and quiet, they had stayed beneath the gods’ notice.

It was in one of those settlements that Balkis had set up an outpost. Tallis kept himself and Marathin shielded as best he could, drawing a cloak of confusion around them in case one of the Four was paying any attention and Marathin kept low, twisting and gliding among the taller tree tops.

They had not gone far when a flicker of something red caught Tallis’s eye.

Hold, hover, he commanded Marathin.

The serpent immediately arrested her momentum, beating at the air to stay in place, her body undulating so Tallis had to grip hard with his thighs, the leather strap he hung onto biting into his hands. He squinted down at the forest, trying to see through the thick tree cover. Whatever it was had been fast, something flickering through some underbrush. Something big.

Movement, Marathin stretched out her neck, scanning then suddenly curled up again and exhaled hard. Made one! Her mind voice shouted in Tallis’s mind.

Tallis flinched and his skin tingled with an awareness of wrongness and rot and defiant hate.

Only one creature could make him feel that; Alhanti. Azoth’s creations, a mixture of man and serpent forged by the power of Birthstone. Azoth had used them in his battle against the people of Saranthium, but when the Four Gods had come they had run like everybody else. Tallis had glimpsed a few others in the mountains but none this close before.

Lower, fast, he urged Marathin and crouched low against her neck as she dived down toward the trees. Wind pulled at his hair and his eyes watered, his stomach dropping sickeningly at their swift descent. Bile filled his mouth but he spat it away, wiping his chin on his shoulder, his gaze not wavering from searching the canopy.

The trees were tall, thick groves of stone pine and the heavy green-leafed oak, the swathes of them broken only occasionally by open patches of grey rocky ground.

There. To their right, sprinting across an open ridge was the Alhanti. Tall, male and heavy set, it had a thick ridge of serpentine skin rising up its back and along its neck. Its red shirt was ripped and flapped in the wind of its movement, revealing the ropy muscle of its torso. And it knew Tallis was there. Stones flew from beneath its feet and before it gained the tree line, it turned and stared up at him, close enough now for Tallis to see the fury in its eyes, and the recognition of who and what Tallis was. The eyes belonged to someone who had once been a man, once been a son, maybe a husband and father. Now it was nothing but hate and loss. He sensed the man trapped inside, lost to madness, and the triumph of the serpent who had taken his life.

Lower. He commanded Marathin again and drew the short sword he carried at his waist. He swung his leg over so he rode side saddle, then as Marathin swooped over the open ridge he jumped.

Hard ground jarred his legs and he fell to one knee, the sword clattering on the stone. Breath hissed from between his teeth and he tasted blood from his lip, but he sprang up again.

Follow. He commanded Marathin then ran after the Alhanti.

It was dark beneath the trees and littered with exposed tree roots and prickled shrubs that caught at his legs. He strained to see. All his senses stretched out, feeling for the beast. His breath was loud in his ears and he heard the crashing run of the Alhanti ahead. Then it roared.

‘Arak-ferish!’ The deep voice echoed through the forest.

The killing darkness in him rose in response and Tallis embraced it, drawing on it hard. The world narrowed, blood thundered and he became other, a being made of fluid metal and death. He ran toward it. The sword was light in his hand, a part of him, and he leapt over tree root and sped under bough as if they were nothing but mist in his path. He saw the Alhanti, still running, looking back at him, a manic grin on its face that changed to fear as Tallis was suddenly upon him.

His swiped hard and blood flew; Tallis saw the severed arm fly through the air as if in a dream, sounds muted, his focus total, unwavering. In a moment the Alhanti was dead at his feet and he stood shaking over it, warm blood dripping over his hand.

Ferish.

Marathin’s voice was a whisper and he fell to his knees, the world coming back in. Unlike the Alhanti, the serpent’s mind voice speaking his name was a balm, calming him and drawing him back from the darkness.

He pushed his power back down, coiling it in and looked at the remains at his feet. Blood and specks of gut specked his boots. He passed a hand over his eyes then turned away, bone weary.

