‘Eternal punishment—who deserves that?’ Curdle demanded.
Olar Ethil laughed. ‘I have walked with the T’lan Imass. Do not speak to me of eternal punishment.’
Torrent was startled by that. He faced her, his mouth twisting. ‘You did that to them, bonecaster. And now you call it a punishment? Those Imass. What had they done to you, to punish them for all eternity?’
She turned her back on him.
He stared. ‘Spirits of the earth! It was punishment! Olar Ethil—that Ritual—you were cursing them! Look at you—’
She spun round. ‘Yes! Look at me! Do I not choose to wear that curse? My own body, my own flesh! What more can I do—’
‘But wear your remorse?’ He studied her in horror. ‘You miserable, pathetic thing. What was it? Some offhand insult? A jilted love? Did your man sleep with some other woman? Why did you curse them for all eternity, Olar Ethil? Why?’
‘You don’t understand—’
Telorast chose this moment to thrash loose from her grip, landing lightly on the ground then darting a half-dozen paces away, where Curdle scrambled to join her. Olar Ethil stared at the two creatures for a moment—or so it seemed.
‘Why don’t you let it go?’ Torrent asked. ‘Bonecaster. Let them all go.’
‘No! I have no choice in this—none! You mortals are such fools—you just don’t see it, you don’t see anything!’
‘What am I supposed to see?’ Torrent shouted back.
‘I am trying to save your pathetic lives! All of you!’
He was silent for a long moment. Her gnarled hands had closed into fists. Then he said, ‘If to save us, Olar Ethil, means holding prisoner the souls of the T’lan Imass, then, as a pathetic mortal, I tell you: it’s too much. Free them. Leave us to die.’
She snorted—but he could sense his words had shaken her—‘You would speak for all humanity, Torrent, last of the Awl? You, who dream only of an end?’
‘Make it meaningful and I will not complain.’
‘So wish we all,’ she said in a rasp.
‘Besides,’ Torrent said, ‘it’s not their fight. Not their responsibility. Not yours, either. You seek redemption, bonecaster? Find another way. One that doesn’t devour souls. One that doesn’t close chains about an entire people.’
‘You know so little,’ she said, her tone filled with contempt. ‘The T’lan Imass—my T’lan Imass—do you even know what they are?’
‘Not really. But I’ve put enough together. All your conversations with strangers, and when you speak to the darkness at night—thinking me asleep. You command an army, and they are not far away from us. They are trapped in this Ritual of yours, Olar Ethil. You treat them as slaves.’
‘I need them.’
‘They don’t need you, though, do they?’
‘I summoned them! Without me they would be dust and nothing more!’
‘Maybe that’s how they want it,’ he replied.
‘Not yet. Not yet!’
Torrent gathered his reins. ‘You two,’ he called to the skeletons, ‘here’s my offer. No one, no matter how venal, deserves an eternity of punishment. I will seek a way to free your souls. In return, you guard my back.’
Curdle hopped forward. ‘Against whom?’
He glared across at Olar Ethil. ‘Her, for a start.’
‘We can do that!’ Telorast cried. ‘We’re stronger than she thinks!’
Curdle pranced up alongside Torrent’s horse. ‘Where are we going, Master?’
‘Call me Torrent, and I am not your Master. I make no claim to own you. We are, it seems, riding to that tower.’
‘Rooted!’ crowed Telorast, ‘but which one is it? Curdle? Which one is it?’
‘How should I know? Never been here.’
‘Liar!’
‘So are you!’
The bickering continued as Torrent urged his mount forward. A short time later he glanced back to see Olar Ethil trudging after him. Unbreakable, and yet . . . broken. You sour old woman. Let it go.
Kebralle Korish led a clan of four men and three women, all that remained of the B’ehn Aralack Orshayn T’lan Imass. Once, not long ago, the Copper Ashes Clan had numbered three thousand one hundred and sixteen. There were memories of living, and then there were the memories of death, such as remained to those of the Ritual. In her memories of death, the final battle with the Order of the Red Spires hung blazing in her mind, a frozen scream, the abrupt howl of annihilation. She had stood upon the edge of the Abyss, longing to join her fallen kin but held back by the duty of her title. She was Clan Chief, and so long as will remained to her, she would be the last of the Copper Ashes to fall.
