Faster, faster rode the black destrier, its hooves a wardrum sounding the call to battle. Telos laughed. He would have mooned the Warden a second time if he’d had the opportunity. As it happened, the horse was eager to run, and Telos was only too happy to let him.

  Despite the urgency of his flight, or perhaps because of it, his mind raced, turning over the events of the day the way a curious child overturns stone after stone in search of a particularly juicy bug. Having lived a rather material life up until this point, absent of any supernatural flourishes, Telos had now met two gods in a single day. Well, one full god and one half-god. What stuck in his mind as strange was that whilst Danyil had said Telos was being watched, handpicked for a divine task no less, the second god—whose identity he was not certain of but suspected—seemed totally unaware of this. Surely, if the goddess had known he was the Chosen One, destined to reclaim the lost Weapon, should not have so vindictively cursed him?

  All this served to reinforce Telos’s theory that the gods were, like the people they had supposedly created, rather less than omniscient, and certainly not transcendent of caprice. The goddess, indeed, seemed a positively spiteful person.

  The utterance of the curse had certainly shaken Telos. He could not deny he’d been afraid, terrified even, as the dark fire had coiled and licked from her hand. But now that he was no longer in her presence, now that he once more smelled the clear air of freedom, he was becoming more and more certain that it was a hoax. The gods were real, that much was now a proven fact. They possessed immense technology and large statures. Clearly, they could wield some form of magic or illusion-craft. But that was all. The idea that she could sculpt the outcomes of his life with merely an utterance was totally absurd.

  That was the blanket of comfort he wrapped about himself.

  Now I need only reach the end of this forest!

  No sooner than the thought came the comfort-blanket was yanked away from his cold body as the horse’s leg snapped.

  Telos was not aware of a root or stone in their path. He did not feel a sudden dip in the ground or a hazard of any kind. The leg just broke, as though an invisible hammer had been swung into it.

  The horse shrieked, whinnied, and collapsed forward, catapulting Telos from it and into a tree. As he struck the thick trunk the air rushed from his lungs and he gasped, falling. If he had not been an acrobat, he would have landed on his neck and there perished, but his preternatural agility saved him as he turned the fall into a crude somersault, tumbling backwards and onto his feet.

  It was far from a perfect landing. The impact jarred ankle, knee, and lower back. He let out a growl of pain as the vibration ran up his spine. He had nearly displaced a disc. He wobbled, then collapsed forward. He tried to suck in air but his diaphragm was compressed. He wheezed.

  Shouts echoed in the distance. Hooves thundered.

  The proud destrier, lying distraught and confused, let out a whimpering sound.

  Telos struggled back to his feet, clutching his ribs. He charged on, abandoning the horse. There was no choice but to go on foot and try and lose them in the maze of the forest. His mind raced faster than an Aurelian Engine as he fled.

  What was that? Why did that happen? That was so… so unlucky.

  His breath came easier now. He broke from a jog into a sprint. He heard their horses coming but soon he reached a place where the trees thickened, growing closer together, their roots a tangle of thorny limbs and strange spiderwebs. It would be more difficult for horses to follow here.

  You wanted to escape. The curse said that you will never obtain what you desire… Oh gods…

  He banished the thoughts. It was impossible, utterly impossible. And yet…

  No. You can do it. You can escape.

  He tripped over a root that seemed to emerge from nowhere. Webbing enveloped his face and he fought to tear it off. A nest of baby spiders swarmed over him. He felt little bites on his lips and cheek and nose. He screamed and slapped at his face, doing more harm than good. Running blindly, he brushed them off. He felt his flesh fattening with the swell of venom. Pain flashed through him like a migraine without equal. He didn’t think the spiders were dangerously venomous, but it was agony nonetheless.

  It happened again. Oh shit, oh shit. This is not good. In fact, this is pretty much as bad as it gets.

  Here, the trees were knotted and tangled, like a litter of serpents that’d grown and grown and never bothered to leave their claustrophobic nest. He ducked, leapt, and clambered over the many obstacles. The sound of hoofbeats had receded, but he heard the clank of armour as men pursued on foot. The Warden really doesn’t give up. Telos could almost admire that about him.