Meet me back in the clearing, he sent to Marathin. He needed to see Attar. Balkis could wait; if there was any hope of serpents being found he had to know. The gods’ reign had to end before there were no people left to tell of them.

They changed course and reached the edge of the Eastern Reach, getting closer to where the great forests began. It was cooler, the country rugged and empty. Great rolling plains merged with dense patches of trees and sudden thrusts of bare rock. There was an abundance of low-lying cloud that made his clothes damp. He suppressed a shiver.

Haraka comes, Marathin hissed in his mind and Tallis sent his senses out. The younger serpent was several leagues north, nearer the forests. It bothered him that he hadn’t felt him earlier.

They met up with the serpent in a clearing at the outer edge of the great forest. A hut built of the solid timbers from the nearby forest, but long since empty of any tenants, sat wedged up against a moss-covered rock outcrop, an ancient gnarled tree growing near it. Attar, astride Haraka’s back, gave Tallis a salute as both serpents settled to the grass-covered earth in a storm of wind and creaking of wing. A misty drizzling rain began to fall as they both jumped off and Tallis picked up the sharp musty scent of something rotten nearby.

‘Clansman!’ Attar shouted and strode toward him. ‘You’re early.’

They clasped forearms, Attar slapping him solidly on the shoulder. ‘What happened?’

Tallis turned toward the hut. ‘Let’s talk inside.’

A cold wind was starting to blow from the forest and already the day was darkening. He unhooked the small pack from the truss he kept on Marathin’s wing nubs and the serpents both took off again, heading toward the forest to hunt.

‘Bet the bastards have a better meal than we will,’ Attar said. He kicked open the door of the hut, his own pack dangling from his hand. ‘Aah, home stinkin’ home.’

For the past two weeks Attar had been using the hut as a base and inside it was a lot drier and better insulated than when Tallis had visited before. The rider had caulked up the gaps between the thick wooden boards and swept the hard earth floor, and the fireplace didn’t smoke too badly when Tallis lit the small bundle of desert moss he’d brought for that purpose. Attar heaped more sticks on it from a pile of dried wood and lit an oil lamp. They sat on squares of rough canvas, warming themselves, the firelight playing on the walls.

‘Cosy as a whore’s bedroom,’ Attar said with a laugh and sent Tallis one of his squinting shrewd looks. ‘There’s blood on your boots.’

‘An Alhanti.’ Tallis told him briefly about his encounter. Attar grunted and spat into the fire, his saliva hissing on the coals.

‘You know drawing on that power of yours could be like a beacon to the gods. They’d like nothing better than to roast you on a spit.’

‘I was careful,’ Tallis said. ‘And fast. They didn’t notice.’

‘You hope.’ Attar shook his head.

His reaction annoyed Tallis. ‘You think I should have let it go, to kill some of the few survivors left? Or to leave the man inside to suffer?’

Attar shrugged, calm as ever. ‘Probably not, but every time you wield that darkness it shaves off a piece of you. I can see it in your eyes; hear it in your voice. It’s changing you … you’re a long way from the boy I found in the desert, Tallis.’

The fight drained from him and Tallis sat wearily before the fire. As always, Attar saw right to the bone of the matter. He said quietly, ‘We’re all a long way from who we used to be, Attar, but what else would you have me do? I can’t change what I am and the power is part of it. I need it to find Shaan and kill the gods.’

‘Seems that way.’ Attar sat beside him. ‘But I liked that desert boy, be sad to see him disappear.’

Tallis had no words to comfort him. The desert boy he’d been was already gone. He’d disappeared the day he’d had to kill Jared, the day he’d lost his sister. He pulled a pack of pan bread and a pot filled with spicy bean stew from his pack and handed them to Attar. ‘From my mother’s cook fire.’ Attar made a sound of satisfaction and took the food. ‘A good woman your mother, even if she’s got a stubborn bastard for a son.’

