Forge of Darkness

TEN

Risp watched captain Esthala throw on her cloak and tug her gauntlets from her swordbelt. There was the taste of iron in the air, a pungent aura of panic spreading through the hidden camp. The day was fast drawing to a close, shadows engulfing the spaces between the crags. Esthala’s husband, Silann, had dismounted to help down one of his wounded soldiers. Risp turned and studied the battered troop, seeing faces flushed and faces pale and taut with pain, seeing the blood splashed on most of the soldiers and the tenderness with which they pulled bodies down, and the way the horses stamped and tossed heads in the aftermath of battle. A moment later Esthala walked past her to accost her husband.

‘Have you lost your mind?’ she hissed, but not quietly enough to be missed by the nearby soldiers. ‘This was not supposed to happen.’

He shot her a glare. ‘A caravan. We recognized one of the guards, and for damned certain he recognized us!’

‘What of it? A dozen old soldiers on the trail — that means nothing!’

‘A disbanded unit once more under arms, you mean. And to that old man it meant something. I think even the one commanding those guards had marked us as being in the wrong place at the wrong time. But listen, Esthala, it’s been taken care of. No survivors barring a child who was quick to run off — and who’d listen to a child? The caravan was struck by bandits and that is all.’ His rush of words ended and he stood staring at his wife, his face smeared in dirty sweat.

‘A child escaped you? Go back and hunt him down!’

‘He’ll never survive the hills. No food, no water. The night will probably kill him — he looked no more than six years old. He rode out across a mudflat and lost his horse to it.’

‘Then he should be easy enough to find,’ said Esthala, crossing her arms.

Silann was scowling. ‘I’m not in the habit of killing children.’

‘I will lead a troop if you deem it necessary,’ said Risp, drawing them both around. Fed up with this unprofessional display, where whatever marital problems they possessed continually overwhelmed all propriety, she continued in a reasonable tone, ‘Silann’s unit is all chewed up. They’re tired and they have friends to bury.’

‘And what think you Hunn Raal will say to this?’ Esthala demanded. ‘We’re not yet ready for open bloodshed. You said so yourself.’

Risp shrugged. ‘My cousin understands the risks. You have plenty of country to cross, and thinking you can do it unseen is unrealistic. I agree with Silann that we need not worry about some hysterical, shocked child, but if you wish it, captain, I will find that child and we can put this matter to rest. Silann,’ she added, one brow lifting, ‘it seems your soldiers are out of shape. A few caravan guards mauled you badly.’

‘Veterans among those guards, Risp. And the old man was Gripp.’

‘Gripp Galas?’

‘The same. He killed the first two who came at him.’

‘How did he fall?’

‘A spear to the back.’

‘Who fired the wagons?’ Esthala demanded.

Silann turned away. ‘That was a mistake.’

Risp said nothing. The venom between husband and wife was growing ever more vicious. There was a son who had left the family, Risp recalled, taking the priestly orders and so disappointing his ambitious parents. No doubt they each blamed the other, but it was likely not the least of their mutual irritations. Glancing away, she could see the pillars of black smoke in the distance to the south, rising above the rough rocks. ‘Is Hish Tulla in residence at her keep? Does anyone know?’

‘No,’ replied Esthala in a tone that could dull knife blades. ‘She is still in Kharkanas.’

‘So it’s not likely they’ll investigate. As I recall, that old castellan of hers has no imagination and isn’t one to abandon the keep on account of a little smoke. If he sends anyone, it’ll be tomorrow and you’ll be long gone from these hills. I’ll catch you up on the north road.’

‘Take six of your own,’ Esthala told her. ‘If you come upon anyone from Tulla Keep, offer to ride with them if any searching takes place, and do not take no for an answer. I doubt they will look beyond the scene of the fight itself. The burnt loot is a problem — that’s a hoard of wealth gone up in smoke, after all.’ She fixed her husband with another iron glare. ‘See to your soldiers, husband.’

Risp gestured to her sergeant who stood a few paces away. ‘Ready the horses. Choose five with tracking skills and good eyes.’

‘Yes sir,’ the man replied.

She watched the old veteran walk back to her unit’s camp. Hunn Raal had awarded her the rank of lieutenant and she was well pleased with it. Not her fault the best of the war was over by the time she reached an age suitable to soldiering. It was satisfying giving orders and seeing them followed without question, and this was just the beginning. Soon, they would all stand in the Grand Hall of the Citadel, eyes level with those of the highborn. She and her sisters were destined for the personal staff under Osserc, once he took command of the Legion. And it was clear that, even though Esthala technically outranked her, the real power here was with Risp, as she had just shown. She counted it among her own virtues that she could distil pleasure from the most extreme fiascos and disasters, and this mess was surely both.

Gripp Galas. That was unfortunate. Once footman to Anomander himself and proven in the wars. Anomander should never have let the fool retire.

Frowning, she watched two soldiers of Silann’s troop stagger off with a body between them. They had to hold it carefully balanced as the man had been disembowelled by a single sword cut. Gripp was said to have a temper in a fight. She wagered that was his work. That man had died in pain. She walked over to Esthala.

‘Captain, I am wondering about something.’

Distracted and perhaps, now that she’d cooled down, also embarrassed, Esthala shrugged. ‘Go on.’

‘I am wondering what in the name of the Abyss was Gripp Galas doing with that traders’ caravan.’

Esthala faced her husband again. ‘Silann! Tell me, did you examine Gripp’s body? His gear?’

The man looked over and shook his head. ‘The spear point in the back took him off his horse. His corpse rolled into a damned crevasse, fell right out of sight.’

Esthala stepped towards him. ‘Didn’t you go down after him? To make certain that he was dead?’

‘He left a blood trail thick with gore — and that crevasse was bottomless.’

‘Gore?’ Risp asked. ‘Whose gore? He was stabbed in the back. Silann,’ she continued, struggling to control her panic, ‘bring us the soldier who stabbed Gripp. I want to see the spear point. I want to hear how the blow felt — was Gripp wearing armour? Was Gripp wearing leather, as befits a caravan guard, or chain, as befits a covert agent?’

The blood had left Silann’s face. ‘That man died to the leader of the caravan guards — who was clearly another veteran.’

‘The gutted one or the one with no throat left? That one? Have you his weapon?’

A few moments later one of Silann’s soldiers collected up and delivered the dead man’s spear; as Risp reached for the weapon, Esthala stepped close and took it instead. Ignoring Risp’s scowl, the captain studied the iron point. ‘Might have struck chain — I see the bite of snapped links. The tip’s bloody, so it went through… about three fingers’ worth. If it severed the spine then Gripp’s dead or paralysed. Anywhere else and he’s wounded but not fatally so.’

‘He fell down a damned crevasse!’ Silann shouted.

‘Fell or rolled down it?’ Esthala demanded. ‘Did you see it happen?’

Swearing under her breath, Risp made her way back to her troop. ‘Muster out six more, sergeant! This hunt has turned serious.’

The sun was low in the western sky when Sukul Ankhadu summoned Rancept to the top floor of the High Tower. Upon the castellan’s wheezing arrival, she gestured to the large window. ‘I trust you have been made aware of smoke to the east.’

Rancept, it was said, was the offspring of a drunken woman and a sadly sober boar. Such observations were rarely made to his face, of course, because Rancept had his father’s temper, and enough brawn to make a bear cower. The castellan’s face looked familiar with tavern floors, his nose broken and mashed by countless brawls in his youth, unfortunately pushed back to give it the appearance of a pig’s snout. His teeth were uneven and stained and ragged from years of mouth-breathing. He was rumoured to be a thousand years old and as bone-weary as a man twice his age.

At her query he squinted at the window.

‘You’ll have to step closer to see it from here,’ said Sukul.

He made no move. ‘Mistress wants us stayin’ put, milady. Says there’s trouble on the way.’

‘Closer than we think, yes? That smoke smells to me of burning hides.’

‘Does it now, milady?’

‘You will have to take my word on that, castellan.’

He grunted, still squinting at the window. ‘Suppose I will at that.’

‘There was a highborn riding with those wagons. A boy of five or six years of age. On his way to the Wise City. To the Citadel, in fact. A child of the Korlas family.’

Rancept pawed at the silver stubble on his jaw. ‘Korlas? Good soldier. Always sad. Heard he killed himself.’

‘Officially died in his sleep or something like that.’

‘Festered wound I think it was, milady.’

‘You’re trying my patience, castellan.’

His squint narrowed until his eyes were thin slits. ‘I do that, yes.’