  His face was still swelling. He tried not to think about, but his vision was narrowing as the skin about his eyes ripened like fruit about to split. You’re completely screwed.

  Vines tangled him. A nest of rats angrily chittered as he disturbed their young with his increasingly clumsy footfalls. He couldn’t keep this up much longer. Stilling for a moment, he listened and heard men both to his left and right. No doubt they followed behind as well.

  Who do you pray to when the gods have literally cursed you? He wondered.

  And then an answer came, an answer that semi-terrified him.

  The Daimons, of course.

  But the Daimons were just beasts, weren’t they? Huge beasts that’d walked Erethia in the Daimonic Age, in the time before man or god. One could not pray to them any more than one could pray to a monoceros or a dragon, although of course, men and women had prayed to both in times past, often being punished by the gods for such disobedience and “idolatry”.

  Shouts sounded nearby. He heard footsteps. He was practically blind, now, his face a pulsing mass of heat and pain.

  Fuck the gods.

  At the exact moment the thought was born, the ground beneath him gave way and he plunged straight down. Earth rained about him as he fell, unable to scream for the shock and suddenness of his descent.

  He did not fall long. He landed unceremoniously in an earthen cavern as pebbles and bugs bounced off his head. He blinked. Tangled roots descended like arteries down slopes of soil and stone. Light fell in through the hole he had made.

  He knew he should not linger. Quickly, he scampered into the dark recesses of the hollow space. He covered himself in mud and roots and slowed his breath until it became silent as a spider. He had learned this technique early on, in the first days of his thievery. The human ear was somehow naturally attuned to breath. Fail to master it, and no matter how silent your footfalls were, you would be detected.

  As he lay there, trying not to think any thoughts at all because it seemed his thoughts always brought calamity swiftly on their heels, he became gradually more aware of his surroundings. This was another site of Daimonic remains. Fossilised bones gleamed like jewels from where they lay compressed by layers of memory and earth. The walls dripped with viscous black fluid, saturated with the ageless blood of Daimons. Perhaps this is why the forest blooms so verdantly? he thought. The bodies of Daimons provide fertile ground…

  He waited. Men talked overhead but very distantly. He did not think they had yet found the hole. If they did, he would be captured or killed.

  Minutes passed. Or maybe they were seconds. Time stretched unnaturally in situations of life and death, as though Koronzon enjoyed toying with those who would soon become his subjects.

  Then he heard voices, closer. He heard only snatches of conversation.

  “The blood… diminishes… ascension… an hour…”

  He heard curses, violent words. More footsteps. Then, nothing at all.

  He waited. Time now seemed even more elongated without the intermission of dialogue. The forest’s sounds were dim, here.

  He wondered why this pocket existed beneath the earth. It did not seem to be a natural formation, such as a cave. Where were the remains of a river that might have sculpted it? Certainly there were few earthquakes in this part of the world, unlike Qi’shath and Aurelia which lay nearer the world’s equator. He could not speak for Sumyr, for the nature of that place was both figuratively and literally shrouded in mist.

  Though the cave was not natural, it also did not look manmade. No shovel, spade, or pickaxe had hewn the earth and rock away. Yet here it was: a hole in the ground.

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  He heard something in the walls. A kind of shuffling sound. The same kind of slick-palmed dread seized him as when he had entered the Royal Palace, suspecting every groan and creak as the footfall of a sentry. He loved the adrenaline of such encounters, the rush of eluding capture. Yes, he was afraid, but the fear gave him life. Even though the stakes had felt a lot higher with the Warden in pursuit, he had enjoyed that chase too. He had especially enjoyed stealing his horse. The last thing they had expected, after all, was for him to come to them. The look on the Warden’s face as he was unseated had been priceless.

  Telos chuckled to himself, but quickly stifled the sound when he once more heard the shuffling. Like earth being moved or displaced. Now he could hear scratching, as though a bear were clawing a tree, marking territory.

  Slowly, as slowly as he could, he lifted himself upright out of the pile of mud. He did not want to assume the Warden and the others had moved on. That would be foolish. It was that kind of lax of focus that’d gotten him caught in the first place. Always assume there is another guard. Always assume their attention is still on you. Limb by limb he extricated himself from the dirt. The sound was quite loud now, coming from his right hand side, apparently on the other side of a thin wall of earth and stone. Now he looked, he could see places where the barrier had crumbled away. Darkness lay beyond. A shifting darkness.

