Chapter 834: Eleven Thousand Strangers

They left the Door at dawn.

Eleven thousand people from Frosthold walked north behind eight from Brightwater. They walked slowly, the way people walk when they have just come through something terrible and do not yet believe it is over.

Clovelle rode on a stretcher. She had folded fifteen times in a day and a night, and now she could barely lift her head.

"I’m fine," she kept saying.

"You’re not," Big D said. "Lie down."

She lay down. She fell asleep before they had gone a mile.

Frosthold knew nothing.

That was the first thing Almond learned on the road. They did not know what an Ender was, or what a sanctuary was. They did not know that their imprints got weaker the more they used them raw. Some of them had not even opened their statuses yet.

So the eight from Brightwater taught as they walked.

Rudra took the young ones who wanted to hunt. He walked them through it slowly, again and again. What an orb was. Why a part had to fit. Why you never, ever used an imprint raw in a fight unless you had nothing else left.

"But it’s what we are," one boy said. He was perhaps eighteen, with pale hair and a stubborn chin. "Why wouldn’t we use it?"

"Because what you are is heavy," Rudra said. "Use it raw and you’ll do one thing, and then you’ll lie on the ground while something eats you. An orb is a handle. Get a handle first."

Natalia walked with a group of Frosthold’s soldiers and showed them how to read the grass for Enders. She showed them how the flattened ring meant a Smother. She showed them how the quiet coming toward you meant a Husher.

Marcus taught nobody anything. His nose had finally stopped bleeding, and he walked in silence with his head down. Twice, Natalia had to steer him around a rock.

"You’re allowed to rest," she told him.

"I’m resting," Marcus said. "This is what it looks like."

Corvin walked at the front of his people the whole way.

His right arm hung in a sling, gray and stiff to the shoulder. He could not bend the fingers. It did not seem to slow him down at all.

Big D walked beside him.

The two of them had hardly stopped talking since the Door. Almond, walking a little behind them, heard pieces of it.

"Six thousand, two hundred," Corvin was saying. "In the first war I fought. I knew every one of their names. I still do."

"Four hundred and twelve on the Shelf," Big D said. "Sixty thousand from the walls of Brightwater. I read them in four nights."

"Four nights." Corvin sniffed. "Showing off."

"You asked."

"I did not ask. You told me."

Almond hid a smile.

That evening, Hessa looked at Corvin’s arm.

She was no healer, and she said so. But she had lived inside a line for a long time, and she had seen what raw imprints did to people.

"It isn’t dead," she said. "I don’t think. It’s still yours. But you poured everything you had through it at once, at F, and it froze along the way." She looked up at him. "There’s a woman in Brightwater named Kayla. She might be able to bring it back."

"Might," Corvin said.

"Might."

He looked down at the stiff gray hand for a long moment.

"It was worth it," he said, and that was all.

On the third night, the light went out.

It happened all at once. One moment the camp was lit by hundreds of small cook fires and the pale rings of the higher layers above. The next, there was nothing.

The fires were still burning. Almond could feel the heat of the one in front of him on his face. He could hear it crackle.

But he could not see it.

He could not see anything. Not the fire, not his hands, not the sky. It was the blackest dark he had ever known. It was darker than the inside of the body under the Shelf. It was darker than having his eyes shut.

All around him, eleven thousand people began to scream.

"Dimmer!" Hessa’s voice cut through it. "It ends light! Stay where you are! Nobody move!"

Nobody listened. Almond heard the crowd surge. He heard people falling, and people running into each other, and children crying for their mothers. Somewhere a cook pot went over, and someone shrieked as boiling water hit them.

And underneath it all, he heard something else.

It was a clicking. It came from the dark beyond the camp, and it was getting closer. There was not just one of them. There were many.

"They hunt in the dark it makes," Hessa said. She was close to him now. He could feel her hand on his arm. "They’re small. Like scavengers. But they can see, and we can’t."

"Marcus," Almond said.

"I’m here," said Marcus’s voice, out of the black. "I can’t see you."

"You don’t need to. Can you carry Corvin again?"

"I can try."

"Corvin!"

"Here." The old king’s voice came from somewhere to the left.

"Your people. Tell them to sit down where they are. Right now. Every one of them."

There was a moment of silence. Then Almond felt it, the way he had felt it at the Door. The voice went into every head at once.

Frosthold. Sit down. Wherever you are. Sit down on the ground and do not move, and hold the hand of whoever is beside you. I am here. I am right here.

The screaming did not stop at once. But it got quieter. The surging stopped. Almond could hear people dropping to the ground all around him, and the crying turning into whispers.

That was one problem.

The clicking was still getting closer.

"I can’t see them," Natalia said. Her voice was tight. "I can’t mark what I can’t see."

"Rudra?"

"I can hold a heading in the dark," Rudra said. "But a heading to where? I don’t know where they are."

Almond turned his head uselessly toward the sound.

"Hessa," he said. "Your orb. It keeps watch over places. Does it need light?"

There was a pause.

"I don’t know," Hessa said slowly. "I’ve never tried it in the dark." Another pause. "Wait."

Almond felt her go still beside him.

"Oh," she said quietly.

"What?"

"I can see." Her voice was full of wonder. "Not with my eyes. The orb. It watches the places I ask it to, and it doesn’t care if there’s light." She drew a breath. "There are thirty of them. They’re small and low, with too many legs. They’re coming in from the east side of the camp, fast. And there’s a big one sitting on a rock about two hundred yards out. Round, like a black lamp. That’s the Dimmer."

