Hunger does not make bread bake faster.
Slack – mouthed, staring, the marula crept across the marble floor of Aurum’s chamber looking around them like children in a sorcerous cave. Among them, Sthax had become just another warrior the moment Morunasa had appeared. The Oracle glanced at the clocks as if he had seen such mechanical organisms every day of his life, but he jumped with the others when they saw themselves reflected in Aurum’s mirrors. It took the Marula only a moment to realize they were seeing themselves, but that was enough time for their fists to tighten on their lances. For all their beauty, in that Chosen setting, in their leather armour they did look crude barbarians.
He had them wait while he and the homunculus descended into the vault. The capsules were there, pale in the gloom. Earlier, while the homunculus had helped him into his commander’s leathers, they had discussed how his masters were to be moved. Carnelian set down his light and looked at him. ‘Let us prepare the capsules for transport.’
The homunculus gave a nod and they broke open the lid of Legions’ capsule. The Grand Sapient lay inside like a corpse. They administered the elixir through his mummified lips. The last thing they wanted was for him to wake in transit. They checked his restraining straps then repeated the procedure with the other Sapients. When they were ready, the homunculus resealed the lids, even as Carnelian returned to the chamber above and brought Morunasa and the Marula down with him into the vault. They stared at the capsules with unconcealed horror.
‘Corpses?’ Morunasa asked.
‘In a way,’ Carnelian answered. ‘We’re taking them to the Master’s watch-tower.’
Gazing at the capsules, Morunasa nodded. The homunculus located poles that Carnelian helped him slide into the carrying handles of Legions’ capsule. Carnelian was aware of the Marula watching him as if he were preparing for them a poisoned meal. He was careful to ignore Sthax.
The homunculus checked the poles were secure, then announced: ‘The capsule is ready, Seraph.’
Carnelian relayed this to Morunasa, who issued a command in his own tongue. When the Marula hesitated, Morunasa barked at them. Soon they had managed to slide the capsule horizontal, then, bending to the carrying poles, four on each side, they raised it into the air. As they began to climb the steps with it, the capsule started to tilt. Carnelian cried out in alarm.
The homunculus touched his arm. ‘My masters are as safe as butterflies in their chrysalises, Seraph.’
More like pupating maggots, thought Carnelian as he followed the capsule up the stair.
They crossed the fortress like a funerary procession. When they reached the watch-tower at the outer gate the homunculus showed them strange, wheeled carriages stowed in its stables. They dragged these up onto the leftway with their aquar. From that vantage point, Carnelian became mesmerized by the market teeming below. After having been confined for so long in the Legate’s tower it was a joy to see so much ordinary life. He raised his eyes to the horizon. Beyond the dun chaos of the earthbrick hovels of the city lay the rusty vastness of the land.
The homunculus showed the Marula how to secure each capsule to its carriage, in a near-vertical position. When all was ready, Carnelian climbed into his saddle-chair. He noticed the homunculus standing as awkwardly as an abandoned child. ‘You do not know how to ride, do you?’
‘No, Seraph.’
Carnelian beckoned him to approach, then helped him clamber into his saddle-chair, settling him between his legs. When he reckoned they were as comfortable as was possible, Carnelian made the aquar rise. He asked Morunasa to ride ahead with his men, leaving only three of them to lead the aquar hitched to the carriages. He eyed the maggot-pale capsules as they lurched into movement. The sun was bright enough to find the dark spindles at their core.
‘The Standing Dead,’ he murmured.
The homunculus stirred a little, tense as ice.
Soon they were loping along the leftway, Carnelian bringing up the rear of their cortege. They rode above the market, passed under two more watch-towers, then increased speed on the clear run north.
Even before they reached it, Carnelian could see the disc of Osidian’s camp disfiguring the earth around the watch-tower. Ahead the leftway came to a sudden, ragged end. Some distance further on it rose again, continuing north. In between, it had been reduced to rubble. Surveying the land round about, he understood why Osidian had torn down the leftway: so that he could meet any attack, whether it came from the east or west, with his whole legion.
Morunasa and the Marula were dismounting. Carnelian made his own mount kneel. He helped the homunculus clamber out, then climbed out himself.
The little man looked around. ‘Where are the ammonites of this tower, Seraph? They should be here to greet us.’
Carnelian gazed up into the watch-tower branches. It was Marula that sat as lookouts in the deadman’s chairs. This tower was Osidian’s and any ammonites could only compromise its security. ‘The Celestial dismissed them.’
The homunculus’ child mask glanced towards their Marula escort. ‘Then, Seraph, we must make do with these creatures.’
Under his instructions the Marula unloaded the capsules and carried them into the tower. Inside, the homunculus climbed the ladder that was set against the back wall. As he disappeared up into the shadows, Carnelian and Sthax exchanged a glance. Carnelian was trying to work out a way to keep the Maruli close when the homunculus returned, pulling a rope from which hung a hook. Carnelian helped him remove the carrying poles from Legions’ capsule and then watched him attach the hook to one of the freed rings. After the homunculus had fetched and attached a second hook, he showed the Marula some ropes and, at his command, they began to heave on them. As the capsule came slowly upright, the homunculus wrestled it against the wall, then clambered aboard. The Marula continued to pull upon the ropes and the capsule rose up into the gloom of the tower, with the homunculus clinging to it like a child to its mother.
Carnelian followed Legions’ capsule up through the tower. When it reached the uppermost storey, he helped the homunculus drag it into one of the cells. The capsule was much lighter than he had expected. They propped it up against one wall. Carnelian looked around the chamber. It was so like the many he had seen on his journey to Osrakum that, for a moment, the time that had passed since then seemed an illusion.
‘I shall descend for the others, Seraph,’ said the homunculus.
Soon, he was out of sight, taking with him the hooks and ropes. While Carnelian waited, he opened the doors to the other chambers. All the cells save one looked as if they had not been used for a while. One smelled of sweat, but this odour was cut through by another, myrrh. The same smell that he was just aware of rising from his own, bandaged body. This must be Osidian’s cell, then. He walked around it as if he expected Osidian to return at any moment. He felt that he was intruding; these cells were far more territorial than had ever been the hearth or the sleeping hollows. He backed out of the cell and closed its door. He really would prefer to sleep somewhere out in the open, but even if this had been advisable, he felt a need to stay close to the capsules. He chose the cell furthest from Osidian’s, then returned to the landing to wait for the homunculus to appear with the next capsule.
After he had helped the homunculus stow the other two capsules, Carnelian climbed the ladder to the roof and had soon reached the platform, at the centre of which gleamed a heliograph. Movement drew his eyes to a Maruli spreadeagled in a deadman’s chair. Carnelian looked west. Far away, red clouds hung like mist over the land. In their midst, he saw flashes. Motes moved, veiled by the rolling dust: Osidian’s dragons on manoeuvres.
