Forge of Darkness

NINETEEN

The sounds of revelry filled the hust legion camp outside the command tent. Smiling, Hunn Raal studied the woman seated opposite him. ‘It seemed a modest gesture at the time,’ he said, ‘but I cannot refute the blessing of this outcome.’

Toras Redone did not smile in return. Her expression remained unchanged, and this detail had begun to unnerve the captain. She held her tankard in her left hand and the jug of wine, from her private stores, in her right, resting both on her thighs. ‘If you think,’ she said, only slightly slurring her words, ‘gifts of wine and ale to my soldiers are sufficient to win everlasting accord between our legions, captain, then your drunken ways have led you astray.’

Hunn Raal lifted his brows. ‘It ever pained me, commander, that we came to view each other as rivals-’

‘Your dislike of the Hust has nothing to do with rivalry. You fear our weapons and their songs of war. It is not my soldiers whom you need to ply with liquor to achieve peace between us, but perhaps such generosity applied to your own soldiers could improve matters.’

‘Songs of war? Abyss below, commander, we can list the many words available to describe the uncanny cries of your weapons, but surely not the language of music.’

Her level gaze remained fixed on him. ‘Indeed? What stirring symphony would you wish for war, captain? Drums to quicken the heart? A rising crescendo to mark the momentous clash of two foes meeting in combat? Sorrowful dirges to settle like ashes upon the inevitable scene of slaughter to follow? Are you a romantic, captain? Do you dream of glory and virtue, of heroism and bravery? Are we all brothers and sisters under the armour, under the skin and down among our bones which, when at last laid bare, lose all provenance?’ She raised her tankard and swallowed down another mouthful. ‘Is this the man who has come among us? Sodden and sentimental, yet eager to raise a hand and point an accusing finger at unbelievers?’

Hunn Raal bit back a savage retort. ‘The Hust Legion proclaims itself Mother Dark’s own-’

‘Does Urusander resent the claim? Do you?’

He shook his head. ‘Commander, there are Deniers among you.’

‘What of it?’

‘They do not belong to Mother Dark.’

‘Don’t they?’

‘Of course they don’t.’

She refilled her tankard — something she did after every mouthful. ‘Too many things weaken your resolve, captain. Your self-doubt creates enemies and then raises them up like things of mud and straw. But whose flaws are so displayed? Many an old soldier has noted how one is measured by one’s enemies. Yet, here you are, refusing to respect your foe, even as you exaggerate the threat they pose. Are you too drunk, captain, to countenance the contradiction?’

This night had begun in a contest of drinking, or so Hunn Raal had read the challenge in the commander’s eyes, when she had first invited him to sit with her. In the meantime, the wagons had trundled into the encampment, and the casks were unloaded to laughing soldiers, and Toras Redone had voiced no objection to the distribution of such bounty. He struggled to steady his thoughts. ‘I respect the threat they represent, commander. This is why I have come to you. Our legions must stand together, in Mother Dark’s defence.’

‘It is my understanding, captain, that she commands no such thing. Mother Dark does not compel anyone.’ Then Toras Redone suddenly snorted. ‘How could she, when the gifts of worship remain unknown? In what manner are we rewarded when we deem her a goddess? What cast this coinage of faith? The priestesses flounder in their beds and silken pillows. Mother Dark announces no laws and demands nothing from us. What kind of goddess is she, when she does not gauge her own power in terms of adherents? Worship her. Do not worship her. Either way, she remains unchanged.’

‘I am a simple soldier, commander, and I admit to avoiding the confusions of religious practice. I see the world as a soldier must see it. We all wear uniforms, be they girded for war or politics, or religion.’

‘Is there not room for all of us in Kurald Galain?’

‘We could encompass the world, commander, and still we would fight one another.’

Toras Redone looked away, seeming to study one wall of her tent, where the silhouettes of insects made a silent audience to this exchange. ‘Perhaps,’ she said in a low voice, ‘this is what Mother Dark is telling us. She embodies a hollowness at the core of all of our beliefs. Some would bask in what they imagine to be fulfilment, when it is in truth absence.’ Her eyes slid back to Hunn Raal. ‘We crowd the rim of an empty bowl, captain, and jostle for footing, blessing those who slide in while voicing our delight at those who fall off and are for ever lost. When that pleasure proves insufficient, why, we begin pushing others off, flinging them away while telling ourselves that these victims lived lives of less worth

…’ Her words trailed away, and she drank again, returning her gaze to the tent wall.

‘Commander, all I seek is peace.’

She sighed and then said, ‘The truth of darkness is that it hides everything and reflects nothing. We stumble in blind ignorance and swing at everyone who draws near. Do you appreciate the irony in all this, captain? In our language we voice the Abyss as a curse, but I tell you, I have knelt before Mother Dark in the Chamber of Night, and I have felt the Abyss — when she touched my brow.’

Shaken, Hunn Raal said nothing.

Toras Redone offered him a loose shrug. ‘Yet she sits upon the Throne of Night, and we acknowledge her rule, such as it is. Of course,’ she added, ‘that throne was a gift from Lord Draconus. You would have thought — given his purported ambitions — that he would have offered up two thrones.’

‘Commander, I have no complaint against the Consort. It is the highborn who obsess over that man’s ambitions. You raise an interesting question — have you voiced it among your fellow nobles?’

Toras Redone blinked, and then shook her head. ‘He swims in the bowl and so we hate him. There is nothing complicated in that enmity.’

‘Do you know where he has gone, commander?’

‘No.’ She waved the hand that held the tankard, spilling some wine in the process. ‘West.’

‘Soldiers should not be the objects of resentment in times of peace,’ said Hunn Raal. ‘When that peace was won by our blood and sweat, well, are you not stung by this?’

‘It is not resentment, captain, it is indifference. And I welcome it.’

‘How can you say that? We deserve to be rewarded for the sacrifices we have made!’

‘What sacrifices, captain? You are still alive. So am I. Neither of us lost limbs.’

‘I speak not just for myself! I have friends who have been left crippled, blinded, or who cannot sleep through the night-’

‘While others drink or smoke themselves into oblivion. Because the truths of war broke us inside, and broken we remain. Reparation, then? For the dead, why, let us raise high bold mausoleums. For the maimed, let us entrench our pity and suckle guilt’s bloated tit until we grow fat on remorse. And for the drunks like you and me, captain, why, a bounty of riches to keep our cellars well stocked, and a high seat in every tavern from which we can weave our tales of past glory. Or is it a title you wish? Very well, I proclaim you the Lord of War, and will seek for you a proper estate. In addition, I give you fields of horror to harvest nightly, and granaries filled with wretched memories, which you can daily grind to dust on this millstone you call your life.’

Hunn Raal stared at her for a long time, and then he reached into the sack he had brought into the tent with him, and drew out a jug. ‘My gift to you, commander. A fine vintage I am sure you will enjoy.’

‘I have my own, captain, but thank you anyway.’

‘You refuse my offering?’

‘Not at all.’

‘Shall I refill your tankard, then?’

She shook her head. ‘I am done drinking this night, captain. I must walk the pickets, lest your friends tempted the Nightwatch in their eager, if somewhat forced, generosity.’

‘If they did, commander, it was well meaning.’

‘Your gesture is appreciated and you have given me much to think about, captain, but my rules of conduct are explicit, and if I find even one guard with alcohol riding the breath, there will be the public lash. Discipline is a necessity, even in times of peace.’

‘Indeed it is,’ Hunn Raal said. ‘I am impressed.’

‘Are you? Good. Perhaps it will give you something to think about.’

‘Commander, the Hust Legion is not our enemy.’

‘Barring the Deniers in my ranks.’

‘They are your concern, not mine.’

‘I am relieved to hear you say that, captain. Now, feel free to use the spare cot in this tent. I doubt I will return before dawn.’

‘Have you quit sleep, too, commander?’

‘I save that for my staff meetings. Now, if you will excuse me.’

He rose when she did. ‘It has been a fascinating evening,’ he said.

Toras Redone studied him. ‘You never drink as much as you pretend to, captain. Why is that?’ Without awaiting an answer, she marched from the tent.

Hunn Raal stared at the tent flap, watching it settle following her departure. He sat back down. Well, why should I be surprised? When it comes to drinking, you can’t fool a drunk. The insects had all scattered with the rustling of the canvas, but now they returned. He stared at them. An audience with low expectations, one presumes. Better than that canny bitch of a commander.

His gaze travelled to the jug he had given her, and then away again. Sighing, he collected his cup and filled his mouth with the tart liquid. A soldier needs no excuses to drink. You can’t just walk away from dancing with death, after all, and no wall holds you up for long.

There was a sound at the tent entrance and he looked up to see Sevegg peering in. He gestured her to enter.

