The Bonehunters

by Steven Erikson

  Paran looked away. 'Sorry. Some thoughts I'd do better to keep to myself. It's a longstanding fault of mine, alas.'

  'Captain. For a moment there... your eyes... they... flared. Like a beast's.'

  Paran studied the man. 'Did they now?'

  'I'd swear it with one heel on Hood's own foreskin, Captain.'

  Ganoes Paran pushed himself to his feet. 'Relay these orders to the officers. This army marches in four days. In three days' time, I want them in full kit, dressed out with weapons bared for inspection, ready at noon. And when we depart, I want to leave this camp clean, every latrine filled in, the refuse burned.' He faced Hurlochel. 'Get these soldiers busy — they're rotting from the inside out. Do you have all that, Hurlochel?'

  The outrider smiled, then repeated Paran's orders word for word.

  'Good. Be sure to impress on the officers that these days of lying round moping and bitching are at an end. Tell them the order of march will place to the lead post the most presentable company — everyone else eats their dust.'

  'Captain, where do we march?'

  'No idea. I'll worry about that then.'

  'What of the High Fist and the others in that tent?'

  'Chances are, they won't be up to much for a while. In the meantime—'

  'In the meantime, you command the Host, sir.'

  'Aye, I do.'

  Hurlochel's sudden salute was sharp, then he pivoted and strode from the tent.

  Paran stared after him. Fine, at least someone's damned pleased about it.

  A short time later, he and Noto Boil sat atop their horses at the camp's edge, looking downslope and across the flat killing-ground to the city's walls, its bleached-limestone facing a mass of scrawls, painted symbols, hand-prints, skeletal figures. This close, there should have been sounds rising from the other side of those walls, the haze of dust and smoke overhead, and the huge gate should be locked open for a steady stream of traders and hawkers, drovers and work crews. Soldiers should be visible in the windows of the gate's flanking square towers.

  The only movement came from flocks of pigeons lifting into view then dipping back down, fitful and frantic as an armada of kites rejected by storm-winds; and from the blue-tinted desert starlings and croaking crows lined up like some nightmare army on the battlements.

  'Captain,' the cutter said, the fish spine once more jutting from between his lips — the hole it had made earlier just above those lips was a red, slightly puckered spot, smeared like a popped pimple — 'you believe me capable of assaulting all that is anathema to me?'

  'I thought you were disavowed,' Paran said.

  'My point precisely. I cannot even so much as call upon Soliel for her benign protection. Perhaps your eyes are blind to the truth, but I tell you, Captain, I can see the air roiling up behind those walls — it is the breath of chaos. Currents swirl, heave — even to look upon them, as I do now, makes me ill. We shall die, you and I, not ten paces in from the gate.'

  Paran checked the sword at his belt, then adjusted his helm's strap. 'I am not as blind as you believe me to be, cutter.' He studied the city for a moment, then gathered his reins. 'Ride close to my side, Noto Boil.'

  'Captain, the gate looks closed, locked tight — we are not welcome.'

  'Never mind the damned gate,' Paran said. 'Are you ready?'

  The man turned wild eyes upon him. 'No,' he said in a high voice, 'I am not.'

  'Let's get this over with,' Paran said, nudging his horse into motion.

  Noto Boil spared one last look over his shoulder, and saw soldiers standing, watching, gathered in their hundreds. 'Gods,' he whispered, 'why am I not among them right now?'

  Then he moved to catch up to Captain Kindly, who had once dangled an innocent man from a tower's edge. And now does it all over again — to me!

  ****

  She had once been sent out to hunt down her younger brother, tracking him through half the city — oh, he'd known she was after him, known that she was the one they'd send, the only one capable of closing a hand on one scrawny ankle, dragging him back, then shaking him until his brain rattled inside his skull. He'd led her a wild trail that night. Ten years old and already completely out of control, eyes bright as marbles polished in a mouthful of spit, the white smile more wicked than a wolf's snarl, all gangly limbs and cavorting malice.

