Blood and Bone

PROLOGUE

Ghosts ruled the jungles of Jacuruku. Saeng remembered staying awake through the night as she strained to understand their whispered calls. Somehow their murmuring beckoned so much more seductively than her own dreams. One of her earliest memories was of walking alone through moonlit leaves hunting for the source of the jungle’s voice. She’d been utterly self-composed and without fear — as only a child could be. Long into her wandering she distinctly recalled a hand taking hers and guiding her through the dense fronds and stands of damp grasses back to the village. Her mother swept up then, her face wet with tears, to squeeze her to her bony chest while Saeng calmly explained that everything was all right. That there was no need to cry. That a friend had brought her back.

And of course later everyone swore to seeing her wander in from the dark alone.

Since then the leagues of impenetrable jungle surrounding the village had held no fear for her. A dangerous and, she could admit, rather reckless attitude in a land where flower garlands and prayer scarves festooned trees in honour of countless spirits, restless dead, ghosts, lost forgotten gods, and far too many missing children and adults.

Growing up she continued to steal away into the woods whenever she could. And there among the hanging vines and leaves dripping night-mist the old spirits of the land came to her and she learned many forgotten things. In the morning she would return from her wanderings through the jungle tracks, her legs and feet sheathed in mud and grass and webs tangled in her hair. At first her mother beat her and twisted her ears. ‘You are no low-bred farmer’s daughter!’ she would screech. ‘We come from an ancient family of priestesses and seers!’

And often, during the midday meal, her mother would take her hands and always it would be the same story: ‘Saeng,’ she would begin, as if so disappointed in her. ‘Our family has kept the old faith. Not like these ignorant fools surrounding us with their grovelling to idols, charms and amulets. All these superstitious mouthings to earth goddesses, or beast gods, or the cursed God-King, or the Witch — all of these empty words. Or worse. Our family, we women, we descend from the original priestesses of the Sky and the Sun! We worship Light. Remember that! The Light that gives all life!’

Her mother would try to capture her gaze as if pleading with her to understand but she would glance away, mouthing, ‘Yes, Mother.’ Eventually her mother gave up even these exhortations and she was allowed to continue her wanderings in pursuit of the voices that whispered from the great green labyrinth that surrounded them.

As she grew older, and her mastery of the whispered teachings grew more assured, she found she could summon these ghosts, which she now knew as the dreaded land and ancestor spirits, the Nak-ta. And as her skills advanced these spirits and shades came to her from ever further into the ancient gulf of the land’s past. And each commanded greater and greater puissance in the manipulation of their talents. In the murmurings of these restless dead she learned how to bind the will of animals, how to interpret the voices of the wind, how to trick the senses, and how to tease knowledge from the earth itself. As she drifted, half asleep, it seemed to her that they stole close to her ears where they whispered of darker secrets. Of ancient forbidden charms, of lost deadly wards, and how to dominate the recesses of the human mind.

At first she thought nothing of this, even as the shades crowded ever nearer and proved ever more difficult for her to dismiss. Until one night the tenebrous clawed hand of one clutched her arm. Its voice was no more than the sighing of the wind through the leaves as it hissed, ‘The High King will be well pleased with you.’

She remembered her shock at its frigid touch. ‘All that was dust ages ago.’

‘Nay, ’tis of the moment. No more foolishness from you.’ It began to sink into the wet ground, yanking her down by the arm.

A yell shocked her even more then as a branch swung through the shade, dispersing it. She lay staring up at her elder brother, Hanu, while he glared about, branch readied. Strangely, all she felt was outrage. ‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded.

He pulled her up. ‘You’re welcome. I’ve been following you. And thank the ancestors for it, too.’

‘What?’ She danced away from him. ‘For how long?’

He shrugged his broad shoulders in the shadowed darkness. ‘Whenever I can. Someone has to keep an eye out while you offer yourself up to these feral spirits.’

‘I can control them.’

‘Clearly not.’

‘That one surprised me, that’s all.’ A sudden thought occurred to her and she drew closer, biting her lip. ‘You’re not … you’re not going to tell Mother, are you?’

‘Great Witch, no. She’s worried enough as it is.’