‘I saw her march out,’ she said.

Hunn Raal nodded. ‘We’re leaving soon. Inform the others. Have them depart quietly and singly. Leave the wagons and animals.’

‘Our horses, cousin?’

‘That’s “sir” to you, lieutenant.’

‘Yes sir. Your pardon.’

‘They remain hobbled well outside the pickets?’

‘As instructed, sir.’

‘Take four soldiers with you. Saddle up our mounts and then lead them to the east track. We will all rendezvous there. I want us riding before dawn.’

‘Yes sir.’ She saluted and left.

He looked down at the tankard in his hand, and then tilted the cup, spilling the contents to the dirt floor, and set it upside down on the centre of the commander’s small map table.

All I wanted, Toras Redone, was peace.

Captain Ivis climbed the ladder and emerged on to the parapet of the northwest tower. He came up alongside Corporal Yalad. ‘Well, what is it I need to see?’

The man pointed to the ridge of hills to the west. ‘Another army, sir. But this one is not passing through — see them? I’d swear they were presenting for battle.’

Ivis squinted. He could make out riders working into position along the centre hill, arraying in ranks. With the rising dust behind them, it was impossible to tell how many there were. To either side, more soldiers had dismounted and were forming up in skirmish order. ‘Can you make out that banner, corporal?’

‘No sir.’

Ivis rubbed at the back of his neck. His eyes felt full of sand. He’d not slept well since his journey into the wild forest — since his visit to that cursed goddess. At times, he managed to convince himself that he had but dreamed the whole ordeal, but then, he had not the imagination to conjure such horrors. What few nightmares he experienced in his life were all singular and banal in their obsessions. The loss of teeth, walking naked into a crowded hall, the maddening inability to find the stirrups on a panicked horse rushing for a cliff edge, a broken sword in the midst of battle. There were no sharpened stakes rising from a glade’s matted grasses, and no woman lying impaled upon them and regarding him with calm eyes.

‘What should we do, sir?’

Blinking, Ivis shook himself. ‘Call to arms, corporal. With luck, we’ll have the time to assemble. I see nothing in the way of siege weapons.’

‘No sir. We could let them circle the walls until their horses drop from exhaustion.’

Ivis turned to study the eastern sky. The pall of smoke seemed unending. He faced the unknown enemy again, watched their ragged preparations. ‘No, I have had my fill with this. It is time to test our lord’s heavy cavalry. Whoever they are, we’ll bloody their noses and send them away, and if word races to the ears of every highborn in Kurald Galain, all the better.’

‘Yes sir.’

He glanced across at the corporal and scowled. ‘You’re looking pallid enough to faint. Steady yourself before tackling the ladder, corporal.’

‘Yes sir. I will.’

‘But not if the effort takes all morning. Get moving!’

The young soldier scrambled for the trap.

Ivis returned his attention to the unknown forces arraying against them. More than half a thousand to be sure. But he saw nothing of heraldic banners among the ranks, nor any sign of company standards. The single thin flag waving was still too distant to make out, and then it was suddenly lowered, vanishing from sight.

As he watched, hearing the first barked shouts from the keep’s compound at his back, he saw a troop of a dozen or so riders emerge from the ranks and canter down the hill’s slope. Reaching its base, they set out, their mounts taking a low stone wall in smooth leaps, crossing through the dusty stubble of a harvested field, taking another wall and out across another field, drawing ever closer.

There was a broad ring of level, unbroken land surrounding the keep’s hill, enough room for charging cavalry, and when the strangers reached the outer edge of this one rode forward and lifted the banner once more. The figure then reined in and drove the pole into the earth.

The troop wheeled round and set off back to the main force.

Ivis stared at the banner they had left behind.

Abyss take me. They’re Borderswords.

Returning from the killing field, Feren’s horse stumbled after clearing the last wall and coming up against the slope. She fought to right the animal and a moment later regained control. She glared across at her brother. ‘Rint! We need to rest!’

He made no reply, pushing to force his mount back up the hillside.

Looking up, she studied the foremost row of Borderswords lining the crest above her. Their beasts were lathered, heads drooping, and the men and women sitting silent in their saddles were in no better shape. Anger and horror could speak in one tongue, but it was a language ignorant of reason. She had listened to its ceaseless clamouring in her skull for days and nights now, and for most of that time, there had been something of a blessing in that senseless cacophony.

The enemy had a face, and in every line, in every crease and wrinkle, it could encompass all that was wrong with the world; all that was unjust; all that was evil. Nothing could be simpler than this moment of recognition, or the relief one felt when it arrived, bright as revelation, to burn away uncertainty and doubt, to scour from the mind the sins of subtlety.

She had felt its sharp talons drag down through her mind, making wreckage of time and need, of cautious planning and preparation. This was not war, unless an entire war could be reduced to a single battle. On this day they would strike down the enemy: they would rake their own claws down that bitter visage, slicing through the bones underneath, and spilling out for all to see the mundane truth of evil. Blood the same as our blood. Flesh the same as our flesh. The pulped ruin of brains no different from what we might splash out to a mace’s blow. All disassembled and beyond repair.

Then we’ll look on in silence, and wonder at the howling emptiness inside us. It will not last long. The horror will return, standing over spent rage.

Nothing goes away. It just piles up inside.

Staggering, her horse reached the crest and she reined in the poor beast. Within her exhaustion, something cold and hard had pushed through. She could see clearly into a future too bleak to comprehend. She faced Rint again. ‘At the very least wait a day! Abyss take us, the enemy is rested!’ Her desperate gaze shifted to the others surrounding Rint. ‘Traj! We are done in!’

‘You’ll not fight,’ Rint told her. ‘Lahanis will remain with you-’

At that, Lahanis hissed. ‘I will not! See the blood still on my hands? This day I will add to it!’

‘I ride at your side,’ Feren told her brother. ‘But we need to pause. Here and now. We need to recover our strength-’

‘I am ready for this,’ Traj said.

‘Listen to me — Rint, Ville and Galak — we have seen those Houseblades! We have watched their drills!’

‘And remember how few they were!’ Rint retorted, almost shouting. ‘Too heavily armoured besides — we will dance circles round them! Feren — there must be eight hundred of us here! Against what? Two hundred mounted Houseblades at best?’

‘Do you think we will meet their charge?’ Traj demanded. ‘No, we will part before it. We will sweep in from the sides, joined by the skirmishers. We will drag them down from their mounts and gut them all!’

‘All very well — but let us rest first!’

‘Sister,’ said Rint, ‘it will be noon before they ride out to meet us, assuming they have the courage to face the challenge of our banner. They know why we are here! We will await them, this I swear!’

She subsided, looking away from her brother, away from all of them. Do I so fear righteous vengeance? No. My brother grieves. All those here grieve.

But this makes no sense. Has Lord Draconus lost control of his Houseblades? But then, is that so impossible? There is civil war and their lord has left them. They have chosen a side and they acted — striking us first to remove the threat from their backs; and would now face the east and south without risk of being surrounded by enemies.

That makes tactical sense.

Except for the fact that our fighters were all away, and now we are here.

She twisted in her saddle to the young girl with the stained hands. ‘Lahanis. Did you see heavily armoured Houseblades? Did you see warhorses? How many attacked?’

The girl stared at her in open distaste. ‘I saw Houseblades,’ she said. ‘I saw the standard of House Dracons! I am not a child!’

‘Activity from the gate!’ someone shouted.

Feren turned with the others to see two riders emerging from the keep, picking their way down the slope. One bore the standard of Dracons.

‘They accept our challenge,’ Rint said, baring his teeth.

The two distant figures rode out to rein in directly in front of the Borderswords’ banner. The one bearing the Dracons standard thrust it into the ground, next to the first offering. A moment later, both Houseblades were riding back to the keep.

‘After we have slain the Houseblades,’ said Traj, ‘we break into the keep. We kill everyone we find. Then we ride down to the village. We slaughter everyone and burn everything. If I could, I would see the ground salted. But I will settle for shattered bones. Curse upon the name of Draconus, by the blood of my soul.’

Feren felt a chill creeping through her, spreading out through her muscles. She reached up to touch the scar disfiguring her cheek, and felt her fingertips cold as ice.

‘Everyone dismount!’ Traj called out. ‘Rest your horses and see to your weapons! Drink the last from your flasks and eat what’s left in your saddlebags!’

‘That would be leather string, Traj!’ someone yelled back.

Low laughter rippled out.

Feren hunched in her saddle, studying the wiry grasses fluttering along the crest. The baby stirred in her, twice, like a thing making fists.