‘I want us to ride out — tonight — and catch up to that caravan. If there are bandits that close to us, we need to know.’

‘Not bandits, milady.’

‘I know that, you oaf! So who attacked them and are we under threat?’

He grunted a second time. ‘Safe enough up here.’

‘I insist we ride out! I want fifteen Houseblades, and a fist of tracking dogs!’

‘You’ll get one Houseblade, milady, and Ribs.’

‘Ribs? That dog is constantly surprised by the smell of its own butt! And one Houseblade isn’t enough — you are supposed to accord me proper protection.’

‘And I will, milady,’ and he now turned to her, showing his teeth. ‘That one will be me.’

‘Castellan, forgive me, but walking up the stairs to get here nearly burst your heart.’

‘Hardly, milady. My heart’s just fine and so is the rest of me, barring this nose you keep trying to not look at.’

‘Abyss below. Then it shall be you and me, castellan.’

‘And Ribs, milady.’

‘Find yourself a horse-’

‘On foot,’ he said. ‘It’s quieter.’

‘But look at me — I’m all dressed to ride!’

‘Me and Ribs will be waitin’ downstairs, milady.’

Orfantal crouched in a hollow surrounded by shattered boulders. The sky overhead was black, overcast, and the darkness on all sides had stolen away all the familiar features he had looked upon a short while earlier. In his imagination the world was now transformed, seething with motion. He heard strange sounds, stared helplessly into the blackness where he thought he saw something staring back at him.

He missed his blanket, and the fire of the caravan guards, which was kept alive through each night and which he’d find when awakening with a start, forgetting where he was and frightened — but that smudge of coals and the occasional flicker of flame seen through the tent’s thin fabric always righted him again. But now there was nothing, no tent, no Gripp snoring and muttering under his breath. He was alone and he felt nothing like a hero.

Shivers raced through him. He remembered his daydreams of a bandit attack, and just as in that story he had fled into the night, into the hills. But the truth of it, here in this hollow, was nothing like that epic adventure. His feet were numb; his hands hung heavy and insensate at the ends of his wrists, and he felt the beckoning of sleep, as if the cold were drifting away.

He had not crawled far from the basin where his horse had died. The hills had seemed too vast, too threatening to venture deep into. If he lost sight of the basin, he’d lose sight of the road, and then he’d be lost. The truth was, his courage had failed him and he felt ashamed. The smell of his own urine mocked him. He could taste his own betrayal, bitter and sickening, and again and again the shudder of the horse echoed through him — the feel of life leaving it as he hugged its neck. It did not deserve that kind of end, driven forward in fear, pushed into exhaustion, guided by a foolish boy. What would he tell Wreneck? He would rather the bandits had cut him down instead.

He gave up on his fear of the night and closed his eyes. He’d stopped shivering and that was good.

A footfall on gravel dragged him awake. His heart pounded hard and seemed to swell inside his chest. He struggled to breathe.

From over his head, atop the boulder he leaned his back against, a voice drifted down. ‘There you are.’

With a soft cry, Orfantal tried to lunge forward, but his legs gave way beneath him.

‘Easy! It’s me, old Gripp.’

The man edged down into the hollow, alongside Orfantal. A hand settled on his shoulder. ‘You’re chilled as the Abyss. I made up a camp nearby, scavenged some bedding. Can you stand?’

Tears were streaming down from Orfantal’s eyes, but apart from that first cry no sound would come from him. Shame was flooding back into him. He tried to get up but failed again.

‘You wouldn’t have lasted the night. Good thing I found you. That thing with the horse, that was a smart move — no way they was going to follow you out there.’ As he was speaking he gathered up Orfantal in his arms. ‘Lie still. It’ll be all right. I got to move slow, got a hurt back and a wrenched knee.’ And now Orfantal could feel the man limping as he carried him; a rhythmic sagging to the left as Gripp tried to put weight on that leg. The old man’s skin was slick with sweat, a detail that Orfantal could not understand. ‘Just a little further. Can’t have no fire, though.’

Orfantal found that his eyes were adjusting and he could now make out the looming shapes of rocks and sheer cliffsides as Gripp worked up along a narrow trail. He then angled left, off the path, wending slowly between boulders, his breaths growing harsh.

There was an odd echo to those gasps and Gripp settled down to one knee. ‘We’re here.’

They were in a rock shelter, a shallow cave. Beneath Orfantal, as he was set down, was dry, powdery sand, and he settled into it. Gripp moved away and came back with a rough woollen blanket. It was not the one Orfantal’s grandmother had given him and it wasn’t Gripp’s own, which he remembered for its smell of the sage leaves which Gripp kept in a long cloth bag and folded into the bedroll when rolling it up every morning. This blanket stank of sweat and something else, pungent and musty. Once Gripp had wrapped Orfantal in its rough weave he began rubbing hard at the boy’s limbs, beginning with his feet and working his way up to his thighs; and then repeating the same rapid motions along Orfantal’s arms.

The effort brought warmth along with prickling irritation, and after a moment Orfantal pushed the hands away and curled up in the blanket.

‘Shivering again. That’s good, Orfantal. I was damned lucky to find you in time. I know you want to sleep but sleep’s not good right now. Wait a bit, wait till you feel good and warm.’

‘Where are the others? Did you fight them off?’

‘No, we didn’t fight them off. Though Haral gave a good account of himself. Migil and Thennis tried running off but got cut down from behind — fools. When you see it’s hopeless that’s when you stand. Breaking just sees you dead quicker and there’s nothing more shameful than a death-wound to the back.’ He paused and then grunted. ‘Unless you’re surrounded, of course. Then getting stabbed in the back is usually the way and there’s no shame in that.’

‘Heroes always get stabbed in the back,’ said Orfantal.

‘Not just heroes, Orfantal.’ Gripp had eased himself down into a sitting position, tenderly settling against the stone wall. ‘You know how to sew?’

The question confused him. After a moment he said, ‘I have seen the maids doing it.’

‘Good. Come light you’ve got some sewing to do.’

‘Are we going to make me some more clothes?’

‘No. Now listen, this is important. I need to sleep, too, and it might be that I don’t wake up.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean I don’t know how bad off I am. I think the flow’s eased but there’s no telling what that means. We’ll see. But if I don’t wake up, you’ve got to follow the road, east — the way we were going — but listen, stay off it, stay under cover. Just move alongside of the road, you understand? And if you hear riders, hide. Keep going until you’re out of the hills and then go to the nearest farm you see. Don’t try to explain anything or even tell them your bloodline — they won’t believe you. Just see if you can get a way into Kharkanas, even if it takes a week before a wagon of produce heads in. Once there, head straight for the Citadel.’

‘I understand. I will.’ And he felt for and found the tiny tin tube containing the missive Sukul had written for Hish Tulla, tucked into his belt pouch.

‘They made a mistake,’ Gripp continued, but now it seemed he was mostly talking to himself. ‘More than one, in fact. Me. You. I saw Silann, Esthala’s worthless husband. The fool never could command a unit in battle. But if he’s there then Esthala’s not far away, and she’s sharp enough. They’ll go back to the kill site, intent on tracking you from there and finishing things. But first they’ll look for my body and not find it and that will bother them more than you getting away.’ His head lifted and Orfantal sensed Gripp was looking at him once more. ‘We’re going to be quarry, you and me, as long as we’re in these hills.’

‘Hunted,’ said Orfantal.

‘Take your story to Lord Anomander, boy, no matter what.’

‘I will. Mother told me all about him.’

‘If they find our trail, I may have to lead them away from you. On my own, I mean.’

‘All right.’

He grunted. ‘You’re figuring it out. That’s fast, Orfantal. Good.’

‘Gripp, did you kill any of them?’

‘Two for sure and that pained me.’

‘Why?’

‘Wounded is better. I wounded two more and that was good. Haral tried for the same. Remember him, Orfantal. He saw you riding away. He knew he had to buy you time, and the more wounded the enemy had to deal with the better your chances. He took cuts to deliver cuts. Haral was a good man.’

Orfantal nodded. A good man. A hero. ‘Did you see him die, Gripp?’

‘No. I lost consciousness for a time — the crack I rolled into was deeper than I’d thought it would be. By the time I made my way back out the killers were gone.’

‘They set fire to the skins.’

‘Idiots, like I said. But I found Haral. They took it out on his body, if you catch my meaning.’

‘That’s a cowardly thing to do!’

‘No, just undisciplined. But I got their faces burned into my brain. I got them in here, Orfantal, and if I live, they’ll all regret what they did. Now, it’s time to sleep.’