  Shit.

  He moved quickly to the lefthand wall, intent to climb. And not a moment too soon. The fragile wall exploded as an eight-limbed monstrosity skittered out of the dark.

  Telos screamed.

  The spider was a grey-furred Tunnel Hunter, the size of a large horse and angrier than anything Telos had ever seen, even the Warden. Eight green eyes blinked in the filtered daylight. Its mandibles, wet with saliva and venom, clacked together like the cymbals of a war-chant. From a hidden mouth emitted a shrieking noise that would have curled Telos’s toes were they not already engaged in clambering up the earthen wall.

  Shit. Shit shit shit. He scrambled, his agility somewhat impaired both by panic and by the unstable nature of his handholds. He gripped a root and it came away in his hand, attached to nothing. He slipped down. His boot touched something hard, furry, and moving. He yelped and tried to get back up the wall. A three-jointed leg slammed into the ground right by his head. He heard panting, hungering breaths right above his head. It was rearing up to bite.

  He had no weapon, no armour, and apparently no luck, either. He was not so much a sitting duck but a blind raven with its wings clipped. He didn’t stand a hope in hell.

  A bolt whistled through the air and thudded into the creature above him. The creature howled. That noise went through Telos, down to the very bones. As the spider reared backwards, recoiling in pain, he used the momentary reprieve to launch himself over the edge and get his feet under him. Another arrow sang. The spider shrieked once more. Telos risked a glance over his shoulder and saw one of its eyes had been popped, black, white, and green goo trickling down its face. Another arrow was imbedded in its head, though clearly it could still function with only half a brain.

  But the spider did not like the taste of those arrows. It was already withdrawing into its hideout, scuttling down the slope backwards, its legs the last thing to vanish into the hole like the fingers of an ancient, leprous hand into a black sleeve.

  Telos wasted no more time. He ran.

  A third arrow thudded into the tree inches from his face, vibrating with the force of the shot. He got the message and stood still.

  “A wise choice.” The voice was baritone almost to the point of absurdity. Telos wondered whether its owner practiced each morning, for it surely could not be the natural resting pitch of any ordinary human being.

  “Thank you for saving me,” Telos said. He comforted himself with the knowledge that if the archer had wanted to kill him, he would have already done so. Telos still could not see the person speaking to him.

  “My way is to respect all that lives in the forest, but The Tunnel Hunters are loathsome creatures. For them, I make exception.” A soft laugh accompanied this. He has a sense of humour, at least. That’s something.

  “Can I see you?” Telos asked tentatively.

  There was a long silence.

  “Very well.”

  A large bush stood upright, expanded, and then opened. Not a bush, but a green cloak, with firs, branches, leaves, and countless other adornments of the forest artfully attached to it, disrupting any familiar silhouette.

  Telos was not a tall man, but the archer was huge, at least six foot five. He was muscular, too. His biceps were nearly the size of Telos’s thighs. He wore a jerkin underneath the cloak, but the sleeves had been cut off. His skin was hairy to the point of becoming fur; Telos had never seen anyone with skin like that.

  The hood of the archer’s cloak was down, concealing the face, though Telos noticed it was oddly flared at the sides, as though a great deal of hair was bulking it out.

  The archer’s bow was a huge yew specimen, over five feet long, tied with horsehair and evidently kept in good working order, having been recently waxed. A quiver hung at the archer’s hip.

  “Will you not show your face?” Telos said.

  “It is better, for now, that you do not see it. Come, I know you are being pursued. You’d best follow me. Your pursuers have lost your trail for the time being—the Daimomancer’s enchantment has worn off—but the Warden will come again.”

  Enchantment? Telos supposed that would explain how they had managed to find him despite the vastness of Yestermere. But the thought of the Warden allying himself with a sorcerer seemed strange, given what he knew of him.

  “You speak like you know my enemy.”

  The hooded archer made a grunting noise, a cross between the snort of a bull and a laugh of derision.

  “I know the Warden. There are crimes against his name that you are unaware of. But we must hurry.”

