THIRTY-ONE

WE CAME TO the forest’s tattered edge by early afternoon, hesitating to go any further. Open plains stretched before us all the way to a river, and from the moment we stepped out of the forest we’d be all too visible, and all too vulnerable – Dieter’s golem behind us, the Iltheans before us, and both as likely as not to kill us on sight.

Roshi scanned the plains and the treeline on the river’s far bank for movement, while the sun moved a finger’s width across the sky.

‘Okay,’ she said eventually, gesturing us forward. ‘Slow and steady. We’re villagers on the move, no more.’

The sun beat down, baking the filth crusted onto my skin and clothes. The prickle of Clay’s pursuit itched at my nape. Anticipation of attack drove sweat through every pore. A hawk’s sudden keen as it coasted above us made me jolt like a startled rabbit; the old pony only twitched an ear.

‘Calmly now,’ said Roshi, though her shoulders were tight and she scanned around us constantly.

Sepp murmured a mantra under his breath. When I edged close enough to hear, I wished I hadn’t. ‘Ravens and the shieldmaidens of Turas protect us,’ he was whispering, his eyes fixed on the ground in front of him. ‘Don’t let the creature or the Iltheans kill us.’

I moved away until I could no longer hear him, though I could still see his lips mouthing the prayer.

Another hawk keened and I jumped again. Swinging my eyes skyward, I caught a sliver of movement off to the side. Fear bolted through me as a shadow rose from the grasses less than a half-mile distant. I stood, mesmerised, as a dark head appeared. It wore no grin now, and Dieter’s crisp shirt had been replaced by a duller one. A rich, cloying scent of loam reached us and its black eyes locked on me across the grasses.

‘Roshi!’ I shrieked.

She and Sepp turned as one then froze at the terrifying apparition. We all stood unmoving, overwhelmed by the danger.

Clay rose to his full height, relinquishing any pretence at camouflage and leaned forward, bracing against the air as if it were a solid force. Then he sprang into a run, every footfall thudding through the ground, moving as fast as a surfacing earthquake.

‘Run!’ cried Roshi, finally galvanising us.

I burst into a wild sprint, blood and breath pounding through me in time with the tremors of Clay’s pursuit. Sepp raced after me, hauling the pony into a canter, his face white and drawn.

Wait for me, little queen. I’m coming.

Slewing back to glance at me, Roshi’s gaze darted to Clay. I dared not look, putting every ounce of strength I had into each stride, kicking at the ground faster, faster, faster –

It wasn’t enough. Clay snagged my hair, jerking my legs from under me. I went down heavily, the breath slamming from my lungs, the sky bursting into white light above me.

I rolled onto my back, but he was coming too fast, hands outstretched, hungry for my throat.

I kicked, my feet finding his belly, but it was useless. The impact merely cracked back through my knees and jarred my teeth. Clay didn’t even flinch, though it did make his leap turn slightly awry, and I heaved my shoulders to the side as he landed, his hand slamming across my chest like a rockfall. One of my ribs cracked in a burst of white lightning.

Roshi came at him over the top of me, knife raised, hair flying like a banner. Clay lifted his arm to face her attack as I scrabbled at the earth, tearing fingernails and fingers and grasses and earth until they all seemed one. Inch by inch I dragged myself forward.

Clay reached after me, but Roshi drove the knife down, aiming for the soft join of neck to shoulder. He batted her away as if she were a feather. Deflected, her knife sank deep into his bicep, releasing a waft of his earth scent. The cut stayed open, revealing small dark creatures squirming through his flesh like worms. It didn’t seem to trouble him.

Roshi landed badly, an ankle rolling beneath her.

A hand strong and implacable as mud seized my ankle then, dragging me back, reversing my hard-won escape. I rolled and kicked, and this time my foot found his face. The ball of my foot smeared some of his slab-white teeth down the back of his palate, and he jerked away with a gagging snarl. But still he didn’t release me.

Spitting dark blood, he wrapped a hand around my calf and dragged me closer. I dug my fingers into the ground, but it tore in furrows, affording no purchase.

‘Hello, little queen,’ the golem said, with a grin made hideous by broken teeth.

‘Clay.’ Even as I said it, I knew beseeching him would prove useless. Still, I had to try. ‘Clay, you can’t kill me. Look!’ I swept my hair from my forehead, exposing the marks we both bore. ‘We’re the same!’

He stopped, and raised his free hand to paw at his forehead. I wondered whether he felt the same buzz as me – like lightning trapped beneath the surface of his skin. What skin does a man of clay have? My eyes dropped to the wound Roshi had carved in his arm, still open and showing a glimpse of his worm-veins.

Clay met my eyes again, searching for something. I lay still, battling my terror, the ground thrusting into one side of me and Clay bearing down on the other.

‘We’re the same,’ he said at last.

A sob lodged, sharp and jagged, in my throat.

‘We cannot disobey,’ he continued, extinguishing the breath in my lungs.

‘Clay, no –’

Leaning on one elbow, the other hand clamping ever higher up my body, he drew me closer.

‘You didn’t wait for me, little queen,’ he crooned. ‘But I found you anyway. We cannot disobey.’

Broken grass stems pricked the bare flesh of my neck and wrists as the sun glared down, releasing the scents of blood and dirt. Small dark sods dripped from Clay’s torn lip. A worm forced its blind head out of the wound, waving in the air as it twisted further out before dropping, cold and clinging, onto my throat.