Tallis drew out a slab of muthu as well and set it to cook on the makeshift roasting spike over the flames while Attar set the pot at the edge of the fire to warm.

‘So tell me,’ Tallis said. He looked at the warrior. ‘Any sign?’

Attar exhaled and shifted, but shook his head. ‘I’ve searched the whole goddamned edge of the Reach.’

‘Did Haraka say anything?’

Attar hesitated. ‘I can’t be sure.’ He looked reluctant. ‘But?’ Tallis prompted.

‘He thought he sensed something, a presence, deep in the jungle, but when he tried to follow—’ Attar held up a hand and shrugged, ‘—nothing.’

Tallis chewed on his lip and stared into the fire. Was it worth pursuing? ‘How about Alterin’s people?’ he asked.

‘Nothing,’ Attar rubbed his hands down his shins over the leather of his pants. ‘I’m planning on heading back to her village tomorrow though, search as much of the Wild Lands as I can.’

Tallis stared at the muthu meat as Attar rotated the spit, the fat on the meat sizzling in the fire as it dripped. He’d sent Attar out here to search the Reach and make the long trip around the back of the Black Mountains to the Wild Lands because he didn’t want to risk being away for too long in case Veila, or one of the Dreamers had a break through about Shaan. Or in case there was some chance for him to get to Salmut and get that Prophets Ring. But now he was here he felt the need to search himself.

‘No, you go home, I’ll do it,’ he said.

‘You know that’s probably the last place she’ll be. The Wild Landers don’t go back to a place that’s been destroyed, bad spirit they call it.’

‘Maybe I can find a trail, something to guide me.’ Tallis felt he owed the jungle woman that at least. She’d saved Jared’s life and whatever might have happened between them what felt a lifetime ago, whatever strange connection that had frightened her, he still wanted to at least try to find her and help her and her people. She might not even be alive.

Attar shrugged. ‘Up to you. Perhaps there will be some serpents in the Isles. I could go there next. Surely many would head back to the place of their birth. Asrith—’

‘She’s tried,’ Tallis said. ‘If there were any serpents there, they left. I tried to feel them, but …’ he shook his head, ‘… I just couldn’t.’

Frustration rose in him so hard it made him feel ill. ‘I need to get that ring,’ he said softly.

Attar took the meat off the spit. ‘Eat first, worry later, clansman. Worry’s more enjoyable on a full stomach.’ He cast him a thin smile but there was concern behind his eyes. ‘You hatching something?’

Tallis looked down at the food. ‘Not tonight.’

‘That’s good, my knees feel like they’ve been run through with a heated metal spike and my back trampled by serpents, I don’t think I could take any of your intrigues tonight.’ He leaned back with a groan. ‘I swear if this is ever over, I’m finding a sweet woman who can cook and spending my days swimming, not flying.’

Chapter 2

Tallis was tormented by dreams. The sounds of battle rang around him, steel clashing against steel, the piercing screams of the fighting serpents, the smell of blood and leather, metal and sweat in the hot air and the frightened cries of the dying. He was trying to run, but could barely move, held trapped by some invisible substance that dragged down his limbs, restrained the swing of his sword arm. He strained forward as Scanorians pushed at him on either side, neither fighting him nor even seeing him, their dark faces in masks of fear and pain and ahead, in a space among the clashing armies was Jared, but not an Alhanti as he had been, but as himself.

His earth brother stood among the chaos of the battle, his dark hair braided, wearing his clan shirt, carrying his bow and there was a sad smile on his face. Around him the crush of bodies ebbed and flowed in a mass of screaming faces and hacking limbs but Jared paid them no heed and they never touched him. At his feet in the blood-soaked sand lay the other Jared, the Alhanti, a knife buried deep in his chest, Irissa bent over him sobbing, screaming. Behind her, moving as if slowed to a crawl, a Scanorian came with a short sword held high to pierce her back. Tallis felt the blood still hot on his hand, dripping from his fingers, and he was trying to call to Irissa to turn around, trying to get to her, but the bonds held him fast. Then suddenly, miraculously, she sat straighter and turned to him as she’d heard, but it wasn’t her face he saw but Alterin, the woman of the Wild Lands, staring back at him with a wide shocked gaze.

