You may be written this way Spun in strands sewn in thread Blood woven to the child you once were Huddled in the fold of night And the demons beyond the corner Of your eye stream down A flurry of arachnid limbs Twisting and tumbling you tight To feed upon later. You may be written this way Stung senseless at the side of the road Waylaid on the dark trail And the recollections beyond the corner Of your eye suckle in the mud Dreadful fluids seeping From improbable pasts And all that might have been. You would be written this way Could you crack the carcass And unfurl once more The child you once were
Waylaid Wrathen Urut
ROLLED ONTO THE BEACH, NAKED AND GREY, THE YOUNG MAN LAY motionless in the sand. His long brown hair was tangled, snarled with twigs and strands of seaweed. Scaled birds pranced around the body, serrated beaks gaping in the morning heat.
They scattered at Withal’s arrival, flapping into the air. Then, as three black Nachts bounded down from the verge, the birds screamed and whirled out over the waves.
Withal crouched down at the figure’s side, studied it for a moment, then reached out and rolled the body onto its back.
‘Wake up, lad.’
Eyes snapped open, filled with sudden terror and pain. Mouth gaped, neck stretched, and piercing screams rose into the air. The young man convulsed, legs scissoring the sand, and clawed at his scalp.
Withal leaned back on his haunches and waited.
The screams grew hoarse, were replaced by weeping. The convulsions diminished to waves of shuddering as the young man slowly curled up in the sand.
‘It gets easier, one hopes,’ Withal murmured.
Head twisted round, large, wet eyes fixing on Withal’s own. ‘What… where…’
‘The two questions I am least able to answer, lad. Let’s try the easier ones. I’m named Withal, once of the Third Meckros city. You are here – wherever here is – because my master wills it.’ He rose with a grunt. ‘Can you stand? He awaits you inland – not far.’
The eyes shifted away, focused on the three Nachts at the edge of the verge. ‘What are those things? What’s that one doing?’
‘Bhoka’ral. Nachts. Name them as you will. As I have. The one making the nest is Pule, a young male. This particular nest has taken almost a week – see how he obsesses over it, adjusting twigs just so, weaving the seaweed, going round and round with a critical eye. The older male, over there and watching Pule, is Rind. He’s moments from hilarity, as you’ll see. The female preening on the rock is Mape. You’ve arrived at a propitious time, lad. Watch.’
The nest-builder, Pule, had begun backing away from the intricate construct on the verge, black tail flicking from side to side, head bobbing. Fifteen paces from the nest, it suddenly sat, arms folded, and seemed to study the colourless sky.
The female, Mape, ceased preening, paused a moment, then ambled casually towards the nest.
Pule tensed, even as it visibly struggled to keep its gaze on the sky.
Reaching the nest, Mape hesitated, then attacked. Driftwood, grasses and twigs flew in all directions. Within moments, the nest had been destroyed in a wild frenzy, and Mape was squatting in the wreckage, urinating.
Nearby, Rind was rolling about in helpless mirth.
Pule slumped in obvious dejection.
‘This has happened more times than I’d care to count,’ Withal said, sighing.
‘How is it you speak my language?’
‘I’d a smattering, from traders. My master has, it seems, improved upon it. A gift, you might say, one of a number of gifts, none of which I asked for. I suspect,’ he continued, ‘you will come to similar sentiments, lad. We should get going.’
Withal watched the young man struggle to his feet. ‘Tall,’ he observed, ‘but I’ve seen taller.’
Pain flooded the youth’s features once more and he doubled over. Withal stepped close and supported him before he toppled.
‘It’s ghost pain, lad. Ghost pain and ghost fear. Fight through it.’
‘No! It’s real! It’s real, you bastard!’
Withal strained as the youth’s full weight settled in his arms. ‘Enough of that. Stand up!’
‘It’s no good! I’m dying!’
‘On your feet, dammit!’
A rough shake, then Withal pushed him away.
