Free Dawn by Tim Lebbon Page A

you and Hope. I saw something—”
    “You didn’t want to talk earlier.”
    Kosar pushed the disc-sword from his shoulder and turned. “I wasn’t ready then,” he said. Trey was staring at him, and the fledger’s face was yellow as the death moon. “What’s wrong, Trey?”
    Trey smiled. Then he leaned forward, laughter buzzing through him rather than bursting out. He was too tired to laugh properly. He stood after a while and wiped moisture from his eyes. The smile was a grimace now, and his shaking had turned into a shiver he could barely control. “What’s wrong, Kosar, is that the Mages have won. I’m starting into the fledge rage, which may last for days or even longer, and I’m nowhere near any fledge mine that I know of. It could well kill me in the end. You ran, and we thought you were gone for good, saving your own skin and leaving us out here in the dark. Alishia walked for a while, but then she collapsed, shouting about burning books and truth turning to ash, and I haven’t been able to wake her since. Hope is with her now…and Hope has her own reasons for being here, so I don’t trust her for a moment. I can still hear my mother’s cry. I can still smell Sonda’s blood, spilled underground. I can feel the Nax in my mind. And you ask me what’s wrong?”
    Kosar reached out, then dropped his hands again. Trey stepped forward and rested his head on the thief’s shoulder, weeping, his thin arms snaking around Kosar’s back and hugging him tight.
    Kosar closed his eyes and felt the fledger’s anger and hate and fear flowing into him, soaking his shoulder with tears, feeding his flesh with heat, filling his mind with a bitter shame that he thought might never go away. It was almost as bad as being in those Gray Woods again, having those things feeding on his darkest secrets and dragging them up for contemplation. Almost as bad. But not quite. Because Trey was a friend, and even though Kosar had abandoned him, now he had returned. Kosar hugged Trey, and realized that strength such as this went both ways.
    “Trey, I saw something out there,” he said. “Mimics showed me A’Meer as she was when she died, and there’s a reason for that. There has to be.”
    Trey stepped back. “You’re looking for reasons?” he said. “A couple of hours ago you wouldn’t listen to any reason.”
    “No, not back then,” Kosar said. “I admit that I went, and that I had no intention of returning. Everything feels so hopeless…I thought we should part, be on our own. I can’t explain it without…”
    “Without telling the truth: you don’t care.”
    “I do care, Trey!”
    “Really?”
    Kosar looked away from the sick fledger and turned south. “Where are Hope and Alishia?”
    “That way, not far. Alishia is weak. Whatever’s happening to her is bleeding her strength.”
    Kosar glanced at Trey. “And you look terrible.”
    “I’ve never gone a day without fledge in my life. And being up here seems to make it all worse. I can’t understand how any fledge miners manage to stay topside.”
    “A lot of them get sick,” Kosar said. “Is there no mine around here that you know of?”
    “If there is, how would I know? My home is hundreds of miles from here.” Trey dropped to his knees, sighing as he touched the damp grass. “So, are you staying?”
    “I’m not sure,” Kosar said. “We need to talk, all of us. Hope knows of the mimics, and I suspect she may have an idea of what just happened—and why.”
    “Did she talk?”
    “Who?”
    “A’Meer?”
    “No.” Kosar shook his head, remembering the way her mouth was opening and closing as blood gushed from her wounded neck. Final words? Last wish? He glanced up at the life moon still rising above the horizon. He thought he saw something pass briefly across its face, or perhaps it was a fleck of dust in his eye. “Let’s go find Hope and Alishia.”

    THEY AGREED TO build a small fire and camp behind a fold in the land. It protected them