Queen of Fire

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“And it lives in this . . . beyond place? A place beyond death?”

 

Vaelin struggled to formulate a precise answer. Explaining the concept of the Beyond to someone raised without any form of faith was proving difficult. Also, unlike the people who had adopted him, Astorek felt no worshipful tendencies towards the green fire that continued to flicker in the night sky, though its light was now just a dim glow on the northern horizon. “One of nature’s many mysteries,” was his only opinion.

 

They had begun the march the day before, the Wolf People’s warriors gathering together in loose affiliation and moving south without particular order or ceremony save brief, intimate farewells to family. However, there were some who would neither be travelling south nor staying on the tundra. Vaelin watched as a group of people gathered on the shoreline, men and women of advanced age each with his or her own canoe carrying only a small stock of provisions. He saw Far Walker among them, handing out various items to a group of younger folk he took to be the elder’s children or grandchildren: a knife, a necklace, a spear. They all accepted the gifts in silent respect, the youngest sniffling as the old man climbed alone into his canoe and pushed away from the shore, paddling off towards the north without a backward glance. His will, Vaelin thought.

 

Later he joined Astorek at the head of the army, leading Scar at a walk as the shaman sent his wolves ahead to scout their line of march.

 

“I realise it may be hard to credit,” Vaelin said. “But I have been there, and heard his voice. Much as I would like to dismiss him as a figment of legend or delusion, his hunger for our destruction is all too real.”

 

“I thought you had to die to gain entry to the Beyond.”

 

Vaelin turned his gaze to the horizon. Talking of what had happened at Alltor was never easy, perhaps because so much of it still escaped his understanding. “You do.”

 

“Then how do you come to be here?”

 

Vaelin glanced back at Dahrena, laughing with Cara as their cats rolled together in a play fight a short way off. “I have always been greatly fortunate in my friends.”

 

Another week’s march brought them in sight of the mountains, a range of steep-sided ridges and peaks stretching away south for as far as they could see. The valleys seemed rich in pine but the peaks were mostly bare granite, painted a pale blue in the haze. Off to the east a dim orange glow could be seen beneath a low bank of dark cloud. “Fire mountains,” Astorek said. “Even the tribesfolk don’t go there.”

 

“Do your people trade with them?” Vaelin asked. “Speak their language?”

 

“They speak Volarian, of a sort. Difficult to make out for the less-attuned ear. And no, there is no trade between us. They keep to their hills fighting their endless feuds, or the Volarians when they come to fill their slave quotas, rarely venturing across the tundra.” Astorek glanced up at the ever-present swirl of spear-hawks as a group separated from the main flock to fly towards the hills. “Mother will warn of any who come to greet us.”

 

But there was no one waiting as they crested the foothills, the heights ahead free of any sign their way might be barred. “My people would do the same,” Alturk said, eyes narrowed as he scanned the silent hills. “Allow us to enter, march on until we imagine ourselves safe then attack in the night.”

 

“There are no eyes on us,” Kiral said with a note of certainty. She turned to Vaelin, her expression grave, “But someone comes. My song is clear: we should wait.”

 

They camped on a series of hills affording good views of the surrounding country, the spear-hawks providing constant vigilance and the wolves kept in tight packs on the perimeter. But still the hills remained silent. As night fell the glow of the eastern fire mountains grew bright, occasional flashes of lightning threading through the smoke they cast into the sky.

 

“So Nishak’s arm reaches around the world,” Alturk observed in a rare fireside comment, his gaze lingering on the distant fires. He had recently abandoned his usual practice of eating and sleeping away from the main body of the company, his head once again shaven to stubble. The contempt still felt by some of the Sentar was evident in their faces, but others showed a grudging resumption of respect.

 

Looking around the company, Vaelin noted how they were mingled now, guardsmen and Lonak sitting alongside each other with a natural ease, the Gifted among them, their cats snapping at the scraps tossed to them by the warriors. The ice was a forge, he decided, recalling distant days spent watching Master Jestin at the anvil, the three rods of an unborn sword gradually melding under his ceaseless hammer. It beat us into something new.

 

“Did you really hear his voice?” Dahrena asked.

 

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