He let his gaze return to wander across the mottled semicircle of the camp below. A glint caught his eye. There was a hole in the ground ringed with silver. Cisterns, perhaps, but it was the hole that drew his attention. It plunged into deep blackness. Pallid creatures were writhing up its sides. Sartlar, like maggots crawling out of a wound.
When he descended the tower, he took the homunculus with him, down through the stables to the bottom gate. As grooms raised this for him he became aware of the hubbub of the road. He slipped out behind the monolith that screened them from the traffic. He watched the multitude thronging past, and bathed in its ever-shifting odours. He feasted on the faces, the smiles and flashing eyes of so much raw humanity. The beasts, the heaped wagons with their slowly turning wheels.
‘We must cross,’ he said quietly to the homunculus.
He sensed the little man’s fear and offered him his hand. Hesitantly, the homunculus took it and together they emerged onto the road. At first the shadow of the leftway wall concealed them, but then someone saw his mask, his looming height. Cries of ‘Master’ spread panic through the crowd. Pulling the homunculus after him, Carnelian began to cross the road. Everywhere people were falling to their knees. Carnelian did not turn his mask, for its gaze was terrifying to them, but restricted his attention to the bare stone before his feet. When they reached a ramp, they went down its slope to the red earth beyond. Each step thereafter, Carnelian made sure to scuff the earth to churn up dust to hide them.
He gave up counting the black hearths burnt into the land. Hazed with flies, hills of dragon dung gave off their stench. The glitter of the cisterns drew him and the promise of breathable air. Besides, he had a notion to take a look at the hole in the ground.
As they drew nearer, they saw the cistern was a trough, its lip gouged and cracked. Bright water rocked in its curve, which was the rim of an immense pit plunging down into blackness. The circling wall of the pit was pale limestone rotten with caves and rusted by the land’s red earth. The closer he drew, the further he could peer down into the gloom. Sartlar infested the caves. Others were clambering up out of the blackness using handholds gouged into the soft walls. Each was burdened with a waterskin. As he watched, one of the creatures struggled up from the well and emptied its skin into the cistern. Free for a moment, it rested its gnarled hands on its knees, hacking breath. Suddenly, sensing him, it glanced up. It cowered as it caught sight of the mirror gold of his face. Disliking the creature’s fear, Carnelian turned his back on it and, with the homunculus, he made his way back to the watch-tower. Weary of the world, he climbed to his cell and, as the homunculus hunched down against the wall, he lay down to await Osidian’s return.
She is Akaisha and Ebeny, though looks like neither. Carnelian feels the itching of her wounds as if they are his own. Scratching, she picks out maggots that writhe over her fingers like drops of oil. She licks them off. Her nails return to dig the wounds. They widen like mouths to devour him. He loses hold and tumbles in and falls and falls and falls.
He came awake with Osidian standing over him. He had the uncomfortable impression that Osidian had been there for a while. When he sat up, Osidian did not back away enough to give him the space he felt he needed. Osidian seemed too large for the cell, which he filled with the odour of his leathers. Every part of him was reddened except for his face. It seemed he was wearing a mask of pallid alabaster. He frowned, but there was a shy tenderness in his eyes that flustered Carnelian further.
‘Where are the commanders?’ Carnelian said, to say something.
Osidian’s frown deepened as he sensed Carnelian’s unease. ‘On their way to the Mountain as we agreed.’
In his military cloak, Osidian was filling the cell as Carnelian’s father had filled the cabin on the baran. Carnelian wondered why he was making the comparison. He felt his face was burning.
Osidian took a step back, dismayed. ‘I’ll leave.’
Carnelian did not want to part like that. Though they were no longer lovers, they needed to be allies. He struggled to find a way through his feelings. ‘Let’s eat together tonight.’
Osidian glanced at the cell as if he was seeing it for the first time. ‘Here?’
Carnelian grimaced. The cell would not do; it felt like a battlefield. He remembered a time long ago. ‘Why not up on the platform, near the heliograph? It would be cool up there. Unrestricted.’
Osidian’s eyes were flint. ‘As you say, unrestricted.’ He gave a weary nod and had to stoop to leave through the door. Carnelian watched it close, then was left with only his breathing and his beating heart.
Standing with his back to the heliograph mechanism, Osidian removed his mask and gazed north. Carnelian was reluctant to remove his own. ‘There is no protection here, my Lord.’
Osidian turned to look at him. ‘It was you who pointed out to me that we spent years unprotected among the barbarians.’ He resumed his squinting at the northern blackness, which was relieved only by the naphtha flares of the next tower and the faint glimmer of the stopping place around its feet. ‘Besides, up here we are as far from the contaminating earth as birds in flight.’
Carnelian glanced uneasily to where the homunculus was sitting astride the beam that ended in the hoop of a deadman’s chair. The little man was wearing his blinding mask. Osidian had dismissed the Marula lookouts so that there would be no eyes to see them. As Carnelian unmasked, his face was chilled by the night air touching his sweat. He breathed deeply, enjoying not having to draw air through the mask filters.
‘Will you take your place in Earth-is-Strong’s tower and help me with the training of our legion?’ Osidian said.
Carnelian regarded his back and sensed how tense he was. ‘Who would guard the Grand Sapient?’
Osidian glanced round. ‘You oversee the feeding of the elixir, do you not?’
Carnelian gave a nod and Osidian turned away again. ‘The Marula will make sure no one enters the tower and they themselves would not dare.’
Carnelian remembered how Sthax and the other warriors had looked at the capsules. He considered whether to spend the next few days riding the dragon. No doubt it would be preferable to remaining cooped up in the watch-tower, but he was remembering Osidian torching the sartlar. He was not sure their brittle alliance could survive another such atrocity. He had fooled himself before that he could steer Osidian away from such behaviour. Of course, he might try imposing some conditions but, in the past, that had worked badly. Still, he could no longer pretend he was not committed to this war and he must be prepared to bear the consequences. ‘I will join you.’
Osidian gave a couple of nods.
Carnelian turned his thoughts to what the coming war might involve. ‘How long will it take the commanders to reach Osrakum?’
Osidian turned. ‘You are likely to know that better than I. The Guarded Land is like a great wheel. The commanders are travelling along one spoke to its centre. You travelled along another when you came up from the sea. How long did that take?’
Carnelian cast his mind back to that journey. It stretched in his recollection to span scores of days, though he knew that it had really not taken so long. ‘Five or six days, I think, but we were travelling at great speed.’
Osidian smiled coldly. ‘The commanders will also be travelling at great speed.’
Carnelian thought about that. He could see how haste would benefit them. They might be hoping to be the first to arrive with the news of Osidian’s revolt. It could seem to them that only thus might they avoid retribution. He felt a stab of anxiety. ‘That is not going to leave us much time to get the legion ready.’
‘Long enough,’ Osidian said. ‘Though Aurum is close, I do not imagine he will be sent against us alone.’
Carnelian nodded. ‘It would be one legion against another.’
‘The Wise prefer not to take risks. They will attempt to muster overwhelming odds against us. Besides, Aurum’s naphtha will be much depleted.’