That time had not yet come, and the wake of the Red Spires was stretched out behind her, lifeless, desolate, the echoes of her scream like a bony hand at her back.
The First Sword had, perversely, elected to retain his corporeal form, walking with the weight of stone across this ravaged land, his long-bladed weapon dragging a careless furrow. The warriors of the Orshayn and the Brold had in turn surrendered the bliss of dust and now strode in a ragged, colourless mass behind him. She walked among them, her seven warriors arrayed around her. They were battered, permanently scarred by the sorcery of the Three. The tattered remnants of skin and tendon that remained were blackened, scorched. The sections of exposed bone were burnt white, webbed with cracks. The flint weapons they held had lost their sepia hue, the reddish brown replaced by mottled mauves and blue-greys. Furs, leather and hides were gone.
Among all in her clan, Kebralle Korish alone had succeeded in drawing close enough to the Three to swing her blade. She remembered, with vivid clarity, the shock upon the face of the Bearded One, when her curved weapon’s edge had bit deep, scoring the flesh deep and wide across his chest. Blood, the gleam of notched ribs, rings of mail scattering against the stones of the parapet. He had staggered in retreat but she was in no mood to relent—
His companions had driven her back, a concatenation of magics hammering her from the ledge. Engulfed in raging sorcery, she had tumbled to the foot of the wall. It should have ended there, but Kebralle was Clan Chief. She had just witnessed the slaughter of almost her entire clan. No, she would not yield to oblivion. When she had risen, shrugging off the terrible chaotic flames, she had looked up to see two of the Three—they were in turn peering down at her. In their faces, disbelief, the stirrings of fear—
Inistral Ovan had sounded the withdrawal then. She could have defied him, but she had obeyed. For the seven who remained standing. For the last of her kin.
Yet even now, her memory of the bite of her blade’s edge was the sweetest nectar in the hollowed husk of her soul. Kebralle Korish stood on the wall of the Fastness. She delivered a wound upon one of the Three, the only T’lan Imass to have done so. Had he stood alone, she would have killed him. The Bearded One would have fallen, the first breach in the defences of the Three. Kebralle Korish, who had made the curved blade she held, naming it Brol—Cold Eye—and see the stain of his blood? Running black as night. In the moment the war turned, she was recalled.
The Copper Ashes had fallen for nothing. No gaining of ground, no victory. They had been flung away, and one day she would make Inistral Ovan pay for that.
Enough reason to persist, this secret vow. The First Sword could have his war, his search for answers, his demand for an accounting with Olar Ethil. Kebralle Korish had her own reasons for continuing on. Olar Ethil—who had summoned them all—was welcome to her secret motives. Kebralle did not care. Besides, Olar Ethil had given her another chance, and for that alone Kebralle would do as she asked. Until such time that the opportunity for vengeance presented itself.
Inistral Ovan bore the shame of defeat, and he did so without dissembling. But it was not good enough. Not even close. I will punish him. I will find for him an eternity of suffering. Upon the lost lives of my kin, this I do vow.
It wasn’t smell—he was not capable of picking up a scent—but something that nevertheless re
ached into his mind, pungent, redolent of memories Kalt Urmanal weathered as would an ice spire a blizzard’s wind. He was annealed in madness, polished bright with insanity. All conflict within him had been smoothed away, until he was nothing more than the purity of purpose.
The K’Chain Che’Malle were upon this land. The slayers of his wife, his children. Their vile oils had soaked this dusty soil; their scales had whispered through the dry air. They were close.
Hatred died with the Ritual of Tellann. So it was held, so it was believed by every T’lan Imass. Even the war against the Jaghut had been a cold, unfeeling prosecution. Kalt Urmanal’s soul trembled with the realization that hatred was alive within him. Blistering hatred. He felt as if all his bones were massed, knotted into a single fist, hard as stone, a fist that but awaited its victim.
He would find them.
