The Wind on Fire Trilogy: Firesong. William Nicholson

and the worst, that’s what they said of him. The greatest of all the Singer people ever to have kissed the Prophet’s brow, the one in whom the powers had been most perfected, and the only one ever to betray their calling.

      ‘Well, so I am. What of it?’

      ‘So you’re to train the boy. You see how it all comes out right in the end?’

      ‘In the end we’re all dead.’

      ‘That we are, and how glorious that will be!’

      Albard sighed and gave up. There was no denting such wilful contentment.

      ‘Where is he, then? This boy?’

      ‘He’s on his way to the mountains, with his people. We must hurry. They’ve been gone many days, and the wind is rising.’

      ‘The wind is rising, is it? And will you be there at the end, little Jumper? Will you be singing the firesong, with the wind on your back?’

      ‘Oh, yes! Of course I’ll be there! How blessed we are to be the generation that will know the wind on fire!’

      ‘Not me. I made my choice long ago. I’ve had my day, and now it’s over.’

      He looked round him at the burned ruins of what had once been the most beautiful city in the world.

       They didn’t deserve it. I gave them perfection, and they feared it. They loved their mess. Now they have it back.

      ‘Sirene sent you, moonface?’

      ‘Yes, of course.’

      ‘Sirene hates me. Sirene wants me dead.’

      ‘Not at all. You’ve played your part, like all the rest of us.’

      ‘Played my part!’

      Albard let out a big bellowing laugh. That was rich! Albard the rebel, the traitor, the mutineer, had played his part in Sirene’s plans! No, he was the breaker of rules, the defier of authority, the one who had split away from the rest and forged his own world, where he alone had been the Master. Singer people never sought power in the world. Only Albard, the best of them, had broken the rule of rules.

      ‘I played no part in any plan of Sirene’s, little Jumper. They call me the lost one. I am Sirene’s failure.’

      He spoke with a certain pride. What else had he left, now that his city was gone and he had not been allowed to die?

      ‘We must go,’ said Jumper. ‘Are you strong enough?’

      ‘Getting stronger all the time. But not what I was. You should have seen me in my day! I was immense! Now my skin hangs loose about me, and I rattle as I walk. Ah, mortality!’

      ‘But you feel your powers returning?’

      ‘A little. Yes.’

      He looked round. There on the ground, near the hole into which he had crawled to die, lay a short sword. It had fallen from the hand of some poor fool who had died doing his will, and now lay beneath a layer of dust and stones. Albard fixed his mind on the hilt of the sword, and with great effort, he caused it to stir beneath the debris. More he could not do.

      With a sigh, he stooped down, and scraping away the stones, picked it up with one hand. Jumper beamed his approval.

      ‘There! That’s a start, isn’t it?’

      ‘And if I were to cut your throat with it, that would be a finish, too.’

      ‘Oh, you won’t do that. I’m no use to you dead.’

      ‘You’re no use to me, Jumper. There’s nothing you can give me I want. There’s nothing you can do for me I need.’

      He slipped the sword into the rope with which his plain woollen robe was belted, and turned his great beak of a nose northwards.

      ‘But we’ll find this boy, and set him on his path, and then what has been begun will be completed. Not because Sirene plans it, you understand, but because I choose it. Sirene has no control over me. I’m the lost one. I’m the one who goes his own way.’

      Albard was facing the causeway across the lake, his gaze fixed on the hills to the north, and so he did not catch the look that passed briefly over Jumper’s round and foolish face. It was the indulgent smile of the parent who allows his wilful child the last word, knowing the child cannot choose but to obey.

      ‘So you are, if it pleases you,’ said the curious young-old creature, hopping along after him. ‘Bounce on, Jumper!’

      1

      The view from the sourgum tree

      The column of weary marchers made slow progress. The land was rising, and the day was cold. The two horses pulling the heavily-laden wagon kept their heads down and held to a steady plodding pace, but everyone could see that they were growing thinner every day. The wagon’s driver, Seldom Erth, walked beside them to lighten their load. He was the oldest of the marchers, well over sixty years old, but he strode along as determinedly as the younger men, watching the track as he went for stones too big or ruts too deep for the wagon’s wheels. The ones who found it hard to keep up the pace were the children. Miller Marish’s little girl Jet was only six years old. From time to time Seldom Erth swung her up into the wagon, to sit with the cat on the pile of folded tent-cloth at the back, and rest her little legs.

      There were thirty-two people of all ages on the march, as well as the two draft horses, five cows, and the cat. Hanno Hath, the march leader, had ordered that they must keep within sight of each other at all times, so the column proceeded at the pace of its slowest members. These were dangerous days. There were rumours of bandit gangs that preyed on travellers. Young men with keen eyes and ready swords loped ahead of the straggling column, watching for danger; but Hanno knew his people had little experience of combat, and had been marching for days on reduced rations. When he fixed his eyes on the horizon ahead, it was not only bandits he feared, but the coming of winter. They carried food and firewood in the wagon, but every day the supplies grew smaller, and they were crossing a bleak, barren land.

      ‘Have faith, Hannoka,’ said his wife Ira, walking steadily beside him. She used his childhood name to comfort him, as if she was his mother as well as his wife, knowing how great a burden he bore. ‘Have faith, Hannoka.’

      ‘I worry about the children. How much farther can they go?’

      ‘If they get tired, we’ll carry them.’

      ‘And you?’

      ‘Do I slow you down?’

      ‘No. You march well. You still feel it?’

      ‘I still have the warmth on my face.’

      She would not admit it, but he could see how she grew weaker every day, and her pace grew slower. He adjusted the speed of the march so that she would not fall behind, pretending to himself he was doing it for the children. He hated to see her grow thinner, and quieter. She had always been a noisy woman, a woman of quick passions and short temper. Now she was quiet, conserving her energy for the long march.

       Have faith, Hannoka.

      He understood her well enough. She was telling him to believe they would reach the homeland, that one day they would be safe for ever. But she was not telling him she would join him there.

      He shook his head, a quick angry jerk, to send the dark thought skittering away. No good to be had looking that way. His care and his diligence were needed now, today, leading his people over the cold land towards the distant not-yet-seen mountains.

      Bowman, his fifteen-year-old son, strode along at the head of the column, with