Osidian gazed at him expectantly. Carnelian realized that Osidian was expecting him to ask just how bad it had been for the Lepers. If he was being tested, he would pass. ‘What makes you think Aurum has not refuelled in the city to the north of here?’
Osidian regarded him, then allowed himself a smile. ‘Perhaps. That is not important. What is, is that when the attack comes it will not be from a single legion.’
The certainty they would be outnumbered left Carnelian feeling bleak. He remembered the dragon tower exploding. Death in such circumstances would be quick, but his heart ached when he imagined how the Lepers and the Marula would suffer on the ground. ‘How can we hope to prevail?’
Osidian’s smile surprised him. ‘I have a notion or two…’
Carnelian considered asking him what those might be, but suspected he would get no answer. He glanced down through the bars of the platform to the lights of the camp spread out below. Whatever Osidian’s plan, it would be unlikely to spare the Lepers or the Marula.
Back in his cell, Carnelian was struck afresh by how identical it was to the others he had slept in before. He touched one of the walls, knowing that behind it Legions and the other Sapients lay dreaming in their capsules, but it could so easily be his father, wounded. This illusion was so great, he almost moved to the door, going to see if it was possible he had dreamed all that had happened since then.
A movement in the corner startled him. A small figure adjusting itself. For a moment he could believe it was Tain, his brother. Then, a flicker of the lamplight caught a surface of its metal face. Not his brother, but the homunculus in his blinding mask. Carnelian squinted and once again it could be Tain, whom Jaspar had threatened to blind. There was a strange parallelism in all this. A pattern that, should he be able to see enough of it, would make sense of everything.
He gave up the struggle, despairing, and went to one of the slits he knew must look down into the stopping place. The fires spangling the land below seemed, at first, very like all those other stopping places, but then he noticed the hills of blackness arrayed along the edge of the road. Dragons. Still, the flicker of the campfires seemed welcoming even from that distance. Poppy and Fern were there somewhere. How he yearned to join them.
The next morning he rose and put on his leathers again with the help of the homunculus. Then, after feeding the Sapients, they descended the tower with Osidian. To Carnelian’s surprise, he did not go down into the stable levels, but walked out onto the leftway. As Carnelian followed him into the open, he was confronted by the flank of a dragon tower. Its brassman had the back of its head resting against the leftway where the crumbled edge had been hacked into rough steps.
Osidian’s Hands were there. ‘After I move Heart-of-Thunder away, they will bring up your huimur, my Lord. Follow me out.’
Carnelian lifted his hand in assent and Osidian descended the rough steps to the brassman. He crossed and entered the tower, his officers scrambling after him. The brassman was only half raised when Heart-of-Thunder began to move away. His footfalls sent tremors up through the leftway and caused more of its rubble to come loose and skitter over the edge. Carnelian watched the monster veer across the road, then saw below a dark mass of mounted Marula. Other dragons berthed all along the edge of the road, freed from their hawsers, were beginning to turn, their towers catching the morning sun. Beyond, spreading to the edges of the camp, was the paler multitude of the Lepers. He narrowed his eyes, searching among them for Poppy or Fern or even Krow, but it was impossible to make one figure out among so many.
More tremors in the ground alerted him to another dragon tower swaying towards the leftway. Taking a step forward he peered down and was sure he could see the distinctive configuration of Earth-is-Strong’s horns. Soon her brassman was lowering. He had begun to descend the rough steps to it, when he remembered the homunculus. The little man stood petrified, but came when Carnelian called him. He took his hand to lead him into the tower.
Soon Carnelian was settling back into the familiar hollow of his command chair. He glanced round to check that the homunculus was braced against the bone wall, then gave the command to take her out. His Lefthand gave a nod of acknowledgement and Earth-is-Strong began lumbering out across the road. Carnelian peered down to see riders swirling below. Then the dragon was descending a ramp into a rolling mass of red dust into which she plunged on a westerly course. On either side other dragons seemed ships in a fog.
The dust-clouds subsided enough for him to be able to see that they were passing along a red road trampled through hri fields that stretched interminably to lilac horizons. He presumed the road had been made by Osidian’s passage the day before. In the lazy heat he watched shadoofs like the necks of heaveners rising and falling as they poured water along ditches. The regular grid of kraals made the land look like some vast upholstery. Here and there dark lines of sartlar moved, hunched, across a field; he wondered that they did not lift their heads to watch the dragons pass.
At last they came into a region in which the tussocked hri fields were scorched and trampled. In places burnt kraals formed blackened craters. Osidian sent a signal from tower to tower, calling a halt. Carnelian saw other dragons turning and so gave the same command to his. Earth-is-Strong swung round and then the cabin stilled. For a moment rattles came from distant chains and mechanisms. Then all fell silent. The musk of hri rose up from the earth with the heat. Carnelian felt the sweat soaking into the bandages binding his body. A muffled voice in the deck below was answered by another. Then he heard the Lepers coming in a rabble down the red road. Carnelian looked among the mounted and the walking, among the bristle of forks and scythes, but could find little point of reference among that shrouded mass, never mind the hoped-for sighting of anyone he knew. Marula came riding from the north where he knew Osidian and Heart-of-Thunder lay. Leading them, grey-faced Oracles. As they encircled the Lepers, Carnelian suffered acute anxiety that they were going to attack them. He relaxed as soon as he saw the Oracles were doing nothing more than separating off groups of several hundred Lepers who, with a single Oracle in command and some dozen Marula warriors in the vanguard, detached from the throng and set off along the dragon line.
When more signals came from Heart-of-Thunder, Carnelian listened to his Lefthand explaining what Osidian wanted done.
‘This is what you did yesterday?’
‘Just so, Master.’
‘And no sartlar were harmed?’
‘Inevitably, some were crushed…’
‘But the pipes were not used?’
‘Only against some empty kraals, Master.’
Carnelian nodded and relayed the commands to the other two dragons of his cohort. Soon they were pounding across some virgin fields, the Marula and Lepers assigned to them forming horns on either flank, pursuing hapless sartlar that they were trying to encircle.
From Earth-is-Strong’s tower, Carnelian watched the Lepers pour back into the watch-tower camp. As they entered the stopping place they raised a great cloud that glowed in the light of the westering sun. He was troubled. All day he had worked with the Lepers assigned to him. All attempts to coordinate them with the advance of his dragons had led to a shambles. Some riding, others jogging, they had not even managed to keep together. The formations that the Oracles and Marula had attempted to marshal them into had ended up scattered all over the fields. The Marula had been difficult enough to manage from his high vantage point. He could hardly blame them for not understanding the signals flashed to them. Why should they? Even the other two dragons had made mistakes, though these were perhaps a consequence of the recent changes in their crew hierarchies. The dragons, Osidian could deal with. What was concerning Carnelian most was the Lepers. In any fight with auxiliaries, they would be annihilated.