‘Well … you can’t stop me.’

‘That much is clear as well,’ and he crossed his thick arms, peering down at her.

She raised her chin in defiance and saw how the sweat of the humid night ran in streams down his face and neck. Through her skills she sensed his drumming heart and rushing blood and she realized: He is terrified. Terrified of the night — just like all of them. Yet he is here. He came to protect me.

His breathing was heavy as he scanned the deep forest shadows. ‘At least promise me that you’ll wake me, yes? That you won’t go out alone.’ His gaze swung to her, pleading. ‘Yes?’

And how could she refuse? Her own defiant front melted. ‘Yes, Hanu. I promise.’

For another year the nights passed in this fashion; she waking her brother and the two stealing out to where she communed with the wild Nak-ta ghosts that haunted the jungle. And with far older spirits of stone, stream and wind. Night after night she sat for hours under the wary gaze of Hanu and spoke to things he could not see nor sense. It was then she realized that while he might protect her from any physical threat, he remained susceptible to their compellings and charms, and so she surreptitiously cast over him protections and guardings against such magics.

‘Who are you talking to?’ he would sometimes ask from where he squatted under a tree.

‘The old dead,’ she’d answer.

‘Aren’t you scared?’

‘No. They’re dead.’

Befuddled, he’d throw up his hands. ‘Then — why aren’t they gone?’

‘Because they’re angry. Only anger is strong enough to keep the feet of the dead to the ground.’

Then he would glower because secretly he was afraid. And as the months passed he began to pester her. ‘It isn’t safe,’ he’d say. ‘We shouldn’t be here.’

And he was right. But not in the way either of them imagined.

One night she sat on the edge of a choked swampy depression. She was speaking with the shade of a woman who’d been drowned here in what she claimed had once been a great reservoir. In those days, the spirit asserted, its waters had been clear and deeper than a tall man. Among the trees behind her, Hanu pretended he was one of the ancient warrior-kings as he swung a heavy branch.

‘Drowned?’ she asked. ‘What do you mean you were drowned?’

‘Heavy rocks were tied to me and I was thrown in,’ the shade replied.

Saeng resisted the urge to curse. Sometimes the dead could be so literal. ‘I mean why were you drowned?’

‘I was a priestess of the old faith.’

‘The old faith? You mean-’ and Saeng lowered her voice, ‘the damned God-King?’

‘No,’ came the uninflected voice of the ghost. ‘Not him. It was at his orders that the temple was burned and I was slain. I speak of the ancient old religion. The worship of Light. The Great Sun.’

Saeng leaped up from the edge of the swamp. For the first time something said by one of these shades seemed to touch her very heart.

Hanu appeared at her side. ‘What is it?’ he demanded.

Saeng’s hand had gone to her throat. ‘A spirit,’ she managed. By the ancients! Could Mother have been right all this time? ‘She claims to be a priestess of an old faith.’

Hanu waved his contempt. ‘Which? They’re like flies.’

But she held his gaze long and hard and eventually his brows crimped. ‘No …’ he breathed, and she nodded her certainty.

‘Oh, yes.’

‘The one Mother goes on about …?’

‘The same faith that runs in your blood,’ came the shade’s voice from behind and Saeng jumped once again. She turned on it. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Who’s that?’ Hanu demanded, peering about.

The ghost raised an arm, pointing off into the jungle. ‘And now comes your time of trial and your time to choose. Remember all that we have taught.’

Saeng stared her confusion. ‘What? Taught? What do you mean?’

The woman clasped her hands before her and it seemed to Saeng that she was peering down at her as if she were her own daughter. ‘Really, child. You did not think that you were called for no reason, did you?’

‘What is it?’ Hanu whispered, insistent.

‘Called?’ But the shade dispersed like smoke. Saeng turned to her brother. ‘It seemed to suggest that something is coming.’

Hanu frowned, considering. ‘The Choosing is approaching,’ he murmured.

Of course. The Choosing. Suddenly her heart tripped as if a grip were attempting to stop it. ‘You mustn’t go.’

He snorted. ‘It’s required, Saeng. We’ll all be arrested if I’m not seen. Ancients, all our neighbours will see to that!’

