Farmer, Sailor, Merchant, Smith,

Lover, Warrior, Maker, Storm.

Eight remembered,

A Ninth to rot,

A darkness, grown,

A light, begot.

*

Prologue - The Bleeding

They were three days out from the mountains, and the desert had swallowed the world.

‘Do you see it, brother?’

The man looked. On the eastern horizon, across an ocean of black sand and dark stone shattered like glass, something was moving.

‘Just a sand cloud.’

They stood atop a jagged ridge of twisted rock, grey cloaks tugged by the whining wind, hoods up against the shifting eddies of the sands. Around them, the black desert had no end save one; behind, the sharp peaks of the Teeth ran north to south on the horizon, a rampart of stone a thousand leagues long and tall as the sky. On their eastern face, they too had been scorched clean, a thousand obsidian facets shimmering in the swaying heat. Somewhere there, the Last House was nestled like an ancient thorn into the high rocks, standing watch over the mountains. Home, such as it was. Nikal sighed, looking back to the sands. For most, the mountains were the eastern edge of the world. Standing there, now, he found it hard to disagree. The Wastes had ceased to exist long ago.

‘Should take a look.’ his companion told him. ‘Need another few miles for the bleed.’

He nodded.

‘Let’s get moving.’

Progress was slow in the Wastes. The sand was barely an inch above the rock in some of places, deeper than a man in others, a shifting sea of black pits and broken stone waiting for a mistake; a misplaced footstep, a stumble. Waiting to swallow a man whole. They made their careful way across the shifting ground, one step at a time, testing the way with their staffs, keeping to the outcrops of dark, jagged rock as much as they were able. It was perhaps a little past noon, but the only sign of light was from the faint, muted luminescence of the clouds that hung overhead, a roiling black veil that tumbled and cracked against the thick, hot air, shot through with flashes of white fire. Daytime in the Wastes had the feel of perpetual twilight. Underneath his robes, Nikal could feel warm sweat running down his ribs, sticking the fabric to his skin. He blinked the moisture from his eyes, fixing them to the smudge of movement on the horizon. Had it moved?

‘Careful!’

Nikal blinked, stopping in his tracks. The sand in front of him had given way, turning and shifting like a whirlpool. As he watched, a shield-sized rock was caught up in the tide, and it circled the black sand for a few moments, then vanished into the maw.

‘Keep your eyes open.’

Nikal looked up at his companion. Like him, the woman was covered head to toe in grey, with just a narrow slit in the fabric left open for her eyes. Her dark staff was topped with winking nightglass, and her gloves gleamed with silver. Nikal nodded.

It was impossible to tell how far they’d come. The sand cloud seemed to be drawing closer, but was that just his imagination? The Wastes had a way of playing tricks on a man’s mind. The darkness stretched on ahead of them, an endless desert, scorched black and ashen by a nameless heat, and the smell that filled his nostrils was of burning and Death. Even the endless clouds were dry as sand. Nothing living grew here. Not since the Breaking.

‘It’s moving.’

Nikal looked ahead of them again. The smudge in the distance rippled and blurred, shifting this way and that across the twilit air.

‘It’s just a cloud.’ he said.

‘We’re not far, now.’

They continued on like that for a time, carefully, with the cautious haste of danger in their footsteps. Nikal raised a glove to his eye slit, rubbing the sweat from his brow. The air was thick, and the heat eddied and swirled through his eyes, blurring them like water. Thunder boomed overhead, and the bubbling clouds spat lightning out over the rocks. It was the first time he’d been called on for the Bleeding. He hoped his brothers and sisters were wrong. He hoped it would get easier.

‘Look.’

Nikal looked. Ahead of them, the smudge on the horizon dissolved into a wisp of dust, and was swept away over the black sands by the wind.

‘Ah.’