Orfantal settled down, warm inside the blanket. But notions of sleep seemed far away now. Gripp’s story rocked and bounced through his thoughts. Warriors battling to the death, the air filled with desperation. And in the midst of it all, he saw this old man now sleeping beside him, and it seemed impossible to think of him as a warrior. He closed his eyes, and sudden as a flash, sleep took him.

Ribs was an old herding dog, at least twelve years old, with a grey muzzle, oversized ears that flicked and cocked with every quick turn of the narrow, fox-like head. The long fur was a dishevelled blend of grey and black, snarled with burrs and filthy. The beast’s eyes were vaguely crossed.

Sukul stared down at it while Castellan Rancept checked the muting straps of his weapons one more time. Torchlight flickered across the courtyard. The gate guards stood waiting at a small postern door to the left of the gate tower. The air was cold and sharp.

Rancept lumbered up to her and nodded. ‘Ready?’

‘This thing’s all bones.’

‘Tapeworm, milady.’

‘Aren’t there treatments for that?’

‘A few. But skinny dogs live longer.’ With that he turned and made his way towards the gate, Ribs trotting along happily at his side.

Rancept had confiscated the sword she’d selected, along with the spear, leaving her a dagger. None of this was going as planned. The castellan was stubborn and too quick to take charge of things, when she’d wanted to be the one in command. Of course, it was something of a victory that they were going at all. He could have forbidden her outright. She followed him to the postern door and watched as the heavy bars were pulled. As soon as the door was drawn open, Ribs slipped out.

‘Where’s he going?’ Sukul demanded.

‘Scouting the trail ahead, milady.’

She grunted. ‘He’ll probably take us to the nearest squirrel hole.’

‘Ribs knows what we’re about.’

‘How?’

They were outside now and the door was pushed shut behind them. She heard the thump of the bars falling back into place.

At her question, Rancept shrugged. ‘I wander on occasion.’

‘The hills?’

‘If we need to talk to the Deniers. It’s important to Lady Hish that there’s no misunderstandings.’

‘Deniers? Bandits, you mean.’

‘It’s a hard scrape living in these hills, milady. There’s road taxes, if you like.’

‘Extortion.’

‘And Lady Hish’s tithe on travellers? Extortion’s a big word. It’s only extortion when someone else is doing it.’

They were making their way down the rough-hewn steps. The heavy clouds that had come in with dusk were now breaking up, stars showing through here and there. The temperature was fast dropping.

‘Tulla Hold was granted this land by royal charter,’ said Sukul. ‘A tithe is legal and necessary. Robbing people at the roadside isn’t. But now you’re hinting that Lady Hish had an arrangement with those thieves.’

Ribs was waiting at the middle landing, another half-dozen steps down. When Rancept and Sukul reached the dog, the animal suddenly left the descent, instead cutting across the boulders of the scree to the left of the stairs.

‘As I said,’ Sukul noted. ‘Some rock rat’s got Ribs hungry for more worms.’

But Rancept had halted. ‘We’re not taking the road, milady. There’s a track running above it on this side. It’s well hidden and don’t start up for a ways. Follow me.’

‘What kind of arrangement?’ Sukul asked as they clambered over the boulders.

‘Before they started working the mines,’ Rancept said, once more wheezing, ‘they made cheese from the goats they kept. And fine, soft leather, too. But more important, they kept an eye on the traffic. There’s a track some travellers take that avoids Tulla Hold.’

‘Cheating the tithe? That’s pathetic.’

‘Sometimes it’s that. Sometimes it’s just people who don’t want to be seen.’

‘What kind of people?’

Beyond the boulders, Ribs vanished between two sheer outcrops.

‘We’re at the trail now,’ Rancept said. ‘Time for the talking to end. Night carries voices, and the hills can channel sounds a long way. If you need my attention, just tap my shoulder. Otherwise, we move quietly now.’

‘This is ridiculous — I can still see the keep’s light from here.’

‘If we’re going to argue, milady, we can turn round right now. But I’ll tell you this. Look at Ribs.’

The animal had reappeared and was seated just ahead. ‘What about him?’ Sukul asked.

‘Strangers in the hills, milady. That’s what Ribs is telling us.’

To her eyes the animal looked no different from any other time she’d seen it. There was no way to tell where it was looking with those crossed eyes. But as Rancept moved forward, the dog wheeled and raced up the trail again. Tugging tight her slightly oversized gloves, she followed.

For all his size, the castellan moved quietly, not once glancing back to see if she kept pace. This latter detail irritated her and she wanted to hiss at him, since she was getting tired and the trail seemed to go on for ever. Her boots pinched her feet; her nose was running and she’d begun using the back of one hand to wipe at it, and that was staining the fine leather of the glove. Even more annoying, there was nothing bold in this venture. She’d wanted a dozen well-armoured and grim-faced riders at her back, each one ready to give up his or her life at her word. She’d wanted the thunder of horse hoofs and the clatter of iron and wooden scabbards.

Beneath all of this was the conviction that an innocent little boy was lying dead somewhere ahead of them, killed for no good reason but the silence his death would ensure. She’d taken enough hints from Hish Tulla that there was trouble in the realm. The whole thing seemed ridiculous. Peace had been won, but she knew that the hunger for fighting was not yet done with. It was never done with, and there were people in the world who wanted nothing else, since lawlessness was their nature.

Sukul did not have to look far to see such people; she counted her sisters among them. They delighted in all manner of lusts, and the wilder their environs the more base their desires. If she was honest with herself, there was something of that in her as well. But the reality — including this cold, night-shrouded ordeal — was proving more crass than what the imagination offered in all those idle moments when boredom was a shout inside the skull.

She’d made promises to that boy, to that lost bastard of the Korlas line. They seemed both empty and wasted, and the rush of secrecy she’d felt, looking upon his wide, innocent eyes, was now a source of guilt. She’d played at being grown-up, but it had been a childish game none the less. What if they’d tortured Orfantal? Was Hish Tulla now in danger?

Half the night was gone, and still they padded along. All Sukul wanted to do now was stop, rest, even sleep.

The swirl of stars had spun half round when she collided with Rancept’s back — she’d not been looking ahead, eyes instead on those now-dusty boots that were torturing her feet. Grunting at the collision, she stumbled back, but a hand snapped out to right her, and then that hand drew her close.

She smelled the lanolin of the thick sheepskin jacket he was wearing, and somehow the familiarity of it steadied her.

He leaned down. ‘Riders ahead,’ he said in a whisper.

Sukul looked past him, but Ribs was nowhere in sight.

‘No questions,’ he continued as she started to speak, and his other hand pressed against her mouth, but just briefly — before panic could take her. ‘We wait for Ribs.’

Bandits had carved out numerous hidden trails through these hills, and Risp led her dozen soldiers along one of them that would bring them out on to the road close to where they’d seen the smoke. The old Denier camps they’d come across were abandoned, at least a season old, but she knew the cause of that: the Hust Forge’s demand for ore had grown prodigious of late, for reasons not one of Hunn Raal’s spies could glean. In any case, banditry had been given up and now those miners were growing wealthy with Hust coin.

Thoughts of the Hust Legion — perhaps soon to be bolstered by new recruits — left her disquieted. Every cry for peace was echoed by the beating of iron into blades. No one was fooled unless they willed it upon themselves. Civil war was coming. Hunn Raal meant it to be short; necessarily bloody, true enough, but short.

Urusander escorted to Kharkanas by his triumphant Legion, every enemy of the realm dispensed with and feeding the weeds; an end to the divisiveness and all these private armies; a grand marriage to bind the military and the faith: this was the proper path awaiting them. The Hust Forge would fall under the command of Urusander’s Legion, and that cursed Hust Legion would be gone, disbanded, their dreadful weapons melted down into slag. Houseblades would be reduced to a modest family and estate guard, with prohibitions against re-arming. The Borderswords and the Wardens of the Outer Reach would be folded into the Legion, under Osserc’s command. In this way, peace would be won.

The best solutions were the simple ones. Besides, she had liked the look of the Wardens of the Outer Reach, and had thoughts of commanding them at some point. Her first order would be the burning down of Glimmer Fate, followed by the killing of the naked wolves and whatever other terrible beasts dwelt in those black grasses. They could then face the Vitr directly, and meet its challenge from a position of strength. If an invasion from that sea was forthcoming, she would stand ready for it upon its very shore.

