Dusk (46 page)

LUCIEN MALINI FLED
that valley of death. Almost dead himself, he crawled up to the ridge and down the other side, rolling, leaving bloody marks on the ground behind him. It was lost. It was all lost, all hope, lost to the Mages and those machines awoken here. The land would know magic again and he would see its influence, and that enraged him. Pain was chewing him up now, driving his rage to new levels in failure. He rolled, stood, tripped and rolled again, knowing that all there was left to do was to take whatever petty revenge he could find. He would go to that Shantasi bitch’s body and hack it to small shreds, bathe in her blood and use it to replace his own. That image would keep him alive for the next few minutes, at least.

But when he reached the place where she had fallen her body was already being taken apart. He saw the last of it spread and melt away, red turning to gray. And as he fell to his knees and screamed he saw the trees and rocks and ground around him shift, move, melt down into a billion tiny parts. They merged with the disintegrated Shantasi and flowed away to the east.

Perhaps it was simply his vision failing him at the point of death. Or maybe it was something much more important than that; something for him to follow. And that thought alone gave him back a spark of life.

THE HAWKS FELL
out of the sky. Kosar was amazed that they did not leave a trail of burning air behind them, such was their speed and ferocity. He heard the roar of their movement through the air, and maybe they were growling as well. He could see the shapes sitting astride their gnarled necks, and though Rafe had spoken their names Kosar could not believe what he was seeing.

The Mages? Here, now, already?

For so long they had been the stuff of legend and campfire tales, an evil three centuries old that, though horrendous, had faded slowly away. Time could not extinguish their wrongdoing, but it had smoothed the sharp edges, shedding the intricate details of their crimes and leaving only the wide-scale stories of magic gone bad and war, conflict and death across the length and breadth of Noreela. The results could still be seen and felt, but Kosar had never known a time when the land was untainted. He had seen many strange and horrible sights in his travels, but he had not consciously attributed them to the Mages. They simply
were.

And now within seconds, the Mages were going to attack.

“What do we do?” he said. “What can we do?”

“They’ll never stop,” Trey whispered. “They’ll smash right through us!”

“They want Rafe alive; they’re not here to kill him.”

“It doesn’t look like that to me,” Kosar said.

He could see their faces now, and he was surprised at how human they looked. Fearsome, furious, but human.

Night filled the valley.

The machine caging the five humans began to vibrate, the sensation originating from belowground and shimmering up the tall ribs enclosing them.

When the hawks were only seconds away, slowing down, extending their clawed feet to grasp on to the huge machine, an explosion of light burst from the point where the ribs met and splashed up and out to meet them.

Kosar squinted against the sudden brightness, shielded his eyes and fell to the ground. There were screams from above them, perhaps hawk, perhaps human. When he looked again a few seconds later the sky was clear and the hawks were skimming the ground away from them, shedding specks of light like embers from a disturbed fire. More sparks erupted as their riders slashed and hacked at machine and Monk alike.

“What was that?” Trey hissed.

“The machine protecting us,” Rafe said. “It can fight them, but I doubt it’ll hold them off forever. It’s a distraction. If they can satisfy themselves with fighting the Monks and the other machines in the valley—and they must be raging for blood after so long—then perhaps we can get away.”

“‘Perhaps’? Get away how?” Hope was on her feet, staring up at the huge ribs catching the moonlight.

Rafe smiled. “As I said, it’s out of my hands.”

Kosar and Trey stood beside Alishia and Rafe, still nursing their weapons but more distracted now by the vibrations in the ground beneath their feet, the shimmering of air between the ribs. Something was happening—something invisible and momentous—and the potential filling the air was palpable. Kosar tried to slow his breathing but fear sped it along.
I’ve just seen the Mages, been within a spear’s throw of the demons of the land. And I’m still alive. For now.

“What was the light?” he said.

“Magic fending off the Mages, that’s all that need concern us,” Rafe said.

“Magic,” Alishia whispered.

“Is it still in you?” Kosar asked Rafe. “Are you still carrying it? Isn’t it free now? Isn’t this the moment magic comes back to the land?”