Saeng knew what he meant. It was an ugly truth, but better one of another family be chosen than one of theirs.

A month later the great travelling column of the ruling Thaumaturgs swung through their province. And eventually a representative arrived even at their insignificant village. He came escorted by twenty soldiers and carried in a great palanquin of lacquered wood shaded by white silks.

Saeng watched from next to her mother among the villagers crowded together by the sharp proddings of the soldiers’ sticks while the menfolk of age lined up for the Choosing. She was apprehensive for Hanu, but not overly so, as it had been years since any son of the village had been selected for service.

The palanquin was lowered and the theurgist stepped out. He was dressed exquisitely in rich layered silks of deepest sea blue and blossom gold, and was rather fat about the middle, and short. Yet he held the all-important ivory baton of office, which he carried negligently in one ringed hand, swinging it back and forth.

It occurred to Saeng that the man was bored with his task and was merely going through the motions for the sake of ritual. A great churning hatred for him overtook her — a hatred she imagined just as strong as his for their downtrodden poverty, their mud-spattered cheap rags, and the responsibilities that took him away from his scheming at the capital deep in the heart of their nation.

He paced a quick inspection of the assembled menfolk then headed back to the cool shade of his palanquin.

Saeng eased out a taut breath of relief; yet again no one had been chosen. Once more their distant dreaded rulers had come, collected their taxation and tribute, examined the males of the village, and marched on never to be seen again until another year turned upon the wheel of their grinding fate.

The representative paused, however. He swung the baton up to tap upon one shoulder next to the fat folds of his shaven neck. He turned and padded back to the assembly where he slowly retraced his steps, once more passing before the men, one by one. When he came abreast of Hanu he paused. The ivory baton, gold-chased, bounced heavily upon his shoulder. He leaned forward as if sniffing her elder brother, then suddenly rocked back as if thrust.

His head turned and his black narrowed eyes scanned the crowd of villagers, Saeng included. Then his thick jowls bunched as he smiled with something like cruel satisfaction and he thrust out his baton to touch Hanu upon the chest. Their mother lurched forward crying out but Saeng caught her arm and held her.

Hanu’s stunned gaze found hers. As the soldiers closed in and tied his arms, he stared, silent, until they urged him onward. Then he twisted to peer back over his shoulder. ‘Don’t worry — I’ll protect you! I swore! I swore!’ he called over and over until the soldiers yanked upon his fetters.

Their mother cried into her arms, but Saeng watched while the soldiers prodded her brother off. She had to watch; she owed him that. The theurgist, whoever he was, some minor bureaucrat of their ruling elite, had returned to his palanquin. Saeng finally lost sight of her brother as he was urged up the track to disappear with the column into the hanging leaves of the jungle as if swallowed whole.

At that moment, as she stood supporting her mother, she vowed her revenge upon them all. Upon their crushing rule, their contempt, and upon the blood-price they exacted from their own people. Who were they to make such demands? To impose such suffering and misery?

She would see them burn. So did she swear.

Yet all the while a quieter voice whispered a suspicion that burned like acid upon her soul: Would he not have been chosen but for your own castings upon him? Was not this all your fault?

* * *

Shimmer happened to be at the waterfront when a battered vessel came limping up to one of the piers of Haven. She sensed something unusual about it, though she was no mage with access to any Warren. Nevertheless, she was of the Avowed of the Crimson Guard, and more than a hundred years ago she had sworn to oppose the Malazan Empire for so long as it should endure. And over the years it seemed that this vow had caused preternatural instincts and strengths to accrue to her. She could now sense things far beyond what she could before. Such as this modest two-masted ship; or rather, those it carried. Something was there. No mere lost coastal traders, or fisherfolk thrown off course. Power walked its deck. Despite wearing only a loose shirt over trousers, belted, with a long-knife at her back, she went down to meet the vessel.

They were certainly foreign. Of no extraction she was familiar with: hair night-black and straight; squat of build, close even to her own petite stature. And dark, varying from a fair nut hue to a sun-darkened earthy brown. Their vessel flew no sigils or heraldry. It appeared to have had a very hard crossing of it. The crew busied themselves readying for docking and though no sailor herself she thought the ship’s company quite lacking in hands. The various lads and lasses who hung about the Haven waterfront took thrown lines and helped in the placement of a wood and rope gangway.

