The sweat was gone from her face. It felt dry and cool.
Someone was calling to her, but she could not reach the shout-box, not from down here.
The latch rattled, and then the door swung open, and the fire outside poured in, engulfing her.
* * *
‘Vitr’s blood!’ Ivis swore, clambering into the carriage to take the unconscious woman in his arms. ‘It’s hot as a forge in here! Sillen! Raise a tarp – she needs shade, cooling down. Corporal Yalad, stop gawking! Help me with her, damn you!’
Panic thundered through the master-at-arms. The hostage was as white as Ruin himself, clammy to the touch and limp as a trampled doll. She seemed to be wearing almost all her clothes, layer upon layer. Bewildered as he laid her out on the ground beneath the tarp Sillen was now stretching out from the carriage side, he began unbuttoning the clasps. ‘Corporal Yalad, a wet cloth for her brow, quickly!’
If she died – if she died, there would be repercussions. Not just for himself, but for Lord Draconus. The Drukorlas family was old, venerated. There had been only the one child, this one here, and if cousins existed elsewhere they remained lost in obscurity. His lord’s enemies would be eager to see blood on Draconus’s hands for this tragic end, when instead his lord had been seeking to make a gesture, taking into his care the last child of this faded bloodline. A recognition of tradition, an honouring of the old families – the Consort had no desire to isolate himself in a mad grasp for power.
He stripped off yet more clothes, rich brocades heavy as leather armour, quilted linens, hessian and wool, and then paused, swearing again. ‘Sillen, take down that strongbox – see what’s in that damned thing. This must be her entire wardrobe!’
The coachman had climbed from the carriage and stood looking down on the unconscious woman. Ivis scowled. ‘We were about to leave the road anyway, driver – this one can ride, surely?’
‘Don’t look like it at the moment, sir.’
‘Once she’s recovered, you fool. Can she ride?’
The man shrugged. ‘Can’t say, sir. I ain’t a regular on the house-staff, right?’
‘You’re not?’
‘They let go most of the staff, sir, must be two years ago now. It’s all the fallow land, y’see, with nobody left to work it. People just died off, or wandered off, or wandered off and died.’ He rubbed at his neck. ‘There was talk of turning it to pasture, but that don’t take many people to work, does it? Mostly,’ he concluded, still staring down at the woman, ‘people just gave up.’
Sillen and two others had got the strongbox down, straining and cursing at its weight. ‘Locked, captain.’
‘Key’s right here,’ Ivis replied, lifting free an ornate key looped through a thong of leather round the young woman’s flushed neck. He tossed it over, then glared up at the coachman. ‘Take a walk – back to the village.’
‘What? I got to return the carriage! And the horse!’
‘One of my men will do that. Go, get out of here. Wait!’ Ivis plucked a small leather pouch from his belt and tossed it over to the coachman. ‘You didn’t see any of this – not her passing out, nothing at all. Am I clear?’
Wide-eyed, the man nodded.
‘If word reaches me,’ Ivis continued, ‘that what’s happened here has gone through Abara, I will hunt you down and silence your flapping tongue once and for all.’
The coachman backed up a step. ‘No need to threaten me, sir. I heard you. I understand what you’re saying.’
Hearing the lock on the strongbox click, Ivis waved the coachman back on to the road. The man hurried off, his head bent over as he peered into the leather pouch. The glance he threw back at the captain was a surprised one, and he quickly picked up his pace.
Ivis turned to Sillen. ‘Open it.’
The lid creaked, and then Sillen frowned. Reaching in, he lifted clear a well-wrapped clay jar, the kind used to hold cider. When he shook it even Ivis could hear the strange rustling sound the contents made. Not cider. Meeting Sillen’s questioning eyes, the captain nodded.
The soldier worked free the heavy stopper, peered in. ‘Stones, captain. Polished stones.’ He nodded towards the strongbox. ‘It’s full of these jars.’
‘From the shores of Dorssan Ryl,’ Ivis muttered, nodding to himself. He took from Corporal Yalad the wet cloth and leaned over to brush Sandalath’s forehead. Stones of avowed love – they all carried a few, mostly from family and mates. But whole jars filled with them? An entire damned strongbox of stones?
