Quick Ben saw Onrack’s chest swell with an indrawn breath that seemed without end.
The head then tilted down once more.
And the wizard stared into a face of smooth, wind-burnished skin. Eyes of green glittered beneath the heavy ridge of the brow. Twin streams of cold air then plumed down from Onrack’s broad, flattened, oft-broken nose.
From Trull Sengar, ‘Onrack? By the Sisters, Onrack!’
The small eyes, buried in epicanthic folds, shifted. A low, reverberating voice rumbled from the flesh and blood warrior. ‘Trull Sengar. Is this…is this mortality?’
The Tiste Edur drew a step closer. ‘You don’t remember? How it feels to be alive?’
‘I – I…yes.’ A sudden look of wonder in that heavy, broadly featured face. ‘Yes.’ Another deep breath, then a gust that was nearly savage in its exultation. The strange gaze fixed on Quick Ben once more. ‘Wizard, is this illusion? Dream? A journey of my spirit?’
‘I don’t think so. I mean, I think it’s real enough.’
‘Then…this realm. It is Tellann.’
‘Maybe. I’m not sure.’
Trull Sengar was suddenly on his knees, and Quick Ben saw tears streaming down the Tiste Edur’s lean, dusky face.
The burly, muscled warrior before them, still wearing the rotted remnants of fur, slowly looked round at the withered landscape of open tundra. ‘Tellann,’ he whispered. ‘Tellann.’
‘When the world was young,’ Redmask began, ‘these plains surrounding us were higher, closer to the sky. The earth was as a thin hide, covering thick flesh that was nothing but frozen wood and leaves. The rotted corpse of ancient forests. Beneath summer sun, unseen rivers flowed through that forest, between every twig, every crushed-down branch. And with each summer, the sun’s heat was greater, the season longer, and the rivers flowed, draining the vast buried forest. And so the plains descended, settled as the dried-out forest crumbled to dust, and with the rains more water would sink down, sweeping away that dust, southward, northward, eastward, westward, following valleys, rising to join streams. All directions, ever flowing away.’
Masarch sat silent with the other warriors – a score or more now, gathering to hear the ancient tale. None, however – Masarch included – had heard it told in quite this way, the words emerging from the red-scaled mask – from a warrior who rarely spoke yet who spoke now with ease, matching the cadence of elders with perfect precision.
The K’Chain Che’Malle stood nearby, hulking and motionless like a pair of grotesque statues. Yet Masarch imagined that they were listening, even as he and his companions were.
‘The land left the sky. The land settled onto stone, the very bone of the world. In this manner, the land changed to echo the cursed sorceries of the Shamans of the Antlers, the ones who kneel among boulders, the worshippers of stone, the weapon-makers.’ He paused, then said, ‘This was no accident. What I have just described is but one truth. There is another.’ A longer hesitation, then a long, drawn-out sigh. ‘Shamans of the Antlers, gnarled as tree roots, those few left, those few still haunting our dreams even as they haunt this ancient plain. They hide in cracks in the world’s bone. Sometimes their bodies are all but gone, until only their withered faces stare out from those cracks, challenging eternity as befits their terrible curse.’
Masarch was not alone in shivering in the pre-dawn chill, at the images Redmask’s words conjured. Every child knew of those twisted, malevolent spirits, the husks of shamans long, long dead, yet unable to truly die. Rolling stones into strange patterns beneath star-strewn night skies, chewing with their teeth the faces of boulders to make frightening scenes that only appeared at dusk or dawn, when the sun’s light was newborn or fading into death – and far more often the boulders were so angled that it was at the moments of dusk that the deep magic was awakened, the images rising into being from what had seemed random pecules in the stone. Magic to murder the wind in that place—
‘In the time before the plains descended, the shamans and their dread followers made music at the sun’s dying, on the night of its shortest passage, and at other holy times before the snows came. They did not use skin drums. There was no need. No, they used the hide of the earth, the buried forest beneath. They pounded the skin of the world until every beast of the plain trembled, until the bhederin burst into motion, tens of thousands as one, and ran wild through the night – and so they too echoed the music of the Shamans of the Antlers, feeding their dark power.