He staggered, then slowly straightened, drawing in deep, ragged breaths. He began shivering. ‘It’s so cold…’
‘Hood’s breath, lad, it’s blistering hot. And getting hotter with every day.’
Arms wrapped about himself, the young man regarded Withal. ‘How long have you lived… lived here?’
‘Longer than I’d like. Some choices aren’t for you to make. Not for you, not for me. Now, our master’s losing patience. Follow me.’
The youth stumbled along behind him. ‘You said “our”.’
‘Did I?’
‘Where are my clothes? Where are my – no, never mind – it hurts to remember. Never mind.’
They reached the verge, withered grasses pulling at their legs as they made their way inland. The Nachts joined them, clambering and hopping, hooting and snorting as they kept pace.
Two hundred paces ahead squatted a ragged tent, the canvas sun-bleached and stained. Wafts of grey-brown smoke drifted from the wide entrance, where most of one side had been drawn back to reveal the interior.
Where sat a hooded figure.
‘That’s him?’ the youth asked. ‘That’s your master? Are you a slave, then?’
‘I serve,’ Withal replied, ‘but I am not owned.’
‘Who is he?’
Withal glanced back. ‘He is a god.’ He noted the disbelief writ on the lad’s face, and smiled wryly. ‘Who’s seen better days.’
The Nachts halted and huddled together in a threesome.
A last few strides across withered ground, then Withal stepped to one side. ‘I found him on the strand,’ he said to the seated figure, ‘moments before the lizard gulls did.’
Darkness hid the Crippled God’s features, as was ever the case when Withal had been summoned to an attendance. The smoke from the brazier filled the tent, seeping out to stream along the mild breeze. A gnarled, thin hand emerged from the folds of a sleeve as the god gestured. ‘Closer,’ he rasped. ‘Sit.’
‘You are not my god,’ the youth said.
‘Sit. I am neither petty nor overly sensitive, young warrior.’
Withal watched the lad hesitate, then slowly settle onto the ground, cross-legged, arms wrapped about his shivering frame. ‘It’s cold.’
‘Some furs for our guest, Withal.’
‘Furs? We don’t have any-’ He stopped when he noticed the bundled bearskin heaped beside him. He gathered it up and pushed it into the lad’s hands.
The Crippled God scattered some seeds onto the brazier’s coals. Popping sounds, then more smoke. ‘Peace. Warm yourself, warrior, while I tell you of peace. History is unerring, and even the least observant mortal can be made to understand, through innumerable repetition. Do you see peace as little more than the absence of war? Perhaps, on a surface level, it is just that. But let me describe the characteristics of peace, my young friend. A pervasive dulling of the senses, a decadence afflicting the culture, evinced by a growing obsession with low entertainment. The virtues of extremity – honour, loyalty, sacrifice – are lifted high as shoddy icons, currency for the cheapest of labours. The longer peace lasts, the more those words are used, and the weaker they become. Sentimentality pervades daily life. All becomes a mockery of itself, and the spirit grows… restless.’
The Crippled God paused, breath rasping. ‘Is this a singular pessimism? Allow me to continue with a description of what follows a period of peace. Old warriors sit in taverns, telling tales of vigorous youth, their pasts when all things were simpler, clearer cut. They are not blind to the decay all around them, are not immune to the loss of respect for themselves, for all that they gave for their king, their land, their fellow citizens.
‘The young must not be abandoned to forgetfulness. There are always enemies beyond the borders, and if none exist in truth, then one must be fashioned. Old crimes dug out of the indifferent earth. Slights and open insults, or the rumours thereof. A suddenly perceived threat where none existed before. The reasons matter not – what matters is that war is fashioned from peace, and once the journey is begun, an irresistible momentum is born.
‘The old warriors are satisfied. The young are on fire with zeal. The king fears yet is relieved of domestic pressures. The army draws its oil and whetstone. Forges blast with molten iron, the anvils ring like temple bells. Grain-sellers and armourers and clothiers and horse-sellers and countless other suppliers smile with the pleasure of impending wealth. A new energy has gripped the kingdom, and those few voices raised in objection are quickly silenced. Charges of treason and summary execution soon persuade the doubters.’