"Marcus," Almond said. "Carry Hessa. To us. Just the eight of us."

"Done," said Marcus.

Hessa’s voice came into his head. It was clear and steady.

East side. Thirty. Kael, three of them are ten paces in front of you. Turn left. Now.

Almond heard Kael move. He heard a short, wet sound, and a high clicking scream.

Quickstep.

Two more, Hessa said. Right in front of you. Low. Cut low.

Two more screams.

Big D, one at your feet. Rudra, four coming at your back.

Big D grunted, and something crunched. Rudra swore and swung his blade blind, guided only by a voice in his head telling him exactly where to swing.

Almond. The big one.

Almond turned.

It’s two hundred yards east. Straight ahead of you. Rudra, give him the heading.

"On it," Rudra said.

True Heading.

Almond felt it lock in, the hand on the back of his neck. There was only one direction now. It ran straight out of the camp and into the black, toward something he could not see.

He started to run.

It was the strangest run of his life.

He could see nothing at all. He could not see the grass under his feet, or his own hands, or the thing he was running toward. He ran on a line that Rudra held, and a voice in his head told him what was in front of him.

Something on your left. Duck.

He ducked. Something with too many legs went over his head, clicking.

Rock ahead. Jump.

He jumped, and his foot came down on stone, and he kept running.

Fifty yards. It’s seen you. It’s turning.

He could feel it now. There was a cold, round pressure in the dark ahead of him, like standing next to a well with no bottom.

Twenty yards. It’s on a rock, about chest height. The soft part is right in the middle, facing you.

Quiet Edge.

Ten.

Sever.

He could not see the line. For the first time, he could not see it at all.

But he could feel it. It was right where Hessa said it would be, thin as a hair, in the middle of the cold.

Now.

He cut. ℴ

Light came back like a door being thrown open.

It was blinding. The fires and the rings in the sky were suddenly far too bright after the dark. Almond threw his arm over his eyes and stumbled.

When he could see again, he was standing beside a rock in the grass. On the rock lay a round black shape, split clean in two. It was already turning gray.

Behind him, across two hundred yards of grass, the whole camp was sitting on the ground in the firelight, staring at him.

There were twenty-two small, many-legged things lying dead at the east edge of the camp. Kael was sitting beside them with his head between his knees. Big D was standing over three of them with blood on his hands.

Almond walked back slowly.

"How many hurt?" he asked.

"Eighteen," Natalia said. "One boy got burned by a cook pot. Kael has a bite on his leg. Nobody dead."

Almond let out a breath he felt like he had been holding for an hour.

Then he looked at Hessa.

She was standing with her hand pressed to her eyes again. She was smiling, which he had never seen her do before.

"I didn’t know it could do that," she said.

"What did you ask it for?" Almond asked. "When you made it."

Hessa lowered her hand.

"I made it from the eye of the thing that took Tomas," she said. "I lay there in the grass and I never saw it coming. So I asked it to watch. I asked that nothing would ever take one of mine again without me seeing it." She looked out at the camp. "I suppose it doesn’t care whether there’s light."

Corvin made his way over through the crowd.

He stopped in front of the dead Dimmer. He looked at it for a long time. Then he turned around and looked at his people, all eleven thousand of them, still sitting on the ground holding hands.

"Ivar," he said. "Come here."

The pale-haired boy with the stubborn chin came forward. He was the one who had argued with Rudra on the first day.

"You were asking about orbs," Corvin said.

"Yes, my king."

"Can you see in the dark?"

The boy blinked. "No. My king, I can’t see in the dark. Nobody can."

"What are your imprints?"

The boy opened his status. His hand was shaking. Almond read it over his shoulder.

[Life Imprints: Lantern. Steadfast. Seek.]

"Lantern," Corvin read. "And this thing ended light." He pointed his good hand at the dead Dimmer. "Take the black part. In the middle."

The boy knelt. He put his hands on it. He looked very young and very frightened.

Lantern.

The black part folded. It left an orb in his palms, warm and gold, like a candle flame.

[Power Orb: Dark Lamp]

[Quality: E]

[You and those beside you can see in any darkness.]

The boy stared at it. Then he looked up at Corvin with an expression Almond had seen before, on the faces of Asuras who had just climbed out of the bottom world.

"First one in Frosthold," Corvin said gruffly. "Don’t lose it."

He turned and walked away before anyone could see his face.

Big D fell into step beside him.

"Proud," Big D said.

"I am not."

"You are."

"I am an old man with a frozen arm," Corvin said, "who has had a very long week."

"And you’re proud."

Corvin did not answer. But he did not walk any faster to get away, either.

They saw Brightwater on the afternoon of the fifth day.

The white stones were glowing in the sunlight. The river shone. There were people on the walls, and they had seen the column coming. They were waving.

Frosthold stopped on the north hill and stared at it, the way Regalon had stared two weeks before.

"That’s it?" the boy Ivar asked. His voice was hushed. "That’s where we’re going?"

"That’s it," Almond said.

He was looking at the south gate. Someone was standing there, a little apart from the others, with one hand resting on her stomach.

He pushed up his sleeve. The charcoal was smeared and faded after five days. But the letters were still there.

LILY. ONE. ALMOND.

He started down the hill.