Sandalath emerged from the house. Although the day was warm, the skies clear, she drew her cloak tightly about her. Her walk through the house had awakened the horror that gripped her soul, and although the bloodstains had been washed away and all other signs of the slaughter removed, the unnatural silence — the absence of familiar faces — crumbled her courage.

She had made of her room a fortress against all that lay beyond its door, but in the days and nights that followed the killings her abode became a prison, with terror pacing the corridor beyond. She feared sleep and its timeless world of nightmare visions, its panicked flights through shadows and the flapping of small, bared feet closing behind her.

It still seemed impossible that the daughters of Draconus could have, in a single night, become so transformed. She saw them now as demonic, and their faces, hovering ceaselessly in her mind’s eye, made evil the soft features of youth: the large, bright eyes and rosebud lips, the flush of rounded cheeks.

Captain Ivis insisted that they had fled the keep. But he had sent trackers into the countryside and they had found no signs of their passage. At night, lying awake and shivering in her bed, Sandalath had heard strange sounds in the house, and once, very faint, the sound of whispering, as of voices behind a stone wall. She was convinced that the girls were still in the house, hiding in secret places known only to them.

There was a forbidden room…

She saw Captain Ivis and made her way to where he stood. Soldiers crowded the compound, silent but for the sounds their armour made as they tightened straps and closed buckles. Grooms rushed about burdened beneath saddles and the leather plates of horse armour. Ivis stood in the midst of this chaos like a man on an island, beyond the reach of frenzied waves thrashing on all sides. She drew assurance from just seeing him. He met her eyes as she drew nearer.

‘Hostage, you have seen too little of the sun, but this is not the best of days.’

‘What is happening?’

‘We prepare for battle,’ he replied.

‘But — who would want to attack us?’

The man shrugged. ‘It is not our way to struggle in search of enemies, hostage. Some have suggested that the invasion of the Jheleck but delayed the brooding civil war. An unpopular opinion, but so often it is the unpopular ones that prove true, while those eagerly embraced are revealed as wishful thinking. We deny for comfort, and often it takes a hand to the throat to shake us awake.’ He studied her for a moment. ‘I regret the risk you face in our company, hostage. Whatever may befall us, be assured that you will not be harmed.’

‘What madness has so afflicted us, Captain Ivis?’

‘That question is best directed at poets, hostage, not soldiers like me.’ He gestured at the scene in the compound. ‘I fret at the loss of our surgeon, and fear that I will not stand well in my lord’s stead in this battle to come. He instructed me as to the training of these Houseblades and I have done what I could in his absence, but on this day I feel very much alone.’

He looked exhausted to her eyes, but even this did not shake her confidence in him. ‘His daughters,’ she said, ‘would not have dared do what they did, captain, if you had been home that night.’

Though she had intended her words to be assuring, she saw him flinch. He looked away, the muscles of his jaws tightening. ‘I regret my foolish wanderings, hostage. Alas, it soothes nothing to promise never again.’

Sandalath stepped closer, overwhelmed by a desire to give him comfort. ‘Forgive my clumsy words, captain. I meant but to show my faith in you. On this day you will prevail. I am certain of it.’

The gates had been opened and the Houseblades were mounting up and riding through them to assemble outside the keep. Corporal Yalad shouted out troop numbers, as if to impose order on the chaos, but to Sandalath’s eyes it seemed no one was paying him any attention. And yet there was no confusion at the gate’s narrow passage, and the flow of armed figures riding out was steady, although it seemed that that could change at any moment. She frowned. ‘Captain, this seems so… fraught.’

He grunted. ‘Everything is going smoothly, hostage, I assure you. Once we lock with the enemy in the field beyond, well, that is when all sense of order is swept away. Even there, however, I intend to hold on to control of the Houseblades for as long as I can, and with luck, if that is even a fraction longer than the enemy’s commander is able to do, we will win. This is the truth of all war. The side that holds its nerve longer is the side that wins.’

‘No different then, from any argument.’

He smiled at her. ‘Just so, hostage. You are right to see war in this way. Each battle is an argument. Even the language is shared. We yield ground. We surrender. We retreat. In each, you can find a match to any knockdown scrap between husband and wife, or mother and daughter. And this should tell you something else.’

She nodded. ‘Victory is often claimed, but defeat is never accepted.’

‘It is an error to doubt your intelligence, hostage.’

‘If I possess such a thing, captain, it gives little strength.’ She shook herself. ‘My life is measured out in lost arguments.’

‘The same might be said of all of us,’ Ivis replied.

‘But do win today’s argument, captain. And come home safe.’

When she looked up and met his eyes, she felt a rippling sensation travel through her, as if a wave of something was passing between them. It should have shocked her, but it did not, and she reached out to rest a hand against his arm.

His eyes widened slightly. ‘Forgive me, hostage, but I must leave you now.’

‘I shall take to the tower to watch the battle, captain.’

‘The day will lift dust and so obscure the scene.’

‘I will witness your victory none the less. And when Lord Draconus at last returns, I will tell him the tale of this day.’

He nodded to her and then departed, calling for his horse.

When she looked round the compound, she saw that it was almost empty, barring a dozen or so servants preparing cots along one wall and stacking strips of cloth to use as bandages. Two small kilns had been dragged out from the smithy and apprentices were stacking bricks around them, along with buckets, some containing water and others with what looked like iron rods bearing a variety of shaped ends. These were set down close to the kilns. More servants arrived with braziers, shovelling into the black-rimmed mouths of the kilns the coals and embers they contained.

Surgeon Atran should have been there, snapping out instructions and standing with her arms crossed and fury in her face at the thought of the wounded and dying soon to come. Sandalath could almost see her, just as she had almost seen Hilith in a corridor, and the keeper of records, Hidast, at his desk through the open door to his office. And her maids, showing her the welts Hilith had inflicted on them for some invented transgression. In her mind, or in some timeless corner of her mind, they still lived, still moved through the house bent on their tasks and doing all the things they were supposed to do.

She wanted them back. Even Hilith. Instead, all she had now were stones that whispered and the faint scuff of bared feet out of sight past some corner, and that chilling sensation of hidden eyes tracking her every move.

And now Captain Ivis had ridden out to join his soldiers. She saw the armourer, Setyl, with his terribly scarred face, standing near the kilns, motionless as he stared into the embers. Near the stables stood Venth, openly weeping at the thought of the horses soon to die.

Sandalath looked at the tower she had told Ivis would be her perch to witness the battle. To ascend, she would have to pass the locked door that led into a chamber she had once heard Envy call the Temple.

If the daughters remained in the keep, they were hiding in that room. She had no proof, of course. Not even Ivis had a key to that chamber, and just like her he knew not what lay behind that door.

She had been given a fighting knife after the night of the murders. It was heavy, wide-bladed and weighted at its tip. The captain had shown her how to chop with the weapon. It could be used to slice and cut as well, but these techniques involved practice, and a wrist stronger than hers. The thought of killing the Lord’s daughters did not disturb her overmuch; the faith she lacked was in her own courage.

Beneath the cloak, she closed one hand about the weapon’s grip, and then set out for the tower and its stairs that wound up the inside of the outer wall. There were four levels to the tower, if one included the open platform at the top. Shuttered windows were visible on all but the floor with the hidden chamber, and that one was just beneath the ladder to the platform.

Reaching the door, she was startled by a hand on her shoulder. She turned to see the horse master, his eyes still red and streaked tears on his lined cheeks. ‘Master Venth, what do you wish?’

‘Your pardon, hostage. But when the captain took from me the reins of his mount, he informed me that you were intent on watching from atop the tower.’

She nodded.

‘He asked that I escort you there, hostage. And, if you so desire, that I keep you company.’

‘Is it dangerous to be up there, horse master?’

His eyes shied away. ‘Not from anyone outside the walls, hostage.’

‘Then at last Captain Ivis is convinced. They are still here, aren’t they?’

‘Food’s gone missing, hostage. Corporal Yalad shared your conviction and he has been diligent, and like you he believes that they hide in secret passages.’

‘Then, Venth, I will welcome your company.’

‘Permit me to lead the way, then.’

‘Of course.’

Clearly, Envy reflected, something was wrong. Malice was rotting. They huddled under the floor of the kitchen, sharing between them a loaf of bread Spite had stolen just before dawn. They were all filthy, but the smell coming from little Malice was rank with something much worse than grime and sweat. Each time Malice opened her mouth to take another piece of bread, the stench grew worse.

‘All the house guards trooped out,’ said Spite. ‘I was behind the hearth wall at the crack. Envy, we have the house to ourselves.’

‘We can get to the hostage then. Good.’

‘Not yet. She went out, too. Something is going on. I don’t know what — we heard all the horses. I think they’ve gone to fight somewhere.’

‘War? Could be. Everyone’s closing in on Father. About time.’

