All night, they walked, until they found the dusty town of Azalton.

  Though they had a rail-line to follow, it was almost impossible to see in the dark. They would have been lost in the desert—if not for Captain Xheng. He knew the stars and could navigate by them. Not just a swashbuckler, after all, Telos thought. His admiration for every person in this fellowship grew with every passing hour.

  Danyil walked with them. That seemed the strangest thing of all to Telos. He had only ever see Danyil within the context of either magical enchantment or the high technology of the gods. To see his shoes kicking up dust, to see dirt on the ankles and knees of his strange, patchwork garb, seemed wrong, somehow.

  Still, it soon became clear that Danyil was not human. Not only did his abnormal height afford him eerily long strides, but he did not seem to tire no matter how many miles they walked. Telos was the same. The Godseed had made his constitution worthy of the hike. His feet ached, but that was all. Urgal likewise did not seem overly troubled, though occasionally he would shoot off into the dark—whether to hunt or relieve himself, Telos did not know.

  The other three, however, were flagging. Even Jubal looked like he was dragging his huge bare feet.

  “You are sure this is the right road?” Ylia whined.

  “The tracks are still at our feet,” Xheng said. “So we cannot be too far wrong.”

  Whenever they had wandered, Xheng brought them back to the tracks, using Nilldoran, the moon, and the stars as guides. Telos was not concerned about getting lost, anymore. But he was concerned about meeting an Engine coming the other way.

  “How do we even know—” But Ylia’s question died in her throat. They all saw it: lights ahead. They increased their pace, flagging spirits raised by the prospect of bed and board, however shabby.

  They quickly realised shabby was all they were going to find.

  Telos had never seen a place quite so desolate as Azalton. It looked like an abandoned garden, the shoots no longer bearing flowers, the soil cracked and broken with thirst, the wooden edifices listing as the wind had its way with them. The buildings even looked more like sheds than proper houses to Telos, but then that was just a quirk of Aurelian design. Most of the country is hot, so they built most of their houses from wood, not stone. And wood was in greater supply, here, than in his home country. They need not fear felling the forests, when the forests stretched the length and breadth of entire States.

  There were lights, though they were few and far between. A tavern loomed out of the darkness. A window on its upper floor was shattered and glass lay at its feet like an offering of pulled teeth. There was blood on the street, a lot of blood. Maybe two days old, if Telos had remembered his studies correctly. Someone had clearly tried to sweep it away but it’d sunken into the sand and stained it deeply. It would take considerable effort to remove it entirely. Should have used cobblestones, Telos thought. He was usually the last person to feel any kind of national pride, but he found himself thinking of home a great deal now. Perhaps the realisation was finally sinking in that he could never go back. It’s equally unlikely you can stay here. Not unless one of the Emperors offers you a pardon…

  A pardon for what? Saving the world? He doubted anyone was ever going to know about what they did in Memory. The Daimons would be stopped, and life would simply go on. He did not delude himself into thinking there would be plaques and statues and festivals.

  “The tavern,” Ylia said. “Water…”

  They were all in silent agreement. They would soon look for the next train out of here, but first they needed to rehydrate and rest for a moment. Telos could smell Daimonsblood and smoke burning nearby—there was at least one Engine idling at the local station.

  They entered The Red Lion House, but froze when they saw three men carrying a multilated corpse down the stairs.

  A moustachioed man, who was holding the faceless corpse by the wrists, eyed them warily. Telos had put his hand to Darkbite on pure instinct. He sensed gathering power either side of him as Qala and Danyil readied their magic. He was impressed the Sumyrian still had reserves of energy after performing the miracle at the Tezadan Divide. For hours afterward, they had chatted excitedly about the wonder of flight. But soon, exhaustion had battered down their spirits. Now it seemed merely a dream.

  “Let’s all keep calm. Jagryck, set down her legs real slow like,” the moustachioed man said.

  The man opposite the moustachioed fellow, whom Telos assumed to be the bartender because of the apron he wore and the choleric tint to his cheeks that indicated a love of the booze he sold, lowered the corpse’s legs to the floor. The bartender did likewise with her hands.