‘But the land fell away in the end – in grasping eternity, the shamans slew the very earth itself. This curse is without rest. This curse would close about our necks – each and every one of us here – this very night, if it could.’
Redmask was silent for a time then, as if allowing the terror to run free through the hearts of his audience. Eventually he resumed. ‘The Shamans of the Antlers gathered their deathless warriors then, and set out to wage war. Abandoning this plain – and from that time, only those who fell in battle were returned here. Broken pieces. Failed and withered as the plain itself, never again to reach or even look skyward. Such was their curse.
‘We do not forgive. It is not in us to forgive. But nor will we forget.
‘Bast Fulmar, the Valley of Drums. The Letherii believe we hold it in great awe. They believe this valley was the site of an ancient war between the Awl and the K’Chain Che’Malle – although the Letherii know not the true name of our ancient enemy. Perhaps indeed there were skirmishes, such that memory survives, only to twist and bind anew in false shapes. Many of you hold to those new shapes, believing them true. An ancient battle. One we won. One we lost – there are elders who are bold with the latter secret, as if defeat was a knife hidden in their heart-hand.’ Redmask shrugged at the notion, dismissing it. Pale light was creeping close. Birdsong rose from the low shrubs.
‘Bast Fulmar,’ Redmask said again. ‘Valley of Drums. Here, then, is its secret truth. The Shamans of the Antlers drummed the hide of this valley before us. Until all life was stolen, all the waters fled. They drank deep, until nothing was left. For at this time, the shamans were not alone, not for that fell ritual. No, others of their kind had joined them – on distant continents, hundreds, thousands of leagues away, each and all on that one night. To sever their life from the earth, to sever this earth from its own life.’
Silence, then, not a single warrior even so much as drawing breath. Held – too long—
Redmask released them with another sigh. ‘Bast Fulmar. We rise now to make war. In the Valley of Drums, my warriors, Letherii sorcery will fail. Edur sorcery will fail. In Bast Fulmar, there is no water of magic, no stream of power from which to steal. All used up, all taken to quench the fire that is life. Our enemy is not aware. They will find the truth this day. Too late. Today, my warriors, shall be iron against iron. That and nothing more.’
Redmask then rose. ‘Release the truth – to every warrior. Then make ready. We march to battle. To victory.’
Courage surged through Masarch’s chest, and he found he was on his feet, trembling, and now moving off into the fading gloom, whispering his words to all that he passed. Again and again.
‘Bast Fulmar sings this day. It sings: there is no magic. There is no magic!’
Stablers gathering the horses and leading them across the courtyard behind her, Atri-Preda Yan Tovis left the reins of her mount in the hands of an aide, then strode towards the estate’s squat, brooding entrance. Thirty leagues south of the port town of Rennis, Boaral Keep was the birthplace of the Grass Jackets Brigade, but that was a long century past and now some third or fourth son of a remotely related Boaral held this fortress, clinging to the antiquated noble title of Dresh-Preda, or Demesne Lord. And in his command, a garrison consisting of barely a dozen soldiers, at least two of whom – at the outer gate – were drunk.
Weary, saddlesore, and feeling decidedly short on patience, Yan Tovis ascended the four broad, shallow steps to the lintel-capped main doors. No guard in sight. She wrenched the la
tch clear, then kicked open the heavy door and marched into the gloomy foyer within, startling two old women with buckets and khalit vine mops.
They flinched back, eyes down, hastily genuflecting.
‘Where is Dresh Boaral?’ Twilight demanded as she tugged free her gauntlets.
The hags exchanged glances, then one attempted something like a curtsy before saying, ‘Ma’am, he be well sleeping it off, aye. An’ us, we be well cleaning up his supper.’
A muffled snort from the other servant.
Only now did Yan Tovis detect the acrid smell of bile beneath that of lye soap. ‘Where then is the Master at Arms?’
‘Ma’am,’ another curtsy, then, ‘he be ridin’ off wi’ four soljers, west as they say, t’reach the coast fast as a clam squirt, an’ that’s a cloud ain’t e’en settled yet.’
‘He left recently then? What was the reason? And how far is the coast from here?’
‘Ma’am, would be unner a bell, fast-goin’ as he was.’
‘And the reason?’