First down was an arresting figure of a woman: shorter even than Shimmer, and painfully lean. Her hair blew in a great midnight cloud about her head and she wore a loose black dress that obscured her feet. Some sort of binding encircled her arms and from each hung bright amulets and charms. More amulets hung on multiple leather thong necklaces to rattle like a forest of baubles.

After running a sceptical eye up and down Shimmer she announced in passable Talian: ‘You are no customs official.’

‘And you’re no ship’s captain.’ Another figure stepped up on to the gangway, yanking Shimmer’s attention away from the woman: a towering man in layered shirts, a curved dirk at his side. He too was dark, like the woman, as the Kanese can be, skin the hue of ironwood rather than the black of Dal Hon. He too wore his hair long, but gathered atop his head by some sort of carved stone clasp. The thick timbers of the gangway groaned and bounced as he descended.

After looking Shimmer up and down, he rumbled, ‘She is of them.’ His gaze was not challenging, yet something of his eyes made her uneasy: the irises glittered as if dusted in gold.

The woman’s gaze sharpened, a sudden wariness touching it. ‘Ah. I see it now. I was fooled — no Isturé would have deigned to appear so … informal.’

Shimmer frowned, and not only at being discussed as if she were not standing right before these two foreigners. And that word … why did it grate like a dull blade across her back?

Yet with Blues gone north she was the acting governor and so she inclined her head, all politeness. ‘I’m sorry, but you have me at a disadvantage. What was that you said?’

‘Isturé. It is our word for you in our lands.’

‘Us …?’

The woman did not even try to disguise her distaste. ‘You Avowed. It translates as something like “undying fiend”.’

Shimmer reflexively retreated a step and her hand went to her long-knife at her back. ‘What do you two want here?’

The woman opened her hands in a gesture of apology. ‘Forgive my ill-temper. I have been set a task that finds in me a reluctant servant. We come with an offer for you Crimson Guard.’

Shimmer relaxed her stance a touch. Behind the two foreigners the sailors climbed the rigging to prepare the ship for the repairs of a port call. They worked barefoot, the soles of their feet black with tar. ‘An offer?’ she answered, doubtful. ‘What would that be?’

‘Employment.’

She understood now, and she shook her head. ‘We are no longer accepting contracts.’

‘Well, perhaps that is for your general to decide. K’azz.’

‘He’s not … seeing potential employers right now.’

‘He will see us.’

‘I doubt that very-’

‘There is an inn, or hostel, here in this hamlet?’

Shimmer gritted her teeth against her annoyance at being interrupted. ‘Perhaps it would be best if you stayed on your vessel …’

‘I think not. I am quite as sick of it as they are of me.’

That I can well understand. ‘If you insist.’ She invited them onward. ‘We have an inn with some few plain rooms … but I cannot guarantee they will take you.’

The woman’s smile was a wolfish flash of needle ivory teeth. ‘Our gold is good, and innkeepers are the same breed everywhere.’

As they climbed the gentle slope up to the hamlet Shimmer introduced herself.

‘Rutana,’ the woman answered. She gestured back to the man who followed with slow deliberate steps. ‘This is Nagal.’

‘And where are you from?’

She snorted a harsh laugh. ‘A land close to this but of which you would never have heard.’

Shimmer’s patience hadn’t been tested like this for some time. ‘Try me,’ she managed to offer lightly.

‘Very well. We come from the land known to some as Jacuruku.’

Despite her irritation Shimmer was impressed. ‘Indeed. I know it. I haven’t been there, but K’azz has.’

‘So I have been told. You will take a message to K’azz for us.’

Shimmer’s irritation gave way to wonder at the woman’s breathtaking imperiousness. ‘Oh?’ she answered. ‘Will I?’

‘Yes. You will.’

‘And what is that message?’