Nothing else mattered. The First Sword had not bound his kin—a dread error, for Kalt knew that wars raged within each and every one of them. He could feel as much, swirls of conflicting desires, awakened hungers and needs. An army must kneel before a single master. Without that obeisance, each warrior stood alone, tethers loose, and at the first instant of conflict each would seek his or her own path. The First Sword, in his refusal to command, had lost his army.
He was a fool. He had forgotten what it meant to rule. Whatever he sought, whatever he found, he would discover that he was alone.
First Sword. What did the title mean? Skill with his weapon—none would deny that Onos T’oolan possessed that, else he would never have earned the title. But surely there was more to it. The strength to impose his will. The qualities of true leadership. The arrogance of command and the expectation that such commands would be followed unquestioningly. Onos T’oolan possessed none of these traits. He had failed the first time, had he not? And now, he would fail again.
Kalt Urmanal would trail in the wake of the First Sword, but he would not follow him.
The Jaghut played games with us. They painted themselves in the guises of gods. It amused them. Our indignation stung to life became a rage of unrelenting determination. But it was misplaced. In our awakening to their games, they had no choice but to withdraw. The secret laid bare ended the game. The wars were not necessary. Our pursuit acquired the mien of true madness, and in assuming it we lost ourselves . . . for all time.
The Jaghut were the wrong enemy. The Ritual should have been enacted in the name of a war against the K’Chain Che’Malle. They were the ones who hunted us. For food. For sport. They were the ones who saw us as nothing more than meat. They would descend upon our camps sleek with the oils of cruel, senseless slaughter, and loved ones died.
Indignation? The word is too weak for what I feel. For all of us who were victims of the K’Chain Che’Malle.
First Sword, you lead us nowhere—we are all done with the Jaghut. We no longer care. Our cause is dead, its useless bones revealed to each and every one of us. We have kicked through them and now the path stretches clear—but these paths we do not share with our kin.
So, why do we follow you here and now? Why do we step in time with you? You tell us nothing. You do not even acknowledge our existence. You are worse than the Jaghut.
He knew of Olar Ethil, the bonecaster who had cursed them into eternal suffering. For her, he felt nothing. She was as stupid as the rest. As blind, as mistaken as all the other bonecasters who folded their power into the Ritual. Will you fight her, First Sword? If so, then you will do it alone. We are nothing to you, and so you are nothing to us.
Do not let the eyes deceive. We are no army.
We are no army.
Nom Kala found the bonecaster Ulag Togtil at her side. He was, without question, the biggest warrior among the Imass she had ever seen. Trell blood. She wondered what he had looked like in the flesh. Frightening, no doubt, broad-mouthed and tusked, his eyes small as an ice boar’s. She had few memories of Trell—they were all but gone in her time, among the first to be driven from the face of the earth by the humans. Indeed, she was not even certain her memories were true ones, rather than something bled into her by the Orshayn.
Sour blood, that. A deluge of vicious sentiments, confused desires, depthless despair and pointless rage. She felt under assault—these Orshayn were truly tortured, spiritually destroyed. But neither she nor her kin had acquired any skill in fending off this incessant flood. They had never before experienced the like.
From the First Sword himself, however, there was nothing. Not a single wisp of thought escaped him, not a hint of emotion. Was he simply lifeless, there in his soul? Or was his self-command so absolute that even her most determined assaults upon his thoughts simply slid off, weak as rain on stone? The mystery that was Onos T’oolan dogged her.
‘A measure of mercy,’ Ulag said, intruding upon her thoughts.
‘What is, Bonecaster?’
‘You bleed as well, Nom Kala. We are all wayward. Bone trembles, darkness spins in what remains of our eyes. We believe we are the creators of our thoughts, our feelings, but I think otherwise.’
‘Do you?’
He nodded. ‘We roil in his wake. All this violence, this fury. It devours us, each one, and is shaped by what it eats. And so we believe each of us stands alone in our intent. Most troubling, Nom Kala. How soon before we turn upon one another?’
‘Then there is no measure of mercy,’ she replied.
‘That depends.’
‘On what?’
‘On how subtle is Onos T’oolan.’