  The archer turned and began to run. Despite his massive bulk, he was surprisingly nimble on his feet, leaping and bounding less like a prize-winning gladiator and more like a fawn. Telos ran after him, just spry enough to catch up.

  “What’s your name?” Telos said, as they ran. “I will be sure to remember your kindness.”

  “Jubal. And you are?”

  “Telos.” He decided to omit his second name, just in case.

  The archer said nothing at that, and the two continued at a pace until they reached a tree with a trunk thicker than most houses. The enormous oak looked like it had stood for at least three thousand years. Maybe it has, Telos thought. Maybe this tree remembers the first days of the Divine Age. That line of thinking might once have inspired an idle daydream in Telos, but in the light of recent events, with gods and sorcerers and gods-knew what else about, it seemed more resonant, frightening even.

  Jubal knocked twice upon the trunk and a rope ladder was lowered. Telos marvelled, for he could see nothing except branches and thick boughs above. The hiding place was well-concealed.

  “Do you mind heights?” Jubal said. Though Telos could still not see his face, he heard the grin shaping his lips.

  “I’m fine.” Telos had scaled many a rooftop in his time.

  “Good.”

  Jubal climbed first, followed by Telos. Climbing, Telos noticed, did seem awkward for Jubal. His massive frame looked hunched and uncoordinated as he made his way up the narrow rungs.

  The climb would have been easy for Telos on a normal day, but he was both exhausted from the chase and his face felt like it’d been set on fire. The venom of the baby spiders had weakened him more than he realised, not only puffing up his head, but also making his fingers feel weak. He gripped the rungs with extra caution. Given his luck today, he half expected the rope-ladder to snap, and to plunge to his death, but for once it seemed his luck held.

  At last, they reached a platform of sleek planks artfully built into a huge bough, the underside covered in the same clever camouflage as Jubal’s cloak. They climbed up through a trapdoor; Jubal retracted the ladder and then slammed the door shut. Telos heard a sigh of relief escape him. Clearly, such forays out were dangerous. But why? He had handled the giant spider with impressive ease. Perhaps, like you, it is the Warden he fears. Telos wanted to know more about the Warden’s “past sins”.

  But for now, Telos’s attention was drawn to the room. It was sparse indeed, its walls of the same exposed wooden boards, with only three wooden chairs and a row of barrels for adornment. Telos suspected these did not contain beer or ale, but simply water. This was a hideout, a place for survivors to endure long out of sight. A single door was set into the far wall with three keyholes spaced along its righthand side. All was silence beyond it. With a sixth sense known only to thieves, Telos was certain he could detect a group of people beyond the door. One word from Jubal and they would be through and Telos would be dead in seconds.

  Jubal himself, however, seemed relaxed. Perhaps he trusted Telos, or perhaps he simply feared nothing from him. Telos was a decent fighter. All nobles were trained in the art of fencing from a young age, and he had learned much more about the art of street-fighting as his underworld career took off, but he did not fancy his chances against Jubal.

  “Thank you again for saving me.”

  “An enemy of the Warden is my friend.”

  Telos grinned.

  Jubal went and fetched one of the chairs and placed it down in front of Telos. Telos sat. Jubal fetched and sat on his own chair, though Telos noticed that, as with the climbing, this movement was not entirely natural for him, almost as if his legs were not meant to bend, and he had been fashioned to remain always on his feet.

  “In a moment, we will enjoy a repast,” Jubal said. “But first, I must make sure of you. And I suppose you have questions for me.”

  “I would very much like to know about the Warden’s past sins.”

  Jubal sighed.

  “In order to tell you those, I must show you my face.”

  “I sense your reticence. Is that you fear I will recognise you?”

  Jubal shook his head.

  “My face is… shocking to some.”

  Telos laughed. “Have you seen my face?” He pointed to the bloated purple mass that’d once been what he considered a relatively handsome face. “It’s like a pig’s bladder ball.” He felt like it’d been kicked around, too. “I can assure you, you have nothing to fear.”

  Jubal laughed, a note of bitterness discolouring the sound.

  “Your face will return to normal once the venom of those babies wears off in a few hours. My face… my face will ever remain the same.”

  Jubal threw back the hood.

  Telos’s mouth fell open.

  Staring at him from across the room was not a man, but an ochre-fleshed bull.