Blood and Bone

by Ian C. Esslemont

  Ular Takeq

  Customs of Ancient Jakal-Uku

  GOLAN WOKE FROM a troubling dream in which he heard distant voices chanting through darkness. That alone was nothing to be alarmed about; dreams, his training taught him, were merely random images swirling about the mind, not dire portents or prophecies. No such ignorant superstitions for the Thaumaturgs. Yet this chanting had carried whispered echoes of ancient compellings and forbidden phrasings. It called to mind references to a ritual said to have been completed only once – the greatest, and most perilous, of all their order’s invocations. One he and his fellow students discussed only in the most muted and guarded terms.

  It was no wonder, he reflected, that his mind should choose to throw up such an echo now. He faced a reality of slow grinding annihilation every day.

  He opened his eyes to the thin frayed awning spread above him, dripping with the passing rain. He sat up and pulled his sweat-soaked shirt from his chest. His bare arms glistened and bore countless red swellings of bites. His yakshaka guards stood in a broad circle about him. It seemed to him that the night was as quiet as it ever could get; the usual hunting calls shocked everyone – each morning one or two of his remaining force would always be missing. The constant buzzing of the cicadas also grated on nerves already frayed beyond endurance. The rush of passing bats made him glance to the trees; he quite disliked bats. There was also the constant moaning and groaning of the sick in camp. ‘The sick’, in point of fact, now described nearly all of the remaining army.

  Myself included, Golan reflected. He’d come down with the chills. The fever of shuddering cold spells followed by prostrating sweats. It was quite debilitating, and it was only through his Thaumaturg training that he was able to continue to function.

  He paused then, for he heard something more: the murmuring that had haunted his dreams had not stopped. Indeed, he heard it even more clearly now. A true chill took him suddenly – one far more profound than his fever. He crossed to one of his last remaining pieces of luggage: an iron chest that, if lost, would necessitate his death in penance. Frost limned it now. Even in the depths of this heated abyss frost feathered its sides. A silver light escaped from the crack of its lid. He reached for it but paused, reconsidering. His hands were close enough to feel the cold breath wafting from it.

  The whispered chanting spoke to him then and he knew. He knew. He scrambled to the centre of the clearing his awning occupied. Yakshaka turned their armoured heads to peer at him. He scanned the clearing night sky. There, through gaps in the canopy, the Visitor glowed behind the thinnest ribbon of cloud. The scarf drifted on as he waited, scarcely able to breathe. What was revealed was a swollen gibbous jade banner so gravid Golan thought it about to break upon the treetops.

  To think I haven’t been paying attention, he wondered. Not at all.

  What could possibly drive them to … No matter. He wiped a hand down his face, peered about frantically. ‘Second!’ he called, his voice rather high. ‘Mister Waris! You are needed!’

  The man appeared, a loose shirt that he’d obviously just thrown on hanging down over his trousers. I chose well, Golan decided. ‘Break camp, Second,’ he told him. ‘We must continue pressing east, quickly now.’

  The man’s slit gaze revealed nothing. Golan would have preferred some sort of reaction. Even the suggestion that he was losing his mind. But whatever doubts or reservations the man might have harboured he continued to keep them to himself and he bowed, still silent. Golan waved him away. ‘Begin at once.’

  The man bowed again and jogged off.

  A new figure pushed its way through the wall of yakshaka guards, this one gangly and crooked of neck, his bulging pouch of papers at his side. How does he do that? Golan wondered. Have to have a word with my guards.

  ‘Troubled dreams, Commander?’ Principal Scribe Thorn asked.

  ‘In a sense, Principal Scribe. You are here now for what reason? Other than to trouble me with questions?’

  Thorn pulled his quill from behind his blackened ear. ‘Why, to record your orders of course!’

  ‘Like history, you are too late, Scribe. However, just for you, I shall recreate the scene.’ He leaned closer, peered at the sheet of pressed fibre paper the scribe held ready on a wooden pallet, and said, ‘March east.’

  Principal Scribe Thorn scratched at the sheet. He mouthed aloud as he wrote: ‘Glorious Leader Golan allows no respite in his remorseless advance upon the enemy.’

  ‘You capture it eerily.’

