Some days later, just outside the town of Yidalan, the road ahead was filled with a throng of dancing people, dressed in the yellow of Omren the Many-Handed, She of the Loom, who weaves together matter and spirit. Yellow skirts, kaftans, head scarves, wraps and ribbons tied around wrists flowed and flapped as the procession danced to the rhythm of tambourines and bells.

  “Is it a feast day?” Ehrban wondered. Dates had ceased to have meaning to him sometime in the past four years, and the days of travel hadn’t helped. Beyond knowing that it was the month of Jil-vada, he was at a loss.

  Xiun peered down the road with his hand over his eyes. “Looks like a consecration, if I have to guess… Yes. They’re carrying statues and scrolls, and I see a few musical instruments.”

  “We must be in the Ghehadan hills already,” Ehrban said. “There’s a sacred fount here, of Saint Tulghud. We should wait for them to pass.”

  Xiun looked like he wanted to argue, but after a moment he nodded tersely, and they dismounted to lead the horses off the road to the grassy shoulder.

  Uliorn, Ehrban’s horse, immediately set to taste the grass with some relish. He stroked her flank, finding comfort in the easy rhythm of her breathing. The day was already hot, the sunlight bright, the heat steaming amongst the abundance of greenery and vegetation surrounding the road. Already the approaching music was starting to throb in his head.

  Ehrban had partaken in countless such processions himself, first as a novice and later as a sworn knight. The sacred fount of Saint Celund was deep in the Barjat Mountains to the north-east of Heila, the country of the saint’s birth. On her feast days, her knights would make the holy pilgrimage to consecrate the weapons they wielded in her name to the will of Ruoi, along with the armour that carried the protection of the Goddess.

  In his mind’s eye, as clear as yesterday, Ehrban could see the red and black banners and the sun glittering on the spear-tips of standards, could hear the drums and the gongs reverberate in his chest, could feel in his muscles the rhythm of the dances sacred to Ruoi the Many-Limbed.

  For almost a thousand years, the initiates of Saint Celund had visited the sacred fount to imbue their blades with the ethem that flowed from it, leaving some of their own ethem in exchange — so that every knight who came after them, too, would add of themselves as they took away something of the eternal into which had been mingled the ethem of all their brothers and sisters who had come before.

  Was there anything left now in Barjat of the ethem of a thousand years? Or did the fount lay empty and cracked? Like the empty fount in the wasted heart of Ungberg, a great pit filled with nothing but darkness…

  Ehrban was startled when Uliorn suddenly shifted underneath his hand with a whinny of protest. He must’ve swayed on his feet, leaning against the horse in a moment of dizziness as the day momentarily went dark around him. Ehrban righted himself with a grimace against the headache now properly pounding in his skull. The procession had reached them and the noise as they passed was intense.

  He was busy with his water canteen and didn’t notice the woman who’d stopped until she spoke.

  “You!” She was nearly shouting to be heard. “The two of you! How dare you stand here on this road?”

  “It’s a public road,” Xiun said coldly.

  “For people,” she said, and spat on the ground. “Unthulan. You shouldn’t be allowed in the open!”

  By now, a few more feastgoers had stopped, interested to see if the interaction might turn into an altercation. A younger man was trying to take the woman by the elbow. She swatted him away. Her eye fell on Uliorn. “I can’t believe anyone would sell you a horse. Or did you steal it?”

  “The stables were only too happy to accept my coin,” Xiun told her.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  “Well, they shouldn’t have given it to you. No creature deserves to be used by the likes of you.” She made as if to grab Uliorn’s bridle. The horse shied away, her ears flattened, nostrils flaring.

  “Please don’t.” Ehrban reached for Uliorn to soothe her. He willed himself to be calm, but his hand was shaking, and he knew his distress unsettled Uliorn even further. “You’ll spook her. You might get hurt.”

  “Is that a threat?” the woman demanded. She looked around the crowd in something almost like glee. “Did you hear that? This unthulan threatened me!”

  “Let’s move on, Ashda,” someone else grumbled. “You’re always looking for fights where there aren’t any. This is a sacred day.”

