Hereward stood on the deck of the riverboat, arms wrapped about her upper body hugging her thin shoulders. Her dark hair blew into her eyes and across her face, obscuring her vision, but she made no move to tuck the strands behind her ears.
Her black eyes stared straight ahead, almost unblinking.
To the far bank.
Skraelings seethed there, staring back at her, globules of saliva dripping from their jackal-like jaws, although she thought their teeth both more numerous and larger than a jackal’s. Their huge clawed hands clenched, desperate for her.
But they would not cross the water. They hated the water.
The River Lhyl was all that stood between Hereward and a tearing, agonizing death.
The Skraelings still panicked Hereward, still caused her stomach to clench in a twisted misery of fear and physical nausea, even though it had been weeks now since they had appeared on the riverbank opposite Isaiah’s palace of Aqhat.
Weeks since her, and Isembaard’s, world had disintegrated.
Hereward had lived a relatively good life within the palace. She was the result of a furtive, sweaty, and extremely hurried union between a slave girl and one of Isaiah’s soldiers, but the who of that soldier meant Hereward had been freed at birth and had been given the chance at a responsible appointment within the palace in adulthood.
Her father was Ezekiel, now the most senior general to the Tyrant Isaiah.
Ezekiel had had very little to do with Hereward during her childhood. He’d been careful to ensure that she (and her mother) had adequate housing, and that Hereward had a good schooling. Ezekiel had taken greater interest in Hereward once she’d reached adulthood, and had secured her a position within the palace. By the time she’d reached her mid-twenties, Hereward had attained the position of kitchen steward, a pretentious title for the person who supervised the meals for the various departments of the palace: the Tyrant’s private chambers; his wives’ apartments (there were over eighty of them and Hereward could never remember all their names); the nursery where the Tyrant’s many children were housed (Hereward didn’t even try to count them, let alone memorize their names); the myriad governors, generals, guests, scribes, bureaucrats, servants, soldiers, and slaves who lived in and about the palace. It was an exhausting job, but Hereward took pride in it. She was free, she earned a good wage, and one day, she hoped, she might have saved enough to open a tavern…in Sakkuth, perhaps. Hereward had had enough of the rigidity and formality of palace life at Aqhat.
Then, everything had changed within the space of an hour or two.
Isaiah had left to undertake his northern invasion many months earlier, Ezekiel with him. Palace life had quieted to utter tedium as over ninety percent of the people who had inhabited the palace left to trail behind the Tyrant. Most of the wives had left for the eastern cities, their children with them. There was but a handful of soldiers left. Servants and slaves had enough time to enjoy a siesta during the hottest hours of the day.
And then one day…
Hereward had been in the palace’s vast kitchens. She spent a large part of her day there, talking to the cooks, planning menus, supervising the cartage of food from the kitchens to wherever in the vast palace complex it was needed. It had been a strange day, for everyone had been unsettled without being able to pinpoint a reason. If a servant dropped a spoon, then everyone jumped at the clatter, shooting dark looks at the unfortunate offender. Hereward could not concentrate on the menus—and there were so few of them, by the gods, surely she could manage this small task!—and kept having to ask the cook with whom she spoke to repeat what he had just said.
For some reason, everyone kept looking to the windows.
Just before midday there had come a shout from the outside.
No. Not a shout. Hereward thought later that it had been a howl of sheer terror, the sound knifing into the bright midday sky.
For an instant everyone in the kitchen froze.
Then Hereward started to walk toward the door which led into the great courtyard beyond. Her legs felt leaden, every step an effort, and her chest felt as if a great hand had clenched about it.
Somehow, Hereward understood very clearly in that moment that her life was probably either about to end or to change so utterly that she would wish it had ended.
There was a great deal of commotion in the courtyard. People were grasping at the shoulders of others, asking them what had happened, what was wrong.
Others pointed to the gates which led to the river, and covered their faces with their hands and wailed.
Not wanting to, but unable to stop herself, Hereward walked toward the gates. She stepped through them, ignoring the people who brushed past her—either going in her direction to see what had gone wrong, or rushing back toward the palace, faces set in masks of horror.
