When it was done, Sebrahn collapsed across Alec’s chest, and that pale grey little tongue flickered out, lapping at the blood on Alec’s throat.

“Get away from him!” Seregil screamed. He staggered back to them, wrenching the arrows from his flesh as he went. “Can’t you just leave him alone? Go suck the blood from your maker, you monster!”

Sebrahn looked up at him and Seregil saw that there were tears streaming down the rhekaro’s cheeks. Seregil pushed him aside. Falling to his knees, he dragged Alec’s limp body into his arms and felt frantically at Alec’s throat and wrists.

But there was no pulse, or breath. Those beloved eyes had the fixed glaze Seregil had seen too often in the faces of the dead. “No! Oh Illior, no, please! Alec!”

He shook him, and chafed his blood-soaked chest, knowing that it was useless, but unable to give up yet.

Sebrahn pulled at Seregil’s shoulder and he shoved the rhekaro away. Choking back a sob, he pulled the arrows from Alec’s chest. When Seregil pressed his hand to the wounds, bright blood oozed up between his fingers, but it was no longer flowing.

Only then did he notice the hot blood soaking the leg of his own trousers, and feel the pulsing wound on his inner thigh. Ah then, they’ve finished me off after all. Small mercy.

Burying his face in Alec’s tangled, dirty hair, he broke down completely, not caring that they were in the open, or about the carnage Sebrahn had wrought. He could feel his own strength slipping away, and welcomed it. He’d have sat there with Alec like that until they were both food for the crows, if that damn creature hadn’t kept tugging at his shoulder. Seregil tried to push him off, but Sebrahn simply wouldn’t let him be.

“What?” Seregil demanded, wearily raising his head. Sebrahn was still crying, and holding something out in both bloodstained little hands, something he wanted Seregil to see.

It was another of those flowers, but this one was pure white with a golden center, and as clean as if it had just been plucked from a pure lake.

“I don’t want your healing,” Seregil growled, slapping it away.

Sebrahn shoved him back with surprising force and dragged Alec from Seregil’s lap onto the ground between them. His silvery eyes burned with an inner light, and his tears glowed. Those pale lips moved, forcing out a hoarse whisper. “Ah-lek.”

Growing weaker by the moment, Seregil watched as Sebrahn leaned over Alec and let his tears fall on the wounds. Everywhere a tear met blood, a white lotus sprang up, one after the other until Alec’s chest was covered in them, like a pall. Then Sebrahn threw his head back and sang again.

Seregil thought that he would die then, like the others had, but he didn’t. Instead, the piercing sound went on and on, until Seregil could feel the vibration of it in his bones and skull. One by one, the white flowers turned to light and sank into Alec’s lifeless form. When the last of them disappeared, a tremendous shudder went through the body and Alec coughed.

“Alec?” Seregil gathered him into his arms again as best he could, and held him while Alec coughed and gagged, bringing up long black clots of congealed blood. When he was done he went limp in Seregil’s arms and stared up uncomprehendingly at him. The death glaze was gone; those eyes were clear and blue and filled with consternation.

“I- ” he wheezed, fighting for breath. “I-”

“It’s all right!” Seregil was laughing and crying now, on the verge of hysteria. “You were right. Oh Illior, you were right! He saved you. Your ‘child of no woman.’ You were right all along!”

But Alec clutched Seregil’s arm, and shook his head. “I–I chose-you.”

“Yes, you did!” Seregil bent to kiss those bloody lips, but a grey mist came between them and the world slid away. He smiled as he went, though, taking the sight of Alec’s face with him into the darkness.

CHAPTER 45 Sorrowful Journey

THE GEDRE SHIP slipped into a remote southern inlet under the cover of night. Once again, Micum and the wizard slipped ashore unnoticed, this time with heavy hearts.

They brought along packhorses, and rode until dawn, guided by the stars and the vision Thero had been given by Alec’s ghost. This country was only sparsely habited, and they steered clear of the few villages and steadings they did see.

Micum prayed to the Four for Alec’s shade to visit them again, but Thero could not seem to summon him, though he tried several times as they stopped to rest the horses. There’d been no sign of Seregil’s ghost, either, despite the dire vision. Micum clung grimly to the hope that he’d somehow survived. Seregil always had, after all, no matter how bad things got.

The sun rose over a lonely, arid landscape like nothing Micum had ever seen. It was a dead land, with nothing green in it. He could taste dust on the breeze, and the cold wind carried scents that reminded him of temple incense. Far in the distance, the rising sun cast deep shadows across flat-topped cliffs. Apart from a few sluggish snakes, there seemed to be no life here at all.

At midmorning, Thero reined in abruptly. “I have to do another sighting. Nothing looks the same.” He dismounted and sat cross-legged in the dirt with his crystal wand between his hands. “Put your hands on my shoulders. I need your strength.”

Micum did as he asked and felt a strange sensation pass through him when Thero raised the wand and pressed it to his own forehead. After a moment, however, the wizard got to his feet.

Micum thought he saw the glimmer of tears in the man’s eyes. “What is it?”

“Almost there. That way.” Thero pointed a little east of the way they’d been going.

“What did you see?”

Thero wouldn’t look at him as he climbed back into the saddle. “Nothing good.”

They finished their journey in silence. Every so often Micum would feel that strange tingle again, and Thero would point this way or that, correcting their course. Never once did he give any sign that he’d seen them alive, and never once did Micum ask.

And so it was, when the sun was high and the bare white ground gave back the glare of it through the dust, that they made out the first dark specks circling in the sky ahead. Micum knew what they were.

“Thero- ”

“I see,” came the weary reply.

As one they kicked their sweating horses into a final gallop and closed the distance. Cresting a slight rise, Micum could see vultures on the ground, shifting and flapping in a huge circle around something there, feeding.

He rode at them, yelling to drive the carrion eaters off. They spread their black wings and retreated a little, screeching at him.

There were bodies sprawled on the ground, at least a score. Some had their eyes pecked out already, and others had their guts spilled and torn. All had short black hair and beards, and Plenimaran clothing.

At least you took some of the bastards with you, Micum thought numbly, gentling his horse when she went skittish at the smell. He dismounted and limped forward, scattering more of the birds away from more and more bodies.

The Plenimarans lay scattered in a wide circle. At its center, Seregil and Alec lay side by side, hands clasped between them even in death. A child sat slumped at their feet. Her long fair hair looked white in the midday glare. She was dressed in rags, and beside her lay an empty water skin. She had a dented metal cup cradled in her hands and that was empty, too.

“The child,” Thero whispered. “Alec said there was a child, but that’s not what that is!”

Micum ignored him, and the child. As he approached his friends’ bodies, tears slid unnoticed down his cheeks.

They were gaunt and hollow-eyed. Dried black blood covered them both, skin and clothing alike, and the white dust had settled over them in a thin pall. Their hair was dull with it and their lips were dry and cracked. And yet they looked so peaceful, as if they’d fallen asleep together.