‘Another mile should do it, anyway.’ his companion said, and they continued on. Here the sand had begun to recede, and a ridge-line of rock eased up out of the desert like an enormous spine, jagged and black and sheer. They climbed with it, weary feet grateful for the firmness of stone, and foot by foot they rose away from the shimmering heat of the dark sands below. At last, they came to a precipice where the rock sheared off entirely, falling away into the sands some fifty foot below. Nikal wasn’t sure, but he thought he could see the ground turning on the desert floor.

‘As good a place as any.’ he told his companion. Up here on the rocks, the wailing wind seemed to have dropped away, and an eerie stillness settled over the air. Still-spots were the closest thing to respite the Wastes afforded them.

‘It must be soon, brother.’

‘We will be quick.’

The woman nodded. She reached inside her cloak and pulled out a small, clear cask filled with silvery liquid, corked with a stopper of strange, dark steel, then stood waiting as Nikal lowered himself to his knees and began to feel across the surface of the rock beneath him with one gloved hand. Brushing over the cracked surface of the rock, searching, and silver tips on his fingers glittered.

‘There are other places.’ his companion said quietly.

‘This will do fine.’

His hand settled against a spot on the rock, and he froze for a moment, eyes falling closed. Then he looked up at his companion, nodding. The woman handed him the strange, clear cask, and he took it, pulling free the stopper. He held it out over the stone, tipping it carefully, and the liquid moonsilver slid smoothly out of the neck. It had the colour and appearance of smoky steel, like the stopper, but rippled and flowed like water. In a moment, it had covered a small, uneven circle of rock, a murmuring pool of twilight silver.

‘Ready?’

‘Yes.’ his companion replied. Nikal looked back at the pool. He spoke a word, and the silvery oil fell still, then suddenly began to sink, mercury fingers creeping into the pores of the rock. A moment later, there was no trace of it at all.

‘Start the count.’

Sixty.

Nikal looked east, watching the heat shimmering over the black sand. The clouds overhead were moving faster now, roiling and splitting like great black waves, rumbling. In the strange, quiet shelter of their perch, the acrid smell of ash lingered on the air, creeping through his mask, filling his lungs.

Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

Fifty.

Nikal blinked. Something else was moving on the horizon, coalescing like a shadow from the swirling sands. He glanced at his companion. The woman had frozen in place, hand knotted around her dark staff, hard eyes narrow.

Thirty.

Nikal wiped a sleeve across his eye slit, squinting. The sweat bit at his eyes, and his vision blurred. The shadow on the horizon was taking shape, edges hardening against the haze. The storm crashed and burned overhead, screeching. In the distance, the shadow began to flash, hot white fangs of fire in the smoke. It was coming closer.

Twenty.

‘Is that a...?’

‘Burn storm.’ his companion agreed. ‘We still have time.’

Ten.

‘Hold.’ the woman said beside him. Nikal felt her stiffen as a sudden wind clawed at them, hot as embers, and the smell of burning thickened the air to grey cloud. Nikal closed his eyes.

‘Now!’

Nikal spoke the word again, and his will answered. The rock beneath them rumbled. The approaching shadow grew closer, and the wind howled like a beast. What if the moonsilver didn’t rise? He held the cask ready over the rocks, pointing down, heart thundering in his ears. The rock rumbled again. What if…

‘Wait!’

Then the rumbling stopped, and the silvery liquid shot like a geyser out of the rock, straight into the waiting cask. Nikal slammed the stopper home and fell back, gasping, waiting for the wail of the burn storm to break. But the wind had fallen away. He pushed himself onto his knees, looking east. The shadow had vanished. He looked down at the cask in his hands. The moonsilver bubbled and shook for a moment beneath his fingers, ripples within ripples murmurating its smoky surface, then fell still. Nikal checked the mark on the side of the cask. All accounted for.

‘Well within normal range.’ his companion said, relieved.

‘But, the burn storm-’

‘Bad timing. That’s all. Must have blown itself out.’

