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Yw Sabi stepped forward, studying the animal.

  She is mad!

  Nyahri rushed to put herself between the bear and the Atreiani, and it rose again. Nyahri bent her knees, setting her spear at a stronger angle.

  The Atreiani raised her witch-scepter before her, its ghost-lit patterns following her fingertips. A soft chime filled the woodland, clear even through the rising wind. The bear dropped to the ground, shaking its head, turning its nose away. At last it mewled, snorted, and lay on its side.

  “Gods.” Nyahri stepped away.

  “Ah, you are beautiful,” yw Sabi said to the beast, approaching its back. She knelt, laying her hand on its thick pelt. The bear stretched its limbs.

  “Atreiani—”

  “Come here, Nyahri. Be slow. Make no sudden movements.”

  “I do not—”

  “Come. Do as I say.”

  Nyahri inched forward, spear still raised, until she stood beside yw Sabi. The bear sprawled, so she might lance its heart with a single blow. Instead, she too knelt and laid her hand on its fur. Its cavernous breaths shuddered under her hand, its generous coat muting its thunderous heartbeat. The bear gave a gentle shake of its head and pawed the air.

  “Ursus spelaeus,” yw Sabi said, “the cave bear. They existed for hundreds of millennia, but they died out twenty-seven thousand years before I was born. Homo atrean brought spelaeus back to life.”

  “The cave bears live because of you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why did you give them life?”

  “Because we could. We decided the resurrection of many mammals would cause little harm, and in most cases it proved important theories of superabundant biodiversity and the role of top-level predators. Wherever we brought megafauna back to life, ecosystems recovered more quickly.”

  “Recovered from what?”

  “Human folly.” Yw Sabi ran her hand across the bear’s flank. “This fellow is a long, long way from where we first seeded them. Wrong continent actually.”

  Nyahri understood continent as little as superabundant biodiversity. “You say that with some concern?”

  “Concern he’s here? No, he seems quite happy here. Does it raise more questions for me?” She nodded.

  “You do not wish to kill this beast?”

  “No.”

  “What shall we do?”

  “Ride farther up valley, enjoy the meal you cooked us somewhere else. We’ll leave him to recover. I doubt he’ll follow.”

  Nyahri looked at the bear, then at the chiming witch-scepter, then at the face of the Atreiani. She set her spear on the ground, tucked her knees beneath her, and bowed her forehead to the dirt.

  “You are a goddess,” she said to yw Sabi. “You raise hellfire and command the greatest beasts. Forgive me if I doubted.”

  “Many have bowed to me,” yw Sabi said without the slightest pride, “but I’m no goddess. I tell you again—there are no gods.”

  “I know what my eyes tell me.”

  “Raise your head.”

  Nyahri met the Atreiani’s gaze.

  Yw Sabi hinted a smile. “I’d rather other offerings from you, Nyahri, than groveling.”

  “Yea, mistress.”

  “Though if you keep mistressing me, we’ll need another serious conversation about it.”

  “Yea.”

  “Yea?”

  “Yea, mistress.”

  “Hmm.” The Atreiani started to frown, then shook her head. “Come, let’s leave this bear to his forest and put a few kilometers more behind us.”

  ◆◆◆

  They ate their meal colder than Nyahri would’ve liked. The rest of that night they caught sign neither of beast nor men.

  The next day they rode through the morning without event, and in the early afternoon crossed into larger stands of aspens clinging to their last golden leaves. The forest floor shone with gold, crisscrossed by the trees’ white columns.

  Yw Sabi pulled another device from her tools. She examined it, turning in the saddle, and she watched a tiny dial in her palm, adjusting it in increments. A smile touched her lips.

  “Atreiani?”

  “Checking our bearing. The poles aren’t where I expected. Maybe some change at the beginning, maybe while I slept? Enough for the axis to flip.”

  “Eh, yw Sabi?”

  “This is a compass, a simple device. You know loadstones?”

  “We use them.”

  “The magnetic pole is near south, off by a few degrees from the axis. You realize it once pointed north?”

  “Nay.”

  Yw Sabi raised her hand toward the horizon. “North sat at zero, adjusted by declination, varying from region to region. It always moves, but now it points south. One hundred eighty-seven centesimal degrees—that’s a big change.”