‘He’s not here, though,’ said Malice in a dry, cracking voice.

‘Then he’ll come home to ashes,’ said Spite.

‘I don’t want to burn,’ said Malice, each word spitting out crumbs of bread.

‘We can use the tunnel,’ Envy said, but her mind was not on the subject. She kept her gaze averted from Malice. ‘We have other problems right now. Spite, you know what I mean.’

Her sister nodded, wiping at her nose. ‘If they bring dogs inside, like Yalad was saying, we’re in trouble. I know what to do, though, and we should do it now.’

‘What are you talking about?’ Malice asked.

‘Don’t worry about it. You thirsty, Malice? I am. Envy?’

‘Parched.’

‘There’s no one in the kitchen. Some nice sweet summer wine — it’s all I can think about. This bread is like a lump of wax in my belly.’ She lifted one of her hands to study the red scar the surgeon’s cutting tool had made. ‘We won’t heal up all the way until we get more food and drink in us. That’s why we sleep all the time. We’re starving.’

‘I’m not hungry,’ said Malice. ‘I’m never hungry.’

‘Then why do you eat with us?’ Envy asked.

Malice shrugged. ‘It’s something to do.’

‘Maybe it’s the food inside you that’s rotting.’

‘I don’t smell anything.’

‘We do,’ snapped Spite. ‘But some wine should fix that.’

‘All right, I’ll drink some, then.’

They set out, gathering again at the end of the passage beneath the kitchen floor, where it opened out into two further tunnels. The one on the left led under the entranceway and ended up under the stables, in a room shin deep in mud soaked with horse piss, while the one on the right ran the length of the main chamber. At the junction of these passages there was a chute that reached up to behind the larder. There were no handholds and the only means of ascending this shaft was to wedge oneself against the walls, with knees drawn up. It was difficult and left scrapes and bruises, but it was the only way into the kitchen.

Envy went first, since it had turned out that she was the strongest of the three and so could reach down and help the others up. The walls had become greasy with constant use, making the climb still more treacherous, but at last she reached the ledge that marked the sliding panel at the back wall of the larder, and slid it open so that she could pull herself up and then into the room. She had to huddle since she was beneath a shelf stocked with jars. Reaching down, she let her right arm dangle. Moments later she felt Spite grasp hold of it and then use it to climb up the chute. Each yank shot pain through Envy’s shoulder. Spite’s harsh breathing drew closer, and then her sister was clambering through the trap. As she squeezed past Envy, she whispered, ‘The oven.’

Envy grunted to acknowledge that she heard, and then reached down once more.

Malice’s hands were cold. Skin and the meat beneath it slipped strangely until Envy could feel every bone, closing like talons around her arm. The stench of her sister rose up and she gagged, fighting to keep the contents of her stomach from rising into her mouth.

She felt Spite take hold of her ankles and begin dragging her out from under the shelf, and this helped Envy pull Malice after her. Moments later, all three rose to their feet in the darkness of the larder. That darkness proved no barrier to vision — one of Father’s gifts, Envy assumed.

Spite crept to the door and pressed her ear against it. She released the latch and pulled the door open.

They walked out into the kitchen.

‘Let’s sit close to the oven to warm up,’ Envy said. ‘Spite, find us a jug.’

Malice accompanied Envy to the oven. The fires beneath it had just been fed, to keep the oven hot until the midday meal needed preparing. Envy suspected that this day would see no such meal; still, the habit had been adhered to and so the heat emanating from the metal door and its brick flanks was fierce and welcoming.

‘I can’t feel it,’ said Malice, sitting down beside her.

‘Do you feel cold?’

Malice shook her head. Strands of hair drifted down to the floor. ‘I don’t feel anything.’

Spite reappeared with a heavy earthenware jug. She came up to them, and a moment before reaching them she took the jug’s handle in both hands and swung it against Malice’s head.

Clay and bone shattered, spilling wine and blood out over Malice’s body and the floor, and both sisters. Where the liquids splashed against the oven door there was savage hissing, and then smoke. Spite dropped the handle. ‘Help me lift her!’

Envy took up a wrist and an ankle.

One side of Malice’s head was flattened, although mostly near the top. Her ear was pushed in, surrounded by torn skin and cracked bones that made a pattern like the petals of a flower around that bloodied ear. The eye on that side stared up at the ceiling, leaking bloody tears. She made a moaning sound as she was lifted from the floor, but the other eye looked directly at Envy.

‘Wait!’ snapped Spite, setting Malice’s foot down and reaching for the oven handle. She cursed as she pulled down the door and Envy smelled scorched flesh. ‘That smarts,’ she said, gasping as she retrieved Malice’s right ankle. ‘Turn her round — head first into the oven.’

Envy could not pull her gaze from Malice’s lone, staring eye. ‘She’ll kick.’

‘So what. We can break the legs if we have to.’

Together, with Malice between them, they forced their sister into the oven, and this effort at last swept from Envy that terrible staring eye. The inside of the oven was lined with clay, and loud sizzling sounds accompanied every touch of skin, blood and hair against the rounded sides. Malice struggled, pulling at her arms, but the effort was weak. They got the upper half of their sister’s body into the oven and began pushing the rest in. The legs did not kick. They were limp and heavy, the toes curling upward.

‘No more bread in this one,’ gasped Spite as she folded the leg she held and pushed it past the edge of the door, the knee leaving a patch of skin on the metal rim.

‘They’ll have to smash it into pieces and build another,’ said Envy. She got the leg in on her side as well.

Spite grasped the door’s handle and slammed it home.

‘Feed more wood,’ said Envy, sitting back. ‘I want her crisp. She stank like the Abyss!’

‘I wonder what we did wrong.’

‘Don’t know, but it tells us one thing.’

‘What?’

‘You and me, Spite. We should never try to kill each other. If one of us did, well, I think it’s dead for keeps.’

Spite studied her for a long moment, and then went off to gather an armload of wood. ‘She won’t come back from this one, will she?’

‘No. Of course not.’

‘Because,’ continued Spite, ‘if she did, we’d be in real trouble.’

‘Throw some wood into the oven itself, and that kindling there.’

‘No. I don’t want to open that door again, Envy. In case she jumps out.’

‘All right. It’s a good point. Just fill it up underneath, then. Lots and lots.’

‘That’s what I’m doing! Why not help me instead of just sitting there giving orders like some fucking queen!’

Envy giggled at the swear word and could not help but look round guiltily, if only for an instant. Then she set to collecting more wood.

In the oven, Malice burned.

Rint remembered his sister as a child, a scrawny thing with scraped knees and smears of dust on her face. It seemed she was always climbing something: trees, crags and hillsides, and she would perch high above the village, eyes scanning the horizons or looking down to watch passers-by. Her moments of fury came when it was time for Rint to find her and bring her home, for a meal, or a bath. She’d spit, scratch and bite like a wild animal, and then, when at last he had pinned her arms against her sides in a tight hug, and lifted her from the ground to stagger his way back to the house, she would moan as if death had come to take her.

He bore stoically the wounds from her thrashing about, as befitted a brother who, while younger, was still bigger, and he was always mindful of the smiles and jests of others in the village when he passed them with his sister in his arms. They had been amused, he thought, even sympathetic. He had refused to think such reactions belonged to derision, contempt or mockery. But every now and then he had caught an expression and he had wondered. Some people took pleasure in the discomfort of others: it made a balance against their own lives.

There was no reason for thinking these thoughts now, as he looked across to his sister, except for the way she was studying the Houseblades forming up below. From her perch on her horse, atop this hill, she was wearing the same expression he had seen many years past. He thought of the daughter growing inside her, and felt a deep pang in his gut. It was said the soul only came to a child in the moments after birth, when the world opened out to wide, blinking eyes, and the lungs first filled with breath and on that breath rode the soul, rushing in to claim what had been made for it. In the time before all of this, with the vessel still trapped inside the mother’s body, the soul hovered near. He imagined it now: rising high above them to look down, with a girl’s closed expression, a strange steadiness in the eyes, and a wall of mystery behind them.

All at once, his love for his sister almost overwhelmed him, and for an instant he felt tempted to steal her away from what was to come. Perhaps the disembodied soul of the child sensed the risk, the terrible danger awaiting them, and was crying out to him, in a voice faint as the wind that reached through him, slipping past his own hurts, his mass of wounds. Then he looked round to study his companions. Ville, silent and hunched — there had been a young man he had longed to give his heart to, but was too frightened of rejection to make his feelings known. That young man had been a potter, possessing such talent with clay that no one questioned his rejection of fighting ways, and were ever pleased at his work. He was dead now, cut down in the village.

