Holywell had known March’s family and told him how March’s father was killed in the first attack at the bridge at Riel; how his uncles died in the following battle at Teem, where the Abask troops were massacred as they led an attack that the Calidorians failed to support. How, after that battle, Aloysius occupied Abask and began to systematically destroy everything within it. How the Abask leaders sent a plea to Thelonius to come to their aid, but the prince, determined to protect his capital, refused. How the Abasks suffered for two long years, hiding in the mountains if they could, as Aloysius’s army destroyed their homes, crops, and animals and reduced their beautiful country to a wasteland of burned-out villages and graves filled with the bodies of starved Abask children.
March had vague memories of his father and uncles, and Holywell spoke Abask like them, swore like them, even laughed as March thought he remembered his father had. Holywell had almost died in the war—he showed March the scars on his body, saying, “The Brigantines cut me to shreds but I didn’t die. I asked them to kill me and they laughed. Despite the hardships, I healed. I worked for them, a slave to start with, all the worst jobs, but with time I realized I didn’t want to die anymore; I wanted to get my revenge.” He smiled. “And I will. The Brigantines killed my family and your family. But they were an honorable enemy and I work for them still. My real enemy is Prince Thelonius. He was sworn to protect our land. He said he was our brother. But he betrayed us. For that there is no forgiveness. For that there can only be revenge.”
Holywell had said all this in Abask and March thought it was the best speech he’d ever heard. It was the nearest thing to brotherhood that he had felt in years.
He also felt like a fool for believing the lies he’d been told. The prince was not the heroic winner of wars against all odds but a monster who’d sacrificed a whole people so that the fat merchants of Calia could continue to live in safety and he could still sit on the throne.
Holywell had shown him the truth—that no one in Calidor gave two fucks about Abask. Holywell spat on the Calidorians and their “civilized” ways and now so did March. Holywell was Abask and proud of it and so was March.
March asked, “But how can we be Abask when Abask doesn’t exist anymore?”
Holywell jabbed March in his chest. “In there is Abask. In there. In your soul, your spirit. Thelonius will destroy that too if you let him. He’ll try to civilize you and turn you into one of them. Don’t let him. Remember your father, your uncles, your brother. They were proud to be Abask, as should you be.”
Holywell encouraged March to return to his position with the prince and told him to stand patiently and wait and listen—and to keep Holywell informed of anything that might be useful to avenge the Abask people.
Now, out of the corner of his eye, March watched the prince slide from his finger the gold ring with his emblem on it, an eagle with a green emerald for an eye. Regan took the ring and put it inside his jacket, and March was certain that his days of patiently waiting and listening were nearing an end.
TASH
NORTHERN PLATEAU, PITORIA
TASH WAS still running. She was pushing as hard as she could. And still she could hear the demon’s breath behind her. This was all wrong. The demon was too close. Somehow she had to go faster.
A slope down to the right. It’d give her more speed.
But the pit was to the left.
The demon’s breath was louder.
Shit! Tash veered to the right down the slope under some low branches. She heard them snap behind her but could no longer hear the demon’s breath.
She’d increased the distance between them but she couldn’t keep this pace up. And she’d gone off the direct route to the pit, gone to the right of one tree and then been forced farther right by another. She needed to go left and that was up, but she had to get back to the pit.
There was a large tree ahead and to its left a large boulder. She could use them. She’d have to.
Tash ran toward the tree, driving hard at it, and at the last moment put her arms out, pushing off from the trunk, using her momentum to change direction, veering behind the boulder and up the slope. The branches were low here, perfect for her to scramble under, using her hands as well as her feet, up the slope, pushing hard. Behind her she heard the demon hiss and then a scream of frustration.
At the top of the slope she glanced behind but could only see branches, not the demon. No time to look harder. She had to keep going. It was downhill now and the ground was firmer. Tash let her stride widen out. Soon she’d be at the pit. She kept going, panting hard, nearly there, nearly there . . . and then she was in the clearing.
The pit was ahead, but she was at the wrong angle for leaping into the end of it. And where was the demon? She couldn’t hear it. She glanced behind, slowing slightly. There was no demon there.
She slowed to a walk. Panting hard. Straining to hear the demon. She turned back to look.
Nothing.
She came to a stop and looked around her for a movement in the trees, for a hint of purple or red, for anything.
Nothing.
Shits. Where was it?
She looked over to Gravell, his face mostly hidden behind a tree. He didn’t move.
She looked all around again and back the way she’d come.
No movement. No noise.
No demon.
Shits!
It wouldn’t give up the chase, would it?
This had never happened before. What should she do? She didn’t want to go back into the trees. That would be madness.
She looked over to Gravell and held out her arms as if to ask, Now what?
Gravell stepped to the side and made the same gesture.
They stared at each other for a moment, then Gravell glanced to Tash’s left and swung back to her, roaring out, “Run!”
Tash turned. The demon was coming toward her at full speed, already out of the trees. Its tall, slim, humanlike form was coming at her fast. On open ground it had the advantage. She couldn’t outrun it now.
Gravell shouted, “The pit! Get to the pit!”
The demon looked to Gravell, and that gave Tash a moment to move. Her boots dug into the hard snow, and she scrambled forward and leaped into the pit. The demon leaped too, landing at one end of the pit and sliding toward Tash, who had jolted hard on the ice in the bottom halfway along, catching her hands on the bloody wall. Her boots gripped on the ice, and she turned and hurtled forward, grabbed for the rope, and yanked it down. Her hands were tight on the rope as she began to rise. But then something wrapped round her ankle, and Tash’s hands slid down the rope until they stopped at the knotted end.
The demon was holding her foot!
Tash screamed and clung on to the rope as she kicked out frantically, hitting something, and she kicked again and again, and then she was free and flying through the air, arms and legs flailing, not a lazy yawn but a floundering cartwheel, and she grabbed on to anything she could of the tree, still tangled in rope, and clung there. And clung there. And clung there.
The demon had touched her. She’d never been touched by a demon before.
Now the demon screamed and Tash clung tighter to the tree.
Another scream and Tash looked round. Gravell was throwing his second harpoon. Tash could just see over the edge of the pit. The first harpoon had pierced the demon’s side, the second went through its stomach. Gravell held the third spear aloft. Waiting. The demon fell back against the walls of the pit and slid out of sight.
Gravell glanced up at Tash, then he jumped into the pit.
Tash didn’t want to let go of her branch, but she forced herself to release her grip and slithered uncomfortably down the tree, hitting the ground hard and going over on her ankle, the snow cold on her foot. She only now realized that her boot was gone.
She limped over to the pit.
The demon was sprawled out in the bottom. Her spiked boot was in its hand.
Gravell was leaning over the demon, holding a glass bottle close to the demon’s mouth.