Hereward sat behind Isaiah on the horse, swaying rhythmically to its gait. It had been over two weeks since the One had almost killed Hereward, and in that time she had recovered well. The scab on her neck had fallen off, and she had a shiny, pink, coin-shaped scar at the junction of neck and shoulder to remind her of just how close she had come to death.
Six days after they had talked to Bingaleal (or to whatever he had become) they had traveled closer to the fort of Hairekeep, which guarded the entrance to the Salamaan Pass. At first the countryside and road had appeared normal, but in the midafternoon of the fourth day since encountering Bingaleal the road they traveled turned to glass.
Both Isaiah and Hereward were appalled, and it made them wonder what they’d discover at Hairekeep.
There were far more Skraelings about, as well. They were traveling in large groups of fifty or more, in the same direction as Isaiah and Hereward, although they kept their distance.
Isaiah and Hereward, by silent mutual agreement, chose not to step onto the glass. Isaiah turned the horse off the road and traveled parallel to it. Every so often the sun glanced off the surface of the road, and they would think it flashed and grinned at them.
On the morning of the thirteenth day after they’d left the Lhyl, they drew close to Hairekeep. Isaiah was particularly tense, and kept glancing at Hereward to make sure she was close.
“At least I have a sword,” he said.
“I would prefer ten thousand swordsmen at my back,” Hereward replied, and Isaiah managed a brief laugh.
“Aye, ten thousand swordsmen would be much better. Hereward, keep close to my side, will you? I don’t know what we will encounter ahead.”
“I have no intention of straying, Isaiah.”
Isaiah glanced over his shoulder, and they shared a brief smile. His dislike of Hereward had ebbed over the past weeks. He wasn’t sure that he actually liked her, but he had grown used to her presence, and felt responsible for her.
An hour later Hairekeep rose in the distance, and as soon as he could see it clearly, Isaiah pulled the horse to a halt.
“What is it?” she said.
“The fort is different,” he said. “You’ve not ever seen it before?”
“Servants didn’t have much travel opportunity,” she said. “We tended to be working too hard.”
She earned herself a black look from Isaiah for that comment, but he didn’t otherwise respond to it.
“Hairekeep should be a massive, rectangular sandstone tower,” Isaiah said, “rising almost a hundred paces into the sky. This…”
This, thought Hereward, peering ahead, wasn’t exactly rectangular.
Isaiah clicked his tongue at the horse and they rode closer, a little more warily now, senses alert for hidden dangers.
“Isaiah,” Hereward said softly a few minutes later.
“I’ve seen them,” he murmured.
Skraelings, tens upon tens of thousands of them, sitting in ordered ranks on the far side of the road, starting about fifty or sixty paces distant. They were hard to spot, because they were mere unmoving humps close to the ground, and their heads were lowered so that their silver orbs didn’t catch the sun’s rays.
“The One’s invasion force,” Isaiah muttered, and as one the Skraelings lifted their heads and their terrible orbs flared at Isaiah and Hereward.
“Walk on,” Isaiah said to the horse, now skittering about in fear.
It got worse as they approached the fort. The ranks of Skraelings stretched back as far as either could see—there were likely millions waiting here.
And among them—rising now and again as if caught by the wind—were Lealfast, or whatever they had turned into. There were thousands of them—Bingaleal’s entire force.
“My fellows,” said Bingaleal to Isaiah’s and Hereward’s other side, making them jump. He was walking parallel with them about five paces distant. “They are like me,” he tapped his chest. “They have a heart of glass. A heart devoted to the glass.” He grinned, showing the unearthly blackness behind his lips. “Axis SunSoar thinks to build a Strike Force again. But the One commands a Strike Force unlike anything Axis has ever had to deal with.”
“The One is remarkably well informed,” Isaiah said, keeping his eyes ahead as he and Hereward rode forward. He was tense now, worried not so much that Bingaleal would attack him (the One did, after all, need him to deliver a message), but that the stallion would panic and throw one or both of them. The horse was very tense, and Isaiah kept a close hold on his halter rope and a tight grip with his knees.
“The One is omniscient,” Bingaleal said. “Look,” he waved a hand ahead, “do you see?”
Isaiah took a deep breath of shock, and felt Hereward do the same behind him.
They were close enough to Hairekeep now to see it for what it had become. Not a huge block-of-sandstone fortress, but a twisting, writhing mass of darkness that rose to a peak in the sky like a distorted pyramid.
Faces and hands pressed against the darkness, desperate to escape.