As Earth-is-Strong cruised through the camp and up the ramp onto the road, Carnelian commanded his Lefthand to bring her to a halt short of the watch-tower. His Hands followed him as he descended to the ground. Heart-of-Thunder was sliding alongside the leftway. Marula were dismounting around him. A mass of dragons was moving along the road towards the breach in the leftway. The percussion of their footfalls was producing a constant thundering earthquake. Glancing up at the watch-tower, Carnelian was almost surprised it was not shaking to pieces. He turned west, angling the eyeslits of his mask against the liquid gold sun that was squeezing between the vast black shapes of the dragons as they were marshalled to form a rampart along the edge of the road. Through them he caught intermittent glimpses of the milling chaos of the Leper camp. He needed to talk to Lily.
‘I am going down there,’ he cried above the din.
His Hands grimaced, lifting the flaps of their helmets to hear him better.
‘Down there,’ he shouted, pointing towards the Lepers.
They made to come and stand behind him, but he waved them away. He pointed up to Earth-is-Strong, who seemed a cliff cast from gold, and, with his hands, he made them understand they were to return to her tower and take her to her berth alongside the watch-tower. He watched them begin to ascend the rope ladder and then waited for the last dragon to lumber past before setting off for the ramp.
As he stepped off the ramp, several legionaries rushed up. Before they could kneel, he gestured them aside, declining their obeisance and their offers to escort him. The odour of render was tainting the musky breeze. Looking along the beaked line of dragons, he saw they were being fed. Beneath their prowed heads, marumaga were lighting fires and distributing sacs for their dinner. Carnelian turned to contemplate the Leper multitude, rosy in the sinking sun, and wondered how he was going to find Lily. There was nothing for it but to go and ask someone. He paced slowly towards the Lepers as if they were a colony of seabirds he was anxious not to startle into flight. When shrouded heads turned at his approach, he expected panic, but they merely bent back towards their fires as if he were a ghost they did not want to believe was really there. He went right up to one cluster, coming close enough that he could smell their sweat and the render that they were eating. Towering over them, he asked to be directed to their leaders: to Lily in particular. At first he thought they were not going to answer, but then an arm rose that lacked fingers. He moved off towards the cisterns, to which the stump was pointing. Two legionaries came past, bearing a great waterskin between them upon a sagging pole. He waved them on before they could kneel and they loped past, spilling some water that seemed to turn the earth to blood. Several times more Carnelian asked directions and, each time, a spot near the cisterns was indicated.
He was approaching one clump like any other, thinking he must ask again, when he recognized the breadth of shoulders beneath the shrouds of a hunched figure. One of the Lepers nudged another and all who were round that fire stood up to face him.
‘Master,’ said one with Lily’s husky voice.
Carnelian saw the smoulder in their midst that turned it into a hearth. It made him feel he was intruding. He touched the metal over his face and had a desperate urge to unmask.
‘That’s not the Master, it’s Carnie.’
The voice came from a slim figure, Poppy. All of them save Lily pushed back their cowls: Poppy, Krow beside her, Fern. It was the latter who was regarding Carnelian as if he were an enemy. ‘What do you want, Master?’
Shock made Carnelian unable to speak. Perhaps he should have anticipated Fern’s reaction. What did he know of what his life had been since last he saw him? Raising his hands in appeasement, he was startled by how alien they seemed, sheathed in their pale leather. ‘You’re not warriors-’ He sensed anger in a shifting of Lily’s weight. ‘I’ve come to offer my help to train you.’
Fern’s eyes became a hawk’s. ‘Has the Master given you permission to make this offer?’
Carnelian was stung by that, but chose not to justify himself. ‘I am here,’ he said, simply.
Fern’s contempt spread to his lips. ‘So you want to help us so that we can fight for the Master… train us as you once trained the Marula…?’
Carnelian felt anger burn his face.
Fern threw his hand out in dismissal. ‘We don’t need your help.’
‘I think you do. If it comes to a battle with auxiliaries, you’ll be annihilated and at no great cost to them.’ Carnelian turned to Lily. ‘Did you bring your people here to give your enemy more victims?’
‘Are you sure it will come to a battle?’
Carnelian turned and saw the speaker was Krow. He paused for a moment, noticing Poppy’s hand upon the youth’s arm. ‘I think it’s likely.’
He turned back to Lily. ‘If you are determined to fight, then I can help you.’
The Leper nodded. ‘We are determined and so’ – she turned towards Fern – ‘we need all the help we can get, Ochre.’
Fern turned away, pulling his cowl back over his face, and returned to sit gazing at the fire.
Carnelian gave a nod of resignation. ‘Tomorrow I’ll ride with you.’
The murmur from the camp rose up with the campfire smoke to the watch-tower platform where Carnelian and Osidian were eating together. ‘I’m going to take personal command of the Lepers,’ Carnelian announced, in a tone that surprised him with its vehemence.
Osidian frowned. ‘Why?’
Expecting a fight, Carnelian was for a moment put off-balance by Osidian’s calm tone. ‘They’re a mess. If we take them out against trained auxiliaries, they’ll be annihilated.’ Osidian’s expression had not changed. ‘That would hardly be of much use to us…’
Osidian regarded him for a moment, then nodded, picked up a hri wafer and put it in his mouth. He chewed it for a while. ‘That’s why I put the Marula in charge of their training.’
‘Today, I saw very little evidence that that’s working.’
‘Today was only the second day of their training.’
Carnelian felt the strength in his position deserting him. He imagined what Fern would think of him if he did not turn up the next morning as he had promised. That caused him to question whether Fern was the only reason he was doing it. His heart told him that Fern was a reason, but not the only one. ‘They need more help than the Marula can provide.’
‘Indeed?’
‘They can’t speak each other’s tongue.’
‘Morunasa’s Vulgate is as good as yours.’
Carnelian almost reached for the justification that he was a Master, but his instincts were against this. It was a cowardly way out and not the truth. ‘The Lepers will not easily take instructions from Morunasa.’
Osidian glanced up at him, but said nothing. He had no need to. Among the Lepers it was only Fern who would not easily take instructions from Morunasa. Osidian looked back to his bowl and selected another wafer. ‘Do as you will.’
Carnelian had no feeling of victory. He felt empty. A constant murmur was rising from the camp. Glancing down, he saw the twinkling campfires. He pulled his cloak about him. Up here the night was cold.
On the leftway with Osidian, Carnelian gazed past the dragons to the Leper multitude. ‘I want to take them out by myself.’
‘Without the huimur?’
Carnelian glanced at Osidian. ‘They need to be forged before they can be used as a weapon. I am sure you have much work you can do with your huimur alone.’
Osidian gave a nod and Carnelian returned to the watch-tower on his way down to the road.
Carnelian gazed at the Lepers. It had been hard enough to get them here from the camp in anything approaching good order, but the sun had had time to climb the sky before Morunasa and the other Oracles had managed to marshal them into an approximation to a battleline.
