Recruiting to strength had become problematic. The Grey Swords needed sober, straight-backed individuals; ones capable of accepting discipline of the highest order; ones for whom a vow held meaning.
Twin Tusks, what I need is fanatics…
At the same time, such people had to be without ties, of any sort. An unlikely combination.
And, given such people could be found, to whom could they swear? Not Trake—that army's core already existed, centred around Gruntle.
There were two other war-aspected gods that Itkovian knew of; northern gods, rarely worshipped here in the midlands or to the south.
What did Hetan call me? She never likened me to a cat, or a bear. No. In her eyes, I was a wolf.
Very well, then…
He raised his head, scanned over the heads of the milling survivors in the concourse until he spied the other lone rider.
She was watching him.
Itkovian gestured her over.
It was a few moments before she could pick her horse through the press and reach his side. 'Sir?'
'Find the captain. We three have a task before us, sir.'
The woman saluted, swung her mount round.
He watched her ride onto a side street, then out of sight. There was a strong logic behind his decision, yet, for him, it felt hollow, as if he personally was to have no part to play in what was to come beyond the act of preparation—no subsequent role in what had to be. None the less, the survival of the Grey Swords took precedence over his own wishes; indeed, his own life. It has to be this way. I can think of no other. A new Reve must be fashioned. Even in this, I am not yet done.
Captain Norul had found a horse for herself. Her face was aged beneath the rim of her helm: sleep had been denied them all for too long. She said nothing as she and the recruit reined in beside the Shield Anvil.
'Follow me, sirs,' Itkovian said, wheeling his mount.
They rode through the city, the sky paling to cerulean blue overhead, and left through the north gate. Encamped on the hills a third of a league away were the Barghast, the yurts and tents sparsely patrolled by a modest rearguard. Smoke rose from countless fires as the camp's old men and women began the morning meal. Children already ran down the uneven aisles, quieter than their city counterparts, but no less energetic.
The three Grey Swords crossed the looted remains of the Pannion lines and rode directly for the nearest Barghast camp.
Itkovian was not surprised to see a half-dozen old women gathering to meet them at the camp's edge. There is a current that carries us to this, and you witches have felt it as surely as have I, and thus the true-ness is made known and plain. The realization did little to diminish the bleakness of his resolution. Consider it but one more burden, Shield Anvil, one for which you were made as you were for all the others.
They drew rein before the Barghast elders.
No-one spoke for a long moment, then one old woman cackled and gestured. 'Come, then.'
Itkovian dismounted, his companions following suit. Children appeared to take the reins of the three horses and the beasts were led away.
The elders, led by the spokeswoman, set off down the camp's main path, to a large yurt at the far end. The entrance was flanked by two Barghast warriors. The old woman hissed at them and both men retreated.
Itkovian, the recruit and the captain followed the elders into the yurt's interior.
'Rare is the man who comes to this place,' the spokeswoman said as she hobbled to the other side of the central hearth and lowered herself onto a bundle of furs.
'I am honoured—'
'Don't be!' she replied with a cackle. 'You would have to beat a warrior senseless and drag him, and even then it's likely his brothers and friends would attack you before you reached the entrance. You, a young man, are among old women, and there is nothing in the world more perilous!'
'But look at him!' another woman cried. 'He has no fear!'
'The hearth of his soul is nothing but ashes,' a third sniffed.
'Even so,' the first woman retorted, 'with what he now seeks, he would promise a firestorm to a frozen forest. Togctha and Farand, the lovers lost to each other for eternity, the winter hearts that howl in the deep fastnesses of Laederon and beyond—we have all heard those mournful cries, in our dreams. Have we not? They come closer—only not from the north, oh no, not the north. And now, this man.' She leaned forward, lined face indistinct behind the hearth's smoke. 'This man…'
The last words were a sigh.
Itkovian drew a deep breath, then gestured to the recruit. 'The Mortal Sword—'
'No,' the old woman growled.
The Shield Anvil faltered. 'But—'
'No,' she repeated. 'He has been found. He exists. It is already done. Look at her hands, Wolf. There is too much caring in them. She shall be the Destriant.'
