The Heirs of Death

28.2 Fissures

FISSURES

By the time we reached the first unfurling hills of the Sombers, Aedis and I had mentally debated that, unfortunately, he was the winner by a second and a half. And ever since he reached the rest of our tribe just before I did, he'd been smiling. It was faint, almost nonexistent, but the hint of smug delight had lingered for long after that, still did until now.

We'd kept soaring past our friends who took off straight after, six shadows owning the skies as we passed cities and lands and flickering lights. The Sombers were perhaps from the farthest lands, and the darkest, too. Even through my Ealas, I was capable of sensing the churning, hissing lick of evilness festering in it. It wasn't a lick anymore when we arrived.

Massive, unending hills rolled through the lands, rocky and humid. Thick and dark green grass grew here, but all of it was almost concealed by the endless fog. Grey and dense, it coated the earth, the sky. It swallowed everything, wrapped the lands so tightly, unwilling to allow a shimmer of light to seep in. And it stretched and stretched and stretched, that grim fog, everywhere, over everything: over the spurting rocks, over the muddy ground, the pools of blood that smelled as though they'd been spilled here for ages, untouched by the dirt. Over the ruins and chains, some of them cracked, some of them still in using condition. Over every sort of life, over light itself.

And it hissed.

Mumbled and swirled and cawed. A fog power-forged existing since the rise of the very first dawn after Leader's death. It whispered, too. Broken cries and pleas, screams and grunts. It told a story, for those who listened. For those who followed the winds running through the valleys, sweeping around us, caressing us as we walked. For me.

The story of how bones had snapped, how hearts had been torn, how bounders had broke. Of the tears and the horrors this place brought, all the steel-forged warriors that had preferred dying so brutally than betraying their families. Our people.

I wondered if my friends could hear the stories like I did. If they listened to the evading words the earth sang since we'd landed. In both cases, none commented. Not on the magic feeding the lands, not on the grey lights that didn't hold an ounce of warmth, not on how blood and mud stuck to our legs as we moved.

The place was almost empty save for us and a guard standing near one massive, rock-made structure. It was our destination, the highest hill, overlooking all the Sombers, every land and thin, running water, every path. And that glorious form the guard stood nigh, it was fashioned like an open hand, palm facing the skies, fingers so slightly curling. There had been nothing else on it, not even a smear of blood or a piece of steel. Not even the fog and its memories.

It didn't take me long to realize this was the source of all that grey fog, that it was the hand that created it, seeping it from the cracks lining the fingers. This was the heart of the Sombers.