Nikal looked back at the horizon, but there was nothing there save the eddying swirl of black sands, heat devils racing each other across the scorched ground. He sighed.

‘Everyone thinks it’ll be them, the first time.’ the woman told him. ‘But the Darkness is broken.’

Nikal nodded. His heart was beginning to slow. He handed the cask back to his companion, smiling grimly under his mask.

‘Aye. The Darkness is broken.’

They turned and began to make their way back down the ridge, then, heading for the distant mountains over a sea of black glass.

*

If the days were dark in the Wastes, the nights were darker still. Without the veiled luminescence of the distant sun, the clouds overhead were an invisible weight against the sky, rumbling on in spite of the dark. Nikal stood watch, staring numbly into the gloom. When lightning flashed, it set a muted fire in the black glass of the desert, and an image of storm clouds bigger than cities would burn into his waiting eyes. An empty desert without end, and the clouds trying to swallow it.

He shivered. Even at night, the heat of the scorched land filled the air thick as fog, but the wind had a chill edge to it. Instead of burning and ash, it had the smell of rot, a festering, mangled smell that brought the bile rising in his throat. But there was nothing living left. Not anymore. He shook his head, and the smell faded, and the air was ashen and dead once more. Was it midnight yet? There was no way of knowing for sure. He missed the stars, the moon. He wondered, if the storm clouds cleared, would he see them? Or had they too been scorched away by the Darkness, in this dead place?

Behind him, sheltering from the shrill wind in the lee of the ridge where they had made their camp, his companion lay sleeping. They had come close, today, no matter what she said. The moonsilver had risen, that was true, but not all dangers in the Wastes are borne of the dark. Even they had no defence against burn storms.

He turned to the west, squinting, trying to make out any sign of the mountains on the horizon, but there was nothing but the dark. He’d never thought he’d miss the comfort of the Last House, where even the coldness of stone had its uses. A straw mat would be a blessing right now. He had decided he hated the sand. Its coarseness seeped into his limbs, grinding in his joints like glass. He needed a bath, and a proper sleep. He sighed. There was no use in wishing, and he would be home, soon enough. So he pulled his mask a little higher, and went back to his watch.

The night dragged on around him in the aching stillness of a dead world. Midnight came and went, by what reckoning he could manage, but he did not wake his companion. He knew he wouldn’t sleep, anyway. Better to let her rest. The night passed him by in scattered fragments, hot flashes of sight in a sea of dark. He found that his eyes began to dip in spite of himself, and the gloom blurred, as if through water. He blinked, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Lightning flashed again, the land came to light in pale fire, and he froze.

It had only been a moment. A fraction of a moment. But the image was seared across his eyes, burnt across the horizon of his mind. A sea of black sand, punched through by broken rock, and there, in the distance, something else. Something that did not belong. Something silver, gleaming like water in sunlight. Nikal felt his heart quicken in his chest, and he realised that his hand had gone tight around his staff. Another burn storm?

He waited, eyes fixed on the middle distance, to the spot where the paleness burned across his eyelids. The seconds stretched on around him. Minutes came and went. Nothing stirred, save the endless cracking and rumbling of the clouds. Nikal’s heart did not slow. He realised that he had started to sweat, and the dampness of it dropped into his eyelashes, making him squint. Still, he waited.

Then the lightning flashed again, and a fresh imprint of white shimmered across his eyelids, frozen in the pursuing dark. It was there. There was no mistaking it. Something that gleamed, something that flashed, hot as fire. It did not appear to be moving, and there had been no black cloud to go with it. Not a burn storm, then. He frowned, looking back over his shoulder, but his companion had not stirred.

Everyone thinks it’ll be them, the first time.

He looked back at the darkness beyond their camp. He was not imagining this. It was not a trick of the Wastes. It might not be a burn storm, but was that the only thing that might need attention? A light pool? Maybe a previous bleeding had left some moonsilver behind? Had he left some moonsilver behind? Could he have misread the cask?