  ‘My lord is too kind.’

  ‘Not at all.’ Golan gestured aside. ‘Now, if you do not mind. We are breaking camp.’

  ‘The soldiers will consider it a privilege to set aside sleep to return to the march, Commander. No doubt the sick will be inspired to attempt to stand.’

  Golan, who had been moving off, halted to return to the man. Mustn’t show the bastard that he can reach me. He drew a patient breath. ‘No doubt. That is why I shall order the yakshaka to carry the worst – to spare them the effort.’

  The Principal Scribe’s fist-sized Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. He blinked his bulging rheumy eyes, then quickly lowered them to his sheet. He wrote, mouthing, ‘So eager to crush the enemy is Golan the Great that he orders his soldiers carried into battle!’

  Golan studied the man – who bowed obsequiously. ‘Such accuracy in recording is uncanny, Principal Scribe. Future scholars shall hang on every word. I’m certain of it.’

  Thorn stooped again, even lower. Like a buzzard … and I am the corpse.

  * * *

  His last mount had fallen under Jatal two days before. He and Scarza were descending out of the Gangrek Mounts, the Dragon’s Teeth, when the abused, exhausted animal pitched forward, tumbling his rider over his neck to slew down the grade of loose gravel and rock. Jatal received several bruises and a numbed arm, but the horse broke a leg and so they killed it. He was all for moving on immediately. But Scarza had insisted on the time to butcher a portion of the animal for meat and so it was some while before they set off, the half-Trell carrying a haunch over his shoulder. The giant had shown great foresight in that. The meat saw them through the next few days, until it turned, and they had to throw the remainder away.

  They were gaining upon the Warleader – at least so Scarza insisted. Jatal had no idea. He couldn’t track here in this abyssal green maze. The half-Trell led him to one old abandoned fire site. It could have belonged to anyone as far as he could tell, but Scarza insisted he had been here.

  Jatal merely shrugged. ‘Let us move on.’

  Scarza nodded, eyeing him. ‘Yes – for a time. Yet he is keeping a fire. We should also.’

  ‘It may alert him,’ Jatal objected. He turned away and pushed through the surrounding broad-leafed plants.

  Scarza followed. ‘There are more things in this pit than just he.’

  ‘They do not concern me.’

  ‘They do me. I for one do not intend to be torn to pieces before I can get my hands on him.’

  Jatal glanced back. ‘Do as you choose.’

  When evening came Scarza called a halt. In the gloom he offered Jatal a wink. ‘We do not want to fall down a hole, now do we? Like back in those Gangreks. That was a close call.’

  ‘We’ve left the sinkholes behind.’

  ‘Quicksand, then. Or a boggy morass.’

  Jatal said nothing – there was nothing to say as far as he was concerned.

  Scarza peered about, then gestured to one side. ‘Under cover of that tree, I think. It should keep the rain off. I’ll build a small fire.’

  Jatal sat. When the fire was going, Scarza let go a great breath and sat back. He offered a fruit. ‘Try that. I think it’s edible. Looks familiar.’

  Jatal took a bite.

  ‘How is it?’

  ‘I’m not dead.’

  ‘Ah! In that case I’ll try one.’ And he popped a fruit into his mouth. He watched Jatal eating and nodded approvingly. ‘Had you heard that the Moon’s Spa
wn has fallen?’

  ‘We heard something of that.’

  ‘Yes. They say it has.’ He nodded again, scanning the overcast sky. ‘Man could make a fortune sifting through that wreckage. Imagine. I was thinking … after this … I would head over that way. What say you?’

  Over the fruit, Jatal eyed him, blinking. There was no ‘after this’ for him. He would join Andanii. If her spirit was as fierce in death as it had been in life, then he knew she’d be waiting for him. He hoped she would forgive him for the wait.

  Scarza was quiet for a time, watching him. Then he cleared his throat and glanced away. He studied the sky, and after a while he frowned. ‘Tell me, Adwami scholar, have you ever seen one of these passing Visitors grow so large before?’

  Jatal glanced up briefly. The broad streaming head of the Banner did loom monstrously bloated behind the cloud cover. Its emerald glow was now the murky olive of deep water. ‘I have only seen one before.’ He shrugged.

