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  Daemar shook his head, breathing heavily. “This pregnancy has softened you up a lot, Neri, but it’s nothing compared to what you’ll feel when you see him or her. You won’t want to leave to go to war, trust me. That’s what love does to you.”

  “I’d fight for my baby as well, to make the world a better place to grow up in.”

  He chuckled as well as he was able. “Stubborn.” The word reminded her of Dan and the other rangers. She dearly hoped that they were still alive, but had received news just two days earlier that The Old Facility had been raided. Not by Jurinta Bollhinera’s men, of course, but some other band of dark-hearted imps. Her fault. “But, seriously,” Daemar continued, “The world will not be better if you get yourself killed. So try not to do anything that would risk that.”

  She turned her face to meet his pale eyes. Older eyes, surely, but still full of life and intelligence. He looked rather tidy in his uniform and, in spite of his poor running ability, he was otherwise physically very fit. “I’m going to ask Valyar,” she said.

  “Ask him what?”

  Neri grinned. “You know what.”

  His smile faded, and he blinked at her. “But he won’t permit it, surely? And he and I get along only bearably well as it is…”

  “Nevertheless, it is what I want. I will put it to him and we shall see what he says. Besides, I may wish for more children after this, and Sighters can only provide one.” She started off down the slope again, this time taking more care not to trip.

  “Really?”

  “Yes, Daemar.”

  He kept up better with her then, a small grin painted upon his stubbly jaw. She was glad to see it there, when of late it had more often been upturned with concern. And his presence over the last months had been an invaluable support to her. He could always see when she was afraid or unhappy, and he would never spare her the truth of his thoughts.

  The sun had long set by the time she clambered into bed and closed her eyes. Daemar was in the room, as always, though he slept on a sofa amidst copious piles of blankets. The man had such a reverence for marriage that he had not even tried to kiss her during their constant proximity. She thought that very odd indeed. Strange dreams took her thoughts as she slipped into sleep, and she was quite sure that these originated from her now very full abdomen. There was space for nothing else in there now, not even a full meal! The general interrupted those reveries, however; even one she had been having about him.

  “Time to get up,” he said with all the sharpness of a military commander. “Another run this morning, presumably?”

  She sat up in her bed, but immediately felt very strange. She wasn’t ill or in pain, she just felt… odd. “Not today.”

  Ihurade frowned and sat on the edge of the bed. “This isn’t normal.” He checked her eyes carefully. “Wait there. I’m getting the doctor.”

  “I don’t need a…” Something happened all across her body, and it took her breath away.

  The general’s face turned pale. “It’s started, hasn’t it? Oh…” He cursed repeatedly and threw on a coat. “Don’t move!” he instructed, and ran towards the medical bay.

  Neri did not move. She was too terrified to do that, and so she waited patiently in the silence. And she waited. And waited. Had he been too afraid to return? The second wave of strangeness hit. It did not hurt at all, but it was… unidentifiable. Gingerly, she moved her legs out of the bed and stood. It was all good. She was fine. The baby did feel rather low, but it was not going to fall out just yet.

  She grabbed what clothing she could find and dressed as if she was about to go running, but stopped just as she was about to tie on her boots. Through the window, across the plain, was a sight she had seen only a few months earlier. A great, black swarm of imperial troops rolled over the horizon in their thousands. They had found her. They were coming for her. A third wave of painless something tore through her body, and she was forced to lean against the wall for support.

  One of Daemar’s lieutenants ran into her room as she struggled for breath. “General’s ordered me to get you out of here, my lady. It’s Grailer’s men, they’re here.”

  Her eyes flashed with excitement. This was her chance! At last! “No. I will stay here.” She would not run from that man ever again.

  “But, my lady…”

  “That is my decision and it is final. If you want to move me, then you will have to come through my sword first.” She grabbed her new sabre, which had never been weighted quite correctly, and brandished it at him.

  The soldier departed rapidly, and Neri strapped every dagger she could find onto every available space of her body. It wasn’t long before she was running into the melee at the base of the compound, cutting and hacking at every black-coated man she could see. The fourth hit of oddness took her by surprise, and she found herself gasping for air in between strikes. But she recovered quickly. There was still time to find Grailer.

  It took six more waves of mysterious shifts in her body and an innumerable pile of kills before she located him, but the joy she felt at seeing him overcame her terror. He was even older and more grizzled than she had remembered. His one, beady eye looked out at the writhing mass of bodies before him. Neri crouched, picked up a rock and threw it at his forehead. It had a very satisfying effect. He was immediately enraged, and turned his face to look for the source. She had already made sure that she stood apart from the rest of the fighters in order to be most visible. His one eye rapidly settled on her, whereupon she smiled and turned to run for a walled section of the compound. Once hidden by the shadows the walls cast, she waited quietly on the left side.

  Thump, thump, thump, thump. The sound of a horse

  Thud, thud, thud, thud, thud. The sound of her own heart.

  There were noises of his dismounting, and then he strode into her view. “Desert rat!” he shouted. “You look like you’ve eaten too much of other people’s rubbish! That, or you’ve got a little rat inside you, hmm?” He tapped the wall and listened. “I want that baby rat out of you…”

  Neri launched herself at him from his deaf side, making a clean cut into his arm and shoulder. He screamed in pain, but rounded on her with a strike. She met it easily, and responded with a harder one of her own. He fell back.

  “Remember me?” She cut through to his other shoulder this time. “Remember what you made me tell you?”

  His one eye widened as he was pressed into the wall. Finally, all of her training had come to something good. She would have her revenge.