Rutana stopped. She scowled, as if only now noting something in Shimmer’s tone. She tugged on the tight lacing of the leather straps cinching her left arm and winced as if at an old nagging wound. Shimmer noted that the amulets knotted there were small triangular boxes each of which appeared to contain some sort of tiny carved figurine. ‘Skinner walks our land,’ the woman finally ground out. ‘Tell him that, Isturé. The curse that is Skinner walks our land.’

Later, Shimmer summoned Lor-sinn and Gwynn to discuss their visitors. At table Gwynn maintained his grim and dour demeanour, dressed all in black, saying little and smiling even less. His newly grown shock of white hair stood in all directions. Shimmer could very easily imagine the man spending even his free time sitting stiffly while he glowered into the darkness rather like a corpse presiding gloomily at its own wake. The second of her company mages present, Lor-sinn, was still obviously uncomfortable sitting so close to Shimmer among the seats normally occupied by Blues, Fingers, Shell, or the recently departed Smoky. Having the opportunity to study her more closely now, Shimmer thought that the woman was slowly but steadily losing the plumpness that had endeared her to so many of the company’s males.

As servants brought soup Shimmer turned to Lor. ‘You are continuing to attempt to contact the Fourth in Assail?’

‘Yes, Commander.’

‘Shimmer will do.’

‘Yes, ah, Shimmer.’ She leaned forward over the table, ever eager to discuss her work. ‘My last effort was last week. I could try opening a portal if you wish …’

‘I would not risk that, Lor. Not into Assail. Nothing so drastic as yet. We will see what K’azz thinks.’ She turned to Gwynn. ‘And our friends the First?’

The humourless mage — who only seemed to be getting even gloomier — studied his soup as if it were something unrecognizable. ‘As our visitors claim. Jacuruku still, Commander.’

‘Just Shimmer, please.’

Gwynn bowed his head, then, as if reordering his thoughts, he set down his utensils, sighing. He cradled his chin on his fists. ‘This Rutana is a servant of ancient Ardata. Whom some name the Queen of Witches.’

Shimmer nodded. She tasted the soup and found it pleasant. She set down her spoon. The servants slipped the main entrée of roasted game birds before them. She inhaled the steaming birds’ scent then sat back to meet Gwynn’s glistening steady gaze. ‘Yet you assure me they are enemies of Skinner.’

‘They are.’

‘Then your point?’

‘They are here to draw us into their war. And, Commander, I have been there. I have seen it. And I strongly counsel against this.’

‘I see. Thank you for that blunt appraisal.’ She turned to Lor. ‘And you?’

The mage shrugged her still-rounded shoulders. ‘It remains academic. No one even knows where in the interior K’azz has disappeared to.’

Shimmer lowered her gaze to the small baked game hen. She plucked at the crisp skin. ‘I will send the message through our dead Brethren. They will find him.’

‘He may not bother to reply,’ Gwynn added.

A touch too blunt, Shimmer thought, her lips tightening in irritation. ‘We shall see.’

Much later, Shimmer stood in the centre of her chambers. It was the set of rooms which had once belonged to the old lord and ladies of the dynasty that had ruled this province as one of the petty kingdoms of Stratem before the arrival of the Crimson Guard. Officially it was Blues’, as it was his rotation as governor, and it would be K’azz’s should he be visiting. Not that whichever of the Avowed occupied the room would have altered anything. The furnishings remained sparse: a cot for a bed and a desk for paperwork. That was all. And a travel chest containing Shimmer’s armour. As for her whipsword, it hung in the main hall downstairs.

Studying the empty room, its walls of dressed stone, the dusty old tapestries that dated back to the original dynasty, that hung rotting where the Guard had found them, her thoughts returned to her irritation at dinner. It was not Gwynn and his clumsy manners; no, it was K’azz’s absence. The man was avoiding something and what that might be worried her. At times what personal vanity she had left fancied he was avoiding her. At other times she cursed the man for running away from his responsibilities. It was damned hard work struggling to build a unified nation from the ground up. Roads had to be surveyed, bridges built, settlements planned. Things couldn’t be allowed to fall out haphazardly. And the man had walked away from the dull dreariness of it all — leaving others to clean up the mess. That irresponsibility had lowered her estimation of him a fair bit. She shook herself, frowning at the dark. In any case, he had to be contacted. She summoned the Brethren to her.