  It was a woman, or had been. Her dress was scarlet perfection. Lustrous locks of hair fell from her scalp. But the face was non-existence. Something had smashed it to smithereens, leaving only a wetly gaping mouth of jagged skull-shards. The horror of it eradicated whatever lingering wonder he had felt soaring over the Divide, leaving him cold and empty.

  Revoltingly, Urgal licked his lips.

  We love you, Urgal, but you are one messed up kitty.

  “This ain’t what it looks like,” the bartender said, holding up his hands peaceably. There were some tough-looking men and women in the House, and all of them were staring daggers at the newcomers, but clearly the bartender was their ringleader, for no one moved a muscle. “This woman was murdered in her room. You must have seen the window outside. That’s how the bloke who did it got away. You have my word. I’m a business man. I ain’t in the business of killing me own patrons.”

  “Why didn’t you cover her up,” Ylia whispered, voicing what Telos had been wondering.

  The bartender looked back to the corpse, then gulped and looked back at them.

  “I don’t know. I guess we’re all in shock. I only just went to check on her. Figured she’d been up there a long time.”

  “I thought you said you heard the glass shatter?” Telos said, sharply.

  “I didn’t hear nothing.” The bartender swallowed again. Telos could practically smell the guilt oozing out of his pores, but it was not the guilt of a murderer. “I was… I was drunk, telling the truth. I hit the drink hard that night. Wanted to drown it all out. Only woke up a few hours ago. Realised she hadn’t come down and pestered me for breakfast yet. I went up, saw her… saw the window…” He trailed off.

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  Telos scanned the room.

  “And what about all of you? You all heard nothing too, I suppose?”

  “Ain’t our business what that whore does in her room or with who!” Jagryck snarled.

  “Jagryck!” the bartender snapped, and Telos was surprised to see steel in his eyes. He was not quite so pathetic as he made out. “The woman’s dead. Swallow yer pride for once and show some damn respect.”

  Jagryck sniffed.

  “She was an evil one, brother. Not just a whore, but worse. Daimomancer, I reckon.”

  “Jagryck!”

  Telos took a deep breath. They had stumbled into a whole sordid story they did not want to be part of. They had enough troubles, without adding a murder investigation into the mix. Whatever had happened here, he was fairly sure these were not the murderers, though their callous approach to human life suggested just hjow hard life was on the outskirts.

  You can talk, a nasty little voice whispered in his ear. You killed those men at the blockade. Blew them to pieces. And you killed Gorm an—

  Gorm had it coming, Telos thought, and the voice did not seem to be able to argue with that.

  “We’ll be leaving,” Qala said, clearly thinking the same way as Telos. One by one, the party filtered out of the room.

  Telos was about to head out too when something, an instinct he couldn’t possible give a name to, called him back.

  He turned. The bartender and Jagryck had picked up the woman’s corpse again. Telos stared into the red ruin of what’d once been a beautiful face. The violence there was a language he recognised, that pricked him with the needle of familliarity. Without his god-senses, he doubted he would have heeded such a vague, inchoate instinct. But he knew now to trust them with his life.

  “The person who did this,” Telos said. “Do you know what they looked like?”

  The bartender sighed.

  “Strange fellow, he was. Came in here out of nowhere. Spoke like a Yarulian.” The bartender’s eyes narrowed. “Like you, in fact. He was bald, quite tall. Dark aura about him.”

  “And his eyes…” Telos trailed off. The enormity of what he had just discovered descending on him like a meteor, like the sky itself were falling.

  The bartender grunted and nodded.

  “Aye, his eyes. Something wrong with them…”

  The bartender hoisted the corpse and carried it across the floor. Telos let them pass him, stood stunned in the doorway. At last he rallied and stepped outside. The others were waiting. The bartender and Jagryck were heading into the town, clearly to pass the body to those who tended the local House of Koronzon. The Houses of the Death-God were open all hours, and even if the woman had no family—even if she was, as they said, a Daimomancer—a service would be held for her, words spoken, the end marked in some way.

