The road itself ran south of these settlements – all of which nested above the shoreline of Pilgrim Lake. When it came opposite a village there would be a junction, with a track or wend leading north. A more substantial crossroads marked the intersection of levelled roads to the reviving cities of Heath, Kel Tor and, somewhere still ahead, Sarn.
Nimander and his group did not travel disguised, did not pretend to be other than what they were, and it was clear that the priests, fleeing ahead of them, had delivered word to all their kin on the road and, from there, presumably into the towns and villages. At the junctions, in the ramshackle waystations and storage sheds, food and water and forage for the animals awaited them.
The Dying God – or his priests – had blessed them, apparently, and now awaited their pleasure in Bastion. The one who had sacrificed his soul to the Dying God was doubly blessed, and some final consummation was anticipated, probably leading to Clip’s soul’s being thoroughly devoured by an entity who was cursed to suffer for eternity. Thus accursed, it was little wonder the creature welcomed company.
All things considered, it was well that their journey had been one of ease and accommodation. Nimander suspected that his troupe would have been rather more pleased to carve their way through hordes of frenzied fanatics, assuming they could manage such a thing.
Having confirmed that Clip’s comatose condition was unchanged, he climbed down from the wagon and returned to the scruffy mare he had been riding since Morsko. The poor beast’s ribs had been like the bars of a cage under tattered vellum, its eyes listless and its tan coat patchy and dull. In the three days since, despite the steady riding, the animal had recovered somewhat under Nimander’s ministrations. He was not particularly enamoured of horses in general, but no creature deserved to suffer.
As he climbed into the worn saddle he saw Skintick standing, stepping up on to the wagon’s bench where Nenanda sat holding the reins, and shading his eyes to look southward across the empty plain.
‘See something?’
A moment, then, ‘Yes. Someone . . . walking.’
Up from the south? ‘But there’s nothing out there.’
Kedeviss and Aranatha rose in their stirrups.
‘Let’s get going,’ Desra said from the wagon bed. ‘It’s too hot to be just sitting here.’
Nimander could see the figure now, tall for a human. Unkempt straggly grey hair fanned out round his head like an aura. He seemed to be wearing a long coat of chain, down to halfway between his knees and ankles, slitted in front. The hand-and-a-half grip of a greatsword rose above his left shoulder.
‘An old bastard,’ muttered Skintick, ‘to be walking like that.’
‘Could be he lost his horse,’ said Nenanda disinterestedly. ‘Desra is right – we should be going.’
Striding like one fevered under the sun, the stranger came ever closer. Something about him compelled Nimander’s attention, a kind of dark fascination – for what, he couldn’t quite name. A cascade of images tumbled through his mind. As if he was watching an apparition bludgeoning its way out from some hoary legend, from a time when gods struggled, hands about each other’s throats, when blood fell as rain and the sky itself rolled and crashed against the shores of the Abyss. All this, riding across the dusty air between them as the old man came up to the road. All this, written in the deep lines of his gaunt visage, in the bleak wastelands of his grey eyes.
‘He is as winter,’ murmured Skintick.
Yes, and something . . . colder.
‘What city lies beyond?’ the man asked.
A startled moment when Nimander realized that the stranger had spoken Tiste Andii. ‘Heath.’
The man turned, faced west. ‘This way, then, lies Bastion and the Cinnamon Track.’
Nimander shrugged.
‘You are from Coral?’ the stranger asked, scanning the group. ‘Is he still camped there, then? But no, I recognize none of you, and that would not be possible. Even so, tell me why I should not kill you all.’
That got Nenanda’s attention, and he twisted in his seat to sneer down at the old man.
But Nimander’s blood had turned to ice. ‘Because, sir, you do not know us.’
Pale eyes settled on him. ‘You have a point, actually. Very well, instead, I would travel with you. Ride, yes, in your wagon – I have worn my boots through crossing this wretched plain. Tell me, have you water, decent food?’
Nenanda twisted further to glare at Nimander. ‘Turn this fool away. He can drink our dust.’