The Crippled God spread his hands. ‘Peace, my young warrior, is born of relief, endured in exhaustion, and dies with false remembrance. False? Ah, perhaps I am too cynical. Too old, witness to far too much. Do honour, loyalty and sacrifice truly exist? Are such virtues born only from extremity? What transforms them into empty words, words devalued by their overuse? What are the rules of the economy of the spirit, that civilization repeatedly twists and mocks?’
He shifted slightly and Withal sensed the god’s regard. ‘Withal of the Third City. You have fought wars. You have forged weapons. You have seen loyalty, and honour. You have seen courage and sacrifice. What say you to all this?’
‘Nothing,’ Withal replied.
Hacking laughter. ‘You fear angering me, yes? No need. I give you leave to speak your mind.’
‘I have sat in my share of taverns,’ Withal said, ‘in the company of fellow veterans. A select company, perhaps, not grown so blind with sentimentality as to fashion nostalgia from times of horror and terror. Did we spin out those days of our youth? No. Did we speak of war? Not if we could avoid it, and we worked hard at avoiding it.’
‘Why?’
‘Why? Because the faces come back. So young, one after another. A flash of life, an eternity of death, there in our minds. Because loyalty is not to be spoken of, and honour is to be endured. Whilst courage is to be survived. Those virtues, Chained One, belong to silence.’
‘Indeed,’ the god rasped, leaning forward. ‘Yet how they proliferate in peace! Crowed again and again, as if solemn pronouncement bestows those very qualities upon the speaker. Do they not make you wince, every time you hear them? Do they not twist in your gut, grip hard your throat? Do you not feel a building rage-’
‘Aye,’ Withal growled, ‘when I hear them used to raise a people once more to war.’
The Crippled God was silent a moment, then he leaned back and dismissed Withal’s words with a careless wave of one hand. He fixed his attention on the young warrior. ‘I spoke of peace as anathema. A poison that weakens the spirit. Tell me, warrior, have you spilled blood?’
The youth flinched beneath his furs. Tremors of pain crossed his face. Then fear. ‘Spilled blood? Spilled, down, so much of it – everywhere. I don’t – I can’t – oh, Daughters take me-’
‘Oh no,’ the Crippled God hissed, ‘not the Daughters. I have taken you. Chosen you. Because your king betrayed me! Your king hungered for the power I offered, but not for conquest. No, he simply sought to make himself and his people unassailable.’ Misshapen fingers curled into fists. ‘Not good enough!’
The Crippled God seemed to spasm beneath his ragged blankets, then coughed wretchedly.
Some time later the hacking abated. More seeds on the coals, roiling smoke, then, ‘I have chosen you, Rhulad Sengar, for my gift. Do you remember?’
Shivering, his lips strangely blue, the young warrior’s face underwent a series of fraught expressions, ending on dread. He nodded. ‘I died.’
‘Well,’ the Crippled God murmured, ‘every gift has a price. There are powers buried in that sword, Rhulad Sengar. Powers unimagined. But they are reluctant to yield. You must pay for them. In combat. With death. No, I should be precise in this. With your death, Rhulad Sengar.’
A gesture, and the mottled sword was in the Crippled God’s hand. He tossed it down in front of the young warrior. ‘Your first death is done, and as a consequence your skills – your powers – have burgeoned. But it is just the beginning. Take your weapon, Rhulad Sengar. Will your next death prove easier for you to bear? Probably not. In time, perhaps…’
Withal studied the horror on the young warrior’s face, and saw beneath it the glimmer of… ambition.
Hood, do not turn away.
A long, frozen moment, during which Withal saw the ambition grow like flames behind the Tiste Edur’s eyes.
Ah. The Crippled God’s chosen well. And deny it not, Withal, your hand is in this, plunged deep. So very deep.
