Free Dark Heart by Russell Kirkpatrick

will not come with us, if you please. We heard how the gods’ fingers searched for you and your brood. No one here wants to be near you when next the finger of god is pointed in your direction. Don’t play the hero. Go away, sir, and leave us alone.’
    Others in the crowd murmured their agreement.
    Noetos found himself completely unable to reply. Twice in one afternoon he had been pushed away by those he had sacrificed himself for. Pushed over the edge. The hurt he felt at this struck him dumb. The pure, unthinking rejection . He had tried so hard! He had made every choice in the interests of others!
    He swallowed this like he swallowed the hot lump in his throat, coughed once, and spoke. ‘Very well, you have taken the responsibility for this city in your own hands. I wish you well of it, rebuilding a city that, had circumstances been but a little different, had a duke not once refused the Undying Man, I might have ruled.’ He hawked and spat on the ground. ‘I leave you to your chaos and your enemies, your death and coming disease, your hardship and your vulnerability.’
    He turned his back on the districts he’d played in as a child and pushed his way through the silent crowd, who closed ranks behind him. Near the entrance to Suggate he turned and faced them, and the broken city, one final time.
    ‘I shake your dust from my clothes,’ he said, invoking the old curse. ‘May it return to you and choke you.’
    And, indeed, dust rose from his tunic and breeches as he slapped at them. It blew on a faint breeze towards the gathered Racemen, but fell to the ground between Noetos and the crowd.
    Finally he spoke to Bregor, who had taken a few steps towards him. ‘Come or stay, it matters not to me. Stay and grieve for the lost, care for the injured if the townspeople let you, or come with me to find answers from the treacherous mouths of Andratan. Only decide now. If I walk through Suggate alone, alone I will remain.’
    The words hung in the air like a conjuration, and Noetos realised they could land on him like a curse.
    ‘I’ll do my grieving when and where necessary,’ Bregor said flatly. ‘But I will come with you, if you are going north, and for much the same reasons. Answers, Fisher, are what I’m hungry for. You will give me some, your children will give me more, and no doubt I’ll be fed to bursting by those in Andratan before we’re through.’
    ‘Speeches are over then,’ Noetos said as the Hegeoman came towards him.
    And no more was said, either to them or between them, as they turned and walked towards the cavernous southern gate of Raceme, the summer capital of Roudhos-that-was.

CHAPTER 3
    HUNTERS

    AFTER A STRUGGLE TOWARDS consciousness through what seemed to Lenares like endless layers of feathers, she finally came to herself. For a few moments her mind lay quiet, as though a river that normally ran through her had been dammed. She had never before felt peace—if that was the word for this strange absence .
    She did not much like the sensation.
    One hole in the world. At this thought her mind river began to flow again. One hole—or was it two? She considered this, puzzling over the differences between the hole in the sky that had snatched her and her companions up from the midst of Nomansland and spewed them out again who knew where, and the one she had seen above the dreadful battle in the Valley of the Damned. Troubling notions flowed like uprooted logs along the river of her thoughts, snagging on each other as they went. She wanted the river to flow smoothly, tick tick tick. The jerky, uncertain thoughts made her angry. Tick. Tick tick tick. Tick.
    She wanted this to be resolved. The uncertainty made her feel uncomfortable. One hole or more than one? She would not open her eyes until she had thought this through. Not to see where she was, not even to check if her companions were alive. This is more important. A faint breeze blew something across her cheek. Dust? Powder? A distraction,