The old man regarded Nenanda for a moment, then turned back to Nimander. ‘Tie a leash on this one and we should be fine.’ And he stepped up to the wagon and, setting a foot on a spoke of the rear wheel, pulled himself up. Where he paused, frowning as he studied the prostrate form of Clip. ‘Is he ill?’ he asked Desra. ‘Are you caught with plague? No, not that – your kind rarely succumb to such things. Stop staring, child, and tell me what is wrong with this one.’
‘None of your business,’ she snapped, as Nimander had known she would. ‘If you’re going to crowd in then sit there, to give him some shade.’
Thin brows lifted, then a faint smile flickered across his withered, cracked lips. And without another word he moved to where Desra had indicated and settled down, stretching out his legs. ‘Some water, darling, if you please.’
She stared at him for a moment, then pulled loose a skin and slid it over. ‘That one’s not water,’ she said with a sweet smile. ‘It’s called kelyk. A local brew. Very popular.’
Nimander sat motionless, watching all this. He saw that Skintick and Nenanda were both doing the same.
At Desra’s words, the old man grimaced. ‘I’d rather water,’ he said, but reached for the skin anyway. Tugged free the stopper, then sniffed.
And recoiled. ‘Imperial dust!’ he said in a growl. He replaced the stopper and flung the skin to the back of the wagon. ‘If you won’t spare water then never mind, bitch. We can settle your inhospitality later.’
‘Desra,’ said Nimander as he gathered his reins, ‘give the man some water.’
‘After he called me a bitch?’
‘After you tried poisoning him with kelyk, yes.’
They set out on the road, westward. Two more days, said the last trader they had passed that morning. Past Sarn and the lesser lake. To Bastion, the city by the inland sea, a sea so filled with salt no sailor or fisher could drown in it, and where no fish could be found barring an enormous eel with the jaws of a wolf. Salt that had not been there a generation ago, but the world will change, amen.
The Abject Temple of Saemenkelyk awaited them in Bastion.
Two days, then, to meet the Dying God. And, one way or another, to wrest from it Clip’s soul. Nimander did not think the priests would just step aside for that.
Riding his mount alongside the wagon, Nimander spoke to the old man. ‘If you are going to Bastion, sir, you might want to reconsider staying with us.’
‘And why is that.’ There was little in that tone even remotely interrogative.
‘I don’t think I can adequately explain why,’ Nimander replied. ‘You’ll just have to take me at my word.’
Instead the old man unslung his weapon and set it between him and Clip, then he laced his long-fingered hands behind his head and settled back, closing his eyes. ‘Wake me when it’s time to eat,’ he said.
The worn grip and nicked pommel of the greatsword, the broad cross-hilt and the scarred wooden scabbard all drew Nimander’s attention. He can still use that damned weapon, ancient as he is.
Grim legends, the clangour of warring gods, yes, this gaunt warrior belonged to such things.
He collected his reins. ‘As you like, stranger.’ Nudging the mare into a trot, he glanced up to meet Skintick’s gaze as he rode past. And saw none of the usual mocking pleasure. Instead, something wan, distraught.
True, there was not much to laugh about, was there?
My unhappy kin.
Onward, then, to Bastion.
A succession of ridges stepped down towards the basin of the valley, each marking a time when the river had been wider, its cold waters churning away from dying glaciers and meltwater lakes. Now, a narrow twisting gully threaded along the distant floor, fringed by cottonwoods. Standing upon the highest ridge, Traveller looked down to the next level, where a half-dozen tipis rose, not quite breaking the high ground skyline. Figures moving about, clothed in tanned hides and skins, a few dogs, the latter now padding out to the camp’s edge closest to the slope, sharp ears and lifted noses alerted to his presence although not one barked.
A herd of horses foraged further down, a small, stocky steppe breed that Traveller had never seen before. Ochre flanks deepening to brown on the haunches, manes and tails almost black.