Another mysterious exchange of glances, then, ‘Ma’am, coast be well black an’ whispery of late. Got fishers vanishin’ an’ demon eyes flashin’ from the deeps. Got islands be well ice an’ all, pale an’ deathly as the innards of a murderer’s skull.’
‘The Master at Arms rode off after superstitious rumours?’
‘Ma’am, I be well ’ave a cousin on the shore—’
‘The ditsy one, aye,’ interjected the other hag.
‘Be well ditsy but that don’t matter in this, in this being the voices of the sea, which she heard an’ heard more’n once too. Voices, ma’am, like the ghosts of the drowned as she says, havin’ heard them an’ heard them more’n once too.’
Two of her sergeants were now behind the Atri-Preda, listening. Twilight loosened the strap on her helm. ‘This Master stays sober?’ she asked.
‘One a them hast, be well an’ all.’
‘It be him,’ the other agreed. ‘An’ that a curse what make us worse at bad times of the night like now—’
‘Shush you! This ma’am be a soljer outrankin’ Dresh himself!’
‘You don’t know that, Pully! Why—’
‘But I do! Whose nephew dug latrines for the Grass Jackets, be well he did! It’s ranks an’ neck torcs an’ the cut of the cape an’ all—’
Yan Tovis turned to one of her sergeants. ‘Are there fresh horses in the stables?’
A nod. ‘Four, Atri-Preda.’
The first old woman pushed at the other at that and said, ‘Tolya! Be well I did!’
Yan Tovis tilted her head back in an effort to loosen the muscles of her neck. She closed her eyes for a moment, then sighed. ‘Saddle them up, Sergeant. Pick me three of the least exhausted riders. I am off to find our missing Master at Arms.’
‘Sir.’ The man saluted and departed.
Turning back to the old women, the Atri-Preda asked, ‘Where is the nearest detachment of Tiste Edur?’
A half-dozen heartbeats of non-verbal communication between the two hags, then the first one nodded and said, ‘Rennis, ma’am. An’ they be well not once visited neither.’
‘Be glad they haven’t,’ Twilight said. ‘They would have separated Boaral’s head from his shoulders.’
The second woman snorted. ‘Not so’s he’d notice—’
‘Shush!’ scolded the first one. Then, to Twilight, ‘Ma’am, Dresh Boaral, he lost mostly alla his kin when the Edur come down. Lost his wife, too, in Noose Bog, what, now be well three years—’
The other hag spat onto the floor they had just cleaned. ‘Lost? Be well strangled and dumped, Pully, by his master himself! So now he drowns on his own drinkin’! But oh she was fire wasn’t she – no time for mewlin’ husbands only he likes his mewlin’ and be well likes it enough to murder his own wife!’
Twilight said to the sergeant who had remained, ‘We will stay for a few days. I want the Dresh here under house arrest. Send a rider to Rennis to request adjudication by the Tiste Edur. The investigation will involve some sorcery, specifically speaking with the dead.’
The sergeant saluted and left.
‘Best be well not speak wi’ the mistress, ma’am.’
Twilight frowned at the woman. ‘Why not?’
‘Liable she is t’start talkin’ and ne’er stop. Master drunk an’ she’s fire, all fire – she’s a might claw his eyes out, be well an’ that.’
‘Are you two witches?’
More silent communication between the two hags, then the first one edged one knobby, hairy foot forward and carefully wiped at the gobbet of spit on the pavestones. The toes, Twilight saw, were taloned.
‘You are Shake? Shoulderwomen of the Old Ways?’
Wrinkled brows rose, then the one named Pully curtsied again. ‘Local born you be well as we’d known, aye. It’s there, ma’am, you’re a child of the shore an’ ain’t you gone far, but not so far as to f’get. Mistress ne’er liked us much.’
‘So who strangled her and dumped her corpse in Noose Bog, Pully?’
The other seemed to choke, then she said, ‘Dresh give ’is orders plain as web on a trail, didn’t he, Pully? Give ’is orders an’ wi’ us we be well here since the Keep’s first black stone was laid. Loyal, aye. Boaral blood was Letherii blood, the first t’these lands, the first masters a’all. Dresh the First give us ’is blood in full knowing, t’blacken the Black Stone.’
‘The first Dresh here found you and forced your blessing?’