Urusander placed much value in merit; he cared not if the blood was low or highborn among his officers. That was why the nobles hated him so. Calat Hustain was highborn and this alone granted him the privilege and power of command — and Risp had well seen the result of that: the Wardens were little more than a rabble, devoid of discipline and far too respectful of eccentricity among the ranks. She would change all of that.

Assuming any survived the purge.

They emerged from a narrow, choked avenue between crags, moving on to a level clearing partly encircled by low stone huts. An old fire-pit marked the centre, ringed in flat slabs of shale. Off to one side, near the far end, was a heap of animal bones and rubbish. Risp reined in beside the fire-pit. She never liked places of abandonment. They seemed redolent with failure. People were generally disinclined to move; only necessity forced them from a place, whether it was pressure from stronger neighbours or the loss of clean water or sufficient game. For these herders who were, no doubt, occasional bandits, it had been the call of wealth. Everyone took the coin road sooner or later, with haunted, hungry eyes. She eyed the pile of bones and fought a shiver.

Her sergeant pulled up alongside her. ‘Not far now, I should think,’ he said in a soft growl.

She glanced across at him. He was one of Hunn Raal’s men. He had lost most of his toes on both feet to frostbite in the wars against the Jheleck, and now wore boots inserted with wooden plugs. He walked badly but rode well. ‘When we arrive,’ she said, ‘we should wait for dawn.’

He nodded, tugging at the strap of his helm. ‘These hills don’t seem as empty as they should, lieutenant. It’s just a feeling, but I’ve learned to trust what my gut’s telling me.’

‘All right.’

‘I’d advise two scouts ahead and two trailing, sir.’

‘Do it,’ Risp said, and watched as he communicated his orders with a half-dozen terse gestures. Two women rode ahead to where the trail resumed beyond the clearing.

The sergeant nodded to Risp.

They set out once more. The sky was paling with false dawn and the air was bitterly cold. Breaths plumed. Wending between crags again, the path began a stuttered descent and she guessed that they were nearing the road. The hoofs of the two horses ahead clopped and scrabbled on loose stones; the riders’ silhouettes were hunched over, one to each side, eyes on the trail although surely it was too dark to see much. In any case, they were all making noise, loud enough to Risp’s ears to announce their presence to anyone within a thousand paces in these hills.

The track levelled and a short time later they reached the road, riding up on to it. Here the stench of foul smoke was acrid in the air. ‘East, I think,’ said the sergeant.

They reached the site of the battle where the road made a sharp bend. The two wagons had burned down, although embers still gleamed amidst the charred wreckage and ash. The beasts that had drawn them were nowhere to be seen. The bodies of the slain formed a kind of row on the road, two of them blackened by their proximity to the fired wagons, their clothes burned off to reveal swollen limbs and split torsos, the hair roasted away and the skin of their pates curled back to expose smoke-blackened skulls.

Dismounting beside the two scorched corpses, Risp could feel the heat from the embers just beyond them, and the pleasure she gained from that warm breath felt perverse. Silann was a liability, and the proof of that was all around them. Gripp might well have been one of Anomander’s spies, but to Risp’s mind the news of a troop of disbanded Legion soldiers on the road heading west was not a back-breaker — both Gripp and his lord would have little more than questions, with few answers forthcoming. Besides, if Anomander was not yet prowling with hackles raised, then he was both blind and a fool, and that man was neither.

The spilling of blood here was the real disaster to her mind. Especially if old Gripp had escaped the carnage.

‘Here, sir,’ said the sergeant, and she saw him standing a dozen or so paces away, where the road’s ditch dropped down against the out-cropping that marked the bend.

Risp joined him. The man gestured to a crack at the base of the out-crop. ‘He went down there, and I’d wager he rolled.’

‘Rather than fell? Why?’

‘There’s a rise before the edge, rubble and dirt sifting down from the cliff. You don’t slip uphill, sir. He’d have needed to work to get over that.’

She went to stand on the edge, leaning over to peer down. ‘But he couldn’t have guessed how deep, though.’

‘True enough,’ the man agreed. ‘It’s a good chance he broke his neck, if that goes down any distance. Or his legs, depending on how he landed.’

‘They couldn’t see all the way down,’ Risp muttered. ‘But they didn’t drop a rope and make sure either.’

‘Panic, sir,’ said the sergeant. ‘It can take anyone, like a hand to the throat. They had wounded and fallen comrades. They needed to get off the road, out of sight.’

Risp snorted. ‘You’re too forgiving, sergeant.’

‘Just seeing how it was, sir. We ain’t none of us immune to making mistakes.’

‘I wouldn’t have made this one,’ she replied.

‘No sir, we wouldn’t have.’

Not with you at my side, you mean. I’ll earn your respect yet, old man. ‘I don’t want to wait and wonder, sergeant. Lanterns, rope, let’s get on with this.’

‘Yes sir. You want it should be me climbing down?’

‘No. I’ll do it.’

‘Lieutenant-’

‘I’ll do it, I said. Tie the rope’s end to the lantern handle — we’ll see if we can lower it straight down. Did he hit ledges on the way down? Anything to break his fall? The light will show us.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘And get a burial detail for these poor guards. It’s the least we can do.’

When Ribs finally reappeared, the dog’s burr-snagged tail was wagging. Rancept’s grunt was soft. ‘Caught the echoes,’ he then said in a low voice.

‘What?’ Sukul demanded.

‘Riders, coming down from the north. Heading for the road. And they ain’t bandits.’

‘And you know all this from a wagging tail?’

‘That and the drooping left ear.’

There was no way to tell if he was serious and in any case she was already fed up with him and this whole venture. ‘How many riders?’

He seemed to be studying her in the gloom, and he made no reply.

After a moment she sighed. ‘Can we get going again? I’m cold.’

Ribs disappeared once again as soon as they rose. A short time later they came to a clearing. She saw the dog at the mouth of a trail to their right, just beyond a jumble of goat and sheep bones. Low stone houses offered up black doorways in an uneven ring around the expanse, like open, sagging mouths; she half expected to hear sorrowful moans drifting out from them.

‘This is how bandits live?’ she asked.

Rancept glanced back at her. ‘They used it, yes. But those huts have been standing there for five thousand years at least.’

She looked at them with renewed interest. ‘How do you know that?’

‘They’re old, milady. You’ll just have to take my word for it. About a dozen horses crossed this clearing. Went down where Ribs is. We’re about two thousand paces from the road here. They’ll come out just down from the ambush, but it’s a loose descent and there’s a chance they’ll hear us. There’s a bend on the road, just east of here. We can use another trail to take us opposite it.’

Rancept swung left and made his way towards one of the stone houses. Ribs leapt up and scampered to the castellan’s side, but halted at the threshold of the doorway.

Sukul saw the animal sink down, tail dipping.

‘Back of the hut,’ said Rancept when she joined him. ‘There’s a slab on the floor, with stone bosses set in a frame.’

‘A tunnel?’

‘A passageway,’ said Rancept. ‘But it cuts through rock we can’t climb over. Took a bit of work but it’s now clear enough for us to use.’

‘Why did you do that?’

Instead of answering, he ducked and disappeared inside the hut. Ribs edged in after him.

When she followed, she found herself stepping down a sharp slope to a sunken floor of flat stones set in earth. The ceiling was high enough for her to stand without hunching, but she was short for her age. Rancept was bent over like a drunk looking for his feet. He made his way to the far end and began working loose the stone trap. She edged up alongside him. ‘Do all the huts have these?’

‘No,’ he replied in a grunt, levering up the door.

Roots had made a tangled web across the tunnel and would have proved impassable but for Rancept’s past efforts at hacking a way through. Sukul frowned. ‘But there are no trees,’ she said.

He lowered himself into the hole, and then paused to look up at her. ‘The roots belong to a tree, but not the way you’d think.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘You’ll see.’ With those muffled words, he sank down and out of sight.

Sukul glanced at Ribs. The animal was shivering. ‘You don’t like this place, do you?’

The crazed eyes gleamed, catching the reflection from some unknown source of light. Noticing that, Sukul’s frown deepened and she looked round. She should have been blind, lost in pitch black; instead, she could make out every detail in this hut: the way the angled flat slabs were perfectly fitted to make the sloped walls, with no signs of mortar; the pit in the centre, artfully ringed in stone, that would have once held a cookfire. But there was no obvious source of light. Shivering, she worked her way down the hole in Rancept’s wake.

The cut ends of thick roots snagged her clothing and dug into her flesh. Tendrils dragged through her hair, earth sifting down. The air was close and surprisingly warm, smelling of mud. She had no idea how Rancept had managed to push his bulk through this tunnel, but he was little more than a vague smudge ahead and was still working his way forward.