Rint’s eyes travelled past Ville and settled briefly on Galak. In the days before they had left on their mission, Galak had lost the love of yet another young woman in the village, the last in a pattern of failures. Galak had blamed only himself, as he was wont to do, although Rint could see nothing in the man to warrant such self-recrimination. He was kind and often too generous, careless with coins and his time, prone to forgetting meetings he had arranged with his mate, and hopeless at domestic tasks — but in all these things he had displayed a child-like equanimity and innocence, traits which seemed to infuriate women. As they had ridden out for House Dracons to begin their journey west, Galak had sworn off love for all time. Looking upon him now, Rint wondered if his friend regretted that vow.

He saw Traj, with his red face and belligerent expression, both permanent fixtures. Rint could not recall ever seeing the man smile, but his wife had loved him deeply, and together they had made four children. But now Traj was alone in his life, and no love surrounded him to soften his stony presence, and he sat as one exposed, suffering the weathering of a harsh world.

There were others, and each one he looked upon reminded Rint of his stoic marches through the village, with his sister trapped in his arms. The wounds could not be hidden and so must be worn as a child would wear them, struggling not to cry at the pain, or the shame, determined to show everyone else a strength well disguising its own fragility.

The sun stood high above them. Below, on the killing field beyond the plots of farmland, the heavily armoured Houseblades sat motionless on their caparisoned mounts. Some bore lances; others held long-handled axes or strangely curved swords. The round shields slung on their left arms were black and showed no crest. There were, Rint judged, more than five hundred of them.

There are too many. All this time, while we were away, that damned captain was building his forces, preparing for war. We sat and watched them, and pretended to be unimpressed, and not once did we take heed of the portents.

‘Refuse their charge,’ Traj now growled. ‘We part before them. Nothing changes.’

But everything has. We saw these warhorses. We even remarked on their impressive size. But not once did we see them arrayed in full complement. Now, even at this distance, to look upon them is to feel… diminished.

‘We will dance around them,’ Traj continued, as if seeking to convince himself, ‘striking and then withdrawing. Again and again. Those mounts are burdened. They will tire fast, as will their riders. See the grilled visors on their helms? Their vision is restricted. They’ll not hear commands — the battle will roar through their skulls. They’ll flounder in confusion.’ He rose on his stirrups. ‘Skirmishers, stay well guarded behind our advance — close only when and where we lock blades with them! Close in and kill the ones we unseat. Gut or hamstring the horses if you can. Scatter if they seek to charge or surround you.’

An odd way to use the skirmishers, but then I see your point, Traj. They don’t wield pikes, and there’s not enough dismounted besides, not for a square, not even a hollow one. Their only hope is if we can make this messy.

‘It’s time,’ said Traj.

Rint glanced over to see his sister staring at him. Her eyes glistened and he saw once more in her face the little girl she had once been. Before things broke, before the hands trembled before all that was suddenly out of reach. Climb a tree, sister. High above all of this. You had it right back then. I know now why you fought me so, every time I dragged you back down, every time I carried you up the street and people smiled at your temper or laughed at your wretched moans.

Not all of us wanted to grow up. I should have followed your lead. I should have stayed a child with you, clinging to a high branch while everyone else aged below, aged and fell so helplessly into their futures.

Every child born sent mother and father back to their own childhoods. Like symbols of nostalgia, they were set down and watched as they made their journey away from simplicity, from the bliss of unknowing. And if, in the witnessing of this, tears came, then those tears were warm, and the sadness that joined them somehow comforted the soul, even as it reawakened old pains and old losses. To lose a child was to feel unbearable grief, as if some vital thread had been severed. Nostalgia was a bitter curse, with every memory of that journey ending in sudden loss, yielding emptiness beyond all solace.

Rint understood her now. And wished with all his heart that he didn’t.

She turned away then, gathering her reins in her left hand and drawing her sword with her right. She shifted in her saddle, firming the grip of her feet in the stirrups.

When Feren looked for that witch, her eyes lifted to the trees. And hidden up there, as my sister had known, Olar Ethil looked down with unreadable eyes. A child eager to watch.

Until I gave her fire.

Women are right to fear us. Oh, Feren…

Traj gave the command, and then they were riding down the slope.

Ivis watched the Borderswords begin moving down the slope. ‘Yalad! Signal wedge formation!’

He remained in front of his troops, listening to them assume the new presentation. Horse hoofs thumped to make a rumble of thunder through the hard-packed ground of the killing field. Dust roiled past Ivis in thin clouds, a fortunate direction for the wind, at least to begin with. ‘Centre line count right left!’

He heard voices barking the word ‘right’ and then ‘left’ in an alternating pattern down the heartline of the wedge formation. This command alone gave the Houseblades all that they needed to know for this initial engagement.

The Borderswords poured over the first stone wall, slowing up to give time to their skirmishers to do the same. Ivis saw how the foot-soldiers lagged and nodded slightly to himself. They would serve little function until all momentum was lost. Unfortunately for them, he intended no loss of momentum from battle’s beginning to battle’s end.

Under his breath, he cursed Lord Draconus. The man should be here, commanding this first bloodletting for his Houseblades. Instead, every order — upon which so many lives depended — would be coming from a lowly captain who had grown sick of war decades ago. The only thing going for me is that I’ve seen all this before, dozens of times. And the only thing going against me is the same fucking thing. He tightened the strap of his helm and then wheeled his mount.

The wedge was arrayed before him: a point of three elite soldiers directly opposite, the leading line swept back sharply, twenty to each side, to form the chevron.

‘Houseblades! We didn’t ask for this argument. We have no cause to hate our enemy. Do not fight your grief in what’s to come, but set it aside with an honest vow to return to it in the days, months and years ahead. This is the soldier’s burden. Now, I trust you’ve all pissed before mounting up — if I see a single soldier slick in the saddle it’ll be the public lash!’ Hearing a few laughs, he scowled. ‘You think I am jesting? I have told you before but it seems you need to hear it again. In the Houseblades of Dracons, you will be told when to eat, when to drink, when to sleep, when to rise, when to shit, when to piss, when to fuck and when to kill. Now, you’ve done them all by our orders, except for the last, and that last has now arrived. It is time to kill.’

He rode closer a step, then two. ‘I’d like to be with you for this. If our lord was here I would be, at the point of this wedge, and you all know that. But he’s not, so command falls to me. Left flank, strip your shields!’

The soldiers on the left flank of the wedge rested their weapons and tore at the thin layer of dyed felt covering their shields, revealing lacquered white beneath.

‘Troop sergeants and corporals, keep an eye out for flags on the keep slope! And if you can’t see those, look higher, to the gate towers. At all times, you will see two flags upon each pole. Two flags on the white pole, two flags on the black pole-’

Someone’s shout cut him off. ‘Begging pardon, captain! But if we don’t know all that already we deserve to be cut down!’

Ivis subsided, feeling foolish. ‘Fine. I’m an old man and I want to dither, Abyss help us all.’

Laughter answered that comment.

‘Sir! Kindly get out of the way!’

Grimacing, Ivis collected up his reins and kicked his horse into motion, swinging left and riding down that wing, his gaze fixed forward.

Voices reached out for him as he passed.

‘Sir, I missed that order to fuck!’

‘You lie, Shanter! You never miss an order to fuck!’

‘I’ll see you after, Shanter!’

‘That’ll take an order, Brusk, at sword’s point.’

‘Wait! Did I hear Shanter’s taking orders?’

And then he was past, nodding to himself. He had heard it all before, a thousand flavours but ever the same taste. It broke his heart to hear such life pushing through the gathering, suffocating fugue that came in the moments before battle. Each jest, each voice raised in rough banter, shone like a gold flag in a black forest, making all that was to come that much harder to bear.

Reaching the slope, and the flag station, he reined in and swung round to face the field once more.

The Borderswords were assembling at the far side of the field. They formed up in a rough, uneven line, some readying lances and others drawing their long stabbing swords. The dust that had travelled across the field was now mostly gone, and the clear air between the two armies wavered like water in the day’s heat.

This latter detail was unpleasant, as it invited dehydration and heat prostration from his heavily armoured men and women. Then again, if the battle went on too long, all was lost anyway.

‘Signaller!’

‘Sir!’

‘Commit the advance.’

‘Yes sir!’

Moments later, the wedge lurched into motion, a walk rising to a trot.

The enemy was now as committed as were his own Houseblades. With the field walls behind them, retreat was impossible. He saw them move forward.

Off to the left of both forces stood the two standards. One had loosened its grip on the soil and tilted to rest against the shaft of the other. He could not tell which was which, as dust now covered both banners. And, as the ground began to shake, when the Houseblades rose into a canter, both standards fell to the ground. Ivis frowned at that, but distant shouts from the Borderswords drew him round.