As Carnelian turned to his companions, several threw their arms up against the dazzle reflecting off his mask. Lily was there with other Lepers, all shrouded. Bareheaded were Fern and Krow and Morunasa. Carnelian regarded the Oracle, wondering if he could work with him. He recalled how, when he had told him he was taking control of the Marula for the day, Morunasa had glanced up to where Osidian was standing on the leftway as if he doubted Carnelian’s authority. Morunasa had obeyed him, had made the Marula do everything Carnelian asked of them, but with a visible reluctance.
‘Ride with me,’ Carnelian said to them all, then coaxed his aquar into a lope along the ragged Leper line. Only the detachments of Marula, each with an Oracle commander, formed a regular pattern along the front. Behind them, the Lepers were a rabble. Fewer than half of them were mounted and, though here and there he could see clumps of auxiliary lances, the air above their heads was predominantly a confusion of hoes and hooks and stone-blade scythes.
He pulled his aquar up. The half-flare of her eye-plumes closing as he turned her. ‘Lily, why are so few of your people mounted?’
‘You’ve reason to know our valleys are more suited to boats than aquar. We mustered all we could find there and in the fortress.’ She made a vague gesture in the direction of Makar.
Krow was nodding. ‘The Master’s been making us take all the aquar we can from the people on the road.’ He scrunched up his nose. ‘But they’re generally rather weedy and there’s not a lot of them and mostly they don’t have saddle-chairs, but racks for carrying stuff-’
Carnelian nodded, noticing how Krow was at Fern’s side, as he had been all day. He wondered how they had resolved their differences. ‘What proportion of your Lepers are mounted?’
‘Perhaps one in three,’ said Lily.
‘And are those good riders?’
Lily shrugged. Fern’s face might have been wood. It was Krow who answered. ‘Competent, Master.’
Carnelian glanced at the Lepers and wondered how long it would take for them to become good enough. He scanned those closest. They certainly did not look comfortable in their saddle-chairs. ‘How are they commanded, Morunasa?’
‘There are as many units as there are dragons, each commanded by one of my brethren. They answer to me.’
‘Is each of these units organized as a single body?’
Morunasa shook his head. ‘Under the Master’s instruction, each Oracle chose three Lepers to directly command. Each of those chose three more. And those, three more and so on until they reached groups of three or four or five.’
‘Does this work, Lily?’
The Leper glanced at Morunasa. ‘No. Many have ended up serving alongside those they don’t know. Many have deserted to be with their friends.’
Morunasa’s lips curled with disgust. ‘It’s been impossible to enforce the Master’s scheme. These wretches all look alike.’
Lily turned on him. Though her shrouds hid her expression, Krow gave Morunasa a look of dislike strong enough for both of them. Fern, whom Carnelian would have expected to dislike Morunasa the most, remained impassive.
‘Morunasa, how do your brethren give their commands to the Lepers?’
Morunasa raised his hands. ‘With these.’
‘What do you think, Fern?’
Fern did not look at him. ‘What do you think I think?’
Carnelian wanted to break through Fern’s impassivity to the anger he was impaled on. ‘I don’t know. Tell me. How were you organized as you came up the Pass?’
As Fern turned his dark eyes on him, Carnelian could see the hurt in them. In return, Fern could see only the gold of his mask. ‘We were organized friend with friend, brother with brother.’
‘No system?’
‘Our settlements vary greatly in size,’ said Lily.
Carnelian’s gaze passed over the Leper crowd as he digested what he had been told. He came to a decision. ‘Morunasa, gather your brethren and all your warriors and ride back to the watch-tower. Tell the Master I’ve no further need of you.’
The Oracle glared at him for a moment and it seemed he was going to say something, then his lips parted in a feral grin. ‘As the Master wishes.’
He rode his aquar along the line crying out something in the Marula tongue. As the warriors began to detach themselves from the battleline, Carnelian turned back to Fern and Krow, to Lily and the other Leper commanders. ‘Form them up as they were before. Friend with friend. Brother with brother.’
Carnelian swung from the ladder onto the landing. He was glad to see Osidian’s door closed. He had reason to believe he was there in his cell. The dragons had been already in camp when he had returned with the Lepers. He was weary to his bones. His reorganization had not brought the fruits he had hoped. He did not want to have to deal with Osidian until he had had time to rebuild his faith in what he had chosen to take on. Opening the door to his cell, he was relieved to see that the homunculus was still there, sleeping under the effects of the elixir he had made him take. It was the only thing he could have done. It was not practical to take the little man with him and he did not want to run the risk of leaving him behind, awake, unsupervised.
He removed his cloak and reached up behind his head to release his mask. A movement in the corner of his eye made him freeze. There was someone gazing at him from the furthest corner of the cell.
‘Poppy!’
The girl smiled at him.
‘Great Father, what’re you doing here?’
She raised her small hands in a gesture of appeasement. ‘Now don’t be angry.’
‘Don’t be angry?’ he bellowed. Then winced, glancing at the door. The last thing he wanted to do was bring Osidian to find out what was going on. ‘Do you know what could’ve happened if I’d removed my mask?’
‘Nothing,’ she said, grinning.
He raised his hands with fingers splayed, close to screaming at her. She came towards him and reached up to his right hand with both of hers and gently pulled it down, then the other, all the time talking. ‘Now, Carnie, it makes no difference because I want to join your household and your household can look at you, can’t they? You do remember telling me that, don’t you?’
Carnelian grimaced behind his mask. ‘Yes, but we don’t know where all this will end. You’d be locked in.’ His emotions were a mess. ‘Besides, you’ll have to wear my House mark.’
‘I know, here, on my face.’
Her smile softened his heart. Calmed him.
A knock at the door made them both jerk round to stare at it.
‘My Lord?’
It was Osidian’s voice. Carnelian waved Poppy back into the corner, then opened the door and stood blocking the doorway. Osidian frowned. ‘Why are you still masked?’
Carnelian pointed back into the cell with his head. ‘The homunculus…’
Osidian pulled back into the shadows. ‘How did it go today?’
‘I’ll tell you up by the heliograph over food.’ Carnelian saw that Osidian had already removed his leathers. ‘You go up and I’ll be there shortly.’
Osidian’s frown was deepening as Carnelian closed the door. He waited to hear him walk away, then confronted Poppy. ‘You can slip out of here now.’
Poppy smiled at him. He knew only too well how stubborn she could be. ‘Have it your own way. I don’t have the time to deal with this now. You stay here, but make sure you don’t make a sound.’ He glanced at the homunculus. Hopefully he would sleep a little longer.
‘Who’s that? I took a peek under his mask. He looks very old.’
‘Never mind him. Just help me change.’
‘Where’s the homunculus?’ Osidian asked Carnelian as he appeared at the edge of the heliograph platform.
‘In a drugged sleep. Did you expect me to ride around all day with him sitting on my lap?’
Osidian’s eyebrows rose. ‘I thought you said-’
Carnelian realized his mistake too late. ‘Forget what I said. We’ve more important matters to deal with.’ He sank to the platform so that the bowls of food lay between them. Then he began to describe the changes he had made to the way the Lepers were organized.