Still crooning, Clay wrapped his hands around my neck and squeezed. The world brightened to a painful glare, brimstone orange hues leaping across the pale sky, turning Clay as dark as a patch of night. Familiar and hypnotic, the twisting sensation of an oncoming vision gripped me.

The earth throbbed beneath me, yielding its secrets – the soft places where the crust shielded rich, crumbling soil; the fire buried deep under the land like a sun, calling to its twin arcing across the uncertain sky.

It was the simplest thing I had ever done to close my eyes and imagine the crust breaking, the earth collapsing beneath him like water …

A thud ripped Clay’s weight off me. When I opened my eyes, Sepp stood over me holding a thick branch in both hands. Discarding it, he pulled me to my feet. Clay was clutching at his head, a dark stain visible beneath his broad fingers. His legs had vanished up to his knees in the earth, which was raw and bubbled, as if it had been boiled. Clay started digging, his great hands scraping out great clods of dirt.

I stumbled as cold crept through me and the world snapped back to its normal hue, the sky a sweep of pale blue gone to white at the horizon, the broken grasses a rotting yellow.

Sepp on one side and Roshi on the other, we limped towards the river. Roshi’s ankle hurt, and I hunched around the pain of my broken rib. Every time I looked back, Clay was handfuls closer to freedom.

The river ran bright and sharp, cutting through the summer-grass scent of the plains. ‘Here,’ said Sepp, pointing to a rope staked between the banks of the river. Beneath the rope’s slack span, the water ran fast and troubled, throwing off glints in every direction. A ford, of sorts.

We plunged into the water which rose above our knees, the rocks of the ford slick and treacherous beneath the river’s pull. The force of the water shoved us against the rope, threatening to pull us beneath and past. My arms burned as I strained to keep my feet. Two slow, wrenching paces out from the bank, the water rose to my neck, and only the rope kept me anchored. The water’s icy touch washed the sensation from my muscles and sapped my strength.

A spume of dirt swirled downstream as we struggled into the river’s centre.

‘Little queen!’ came Clay’s angry cry.

‘He’s free,’ Roshi gasped.

The rocks pitched sideways beneath me, the rope burning my hands as I scrabbled back to stand against the water’s pull.

One step at a time, we pushed onwards, pulling ourselves along the rope until the water sank from our necks to our waists, then to our knees. Gasping, we burst onto the bank one by one. I stumbled and fell to the ground, unable to continue.

The pine trees were close enough for me to see the cones scattered at their base. But not even Clay’s cry could pump blood and strength into my legs now.

‘Tilde,’ Sepp cried, hooking his fingers into the shoulder of my gown and pulling. ‘Come on. You have to get up!’

‘We can’t outrun him,’ I replied, fully spent.

Roshi dragged herself up, but her face twisted with pain when she tried to put weight on her ankle.

A splash and a shudder through the ground told me Clay was attempting the ford. We had only moments left.

Roshi hobbled to the staked rope, slipped a small blade from her boot and set to sawing through the fibres. ‘Hurry!’ shrieked Sepp, his gaze fixed on the golem pushing across the river.

The final fibres separated with a twang, and the rope slithered downstream, whipping Clay away with it.

It was no victory, however. He regained his feet and braced himself against the flow, using the staked rope to anchor his position in the centre of the river. At first he looked trapped, unable to release the rope for fear of being swept away, his only recourse to pull his way back to the opposite bank. Instead he turned his back to us and edged to his right, pushing against the flow. At the same time, he took a step backward, letting the taut rope play carefully through his hands. The river battered him, but with the rope’s aid he had the strength to resist it. Inch by inch, he would reach the unsecured end of the rope, and his path would arc him back to this riverbank, and us.

‘Now what?’ shouted Sepp, rounding on Roshi.

She ignored him and looked at me. ‘The sun can burn without casting heat. The soil can deny life while a stone can nourish it. Water can run hard as a rockfall.’ She spoke as if she knew what I’d done to the earth around Clay’s legs, and how. And why not? She’d been raised to it, raised to women wielding it. Water can run hard as a rockfall.

This time the colours didn’t shift, but still the world thrummed beneath my touch. I imagined the slavering roar of a wall of water, the swell and surge of it as it slammed over the ford, tearing away all it encountered …

Nothing happened. A sting of panic quickened my breath and made it hard to concentrate, but still Roshi’s gaze held me, and I bent all my will to the task. Perhaps I could not manipulate the water, but I knew how to influence the earth – and Clay’s hold relied only on a thin sliver of wood thrust into the ground, a splinter barely scratching the surface of the world’s layers.

The rope’s anchored stake jumped free of its mooring. Clay let out a yell and was quickly swallowed.

I saw the white pinch of Roshi’s eyes relax, releasing me from her gaze and hold alike.

The river foamed across the ford, its rush impossible to withstand without the rope’s aid. A dark head bobbed up and disappeared beneath the white froth and churn. When I next glimpsed him, Clay was a speck far downstream.

Sepp helped me upright. The light alternately dimmed then brightened to a glare, disorienting me and threatening to make me topple. After a moment’s wobbling, I thought I might actually be able to stand without falling. I fixed my gaze on the pines and started walking towards them.

‘The pony?’ Roshi asked Sepp.

‘Panicked and bolted when that creature came close enough to drop worms on her rump,’ said Sepp. ‘All our food is gone with her.’

Dazed, I wondered vaguely why the pines had boughs needled with spear-tips, and trunks with steel skirts and greaves, too. Then the truth seared through me.

‘Iltheans!’ I cried.