Forge of Darkness (Kharkanas Trilogy 1)

by Steven Erikson

  Assuming any survived the purge.

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

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

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

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

  ‘All right.’

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

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

  The sergeant nodded to Risp.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  ‘Rather than fell? Why?’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  ‘No sir, we wouldn’t have.’

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

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

  ‘No. I’ll do it.’

  ‘Lieutenant—’

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

  ‘Yes sir.’

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

  * * *

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

  ‘What?’ Sukul demanded.

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

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

  ‘That and the drooping left ear.’

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

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

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

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

  ‘This is how bandits live?’ she asked.

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

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

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

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

  Sukul saw the animal sink down, tail dipping.

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

  ‘A tunnel?’

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

  ‘Why did you do that?’

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

  When she followed, she found herself stepping down a sharp slope to a sunken floor of flat stones set in earth. The ceiling was high enough for her to stand without hunching, but she was shor
t for her age. Rancept was bent over like a drunk looking for his feet. He made his way to the far end and began working loose the stone trap. She edged up alongside him. ‘Do all the huts have these?’

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

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

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

  ‘What does that mean?’

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

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

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

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

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

  She could hear Ribs behind her, scrabbling and snuffling.

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

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

  ‘Adjust to what? There’s no light!’

  ‘So stop looking with your eyes.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  ‘Folk tales.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

  ‘It don’t matter, milady.’

  ‘Tell me.’

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

  ‘What! Someone else is in here?’

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

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

  ‘Close your eyes—’

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

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

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

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

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

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

  ‘Stones?’

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

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

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

  She gasped. ‘And you cut through them!’

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

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

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

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

  ‘No sign of that yet, milady.’

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

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

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

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

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

  ‘I believe she is the one, yes.’

  ‘The one?’

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

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

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

  ‘Rancept, are you a Denier?’

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

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

  ‘Do you see all that I have described?’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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