Rafe frowned, staring out through the cage at the struggling shadows beyond. “I think this is only happening here,” he said. “It’s taking a lot of effort.”

“So how long does it last?”

“I don’t know.”

“Long enough for us to get away?” Trey asked. He was kneeling beside Alishia now, touching her face and hands. “Otherwise, what’s the point? If magic protects us like this—reanimates the machines, defends us against the Monks . . . the
Mages
! . . . why would it not save us for good?”

“I don’t know,” Rafe said again. The ground shook once more, a vibration that sent a heavy, rumbling groan up into the air. It mingled with the sounds of battle.

The cage altered in the dark, and when Kosar looked closer he saw that the metallic ribs had turned back to bone.

“We’re going to fly,” Alishia said.

“What woke you?” Kosar asked. He suddenly did not trust her. He did not trust anyone, not now that A’Meer was likely dead and he was here amongst strangers again. Alishia looked at him and her eyes were both beautiful and terrifying.
For a librarian, she’s seen so much,
Kosar thought.

Seeing past the ribs, he could just make out details of the fight. The three dark shapes had seemingly shaken off the effects of the light and were now hovering above different parts of the valley, their riders slipping sideways in their saddles and entering into battle. Kosar could not tell what they fought—Monk or machine—but he knew that the Mages would find enemies in both. The previously simple battle had now turned into a three-way fight. That suited him fine. Let the Mages and Monks and machines battle it out, so long as they left them alone . . .

Something,
Kosar thought.
Something is happening, now, beneath our feet. I can feel it. Like tumblers rolling beneath the ground, as if to change the shape of the land itself.

“Fly . . .” Alishia said again, dreamy and light.

A roar came in from the distance and a huge shape reared above the horizon, a hawk standing on its tentacles and grappling with something less recognizable. A fiery exhaust burst from the machine and scorched the ground, and the hawk rider lashed out with some unknown weapon, the weapon itself carrying fire, wrapping around the machine’s base and bringing it down with an earth-shaking crunch. The hawk screeched again, but this time in triumph.

Monks cried out, crumpled beneath hawk feet, slashed by the riders’ blades, crushed by machines.

The land swam in blood.

And then slowly, incredibly, the valley began to fall away.

“What in the name of the Black—?” Kosar hissed.

“It’s going,” Trey said, looking down. “It’s going, it’s falling, leaving us behind.”

“No,” Hope said. “We’re flying.”

“Flying . . .”

Lights flashed below them and to the side, accompanied by a roar as the ground tore itself apart, freeing the trapped machine. The light flared, lifting them up on a pillar of luminescence. Bursts of a more firelike exhaust streaked across the valley from the machine, enveloping hawks and Mages in writhing flame, sending them spinning away like burning stars. The hawks streamed around the valley, ricocheting from rocky outcroppings and solid machines, dripping fire across the ground and setting the blood-drenched cloaks of Monks aflame. Soon the valley was lit by fire, though the hawks and their riders seemed to shake it off, rising up again.

The battle continued. But now, dazzled by the new fire thrusting them aloft, Kosar and the others were all but blinded to its progress. They saw glimpses of the scattered fires, but the edges of the machine that lifted them up obscured any real view.

Kosar had sat down on the shaken ground. He held on to the thick grass below him, as if that would anchor him to the spot. He was terrified. Trey glanced at him and Kosar grimaced back, shrugged his shoulders. The strange, it seemed, had just become stranger.

“Where are we going?” Hope asked Rafe. She sounded so matter-of-fact, as if flying was something she did every day.

“Away,” Rafe said. He was staring at Alishia, and they both smiled. “Away. Safe. I’m so tired.” And he closed his eyes and went back to sleep.

“I wish I could do that,” Kosar said.

Hope grinned at him, her tattoos catching the death moon and turning her visage ghastly. “Scared, thief?”

“Aren’t you?”

Her smile remained. “Petrified. We’re
flying,
for Black’s sake!”