Whatever faint, ethereal light had been emanating in the hut behind her, it did not reach far into this passage and soon she was groping her way, fingers brushing roots, and instead of lined stones to either side she found damp clay. There was nothing holding in place the walls or ceiling and she felt a thrill of fear rush through her. From ahead came a faint breath of cooler air.

She could hear Ribs behind her, scrabbling and snuffling.

A moment later her outstretched fingers found nothing and she froze in place. ‘Rancept?’

‘Let yourself adjust,’ he said from somewhere ahead.

‘Adjust to what? There’s no light!’

‘So stop looking with your eyes.’

‘What else should I look with? My thumbs?’

The dog edged past her, dirty fur against her high boot and then the roll of ribs beneath the slack skin. The beast was aptly named. Hands still held out, grasping empty air, she sensed that they were in a cavern. Reaching up, she found no ceiling.

‘This is Dog-Runner magic,’ said Rancept.

‘That’s impossible. There were never any Dog-Runners this far east.’

‘This wasn’t always Tiste land, milady.’

That made no sense either. ‘We were always here. No one argues with that, castellan. You’ve not had much schooling. That’s not your fault, by the way. It’s just how it turned out for you and your family.’

‘Dog-Runner magic is all about fire, and earth. Dog-Runner magic fears the sky. Fire and earth, and tree and root. They’re gone from here because the forests are gone.’

‘Folk tales.’

But he went on. ‘There’s Dog-Runner blood in the Deniers, who hold on in what’s left of the forests of the realm. Pushing them out was easy — just cut down the forests. Didn’t need any war. Didn’t need to round them up or anything. They just melted away. You call all that folk tales, milady. As you like, but this here is a Dog-Runner temple, and if you open your senses, it’ll show itself to you.’

Ribs was back around her legs, trembling. ‘Why is your dog so scared, Rancept?’

‘Memories of the Ay,’ he said in a mutter.

She had no idea what he meant. ‘Just take my hand and lead me across. We have things to do, and lounging in some buried temple isn’t one of them.’

‘Sorry, milady.’ A moment later he took hold of her right hand, with fingers gnarled and rough as roots. ‘Just step, the ground’s level.’

When he guided her forward, however, it was clear that he was taking a circuitous route. ‘What are we going around, Rancept?’

‘It don’t matter, milady.’

‘Tell me.’

‘Easier to look than describe. Very well, uneducated as I am, I’ll try. There’s a Dog-Runner witch squatting on the altar.’

‘What! Someone else is in here?’

‘She won’t bother you. Might be she’s dead but I don’t think so. She’s sleeping, I think.’

Sukul pulled up. ‘All right, you win. Tell me how to see.’

‘Close your eyes-’

At that nonsensical beginning she snorted, in spite of her fear.

‘Close your eyes,’ he said again, this time more forcefully. ‘Picture a cavern in your mind. Earthen walls, a sagging dome for a ceiling. Roots everywhere, even underfoot if you care to feel them. Pushed into the walls all around you are wolf skulls, but bigger wolf skulls than any you’ve ever seen. Big as horse skulls. Those are the Ay, who run with the Dog-Runners and give them that name. There’s hundreds of them here. The roots grip them like the hands of the earth itself.’

Ribs’s trembling had now taken her as well. Her mouth was dry and she felt currents tracking across her skin, caressing her face. ‘The air is moving,’ she whispered.

‘Yes. It never stops moving down here. I don’t know why, but I think it’s the magic’s doing, milady. This energy is restless. She was a powerful witch, I think.’

‘Tell me more,’ Sukul said. ‘About the witch.’

‘The altar she’s sitting on is hard-packed earth. Clay, mostly, along with pretty stones-’

‘Stones?’

‘Pushed in. Offerings. Garnet, onyx, skystone, various raw metals. Gold and the like. And animal claws and fangs, bits of carved ivory. A few feathers. Chipped stone tools. This is how the Dog-Runners give offering to a beloved one.’

‘I see it,’ she said suddenly, her breath quickening.

‘She’s cross-legged on the altar,’ Rancept went on. ‘Or she was at first. Her bones are transformed, into wood, into roots, and what’s left of her hide looks like bark. She grows out of the altar like a tree, milady, and all these roots — all the way up the passage and all around us here — they all grow out from her.’

She gasped. ‘And you cut through them!’

‘I wounded her, yes, in my ignorance. I wounded her deeply, milady.’

Sukul heard the anguish in his soft admission. ‘I’m sorry, Rancept. Has she eyes left? Does she look upon you now?’

‘They’re grown over, so I don’t know. I’ve troubled her dreams, though. I did that and I know it and if I could mend her, I would.’

‘If she still lives, Rancept, they’ll heal. The roots will grow back.’

‘No sign of that yet, milady.’

‘I have never seen a Dog-Runner. Describe her, please.’

He seemed grateful for the command. ‘Her face is polished wood, a deep brown that seems to hold gold in its depths. The wood has grown over the bones of her face. Once, that face would have been fair-skinned, the features heavy but open to all pleasures and joys — this is how the Dog-Runners are. They laugh with ease and weep with even greater ease. Every word is a confession and they do not understand dissembling. To speak with a Dog-Runner, milady, is to be humbled and to feel blessed. Many among the Tiste found resentment in that.’

Though she doubted he could see, she nodded to that observation, well understanding how it would be so. ‘We surrender nothing.’

‘There is wisdom in you, milady, beyond your years.’

But she felt anything but wise at this moment. ‘You believe the witch sleeps.’

‘I believe she is the one, yes.’

‘The one?’

His hand tightened slightly around hers. ‘The Dog-Runners of the southwest speak of the Dreamer, the greatest witch of their kind — who remained behind when her people left. She stayed, to keep emptiness from the world.’

Sukul thought of Mother Dark, and that terrible hint of the Abyss that swirled around her presence in the sacred chamber where was found the Throne of Night. ‘She resists Mother Dark?’

She felt the motion of his shrug. ‘That might be so. That is beyond me.’

‘Rancept, are you a Denier?’

‘I do not stand against Mother Dark, milady.’

But that was not an answer; still, she knew that it was all he would give her, and she decided to respect that. Her question had been improper by any standards, made worse for coming from a child. ‘Forgive me,’ she said in a small voice.

‘Do you see all that I have described?’

‘Yes. I see it clear. I see the cavern, and all its roots coming from the walls — back to her, where she sits with a face of wood and eyes grown over and for ever closed. We stand inside the cavern, like errant thoughts inside a skull.’

The hand snapped tight, almost crushing the bones of her fingers and she winced.

‘My apologies, milady. But those last words were not your own.’

She thought about that and then nodded once more. ‘She dreams us. We are in her dreams and she is trying to make sense of us. Strangers inside her skull. In here, Rancept, our words could be her thoughts. In here, we are in danger of disappearing, of losing ourselves.’

‘Yes, milady. I believe you are right, and I have felt this before. We must leave.’

She pulled her hand free. She no longer needed his guiding clasp; she could see the tunnel continuing on at the far end; could see its upward slope. Yet, still her eyes remained closed. ‘Tell me,’ she said, ‘does this witch have a name?’

‘In the language of the Dog-Runners, she is named Burn. She dreams so that we may live. All of us: Tiste, Dog-Runner, Jaghut, Thel Akai, even the Forulkan. She dreams, to give us our freedom.’

She had been making her way forward while Rancept was speaking, and she felt him move alongside her, but at his last words she drew up. ‘Tell me, did you offer her anything?’

His mouth-breathing stuttered slightly. ‘I would have to be a Denier to do that, milady.’

Sukul thought back, to the time before he had taken her hand. Was there movement from him? Was he standing near the witch? She did not know. Reaching for her leather purse, she loosened the draw-strings.

‘Careful now,’ said Rancept, and she realized that he was watching her, somehow — no, not ‘somehow’. He sees because he believes. In this temple Rancept worships. Yet, he chose to lead me here. There would have been other ways through, other paths. But he brought me here.

She drew out a memory stone, found upon the banks of the Dorssan Ryl. For the brother I lost to the wars.

‘Milady. Sukul Ankhadu, I beg you. This gesture must not be a careless one. Will you bind Mother Dark to the Sleeping Goddess of the Dog-Runners?’

Her breath caught. ‘I am not a highborn, castellan. I am not a priestess.’

