‘Was he now?’

‘But now we’ve lost him.’

He thought about that, and then grinned. ‘Take this for what it’s worth, Lostara Yil. He figured we were alive and well. He was right. Now, I’ve got this feeling he ain’t so lost as you might think. He’s a snake. Always was, always will be.’

The smile she flashed him almost made him hesitate, but before he could call out something inviting and possibly improper she was riding after the others.

Damn! Smiles like that don’t land on me every day .

Scowling, he ordered his Ve’Gath round and then set off on the back trail.

The Hunters and drones fell into his wake.

One of the tiny birds tried landing in Stormy’s beard. His curse sent it screeching away.

BOOK THREE

TO CHARGE THE SPEAR

And now the bold historian

Wields into play that tome

Of blistering worth

Where the stern monks

Cower under the lash

And through the high window

The ashes of heretics drift

Down in purity’s rain

See the truths stitched in thread

Of gold across hapless skin

I am the arbiter of lies

Who will cleanse his hand

In copper bowls and white sand

But the spittle on his lips

Gathers the host to another tale

I was never so blind

To not feel the deep tremble

Of hidden rivers in churning torrent

Or the prickly tear of quill’s jab

I will tell you the manner

Of all things in sure proof

This order’d stone row –

Oh spare me now the speckled fists

This princeps’ purge and prattle

I live in mists and seething cloud

And the breaths of the unseen

Give warmth and comfort to better

The bleakest days to come

And I will carry on in my

Uncertainty, cowl’d in a peace

Such as you could not imagine

A Life in Mists Gothos (?)
CHAPTER EIGHT

Whatever we’re left with

can only be enough,

if in the measure of things

nothing is cast off,

discarded on the wayside

in the strides that take us clear

beyond the smoke and grief

into a world of shocked birth

opening eyes upon a sudden light.

And to whirl then in a breath

to see all that we have done,

where the tombs on the trail

lie sealed like jewelled memories

in the dusk of a good life’s end,

and not one footprint beckons

upon the soft snow ahead,

but feel this sweet wind caress.

A season crawls from earth

beneath mantled folds.

I have caught a glimpse,

a hint of flared mystery,

shapes in the liquid glare.

They will take from us

all that we cradle in our arms

and the burden yielded

makes feathers of my hands,

and the voices drifting down

are all that we’re left with

and shall for ever be enough

You Will Take My Days Fisher kel Tath
TO SLITHER BENEATH THE FISTS OF THE WORLD .

Her name was Thorl. A quiet one, with watchful, sad eyes. Bursting from the cloud of Shards, her screams sounded like laughter. The devouring insects clustered where her eyes had been. They lunged into her gaping mouth, the welters of blood from shredded lips drawing hundreds more.

Saddic cried out his horror, staggered back as if about to flee, but Badalle snapped out one hand and held him fast. Panic was what the Shards loved most, what they waited for, and panic was what had taken Thorl, and now the Shards were taking her.

Blind, the girl ran, stumbling on the jagged crystals that tore her bared feet.

Children edged closer to her, and Badalle could see the flatness in their eyes and she understood.

Strike down, fists, still we slide and slither. You cannot kill us, you cannot kill the memory of us. We remain, to remind you of the future you gave us. We remain, because we are the proof of your crime .

Let the eaters crowd your eyes. Welcome your own blindness, as if it was a gift of mercy. And that could well be laughter. Dear child, you could well be laughing, a voice of memory. Of history, even. In that laugh, all the ills of the world. In that laugh, all the proofs of your guilt .

Children are dying. Still dying. For ever dying .

Thorl fell, her screams deadening to choking, hacking sounds as Shards crawled down her throat. She writhed, and then twitched, and the swarm grew sluggish, feeding, fattening.

Badalle watched the children close in, watched their hands lunge out, snatching wallowing insects, stuffing them into eager mouths. We go round and round and this is the story of the world. Do not flee us. Do not flee this moment, this scene. Do not confuse dislike and abhorrence with angry denial of truths you do not wish to see. I accept your horror and expect no forgiveness. But if you deny, I name you coward .