Sandalath watched, wide-eyed, as the two armies surged in a final rush to close. Venth was swearing under his breath at her side. He had said earlier that the enemy was an army of Borderswords, and the reason for battle was unknown.

The cantering Houseblades lifted into a charge, but as they did so the wedge formation unravelled, the centre slowing as the wings swept out, spreading wide. Opposite them, half obscured through the ever-thickening dust, the enemy line seemed to waver.

When the Houseblades reached them, the line of heavy cavalry was virtually level, the riders only three deep in ranks, and they smashed against a broad swath of the enemy forces. Sandalath gasped to see horses flung into the air, legs kicking, while in places the Bordersword riders seemed to vanish beneath the hoofs of the warhorses. The roiling dust turned pink above the line of impact. Moments later, the entire engagement disappeared into the dust, until only the clanging cacophony of fighting reached them.

She caught the flash of white shields on the left, black shields on the right, but then even those were gone. On the slope below and to her right, she could see Captain Ivis, still mounted and flanked by poles bearing signal flags — but those flags had not changed since the charge first began. She saw the same flags on angled spires set above the gate towers. There was no evidence of panic, and the signallers stood motionless at their stations.

Is this really how it is?

The wedge formation of the heavy cavalry, so inviting to the lighter mounted Borderswords, had suddenly ceased to exist, and before they could react to the lightning transformation before them, the two lines of horse-soldiers collided.

Directly in front of Rint was a Houseblade sheathed in leather plates covering chain, his visor lowered and so made into something faceless. He saw the man’s lance slide up to plunge through the neck of Rint’s horse, and as the Houseblade released his grip on the weapon he flung up his shield to take Rint’s stabbing sword. The weapon clanged against copper riveted to wood beneath the black felt, rebounded high. His horse staggered beneath him and then pitched on to one shoulder.

Rint sought to pull free, but the animal rolled on to his right leg. Wrenching agony announced the tearing loose of his thigh bone from his hip socket. The scream that broke from him tore his throat.

The Houseblade had ridden past, but another came up behind him, a woman from the long hair spilling out from under the rim of her helm. Her lance drove down, punched into Rint just under his left collar bone. The heavy iron blade snapped the bone, its point pushing through to crunch into and then scrape along the underside of his shoulder blade. She tore it free as she rode past.

Rint sought to lift his sword to swing at the horse’s legs.

Instead, a hoof lashed down, landing on his throat. There was an instant of impossible weight, and then it lifted clear, snapping against his jaw as it went.

He stared into the dust-filled sky overhead. Somehow, air slipped through the wreckage of his throat and filled his lungs. The pulse in the side of his neck throbbed like a fist under the skin.

That was quick.

Dying was within reach, but something held him back. He struggled to order his thoughts, struggled to understand what was keeping him here, lying on the ground in his own blood. He had never felt so cold, so heavy and so weak.

He tried to turn his head, to look for his sister, but nothing worked. He realized then that he could not feel his body, beyond that immense weight pressing down upon him. The sounds of fighting were falling away, or perhaps his hearing was failing.

We are defeated. As easily as that, the Borderswords are no more. I want to die now. I want to go away.

He squinted into the sky, and now at last saw the tree — where it had come from, how he could have missed it here on this field, were questions he could not answer, but he saw the summer wind in the branches, rushing through the dusty green leaves. And high on one branch sat his sister, young and fierce, not wanting to come down.

He would have to go up and get her, again. It was always the way and it infuriated him. But he would not show that, since he could hear people laughing, offering up suggestions.

Rint stood and began climbing. It was easy. It had always been easy, since this tree was made for climbing. He coughed in the dust, wiped again and again at his eyes, and his chest hurt as it fought for every breath. No matter. She was drawing nearer.

At last he came up beside her, and edged out along the branch. But when he looked over, to berate her for making him have to come up and get her, he saw that Feren had vanished, and in her place sat Olar Ethil.

The witch was horribly burned, her skin peeling off to reveal blistered red meat. She crouched hunched over, rocking, and the eyes she turned upon him glittered as if they still held the flames that had done this to her.

She held out to him her blackened hand. ‘Fear not,’ she said in a broken voice. ‘It is time. I vowed to greet you on this day, Rint, and I always keep my vows.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s time to go home. Supper’s ready.’

‘Rint of the Borderswords, Tiste-child of Night, I forgive you for what you did to me.’

He found that he was crying.

Her hand hovered, beckoning. ‘It is not hard, when you understand things, this forgiveness. The word itself blesses both sides. Come to me, then.’

‘Where is Feren?’

‘Not far.’

‘Where is her daughter?’

‘Not far.’

‘I want to go to them.’

‘Rint, it’s a big tree.’

He took that hand, felt it crumble to ash in his grip, but whatever remained was strong enough to hold on to.

I won’t fall. It’s all right then.

I won’t fall ever again.

The sounds of battle diminished slightly, and there was boiling motion coming through the dust. Sandalath saw scores of white shields appear on one side, and then black shields on the other flank, all drawing closer, and moments later those shields numbered in the hundreds. ‘Oh!’ cried Sandalath. ‘Is it over?’

‘Can’t say, hostage,’ Venth admitted. ‘Seemed awfully quick.’ He wiped again at his eyes.

‘Venth, I am sorry for the horses out there, on both sides.’

‘As am I, hostage. Abyss knows, they deserve better.’

Now the flags were being changed, as the Houseblades withdrew at a slow canter. She saw some reeling in their saddles, and a few riderless horses accompanied them. The troops began re-forming, wheeling round to present an even line, while a few rode on, back towards the keep — the wounded men and women who could fight no more on this day.

The wind was lifting the dust up and past the field of battle, and she saw now the hundreds of fallen strewn all the way back to the distant stone wall. Those shapes formed humps, some seething with wounded soldiers and wounded beasts, but even between the humps no ground was clear. Sudden nausea took Sandalath and she reached out to a merlon to steady herself.

‘Abyss take us,’ Venth muttered. ‘That was brutal. See, they chased off even the skirmishers. If not for that wall, none of them would have escaped.’

Perhaps three hundred or so riders had retreated past the wall and now milled on the nearest field of stubble. Sandalath shook her head. ‘Where are the rest of them?’ she asked.

‘Dead and dying, hostage.’

‘But… almost no time has passed!’

‘Longer than you might think,’ he said. ‘But less than you’d think reasonable, I’ll admit.’

‘Is it over?’

‘I think it might be. They’ve not enough to mount a second attack. I see but a score or so fallen Houseblades on that field.’ He pointed to the new flags. ‘The captain is recalling them all, and that higher flag is announcing a yielding of the field itself, meaning both sides can head out to recover the wounded.’

‘Won’t they fight each other all over again?’

‘Hostage, everyone who leaves a battlefield enters a land of bogs, a swamp that sinks them to their knees. They’ve not the will to fight on, nor the strength neither. In exhaustion and silence, they will scour the bodies of their fallen comrades, looking for friends and kin. I will wager the captain offers his healers and cutters as soon as our own are taken care of… perhaps tomorrow.’

‘And will the Borderswords accept them?’

He shrugged. ‘I cannot say, since we know not their grievance with us.’

She studied the field, and the few figures now staggering among the dead. ‘It seems such a waste, horse master.’

‘War is a shout against futility, hostage, but its echo never lasts long.’

She considered his words, and shivered against their chilling touch.

‘There will be wounded animals,’ said Venth.

‘Of course. Let us head down then.’

The horse master led the way down the ladder. Sandalath followed. As she joined him on the landing below she drew close to the locked door. A moment later she gasped. ‘Venth!’

‘Hostage?’

‘Someone paces behind this!’

He came close. Then he shook his head. ‘I hear nothing.’

‘No,’ she replied. ‘Not now. But when I first came close — I heard footsteps. Heavy, shuffling.’

Venth hesitated, and then he reached for the latch. He tried lifting it and failed. Stepping back he shrugged. ‘I am sorry, hostage. Perhaps it was your imagination. Heavy, you say? Then not the girls.’

She thought back. ‘No,’ she said. ‘They were heavy.’

‘Only Lord Draconus possesses the key to this chamber, hostage. There was dust on the latch, and this marks the only entrance — you can see as much. The room’s walls here are a single layer of stone, and the chamber beneath this one has no trap in the ceiling. And no windows, of course.’

‘I know, horse master. Yes, perhaps I imagined it. Mother always said I was prone to such fancies. Come, let us continue on. I have no liking for this place.’

Drifting back from some timeless abyss, she opened her eyes.

A Houseblade was above her, his seamed face hovering close. She saw him lift a hand and then set its palm against her forehead. It was warm but rough with calluses. She should have despised that touch, but she couldn’t. Above the man, thin clouds were stretched across the sky.