Shortly, a ghostly shape coalesced within the room, lean, bandy-legged, right arm gone at the elbow: Stoop, their old siegemaster, recently lost to them. The shade offered a slight inclination of his head. ‘Shimmer,’ he breathed, and she was surprised to actually hear the word pronounced.

‘Stoop. I have a message for K’azz.’

‘I can deliver it,’ the shade of the old man drawled. ‘But I can’t say as whether he’ll respond.’

‘I understand. The message is that visitors have arrived from Jacuruku. Skinner has returned there and they appear to be implying that he is our responsibility.’

‘We sensed those two,’ Stoop murmured. ‘Hardly human, them.’

Shimmer frowned at the observation. ‘You will pass on the message?’

‘Course. Get right on it. Good to see you again, Shimmer.’ The shade headed to the door as if it would open it to exit but passed right through the adzed planks instead. His presence left behind a cloud of dust that wafted to the stone floor.

Puzzled, Shimmer knelt to run a hand through the dust, then straightened, studying her fingers. The man had acted almost as if he were still alive. And never before had she seen one of them gather dust to their form. But then, Stoop quite often appeared as spokesman for the fallen Avowed. She wiped the powder from her hands and returned to the desk.

Shimmer frankly expected no response. K’azz had disavowed Skinner and those who chose to follow him. Thrown them from the ranks more than a year ago. The man’s actions were now his own. The company was in no way answerable for them … no matter what others might insist. These visitors could linger as long as they liked. They would get no satisfaction. Over the next few days she ignored them while approving requests from the local merchants regarding expenses for repairs to their vessel.

Four days later she was therefore quite surprised when Ogilvy, one of the regulars, a recruit of their Third Investment, knocked and entered, pressing a scarred and battered knuckle to an equally scarred, hairless brow. ‘K’azz, ma’am,’ he announced in his hoarse gravelly voice, bowing as if she were some sort of nobility. Countless times she had told him a salute would do, but it seemed the man’s manners were ingrained as he bowed and ma’amed even as she told him not to. Now she just endured it.

Nodding, she dismissed him. She set down her quill and rose to come down. She took a moment to pause before a mirror of polished bronze next to the door and examine herself. Short and dark, her long black hair braided. She happened to be wearing a full-length gown of brocade, slit and laced at the sides, tight across her chest and narrow at the arms all the way down past her wrists where the cloth flared. It hadn’t occurred to her before, but she seemed to have taken the role of acting-governor rather seriously in setting aside her usual plain leathers and quilted aketon. But that face! Always so severe, lass. Nose flattened like some brawling barroom wench, and lips too damned thin.

She scowled at her reflection. Still, not exactly something to run from howling into the night.

And anyway, who gave a damn? She threw open the door, yanked the sheathed dirk hanging there from its peg, and shoved it through the back of her belt as she descended the circular stone staircase.

She found him at the stables running a hand over one of their few mounts. His leathers were travel-stained, with tall moccasins wrapped tight up to his knees. Seen from behind his hair hung wild and unkempt, touched with streaks of grey.

He turned before she reached him and she paused. Again the shock of this man, this youth of her own remembrance, now an old man. He must’ve been living very hard recently as he’d lost even more weight. His keen eyes were sunken and his cheekbones stuck out as sharp as blades. And he’d grown a beard, also touched with grey.

Old. Prematurely old. Prematurely? We’re all old, girl! You’re over a hundred and twenty! Shaking herself, she closed to take both cool hands in hers, giving a light kiss to each cheek. ‘Welcome! What have you been doing?’

‘Picking out routes to Lake Jorrick.’

‘You’re really going to name it after him?’

He smiled behind his beard. ‘Why not? He’s a hero in Genabackis.’

‘Well … I suppose so. Here to stay?’

The bright eyes, which had been searching hers, edged aside. ‘Perhaps. My apologies for leaving all the paperwork to you.’

‘You left it to Blues.’

‘Ah! No wonder he fled. Then I don’t apologize. Any word on them?’

‘They may have reached Korel by now.’

‘So … they merely have to find Bars and rescue him from the Stormwall — should it even be him. They ought to be back soon.’