‘More than a few suitors, I guess,’ Sillen said, returning the stopper and slapping it tight with one palm.
Ivis stared across at the soldier. ‘If that was meant as a jest, Sillen, I’ll—’
‘No sir!’ Sillen said quickly, looking back down as he replaced the jar and closed the lid. ‘Begging your pardon, sir. What do I know of pretty daughters from noble houses?’
‘Not much, it seems,’ Ivis allowed. ‘Lock it up, damn you. And give me back that key.’
‘She’s coming round, sir,’ said Corporal Yalad.
‘Mother’s blessing,’ Ivis whispered in relief, watching her eyelids fluttering open.
She stared up at him without comprehension. He waited for some recognition as she studied him, but it did not seem forthcoming.
‘Hostage Sandalath Drukorlat, I am Captain Ivis. I am leading your escort to House Dracons.’
‘The – the carriage …’
‘We have to leave the road now, mistress – the track before us is good only for riding. Can you sit a horse?’
Frowning, she slowly nodded.
‘We’ll stay here for a while longer,’ Ivis said, helping her to sit up. Seeing her notice her half-undressed state, Ivis took up her outer cloak and draped it about her. ‘You were overheating in that carriage,’ he explained. ‘You fainted. Mistress, we could well have lost you – you’ve given us all a serious fright.’
‘I am weak with imagination, captain.’
He studied her, trying to make sense of that confession.
‘I am better now,’ she said, managing a faint smile. ‘Thirsty.’
Ivis gestured and a soldier closed in with a canteen. ‘Not too much all at once,’ he advised.
‘You’re holding my key, captain.’
‘It was constricting your throat, mistress.’ When she looked across at the strongbox, he added, ‘We’ll rig a harness between two horse-men.’ He smiled. ‘No idea what’s in that thing, but it’s damned heavy. Young women and their toiletry – it seems there’s no end to paints and perfumes and such. I know – got me a daughter, you see.’
Sandalath’s gaze dropped away and she seemed to concentrate solely on sipping from the canteen. Then she looked up in alarm. ‘The coachman—’
‘Sent him away, mistress.’
‘Oh. Did he—’
‘No. On my honour.’
It seemed she was about to press him on this, but lacked the strength, sagging back down as if moments from collapsing once more.
Ivis took her weight. ‘Mistress? Are you all right?’
‘I will be,’ she assured him. ‘So, how old is she?’
‘Who?’
‘Your daughter.’
‘Only a few years younger than you, mistress.’
‘Pretty?’
‘Well, I’m her father …’ And then he ventured a wry grin. ‘But she’ll need more wits about her than most, I’d wager.’
Sandalath reached out and touched his upper arm, a gesture that a princess might make upon a kneeling subject. ‘I am sure,’ she said, ‘she is very pretty.’
‘Yes, mistress,’ he replied. He straightened. ‘If you will excuse us for a time – I need to see to my troop, and see to the strongbox. Gather your strength, mistress, and when you feel able we will resume our journey to House Dracons.’
When he moved round to the other side of the carriage, Sillen edged close and said, ‘Mother help her if she looks like you, sir. That daughter of yours, I mean.’
Ivis scowled. ‘You’ve got a mouth on you, soldier, that’s going to see you looking up at us from the bottom of a latrine.’
‘Yes, sir. Didn’t know you had a daughter, that’s all. It’s, uh, hard to work my way round, sir.’
Behind them, Corporal Yalad snorted. ‘You really that thick, Sillen?’
‘See to that harness, Sillen,’ Ivis said.
‘Yes sir.’
* * *
Proper men had two arms for good reason. One to reach for things, the other to keep things away. Galdan had lost the arm that kept things away, and now, when every temptation edged into his reach, he snatched it close to be hungrily devoured.
He’d discovered this grim curse in the depths of cheap wine, and then in a young, innocent woman who lived only to dream of a better life. Well, he’d promised it, hadn’t he? That better life. But the hand that touched belonged to the wrong arm – the only arm he had left – and the touch did nothing but stain and leave bruises, marring all the perfect flesh that he should never have taken in the first place.