‘Can you hear me?’ he asked. ‘I am Captain Ivis. Your companions have… departed. They left to us their wounded. I did not imagine they would find defeat as bitter as they did, to so abandon you.’ He glanced away briefly, eyes squinting, and then looked down at her again. ‘You were knocked unconscious, but seem otherwise uninjured. We have gathered up a few Bordersword horses. When you feel able, we will send you back to your people. But I need to know — why did you attack us?’

The question seemed absurd, too absurd to even answer.

The captain scowled. ‘What is your name?’

She contemplated refusing to answer, but there seemed to be no point in that. ‘Lahanis.’

‘Well, you’re young. Too young for this to be your war.’

‘It was mine!’ she hissed, reaching up and pushing his hand from her brow. ‘You attacked our villages, slaughtered everyone! We tracked you back — we hunted you down!’

‘Lahanis, we did no such thing.’ He studied her for a moment, and then cursed under his breath and turned to someone she couldn’t see. ‘Those Legion companies. I should have chased them off. I should have demanded to know why they camped a stone’s throw from the keep.’

‘We were made to take the blame for that slaughter, sir?’

‘Corporal, I know you sharpened up on the night of the murders, so where does your brain go when you’re in my company?’

‘I wish I knew, sir.’

Ivis met Lahanis’s eyes. ‘Listen to me. You were deceived. If I had ridden out to parley with your commanders-’

‘You would have been cut down before you got out a single word,’ she said. ‘We weren’t interested in talking.’

‘So your standard told me,’ Ivis said. ‘Stupid!’

She flinched at that.

‘Not you,’ he said. ‘Lahanis, listen. Ride to your kin, to the survivors. You say you tracked us back here. Is that true, or did you backtrack?’

‘We backtracked, sir. We were even hoping we’d reach the keep before you returned from the last village you burned.’

‘Abyss below, who was commanding you?’

She shook her head. ‘No one, really. Traj, I suppose. He shouted the loudest. Maybe Rint.’

‘Rint?’ Ivis suddenly straightened, looking round. ‘Venth!’ he shouted. ‘Over here on the double!’

Lahanis struggled to sit up. She was lying on a cot in the keep’s compound. There were other wounded, but with blankets swaddling them there was no way to tell if they were Borderswords or Houseblades — she recognized none of the faces she could see. The back of her skull was tender; her neck was stiff and throbbing with pain.

A third man arrived. ‘Captain? I have injured horses-’

‘What were the names of the Borderswords who rode with Lord Draconus?’

The man blinked. ‘Sir? Well, I can’t remember, to be honest.’

Hands to the sides of her head, Lahanis spoke. ‘Rint, Feren, Ville and Galak. They all came back to us. They said your lord sent them home.’

‘Why? When?’

Lahanis shrugged. ‘Not long. I don’t know why.’

Ivis stood, rubbing at the back of his neck, his gaze on the gates.

‘Sir, the horses-’

‘Go on, horse master. Corporal Yalad.’

‘Sir?’

‘Attend to Lahanis here, and select a horse for her to ride. I am going to my office to pen a missive — she doesn’t leave until I return with it. Lahanis, will you at least bear my message to your kin?’

She nodded.

‘Do you believe me, then?’

‘I was in one of the villages,’ she said. ‘I saw your standards. But no soldier was armoured the way yours are, and none rode warhorses, or used those curved swords. Sir, you didn’t kill us.’

For a moment it seemed that the man was about to cry. ‘I have now,’ he said, turning away. He walked off, his shoulders hunched, his steps uncertain.

The young corporal squatted down beside her. ‘Hungry?’ he asked. ‘Thirsty?’

‘Just get that horse,’ she said.

But he did not move. ‘Captain’s a little… measured, when it comes to scribing. There is time, Bordersword. So?’

She shrugged. ‘Water, then.’ As he headed off she closed her eyes. It was me they all listened to. I saw the standards. We could all read the trail. But it was me. You didn’t kill us, captain. I did.

They had disarmed her — even her eating knife was missing from its thin leather sheath. If she had such a weapon within reach, she would take her own life.

But no. I will deliver the captain’s message. Then, before my kin, I will open my throat. I will give them my name to curse. She saw the corporal returning with a waterskin. Hungry? Thirsty? Scratch behind the ear? As soon as he arrived, she reached out and took the skin from him. ‘Now get me that horse.’

Seven heavily burdened wagons, each one drawn by a brace of oxen, had begun their journey at the Hust Forge, travelling southward to the borderlands where awaited the Hust Legion encampment. Their pace was slow, stalled at times when an axle split or a wheel stripped its rim on the rough cobbles of the road.

Bearing his lord’s command calling the Hust to war, Galar Baras caught up with the train half a day out from the camp. He had ridden hard and his mount was weary, and after the haunting solitude of his journey thus far he welcomed the company of drovers, wagon masters, carpenters, smiths, cooks and guards, many of whom he knew from the Forge settlement where he had been born and then raised. For all that, it was a muted welcome. News of the slaughter at the wedding hung like a pall over everyone. For many, he knew, it was not so much the sudden deaths of Lord Jaen and his daughter that sobered the crew and made conversations infrequent and hushed; rather, it was what the killings portended.

War had returned to Kurald Galain. This time, however, the enemy came not from beyond the realm’s borders. Galar could not imagine the mind of a Tiste in the moments that led up to the slaying of a fellow Tiste. For himself, it was difficult to think of any other Tiste as being anything but kin. Yet now it seemed that every face, with its familiar array of traits, was but a mask, and behind some of those masks lurked an enemy, a stranger with strange thoughts.

There was nothing obvious to make simple this designation of friend or foe; not the chalky white skin and angular body of the Forulkan, nor the savage bestiality of the Jheleck. Of course, there had always been bandits and other criminals, who made a profession from preying upon their own kind, but then Galar did not understand them either. Such fools dispensed with trust, and so suffered lives of loneliness and fear. Even among their own kind, such fraternity as existed was rife with betrayal and treachery. The existence of a lifelong criminal was a pitiful one, for all the wealth they might gather, and for all the power they might come to possess.

In a world emptied of virtues, all things became vices, including wealth and even family, and each day arrived with bleaker aspect than the last.

This war will unleash the criminal in all of us, I fear.

As he rode in the company of this train of wagons, he could feel the future settling on everyone, thick and suffocating, under heavy skies that might never break.

This last day of the journey seemed to mock all of that, with its cerulean sky and the warm wind that came up from the south. The low hills flanking the road showed the pocks of old mines, from which rough tracks wended down; and here and there could be seen old basins excavated out centuries past, where foul water had settled and, upon drying up, left discoloured, toxic sands. Galar could see the remains of wooden structures: buildings and trestles, scaffolding and ramps, but the forests that had once cloaked these hills and the broad shallow valleys around them were long gone.

There were legacies to be found in every scene of ruination, and as much as Galar sought to grasp only those that led to triumph, even to hold these too tightly could cut him to the bone.

He rode at the head of the column, avoiding the dust. Henarald’s delivery of the sword to Lord Anomander, and the blessing that had — or had not — occurred in the Chamber of Night still left Galar rattled, and he need only catch a glimpse of his hand gripping the reins, seeing the ebon hue of his skin, to be reminded of that time. In revisiting that fated day in the Citadel, he found himself shaking his head again and again: at times in wonder, but more often in disbelief. Every uttered word had seemed to blaze with fire — even those words that Galar had himself spoken had felt like incantations, or fragments plucked from some disordered, ethereal poem that all who were present somehow shared.

If this was among the gifts of standing in a god’s presence, then Galar Baras at last understood the rewards of faith. In those heady words so laden with meanings; in the confessions and frustrations, the mysteries and the furies, there had been frightening power. In such moments, he realized, worlds could be changed, broken down, reshaped and twisted anew.

He could not imagine the state of Lord Anomander now, the proclaimed protector and First Son of Mother Dark, who for all his status and power had been unable to prevent the massacre. And now, it was rumoured, he had broken with his brother Andarist, and this was a breach beyond imagining only a month ago.

When Galar arrived at the encampment, he would stand before Commander Toras Redone, and voice Lord Henarald’s call to war. The Hust Legion would march northward, to Kharkanas. Once there, Toras Redone would kneel before Lord Anomander and pledge the legion to his service, in the name of Mother Dark. And then, perhaps at winter’s end, the weapons would unleash their voice of horror against Urusander’s Legion.

Galar Baras knew the outcome of such a clash, but he wondered at how the victory would taste. This future I see is too bitter to bear. Mother Dark, your First Son asks of you but one thing. By your word, you can command Urusander to kneel before you, and so end this war before it truly begins. Together, Urusander and Anomander can hunt down the murderers and see justice done. We can name them criminals and so keep the world we know.