  “You can’t tell me you’re happy about two unthulan sitting here on the road like they have the right to it?” Ashda countered shrilly. “Where are they going if not to our town? You want the likes of them to wander around our streets? We have children, Bulund!”

  “I promise you, we won’t be lingering in your town.” Xiun’s tone and crisp Tabarantan manner turned the innocuous words into an insult. “We have an appointment in Heila with the Matriarch.”

  “Liar!” Ashda said triumphantly. “See?” she told the crowd. “Up to no good. We should have them arrested!”

  Arrested. Ehrban closed his eyes against the way his vision had started to throb in sickening synchrony with his heart pounding in his chest. More chains and another dark cell. They were unthulan: there was nothing to stop anyone from arresting them, beating them, murdering them in broad daylight right here on the road.

  Oh yes, the little voice inside him said. Did you not wish for death, paladin? Just let them kill you. Once your soul is free from this mortal prison, your enemy will taste the wrath of Vishak.

  Ehrban opened his eyes. More people were shouting now, whether at the belligerent Ashda or in support of her, he didn’t know. Xiun was talking, his face white. Emotions were too high for anyone to believe he hadn’t stolen the vizier’s seal.

  “Do not hinder us on our way.” Ehrban surprised himself with the ring of command he’d been certain his voice would never carry again. “We are beloved of slumbering Vishak the Veiled. Do not dare disturb Her dark dreams.”

  It were only words. He hadn’t expected them to have any effect. He’d not expected anything, really — he didn’t even know why he’d said it. These people were mostly Vallenese, already of the plains, not steeped in the old Ulgarian superstitions of the mountains.

  Perhaps it was only the blasphemous use of Vishak’s name outright, instead of one of the many euphemisms used to refer to Her: the Slumbering One, the Veiled One, She of Dreams.

  Still, something in his voice or demeanour must’ve frightened the crowd. As one, they drew back, many signing the eight-fold star of protection.

  “The knights of Saint Celund,” someone said, sounding scared.

  Xiun flashed a sudden and feral grin. “That’s right. Now, unless you’re looking for us to bless you, stand aside.”

  They did, and remarkably quickly. Ehrban and Xiun lead their horses down the road, and the bystanders gave them a wide berth, hurrying in the opposite direction to catch up with the rest of the procession.

  “Good Ruoi,” Xiun said, wiping his forehead on his sleeve. “For a moment there, I thought you were going to ensoul a battle prayer of the Flame after all.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, you’ve seen for yourself I can no longer — oh.” Ehrban doubled forward, then let go of Uliorn’s reins as the sudden dizziness that swept over him kept rising. He sank to his knees.

  “What’s wrong?” Xiun was next to him and Ehrban felt the touch of his fingers as he lifted Ehrban’s head to peer at him, felt for his pulse. “Come, here, let’s go to the shade. Sit a while.”

  Xiun helped Ehrban to a wide acacia that spread next to the road and made him sit against it while he tied the horses to a low branch. He returned with his water canteen and watched as Ehrban drank.

  “This happened before?”

  “It’s not new,” Ehrban admitted, his face burning. He placed his hand on his chest, focusing on his breath, willing his clamouring heart to slow down. Through the layers of fabric, he could feel the steady and clear ethem that ran through the sigil of the Flaming Wheel branded into his chest. “Today… Too many people.”

  “Well, you have been living like a hermit for four years.” Xiun sat back on his heels and studied him. “I suppose agitated melancholia is not all that surprising. For any of us.”

  “I’m sure that’s all it is.” Ehrban pushed himself away from the tree. “I can only hope it’ll get better in the months that come.”

  “It will, I’m sure of it.” Xiun offered a hand to pull Ehrban to his feet. “Now, if you’re well enough to ride, I’d like to put the next hick little town behind us as soon we can.”

  As they set off, Ehrban looked over his shoulder at the road where the confrontation had taken place. It was an ordinary well-packed dirt road, baking in the near-noon sun under a clear, cloudless sky.

  There was nothing to indicate the darkness that had swept through his vision, nothing to explain the sensation as of some vast presence moving just beyond his perception, bringing with it the smell of blood and decay.

  But he knew this already. He knew it was nothing in the outer world.

  It was inside him.