Love had no limbs at all. It could neither run nor grasp, couldn’t even push away though it tried and tried. Left lying on the ground, unable to move, crying like an abandoned baby – people could steal it; people could kick it until it bled, or nudge it down a hillside or over a cliff. They could smother it, drown it, set it on fire until it was ashes and charred bone. They could teach it how to want and want for ever, no matter how much it was fed. And sometimes, all love was, was something to be dragged behind on a chain, growing heavier with each step, and when the ground opened up under it, why, it pulled a person backwards and down, down to a place where the pain never ended.
If he’d had two arms, he could have stabbed it through the heart.
But nobody around here understood any of that. They couldn’t figure the reasons why he drank all the time, when in truth there weren’t any. Not real ones. And he didn’t need to do much to throw out excuses – the empty sleeve was good enough, and the beautiful woman stolen away from him – not that he’d ever deserved her, of course, but those who reached too high always fell the furthest, didn’t they? Forulkan justice, they called it. He’d had his fill of that, more than most people. He’d been singled out; he was certain of it. Touched by a malign god, and now its grisly servants stalked him, there in the shadows at his back.
One of them squatted close now, in this narrow, rubbish-choked alley beside the tavern, crouching low in the pit below the four steps leading down to the cellar. It was softly laughing at all the excuses he had for being what he was, for doing what he did. Reasons and excuses weren’t the same thing. Reasons explained; excuses justified, but badly.
They’d sent her away – he’d seen the carriage, rolling down the centre street – and he’d caught a flash of her face behind the dirty window. He’d even shouted her name.
Galdan dragged closer the day’s jug of wine. He’d drunk more from it than he should have, and Gras didn’t like it when he had to give up another one too soon. One a day was the rule. But Galdan couldn’t help it. Sand was gone now, for ever gone, and all those nights when he weaved his way to the edge of the estate, like a reaver haunting a border, and fought against his desire to find her, take her away from this useless life – he would never make that journey again.
Of course, it hadn’t been her life that was useless, and that journey in the dark had been a sham, despite all the river stones he left in the hidden place only they knew about. She found them; he knew that much. Found them and took them somewhere, probably to the refuse heap behind the kitchen.
Galdan stared at the jug, at the filthy hand and the fingers twisted down into the ceramic ear. It was all like this wine – he would grasp it, only to have it disappear – the hand that only took could hold nothing for very long.
Proper men had two arms. With two arms they could do anything. They could keep the world just far enough away, and take only what they needed and it didn’t matter if it then vanished, because that’s how it was for everybody.
He’d been such a man once.
From the deep shadows at the bottom of the stairs, his stalker laughed on, and on. But then, everyone in the village laughed when they saw him, and in their faces he saw all his excuses, the ones he liked to call reasons, and those were good enough for him. And, it seemed, for everyone else, too.
* * *
Galar Baras knew that the Forulkan had believed themselves pure in their enmity towards disorder and chaos. Generations of their priests, their Assail, had devoted entire lives to the creation of rules of law and civil conduct, to the imposition of peace in the name of order. But to Galar’s mind they had taken hold of the sword from the wrong end. Peace did not serve order; order served peace, and when order became godlike, sacrosanct and inviolate, then the peace thus won became a prison, and those who sought their freedom became enemies to order, and in the elimination of such enemies, peace was lost.
He saw the logic to this, but it was a form of reasoning that surrendered its power when forced; as was the case with so many lines of reasoning. And arrayed against its simplicity was a virulent storm of emotional extremity, an array of vehemence, with fear wearing the crown.
The Forulkan Assail solution was order born of fear, a peace deemed for ever under assault, for ever threatened by malicious forces, many of which wore the face of strangers. There was, he had to acknowledge, a kind of perfection to their stance. Dissent could find no purchase, so quickly was it cut down, annihilated in a welter of violence. And being unknown, strangers always posed a threat to those serving fear.