Hereward stopped some twenty or so paces the other side of the gates. From this vantage point she had a clear view of the River Lhyl, and the far bank, where stood DarkGlass Mountain.
She stood and looked, unblinking.
Her mind could not process what she saw. It tried to present to Hereward various interpretations, all of which she knew were incorrect.
DarkGlass Mountain had not somehow become enveloped with every billowing white sheet hung out to dry in Isembaard.
DarkGlass Mountain was not covered in a sudden storm of snowy thistle flower.
DarkGlass Mountain was not burdened under a sudden and unexplainable invasion of white locusts.
Instead, the glass pyramid was covered—crawled—with an undulating, horrific tide of gray wraithlike creatures. They were coming from the north. Hereward was vaguely aware that the far riverbank was covered with the creatures as far north as she could see.
People were pushing and bustling about her. Hereward thought that some of them might be screaming, or shouting, or some such. She didn’t really know or care. Right in this moment, all she could do was stare.
Then someone said: What if they cross the river?
Utter panic consumed Hereward. She racked in a huge breath, tried to expel it, and couldn’t. She turned to run, but couldn’t. Her legs just would not work.
Then came another shout (or perhaps a whisper, Hereward did not know).
Skraelings!
Hereward knew of them. Every since the Tyrant Isaiah had brought Axis SunSoar back from the dead and into the palace, stories of Axis’ life had circulated about the palace staff. Hereward had heard about the Skraelings. She knew of their horror.
Skraelings?
Somehow Hereward managed to force herself to breathe, and then she managed to take a step back toward the palace. Another breath, another step, and then she was running with everyone else, buffeted and bruised by the mass panic, her long black hair coming free of its pins and half blinding her.
She didn’t care. All she wanted to do was to get inside the kitchens and think.
The kitchens were virtually deserted. Hereward sank down to her haunches behind the door, instinctively finding a hiding place. Her hands were buried in her hair, her eyes were staring, her chest heaved with her huge breaths.
She didn’t know what to do. She still could not order a single thought, let alone decide on a course of action.
Jeqial, one of the cook apprentices, darted into the kitchen from outside. He ran into a side room where everyone stored their cloaks and outdoor sandals, then came out almost instantly, his cloak about his shoulders. He grabbed a hessian bag of root tubers that one of the gardeners had only brought in an hour previously, dumped the tubers onto the floor, then hurriedly filled the sack with a flask of wine, some bread, some fruit that was sitting on a serving platter to one side.
Then he saw Hereward.
“Hereward,” he gasped, now twisting the neck of the sack closed and tying it with twine. “We have to get out of here.”
Where? she thought, unable to articulate the word.
“We have to go!” Jeqial said. “Didn’t you see what—”
He stopped. It was perfectly obvious that Hereward had seen.
“We have to go,” he repeated more slowly, emphasizing each word.
“Where?” Hereward managed to say.
“I, ah…east. Far away.”
East? Hereward thought. East into the dry horror of the Melachor Plains? “Perhaps Isaiah will be back,” she said. “The army…”
“They are months gone, Hereward. Perhaps they are dead. We need to get away from here now! If we stay…”
If we stay… Hereward’s stomach literally heaved at the thought of what would happen if they stayed.
“They won’t cross the water,” she said. “The Lhyl will protect us. They—”
“They will find a way to cross eventually,” Jeqial said. “Stay here and die if you want, Hereward. I am going to live.”
And with that he was off.
Gradually the kitchen staff returned. Some sat or stood like Hereward, stunned and unable to think or act. Others did as Jeqial, grabbing what they could and running…where, Hereward was not entirely sure, but running.
After what appeared to Hereward a very long time, she rose, clutching at a table for aid in getting to her feet.
She must have been crouched down for hours—her legs and back were stiff and cramped.
“We have to aid ourselves,” she said to no one in particular. “No one will come to help us.”
“Isaiah—” said one of the cooks, a man called Heddiah.
Hereward gave a small shake of her head. “Isaiah won’t come.”
“He has an army,” said Ingruit, a vegetable preparer.
“He and they are either dead or they have forgotten us,” said Hereward. “We must shift for ourselves.”
“We need to leave, then,” said Heddiah.
