“Then the giant will just have to go and get them,” said Makho.
“Go and get them, you say?” roared Goh Gam Gar. He stood up, brandishing his axe, the curved blade big as a cart wheel, and loomed over Makho. “Is that how it is, after the mortal and the Blackbird and I saved you? I’ll throw you down the mountain and then we’ll see you drag a few trees back!” Suddenly the giant groaned and grabbed at his neck. He swayed, then dropped to his knees, gasping for breath.
“Speak so to your masters again and I will burn the heart from your body, animal.” Makho lifted the crystalline rod so the giant could see it. The huge beast could only groan and roll in the snow. “This never leaves my person. Do not forget who rules here.”
“Enough,” wheezed Goh Gam Gar. “Enough.” He leaned forward and steadied himself with one massive hand. Makho stared at the suffering giant in satisfaction, but was careful to stay out of his long reach.
Nezeru was experiencing an unexpected sympathy for Goh Gam Gar when a rattling, scraping sound suddenly caught her attention. An instant later the larger dragon’s narrow, horselike head suddenly rose from below the cliff’s edge, wounded and bloody but clearly alive: some obstacle on the mountainside had kept the terrible thing from sliding all the way down into the abyss. Now, before any of the Hikeda’ya could move, the head whipped forward on its long neck and snatched Kemme off the ground, the great jaws closing around his midsection. The Sacrifice had time only for a brief cry that ended as the jaws crunched down, then the great worm tossed his broken, bloody body out into the empty air and Kemme was gone.
Next the dragon—dripping red in a dozen places and with one useless foreleg—began to struggle up over the edge of the cliff. Makho thrust at its occluded eye with his sword, but the dragon caught the blade in its teeth and yanked Makho off his balance and down into the snow at its feet. Then, as the worm reared to strike at him, the giant Goh Gam Gar clambered onto his feet, roaring in wordless rage, and brought his massive axe down on the creature’s long neck just behind the head, all but slicing through the spine. The worm writhed like a dying snake, the long neck fountaining black blood that fell hissing into the snow, then the great dragon lost its grip on the cliff edge, slid backward, and vanished once more.
Still stunned by the suddenness of it all, Nezeru did not even realize, for the first moments after the monster fell, that someone was screaming—long, ragged, agonized cries. It took her another moment to recognize the voice as Makho’s. He was drenched in black blood from his head to his chest, and his skin was smoking.
Saomeji dove forward to snatch the crystal goad from Makho’s hand, then used it to drive Goh Gam Gar backward, forcing the huge creature to howl and cower. When the giant was a safe distance away, the Singer bent and began piling snow on the wounded chieftain’s burns.
“Help me, Sacrifice,” he said to Nezeru. “He can still be saved, I think.”
She crouched bedside him and began grabbing handfuls of snow, but she could already see Makho’s skin peeling loose in blackened strips, showing reddish meat beneath. Makho had now stopped screaming and only bubbled and gasped, eyes unseeing, spirit trapped somewhere in a land of suffering. Nezeru piled the snow thickly on his face, as much to hide the terrible sight as to give the wounded chieftain comfort.
“Well,” said the mortal Jarnulf with a quaver in his voice he did not try to hide, “I’m sure Queen Utuk’ku will be pleased by how well this went.”
54
Voices Unheard, Faces Unseen
10th Day of Tiyagar, Founding Year 1201
My dearest husband,
Now that I have related all the business of the High Ward in the other letter, here is one just for your eyes. I pray that it finds you safe and that Our Lady and the saints keep you and our grandchildren and all the rest of our dear ones in good health as well. I feel foolish writing to you with my fears because the dread that I feel now may well pass, but I miss you so at this moment.
Last night, our first here, I had a terrible dream. I know that some say that there is no truth in dreams, that they are but tricks of the Adversary or small fevers of the mind, but you my husband know better than anyone that they can be true—that they can be a warning.
In the dream, our son came back to me. Not John Josua as he was in his last years, not the sober young father with his beard and the black scholar’s robes that he always wore, but as he was in his childhood, thin and wide-eyed, the restless little boy we so loved and worried over. In the dream I walked through the Hayholt in search of something, though at first I did not know what it might be. I saw nobody else, no servants, no courtiers, only empty halls, but at times it seemed I heard voices, as though people had gathered behind closed doors. I could never find them, though, and could barely hear the sound of them speaking and singing. Once I thought I heard a great number of women weeping.
Then I saw him, although at first I did not know him. I saw only a small shape that ran just ahead of me, losing itself around corners. When I could see it more clearly, the figure was so far ahead that although I thought it a child, I could not know for certain.
Since I had seen no one else, and in my dream I was still searching for that something I cannot now remember, I hurried after the small shape. I was led up one passage and down another, through the deserted throne room and out into the Inner Bailey. I followed this apparition into the maze that was destroyed when Green Angel Tower fell, but in my dream both the maze and the fallen tower were still there, the tower in broken pieces across the maze, blocking its paths in many places.
I found my way at last to the center of the maze and there was John Josua sitting on the bench that used to be at its center—do you remember that bench? I cried out in joy, I think, but when he saw me he only looked frightened, jumped up and sped away.
I was heartbroken that our son would not stay with me, but now that I knew whom it was I followed, neither could I give up. I was such a long time dreaming, Simon! Or that is how it felt, for our John led me a chase all over the castle, as he used to when we tried to drag him back to dress for state occasions. I wish now I had never made him attend any of them. How cruel to waste any of his short life on such nonsense.
At last, after what would have been a wearying chase had it not been a dream, he led me back to the ruins of Green Angel Tower, but they had vanished. All was as it is now, in this current age, with only the broken Angel remaining to mark its memory. But the Angel had been cast down from its plinth and lay beside a ragged hole in the ground, something that looked to have been dug by some savage, hurrying beast. John Josua crouched beside it and beckoned me. I came with slow care because I was afraid he would startle again and run away, but he waited for me. Still, he would not let me embrace or kiss him, which in the dream made my heart ache so that I can still feel it. Instead he pointed at the hole, his thin little face so full of discontent and worry that I could do nothing else except what he wished. I got down onto my knees and put my head close to the hole. From it, although as from a great distance, I could hear the strangest clamor, people wailing and shouting and the noises of beasts. I was certain it must be the mouth of Hell itself, and I sat up immediately, afraid. John Josua was gone again, and I was alone in the garden.
The next moment I awoke in my bed aboard the Hylissa. My maid was beside me, almost in tears because she had tried to wake me from my dream but could not do so. I was breathless and could not speak at first, and my nightgown was damp with sweat. The Thrithings-folk say that a bad dream is the Dark pressing down upon us, kneeling on our chests, trying to squeeze out our breath. I felt that. I think John Josua, if it was his spirit that came to me, and not a trick of the Adversary, was trying to tell me, to tell us, that the Dark is close.
My good husband, perhaps you will think that as soon as we are parted I have become a fool, but I pray you will remember your own dreams during the Storm King’s War, the tall Tree and the great Wheel, and what came of them. I am afraid, not just for you or myself or even our grandchildren, although I fear mightily for them, but for all our kingdom.
I will write again soon. It may even be that by the time of my next letter I will have decided that the fears I write about now were only phantoms, but please do not forget them. Please do not ignore them.
There will be no real peace for me until we are together again, dear Simon, safe with our family. Take good care, my husband. It is when we are apart that I most realize how fortunate we were to find each other, though all the world was against us.
I will write to you again on a brighter day—perhaps tomorrow, when there are not so many clouds in the sky.