Osidian grew increasingly aghast. ‘But without a deep command hierarchy they will lose all tactical flexibility.’
‘Tactical flexibility? We’ll be lucky if we even achieve a modicum of military capability. Have you seen how they’re armed? And fewer than a third of them are mounted.’
As Carnelian saw Osidian’s eyes dulling, he became concerned he might lose the Lepers to him. ‘I have some notions as to how we might get round that problem, but I want to make sure we agree on this issue of tactical flexibility. You do not intend to use them interspersed among your huimur, do you?’
Osidian shook his head. ‘They would be cremated.’
‘As I thought. So you’ll be using them on your wings?’
‘Probably.’
‘Well, I’ll give you two independently controllable wings and, though they may not be up to any complicated manoeuvring, they should be able to stand up against Aurum’s auxiliaries.’
Watching Osidian considering this, Carnelian wondered if he would be able to deliver on his promise. ‘I’ve faith, Osidian, that you’ll be able to come up with tactics that will accommodate these limitations.’
‘Perhaps. What about the Marula?’
Carnelian smiled and shifted to Quya: ‘I am sure my Lord can find a better use for them than to act as an impenetrable barrier between himself in his huimur tower and the Lepers on the ground.’
Osidian nodded, but he was already sinking into contemplation. Carnelian was initially glad of this, then found it only served to bring to the fore his rising anxiety about Poppy. Not only was the homunculus down there, but also Legions and the other Sapients. What was he going to do with her?
Poppy was waiting for him, smiling.
‘Here,’ he said, offering her some hri wafers that he had saved from his meal with Osidian. She put the food down without even glancing at it. Her eyes seemed to be trying to see past the mask as if it were mist.
‘You must return to Fern and the others.’
Carnelian expected a protest, but Poppy’s smile did not change. He began to list all the reasons why she must return. The disfigurement of the tattoo; the irreversibility of her joining his household; the unlikelihood that he would ever in fact return to the Mountain, never mind the difficulty of getting her there too; that even if they managed it, life there for her would be far from what she might imagine; that not only she, but he too would be severely restricted by the Law; that she had no appreciation of how truly vast was the difference between their ranks. He fell silent, unnerved by the fact that Poppy’s smile seemed to have withstood his onslaught unchanged. ‘You would end up separated from Fern… and Krow,’ he added as an afterthought.
‘Not if they were also to join your household,’ she said.
That knocked Carnelian completely off-balance. Poppy seemed to have no doubt they would. He almost asked her what made her think that Fern would want to follow them to Osrakum, but something within him did not want to have that answered. ‘Even if all of this were to work out, even if we were all to end up in the Mountain together, one day I would succeed my father and thereafter you would never see my face again…’
Poppy’s smile thinned on her lips. Her eyes grew intense. ‘Look, there’s no point in going on about the things that could go wrong; I’m well experienced in how things can go wrong. What of it? At least we’d be able to spend what time there’s left together. And if we get to the Mountain, I’ll just have to learn to live with what we’re allowed. Where do you think I’m going to have a better life?’
‘Among the Lepers…’
She frowned and shook her head, tears in her eyes. ‘I’ve tried that. I don’t want to live there without my family.’
Carnelian felt his heart clench at that word.
‘Besides,’ she said, forcing her tears back with another smile, ‘I want to do something now. Something useful. If a battle’s coming, I don’t want to watch everyone else getting ready for it and do nothing myself. I can at least look after you and, perhaps, I can act as a link between you and the Lepers. By being here I’ve proved how easy it is for me to pass through the Marula. They’re used to me having access to you and so is everyone else. No one will notice me, either here or there.
‘The Master-’
Her eyes flashed. ‘I’m beneath his notice. If you tell him I’m yours, he won’t touch me.’
Carnelian considered that and thought she was probably right.
‘I’m a woman now and can make my own decisions.’
He noticed how, indeed, she had grown taller; how her face was growing oval, her breasts swelling. If not a woman yet, she was also not a child. He wondered how this change had come upon her so young; then recalled that some orchids, threatened with death, flower early. It made him sad that it might be the pressures of her life that had snatched away what little childhood she might have had left. He had to ignore that, and the hope in her eyes, to focus instead on working out what he must do. His heart leapt at the thought that he might keep her with him. He regarded her. It felt right in his bones. He reached up and began to remove his mask. As it came off he breathed a sigh of relief.
‘Carnie!’
She launched into him and he caught her, kneeling to embrace her. She pushed away and gazed at his face in wonder and her tears started his.
At last they disengaged, wiping tears, suddenly a little shy of each other.
‘Who’s that?’ Poppy said, pointing at the homunculus.
Carnelian tried to explain.
‘I thought he was a boy until I looked under his mask.’
‘He’s probably older than any Elder.’
Poppy gave him an anxious glance. ‘Did you kill him?’
‘Kill?’ Carnelian laughed. ‘He’s not dead, merely sleeping.’ Poppy gave him a look of disbelief. ‘Really. I made him take a sleeping drug.’
Poppy’s eyes grew sharp. ‘He has something to do with those things next door?’
Carnelian saw she was pointing to the wall, beyond which lay the Sapients in their capsules. ‘You didn’t open them, did you?’
She shook her head quickly in a way that made her look very much like a little girl. ‘I didn’t dare…’
He tried to explain who was inside.
Poppy grew pale. ‘Childgatherers.’
‘Their masters.’
Seeing her fear, he felt a jab of panic. Poppy saw this and reached out to take his arm, smiling. ‘Don’t worry about me.’
He put his hand over hers and drew her towards the bed, where they sat side by side, with the homunculus behind them. He wanted to ask her so many things, but he needed time to marshal his feelings. ‘Tell me about Krow.’
She turned to him, smiling. ‘You’ve noticed how different he is.’
Carnelian nodded. ‘I suppose I have.’
‘He’s a lot happier,’ she said, with a warmth that Carnelian had never seen her show towards the youth. He asked her to tell him, from the beginning, what had happened between them.
‘Well, when you left’ – she gave him a sharp look that made him laugh, but then seized his hand and clung to it – ‘we were forced into each other’s company a lot. There was no one much else to talk to. I grew used to him, but there was always the…’ She regarded Carnelian with haunted eyes.
‘The massacre.’
She swallowed. ‘Yes, that lay between us. However much I wanted to like him, it was there. Until one day I asked him about it.’
She frowned, unaware she was kneading his arm, staring at the ground as if seeing something far away. ‘For days he stayed away from me, until one day he came and told me everything.’
‘Confession can be unburdening,’ Carnelian said.
‘Yes, it was a confession of sorts. He did help the Master in the killing.’ Poppy turned to look Carnelian in the eye. ‘But only because Akaisha begged him to.’
‘Akaisha…?’ Carnelian thought about it.
‘I think she knew it was the only way to save him from the Master.’
‘And she wanted him to carry a message to us.’
‘And he did.’