“Yes,” Hereward said.
“East—” Heddiah began.
“No,” Hereward said. “Not east. Where in the east? Into the Melachor Plains? Into the mountains where live the bandits? In one we’d starve or die of thirst within a week, in the other we’d be murdered before the Skraelings had their chance at us. And in both, we’d stand no chance whatsoever once the Skraelings manage to get across the river. Have you seen how many of them there are? Millions! Millions!”
Hereward stopped, appalled at the note of hysteria in her voice.
“No,” she continued, now controlling her voice and trying to inject as much persuasion into it as she could. “Not east. Even if we were left alone, or if we survived the Melachor Plains, it would take us many weeks before we reached any kind of safety.”
“Where then?” said a woman called Odella.
“North,” Hereward said. “North, up the River Lhyl.”
“But the Skraelings are just across the river!” said Heddiah.
“They can’t touch us,” said Hereward. “Not on a boat. We just don’t touch the western shore…we can’t touch the western shore, ever. Even if somehow, somewhere, the Skraelings manage to cross the river and surround us on both sides, they still can’t reach us in the middle of the river. It is the safest place.”
There was silence as people considered her arguments.
“We take a boat,” Hereward continued, “and with the winds driving southwesterly we can tack upriver, many leagues each day. We can reach the north within…what? Ten days?” She actually had no idea, but no one contradicted her.
“And then?” said Odella.
“And then we go wherever is safest. By the time we reach the north we will have a better idea of what is happening. There will be news.” How they were going to gather news and information when they were stuck in the middle of the river Hereward did not know. But there would be news somewhere, somehow, surely. “We can make a choice then. But at least it is far away from here. We cannot stay here.”
Now Hereward stood on the riverboat’s deck, looking at the Skraelings hungering on the far bank. That terrible day in Aqhat seemed a year away now, although it had only been a matter of a few short weeks. The remaining kitchen staff had eventually agreed with Hereward that the boat north would be the safest and quickest, if the most terrifying, means of escape. They had commandeered a riverboat large enough to hold their party—some twenty-eight, counting spouses and children—and had set sail northward. Five or six of the men had river experience, and they quickly taught the others how to steer and set the sails so they could tack into the wind and sail north against the Lhyl’s gentle current.
The winds had not been as good as they’d hoped, and they had not traveled as fast as they had expected, but at least they had kept safe. They were careful to stay in the center of the river where the water was deepest and where the riverbanks were each some twenty paces away. Skraelings haunted the western bank, hordes of them, scores of tens of thousands of them, hungering for the Tasty! Tasty! Tasty! that the boat held. The Skraeling whispers pervaded the hull of the boat, and everyone had to grab what sleep they could while the terrifying whispers slid cold and malicious about them.
Hereward hardly slept. It was dusk now, and Odella had called her a while ago to come and eat with the others.
Hereward wasn’t hungry. She felt that if she took her eyes off the Skraelings for just one moment then they would attack.
Somehow they would find their way over the water.
If she did sleep, Hereward had nightmares of waking to find them crawling over her, their terrible claws sinking into her flesh…
She’d come to hate Axis SunSoar and Isaiah. Somehow she’d managed to associate her current plight with these two men.
Whoever had heard of Skraelings before Axis arrived in Aqhat?
And why had Isaiah deserted them? Why had he taken everyone who could possibly have saved the people of Aqhat north into the lands above the FarReach Mountains?
Hereward had also come to loathe her father, Ezekiel, although she had never felt much affection for him. Ezekiel had always been so distant, and Hereward felt that he only concerned himself with her out of a sense of resigned duty. She was a bastard and had no place in his life. Ezekiel had a wife and legitimate children.
Those children, her half-brothers and sisters raised in luxury and privilege, lived in Sakkuth, well away from this place.
All of them had left her and her friends to manage as they may.
The Skraelings roiled and whispered on the far bank. Their long, thin arms reached out for her, their jaws drooled, their teeth caught the last of the light, and their tongues bulged obscenely from their mouths.
Hereward had never felt so alone and so hopeless in her life. She had never been able to even imagine feeling this way.
After a moment, she turned, and walked belowdecks to join the others in their evening meal.