'Are you—are you certain of this?'
The old woman nodded towards the captain. 'And this one,' she continued, ignoring Itkovian's question, 'she is to be what you were. She will accept the burden—you, Wolf, have shown her all she must know. The truth of that is in her eyes, and in the love she holds for you. She would be its answer, in kind, in blood. She shall be the Shield Anvil.'
The other elders were nodding agreement, their eyes glittering in the gloom above beaked noses—as if a murder of crows now faced Itkovian.
He slowly turned to Captain Norul. The veteran looked stricken.
She faced him. 'Sir, what—'
'For the Grey Swords,' Itkovian said, struggling to contain his own welling of pain and anguish. 'It must be done, sir,' he rasped. 'Togg, Lord of Winter, a god of war long forgotten, recalled among the Barghast as the wolf-spirit, Togctha. And his lost mate, the she-wolf, Fanderay. Farand in the Barghast tongue. Among our company, now, more women than men. A Reve must be proclaimed, kneeling before the wolf god and the wolf goddess. You are to be the Shield Anvil, sir. And you,' he said to the recruit—whose eyes were wide—'are to be the Destriant. The Grey Swords are remade, sirs. The sanction is here, now, among these wise women.'
The captain stepped back, armour clanking. 'Sir, you are the Shield Anvil of the Grey Swords—'
'No. I am the Shield Anvil of Fener, and Fener, sir, is… gone.'
'The company is virtually destroyed, sir,' the veteran pointed out. 'Our recovery is unlikely. The matter of quality—'
'You will require fanatics, Captain. That cast of mind, of breeding and culture, is vital. You must search, sir, you must needs find such people. People with nothing left to their lives, with their faith dismantled. People who have been made… lost.'
Norul was shaking her head, but he could see growing comprehension in her grey eyes.
'Captain,' Itkovian continued inexorably, 'the Grey Swords shall march with the two foreign armies. South, to see the end of the Pannion Domin. And, at a time deemed propitious, you will recruit. You will find the people you seek, sir, among the Tenescowri.'
Fear not, I shall not abandon you yet, my friend. There is much you must learn.
And, it seems, no end to my purpose.
He saw the bleakness come to her, saw it, and struggled against the horror of what he had done. Some things should never be shared. And that is my most terrible crime, for to the title—the burden that is Shield Anvil—I gave her no choice.
I gave her no choice.
Chapter Nineteen
There were dark surprises that day.
The Year of the Gathering
Koralb
'WE ARE BEING FOLLOWED.'
Silverfox turned in her saddle, eyes narrowing. She sighed. 'My two Malazan minders.' She hesitated, then added, 'I doubt we'll dissuade them.'
Kruppe smiled. 'Clearly, your preternaturally unseen departure from the camp was less than perfect in its sorcerous efficacy. More witnesses, then, to the forthcoming fell event. Are you shy of audiences, lass? Dreadful flaw, if so—'
'No, Kruppe, I am not.'
'Shall we await them?'
; 'Something tells me they prefer it this way—at a distance. We go on, Daru. We're almost there.'
Kruppe scanned the low grass-backed hills on all sides. The sun's morning light was sharp, stripping away the last of shadows in the broad, shallow basins. They were, barring the two Malazan soldiers a thousand paces behind them, entirely alone. 'A modest army, it seems,' he observed. 'Entrenched in gopher holes, no doubt.'
Their gift, and curse,' Silverfox replied. 'As dust, in all things, the T'lan Imass.'
Even as she spoke—their mounts carrying them along at a slow trot—shapes appeared on the flanking hills. Gaunt wolves, loping in silence.
The T'lan Ay, at first only a score to either side, then in their hundreds.
Kruppe's mule brayed, ears snapping and head tossing. 'Be calmed, beast!' the Daru cried, startling the animal yet further.
Silverfox rode close and stilled the mule with a touch to its neck.
They approached a flat-topped hill between two ancient, long-dry river beds, the channels wide, their banks eroded to gentle slopes. Ascending to the summit, Silverfox reined in and dismounted.
Kruppe hastily followed suit.
