Gwenna glanced up at their captors, at the uncountable flashing blue eyes, the pale faces glistening with sweat. Firelight lurched over the bones of the dead and the flesh of the living alike, plunging some figures into shadow, garishly illuminating others. Blood throbbed in her ears, flame on her face. There was no way out, no escape.

“Ah, fuck,” she muttered.

“No,” the soldier said, shaking his head slowly, seeing the decision in her eyes.

Gwenna gritted her teeth, then lashed out high and right. The feint worked, drawing the legionary’s guard wide, and she took the opening. The Urghul wanted pain, an agony built from a thousand punishing blows, to feed their sick god.

Well, she thought as she plunged the tip of the stick through the soldier’s eye, driving it deep, deeper, twisting the weapon as the youth spasmed, jerked, then slumped forward, utterly still, the fuckers will have to settle for death.

Her throat was raw as she wrenched the stick free. She was screaming, she realized, but the sound was lost in the awful sheet of Urghul screams. She was sobbing, but the heat of the fire had seared away her tears.

28

Kaden crashed out of the kenta soaked and gasping for breath, lungs heaving in great desperate gulps of clean air, limbs leaden and useless. His mind registered only that he had moved from a frigid wet darkness into a warm day brilliant as the sun, and for a few heartbeats he allowed himself to simply lie on the soft grass, still swaddled in the vaniate, drinking in the sweet sea breeze. A few feet away he could hear Triste retching onto the ground, her body struggling to force out the salt water at the same time as she was trying to breathe. Kiel’s own breaths were quieter, more measured, and after a moment Kaden could hear the Csestriim rising to his feet.

“Quickly,” he said, keeping his voice low. “This is only the hub linking the gates, and Rampuri Tan will not kill all of them.”

“They can’t follow,” Triste gasped. “Not the way we came.”

“They will not have to. When they have dealt with Tan, they will realize where we went, and they will come through the gate after us. We have to be well gone from here when that happens.”

Kaden nodded, rising unsteadily to his feet. He recognized the island, the ring of slender arches around the perimeter, although it felt like years since he had last stood upon it. Since then . . . He shook his head, cutting off the thought. Best not to think on the past, on what it would mean for the Ishien to deal with Tan. The vaniate wavered. Best to move forward.

He glanced around the green sward. The gate from Assare, he knew, but the writing above the others meant nothing.

“Which way?”

“Annur?” Kiel asked.

Kaden nodded.