Uriel? He breathed her true name, the one he had discerned in her mind that first time they’d met in the jungle, and all around him changed. The battle and Jared’s body wavered as though made of water then suddenly dissolved, and he seemed to be staring into Alterin’s eyes in a mirror, as if he were inside her looking out. Her breath caught and he felt her ribcage expand, heard the sudden frantic thrumming of her blood, felt the chill touch her skin. She put a hand up to touch her reflection in the rust-stained glass, her gaze wide with fear. She felt him too, but confusion filled her as if she did not recognise him. Her lips parted and she seemed about to speak when a harsh voice sounded behind her.

‘Time to serve!’ Tallis’s vision blurred as Alterin was turned by a hard hand. ‘Get moving.’ The man he didn’t see pushed her forward and Alterin walked swiftly along a narrow corridor, staring at the floor. Sand-dusted tiles were under her feet, then he heard voices. Alterin’s insides were clenched tight, anxious. They were outside, through a gate, in the open, then on a dirt floor and more voices surrounded them; mostly men, but some women. Alterin didn’t look up until she stopped behind a long rough wood table, a large bowl of meat stew before her. She picked up a ladle, then Tallis saw and his own breath stopped.

They were under an open-air pavilion where half dozen tables with benches were set up, and seated at them were clansmen and women. They looked beaten down, watchful, some angry. Some were wounded, others bore fresh scars. They rose and began to line up at the table for food. Then there was a loud bang, like heavy wood falling on earth, and Alterin’s gaze jerked up and Tallis saw beyond the pavilion an open area, ringed by a high fence. In the centre a cart pulled by muthu waited, the slatted wooden back open, and more clansmen and women filing out. Some were bleeding, all were dusty, covered in sweat. Alterin’s hand clenched on the ladle and Tallis’s own heart stuttered. She was there. Irissa, fierce eyed, beautiful, and at her shoulder was Rorc. Something inside him dropped, and fury and his dark killing power rose at the sight of them. She was alive. Rorc was alive. And Irissa was hurt. Blood dripped from a wound on her shoulder. Tallis’s power uncoiled like a snake and Alterin dropped the ladle and gasped, clutching herself, feeling the rushing heat of it. Tallis yearned to reach Irissa and his power yearned with him. It reached.

No! A hard but childlike voice brushed his mind and something caught his power, wrenching it back. You can’t help her. Help yourself, help Shaan. And he was pushed backwards hard. But Irissa was close, he couldn’t let her go.

Tallis strained against the force, reaching for her, and sat up in the dark of the hut.

For a moment he was disoriented. He blinked, shuddered, his heart racing as if he’d been running. He took in a long steadying breath.

He rubbed his eyes, a dull ache filling his skull.

Seeing Irissa had undone him. He couldn’t believe it, it must have been a dream. But some instinct told him it was not. Alterin had been too real, he’d felt her, recognised the sense of her, the core of her being, just as he had before. Alterin was alive and he had seen through her eyes. But how and why? The sound of the child’s voice still echoed in his mind.

That voice.

He’d heard it somewhere before, hadn’t he? It was a young girl and it sounded and felt familiar, but he couldn’t place it. Whoever it was, she had pushed his power back as if it were nothing. A Guide? But which one? And why?

It must be close to morning. The fire had long since died and the hut was dark, filled with the scent of ash and the sound of Attar’s snores. Frustrated, he got to his feet and went outside.