Yet a part of him wondered, in a voice venal in its clarity, if the world they all knew was in fact worth it.

She will meet my eyes, and again I will see the truth in them. Sober or drunken, her desire overwhelms me. I yield, weakened into deceit, into betrayal. I make of vows a mockery, even as I long to utter them for myself, and find their honest answer returned to me, in this uneven woman with her uneven love. There are many fools in the world and I must count myself among them.

Who could be righteous in this midst of failings, these seething flaws hiding behind every familiar mask? And what of this delusion, that the mind of the nefarious, the criminal, was a stranger’s mind, with sensibilities alien and malign? We are cheaters one and all. I see the proof of that in myself. Even as I long for and, indeed, demand virtues among others — in the name of reason and propriety — I am hunted by my own vices, and would elude the bite of reason and make of propriety nothing more than a public front.

And now I fear that I am not unusual, not cursed into some special maze of my own making. I fear that we are all the same, eager to make strangers of the worst that is in each of us, and by this stance lift up the banners of good against some foreign evil.

But see how they rest against one another, and by opposition alone are left to stand. This is flimsy construction indeed. And so I make masks of the worst in me and fling them upon the faces of my enemies, and would commit slaughter on all that I despise in myself. Yet, with this blood soaking the ground before me, see my flaws thrive in this fertile soil.

Ahead, where the way sloped upward to cut through the crest line of a ridge, Galar Baras saw the picket towers flanking the road. But no guards stood on those elevated platforms. Have they decamped? Did someone else bring the news to them? Toras Redone, will we slip past one another yet again, to ever stretch the torment of our love? He would welcome that bitter denial, and if by surfeit alone could drown every desire, would have them never meet again.

Kicking his horse into a canter, he rode up the slope.

The banners remained on the watch towers, announcing the Legion’s presence. The absence of guards marked an uncommon breach in discipline. It was possible that the commander’s drinking had become terminal, ruining the morale of every soldier serving her. But even that notion rang false. What soldier of the Hust Legion did not know their commander’s weakness? And did they not by every conceivable measure strive to ensure the isolation of such failing? Nor would she lose such control: by it alone she found her necessary arrogance, as was common to the cleverest drunks.

He longed to see her again, but the threshold of this meeting was troubling, and as he pushed his mount to the rise his mouth was dry and his nerves were stretched. Passing between the towers, across the level span and then to where the road began its gentle descent into the shallow valley floor, Galar Baras came within sight of the encampment. He saw the rows of tents. He saw — with vast relief — a few figures moving slowly along the avenues and tracks between the company squares.

But something was wrong. Soldiers should have been gathering to the evening meal, forming queues at the cook tents. The avenues should have been crowded. He saw the other picket stations and none were occupied. A strange stillness gripped the camp.

Urging his horse into a fast canter, Galar Baras rode down the road. He saw Toras Redone. She walked alone across the parade compound, a jug swinging loosely from one hand. A scattering of Hust soldiers stood near, but none drew close to her, even as all eyes were fixed upon her.

As he rode in between the first line of tents, Galar saw that many were still occupied — where flaps had been left open and he could see, in quick glance, the bulks of figures beneath blankets, or sprawled on cots — but no one emerged at his approach, or lifted head to his passing. An illness has struck. Vapours from the latrine trench, a shifting of wind, or beneath the ground — a deadly flow into the wells. But then, where is the vile smell? Where are the thrashing shapes voicing dread moans?

When he rode hard into the parade compound, he saw Toras Redone once more. If she heard his approach, she made no sign of it. Her steps were slow, wooden. The ear of the jug seemed to be tangled in the fingers of her left hand. It swung as if full of wine, and he saw that it remained stoppered.

There was a soldier nearby. Galar Baras reined in sharply. ‘You there!’

The man turned, stared, and said nothing.

‘What has happened? What illness is this among you? Why aren’t the plague-flags flying?’

Abruptly the man laughed. ‘I was on picket, sir! On the lookout for enemies!’ He waved a hand. ‘Our relief never showed. I almost fell asleep — but I saw them, you know. They rode out, to the east. Gathered there, and then went on. The sun was not even up, sir. Not even up.’

‘Who? Who did you see riding away? Your relief? Why would they do that?’

‘Like ghosts, sir. In that gloom. Like ghosts.’ He laughed again, and now Galar Baras saw tears tracking down from the man’s eyes. ‘Corporal Ranyd came running in. He drew his sword. He should never have done that. Never, and never again.’

His mind is unhinged. Galar swung his mount round and rode for the commander.

She had stopped now, and stood in the centre of the compound, a ring of her soldiers facing her but keeping their distance.

He rode through that ring and reined in before her. ‘Sir!’

When she looked up at him, it seemed that she struggled to recognize him.

‘It’s Galar,’ he said, dismounting. ‘Commander, I was bringing word from Lord Henarald-’

‘Too late,’ she said, and then lifted the jug. ‘He left it. A parting gift. I did not think he could be so… understanding. Galar, my husband isn’t here, but you are, black skin and all, and you’ll have to do.’ Abruptly she sat down, worked free the stopper and held the jug up. ‘Join me, dear lover. I’ve been sober since the dawn and so it’s been a long day.’

He drew nearer, and then paused and looked across to the soldiers. They watched, silent. One turned away suddenly and fell to her knees, bringing her hands up to cover her face.

‘Galar,’ said Toras Redone. ‘Join me in this drink, will you? Let’s celebrate peace.’

‘Peace, sir? I bring news of war.’

‘Ah, well, I fear it’s over. Can you not hear how peaceful we are? No clamour, no blathering voices from fools who can’t stop talking, even though they have nothing of worth to say. Have you not ever noticed that? The mouths that run too fast make dead seeds of every word, flung to barren ground in their wake, yet on they rush — and you see in their eyes a kind of desperation, I think, as they long for a gardener’s touch, but no talent finds them, and never will, and surely they know it.’

‘Commander, what has happened here?’

Her brows lifted. ‘Oh, a night of revelry. Ale and wine, but you know how the sleep that follows gives little rest. Why is it, I wonder, that the gods of the world made of every pleasurable habit a poison? These gods, I think, have no understanding of joy. They make feeling good a thing of evil. Don’t ask me to worship such miserable shits, Galar Baras. Their paradise is a desert. In such a place we must bless the sun, eschew the begging for water, and call friend the infernal heat. I see those sands, crowded with scorched remnants of souls, but at least they were pure, yes?’ The smile she offered then was terrible to behold. ‘Join me, sit down at my side, lover. Let us drink to peace.’

Uncomprehending, but feeling so bereft he was not even capable of shame or guilt each time she called him lover, he stepped close.

Toras Redone rocked back slightly, waving the jug. ‘Come all, my friends! One last drink for the Hust Legion! Then we will be done, and we can walk into that desert and greet those sour-faced gods! We’ll make of their puritanical misery a virtue, and set upon it the holiest of words! And what word might that be? Why, it is suffering.’

She raised the jug to drink.

Someone shouted a warning. Galar Baras drew his sword and the weapon shrieked. The blade lashed out, struck the jug. Clay shards exploded. Wine erupted like blood from a broken skull.

On all sides, the Hust weapons awoke. From every tent, from every scabbard, the swords howled.

Galar Baras staggered beneath the assault, dropping his weapon and clapping hands over his ears. But the sound was inside him, wailing through his bones, clawing through his mind. He felt himself torn free, severed from his body and flung skyward, buffeted by the cries, the ever-rising screams. Through tears, he saw wooden scabbards burst apart at the belts of the surrounding soldiers as the men and women fell or staggered, as they opened their mouths to add to the howls.

Poison. They’re all dead.

Toras -

She was on her hands and knees, gouging up clumps of wine-soaked clay, pushing them into her mouth, coughing, choking — Galar saw himself spinning high above her. He saw how the first of the wagons had reached the descent, but the oxen were collapsing in their yokes, thrashing, legs kicking, and the lead wagon’s front wheels cut sharply to one side, and then the wagon toppled, spilling out the wooden crates on the bed.

He saw those crates burst apart, revealing Hust Henarald’s last gift to the Hust Legion — chain hauberks of the same iron, and helms and greaves and vambraces. The armour was answering the cry of the weapons in the valley below. The drovers were upon the ground, bleeding from their noses, their ears and eyes.

And still the howling built. It rent the canvas of the tents in the camp, snapped guide ropes. In the distant corrals to the west, the horses broke down the fences and fled in terror.

Galar was a battered kite in the rising storm of those terrible voices.

‘ Corporal Ranyd came running in. He drew his sword. He should never have done that.’

Abruptly, the howling stopped. Galar plunged earthward, and in the moment he struck the ground, blackness engulfed him.

‘ Never, and never again.’