  She slipped the compass back into its place, clicked her tongue, and tapped her heels to the gelding. With a cinch of the reins, Turo drew beside the stallion.

  Nyahri smiled. “You are learning.”

  “Yes, I am.”

  For several hours they traveled through the aspens, stopping only a brief while during the afternoon. Nyahri unsaddled the horses, resting them too. Afterward, they left the white-wooded forest, merging with sweet-scented cedar groves and spruce. Another long dell opened, this one free of bogs, and beyond them arose sharper snow-crowned peaks. Nyahri drank the vision, her first sight of the highest alpine slopes.

  Yet yw Sabi frowned.

  On the path ahead, twenty men waited at a distant outcropping of gray stone. All carried longknives and stickbows and razor-pointed arrows.

  “They are watching for us,” Nyahri said.

  “Thus far, they haven’t seen us.”

  “We could ride the ridge, try to circle around them?”

  “No need. They’re practically inviting us. Let’s not spurn the gesture.”

  {11}

  As Nyahri and yw Sabi descended into the shallow meadow, the sun grew hot and Nyahri stripped off her warmer clothes, leaving only her breeches, serape, and coronal. Yw Sabi wore her cloak forward, the hood veiling her eyes. Seeing this, Nyahri understood her intent and trotted half a stride ahead. She held her spear where she could best defend the Atreiani, becoming now not only guide but guardian.

  They approached the outcropping at a walk. The archers, most full-bearded men, spotted the riders as soon as they left the trees. The men wore woolen cloaks, their dark clothes in browns and grays. They tightened rank aside the road, resting their hands on their stringed bows. Though none touched an arrow, Nyahri respected Oudwn archery, knowing she might kill only one man before the arrows flew. She raised her left hand, spreading her fingers in a gesture of peace, her longspear skyward in her right.

  Nyahri and the Oudwnii studied one another until a square-jawed, stubble-bearded archer stepped forward, his hair like sun-faded sand. His bow slung, his weapons sheathed, he held forth his palm in answer to hers.

  “Two E’cwn women,” he said, “deep in the Oudwn valleys? You have bigger balls than your so-called men.”

  “Who are you?” Nyahri asked.

  “Dhaos Shwn Oudwn.”

  “The chieftain’s son?”

  “The chieftain’s son, yea.” He shrugged. “Who are you?”

  “Nyahri.”

  Dhaos cocked his head. “Only Nyahri?”

  “E’cwnii use short names.”

  “And your companion?”

  “Does not speak.”

  He stepped forward, reaching for Kwlko’s bridle. The stallion nipped him and Nyahri pulled the reins.

  “I must insist,” the archer said, “she speak for herself.”

  “My business,” yw Sabi said, “is mine. We’re riding to Sojourn Temple.”

  The Oudwnii exchanged glances and Nyahri grimaced at yw Sabi’s heavy accent. A few Oudwnii reached slowly for their arrow-filled quivers.

  Do they guess, Nyahri wondered, what is among them? They must—

  “The Templarii will have some
thing to say about that,” Dhaos said, “as will my father.”

  “No doubt,” said yw Sabi.

  “You traveled by Abswyn?” he asked.

  “We rode by it,” Nyahri said.

  “It was as if the gods themselves lit the sky and burned Abswyn from existence. What happened there?”

  “I do not know,” Nyahri lied, though she assured herself she also told the truth. What do I really know of Abswyn’s end?

  “Those were grounds sacred to the E’cwnii, eh, Nyahri? Quite a loss.”

  “Now we are on our way to Swyn Templr.”

  “Swyn Templr, as you E’cwnii call it, is not Abswyn. Just because your sacred ground is wasted does not mean we must share ours.” He folded his arms. “Our elders are on war footing, worried over black magic, of woken Atreianii and demons afoot.” He glanced toward yw Sabi. “Would you have any explanations to calm their fears?”

  Yw Sabi’s voice sharpened, “I’ll have news for the Templarii, not for you.”

  “Makes no matter to me,” Dhaos said, “what you have for the Templarii. For my part I do not care where you go, except you should take precautions, especially farther west.”

  “Why?”

  “Too many raiders these last few years, this side of the peaks.” He gestured toward the far heights. “Dangerous for anyone traveling these paths, women most particularly.”

  “We can handle ourselves,” Nyahri said.

