Chapter 1
The sky above Southern Tarvakh was the color of hammered lead, pressed so low it stole half your breath. Wind hauled sand through the air with a dull, grieving moan.
Winter in Year 10 P.I. bit harder than any winter before the Impact. The cold had long since settled into the earth. Even when sunlight touched you, it carried little kindness.
At the fringe of the barrens, an old highway lay in ruins, rusted rebar jutting like snapped ribs. Green was gone from sight; only brown scrub, beaten flat by the wind, still clung to the dust.
Half the mouth of a road tunnel had been swallowed by drifts. Far inside, a faint firelight pulsed and died, then pulsed again.
A little way from the tunnel, a family of three was digging in the dirt.
The man was about forty, built like a villager who had never known ease: patched homespun, a quilted coat on top, a rough iron pick in his hands. Wind and grit had carved his face dark and lined; his eyes sat deep but not yet hollow. He was lean, yet his shoulders stayed broad, the sort of frame that came from years of hoeing soil and herding whatever still lived.
The woman, a little past thirty, was gaunt. Wind and sand had worn most of the softness from her face, but her eyes stayed clear and bright, with exhaustion settled between her brows.
Beside her knelt a half-grown child in rags and a scrap of fur, cheeks red with cold.
The boy suddenly yelped and hauled a fist-sized lump of Crystone from the soil, gray-blue facets catching a thin gleam. He lifted it high, his voice small but bright with rare joy.
"Dad! Mom! Look how big it is!"
The man stopped his pick. His eyes flashed. He took the lump, turned it once, and forced the corners of his mouth up.
"Big enough…" he said. "That'll buy us a month's grain."
The woman stroked the child's hair, gentle and tired.
"Keep at it," she murmured. "There might be more."
The boy grinned and went back to the hole, color in his face for the first time in days.
Then the ground shivered underfoot.
The man snapped his head up. A plume of dust rose in the distance; a knot of people shifted inside the brown haze, faces unreadable. Out in front rode a huge man on a huge horse, hooves striking earth like iron hammers, a dull drumbeat of doom. A dozen hard shapes trailed him, steel and scrap iron clanking at their belts.
The woman pulled the child in against her husband. "Listen—I heard the Iron Bones are out raising hell again. That can't be them, can it?"
The man's face went white. He dragged his wife and son behind a spill of rock and sand.
As the band closed in, the three could pick out detail. The rider in front was built like a wall of meat. Gray-black skin crazed with cracks; burn scars crawled across his face. His mount was wrong—thick gray-black scales instead of ordinary hide. Worst of all, every man in that pack wore the same mark on shoulder or belt: the sigil of the Iron Bones.
The man knew that mark. He knew that swagger. Season after season, these were the people who came to the village to collect tribute—grain, coin, and fear with every levy…
The big rider reined in. Cracked, gray eyes narrowed toward the riverbed, then toward the rock pile where the family hid.
He did not shout. He only lifted a hand. The column halted. When he spoke, his voice rode the wind like gravel on sheet metal.
"You. Go see over there."
One of the bandits' legs swelled, muscle twisting as if something inside had inflated him. He shot forward in a burst of speed, cleared ten meters in a stride, and sprang onto a boulder at the lip of the wash, staring straight down at the three.
A moment later he jogged back.
"Boss," he reported, "not the cargo we're waiting on. Villagers—man, woman, kid—with picks. Digging for Crystone."
The rider's mouth twitched into something that was not a smile. His riding crop flicked once in his glove with a sharp crack.
"Even gnats have meat on them," he said. "Bag the woman. Don't waste time."
Two bandits broke from the line and closed the distance in a few long strides.
The man's stomach dropped. He had seen powers like theirs before. Every season, when the Iron Bones came to collect, there was always one or two who could punch through a mud wall in a single blow, who could clear the village ditch without breaking stride—the kind of mutants the gang kept as its fists.
He raised the pick with both arms, shaking but stubborn, and stepped in front of his wife and son.
"Stay back!" he rasped. "You can have our Crystone—all of it—just leave us—"
Before he finished, a boot caught the pick and sent it spinning into the dust. He staggered, arms still spread, and scraped the last of his voice from his throat.
"He's still just a kid…"
Another bandit stepped in. His arm thickened; he drew a curved blade from his belt, rust flaking from the edge, old blood dried in the pits. No talk. The blade went up and came down with a whistle.
Steel bit from the man's left shoulder to his right ribs. Bone cracked; wet meat tore. Blood leaped as if someone had struck a spring. In an instant he was painted red.
His eyes went wide, pupils still trying to bracket his wife and child, as if his body could shield them even now. A gurgle rose in his throat; blood bubbled at his lips. He pitched forward like a felled tree, hit the ground, twitched once, and lay still.
The woman screamed until her voice tore, then threw herself at her husband's body. A boot drove into her ribs and hurled her aside. She crawled back, wrapped her arms around the child, and begged in broken gasps.
"Please—please—spare him—he's only five—"
Another bandit stepped behind her and chopped the edge of a hand into her neck. Her eyes rolled; she went limp. The boy shrieked and reached for her, but rough hands closed on his arms and lifted him like a sack. His legs kicked at empty air; his cries shredded in the wind.
No one paused. Laughter mixed with hoofbeats. Rope bit into the woman's wrists and ankles; the boy was still screaming when they dragged both before the mounted boss.
The rider leaned down. Something like appraisal moved behind his cracked eyelids.
"Bring the woman along for company," he said, voice flat and cold. "The brat's useless. Noisy. Deal with him here—get him out of my sight."
A bandit drew a short blade, grabbed the boy by the collar, and drove him face-first into the sand. Grit filled his mouth; his cries thinned to a choked whine. Cold metal kissed the back of his neck—
Deep in the tunnel, the fire went out all at once.
In the dark, a child's voice shook:
"Wait—up ahead—three people, surrounded. Not common bandits—there's mutants in the pack, seven, eight, I can't count— Someone's begging—don't touch the kid—and then— Ah—someone just got killed!"
Silence, for a heartbeat.
A woman's voice cut in, low and furious.
"Has to be those damned Iron Bones."
Then a hoarse voice, as if the speaker's throat were lined with rust and coal dust:
"Eight mutants? We rush out, we might not live through it. The Iron Bones own this stretch. Even if we win, we'll still answer for it later—it won't stay neat."
The child's voice broke in again.
"They—they're going to kill a kid! Someone said 'deal with him on the spot'—"
The woman's answer came hotter than before.
"The hell with later—the blade's already at his neck. That boy doesn't get a 'later'!"
A man's voice followed, heavy enough to end the argument.
"Put them down. Not one left."
As he spoke, something heavy struck stone in the dark—a sound like a hammer dropped on pavement.
Then came the rattle of sliding scree, the long note of a wolf's howl, and the creak of bowstrings drawn taut, each sound unnervingly clear in the tunnel's throat.
Outside, one man in the band had never crowded the horse. His eye sockets were a little hollow; in the sick yellow daylight his pupils slit like a cat's. He tilted his head, tasting the wind, then pinned his gaze to the tunnel mouth.
"Boss," he began, "in that tunnel there's—"
A sharp whistle cut him off. A bolt tore out of the dark, trailing fire.
The man twisted too late. It grazed his shoulder and punched into his chest; powder flashed, meat tore, and his scream vanished in the burst.
Hooves turned. Boots scraped stone toward the tunnel.
No one looked at the child still pressed into the sand.