The immanence, you find, is
overwhelming absence. Someone’s torn a hole in terra firma. End of the line.
Because suddenly, even though it’s been building all along, the world drops
away over a precipice more than four thousand meters down. Below, an emerald
valley cradles the cerulean resurrection of the river and an entire city the
color of jade, seen through the tattered mists of the water being blown apart
beneath your feet. The city Kasora, once home to more than a million souls,
sits above cliffs on the river’s right-hand side, a long finger of jade
Profusionist metal. Across the river, a broad and gentle slope that could be
the calmer child of the snowfield. The valley, tearing away into the west, is
almost too beautiful to be believed.
Or it should
have been. The emerald meadow, viewed through oculars, was streaked black with
the mud of what were clearly trenches, the first bend of the river was pocked
by artillery impacts, and the pristine river beyond a certain point had turned
the colors of shit and blood. The crossing had been contested. Seen through my
oculars, tiny golden orbs arched from just across the river toward the city’s
north end, and its only crumbling gate. The army of Jerem Cozak, working the
last part of what looked like a long and brutal siege.
“Nogilian,”
I said. He grunted. “Nogilian!”
“I know,”
he said.
I put the
oculars down. “They aren’t going to make it.”
The city
was packed. I had no idea where they all had come from. Not a million Augers,
to be sure. But more than fifty thousand, definitely. They were everywhere:
rooftops, alleys, plazas, and I hated to think of how many spearmen might be
waiting inside the windows of those buildings. Worse, in the heart of the city
squatted a citadel atop its own walls and surrounded by open courtyards. In
military parlance, we call them killing fields. One did not have to wonder how
the Historians of this world had kept their High Temple intact.
“Seriously,
Nogilian. They’re gonna die.”
Our friends
were modestly outnumbered. That does not go the way of the attackers. There’s
just too much going against you. The avenue for success in that endeavor is a
ratio of ten to one supporting. And yet Jerem Cozak would not retreat. Never.
Even if he did know.
“There is
no descent, our Guardian. We have looked.”
We had.
That was why we had not just turned around in the caldera and gone to await our
deaths upon the Shuni stair. I had thought that perhaps whatever had opened up
the pass would have also trailed on down into the valley, that we could ride in
as saviors upon a gentle road.
No such
luck. That pass marked the end of the cut, not its beginning. The highlight of the
last watch or so had been Nogilian asking me questions about the ship that I
refused to answer, and me damn near losing control of my valkyrie on the snowy
slope. We both had had to dismount long before approaching the scenic edge.
I thought
about the Niskivim. A mistake realized long ago, that their war against the
khrall had damned near wiped out a galaxy of innocents. What would you do to
rectify that kind of oversight? What could
you do?
Let oceans
swallow you, as Jerem Cozak had said. The sentiment felt ever more
appropriate.
“Our
Guardian,” said Nogilian. “We should return. We’ll see no victory here.”
Hardly a
stranger to defeat. Lying asleep in a swamp for a decade, the boots of his
enemies marching over him. He was aware of our own thousands awaiting our
return. He was worried about them. I had not explained what we or they were
doing.
It should
all work together, I had told him across the campfire. This world was made to
work as one.
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