The T'lan Ay remained circling at a distance. The wolves numbered in the thousands, now, strangely spectral amidst the dust lifted into the air by their restless padding.
Arriving behind Rhivi and Daru, and ignored by the T'lan Ay, the two marines walked their horses up the slope.
'It's going to be a hot one,' one commented.
'Plenty hot,' the other woman said.
'Good day to miss a scrap, too.'
'That it is. Wasn't much interested in fighting Tenescowri in any case. A starving army's a pathetic sight. Walking skeletons—'
'Curious image, that,' Kruppe said. 'All things considered.'
The two marines fell silent, studying him.
'Excuse my interrupting the small talk,' Silverfox said drily. 'If you would all take position behind me. Thank you, no, a little farther back. Say, five paces, at the very least. That will do. I'd prefer no interruptions, if you please, in what follows.'
Kruppe's gaze—and no doubt that of the women flanking him—had gone past her, to the lowlands surrounding the hill, where squat, fur-clad, desiccated warriors were rising from the ground in a sea of shimmering dust. A sudden, uncannily silent conjuration.
As dust, in all things…
But the dust had found shape.
Uneven ranks, the dull glimmer of flint weapons a rippling of grey, black and russet brown amidst the betel tones of withered, polished skin. Skull helms, a few horned or antlered, made of every slope and every basin a spread of bone, as of stained, misaligned cobbles on some vast plaza. There was no wind to stir the long, ragged hair that dangled beneath those skullcaps, and the sun's light could not dispel the shadow beneath helm and brow ridge that swallowed the pits of the eyes. But every gaze was fixed on Silverfox, a regard of vast weight.
Within the span of a dozen heartbeats, the plain to all sides had vanished. The T'lan Imass, in their tens of thousands, now stood in its place, silent, motionless.
The T'lan Ay were no longer visible, ranging beyond the periphery of the amassed legions. Guardians. Kin, Hood-forsworn.
Silverfox turned to face the T'lan Imass.
Silence.
Kruppe shivered. The air was pungent with undeath, the gelid exhalation of dying ice, filled with something like loss.
Despair. Or perhaps, after this seeming eternity, only its ashes. There is, all about us, ancient knowledge—that cannot be denied. Yet Kruppe wonders, are there memories? True memories? Of enlivened flesh and the wind's caress, of the laughter of children? Memories of love?
When frozen between life and death, in the glacial in-between, what can exist of mortal feeling? Not even an echo. Only memories of ice, of ice and no more than that. Gods below… such sorrow…
Figures approached the slope before Silverfox. Weaponless, robed in furs from ancient, long-extinct beasts. Kruppe's eyes focused on one in particular, a broad-shouldered Bonecaster, wearing an antlered skullcap and the stained fur of an arctic fox. With a shock the Daru realized that he knew this apparition.
Ah, we meet again, Pran Chole. Forgive me, but my heart breaks at the sight of you—at what you have become.
The antlered Bonecaster was the first to address Silverfox. 'We are come,' he said, 'to the Second Gathering.'
'You have come,' Silverfox grated, 'in answer to my summons.' The Bonecaster slowly tilted his head. 'What you are was created long ago, guided by the hand of an Elder God. Yet, at its heart, Imass. All that follows has run in your blood from the moment of your birth. The wait, Summoner, has been long. I am Pran Chole, of Kron T'lan Imass. I stood, with K'rul, to attend your birth.'
Silverfox's answering smile was bitter. 'Are you my father, then, Pran Chole? If so, this reunion has come far too late. For us both.'
Despair flooded Kruppe. This was old anger, held back overlong, now turning the air gelid and brittle. A dreadful exchange to mark the first words of the Second Gathering.
Pran Chole seemed to wilt at her words. His desiccated face dropped, as if the Bonecaster was overcome with shame. No, Silverfox, how could you do this? 'Where you then went, daughter,' Pran Chole whispered, 'I could not follow.'
'True,' she snapped. 'After all, you had a vow awaiting you. A ritual. The ritual, the one that turned your hearts to ash. All for a war. But that is what war is all about, isn't it? Leaving. Leaving home. Your loved ones—indeed, the very capacity of love itself. You chose to abandon it all. You abandoned everything! You abandoned—' She cut her words off suddenly.