Theirs was a civilization tempered on a cold anvil, and the Tiste had revealed the flaw in its forging. Galar Baras found it ironic that the great commander who had defeated the Forulkan was such an admirer of their civilization. For Galar himself, he could well see its seductive elements, but where Urusander had been drawn closer by them, Galar had recoiled in unease. What worth peace when it was maintained by threat?
It was only the fearful who knelt in worship before order, and Galar refused to live in fear.
Before the war, the south Borderswords had been a loosely organized, under-equipped force. Still, it had been the first to respond to the Forulkan invasion, the first to stagger the enemy. The cost had been horrendous, and yet Galar could still appreciate that the birth of what would come to be called the Hust Legion was found in the chaos and discord of battle. There had been no peace in that creation, and the first years of its life had been cruel and harsh.
Among the weaponsmiths of the Hust forges, there was a belief that every length of blade had a thread of fear in its heart. It could not be removed; indeed, it was bound to the life of the iron. They called it the Heartline of the Blade. Cut it and the weapon lost its fear of shattering. The forging of a weapon was devoted to strengthening that Heartline: every folding of metal twisted that thread, wound it tighter, until the thread knuckled, again and again – there were secret arts in this tempering, known only to the Hust weaponsmiths. Galar knew that they claimed to have discovered the essence of that thread of fear, the vein of chaos that gave a sword its strength. He could not doubt such claims, for the Hust had given that Heartline a voice, taut with madness or overflowing glee, a sound both wondrous and terrible, crying out through the quenched iron, and no two voices were the same, and those that sang loudest were known to be the most formidable of all weapons.
The Hust Forge began supplying the south Borderswords towards the end of the Forulkan War, but the enemy was already in disarray, broken in retreat and fleeing the relentless advance of Urusander’s Legion. Their numbers reduced by attrition, the Borderswords had been serving as veteran auxiliaries, and had participated in all the major engagements over the last two years of the war. They had been exhausted, on the verge of dissolution.
Galar still remembered the now-legendary day of the Hust Resupply, the huge wagons lumbering out of the dust clouds and the moaning and lowing that filled the air – s
ounds the battered troop of Borderswords believed were coming from the burdened oxen, only to discover that the terrible cries came not from beasts, but from the weapons nestled in their wooden crates. He recalled his own horror when he was summoned to exchange his blade, when he set down his worn, scarred sword and took in hand the new Hust weapon. It had shrieked at his touch, a deafening peal that seemed to drag talons down all the bones of his body.
It had been a son of Hust Henarald himself who had given him the weapon, and as the cry abruptly fell off, its echo a ringing clangour in Galar’s skull, the young weaponsmith had nodded and said, ‘Well pleased by your touch, captain, but be warned, this is a jealous sword – the most powerful ones are, we have found.’
Galar was unsure whether to thank the weaponsmith or not. Some gifts proved curses. Yet the weapon’s weight suited the strength of his arm, and in his grip it felt like an extension of his own bones, his own muscles.
‘There is no such thing,’ the weaponsmith went on, ‘as an unbreakable sword, though Abyss knows we have tried. Captain, listen well, for the words I now speak are known to only a few. We struggled in the wrong battle against the wrong enemy. All iron has limits to its flexibility, its endurance: these are true laws. I cannot guarantee that your new sword will not break, though it is of such power that no mortal blade is likely ever to shatter it edge to edge; nor could any swing or thrust you manage make the weapon fail you. Yet, should it ever break, captain, abandon not the sword. There are many knuckles in the Heartline, you see. Many.’
At the time he had known nothing about ‘knuckles’ or ‘Heartlines’. Such knowledge came later, when the secrets of the Hust swords became his obsession. He thought now that he understood the significance of these knuckles, and though he had yet to witness, or even hear of, a Hust sword breaking, he believed that a miracle was buried in each blade, an expression of sorcery unlike any other.
Hust swords were alive. Galar Baras was convinced of this, and he was hardly alone in that opinion. Not one soldier in the Hust Legion believed otherwise. Urusander’s soldiers were welcome to mock and make their snide remarks. It had been the Hust mines that had been a Forulkan primary target in their invasion, and it had been a stand by the south Borderswords that had preserved them. Hust Henarald had shown his gratitude in the only way he could.
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