  He had been collecting... things. In secret. Strands of hair, nail clippings, a rotted tooth. Something, it turned out, from everyone in the entire extended family. Forty-two, if one counted four-month-old Minarala — and he had, the little bastard. A madness less imaginative might have settled for a host of horrid dolls, upon which he could deliver minor but chronic torment to feed his insatiable evil, but not her brother, who clearly believed himself destined for vast infamy. Not content with dolls fashioned in likenesses, he had constructed, from twine, sticks, straw, wool and horn, a tiny flock of forty-two sheep. Penned in a kraal of sticks assembled on the floor of the estate's attic. Then, from one of his own milk teeth, newly plucked from his mouth, he made for himself the likeness of a wolf fang and then, with tatters of fur, the wolf to which it belonged, of a scale to permit it to devour a sheep-doll in a single gulp.

  In skeins of demented magic, he had set his wolf among the flock.

  Screams and wails in the night, in household after household, unleashed from terrifying nightmares steeped in the reek of panic and lanolin, of clopping hoofs and surges of desperate, hopeless flight. Nips and buffets from the huge roaring wolf, the beast toying with every one of them — oh, she would remember the torment for a long, long time.

  In the course of the following day, as uncles, aunts, nephews and the like gathered, all pale and trembling, and as the revelation arrived that one and all had shared their night of terror, few were slow in realizing the source of their nightmares — of course he had already lit out, off to one of his countless bolt-holes in the city. Where he would hide until such time as the fury and outrage should pass.

  For the crimes committed by children, all fugue eventu­ally faded, as concern rose in its stead. For most children, normal children; but not for Ben Adaephon Delat, who had gone too far. Again.

  And so Torahaval Delat had been dispatched to track down her brother, and to deliver upon him an appropriate punishment. Such as, she had considered at the time, flay­ing him alive. Sheep, were they? Well, she carried in her pack the wolf doll, and with that she intended most dread­ful torture. Though nowhere near as talented as her younger brother, and admittedly far less imaginative, she had managed to fashion a leash of sorts for the creature, and now, no matter where her brother went, she could follow.

  He was able to stay ahead of her for most of a day and the following night, until a bell before dawn when, on a rooftop in the Prelid Quarter of Aren, she caught up with him, holding in her hands the wolf doll, gripping the back legs and pulling them wide.

  The boy, running flat out one moment, flat on his face the next. Squealing and laughing, and, even as she stumbled, that laughter stung so that she gave those legs an extra twist.

  And, screaming, fell onto the pebbled roof, her hips filling with agony.

  Her brother shrieked as well, yet could not stop laughing.

  She had not looked too closely at the wolf doll, and now, gasping and wincing, she sought to do so. The gloom was reluctant to yield, but at last she made out the beast's bound-up body beneath the tatter of fur — her underclothes — the ones that had disappeared from the clothesline a week earlier — knotted and wrapped tight around some solid core, the nature of which she chose not to deliberate overmuch.

  He'd known she would come after him. Had known she'd find his stash of dolls in the attic. Had known she would make use of the wolf doll, his own anima that he had so carelessly left behind. He'd known... everything.

  That night, in the darkness before dawn, Torahaval decided that she would hate him, for ever more. Passionately, a hatred fierce enough to scour the earth in its entirety.

  It's easy to hat
e the clever ones, even if they happen to be kin. Perhaps especially then.

  There was no clear path from that recollection to her life now, to this moment, with the singular exception of the sensation that she was trapped inside a nightmare; one from which, unlike that other nightmare all those years ago, she would never awaken.

  Her brother was not there, laughing and gasping, then finally, convulsed with glee on the rooftop, releasing the sorcery within the wolf doll. Making the pain go away. Her brother, dead or alive — by now more probably dead — was very far away. And she wished, with all her heart, that it wasn't so.

  Mumbling like a drunk beggar, Bridthok sat before the stained granite-topped table to her right, his long-nailed fingers pushing the strange assortment of gold and silver coins back and forth as he sought to force upon them some means of categorization, a task at which he was clearly failing. The vast chests of coinage in Poliel's temple were bottomless — not figuratively but literally, they had discovered. And to reach down into the ice-cold darkness was to close hands on frost-rimed gold and silver, in all manner of currency. Stamped bars, studded teeth, holed spheres, torcs and rings, rolled bolts of gold-threaded silk small enough to fit in the palm of one hand, and coins of all sorts: square, triangular, crescent, holed, tubular, along with intricate folding boxes, chains, beads, spools, honeycomb wafers and ingots. Not one of which was familiar to any of them gathered here — trapped here — in the G'danisban temple with its mad, horrendous goddess. Torahaval had no idea there were so many languages in the world, such as she saw inscribed upon much of the currency. Letters like tiny images, letters proceeding diagonally, or vertically, or in spiral patterns, some letters little more than patterns of dots.