  ‘Well, I have seen many, my friend. And I swear, in all my years, I have never seen one come this close.’

  ‘What of it?’

  ‘Well … the legends. The stories. That old lay – how was it? Oh yes, “The Fall of the Shattered God”.’

  ‘And?’

  Scarza waved a thick arm. ‘Well, I for one would not wish to be beneath it!’

  ‘If it falls, it falls. There is nothing we can do about it.’

  ‘True. But perhaps it is meant for someone in particular … if you follow my reasoning.’

  Jatal regarded him levelly for a time. He swallowed a mouthful of the underripe fruit. ‘Then I will hold him down myself.’

  ‘Now, lad. I do not think the lass would want—’

  ‘Andanii waits for me,’ Jatal cut in. His voice was flat but hard. ‘You do as you choose. I will continue on.’

  Scarza blew out a long exhalation, rubbed a wide hand over his mop of hair. He shot another glance skyward, winced. Then he brightened, sitting up straighter. ‘Well … there is only one thing for it. We can always hope their aim is as good as the first time, hey?’ And he laughed in great loud guffaws.

  Staring out at the jungle, Jatal did not even smile.

  * * *

  The first thing that gripped Mara was the terrifying cold. The next was the wet. She was kneeling in water so frigid a slush of ice washed about within it. She vomited into the water, then wrapped her arms about her soaked robes, and bellowed: ‘Red! For Burn’s sake do something!’

  ‘I’m on it!’ He sounded just as shocked and pained as she.

  All about, Crimson Guard Disavowed straightened, groaning and cursing. Skinner had brought fifteen swords and all three mages.

  They occupied the top of a bare rocky shoreline. A tower rose just inland. Water foamed and washed back and forth across the land, storm-driven, leaving layers of ice behind. Low clouds churned overhead so close she imagined she could touch them.

  ‘Where are we?’ she shouted to the priest over the screaming wind and the crash of breakers down the coast. The man merely cackled and laughed wildly. ‘The tower!’ he cried, pointing.

  The water pulled back downhill round her. It carried bodies, some in blue woollen robes over mail, others in opalescent scaled breastplates, greaves and helms that gleamed like mother-of-pearl. Mara stared while they nudged past her in the flow.

  ‘Stormriders?’ she yelled to the priest as he scrambled by.

  ‘Matters not,’ the man laughed. Ahead, Skinner was already advancing on the tower. Disavowed formed ranks behind. He appeared to still be arguing with Shijel for one of his swords. Since he broke Black’s no one was willing to lend him theirs.

  A Warren-fed warmth now stole over her. She recognized Red’s work. It blunted the worst of the strength-draining frigidity but hardly thawed her. She knew she wouldn’t have much time here before her fingers and toes froze.

  ‘Ware!’ a voice called from behind and she just had time to turn before a wall of webbed green came breaking over her. The mountain of water drove her off her knees and swept her up the slope. She knocked bodies with others, either living or dead, she had no idea. The waters stole all the sense of warmth she’d regained. She almost lost consciousness from the soul-penetrating cold stabbing her. She breached the surface and gasped for breath. Something slashed her side with stinging cold and she spun to see a Stormrider raising his jagged sword for another blow.

  She reacted instantly, raising her Warren and thrusting all in one. The creature flew backwards to crack against the tower’s stone wall in a sickening crunch of shattering armour. She gestured again and all the waters swirling about her were driven back in a broad circle. A melee of Riders against Disavowed lay spread across the hillside. Enraged, she threw her arms out and all the Riders lurched backwards as if yanked. They tumbled and rolled to disappear into the churning moil of waters.

  ‘Mara’s with us!’ Shijel laughed, panting, and he waved his approval.

  ‘The tower, fools!’ the priest called from the open doorway.

  Mara gestured everyone on. Slogging past, Jacinth pointed aside, and Mara saw Petal lying there. She laboured through mud brittle with ice and turned him over. Blood smeared the side of his head. He’d fallen or been driven against rocks. She felt at his neck – the flesh was bitter cold, but possessed a pulse.