‘I should’ve gone.’

‘Blues can take care of himself. He’s the best of us.’

‘Well, I miss him. As I miss you …’

The dark wind-burnished skin about the man’s eyes wrinkled then and he glanced down. ‘I miss all of you as well — so, what of these visitors?’

Shimmer headed for the open fortress gates. ‘Gwynn names them servants of Ardata.’

K’azz walked at her side, hands clasped at his back. ‘Yes. I can feel their presence. No doubt they rank among her most powerful. She’s telling us that she takes their message very seriously. Unfortunately, we can’t oblige …’

‘Such was my answer.’

‘But they want to hear it from me.’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s why I’m here …’

Shimmer’s questing gaze fell to the gravel road that wound to Haven Town. And when they go — so too will you? Off into the wilderness again? Do you not worry about the effects of these long absences? The rumours and disquiet? Not among us Avowed, of course, but the regular troops and the lay people. Some even claim you died long ago and we merely rule in your name.

Still, she mused, it was just like the old days when so often they laid false rumours of his presence or absence … Blues and others even masquerading as him … all as precautions against the ever-present threat of those damned Claw assassins …

Blinking, Shimmer came up short, realizing that they’d reached the town already. The long descent down the rear of the cliff seemed to have passed in an instant. They must have spent the entire walk in a long mutual silence.

And ahead, down the main strip, the two emerged from the inn, no doubt just as aware of their proximity as they of theirs. The big man, Nagal, was forced to duck quite low to manage the small doorway. From windows and open doors curious locals watched as they closed upon one another. None of the four of them, Shimmer noted, carried a blade longer than a dirk. A deliberate wariness?

The dark woman offered the sketch of a bow. The forest of amulets upon her breast rustled and clattered. K’azz answered the bow. ‘Duke D’Avore,’ she said. ‘Or is it Prince?’

‘I have held many titles,’ he answered easily enough. ‘I suggest the one of which I am most proud — Commander.’

‘Very well … Commander. I am Rutana and this is Nagal.’ The huge fellow, who appeared to have been suppressing a crooked secretive smile the entire time, also bowed.

‘Greetings and welcome to Stratem. How may we be of service?’

‘You have my message,’ she snapped. ‘You should know how you may be of service. Your vassal, Skinner, has returned to Jacuruku and would make war upon us. It is your responsibility to come and rid us of him.’

‘He is no longer my vassal. I am no longer answerable for his actions.’

The woman was undeterred. She raised her chin, her mouth twisting into something even more sour. ‘What then of reparations for his crimes in our lands during the time he was your vassal? His elimination would perhaps be just blood-price for those!’

Again, the woman’s imperiousness stole Shimmer’s breath. Gods above! She stands in K’azz’s lands and denounces him for crimes committed by another — and all in a distant kingdom? It was too much to tolerate. She would have sent them off that instant.

K’azz, however, seemed to possess inhuman patience. The man merely tilted his head as if considering the woman’s point from all possible angles. Then from behind his beard he allowed a small considered frown. ‘It occurs to me, Rutana, that Skinner entered into vassalage to your mistress when he first arrived in Jacuruku, did he not?’

The woman clutched the leather bindings of her arm, twisting them savagely, and rage darkened her features. After a moment she mastered her emotions enough to answer: ‘There was no formal agreement as such. For a time my mistress and he merely struck up a relationship.’

K’azz’s shrug announced he considered the subject closed. ‘Be that as it may, Skinner has long gone his own route and I am in no way answerable.’

‘Yet even now the Vow sustains him,’ Nagal suddenly broke in, his voice low and melodious. ‘Your Vow, K’azz.’

Something like pain clutched at the prince’s features. ‘I would revoke that if I possessed the power,’ he answered, strained. ‘As it is, I have disavowed him.’

‘That is not enough,’ he answered. ‘Still the Vow encompasses him. Our mistress knows the mysteries of it, K’azz. Are you not curious?’

Shimmer felt a profound unease. Through these two servants she was aware of the influence of this mistress of all witches, Ardata, stretching out to touch them. The sensation made her queasy and her flesh crawled as if befouled. K’azz, she could see, was shaken by what could only be taken as an Ascendant implicitly offering to examine something entwined with his very identity.