  From other realms, Bridthok insisted. The more mundane coins could be found in the eastern chamber behind the altar, an entire room heaped with the damned things. An empire's treasury in that room alone, the man claimed, and perhaps he was right. With the first rumour of plague, the coffers of Poliel filled to overflowing. But it was the alien coinage that most interested the old man. It had since become Bridthok's obsession, this Cataloguing of Realms that he claimed would be his final glory of scholarship.

  A strange contrast, this academic bent, in a man for whom ambition and lust for power seemed everything, the very reason for drawing breath, the cage in which his murderous heart paced.

  He had loosed more rumours of his death than anyone she had ever known, a new one every year or so, to keep the many hunters from his trail, he claimed. She suspected he simply took pleasure in the challenge of invention. Among the fools — her co-conspirators — gathered here, Bridthok was perhaps the most fascinating. Neither Septhune Anabhin nor Sradal Purthu encouraged her, in matters of trust or respect. And Sribin, well, Sribin was no longer even recognizable.

  The fate, it seemed, of those whom the Grey Goddess took as mortal lover. And when she tired of the rotted, moaning thing that had once been Sribin, the bitch would select another. From her dwindling store of terrified prisoners. Male, female, adult, child, it mattered naught to Poliel.

  Bridthok insisted the cult of Sha'ik was reborn, in­vigorated beyond — far beyond — all that had gone before. Somewhere, out there, was the City of the Fallen, and a new Sha'ik, and the Grey Goddess was harvesting for her a broken legion of the mad, for whom all that was mortal belonged to misery and grief, the twin offspring of Poliel's womb. And, grey in miasma and chaos, blurred by distance, there lurked the Crippled God, twisted and cackling in his chains, ever drawing tighter this foul alliance.

  What knew Torahaval of wars among the gods? She did not even care, beyond the deathly repercussions in her own world, her own life.

  Her younger brother had long ago fallen one way; and she another, and now all hope of escape was gone.

  Bridthok's mumbling ceased in a sudden gasp. He started in his chair, head lifting, eyes widening.

  A tremor ran through Torahaval Delat. 'What is it?' she demanded.

  The old man rose from behind the table. 'She summons us.'

  I too must be mad — what is there left in life to love? Why do I still grip the edge, when the Abyss offers everything I now yearn for? Oblivion. An end. Gods... an end. 'More than that, Bridthok,' she said. 'You look... aghast.'

  Saying nothing and not meeting her eye, he headed out into the hallway. Cursing under her breath, Torahaval followed.

  Once, long ago, her brother — no more than four, perhaps five years old at the time, long before the evil within him had fully grown into itself — had woken screaming in the night, and she had run to his bedside to comfort him. In child words, he described his nightmare. He had died, yet walked the world still, for he had forgotten something. Forgotten, and no matter what he did, no recollection was possible. And so his corpse wandered, everywhere, with ever the same question on his lips, a question delivered to every single person cursed to cross his path. What? What have I forgotten?

  It had been hard to reconcile that shivering, wide-eyed child hiding in her arms that night with the conniving trickster of only a few years later.

  Perhaps, she now thought as she trailed Bridthok and the train of his flapping, threadbare robes, perhaps in the interval of those few years, Adaephon Delat had remembered what it was he had forgotten. Perhaps it was nothing more than what a corpse still striding the mortal world could not help but forget.

  How to live.

  ****

  'I thought daytime was supposed to be for sleeping,' Bottle muttered as his sergeant tugged on his arm yet again. The shade of the boulder he had been curled up beside was, the soldier told himself, the only reason he was still alive. This day had been the hottest yet. Insects crawling on stone slabs had cooked halfway across, shells popping like seeds. No-one moved, no-one said a thing. Thirst and visions of water obsessed the entire troop. Bottle had eventually fallen into a sleep that still pulled at him with torpid, heavy hands.