Kruppe closed his eyes for a brief moment, so that he might in his mind complete her sentence. You abandoned… me.
Pran Chole's head remained bowed. Finally, he raised it slightly. 'Summoner, what would you have us do?'
'We will get to that soon enough.'
Another Bonecaster stepped forward, then. The rotted fur of a large brown bear rode his shoulders and it seemed the beast itself had reared behind the shadowed eyes. 'I am Okral Lorn,' he said in a voice like distant thunder. 'All the Bonecasters of Kron T'lan Imass now stand before you. Agkor Choom. Bendal Home, Ranag Ilm, and Brold Chood. Kron, as well, who was chosen as War Leader at the First Gathering. Unlike Pran Chole, we care nothing for your anger. We played no role in your creation, in your birth. None the less, you cling to a misapprehension, Summoner. Pran Chole can in no way be considered your father. He stands here, accepting the burden of your rage, for he is what he is. If you would call anyone your father, if you so require a face upon which hatred can focus, then you must forbear, for the one you seek is not among us.'
The blood had slowly drained from Silverfox's face, as if she'd not been prepared for such brutal condemnation flung back at her by this Bonecaster. 'N-not among you?'
'Your souls were forged in the Warren of Tellann, yet not in the distant past—the past in which Pran Chole lived—not at first, at any rate. Summoner, the unveiled warren of which I speak belonged to the First Sword, Onos T'oolan. Now clanless, he walks alone, and that solitude has twisted his power of Tellann—' 'Twisted? How?'
'By what he seeks, by what lies at the heart of his desires.' Silverfox was shaking her head, as if striving to deny all that Okral Lorn said. 'And what does he seek?'
The Bonecaster shrugged. 'Summoner, you will discover that soon enough, for Onos T'oolan has heard your call to the Second Gathering. He will, alas, be rather late.'
Kruppe watched as Silverfox slowly returned her gaze to Pran Chole, whose head was bowed once more.
In assuming the responsibility for her creation, this Bonecaster offered her a gift—a focus for her anger, a victim to stand before its unleashing. I do remember you, Pran Chole, there in my dream-world. Your face, the compassion in your eyes. Would I the courage to ask: were you Imass once, in truth, all like this?
Another pair was emerging from the ranks. In the silence that followed Okral Lom's words, t
he foremost one spoke. 'I am Ay Estos, of Logros T'lan Imass.' The furs of arctic wolves hung from the Bonecaster, who was taller, leaner than the others.
Silverfox's reply was almost distracted. 'I greet you, Ay Estos. You are given leave to speak.'
The T'lan Imass bowed in acknowledgement, then said, 'Logros could but send two Bonecasters to this Gathering, for the reason I would now tell you.' He paused, then, as Silverfox made no reply to that, he continued. 'Logros T'lan Imass hunts renegades—our own kin, who have broken from the Vow. Crimes have been committed, Summoner, which must be answered. I have come, then, on behalf of the clans of Logros.'
Silverfox shook herself, visibly wrenching her gaze from Pran Chole. She drew a deep breath, straightened. 'You said,' she said tonelessly, 'that another Bonecaster of Logros is present.'
The wolf-clad T'lan Imass stepped to one side. The figure standing behind him was hugely boned, the skull beneath the thin, withered flesh bestial. She wore a scaled, leathery cloak of skin that hung down to the ground behind her. Unadorned by a helm, the broad, flat skull revealed only a few remaining patches of skin that each bore but a few strands of long, white hair.
'Olar Ethil,' Ay Estos said. 'First among the Bonecasters. Eleint, the First Soletaken. She has not journeyed with me, for Logros set for her another task, which has taken her far from the clans. Until this day, we among the Logros had not seen Olar Ethil in many years. Eleint, will you speak of success or failure in what you have sought?'
The First Bonecaster tilted her head, then addressed Silverfox. 'Summoner. As I neared this place, you commanded my dreams.'
'I did, though I knew not who you were. We can discuss that another time. Tell me of this task set for you by Logros.'
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