A cackle from the second woman. ‘What he be well think were blessing!’
Twilight looked away, then stepped to one side and leaned a shoulder against the grimy wall. She was too tired for this. Boaral line cursed by Shake witches – who remained, alive and watchful, through generation after generation. She closed her eyes. ‘Pully, how many wives have you two murdered?’
‘None wi’out Dresh’s command, ma’am.’
‘But your curse drives them mad, every one of them. Don’t make me ask the question again.’
‘Ma’am, be well twenty and one. Once their bearin’ days are done. Mostly.’
‘And you have been working hard at keeping the Tiste Edur away.’
‘No business a theirs, ma’am.’
Nor mine. Yet…not entirely true, is it? ‘End the curse, Pully. You’ve done enough.’
‘Boaral killed more Shake than any other Dresh, ma’am. You know that.’
‘End it,’ Twilight said, opening her eyes and facing the two women, ‘or your heads will be in sacks and buried deep in Noose Bog before this night is out.’
Pully and her companion grinned at each other.
‘I am of the shore,’ Yan Tovis said in a hard voice. ‘My Shake name is Twilight.’
The hags suddenly backed away, then sank down onto their knees, heads bowed.
‘End the curse,’ Twilight said again. ‘Will you defy a princess of the Last Blood?’
‘Princess no longer,’ Pully said to the floor.
Yan Tovis felt the blood drain from her face – if not for the wall she leaned against she would have staggered.
‘Your mother died be well a year past,’ Pully said in a soft, sad voice.
The other witch added, ‘Crossin’ from the Isle, the boat overturning. They say it was some demon o’ the deep, pushed too close by dark magic out at sea – the same magic, my Queen, as could be well squirted Master at Arms west as they say. A demon, up unner the boat, an’ all drowned. Whisperin’ from the waters, my Queen, dark and well nigh black.’
Yan Tovis drew a deep breath. To be Shake was to know grief. Her mother was dead, now a face emptied of life. Well, she had not seen the woman in over a decade, had she? So, why this pain? Because there is something else. ‘What is the name of the Master at Arms, Pully?’
‘Yedan Derryg, Highness. The Watch.’
The half-brother I have never met. The one who ran – from his blood, from everything. Ran nearly as far as I did. And yet, was that old tale even true? The Watch
was here, after all, a mere bell’s ride from the shore. She understood now why he had ridden out on this night. Something else, and this is it.
Yan Tovis drew her cloak about herself, began pulling on her gauntlets. ‘Feed well my soldiers. I will return with Derryg by dawn.’ As she turned to the door she paused. ‘The madness afflicting the Dresh, Pully.’
Behind her the witch replied, ‘Be well too late for him, Highness. But we will scour the Black Stone this night. Before the Edur arrive.’
Oh, yes, I sent for them, didn’t I? ‘I imagine,’ she said, her gaze fixed on the door, ‘the summary execution of Dresh Boaral will be something of a mercy for the poor man.’
‘You mean to do it before the Edur come here as they say, Highness?’
‘Yes, Pully. He will die, I suppose, trying to flee arrest.’ After a moment, she asked, ‘Pully, how many shoulderwomen are left?’
‘More than two hundred, Highness.’
‘I see.’
‘My Queen,’ ventured the other, ‘word will be sent out, cob to web as they say, before the sun’s rise. You have been chosen a betrothed.’
‘I have, have I? Who?’
‘Shake Brullyg, of the Isle.’
‘And does my betrothed remain on Second Maiden Fort?’
‘We think so, Highness,’ Pully replied.
At that she turned round. ‘You don’t know?’
‘The web’s been snapped, Highness. Almost a month now. Ice an’ dark and whisperings, we cannot reach across the waves. The shore is blind to the sea, Highness.’
The shore is blind to the sea. ‘Has such a thing ever occurred before?’
Both witches shook their heads.
Twilight swung about and hastened outside. Her riders awaited her, already mounted, silent with fatigue. She strode to the horse bearing her saddle – a chestnut gelding, the fittest of the lot, she could see in the torchlight – and pulled herself onto its broad back.
‘Atri-Preda?’
‘To the coast,’ she said, gathering the reins. ‘At the canter.’
‘What’s wrong with them?’
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