Down on the valley floor, some distance to the right, carrion birds were on the ground, perched on islands of dead flesh beneath the branches of cottonwoods. Other horses wandered there, these ones more familiar, trailing reins as they cropped the high grasses.
Two men walked out to the base of the slope. Traveller set out down towards them. His own escort of Hounds had left him this morning, either off on a hunt or gone for good – there was no telling which.
Sun-burnished faces watched him approach. Eyes nestled in wind-stretched epicanthic folds. Midnight-black hair in loosely bound manes, through which were threaded – rather sweetly – white blossoms. Long, narrow-bladed curved knives in beaded belts, the iron black except along the honed edges. Their clothing was beautifully sewn with red-dyed gut thread, studded here and there with bronze rivets.
The elder one, on the right, now held up both hands, palms outward, and said in archaic Daru, ‘Master of the Wolf-Horses, welcome. Do not kill us. Do not rape our women. Do not steal our children. Leave us with no diseases. Leave us our g’athend horses-of-the-rock, our mute dogs, our food and our shelters, our weapons and our tools. Eat what we give you. Drink what we give you. Smoke what we give you. Thank us for all three. Grant your seed if a woman comes to you in the night, kill all vermin you find. Kiss with passion, caress with tenderness, gift us with the wisdom of your years but none of their bitterness. Do not judge and you will not be judged. Do not hate, do not fear, and neither will we hate or fear you. Do not invite your wolf-horses into our camp, lest they devour us and all our beasts. Welcome, then, wanderer, and we will tell you of matters, and show you other matters. We are the Kindaru, keepers of the horses-of-the-rock, the last clan left in all Lama Teth Andath – the grasses we have made so that trees do not reach high to steal the sky. Welcome. You need a bath.’
To such a greeting, Traveller could only stand, silent, bemused, torn between laughter and weeping.
The younger of the two men – perhaps in his mid-twenties – smiled wryly and said, ‘The more strangers we meet, the more we add to our words of welcome. This is born of experience, most of it sad, unpleasant. If you mean us harm, we ask that you heed the words given you, and so turn away. Of course, if you mean to betray us, then there is nothing we can do. Deceit is not our way.’
Traveller grimaced. ‘Deceit is everyone’s way.’
Twin expressions of dismay, so similar that it was made clear they were father and son. ‘Yes,’ said the son, ‘that is true. If we saw that you would enter our camp and be with us, yet plan betrayal, why, we would plan the same, and seek to deliver unto you first what you thought to deliver unto us.’
‘You are truly the last camp left?’
‘Yes, we are waiting to die. Our ways, our memories. And the g’athend will run free once more, until they too are gone – for the horses we keep are the last of their kind, too.’
‘Do you ride them?’
‘No, we worship them.’
Yet they spoke Daru – what strange history twisted and isolated these ones from all the others? What turned them away from farms and villages, from cities and riches? ‘Kindaru, I humbly accept your welcome and will strive to be a worthy guest.’
Both men now smiled. And the younger one gestured with one hand.
A faint sound behind him made Traveller turn, to see four nomads rising as if from nowhere on the slope, armed with spears.
Traveller looked back at the father and son. ‘You are all too familiar with strangers, I think.’
They walked down into the camp. The silent dogs, ranging ahead, were met by a small group of children all bedecked in white flowers. Bright smiles flashed up at Traveller, tiny hands taking his to lead him onward to the hearthfires, where women were now preparing a midday meal. Iron pots filled with some milky substance steamed, the smell pungent, sweet and vaguely alcoholic.
A low bench was set out, four-legged and padded, the woven coverlet a rainbow of coloured threads in zigzag patterns. The wooden legs were carved into horse heads, noses almost touching in the middle, the manes flowing in sweeping curves, all stained a lustrous ochre and deep brown. The artistry was superb, the heads so detailed Traveller could see the veins along the cheeks, the lines of the eyelids and the dusty eyes both opaque and depthless.
There was only one such bench, and it was, he knew, to be his for the duration of his stay.
