As soon as the grey space forms around us, I start striding forwards. Much like I did with the Pathwalkers in the small village, I push straight through her resistance, batting away the angry blades of will that fly at me just as her physical blades did.

  Crossing the halfway line between us, I begin feeling her emotions. In particular, the rage which she uses as a shield against my intrusion, and which I pierce with the hotter blade of my own. And when I do, I make a discovery that puts everything else into context – underneath her anger is a cloying flow of fear, an overpowering vortex that sucks in all other sensations.

  And somehow, I know that this is at the root of her attack on my village: fear. Pure fear. Whether it’s that I’m close enough to her that my connection allows me some sort of access into her thoughts as well as her emotions, or that her emotions are pointed enough for me to sense her thoughts as well, I understand why she brought all the forces she could convince to attack us. She thought that if we were not stopped now, our village would become too powerful to stop in the future. And I smile. Because that’s exactly what I hope will happen.

  No! Stay away from me! Flying-blade cries as I bat more of her psychic blades away, each step bringing me nearer to her unmoving form.Abomination! You shall not have my soul! she accuses, her voice tinged with desperation.

  An odd way of putting it, I think, but disregard the thought a moment later. What do I care about her opinion? A wise person once said to never take criticism from someone who wouldn’t be approached to give advice. After what she has done, Flying-blade is definitely not someone I would go to for counsel! So her words are meaningless.

  I do feel a frisson of hesitation at the reminder that I’m crossing my own line here – again. Binding someone without even trying to convince them to accept it willingly. But once more, I dismiss my reticence. Flying-blade has already made her choices – she led an attack on my people and killed far too many of them. A Bond is the least of what she deserves! Here and now, I have all the consent I need from the bodies of my murdered people.

  Now close enough to touch, I do just that. Reaching forwards, I feel Flying-blade's final desperate attempts to resist me, to escape. She can no doubt feel the Binding hovering around her, ready to wind chains around her body, much like I saw of the captured raptorcats.

  To no avail. I push through the clinging molasses of those final inches and my fingertips connect with the skull between her eyes. The Bond snaps into place and no matter how much I feel Flying-blade fighting it, I can sense how little chance she has of slipping free. Not when my Bonds are capable of holding a Tier three against her will.

  Perhaps I should feel guilty, or ashamed. I think that I would have when I first came to this world. But I don’t. Instead, I feel only a grim sense of satisfaction that a threat has been converted to an asset, even if forcibly.

  The world resolving itself into colour again, I push myself to my feet, looking down at my newest Bound. She’s glaring at me, but the contempt I had seen in her eyes is now replaced with horror. She strains against her bindings and I sense her doing her best to grasp her magic. Both attempts fail. That doesn’t stop her from trying again.

  “Be still!” I snap, wanting, needing to have some answers and without patience for this architect of so much death and destruction. Flying-blade is forced to freeze, the Bond holding her tightly. At my nod, Flower relaxes her grip on the roots binding Flying-blade into place. She’s held tightly enough by my Bond that she no longer needs the physical bindings. And that allows Flower to conserve a little of the mana she needs for maintaining the binds around other targets.

  “Now,” I say, focussing on everyone present being able to understand my words. “Why the hell did you attack us?” I demand, unable to stop my fiery fury from rising inside me once again. I grip the Bond between us with my mind, commanding honesty and a full explanation.

  Flying-blade glares again, furious clicks emerging from her mouth as it is allowed to move in accordance with my wish that she speak. But, now I’m paying attention, I can tell that her anger is still a thin veneer over her bone-deep fear below. I refuse to think about that too much, though – anger, I can deal with. Fear…fear is far more likely to make me feel pity and I don’t want to feel anything but rage for this particular samuran. And I do not yet hear answers to my questions, so press my will into the Bond, demanding that she answer me. Clearly, even the resetting of her priorities isn’t enough to remove her mental resistance when she is this set against me.

  You were so ancestors-damned smug! she exclaims, her eyes and spikes flashing furiously. Suddenly, the words practically pour from her. You were insufferably smug when you walked out of the Festival grounds with half your village with you – somehow able to call on them even for the Single Hunt which should have seen you dead or humiliated – and you were even worse when you won it!

  You cheated, and yet even my own leader agreed that a tamer is allowed to bring her tamed beings with her to any Hunt, Single, Pathwalker, or Warband. But even if no one else agreed that there was something unnatural about your ability to tame our own kind, I knew that there was! And some even had the audacity to whisper that you might be a new kind of Evolution of our own people? Flying-blade grunts in a way that is almost laughter, her spikes practically solid with a dark, yet still vibrant red.

  And then I found it. She looks at me triumphantly, as daring me to ask what. I decide to bite.

  “Fine, what did you find?”

  She eyes me and then looks around pointedly at all of the samurans crowding in around us – my own and the invaders. I notice absently that both healers are working on the injured invading Warriors and that several of them appear to be stable. One appears to have died, though. I can’t bring myself to care much.

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  Do you wish everyone to know your secret? she asks mockingly. I cross my arms and glare at her stonily.

  “Since I highly doubt that you have truly discovered my ‘secret’, go ahead.” And frankly, if that artifact Earth-former was talking about was a Tamer Class stone that she’d discovered, I’d actually be pleased – it would certainly solve several problems.

  On your head be it, she tells me with a hint of vengeful triumph. Then do you deny that this is the source of your warping, corrupting power?