‘Does your faith lie with Mother Dark? No, do not answer me. If it does, however, then surely you shall bind these two women. More than this, you shall bind the Deniers and the Tiste. There is no more holy place than this temple, but it is lost to the Deniers. I alone know of it — do you understand me?’

‘And you are a man with secrets, yet bold or foolish enough to reveal this to me. Why?’

‘Truth?’

‘Truth, Rancept. Give me that at least.’

‘Tiste schooling is rubbish,’ he said.

She almost yelped her laughter, and it echoed loudly in the chamber. At the sound Ribs bolted past her and up the tunnel.

Beside her, the castellan’s astonishment was palpable to her senses.

‘Forgive me again, Rancept…’ and then her words faded away.

The air had changed in the chamber and she felt her skin prickling. ‘What is it?’ she asked in a frightened whisper. ‘What have I done?’

‘Put the stone away,’ said Rancept. ‘She is a Dog-Runner still, it seems.’

‘I don’t understand — what is this I’m feeling?’

‘Her blessing, child. What greater or more precious gift could you give her, but laughter? Breath of the Sleeping Goddess, you have healed her, Sukul Ankhadu.’

She started as the huge man knelt in front of her, and somehow — though still her eyes remained shut — she saw the glitter of tears on his cheeks. ‘The roots no longer bleed,’ he said gruffly. ‘I thank you, milady, with all my heart.’

‘For this learning,’ she heard herself say, ‘I make payment with pleasure.’

She felt his wry smile and smiled in return.

He rose and together they headed into the passage ahead.

When he took her hand again she welcomed it, though both knew she no longer needed any guidance from him. No, this was more like friendship, and the notion startled Sukul, so that she almost laughed again. Instead, she sent her delight back down the tunnel, back into that wondrous chamber, where flesh and wood were one, and eyes grown shut could see all there was to see.

As they clambered back towards the surface — where dawn’s pale light made a plate of silver-blue above and ahead of them — Sukul said, ‘Rancept, the Deniers who remain must be told of this temple. They deserve that much.’

‘There is no need,’ he replied. ‘I shared her dreams below — yes, it is plain now and I will not dissemble. I am a Denier — though I deeply dislike that name. No matter. In sharing those dreams, I saw a truth, newborn and wondrous.’

‘What did you see?’

They rose into the light of dawn and he looked back at her with a half-smile transforming his twisted features — an expression she had never before seen on him and one that she thought would stop the hearts of the castellan’s guard should they ever witness it — and he said, ‘Burn dreams of a river, milady. She dreams of a river.’

Gloved hands gripping the rope, Risp made her way down the crevasse. Unfamiliar twinges assailed her shoulders and back. Climbing was not a common activity among the Tiste — a better excuse than her general unfitness, she decided. Below her the lantern anchored the rope, resting on broken rock. The air was dusty and chilled by eternal shadow, and she felt a kind of belligerence in this place, as if the stone walls resented her intrusion.

Just nerves, she told herself. And anxiety. The light had revealed no obvious body on the floor below, but it was clear that the crack extended to either side for unknown distances. Risp was certain that no cold corpse awaited her; the clenching of her gut was proof of her conviction. Men like Gripp Galas possessed that infuriating luck that seemed to ride the shoulders of old soldiers. He’d never fall in battle. When death took him he would probably be lying on a woman in some rank bordello.

She worked her way over a sloping bulge in the stone wall that showed signs of scraping, a few spots of blood now dried and black as ink, and two body-lengths below that she reached the bottom, boots scrabbling for purchase on the loose stones. More blood, spattered amidst dislodged rubble.

Looking back up the crevasse, Risp wondered how Gripp had ever managed to climb back out. She then turned and crouched, untying the lantern and taking the handle in hand. The smell of scorched leather came from her glove and she could feel the handle’s heat. Ignoring the faint discomfort she straightened and set out to explore.

No body, but she’d already guessed as much. The fissure narrowed quickly at one end. In the other direction — eastward, she judged — the crevasse continued on, down a sloping, choked floor littered with dry branches, and the remnants of bird nests built from twigs, mud and snarls of goat hair.

She made her way forward. A dozen paces along, the walls leaned inward, tightening the passage so that she had to angle sideways to go further. Feeling the stone pressing in on her front and back triggered a momentary panic, but she fought it down and pushed ahead. The crevasse widened again and here the fallen rocks formed a slope leading upward. She made out a bloody handprint on a stone halfway up it.

Risp followed the obvious trail. The crevasse broadened out still more, and now huge broken boulders filled the space. Dust was scraped clear here and there, on obvious hand- and footholds. Dawn’s light revealed the surface only a dozen paces onward. Moments later she scrambled into the clear. The road was thirty paces to her left, the span in between a wash of sand on which Gripp’s bootprints were visible. One leg had been dragging.

Dousing the lantern, she walked to the road, scrambled up the bank and swung left. Just beyond the bend waited her troop, the soldiers dismounted and still busy building cairns over a row of bodies on the far side of the road. Her sergeant, she saw, was still at the crevasse, squatting and peering down. At a word from a nearby soldier he twisted round to see her approaching on the road.

‘Alive,’ she said upon re-joining them. ‘But bleeding and with a bad leg. Looks like he came back here after Silann left. Where he went after that is the question, isn’t it?’

‘He went after the boy,’ the sergeant replied.

‘Why would he do that?’

‘Maybe he wasn’t just guarding goat and sheep skins, sir.’

‘You think the boy was important?’

The veteran shrugged. ‘Laskan was going through what the fire didn’t burn. There was a soldier’s trunk. Korlas crest, solid blackwood, which was why it mostly shrugged off the fire. But the lock melted. Boy’s clothing inside, and what looked like lead soldiers all melted down into slag.’ He paused, eyes on her. ‘Korlas, sir. That would make the boy of that bloodline. There was a Korlas Houseblade who served as a captain in Urusander’s Legion.’

‘Can this get any worse?’

‘If Gripp collects up the boy and they get out of these hills, yes, sir, it can get much worse.’

‘A highborn child on his way to Kharkanas…’

‘Yes sir, a hostage. To the Citadel. Captain, that boy was under Lord Anomander’s protection, the moment he left the estate. That’s why Gripp Galas was with that caravan of skin-sellers.’

Risp felt sick inside, a strange quavering that rose into her throat. If she gave sound to the feeling it would emerge as a moan. Her sergeant was staring at her, expressionless, and she felt the attention of the other soldiers in her troop — even the burial detail had drawn close. She was tempted to voice regrets that she’d ever volunteered to clean up this disaster. It was Silann’s mess, after all. If that fool were at her side right now, she would kill him. She thought it unlikely that his wife would even object. She’d probably hand me the knife. ‘There were a few highborn serving in Urusander’s Legion,’ she said.

The sergeant nodded. ‘Greater Houses without enough wealth to assemble a decent cadre of Houseblades. If there were a chance, they’d end up with the Houseblades of other Houses. But Korlas was a proud man, as I recall.’

‘You knew him?’

‘Captain, I served under him. Same for Laskan, Helrot and Bishim. He was a good man. Died a hero.’

All at once a new fear took hold of Risp: the loyalty of this man standing before her. ‘You said that Gripp and this hostage cannot be allowed to get out of these hills alive, sergeant.’

‘No sir. I said things would get even worse if they did.’

‘I see. Then what do you suggest?’ So much for exercising the power of command. My first test and I fail.

‘We need to find them, sir. And make it right.’

‘How do we do that?’

‘We let Silann hang, sir.’

‘He just up and decided to become an outlaw? You can’t be serious, sergeant. He still holds a rank in the Legion, and so do half his soldiers.’

‘We don’t have to know why he did what he did, sir. It’s a mystery to all of us, maybe even his wife.’

‘So, instead of hunting down and killing Gripp and the boy, ensuring that all of this goes away, you’re advising we act in baffled horror and disgust. That we find the old man and this hostage and help them, maybe even escort them to Kharkanas.’ She looked around, scanned the faces of her soldiers. She barely knew them, but Hunn Raal was certain of their loyalty. Nevertheless, under these circumstances, even that loyalty was being stretched — she could see as much in their expressions. Hostages were sacred, and this particular hostage was under Lord Anomander’s protection, which added genuine fear to their discomfort. ‘Esthala needs to know of this change in plans.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘Send Laskan and Bishim back to her. And then what, Silann’s own wife arrests him?’

The sergeant shook his head, but said nothing.

Risp closed her eyes briefly and then looked away, up the road. ‘No, she won’t do that. Silann is too weak to keep his mouth shut. She’ll have to kill him, and his soldiers.’ She met the sergeant’s eyes again. ‘She’ll understand the necessity, won’t she? There is no other way out of this. Is there?’