Tentatively, he began, ‘I do not question your mistress’s wisdom and power. Perhaps, in the future, I shall take advantage of her generous offer.’ He inclined his head without taking his eyes from the two. ‘But until such time I bid you a safe return journey.’

He turned and walked away, rather stiffly. Shimmer followed, backing away, unwilling to take her eyes from the two.

The big man, Nagal, simply raised his voice to call: ‘Yes, some time in the future, Prince. For do we not possess all the time in the world, yes?’

That checked K’azz for a moment but then he moved on.

‘One last thing!’ Rutana shouted.

Sighing, K’azz turned. ‘Yes?’

‘As you are uncooperative, my mistress has empowered me to reveal one last point.’

‘Yes?’

‘You know my mistress’s powers as seer and prophetess. She has foreseen that soon there shall be an attempt upon the Dolmens of Tien. What say you to that, K’azz? Can that be allowed?’

At first this obscure warning meant nothing to Shimmer. Then she remembered where she’d heard that odd name before: the very locale where K’azz had been imprisoned in the lands of Jacuruku. Her attention snapped to him and she was shocked to see his reaction: he had gone chalky white and his shoulders visibly bowed as if beneath a crushing burden. He shook his head in denial. ‘That mustn’t happen,’ he finally grated, his voice thick.

Rutana’s smile revealed a hungry triumph. ‘My mistress is in agreement with that, Prince.’

‘You’ve made your point, Witch.’ He turned to Shimmer. ‘Summon the Avowed. I sail for Jacuruku.’ And he walked away.

Shimmer stared after him in stunned amazement. Just like that? One vague threat or hint, or whatever that was, and he agrees? She glanced back to the two but their avid gazes ignored her, following instead the rigid, stick-like figure of K’azz as he appeared to drag himself, painfully, up the road.

* * *

The vessel’s bow slid up the strand with a loud scraping of wood on sand. At the bow its master stood scanning the dunes and scrub stretching inland. All the crew and the assembled warriors awaited his command, for though cruel and harsh he had led them on many successful raids and they trusted his leadership in war. His long coat of grey mail hung to the decking, ragged and rusted. His hair and beard hung likewise grey and ragged. The Grey Ghost, some named him — in the faintest whispers only. He preferred the title Warleader.

With a savage yell he vaulted the side, landing in the surf in a splash. His crew followed him, howling like wolves. Of them, if any one might be named second in command, this was Scarza. A great hulking warrior who some whispered possessed more than a drop of Trell blood. He came now to the Warleader’s side, noting, in passing, how the rust of the man’s armour left a great blood-like bloom trailing behind in the surf.

‘No shaking of the earth, Scarza,’ the Warleader observed, shading his gaze upon the scrublands. ‘No pealing of trumpets. Not the end of the world.’

‘What is this you speak of, Warleader?’

The man’s aged sallow eyes flicked to him, then away. ‘Nothing, my good Scarza … It has just been a great many years since I last walked these shores.’

‘And what are we to do in this wretched land that reminds me too painfully of my own?’

The deeply furrowed lines of the ancient’s face darkened as he smiled; he seemed to enjoy his second in command’s caustic vein of humour. ‘It’s not these lands I want, Scarza. It’s the neighbouring kingdom. It’s ruled by a complacent set of self-aggrandizing mages who style themselves master alchemists and theurgists. Here, however, are ragged bands that make their living raiding the Thaumaturgs. These we will take under our wing and show what rewards a sustained campaign can bring.’

‘Their deaths, you mean?’

The lean man’s lined mouth drew down as if in mild disapproval. ‘Well,’ he admitted, ‘eventually.’

The Warleader turned to the surf where the rest of the fleet of ten raiders now came grinding up on to the strand. ‘In the meantime send out scouts and see to the unloading, then dismantle the ships for their timber, yes?’

Scarza bowed. ‘At once, Warleader.’

The grey man returned his attention inland, shading his gaze once more. ‘So,’ he breathed. ‘I’m back, you wretched circle of mages. What will you do? Yes … what will you do?’