“That’s our larder,” said Bingaleal. “That is what we feed on while waiting to invade, Isaiah. Your subjects. The ones you abandoned. We drag one out every so often and tear it open to eat. Would you like one now, for your supplies?”
Bingaleal watched Isaiah and Hereward ride past Hairekeep toward the Salamaan Pass.
Once they were out of sight, he resumed his normal appearance, then turned his head slightly.
Eleanon materialized beside him.
“Well?” said Bingaleal.
“The Nation has agreed,” Eleanon said, then grinned at the delight on his brother’s face. “We are all One.”
“Yes,” Bingaleal said. “We are all One.”
“What was that face you showed Isaiah?” Eleanon said. He looked behind him, where the Lealfast were now lifting away from the Skraelings and vanishing into the air. “Why the disguise of horror?”
“It was what Isaiah expected to see,” said Bingaleal, “and I did not want him to see me as I truly am. Isaiah needed to see a victim of the One, not an ally. What now for you, Eleanon?”
“For the moment I am keeping the fighters within the FarReach Mountains with the rest of the Nation,” he said, “until Maximilian raises Elcho Falling, which is when Axis expects me to return, full of humbleness and contrition.”
Bingaleal smiled. “Of course. But you are not remaining within the FarReach Mountains?”
Eleanon shook his head. “I want to see what is happening between Inardle and Axis,” he said. “I want to see how well she is positioned. Inardle can work much good for us, brother, if Axis has become besotted with her.”
“Be cautious with Inardle,” said Bingaleal. “I do not trust her as once I did.”
“She is a female,” said Eleanon.
“And thus,” Bingaleal said, “she has the potential to subdivide. She can never be a part of the One as can we.”
“But she can still be useful,” said Eleanon.
“She can still be useful,” said Bingaleal, “but you should be cautious in sharing secrets with her, Eleanon. Go discover, then, if she has slid cold treachery between Axis StarMan’s sheets.”
When Eleanon had gone, Bingaleal turned to find a Skraeling standing just behind him.
Bingaleal jumped, wondering how much the Skraeling might have overheard.
“What do you want?” he snapped, annoyed at himself for being so obviously startled.
“To talk,” said the Skraeling.
“What is there to talk about?” said Bingaleal. He looked behind the Skraeling at the army of Skraelings still massed across the plains behind Hairekeep, their front ranks only ten or twelve paces away.
Bingaleal felt the tiniest frisson of fear. There were millions of the creatures, all silent, all waiting, all staring at Bingaleal. In all the time he’d known the creatures they had been chilling, yes, but now…now they had a singularity of purpose about them, a steadiness of eye, that he found potentially terrifying.
With what had the One infused them? Purpose? Cunning? Knowledge?
Power?
The Skraeling lifted its top lip and silently snarled. “We are your fathers,” it said. “Have you forgot that?”
“We have long grown up and left the nest,” Bingaleal said.
“You still owe us life,” said the Skraeling.
“We owe you nothing,” Bingaleal said, holding the Skraeling’s eye.
“Who continued south to worship adoringly at the One’s feet while you dithered in the FarReach Mountains, uncertain of who to support?” the Skraeling said. “Do you think that the One has not remarked upon that fact? That he has not noted well that it was we who came to him unhesitatingly? That it—”
“You fled south to slaver at the feet of Kanubai,” Bingaleal said. “Not the One. Your allegiance turned with the swiftness of a treacherous wind. Do you not think the One has not noted that? Our decision was deliberate and considered. Yours was born on the back of your innate idiocy.”
Something in the Skraeling’s face stilled. “You think to despise us,” it said softly. “You think to outwit us. You think to turn the One against us. No, no. You cannot do that. We were his first, and he will never forget that.”
The Skraeling stared at Bingaleal a heartbeat longer, then he melted back into the mass of Skraelings.
Bingaleal looked at them for a long moment, needing to show them he was not cowed; then his mouth turned up in a slight sneer, and he lifted into the air.
The One sat cradled within the heart of the Infinity Chamber. His eyes were open, but they did not see the interior of the chamber; rather, they looked upon the ground outside Hairekeep where the Skraeling had just confronted Bingaleal.
The One smiled, then his eyes refocused within the chamber, and he picked up the red-haired adolescent cat, stroking its back and murmuring softly to it.
There was looming a great battle between the Lealfast and the Skraelings. The One wondered which he should allow to emerge victorious.
The Skraelings were so useful, but the Lealfast potentially more so.
The One sighed, and tickled the cat under its chin.
“It is time to move,” he said. “We shall leave the Book of the Soulenai here.”