The father and son, and three others of the band, two women and a very old man, all sat cross-legged in a half-circle, facing him across the fire. The children finally released his hands and a woman gave him a gourd filled with the scalded milk, in which floated strips of meat.
‘Skathandi,’ said the father. ‘Camped down by the water. Here to ambush us and steal our horses, for the meat of the g’athend is highly prized by people in the cities. There were thirty in all, raiders and murderers – we will eat their horses, but you may have one to ride if you desire so.’
Traveller sipped the milk, and as the steam filled his face his eyes widened. Fire in his throat, then blissful numbness. Blinking tears from his eyes, he tried to focus on the man who had spoken. ‘You sprang the ambush, then. Thirty? You must be formidable warriors.’
‘This was the second such camp we found. All slain. Not by us, friend. Someone, it seems, likes the Skathandi even less than we do.’
The father hesitated, and in the pause his son said, ‘It was our thought that you were following that someone.’
‘Ah.’ Traveller frowned. ‘Someone? There is but one – one who attacks Skathandi camps and slaughters everyone?’
Nods answered him.
‘A demon, we think, who walks like a storm, dark with terrible rage. One who covers well his tracks.’ The son made an odd gesture with one hand, a rippling of the fingers. ‘Like a ghost.’
‘How long ago did this demon travel past here?’
‘Three days.’
‘Are these Skathandi a rival tribe?’
‘No. Raiders, preying on caravans and all who dwell on the Plain. Sworn, it is said, to a most evil man, known only as the Captain. If you see an eight-wheeled carriage, so high there is one floor above and a balcony with a golden rail – drawn, it is said, by a thousand slaves – then you will have found the palace of this Captain. He sends out his raiders, and grows fat on the trade of his spoils.’
‘I am not following this demon,’ said Traveller. ‘I know nothing of it.’
‘That is probably well.’
‘It heads north?’
‘Yes.’
Traveller thought about that as he took another sip of the appallingly foul drink. With a horse under him he would begin to make good time, but that might well take him right on to that demon, and he did not relish a fight with a creature that could slay thirty bandits and leave nary a footprint.
One child, who had been kneeling beside him, piling handfuls of dirt on to Traveller’s boot-top, now clambered up on to his thigh, reached into the gourd and plucked out a sliver of meat, and waved it in front of Traveller’s mouth.
‘Eat,’ said the son. ‘The meat is from a turtle that tunnels, very tender. The miska milk softens it and removes the poison. One generally does not drink the miska, as it can send
the mind travelling so far that it never returns. Too much and it will eat holes in your stomach and you will die in great pain.’
‘Ah. You could have mentioned that earlier.’ Traveller took the meat from the child. He was about to plop it into his mouth when he paused. ‘Anything else I should know before I begin chewing?’
‘No. You will dream tonight of tunnelling through earth. Harmless enough. All food has memory, so the miska proves – we cook everything in it, else we taste the bitterness of death.’
Traveller sighed. ‘This miska, it is mare’s milk?’
Laughter erupted.
‘No, no!’ cried the father. ‘A plant. A root bulb. Mare milk belongs to foals and colts, of course. Humans have their own milk, after all, and it is not drunk by adults, only babes. Yours, stranger, is a strange world!’ And he laughed some more.
Traveller ate the sliver of meat.
Most tender – indeed, delicious. That night, sleeping beneath furs in a tipi, he dreamt of tunnelling through hard-packed, stony earth, pleased by its surrounding warmth, the safety of darkness.
He was woken shortly before dawn by a young woman, soft of limb and damp with desire, who wrapped herself tight about him. He was startled when she prised open his mouth with her own and deposited a full mouthful of spit, strongly spiced with something, and would not pull away until he swallowed it down. By the time she and the drug she had given him were done, there was not a seed left in his body.
In the morning, Traveller and the father went down to the abandoned Skathandi horses. With help from the mute dogs they were able to capture one of the animals, a solid piebald gelding of sixteen or so hands with mischief in its eyes.
Toll the Hounds Page 27