  “We Oudwnii are civilized—do not look so disdainful, E’cwni—but these are not civilized lands. You should come with us. We can escort you.”

  “I have no fear,” Nyahri said, “of anyone, civilized or otherwise. Will you let us pass or nay?”

  “Makes no matter to me. My father, though, would know the business of the E’cwnii, and we are ordered as of late to bring any strangers to him.”

  “To what purpose?” yw Sabi asked.

  He smirked. “Some of our men spotted a strange woman near Abswyn. Did you happen upon one in your journey up the valley? My father wishes to know more of her.”

  “We might speak with Shwn Jhon Oudwn nearer Sojourn.”

  “Save he is not there anymore, not for some years. He no longer makes his home at Cohltos.”

  Yw Sabi jerked her gelding’s reins, the horse half turning. She laid her hand on the witch-scepter at her side, and Nyahri grimaced at it, remembering its power over the bear.

  What would it do to these men, or to me?

  “I don’t wish any delay,” yw Sabi said.

  “Apologies, but we and our bows demand your delay,” Dhaos said, and at that a few men loosened arrows from their quivers, setting them to their bowstrings. “South of here, my father keeps Orÿs Lodge—”

  “We’re not going to Orÿs Lodge.”

  “It oversees the Province of Aukensis, well sheltered and stocked. While you are there, we can resupply you, and I promise good hospitality.”

  The Atreiani’s tone deepened, soft but animal and throaty. “I doubt that’s a promise, young Oudwni, which is yours to give. By some accounts, your father doesn’t have a hospitable reputation. What would you do if I refuse your invitation?”

  The men traded nervous glances. Dhaos squinted, trying to pierce the shade beneath yw Sabi’s hood.

  “You, woman,” he said, “are not an E’cwni.”

  “I’m also no one who suffers hindrances. We’re two women traveling alone, so what threat could we possibly be? We wish only to go our way.”

  “You must be the woman my father seeks.”

  Three archers put tension in their bows. Nyahri reared the stallion, bringing him before the gelding, setting herself between yw Sabi and her would-be enemies.

  “Who are you?” asked Dhaos, focusing past Nyahri to the Atreiani.

  Yw Sabi slipped her hood. While her skin caught the bright afternoon sunlight, an impression of warm but living quartz, her hair reflected no light at all, a flat void which defied any sense of depth or texture. None could mistake her as human.

  The archers’ eyes widened. Some signed or cursed, and a few lowered their heads or dropped to their knees. Nyahri swept the spear across her flank, thrusting its point within a finger’s width of Dhaos’s neck. He jolted back, unsheathing his longknife.

  “I might not survive a fight, Dhaos Shwn Oudwn,” Nyahri said, “but I know you will not.”

  Dropping his blade, he raised both palms, his gaze flicking between the spearhead and yw Sabi. A half-dozen archers recovered their composure, nocked, and drew, their arms trembling.

  Fearful men, Nyahri thought, liable to stupidity. She prayed again, this time to the falcon god, who guarded against the follies of cowardice.

  “I am not an idiot,” Dhaos said.

  Nyahri kept the spear point at his throat. Yw Sabi nudged the gelding forward, heedless of the arrows leveled against her.

  To the archers, Dhaos shouted, “What would you do? Shoot the devil? Stay, weapons down.”

  They obeyed, backing to the rocks.

  “I must go to Sojourn Temple,” yw Sabi said, and she spit the word, “boy.”

  “Nay, Atreiani,” he said, “I understand your earnestness, but my oath to my father is my oath—I must bring you to his lodge. You may kill us all, go your way with this land bent against you, or you may go to my father and perchance he will put the land in your favor.”

  Yw Sabi rode around him. Nyahri cursed under her breath; the Atreiani blocked her view, baiting the archers.

  Yet Nyahri remembered the old stories. The magics of the Atreian devils destroyed men, devastated armies, transformed the earth and sky.

  If she fears them, Nyahri thought, she does not show it.

  “We’ll visit your father,” yw Sabi said, “but when you deny me, Oudwni, you should know what you deny.”

  “You are an Atreiani,” he said, “the divine, and what fool would offend a goddess?”

  “You do understand. Good. Now lead us where you may.”

