Forty Days to the Eclipse

The hearth-stone in Rumi-qa's wool tunic was dying from the edges inward, turning from embers to cold gray slate. If he did not clear the limestone spine of Qilla Ridge before the heat failed, the wind would stiffen his fingers until he could no longer grip an axe.

Below him, five hundred feet down the ravine, the main imperial highway ran like a cut artery through the snow, guarded by stone pillars that held heavy basins of blood-tallow. Rumi-qa kept to the high ridge—a narrow military bypass cut into the limestone above the gorge. The high trail had only sparse iron brazier posts to shield the patrol sentries from the beasts, but here at least, there were no fortress gates demanding official travel seals.

He stopped behind an outcropping of black shale to catch his breath. The air tasted of frost and old ash. He checked the leather ties on his ash-hafted poleaxe, then felt his pocket for his rations: three dried meat cakes, a handful of parched maize, and half a skin of sour corn mash. It was enough for two days if he chewed slowly and let the snow melt against his gums before swallowing.

He looked ahead at the nearest ridge brazier, mounted on an iron post twenty paces up the trail. Its flame flickered with a greasy yellow smudge rather than the clear blue burn of freshly mixed marrow. The garrison had skipped a feeding, or the supply carts from the valley had stalled. Either way, the warding line was thinning.

He tightened his pack and stepped back out onto the ridge.

The path here was barely four paces wide, pinched between a vertical rock face and a sheer drop into the gorge. A gust tore at his wool mantle, spraying needles of ice across his scarred cheek. He leaned into the stone, testing each step before putting his weight down.

A shadow broke away from the cleft twenty yards ahead. Then another.

Five men emerged in a loose crescent, their lacquered wool tunics tied with the copper buckles of the provincial road patrol. They carried round wicker shields lined with bull-hide, their short spears leveled at his chest.

"Hold the pass," the lead man said. He wore a corporal's copper band around his conical cap. His boots were stiff, polished leather—garrison gear, never broken in on rough scree. "Drop the pack and throw the axe down the slope."

Rumi-qa did not drop the weapon. He lowered the point three inches, letting the iron hook rest near his knee. His eyes moved over their boots, the slope of the shale, and the narrow gap behind their right flank.

"The highway is below," Rumi-qa said. His voice was rough from the wind. "You are off your post."

"Any traveler off the paved stones is a smuggler or an outlaw," the corporal replied. He stepped forward, his boots sliding half an inch in the loose gravel. "And I know that vanguard coat under your rags. You are the cur who ran from the Northern Wall when the Third Division broke."

"Then you know five men are three too few," Rumi-qa said.

The corporal sneered and jerked his chin. "Take him. Break his knees first."

The two men on the left lunged together, their spear points thrusting low to pin his thighs.

Rumi-qa did not back away. He stepped directly into the wind, driving the iron spike of his poleaxe into the shale between the first soldier's boots. He leveraged the ash haft sideways with his full weight. The loose stone shelf gave way in a cascade of gray pebbles. The first soldier lost his footing, his knees buckling as he slipped down the lip of the gorge. The second soldier stumbled into the falling man, his spear skewing wide into empty air.

Before the second man could recover his stance, Rumi-qa swung the butt of the haft into the side of his helmet. The lacquered wood cracked; the soldier dropped like a felled ox, rolling into the scree.

The two on the right hesitated, their shields coming together.

Rumi-qa closed the distance before they could brace. He caught the rim of the nearest shield with the poleaxe's curved rear hook, wrenching it downward with a sharp snap of his shoulders. The soldier's shoulder joint popped with a dull thud. As the man yelled and pitched forward, Rumi-qa drove his boot heel into the exposed knee, splintering bone.

The fourth soldier thrust his spear in panic. The iron tip ripped through Rumi-qa's heavy wool mantle, grazing the meat of his ribs with a streak of cold fire. Rumi-qa ignored the sting, trapped the spear shaft under his left arm, and drove the butt-spike of his axe upward under the soldier's chin. The man went limp and slid onto his back.

The fight had lasted less than twenty heartbeats.

The corporal stood alone against the rock wall, his short sword cleared from its scabbard, his breath clouding in ragged white bursts. His polished boots scrambled for traction on the blood-slicked stone.

"Yield the road," Rumi-qa said, his breath steady, though the tear in his tunic leaked dark crimson into his wool.

"Traitor dog," the corporal spat, lunging in a wide, desperate arc.

Rumi-qa stepped inside the blade's sweep, caught the corporal's sword wrist with his bare left hand, and rammed his forehead into the man's nose. Cartilage broke with a wet crunch. As the corporal staggered backward, Rumi-qa swept his back leg out from under him. The corporal hit the limestone spine with a heavy thud, the wind knocked clean from his lungs. Rumi-qa pinned the man's throat with the ash haft of his poleaxe.

"Do not move," Rumi-qa said.

The corporal lay wheezing, blood running into his mouth, his eyes wide with fury and pain.

Rumi-qa reached down with one hand and cut the leather supply pouch from the corporal's belt. Inside were two solid blocks of salted llama tallow, a small pouch of iron nails, and a serviceable iron dagger with a sharp, well-tempered edge. Better than anything Rumi-qa carried.

Beneath the rations, his fingers struck a stiff cylinder of oiled parchment bound with red sinew and sealed in hard black wax.

Rumi-qa broke the wax with his thumb and unrolled the sheet against the gale.

The imperial seal of the Sun-Throne was stamped in dried cinnabar at the top. The bold brushstrokes were unmistakable:

To all Provincial Outposts and Highway Wardens:

The Emperor has frozen upon the Sun-Throne. The seat sits vacant. By decree of the Council of Houses, the Wolf-Tithes shall be quadrupled across all ten royal provinces to secure the mountain approaches. The Celestial Convergence shall occur in exactly forty days. On that hour, the new sovereign must mount the Sun-Throne under the black sun to bind the winter pacts anew. Any who obstruct the tithes or travel without imperial seal shall be fed living to the braziers.

Forty days.

Rumi-qa stared at the ink. The old tyrant was dead, and the great houses were preparing to bleed the entire realm dry to buy the wolves' patience while they marched their private armies on the capital. If a usurper took the seat under the eclipse, the human cull would become permanent law across every province.

A sudden scrape of iron tore him from the writ.

The corporal was on his knees, his face twisted in a bloody grin. With his remaining strength, he drove a broken spear shaft upward into the base of the trail's iron brazier post.

The iron bowl, rusted through by decades of grease and salt, snapped from its iron bracket.

"Feed the road, cur," the corporal gasped.

The heavy brazier flipped over the edge of the path. The lump of glowing blood-tallow and bone marrow plunged into the ravine, dying in a long hiss of white steam against the snow.

The warding blue light vanished. Pitch blackness rushed across the ridge like spilled ink.

The freezing wind screamed through the crags. And then, from the bottom of the gorge, a long, low, reverberating howl answered the sudden dark. Another joined it from the western ledge, closer, vibrating through the stone under Rumi-qa's boots.

The Yana-wolves had smelled the blood.