  ‘Bring him,’ she ordered two Disavowed, Farese and Hist. They carried him up steps that were an ice-slick waterfall of pouring water. Within, the main floor was awash; foaming water was even rushing down stairways from the higher levels. Corpses of Stormriders and others in blue tabards over mailed armour lay about in the blood-streaked flow. Those in the blue tabards Mara now recognized as Korelri Chosen, Stormguards, guardians of the storied Wall. They were in the lands some named Korel.

  Why would the priest bring them here during an attack by the Riders?

  Skinner and Red were facing the bedraggled priest, who, though wearing only a ragged loincloth here amid the frigid waters, still jerked and hopped as urgently as before.

  ‘There is no way down,’ Red was telling Skinner.

  The priest tore at his few remaining strands of hair. ‘I tell you – the way is down!’

  Red jabbed a finger to his temple to indicate what he thought of the priest.

  ‘Another wave!’ Jacinth called from the entrance where the heavy iron doors hung warped and askew, blasted from their hinges.

  ‘Brace yourselves!’ Skinner bellowed.

  Mara turned: Another wave this high?

  The dressed granite stones beneath her feet juddered and shook at the approach of something immense. A landslide roaring tore the air. Jacinth backed away from the gaping entrance. ‘Burn protect us,’ she breathed, awed.

  Mara glimpsed a solid wall of water choking the opening then something slammed her into a wall and held her there, crushed and pressed so hard that she could not draw breath – even if there were air to breathe. A terrible heart-stopped cold clawed at her. It pulled her strength and her life from her as water might douse a flame. Her slashed side stung as if burned.

  The pressure relented and she fell from the wall to her hands and knees, coughing, gasping for air. Fighting surrounded her. She straightened, pushed aside her hair. Several Disavowed were down, run through by lethal ice-shards that stood from them like spears, hissing and steaming. Skinner had a Stormrider by the arm, and as Mara watched he lifted the entity and brought it down over his knee. A loud wet crack sounded and the creature spasmed. Skinner straightened, allowing the corpse to slide off his coat of mail to splash into the water that foamed about their knees.

  New war shouts sounded and Korelri came charging down the stairs and from halls leading further back into the tower. They faced the Disavowed with spears levelled and broad shields raised. The shields held their sigil: a stylized tower or wall standing against swirling waters.

  One of them pushed his way forward. He was old, his hair as white as snow, but he was still slim and straight. ‘Who are you?’ he
demanded.

  ‘You’re welcome,’ Skinner answered.

  The man glanced past them to the entrance and the overcast murk beyond where the surf boomed loud and echoing. ‘Well,’ he allowed, ‘our thanks – but we are holding.’ He studied them now, narrowly. ‘Where are you from?’

  ‘What matters that?’ Skinner answered. ‘We are come to your aid.’

  ‘You are not allowed—’

  ‘Another!’ a Stormguard called from up the stairs.

  The man’s jaws worked as he swallowed all further argument or objections. ‘Very well,’ he snapped. To his men, he continued, ‘As before. Allow the surge to fade then counter-attack!’

  The Chosen clashed their spears to the floor. ‘Aye, Marshal!’ They retreated to their posts.

  Mara came to Skinner’s side. ‘We are weakening,’ she whispered. ‘We can’t endure much more of this.’

  He nodded his understanding. He raised a hand in a sign: ambush.

  The Disavowed eyed one another in silent understanding.

  A wave was building; she could feel it in the pregnant charged atmosphere. A wind of displaced air preceded it: the howling came surging through the entrance, ruffled her hair and chilled her further, then went on its way up the stairs and through the tower rooms. The avalanche roar returned, surging, until, paradoxically, she could hear nothing at all. This time she would be ready: she raised her Warren and created a sphere of outward pressure about her. She concentrated upon it with all her might.

  Darkness obscured the entrance: a murky olive green.

  Here it comes!

  A solid wall of icy water came exploding in. It struck the circumference of her protective sphere and could not penetrate. But the blow shocked her backwards into the wall once again, knocking the wind from her. Shapes moved past through the water and flowed up the stairs, glimmering a phosphorescent emerald and sapphire. One shape seemed to pause, wavering, before her. A lance shot through the wall of water. She flinched her head aside and it yanked on her hair as it slammed into the wall and burst into a thousand fragments of ice.