  If only Fiddler would damned well leave him alone.

  'Come with me, Bottle. Up. On your feet.'

  'If you've found a cask of spring water, Sergeant, then I'm yours. Otherwise...'

  Fiddler lifted him upright, then dragged him along. Stumbling, his tongue feeling like a knot of leather strips, Bottle was barely aware of the path underfoot. Away from the road, among wind-sculpted rocks, winding this way and that. Half-blinded by the glare, it was a moment before he realized that they had stopped, were standing on a clearing of flat sand, surrounded by boulders, and there were two figures awaiting them.

  Bottle felt his heart tighten in his chest. The one seated cross-legged opposite was Quick Ben. To his right squatted the assassin Kalam, his dark face glistening, worn black gloves on his hands and the elongated handles of his twin long-knives jutting out from beneath his arms. The man looked ready to kill something, although Bottle suspected that was his normal expression.

  Quick Ben's eyes were fixed on him, languid yet danger­ous, like a leopard playing with a maimed hare. But there was something else in that regard, Bottle suspected. Something not quite hidden. Fear?

  After a moment of locked gazes, Bottle's attention was drawn to the collection of dolls perched in the sand before the wizard. Professional interest helped push down his own fear, for the time being, at least. Involuntarily, he leaned forward.

  'It's an old art,' Quick Ben said. 'But you know that, don't you, soldier?'

  'You're at an impasse,' Bottle said.

  The wizard's brows lifted, and he shot Kalam an unread­able glance before clearing his throat and saying, 'Aye, I am. How did you see it? And how so... quickly?'

  Bottle shrugged.

  Quick Ben scowled at an amused grunt from Fiddler. 'All right, you damned imp, any suggestions on what to do about it?'

  Bottle ran a hand through the grimy stubble of his hair. 'Tell me what you're trying to do.'

  'What I'm trying to do, soldier, is none of your damned business!'

  Sighing, Bottle settled onto the sand, assuming a posture to
match that of the man opposite him. He studied the figures, then pointed to one. 'Who's she?'

  Quick Ben started. 'I didn't know it was a "she".'

  'First one you set down, I'd hazard. You probably woke from a bad dream, all confused, but knowing something was wrong, something somewhere, and this one — this woman — she's your link to it. Family, I'd hazard. Mother? Daughter? Sister? Sister, yes. She's been thinking about you. A lot, lately. Look at the skein of shadow lines around her, like she was standing in a thatch of grass, only there ain't no grass nearby, so that skein belongs to something else.'

  'Hood squeeze my balls,' Quick Ben hissed, eyes now darting among the figures on the sand. He seemed to have forgotten his belligerence. 'Torahaval? What in the name of the Abyss has she got herself into now? And how come not one of the others can reach a single shadow towards her?'

  Bottle scratched at his beard, fingernails trapping a nit. He pulled it loose and flicked it away.

  Kalam started, then cursed. 'Watch that!'

  'Sorry.' Bottle pointed at one doll, wrapped in black silks. The shadow the doll cast seemed to reveal two projections of some kind, like crows perched on each shoulder. 'That's Apsalar, yes? She's part of this, all right, though not at the moment. I think her path was meant to cross your sister's, only it never happened. So, there was intent, unfulfilled, and be glad for that. That one's Cotillion and aye, he's dancing his infernal dance all right, but his only role was in starting the pebble from the hilltop — how it rolled and what it picked up on the way down he left to the fates. Still, you're right in choosing the House of Shadows. Was that instinct? Never mind. Here's your problem.' He pointed at another doll, this one hooded and cloaked entirely in gauze-thin black linen.

  Quick Ben blinked, then frowned. 'Hardly. That's Shadowthrone, and he's central to this. It's all got to do with him and, damn you, Bottle, that's more than instinct!'

  'Oh, he's central all right, but see how his shadow doesn't reach?'

  'I know it doesn't reach! But that's where he stands, damn you!'

  Bottle reached out and collected the doll.