  Telos walked up to the others. They were all searching him, but waited patiently.

  “What is it, Telos?” Ylia asked.

  He looked at her, then at Jubal. The news he had to share concerned everyone, but those two most of all.

  “The Warden…” Telos croaked. Ylia’s eyes widened. Jubal’s nostrils flared as he snorted.

  “Impossible!” Jubul growled.

  “He was here,” Telos went on. “I am certain of it.”

  “How?” Qala said, her voice soft yet firm. She wanted a clearer explanation.

  “At first, it was just an instinct,” Telos acknowledged. “But the description the bartender gave. It could only have been him.”

  “He fell,” Jubal snarled. “Thousands of feet, into the middle of the Winedark Sea. Nothing could have survived that!”

  “I did,” Telos said quietly.

  “You were re-made, Telos,” Danyil said, quietly. “Reforged in god-fire.”

  “And what is to say the same has not happened to him?”

  Cold silence followed those words. The prospect was terrifying to all of them—or rather, all except Xheng.

  “I’m sorry, but who do you speak of?”

  “You would know him as The Zealot, Xheng,” Qala said.

  “Ah,” Xheng said. “A western legend. You have encountered him?”

  “He pursues him,” Qala said, nodding towards Telos. “It has become an obsession.”

  To everyone’s surprise, Xheng let out a harsh cackle of laughter.

  “Well, well, Telos… it seems you are wanted by every race and in every corner. Madmen and Kwei-Shin all flock to you. Truly, you must be marked by The Way.”

  “My thoughts, also,” Qala said, offering a sad, yet supportive smile.

  Telos sighed.

  “The offer always stands for anyone to leave. The path I walk—”

  “Save your breath,” Jubal growled. “If The Warden lives, then I will not rest until he is put back into the grave. Northeld will be avenged. My kin shall be avenged. This is my blood oath!”

  “But what was he doing here?” Ylia said. Everyone turned to her expectantly. Not for the first time, Telos had to remind himself that Ylia was as good a strategist as any of them. “If he wanted Telos, he had no reason to be here. We’re two days behind.”

  “So he’s going somewhere else,” Telos said, cottoning on. “I’m as surprised as any of you, but she’s actually right.”

  He grinned. Ylia shot him a withering look which sent a flush of pleasure through his chest. Without their banter, and little moments of alleviation, he was not sure he could have made it this far.

  “There is no point in wondering,” Danyil said, cutting the conversation short. “It seems that the two of you are somehow Fate-bound. But Fate is tenuous at the moment. Its strands stretch, thin, and waver. New strands are being woven all the time. Such is always the way when so many of the gods move in one place. It is why the gods expanded in the first place…” Danyil stopped suddenly, as though aware he had said too much. Telos decided to mark that information for future reference. So, the gods cannot be long together before things become chaotic? Interesting.

  This made him ever-more curious about their homeworld, but now was not the time, they needed to reach the station and be on their way. Refreshment would have to wait. There was something off about Azalton, and he had no desire to stay any longer.

  He was about to say as much when his senses tingled. The hairs on the back of his neck pricked. He turned and saw a glaring light hurtling toward them over the desert.

  He and Danyil looked at one another, realisation dawning simultaneously.

  “Danyil!” Telos screamed.

  The Sumyrian spat a word—one Telos could not decipher. Light exploded from his form—meeting another light that hailed from the sky like spear-bolts of lightning. The whole world turned cerulean blue, a blue so bright it scoured his eyes, so bright that it made night day, then eradicated all that stood about them. Buildings, mountains, dunes, all vanished beneath the hideous blue-white pall.

  He screamed. His flesh burned superhot. The ground beneath them split as stone was wrenched up from beneath its cover of sand and sand itself was turned to glass. All was turmoil and confusion, spinning. His guts rose into his chest and he spewed them as he was turned over and over. The boom he heard afterwards was like the planet itself had cracked asunder.

  Then all was white obliteration.