I walked out into the glories of a cloudless perfect noon, azure
sky abounding. The ramp had cycled open and stayed that way. The full
complement of artillery arrayed itself against a far wall of rock. Nogilian
came limping over the top of the ramp covered in blood not his own, his armor
burned and scourged in a dozen places. It would be a while healing.
“The Stair
is yours, our Guardian,” he said, and thrust his quicksword into the ground, “and
it cost a third of our strength. We rallied when you took the ramp.”
I closed my
eyes. As I had thought, then. But the gain could not be denied. “We have the
plateau as well. The Augers abandoned it. These were rearguard, to delay us and
deal out damage only.”
He scowled.
“Where did they go? When? How many?”
I shook my
head. “A week ago. We hadn’t even left Sepira. Fifty thousand valkyries.”
His eyes
went wide. “Kasora! We must warn them! Jerem Cozak will not expect – ” I waved
him to silence.
“We can’t,”
I said. “Even if we wanted to, we would be too late.”
“Ki will
argue this,” he pointed toward the ramp. ‘She is being carried here.”
“I’ll win,”
I said. “No matter what, I’ll win.” That captured his attention. He paused,
regarded me silently.
“The Road
to the Sun,” I asked, “do you know where it is? Is it open to valkyries?”
He nodded.
“A Shuni pilgrim road, on which no snow lays. In the mountains far to the
southwest. It supposedly climbs to the Cup of Gods, a holy site whose purpose
even the Shuni could not remember. Now it is another frozen caldera in the
rocks. But why? Why do you wish to know this place?”
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