Still he remained silent, watching her.

‘Send them.’

‘Yes sir.’ The sergeant gestured and the two men mounted their horses and a moment later set off.

‘Send Helrot to Tulla Hold,’ she went on. ‘To report the slaughter and make known our search for survivors. And to ask for assistance.’

‘Yes sir.’

She would have to get rid of this sergeant. She didn’t want him in her troop. He gave too little away; she could not tell what he was thinking and this unnerved her. His silence had felt like a judgement, and for all she knew she had failed in the balance.

‘Collect up that trunk. We’ll take it with us. Then we ride east. We eat in the saddle.’

‘Yes sir.’

Rancept slid back down to where she huddled. ‘Three riders dispatched,’ he said. ‘Two back the way they came and one up the road — likely on her way to Tulla. The rest are heading east.’

Exhausted, chilled and miserable, Sukul sighed. ‘What does all that mean?’

‘Not party to the killing, I’d wager, milady. They’re all Legion, and that raises another question.’

‘What are they doing out here?’ Sukul said, nodding. ‘Since no Legion troop ever rode within sight of Tulla Hold.’

‘Not wanting to be seen.’

‘But one is now riding to Tulla, you said.’

The castellan grunted, squinting at Ribs, who was curled up asleep against Sukul’s feet — and the animal’s heat now warmed her aching toes, and she looked upon the creature with a fondness she had not imagined possible.

‘Should we go down to them?’ she asked.

‘Too late.’

‘I told you we should have taken horses and just ridden the road.’

‘In hindsight,’ Rancept allowed, ‘maybe so. But what doesn’t change is that none of this feels right.’

She wasn’t about to argue that point. The wheezing old castellan’s feelings couldn’t be dismissed this time. ‘So who killed those traders?’

He shook his head, and then straightened. ‘Let’s go down. Maybe Ribs will tell us.’

‘Castellan, he’s just a damned dog, not a seer.’

‘Milady, he’s my dog.’

Her eyes narrowed on him. ‘Are you some kind of priest of Burn, Rancept?’

‘No priests among the Deniers, milady.’

‘What about the Dog-Runners?’

‘Witches and warlocks,’ he replied. ‘Bonecasters, they’re called.’

‘They throw bones?’

‘No. Well, maybe, but I think the name goes more to what we saw in that temple, milady. Bone to wood, bone to stone. As if to ask, if we can be one why not the other? As if it’s only a matter of how we talk to time.’ He paused and then added, ‘It’s said they gave the Jheleck the gift of Soletaken, which is yet another way of seeing the casting of bones.’

Ribs lifted his head without any signal from Rancept, and she felt the unwelcome chill in her feet once more. Sighing again, she rose. ‘Tell me they buried the bodies at least.’

‘They did, milady. Cold stone on cold flesh and sorrow in the silence.’

She shot him a look. ‘I think you surprise people, Rancept.’

‘Yes, milady, I do that.’

They made their way down a side track, rounding the butte they’d mostly ascended in order for Rancept to look down on the road. ‘I trust Lady Hish knows you well enough to value you.’

‘Why do you ask?’

‘If she doesn’t, then I’ll do my best to steal you away, castellan. You… and Ribs, too.’

‘That’s a kind thing to say, milady. But I will serve Lady Hish Tulla until my dying day.’

Something in those words told Sukul of a love beyond that of a castellan for his mistress, and the very notion threatened to break her heart.

Ribs snaked down the stony slope ahead of them. ‘He’s just a dog, isn’t he?’

‘Just a dog, milady.’

‘Not Soletaken.’

Rancept snorted. ‘If he once was, he’s long forgotten his other body, leaving him what he is now, and that’s just a dog.’

Once down on the road, they approached the site of the killing in silence, Ribs staying close on Rancept’s left. Before reaching the scene both the dog and the castellan halted. Eyes on the ground, Rancept said, ‘The killers rode past the caravan and then went back to them. More proof that they weren’t bandits. They were back up to a fast trot, two lines in close formation, before they turned round. Someone gave a command.’

‘Disciplined, then.’

‘To start with,’ he replied, as he and Ribs set out once more. ‘But I saw what was left of one of the guards. There was anger in that butchery.’

‘Your eyes are that good?’

‘Was easy to see. The ones doing the burying carried him over in pieces.’

She pushed down her imagination, squeezing shut figurative eyes upon the image. The smell from up ahead was foul, not just from the still smouldering ash heaps where the wagons had burned, but also the stench of bile and urine. A horse’s carcass was lying on the road’s flank, this side of the row of cairns. The beast had been stabbed in the gut, the slash vicious enough to spill out stomach and intestines, now stretched out and partly wrapped about the animal’s hind legs as it had tried to kick free of its own ruin. Sukul found herself staring at the pathetic creature, seeing its terrible death and feeling pain as the scene seared into her mind. ‘I will never be one for war,’ she whispered.

Rancept, picking among wreckage, heard her and glanced over. ‘It’s an unpleasant business that’s for sure, especially when the sack is opened.’

She pulled her gaze away. ‘What sack?’

‘You. Me. The sacks of our skin, holding everything inside.’

‘Surely we are more than that!’ Her words were harsher than intended. ‘Even this horse was more than that.’

He straightened, wiping his hands. ‘Milady, though you ain’t asked for it, here’s some advice. Most of the time — the best of times, in fact — it’s good to think that. We’re more than just a sack of blood and organs and bones and whatever. So much more, and the same for every animal, too, like that noble horse and even old Ribs here. But then comes a time — like this one — when you can’t let yourself think that. When what you’re looking at now is just a broken open sack, with stuff spilled out. Whatever was “more” inside of us is gone — it’s gone from that carcass and it’s gone from those bodies under those stones. It’s not down to what we’re worth-’

‘No,’ she snapped, ‘it’s down to what we’ve lost!’

He seemed to flinch and then he nodded, turning away once more.

Sukul felt bad, but she wouldn’t take back her words. She understood his meaning, but she didn’t like it. Seeing people and animals as just sacks of skin made ruining those sacks that much easier. If no one looked at the loss, they were left with no sense of the worth. In such a world not even life itself had any value. She looked over at Rancept once more. He was standing in the centre of the road, opposite the cairns, but his gaze was on the track ahead, beyond the road’s bend. Ribs sat at his heel. There was something hopeless in the scene and she felt herself close to tears.

‘Is there a smaller grave?’ she asked, refusing to look too carefully at those cairns, not wanting her eyes to witness yet one more unpleasant truth.

He shook his head. ‘The boy got away, at least to begin with. Our friends are just ahead, by the way. Trying to skirt the mudflat, and you need to be on foot to do that — no place for horses. I’m thinking the boy was being pursued and took his horse out on to it.’

‘And?’ She made her way towards him.

‘There’s a lake under that flat,’ he said. ‘A lake of mud and it’s deep. His horse wouldn’t have made it. Could be the boy went down with it.’

‘Have they seen us yet?’

‘No.’

‘Step away, then.’

He frowned at her and then moved behind the butte once more. ‘What are you thinking, milady?’

‘When that rider comes to Tulla Hold not even the castellan will be there. Does anyone know where we are?’

‘Sergeant Broot’s commanding in my absence. He’ll stare and blink and eventually that messenger will decide he’s got rocks for brains.’

‘And then?’

‘And then the rider will leave, going back to wherever she needs to be. Done her duty and left the tale at the feet of Broot.’

‘I think we need to make sure, if we can, whether Orfantal is still alive.’

‘The boy was meant to be a hostage, milady?’

‘Yes, in the Citadel itself.’

‘And he was sent along with nothing more than a handful of caravan guards as escort?’

‘Yes.’ She hesitated, and then added, ‘There might have been reasons for that.’

Rancept looked away again, his mouth hanging open as it always did, and the man’s ugliness now struck her as something tender, almost gentle. In that temple, in the vision in my mind, I could have made him beautiful. She wished she had. She wished, with sudden ferocity, that she had made him anew.

‘Castellan, can’t they heal you? Your nose, I mean.’

He glanced at her. ‘Best way is to break it all over again.’

‘Why not try that?’

‘Ever had your nose broken, milady?’

‘No.’

He shrugged, looking away once more. ‘Tried that. Six times.’

She realized that his attention was fixed on the cairns, and that it had not been a casual regard. As she made to speak he strode over to the makeshift cemetery, edging down into the ditch. Ribs followed him, tail dipped and ears drooping. Sukul joined them. ‘What is it, Rancept? What have you found?’