‘And we ignored him,’ Carnelian said. He let out a groan. ‘Why didn’t he tell us?’
The sadness that came into Poppy’s eyes was answer enough.
‘He still did help.’
Poppy nodded. ‘It took me a while to persuade him that he could have done nothing more than he did, that he was not responsible for the killing.’
Carnelian understood and smiled. ‘No wonder he looks so different.’
‘Yes, he is different,’ Poppy said, her face suffused with a warmth that displayed how she now felt about Krow.
Carnelian was happy for them both, but this feeling faded as the pressure built up to ask another question. ‘And Fern?’
‘Oh, you can imagine that was hard. Though his body had recovered by then, his spirit seemed to have fled him, but I worked on him and, eventually, he came round to forgiving Krow. At least, he seems to have; it’s difficult to say what he feels. He’s so closed now.’
She had misunderstood his question. Carnelian tried again. ‘You implied earlier that he might want to enter my household…’
She searched his eyes, then grimaced. ‘I’m not really sure about that. But, surely, there’s hope in him wanting to come up with the Lepers?’
Carnelian dropped his gaze, trying to hide his disappointment. He bit his tongue, which would have said: hatred could have motivated him to do that. ‘What about Lily?’ he asked, wanting to talk about something else.
‘What about her?’
It was no good, he could not drag his thoughts away from Fern. He rose. ‘It’s time to sleep.’ He looked around the cell and then back at the bed.
‘Let me stay here with you,’ Poppy said.
Carnelian nodded. She would be safer. He glanced again at the bed with the homunculus lying on it. In the past he and Poppy would have shared it, but she was getting too old for that. He thought of giving her the bed and making another for himself on the floor, but this was to set a precedent that could only lead to trouble. He found a cupboard that had some blankets in it. He threw these to her and smiled, indicating the floor. ‘Wherever you want.’
She glanced at the bed, then gave him a nod. As she made herself comfortable, Carnelian lifted the homunculus and transferred him to his nest of blankets. He kissed Poppy good night, then dowsed the lamp and lay back on his bed. The murmur of the camp rose through the night. He wondered if he had done the right thing by letting her join him. He listened for her breathing. When he heard it, it soothed him. It was the most at home he had felt for a long time.
When he set off the next morning, he left the homunculus in Poppy’s care. She had insisted that she could do it. When the little man had woken, they had gazed at each other warily. Carnelian had told the homunculus he had a choice. Either he agreed to her supervision, or else he would have to be drugged. Clearly perplexed by the relationship the Master had with this strange girl, the homunculus elected to remain awake.
As Carnelian led the Lepers out, his body ached all over from the riding on the previous day. He nominated Krow to be his liaison with Lily and Fern. As he gave the youth instructions, he took time to reassure him that Poppy was safe with him. Krow was clearly relieved. ‘I wasn’t sure it was a good idea, but you know what she’s like.’
Carnelian wished his mask did not stop Krow seeing that he too was grinning. ‘Yes, I know what she’s like.’
After that, in spite of being on either side of the mask, they were easy with each other. With the help of Krow, Fern and Lily, Carnelian divided the Lepers into two wings. Fern was to command one, Lily the other. Riding with a wing on either hand, Carnelian began the weary process of making them battle-ready.
He had to be content with slow progress. He came to understand that, even had he been able to find an aquar for every one of them, they would never become an effective mounted force. Not enough of them were natural riders. One day, in discussion with Fern and Lily, it occurred to him that perhaps their focus was all wrong. He asked the others if they felt that the Lepers would be happier fighting on foot. Lily said, with some emotion, that her people would be much happier. That evening Carnelian explained his idea to Osidian, who reluctantly agreed. The following day he had the Lepers modify their saddle-chairs so that they were more like those of the Plainsmen. The most important addition was a crossbar, but longer than a Plainsman one. As well as its rider, each aquar could now carry two more Lepers, hanging from either end of its crossbar. These pairs were matched closely in weight so that they would not unbalance their aquar. It took some practice, but soon, for the first time, the Leper force was able to move in a body without leaving stragglers. It was only then that Carnelian began to train them to fight in hornwalls. They improvised spears and shields by tearing apart abandoned sartlar kraals. To his satisfaction, the Lepers took to the new training well. Soon they were forming solid, bristling walls.
One afternoon he returned to the watch-tower well satisfied. That day the Lepers had swept forward in their two wings; at his signal, they had dismounted and, with almost no problems, had formed up into hornwall rings. These were not perfect and were of different sizes as each contained a single settlement contingent, but their shields had locked in an overlapping wall over which their rough spears had bristled, a hedge of fire-hardened points.
Poppy was waiting for him with a smile. These days even the homunculus smiled. Gradually, he and Poppy had lost their wariness of each other. Sometimes, they seemed almost to be friends. With his help, Poppy had transformed their cell. It smelled sweeter. Each day she and the homunculus brought up water with which they could wash a little. She prepared food for them both. Sometimes she would spend the night with Fern and Krow, and Carnelian would miss her. The homunculus perhaps did too. Certainly, one time, he had asked Carnelian when the ‘mistress’ was going to return. Often Carnelian found himself smiling at his strange new ‘family’.
That night when, as usual, he ate with Osidian beside the heliograph, Carnelian told him he thought the Lepers ready to be combined with his huimur. Osidian raised a brow. Carnelian had been resisting his urging for this for quite some time. Osidian gave a nod. Carnelian had some idea of how the training of the dragons had been going. The crews and the new commanders had settled in well enough for Osidian to begin exploring ways in which he could combine the flame-pipes. Carnelian was not certain what it was Osidian was attempting to achieve, but he seemed focused on some particular goal. Sometimes, while with the Lepers, he had noticed some smoke smearing against the heat-white sky. Osidian had been sparing with his naphtha and had made sure to use different dragons for his experiments. It was unlikely that they would have enough time to take them back to Makar to replenish their tanks.
So it was that Carnelian brought the Lepers to join Osidian’s dragons. The Lepers formed in their wings on either end of the dragon line. Day after day he and Osidian laboured to coordinate them, the Lepers learning to respond to simple mirror signals from the towers. Each night the Lepers returned coated red with dust. The dragons too, so that sometimes they seemed carved from sandstone, only their towers remaining pale upon their backs.
One day Carnelian noticed that Morunasa and the Oracles had all disappeared. That night, frowning, Osidian confessed they had retired into the stables to birth their maggots. With a shudder, Carnelian remembered them emerging from Osidian’s wounds. Even high in his cell, Carnelian felt too close to the filthy thing that was going on down in the bowels of the watch-tower.
The manoeuvres had long ago driven the sartlar from a great swathe of land to the west of the watch-tower. Without their labour, the fields were not watered. The hri had yellowed, then dried brown. The constant passage of aquar and dragons had broken its dead grip on the land. Every movement churned up great choking clouds of dust. At first these had drifted slowly into the south-west, but more recently the breeze had failed. After that every day was spent navigating through red mist. From the watch-tower each morning, the land looked like a sea. Carnelian tried not to see in this the sea of blood that inundated his dreams.