The machine seemed to be picking up speed. They felt the bursts and pulses of energy shed from its lower edges, and with each explosion they were pushed higher. Light simmered around the machine’s lower edges. And with each gush of motion the machine itself was changing. The ribs had thickened as some dull gray coating grew around them, pulled in from nothing. The spaces between the ribs began to glow with countless points of light. Kosar had once been caught in a storm of fireflies, but this was even brighter. Soon it was bright as daylight within the gray ribs, and then lighter still, so that Kosar had to squeeze his eyes closed. It lasted for only a few heartbeats. When the light faded and he looked again, there was only the vague background illumination left from the pulse down below. And he saw what the light had made. Between each rib, for the height of a tall man, a fleshy skin stretched across. Even now veins formed on its surface and within, flooding it with blood from nowhere, and magic was at work so close, so near, that if he so desired he could have reached out and touched it.

Their sense of velocity increased. Kosar looked around at the others—Hope, wide-eyed; Trey, hanging on to the ground for dear life; Alishia and Rafe, prone, the movements of their limbs perhaps due to the motion of the machine, perhaps not—and he knew that he had to look over the edge. He had never been scared of heights or the unknown, but what terrified him most now was just what he
did
know. He crawled to the skinlike edging between the ribs, knelt up and looked over.

Fires had erupted across the ground. Some of them were small, others seemed to have spread and a few of them still moved. They lit up most of the small valley and the dying things it contained. It was spotted with dead Monks. He could make out the larger machines in the firelight, most of them still now, limbs slumped down, one of them accepting punishment from a group of Monks without defending itself. Their purpose fulfilled, these machines were dead again.

There was no sign of the hawks.

The machine gushed another blast of light, blinding Kosar and sending him reeling back. The roar was immense and accompanied by another burst of speed, thrusting them up and up until, suddenly, the sun found them again. The heat felt good on his skin. To the west the horizon was a smudge of yellow. If they rose forever, perhaps the sun would never set.

No hawks,
he thought.
Of course not. They’d have no reason to continue the battle once we were away with Rafe.

“What do you see?” Hope asked.

Kosar looked over the side again. It was strange looking down into night from a position of daylight. He wondered how high they had come.

“Kosar?” Trey prompted.

“I think the fighting’s stopped,” he said. “The machines aren’t moving anymore. I can’t see the hawks.”

“They’re stalking us,” Hope said. “They have to be. It’s the boy they want. They’ll go back for the Monks later.”

“It’s Rafe they want,” Alishia said, “and they’ll get him.”

“Go back to sleep!” Hope said.

“Then where are they?” Trey asked. “Why don’t they just attack if they want him?”

“I don’t know,” Hope said.

“You pretend to.”

“But I don’t! I don’t know anything. It’s guesswork, all of it. The only one who knows is him and . . . and maybe her!” She pointed an accusatory finger at Rafe and Alishia. “And they’re not telling the likes of us.”

“So what happens now?” Kosar asked. “Do we just sit and let this thing take us wherever it likes?”

“What choice do we have?” Hope said. “We’ve never had a choice. We’ve been dragged along for days, never given any option, no free will. Everything that happens to us is fated. Maybe in an hour we’ll all be dead, or free, or somewhere we can’t possibly imagine.”

“That’s helpful,” Kosar said, but her words chilled him because they echoed what he had been thinking all along.
No free will.

The witch stared at him, her tattoos writhing as she grimaced in annoyance. “It’s the only help I can give.”

“So we sit back,” Kosar said. “Enjoy the view.” He glanced down over the side again at the wide forests surrounding the burning valley. A’Meer was in there somewhere, dead, already graying into the land. He scanned the darkened treetops, wondered if he was looking right at her.

The machine rose higher and higher, light bursting occasionally from its underside. The air became cold, the sky above them darker, and soon night enveloped them once again. They could not outrace the sun, however powerful the magic that carried them.

They watched and listened for the hawks.
They must still be there,
Kosar thought.
There’s no way that single attack from the machine could have finished the Mages, no way. Not after three centuries awaiting their chance to return. There must be more to them than that.
“We should plan,” Kosar said quietly. “They’ll be coming. We should figure out how to fight them off.”