‘Found? Nothing, milady.’ Yet he studied the cairns. ‘When they camped below the Hold and you decided to go down and visit them, you commanded me to have the cook prepare four days’ worth of decent meals, for seven people.’

She looked at the cairns. ‘If there’s only one body under each one

…’

‘Someone else got away,’ he said, nodding.

‘Then where did he go?’

‘Milady, this is something old Ribs here can answer. But we’re not equipped for more nights out here. So this is what I suggest.’

‘Go on.’

‘I send him on, milady.’

‘To do what?’

‘Whatever needs doing.’

‘You told me — he’s just a dog!’

Rancept shrugged. ‘That’s my suggestion, milady.’

Sukul threw up her hands. ‘Oh, very well, whatever you say. He’s your dog, after all.’

‘We can take the road back to the Hold,’ Rancept continued, ‘but it might be that we’ll meet that rider.’

‘No, I don’t want that. Find us another trail back.’

‘As you wish.’

‘Rancept,’ Sukul asked, as a sudden thought struck her, ‘there aren’t any more secret temples hereabouts, are there?’

‘Nothing we’d call such, milady.’

Corporal Renth had ridden out from Kharkanas in the depths of night. He had been dispatched to deliver Hunn Raal’s command that the unit commanders were to ensure that no violence was initiated, and that all contact was to be avoided. All plans were on hold, and Renth was relieved to hear it. He had never been easy with how things were going; even the thought of letting highborn blood to achieve their aims left him sick with dread and guilt.

It didn’t help that his captain was at his worst when drunk, shaking loose the reins on his bloodlust and saying terrible things about the highborn and anyone else who wasn’t Legion. Such guttural vehemence had a way of infecting those close to him. More than once, Renth had contemplated seeking out a soldier among Lord Anomander’s Houseblades, and betraying the whole cause.

But Urusander deserved better. Renth knew that the ugliness belonged to Hunn Raal, and if there were no irony in a man of fallen highborn blood now spouting vicious hatred against his own kind, then irony was a dead weed in the field of souls, and who would be foolish enough to claim that?

In his drunkenness, Hunn Raal revealed deeper currents; there was an ambition there that saw Lord Urusander as nothing more than a means to an end. The captain might well espouse the redress of justice when it came to the Legion and all who served or had once served in it, but something else lurked behind that pious fervour, and whatever that was, Corporal Renth did not trust it.

Changes had come to Kharkanas. The priestesses and priests had crowded the corridors and hallways deep into the night, but it seemed they had nothing but questions to exchange, a worthless currency when no answers could be found. He’d had trouble making his way out of the citadel without being noticed.

Out on the streets of Kharkanas, the residual mud of the river’s flooding earlier that day had smeared the stones and painted the walls of the torchlit buildings he rode past, as if making a sullied pronouncement bold as blasphemy. His unease had only deepened in his passage through the city to the bridge that would take him west of the river. Faith was ever on the edge of crisis, but it seemed that this fated arrival of the Azathanai, and the dark, disturbing miracles that followed, had pushed everything over the edge.

Hunn Raal had argued that now, more than ever, was the time for Lord Urusander’s ascension. Once he stood at Mother Dark’s side, the unruly elements would be hammered into submission and whatever schism now threatened the faith could be addressed. It had seemed a contrary position, since he was in the process of dispatching riders out to all the units with orders to desist. Drunks had a way of spitting in two directions at once. The truth was, there was chaos in Kurald Galain and the sudden unleashing of bloodshed might shatter the entire realm, and Mother Dark with it. For all that, what had seemed relatively straightforward in Renth’s eyes was now murky and confused, and a belligerent, red-eyed commander was hardly an inspiring send-off. Loyalty to Urusander alone kept Renth’s hands on the reins, and his butt in the saddle.

But a long ride through the night gave him too much time to think. Renth had no compunction about slaughtering the Deniers because he did not see them as Tiste at all. They had surrendered that name in their squalid worship of old gods. The Tiste needed to unify their faith, with Mother Dark upon the Throne of Night. Refusing allegiance to Mother Dark had long ago stripped the Deniers of her protection, and so they deserved whatever befell them. He doubted that any hoary, mud-spattered river god of old could protect those lost fools. Lord Urusander understood necessity, and he would do what was needed to unify the Tiste and to cleanse the realm.

It was, in fact, simple. They would hunt down the Deniers and kill them. They would scour the last depths of the forests and root them out, and then feed their corpses to the river.

But the highborn were another matter. When the time came, however, Renth would do as commanded. He was a soldier after all, and soldiers needed to set aside their conscience on occasion, when necessity demanded hard choices. Besides, after the deed was done even remorse could be chewed dry and spat out.

The nearest of Raal’s allies were attempting to move unseen through the Tulla Hills, just beyond the Old Forest. These units were his destination. Hunn Raal had scant faith in Captain Silann, but at least Esthala and Risp were there. Once Renth had delivered his message he would swing back, crossing the Dorssan Ryl once more, and then head northward to find the other units.

Mid-morning found him riding at a slow canter along the road that wound through the hills. His eyes were grainy from lack of sleep, but he would push on regardless. He had met no one since leaving the Old Forest.

He caught the sudden attention from his horse — the ears flicking forward — and looked up to see a small figure on the track ahead. A boy, filthy with mud, standing as if waiting for him.

Perhaps some brat from the Deniers said to be living in these hills. Scowling, Renth gestured the boy from his path as he drew closer.

But the boy remained where he was, in the centre of the road.

‘What is this?’ Renth demanded, reining in. ‘Do you wish to be run down? Get away!’

‘I am named Orfantal,’ said the boy, ‘of the House Korlas, and I claim the right of protection.’

‘Highborn?’ Renth snorted. ‘That I doubt.’

‘I was being escorted to the Citadel,’ the boy said. ‘But we were waylaid. Everyone else died.’

‘A highborn would be better protected than-’ He caught a flicker from the boy’s eyes and then something punched through the chain shirt he was wearing, stabbing under his right arm. Sudden cold slid between his ribs, from which fire erupted. A hand took hold of his weapon belt and dragged him down from the saddle. Flailing, trying to push away from that blade buried in him, Renth fell to the ground.

He couldn’t speak. Strength left him in a rush. He stared up into the face of an old man, a face twisted with venom, though the eyes, fixed on his own, were empty as pits into the Abyss itself.

‘For Haral,’ he heard the man say, twisting the blade before tugging it back out.

The effort jolted Renth’s body, but the motion seemed to have nothing to do with him. Haral? I know no one named Haral. He wanted to tell the man that. He wanted to explain the mistake that had been made, but nothing came from his mouth except blood. Hot, tasting of the iron that had taken his life. Bewildered and hurt, he closed his eyes for the last time.

Orfantal stared in horror, and when he saw Gripp spit into the dead man’s face, coldness filled his insides, and he knew it for the flood of fear. The old man had said they needed a horse. Because they were being hunted and people wanted to kill them both.

They’d seen the rider coming up the road, and Gripp had sent him out after telling him to say the things he had said.

Orfantal thought they were going to steal the horse at sword point, since they had no coin. But they would one day pay the man back, even give him a new horse, or two. They would make it right.

Now he watched the old man rise from the body, using the dead rider’s cloak to clean the blood from his dagger. The horse had moved off a short distance and now stood trembling in the ditch. Murmuring under his breath, Gripp approached the animal and moments later held the reins. He faced Orfantal. ‘Now we ride to Kharkanas.’

He scowled at whatever he saw in Orfantal’s face. ‘He was Legion and it was Legion that attacked us. They’re the enemy now, hostage. We’re in a civil war — do you understand me?’

He nodded, though he didn’t — he didn’t understand anything any more.

‘I ain’t hiding the body,’ Gripp said. ‘I want them to find it. I want them to know. More than that, I want them to know it was Gripp Galas who did this, and it’s Gripp Galas who’ll come for them.’ He had drawn his knife with these words and now he handed Orfantal the horse’s reins and limped back to the corpse.

He hacked off the head. Blood poured on to the dusty road. Gripp then carved his initials on the forehead. Once this was done he lifted the head by the hair and flung it on to the centre of the road.

After using the cloak again to clean the knife he re-joined Orfantal. ‘Now, let me get up in the saddle before you — this knee is killing me.’

All the heroes are dead.

I am lost.

We are all lost.

The hand that reached down to pull Orfantal up was red, and the morning air filled with the smell of iron.