Craning forward in his command chair, Carnelian was watching with pride as the Lepers’ line kept pace with Earth-is-Strong. Through the murk he could see its blade curving away with only some nicks along its edge.
His Lefthand spoke. ‘From Heart-of-Thunder. Now.’
At Carnelian’s nod, the man spoke through his voice fork to the mirrorman on the roof. Carnelian imagined how, to Fern down on the ground, the flashing must appear like a star. The blade began dissolving, frothing like a wave reaching a shore. Carnelian watched breathlessly as the Lepers coalesced into rings around their aquar. His cheeks pushed up into his mask as he smiled. The pattern of rings held neatly to the same curve as before. Then they slipped out of view as Earth-is-Strong continued her inexorable advance. Carnelian was about to give the command to bring her to a halt, when his Lefthand spoke again. ‘An urgent message, Master.’
‘From Heart-of-Thunder?’
The man shook his head. ‘The watch-tower, Master.’ He paused, staring.
‘Well?’ Carnelian demanded.
‘Dragons have been sighted, Master, advancing from the north.’
Carnelian’s first thought was of Poppy. She was there, defenceless. ‘Are you sure that’s what it said?’
The Lefthand was half listening to him, half listening to some voice in his helmet. ‘That’s what our mirrorman says.’
‘Send a message to-’
Carnelian broke off, seeing the Lefthand pressing his earpiece into his ear. ‘Battleline.’
Carnelian did not need to ask if that was from Heart-of-Thunder. He had been hearing that command from Osidian for so many days that, whenever it came, it was as if Osidian himself were in the cabin issuing the order. Automatically, he sent his instructions to Fern and was soon receiving more from Osidian as they slowed the dragon line to give the Lepers time to mount up and catch them. He was so busy with this it was a while before the realization dawned. They were actually going into battle. Though they had been practising for this for more than a month, it still came as a shock. It was as if he had never really believed there was going to be a battle. He could no longer hide from the reality of what might happen to Fern and the others on the ground.
The road was there in front of them, the wall carrying the leftway forming a pale foundation to the heat-grey sky. Upon that road dragons were marching in a column three abreast. A mass of saurian flesh bearing at least two dozen towers. The monsters filled the road, driving the travellers with their wagons and chariots off into the fields. Carnelian felt a twinge of pity that those innocents were now likely to find themselves in the middle of fire and carnage. His pounding heart seemed to be shaking him. He glanced to starboard to make sure Fern and his Lepers were maintaining their position. The enemy flank was still exposed to them. Carnelian’s anxiety became exasperation. What were they doing? The battleline was churning up a duststorm that must for some while have been visible from the road, never mind from the dragon towers, but the monsters were marching on as if crewed by the blind. More incongruities forced their way through his confusion. If they did not find a ramp soon to get off the road, he and Osidian would catch them, unable to manoeuvre. Their pipes did not even appear to be lit.
He turned to his Lefthand. ‘Ask the lookout if he can see their auxiliaries.’
As the man muttered into his voice fork, Carnelian returned to his staring. An abrupt silence brought his attention back. ‘What is it?’
The Lefthand pointed towards the head of the dragon column. Carnelian grew angry, not knowing what he was supposed to be looking at. Then he spotted a twinkling on the summit of one of the foremost dragon towers. They were being sent some message. Carnelian waited impatiently for it to be relayed down by the mirrorman. At last, the Lefthand glanced up. ‘I have come to join my strength to yours – Orum.’
‘Aurum!’ Carnelian stared at the dragons. Whose could they be but Aurum’s? What did the message mean? Carnelian waited for Osidian’s commands while, all the time, they drew closer to the road.
A movement from his Lefthand made him aware they were receiving another message.
‘From Heart-of-Thunder, Master. Stand down.’
Carnelian began composing a reply. He had to know what Osidian’s intentions were. A glittering made him look up. Aurum was transmitting again. He glanced down at his Lefthand. The man’s lips mouthed some syllables, then he looked up at Carnelian. ‘“I will speak to you alone.”’
On the ground, Carnelian watched the escort of auxiliaries approaching. He glanced back at his dragon line. The dust had settled, revealing its massive, unbroken wall. There at its furthest end was Heart-of-Thunder, still in his position in the battleline. That Osidian had chosen to remain there made it clear he believed Aurum capable of treachery. Though he no doubt was itching to come himself to meet the old Master, Osidian had delegated the task to him.
Carnelian looked around at Fern, dismounted behind him, holding the reins of both their aquar. Ranged around him was a detachment of mounted Lepers: squalid mounds of rags filling saddle-chairs of all kinds that had been brutalized by the crossbars which now projected on either side. The Lepers who had arrived clinging to those crossbars had unhitched their makeshift spears and were forming up into a hornwall. He wished he could see their faces to know what they were feeling. Surely they must know this legion to be the one that had devastated their land.
Drumming footfalls heralded a group of Marula coming to join them. Carnelian was glad of them and turned to face the auxiliaries, who were now near enough for the dust they raised to be falling upon him like hail. They halted and a single rider rode through. Carnelian stiffened. Though swathed in black robes, there was no doubting this was a Master. The apparition pulled on his reins and his aquar settled to the ground. Servants who had dismounted sped forward and plunged knees first into the dust. They placed ranga ready and then the Master swung his legs out from the saddle-chair, put his feet into them, lifted out a staff and, leaning on it, levered himself erect. Rising to his full height he dwarfed his servants utterly. His black robe fell to the dust so that he seemed to have no legs. The Master stirred a rusty miasma from the earth as he came forward, using the staff as a walking aid.
Carnelian advanced to meet him with trepidation. He knew this Lord. As he neared he caught glimpses of an exquisite face of gold. The Master loomed before him. ‘Celestial.’
‘It is Suth Carnelian you address, my Lord Aurum.’
The gloved hand of the old Lord jerked a sign of irritation. ‘It was Nephron I asked to speak with, my Lord.’
The voice stirred in Carnelian a visceral loathing. ‘Nevertheless it was his wish – and mine – that you should speak to me.’
He regarded the towering shape, possessed by hatred. There before him was the murderer of the Lepers, the murderer of his uncle Crail. Carnelian heard the Lepers stirring behind him. He no longer cared how they might react. He welcomed their hatred to swell his own. They were there at his back like raveners he had trained himself and leashed. It would take only a word from him and they would fall on the monster that had inflicted indescribable suffering on their people. The Lepers would have their payment and Carnelian would have his revenge.
‘Very well,’ said the monster, his tones of condescension sweetening the lust Carnelian had for his destruction. ‘I have come to join my legion to the Celestial’s.’
‘You wish to take arms against his brother, my Lord?’ Carnelian said, his voice a knife.
A gloved hand rose and made an elegant gesture of negation. ‘Against the Ichorian Legion that is only a few days behind me and that has been sent to destroy him.’