  He nodded to the archers. Brave men, proud men, but their fear showed. Some exhaled in relief. They too knew what they saw: a wakened of Abswyn, who they’d no desire to fight.

  Dhaos led them southward, over the broad meadow, toward a line of cedars. Nyahri’s heart thumped in her ears, and she thanked the falcon god anew that she yet breathed, riding ahead of the Atreiani, watching the Oudwnii all the while for treacheries.

  ◆◆◆

  Soon, open ground seemed only a memory, the blotchy forest light confounding Nyahri’s sense of direction. She doubted the road back, the path underfoot sometimes nothing more than hard-packed earth, but yw Sabi betrayed no alarm.

  All the while, Nyahri wondered what would have happened if she had punched her spear through Dhaos’s throat. Who would yet live? Who else would have died?

  Yw Sabi is flesh, Nyahri thought. Can she bleed too?

  Keeping pace with the horses, the men jogged. They traded hand signs—a craft of the E’cwnii too—but Nyahri recognized none of their cyphers. Instead, she watched their body language, the slant of a shoulder or bend of the knees which might prelude betrayal or ambush.

  None came.

  In the late afternoon they stopped at a hollow in the hillside, sheltered among the cedars. Dhaos laid his cloak on the ground and sat on it, catching his breath.

  “The men need rest,” he said to Nyahri, “and here is as safe as anywhere.”

  “It is defensible,” Nyahri said, sliding from horseback. “You expect trouble?”

  “Nay, but trouble often comes anyhow.”

  “Atreiani,” Nyahri looked to yw Sabi, “this a good enough place for you?”

  The Atreiani’s gaze followed the depths of the hollow and forest. “Decide on such things as you will.”

  The archers lit a fire and gathered around it. They set their guard beyond the firelight’s edge, apart from the horses and their riders.

  Separate from them, Nyahri sparked another campfire for her and yw Sabi alone. Though the men offered, Nyahri ac
cepted no Oudwn food. Instead, she blackened dried venison over the cedar flames and warmed flatbread. Yw Sabi kept her back to a tree, watching all.

  A few Oudwnii talked quietly, casting respectful glances toward the Atreiani. Breaking from their banter, Dhaos unhooked his longbow and quiver, carrying them to Nyahri’s fire. He knelt on the ground, smiling boyishly, his bright eyes keen. Nyahri gazed at him longer than she meant to, then looked away, poking a stick at the embers.

  Measuring his next words, Dhaos licked his lips, but yw Sabi shook her head at him and his smile faded. He fidgeted with his bow.

  At last he said, “My father thinks of little but the Citadel at Cohltos—”

  “You call it a Citadel,” yw Sabi said.

  “It is what the Templarii call it, nay? They tease my father with promises, tell him what the Citadel might do for us, but he’s begun to lose faith in them.”

  “What promises?”

  “For years the Templarii spoke to him of a better world, as if they might find a way to open the Citadel, raise Atreianii like you from their slumber, bring about a new era.”

  “That would end badly for your father,” yw Sabi said, “and for every other human, you included.”

  “I do not understand?”

  “You wouldn’t.” She leaned forward. “The Templarii certainly have not managed to open a Citadel, Sojourn or any other?”

  A moment of confusion crossed Dhaos’s expression. “They have tried, many times, to unlock it. Always they have failed.”

  It appeared and vanished in a blink, but Nyahri caught a shimmer of relief in yw Sabi’s eyes.

  “My father loves his clan,” Dhaos said. “Sternly, yea, but loves his people still. Yet some years the snow drives hard. Some years there’s no game. We have too much disease. While my father can be a harsh man, in the end he wants what’s best. We know the old magics could cast aside many of our problems.”

  Yw Sabi watched him unflinchingly, and Dhaos waited for a shrug or gesture of sympathy from her. She gave him no such satisfaction.

  “Father believes,” Dhaos continued, “if we could unlock Sojourn, he might change the world.”

  “What do you think, boy?”

  “I agree with him.” Dhaos bowed, pressing his palms to the dirt. “Atreiani, we know what influenza is. We know of pneumonia—the Templarii have taught us that much. Have you seen a man under the fever? A loved one’s waxen skin, cold sweat, and ramblings? The racking cough and every time your mother or brother or child cannot breathe, their pain is yours and you dread and also pray for the end.”