A faint pre-dawn light was just beginning to push back the shadow of night and the thick grass was damp with heavy dew. It wet his boots and soaked the bottom of his trousers as he walked away from the hut toward the forest. The close growing trees were little more than a mass of darkness peaking against the ash grey sky and he closed his eyes and tilted his head back, relishing the sharp cold air of morning, and called the serpents. Marathin was out there above the forest, Haraka following. They had been hunting in the outskirts of the thick woods. Heat rose slowly in his blood, radiating to his skin as they neared.

Arak-ferish, they whispered and dropped down their wings cutting the air, a soft push and thread against it. The ground vibrated as they landed with a sound like bellows expelling air.

Good hunting? Tallis enquired.

Haraka snorted and he picked up the image of a mountain deer falling beneath his talons.

It was small prey though for the two of them, and he felt the sharp edge of their hunger still present. We’ll be going back soon, he sent. Marathin thumped her tail lightly against the wet ground and tilted her great head. Battle dreams, she said, then, old one dreams as well.

Tallis looked at her sharply. Old one was their name for Nuathin, Azoth’s ancient pet serpent. You sensed him?

Haraka shifted and Marathin snapped her teeth and twisted her neck around back the way they’d come. Distant. Buried.

Why could he not feel him? Tallis tried to curb his frustration and the serpent hissed quietly and dropped her head down to the grass. The father, gone.

I know, he snapped at her and she flinched back as his power rose to follow it. Where is Nuathin? Attar said you found no trace. He eyed Haraka and the serpent dropped lower to the ground.

He wasn’t there before. Felt you, disturbed him.

His presence disturbed the ancient serpent? Tallis paused and wondered, could he call Nuathin now, would it work?

Where is he? He asked Haraka. The younger serpent shook his head, the first rays of the rising sun caught on his hide. Far in the warm places, dreaming.

Dreaming?

He sleeps the long sleep, Marathin said, waiting for the Father.

The long sleep? Tallis felt a sudden leap in understanding.

Do others sleep the long sleep? he asked Marathin.

Many. It is our way.

Why had she not told him this before? He sensed through their bonding, that the long sleep was a kind of hibernation—he also realised why none of the serpents left had told him about it. They assumed he knew. He was the crest of their hive, their leader. A serpent would not give information to a leader it thought he knew; to do so would be to assume the leader didn’t know more than them and that could not be. A crest was power and knowledge. It had been out of respect that they had not told him.

Could I wake him? he asked. Marathin’s thoughts wavered.

He is old, the true paths hold great sway for him. He is buried deep. We do not know.

He kicked at the ground, crouched down, ran his hands through his hair.

The serpents were silent as he clenched his fists in the ground, staring at the wet earth. The dark power inside him coiled and rolled, filling his veins, his mind, and he struggled to control his breath, the life of the world spinning inside him with a low hum. The ground felt insubstantial under his hands and a wind suddenly sprung up as the sun crested the horizon, flattening the grass and pushing against his face. He sensed Attar standing at the door of the hut watching warily. It felt as if a tight band of iron was around his forehead, pulling everything in, holding it in, and if he released the catch he wasn’t sure what might happen. The wind increased, rising to a gale, a low moaning noise coming as it met the forest. Branches thrashed, cracking against one another. Tallis buried his fingers in the wet soil, staring ahead, unseeing, as a strange fugue came over him. He could almost see again the moment when he had his knife raised over Azoth, the god taken by surprise. He saw his moment to strike, and then Shaan using the power of the Birthstone to stop him. He trembled with the effort of wanting to have that moment back, to drive the blade into Azoth’s heart.

Arak-ferish … Marathin whispered in his mind, low, almost fearful. The serpent’s presence gently, gently ghosted into his mind. Arak-ferish … Tallis blinked, shaking with the fury of his power. With an effort of will, he slowly pushed the darkness down. The wind subsided. He drew his hands from the earth, wiping them on his pants, and rose slowly to his feet. Both serpents were cowering low to the ground, watching him. He took in a long unsteady breath and turned to Attar.

The rider stood in the doorway of the hut, a cautious look on his face. ‘Bad morning?’

Tallis felt unsteady on his feet. ‘Something like that.’