  On the final word, she shifts to a kneeling position and then pulls free an item from her belt. As she holds it up in a white-knuckled fist, the leaf-covering drops away to reveal exactly what she is brandishing so triumphantly before us.

  For a wild moment, I wonder whether it is indeed a Class stone – the fist-sized rock glimmers in the same way as I remember the one I held did all that time ago. Then the moment passes and I realise it cannot be the same. This one is faceted, for one thing, and a deep black that almost seems to suck in my gaze. It’s held by a woven cradle of fibres which lead up to a handle gripped in Flying-blade’s claws.

  At the sight of it, several of my Pathwalkers hiss loudly. Tarra even stumbles back a pace from where she’s standing, clearly not wanting to get anywhere near it. Obvious recognition runs through them.

  “Drop it!” I snap at Flying-blade, alarmed by my Pathwalker’s reactions. Is it a bomb or something? But no – if it was, those who seem to recognise it would surely back away instead of just flinching. It’s clear that it’s not good news, though. “Don’t you dare touch it!” I order, focussing on the Bond to make sure that Flying-blade can’t even get within a hand’s width of it, wary that she might activate it in some way. Whatever it is.

  I thought those were all destroyed! Tarra grunts, lurid-yellow horror playing through her spikes.

  I didn’t realise they were even real, adds Flower, the same horrified unease obvious in her too.

  Meanwhile, several of the Pathwalkers in Flying-blade’s group, those who are still sufficiently aware, seem to be the same mix of horror and confusion – evidently Flying-blade hadn’t shown it to them either. Interestingly, the Warriors in both of our groups seem to be as confused as I am.

  “Would someone care to let me in on whatever this is?” I ask, a little impatient at being out of the loop.

  Don’t pretend you don’t know! spits Flying-blade. I silence her without even needing to look in her direction. And who could blame me if I take a bit of malicious pleasure in the strangled sound that comes from her direction as her attempts to speak die in her throat?

  An awful artifact of an older time, Tarra explains without taking her eyes off the object, as if it were a snake that might bite.

  Flower, clearly sensing that Tarra’s explanation hasn’t the least satisfied me, hesitantly expands.

  It is a tale which only those of us Pathwalkers who survive more than six great cycles in the sisterhood are told. She hesitates, but then sees my hard gaze on her and feels the impatience in the link. But I’m sure that since one of the control stones has survived what we thought was complete destruction, no one will mind me revealing it to others.

  “Who else knew of this story before today?” I ask first.

  I did, answers simultaneously three of my Pathwalkers – Tarra, Flower, and Windy. I nod slowly. That makes sense if the Pathwalkers have to survive for six years before they are let in on the secret. And why such a long time? Given what I’ve heard so far – Flying-blade’s accusations, ‘control stone’, I have to guess that it’s capable of controlling samurans. Perhaps the delay is to discover whether the Pathwalker has any tendency for domination before giving them ideas of what their forebearers did. I wonder whether the shaman knew about it. Probably – I think she was older even than Windy, from what I’ve heard.

  Is that where she got her idea about controlling spirits and using them to defend the village from? It surprises me that Sticks doesn’t know, but perhaps she hasn’t been a Pathwalker for long enough. I think this was her fifth Festival. Either way, my curiosity has been piqued sufficiently to want to know more. And from the looks of those around me, almost everyone wants Flower to continue too. Whether it’s because they’re genuinely interested, because they are eager to know why this attack happened at all, or they want to buy time to recover, no one objects to Flower relating the tale.

  “Go ahead,” I prompt her. With a final look at her sisters, Flower swallows and then continues speaking.

  Long, long ago there was apparently a samuran who rose to power. Not much is known about her after her first Evolution, but the tales say that she was particularly weak, and the lowest of all her sisters. Some even say that she was treated barely better than an Unevolved because she was forced to fight as one.

  But she managed to Evolve a second time, taking everyone by surprise. And her power transformed into something previously unseen – the power to control other samurans by touching their souls. She stops, looking at me with a grim air. And if the tales are anything to go by she was by no means as gentle as you are about it. I look away, Flying-blade’s odd accusation of me wanting to ‘have her soul’ coming back to mind. Is this why?

  The tales tell that she took complete control in the cycle after she Evolved, and then she led her village through the forest on a rampage. The once-powerless Pathwalker became a bloodthirsty leader, rivalling one of the Great beasts in both her urge to conquer and her ability to do so.

  Entering another village, her soul-bound creatures would rip through them and convert their strongest to her, soul-binding them in their turn. There are records of it feeling like a…taint spreading across their souls, and focussing the attention of her soul-bound on her needs and desires alone. Records also state that many of her followers apparently dropped dead of no obvious cause, their deaths the result of their souls being eaten, never to go back to the ancestors.

  The way her soul-bound were able to soul-bind others was due to something she created: these control stones, Flower said, pointing at the item which sits on the earth between Flying-blade and me. The product of her evil power and the Cores of Great beasts. An extension of her power which could ensnare any being it came into physical contact with, forcing them to obey whoever held the braid of roots which wrap the soul-binder in a net.

  A nasty thought suddenly comes to mind. I pin Flying-blade with a fiery glare. She quails back for a moment before catching herself and meeting my eyes with a furious anger that almost matches my own.

  “Tell me honestly: was this your plan? To use this dark device to enslave those who you did not kill? Was that your ultimate plan?”

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