  “I was the little girl who told you a secret. And now…” She thrust as hard as she could into his side, being careful not to land a fatal blow. He slumped to the floor.

  “And now I will show you all of the secrets I have learned about pain and suff-”

  Her breath caught in her lungs. Her muscles weakened, and her mind became muddied by the force of another tremor through her body. It felt almost… almost pleasurable. But she experienced no more. Everything became black after that.

  “Neri! Neri! Shit! You’re alive. Neri, speak to me. Open your eyes. Come on!”

  She tried to open them, but there was so much pain. Her head throbbed, her arm ached horribly, and her stomach…

  “Alright, Neri. I need you to hang on with everything you’ve got. Remember that anger you had for Grailer? Hang onto that. Think about that.” Daemar’s voice. She could feel through the pain that he was tying something around her waist.

  “What happen-?”

  “He got to you. He cut her out of you. They have her now, but you’re going to live, and you’re going to get her back. But I need you to stay quiet for me. Can you do that?”

  Her? “I have a daughter?”

  “Yes, Neri. Strongest lungs I’ve ever heard. But I need you to be quieter than her if I’m going to get you out.”

  “Alright,” she croaked.

  He lifted her up then, and she couldn’t help but whimper softly at the agony of the movement. Every footfall he made was horrific; the
y sent fires of pain from her arm and stomach shooting through her veins. She wasn’t sure how far or how long he had walked with her before he started whispering to her again. “They’re going to set fire to that place. Every man of mine is dead. Every one of them but you. And you are going to live, Neri. Do you hear me?”

  She forced her eyes to open a fraction more, and could see that she was covered in blood. Some of it was oozing from Daemar’s shirt. He was breathing roughly. “You’re hurt.”

  “It’s just a scratch.” But his breathing worsened the farther he walked, and as she drifted in and out of consciousness she could hear that he was in pain. At last, after fifty more ragged footsteps, he collapsed, and they both lay immobile on the frozen ground.

  “Daemar?”

  “Neri.”

  Everything ached so much. “I love you.”

  She could hear the smile on his breath before he spoke. “You have other loves to think about now.” He grunted as he shifted himself onto his side. His head rested against a pile of orange stones. “I want you to get up from here, no matter how much it hurts, and I want you to walk. There’s a doctor’s house in that direction. Go to him. Live. Find your daughter.” And then he was silent.

  She shook his shoulder with her good hand, but he did not stir. “Daemar?” Nothing. “I’ll find someone for you,” she said, and turned her head towards her new goal. Every ounce of strength was required to get her to her feet, but once there she was determined to remain upon them, and forwards she staggered. She would get there. She would. For Daemar and for her daughter. She stepped and dragged her unresponsive feet over the darkness. Onwards. The ground was steep, frozen and rocky. Neri stumbled and fell. She just needed to rest for a moment. Just to regain her strength. She placed her hands in her coat for warmth, but her last memory was of finding something in the left pocket. It felt very much like a lurchcaw tooth.

  “Daemar. I owe him so much.”

  Valyar bit his lip and wiped away a tear. He embraced her tightly. “Ihurade died a good death.”

  She wept into her husband’s chest for some time, angry at the world for the things it had done to those she had cared about. Angry at those whom it had allowed to escape. “What happened to Grailer?”

  The emperor took a ragged breath. “I killed him. When I found out what he had done… I thought you were dead. And he was there at The Fortress when we raided it. I made him suffer though. I made sure he suffered for you.”

  Her sadness became mixed with fury; stupid, pointless fury. Grailer had been hers to kill! It was her reason for fighting, for everything! And was this how it was to be? Denied vengeance? She wanted to hit Valyar for taking that away from her, maybe to stab him in his other leg! But she could not do it. She couldn’t bear the idea of it. Neri took a deep breath. “And your father?”

  “He was the cause. I killed him, too. That was when I first got to hold Mia. She was perfect.”

  Neri lifted her head from his chest. “I’m ready for her now.”

  And in a heartbeat they had arrived back at The Fortress. She broke into a sprint almost immediately, hurtling down the corridors as fast as her muscles would power her forwards. She shot past guards and servants and lords and administrators, past halls and doors and paintings and walls of black. But she knew where she was headed, and she knew exactly where her daughter would be.

  When she arrived at the gardens she was breathless, but hardly noticed. Mia was completing her own laps of the lawn, closely chased by Dan and Zanda. She looked happy, and free.

  Neri stepped onto the grass; her face beamed broadly, but she tried desperately not to look too emotional. The girl saw her instantly, and Neri took her daughter into her arms for an embrace that would make up for an eternity of lost ones. “I’ll never leave you again,” she whispered.

  The sun was setting on the orange rocks again, illuminating the Western Mounts with its beautiful shades of violet and amber and scarlet. Daemar Ihurade finally had something worthwhile written on his headstone aside from his name, and a fine view to match. Valyar, Mia, Harlo and Mag were there to help her say her goodbyes; her family.

  “Thank you for coming today,” she said to the doctor and his wife. “Thank you for everything.”

  Colobrin nodded and compressed his lips together. “I know I should have told you about… that you might have had a child, but I thought it so unlikely to have survi-”

  “It’s alright, Harlo. I understand. I’ll see you back at the house.”

  As the couple left, Neri turned to her husband and daughter with a smile. They were both rather handsome in their own ways. They were perfect, but even perfection could be enhanced a litte. “Valyar, there’s something I want to ask you.”

  “Yes?”

  She stepped closer to him, playing with the edge of his coat. “It’s about Zanda, and possibly Dan, too…”

  In the sun

  GENERAL DAEMAR IHURADE

  WARRIOR

  HERO

  BELOVED