‘Please, explain.’
‘Nom Kala, he has said he will not compel us to obedience. He will not be as a T’lan Imass. This is significant. Is he aware of the havoc wrought in his wake? I believe he is.’
‘Then, what purpose?’
‘We will see.’
‘Only if you are correct, and if the First Sword is then able to draw us to him—before it is too late. What you describe holds great risk, and the longer he waits, the less likely he will be able to gather us.’
‘That is true,’ he rumbled in reply.
‘You believe in him, don’t you?’
‘Faith is a strange thing—among the T’lan Imass, it is little more than a pale ghost of memory. Perhaps, Nom Kala, the First Sword seeks to awaken it in us once more. To make us more than T’lan Imass. Thus, he does not compel us. Instead, he shows us the freedom of mortality, which we’d all thought long lost. How do the living command their kin? How can a mortal army truly function, given the chaos within each soldier, these disparate desires?’
‘What value in showing us such things?’ Nom Kala asked. ‘We are not mortal. We are T’lan Imass.’
He shrugged. ‘I have no answer to that, yet. But, I think, he will show us.’
‘He had better not wait too long, Bonecaster.’
‘Nom Kala,’ Ulag was regarding her, ‘I believe you were beautiful once.’
‘Yes. Once.’
‘Would that I had seen you then.’
But she shook her head. ‘Imagine the pain now, had you done so.’
‘Ah, there is that. I am sorry.’
‘As am I, Bonecaster.’
‘Are we there yet? My feet hurt.’
Draconus halted, turned to observe the half-blood Toblakai. ‘Yes, perhaps we can rest for a time. Are you hungry?’
Ublala nodded. ‘And sleepy. And this armour chafes my shoulders. And the axe is heavy. And I miss my friends.’
‘There is a harness ring for your axe,’ Draconus said. ‘You don’t have to carry it at the ready. As you can see, no one can come upon us without our seeing them from some distance away.’
‘But if I see a rabbit or a chicken, I can run it down and then we can eat.’
‘That won’t be necessary—you have already seen that I am able to conjure food, and water.’
Ublala scowled. ‘I want to do my part.’
‘I see. I am sure you will, before too long.’
‘You see something?’ Ublala straightened, looked round.
‘Rabbit? Cow? Those two women over there?’
Draconus started, and then searched until he found the two figures, walking now towards them but still three hundred or so paces away. Coming up from the south, both on foot. ‘We shall await them,’ he said after a moment. ‘But, Ublala, there is no need to fight.’
‘No, sex is better. When it comes to women, I mean. I never touched that mule. That’s sick and I don’t care what they said. Can we eat now?’
‘Build us a fire,’ Draconus said. ‘Use the wood we gathered yesterday.’
‘All right. Where is it?’
Draconus gestured and a modest stack of broken branches appeared almost at Ublala’s feet.
‘Oh, there it is! Never mind, Draconus, I found the wood.’
The woman in the lead was young, her garb distinctly barbaric. Her eyes shone from a band of black paint that possibly denoted grief, while the rest of her face was painted white in the pattern of a skull. She was well-muscled, her long braided hair the colour of rust. Three steps behind her staggered an old woman, barefoot, her hide tunic smeared with filth. Rings glittered on blackened fingers, a jarring detail in the midst of her dishevelled state.
The two stopped ten paces from Draconus and Ublala. The younger one spoke.
Ublala looked up from the fire he’d just sparked to life. ‘Trader tongue—I understand you. Draconus, they’re hungry and thirsty.’
‘I know, Ublala. You will find food in that satchel. And a jug of ale.’
‘Really? What satchel—oh, never mind. Tell the pretty one I want to have sex with her, but say it more nicely—’
‘Ublala, you and I speak the same trader tongue, more often than not. As we are doing now.’ He stepped forward. ‘Welcome, then, we will share with you.’
The younger woman, whose right hand had closed on a dagger at her belt as soon as Ublala made his desire plain, now shifted her attention back to Draconus. ‘I am Ralata, a Skincut of the Ahkrata White Face Barghast.’
‘You are a long way from home, Ralata.’
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