Attar nodded. He was holding a water skin and came toward him, stopping a few paces away. ‘Drink?’

Tallis hesitated then nodded, and taking the bag he took a long steadying draught. It was warm and tasted faintly of river mud but it was welcome. He was suddenly dry as the desert itself. He almost emptied it, but Attar said nothing. The spreading rays of the sun reached over the treetops but the place where they stood was still in shadow and cold. The serpents shifted, relaxing again, Haraka dropping his head down to the ground and closing his eyes.

‘So,’ Attar finally said, ‘food?’

Tallis nodded, wiping his mouth. ‘There’s more pan bread in my pack.’ He gave the water skin back to Attar and went back into the hut.

They sat outside on a pair of low rocks, eating pan bread and slivers of muthu from the night before.

‘It’s worse without her, isn’t it?’ Attar said after a time.

Tallis leaned on his thighs, watching the serpents. ‘It’s not just that.’ He wondered if Attar guessed how close he had come to losing control.

‘What is your plan, if you have one?’ Attar spat a speck of gristle on the ground.

‘I was going to find as many serpents as I can and ride on Salmut, retrieve the Prophet’s ring.’

Attar raised an eyebrow. ‘Was?’

‘The serpents are in a deep a sleep, maybe too deep for me to wake them, wherever they are.’

‘Are you giving up?

‘No.’ Tallis watched the sunlight touching trees, the wakening sky. ‘Marathin might be able to find them for me. She has an idea.’

‘Ideas are good,’ Attar said mildly. ‘But certainty is better.’

‘I might need your help, if I succeed.’

Attar slowly let the bread he had been about to eat fall back down to his lap. ‘Why do I get the impression this is more than a request to find Alterin’s people?’

Tallis asked, ‘What do you know about the fighting arena in Salmut?’

‘You mean the travesty of a death fighting camp they built where the serpent yards used to be?’ Attar’s eyes narrowed in disgust. ‘I know something about it. Balkis told me how the gods like to pit clansmen and bonded against each other in it for their amusement. They hold them in Hasan Daag and some of the smaller towns as well, but I hear Salmut has the largest. Paretim has turned the training grounds for the riders into his own stage of death.’

‘He holds tournaments there,’ Tallis said. ‘Practically all the bonded go to watch, Tuon has told me the city is barely guarded when they’re on.’

‘And you think that’s the best time to go in,’ Attar said.

‘It’s all I’ve got to go on.’ Tallis toyed with a crust of pan bread. ‘I need you to find out when the next bout is going to be. They depend on him having enough clan prisoners to put up an entertaining fight.’

Attar’s tone was layered with concern. ‘If you’re hoping that the gods would be distracted enough for you to sneak into the city without them noticing then you’ve grown more stupid, not less. Wasn’t it you who told me only recently how you’re sure the gods can sense you just as you sense them?’

‘I need to get that ring, Attar. Without it Shaan is lost forever.’ His mouth twisted in bitterness. ‘Azoth as well.’

‘And so?’

‘I need to talk to Balkis first,’ Tallis said. ‘He’s on his way back to the Well and I hope I can get back in time to see him there.’

Attar’s look was shrewd. ‘And then?’

‘We plan,’ Tallis said, and leaned toward him. ‘Will you follow me, Attar? I will need the best fighters I can get.’

Attar sighed and got up and went back inside the hut, saying over his shoulder, ‘When have I not, clansman?’ Tallis looked at Marathin, watching him from one green eye as if she knew what he was thinking.

* * *

It took three full days to reach the Wild Lands, but Tallis and Marathin managed it in two, Tallis lending the serpent strength to keep flying through most of the night and day, stopping to rest only once for a few hours for both of them to recover.

They arrived at Alterin’s village by early morning of the third day and though Tallis had been prepared, he was still saddened by what he saw; what had once been a collection of homes joined together by a delicate balance of wooden walkways draped with vines was now derelict and destroyed. Most of the