He made a decision. One last look back at his sleeping companion. A deep breath. Then he stepped out down the slope, blind eyes fixed on the spot of pale light on his eyelids where he knew the shape lay waiting. If it was moonsilver, he would recover it. If it was something else... well, there was no harm in checking. His boots left the rock, then, and the sudden softness of the sand soothed some of his raw nerves. Sand he knew, though knowing brought no fondness. He knew the whirlpools, the quicksand, the ledges that gave way at a touch. He knew them, and in knowing was his power. Buoyed by that surety, he stepped out with renewed purpose, listening, feeling with his blindsight for any telltale slithering of currents in the sand. But there was nothing. Nothing but the storm. So he went on, one foot in front of the other, and with each step he feared the dark a little less.

But it lingered for longer, this time, and he began to slow, more and more with each step. How would he know the place? He looked back over his shoulder, and found that he could no longer make out the ridge of their camp in the blackness. The realisation set a chill in his gut, and for a moment he considered going back. He peered out to the east. Maybe he had been too hasty. Yes. One last look, then he would return to his watch.

Then the thunder crashed again, and the sky flashed. The dark returned a moment later, but he had seen it, closer now, a circle of silver light against the black sand. It was there, barely fifty yards from him, and all that lay between was a patchwork of sand and rutted rock so familiar it might have been a path. He found himself straightening, stepping out again, footsteps sure and steady. He raised a hand to wipe at his eyes as he walked, and realised that the ashen smell of the night wind had faded from his nostrils. Another still-spot. Even the thunder overhead seemed far away. His feet found rock, now. One step. Then another. The steady pitter-patter of leather on stone. Almost there. There was a low ridge before him, and at its top he knew he’d find it. One more step and...

Nothing. He knew without sight there was no moonsilver here. He needn’t even speak the word. He dropped softly to his knees, running a hand over the rock. If not silver, then what was it? He felt around in the dark, fingers brushing every facet, every faint crenellation in the stone.

But there was nothing there. Nothing there but the rock. That didn’t make sense. He had seen it. Felt it. He had known what it was. He could almost feel the silver that was not there beneath his fingers, waiting for his word.

Then he frowned, standing up. He had known it, and so had the Wastes. A mirage. The tricks of the desert were wily, indeed. Everyone knew it to be true. His brothers and sisters had warned him. He was still young, by their measure, and it was only his first Bleeding. In time he would know the true extent of the sand’s falseness. For now, no harm had been done. He sighed, looking back into the darkness behind him. He’d be back at his post before he was missed. No need to tell anyone about his nighttime jaunt.

He took a breath, and fancied for a moment there was a strange smell on the air, only now, instead of burning, and ash, it smelled of rot. That same festering, broken smell that had turned his throat sour, back at his watch. He shook himself. There was nothing living left, here. Not anymore.

He sighed, and the lightning flashed again, distant thunder grumbling mutely in the still-spot around him. He saw the ridge of their camp, in the distance. It was not so far, in truth. He took a step back towards it, his boot dead and silent against the heavy drape of the still air.

And the rock gave way beneath him.

He didn’t have time to cry out. By the time he felt the absence of the ground beneath his feet, he was already falling, tumbling, spinning into the dark. His flailing arm caught a pocket of sand, and hot powder sprayed across his eye slit, blinding him. His staff tore from his fingers, tumbling away through the screeching air. Something was moving in the blackness below him, scrabbling against the rocks like bone. He spluttered, gasping, and the fetid air rushed past him blindly, whistling in his ears. His body was taut as snapping rope, waiting for the rocks to rise up to meet him.

But they never came. Thunder crashed in the sky, then, and lightning flooded into the rock with him. One final moment of light, as the sands folded closed overhead. A moment of terror, of pale limbs scrambling over stone, flesh flaking from bones, teeth slashing like blades.

Then the Darkness swept up to take him, a hundred black eyes without breath. Nikal screamed.