Soul Wars by Josh Reynolds

Author:Josh Reynolds
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2018-05-01T09:15:00+00:00

Chapter thirteen

Inevitable

SHYISH, THE REALM OF DEATH

Ayala turned, peering east. The wind brought with it a grave-chill, and the hint of a sour meat stink that was unpleasantly familiar. The old woman pulled her tatterdemalion robes tight about her, suddenly cold. Her hand fell to the curved knife sheathed on her hip. It was a good knife, blessed and edged with silver, but it made her feel no safer.

This was not a night for safety. No night was safe, not in Shyish. But this night especially – something felt wrong. Something had changed, though she didn’t know what. A few days ago, the sky had twisted in on itself, and the ground had shuddered. Tremors weren’t unknown in the desert, but never were they so forceful.

There was something coming. She felt it in her water, the way a sand-rat felt the shadow of a bird’s wings. From close by, music rose towards the stars as her kith and kin held back the shadows with the old songs. They would be dancing too, around the fire, whirling so that their robes caught the light and made the air swim with reflected colour. Noise and colour – these were the strongest proofs against the dark.

‘The wind in your bones, grandmother?’ her granddaughter, Uskya, called out as she drew near. Ayala turned. Uskya was the image of her mother, Ayala’s daughter, dead these past two turns of the season. The young woman was dark of eye and hair, with the slim build that characterised the Zirc. Her robes were of many colours, the same as Ayala’s, the same as those worn by every nomad in the nine hundred tribes. ‘Come back to the fire, we’ll soon drive it out. Feytos has made dinner.’

‘I know, child. Why do you think I’m out here?’ Feytos, her other grandchild, was chieftain now, like his father before him. Among the Zirc, it was tradition that a chieftain prepare the evening meal. Unfortunately for all of them, Feytos was a terrible cook.

Ayala glanced back towards the quintet of towering wagon-fortresses that bore her tribe across the desert sands. The enormous conveyances resembled wheeled citadels, their frames studded with balconies, garrets and towers. Higher than all of these were great pipes of bronze. Thin streams of steam wafted from the pipes, signalling the cooling of the massive boilers that turned the wheels.

The wagon-fortresses were arranged in a rough circle about the gigantic bonfire that the nomads had started. Feeding the fire had taken more of their precious supply of wood than Ayala approved of. But if there was ever a night for it, this was it.

Uskya laughed and interlaced her arm with Ayala’s. ‘He is not that bad a cook, grandmother. And the meat is good – the best the Azyrites had.’

Ayala sniffed. ‘The best they were willing to trade, you mean. They keep the best for themselves, always.’ The traders at Fort Alenstahdt were shrewder than she liked. They made her brothers, sneak-thieves all, look like naïve children when it came to bargaining.

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