The smoke gusted, then spun, momentarily blinding Withal even as Rhulad Sengar reached for the sword.
A god’s mercy? He was unconvinced.
In four days, the Letherii delegation would arrive. Two nights had passed since the Warlock King had called Seren, Hull and Buruk the Pale into his audience at the feast table. Buruk’s spirits were high, a development that had not surprised Seren Pedac. Merchants whose interests were tempered by wisdom ever preferred the long term over speculative endeavours. There were always vultures of commerce who hungered for strife, and often profited by such discord, but Buruk the Pale was not one of them.
Contrary to the desires of those back in Letheras who had conscripted Buruk, the merchant did not want a war. And so, with Hannan Mosag’s intimation that the Edur would seek peace, the tumult in Buruk’s soul had eased. The issue had been taken from his hands.
If the Warlock King wanted peace, he was in for a fight. But Seren Pedac’s confidence in Hannan Mosag had grown. The Edur leader possessed cunning and resilience. There would be no manipulation at the treaty, no treachery sewn into the fabric of generous pronouncements.
A weight had been lifted from her, mitigated only by Hull Beddict. He had come to understand that his desires would not be met. At least, not by Hannan Mosag. If he would have his war, it would of necessity have to come from the Letherii. And so, if he would follow that path, he would need to reverse his outward allegiances. No longer on the side of the Tiste Edur, but accreted to at least one element of the Letherii delegation – a faction characterized by betrayal and unrelenting greed.
Hull had left the village and was now somewhere out in the forest. She knew he would return for the treaty gathering, but probably not before. She did not envy him his dilemma.
With renewed energy, Buruk the Pale decided to set about selling his iron, and for this he was required to have an Acquitor accompanying him. Three Nerek trailed them as they walked up towards the forges, each carrying an ingot.
It had been raining steadily since the feast in the Warlock King’s longhouse. Water flowed in turgid streams down the stony streets. Acrid clouds hung low in the vicinity of the forges, coating the wood and stone walls in oily soot. Slaves swathed in heavy rain cloaks moved to and fro along the narrow passages between compound walls.
Seren led Buruk and his servants towards a squat stone building with high, slitted windows, the entranceway three steps from ground level and flanked by Blackwood columns carved to mimic hammered bronze, complete with rivets and dents. The door was Blackwood inlaid with silver and black iron, the patterns an archaic, stylized script that Seren suspected contained shadow-wrought wards.
She turned to Buruk. ‘I have to enter alone to begin with-’
The door was flung open, startling her, and three Edur rushed out, pushing past her. She stared after them, wondering at their tense expressions. A flutter of fear ran through her. ‘Send the Nerek back,’ she said to Buruk. ‘Something’s happened.’
The merchant did not argue. He gestured and the three Nerek hurried away.
Instead of entering the guild house, Seren and Buruk made their way to the centre street, seeing more Edur emerging from buildings and side alleys to line the approach to the noble quarter. No-one spoke.
‘What is going on, Acquitor?’
She shook her head. ‘Here is fine.’ They had a clear enough view up the street, two hundred or more paces, and in the distance a procession had appeared. She counted five Edur warriors, one employing a staff as he limped along. Two others were pulling a pair of sleds across the slick stones of the street. A fourth walked slightly ahead of the others.
‘Isn’t that Binadas Sengar?’ Buruk asked. ‘The one with the stick, I mean.’
Seren nodded. He looked to be in pain, exhausted by successive layers of sorcerous healing. The warrior who walked ahead was clearly kin to Binadas. This, then, was the return of the group Hannan Mosag had sent away.
And now she saw, strapped to one of the sleds, a wrapped form – hides over pieces of ice that wept steadily down the sides. A shape more than ominous. Unmistakable.
‘They carry a body,’ Buruk whispered.
Where did they go? Those bundled furs – north, then. But there’s nothing up there, nothing but ice. What did the Warlock King ask of them?
The memory of Feather Witch’s divinations returned to her suddenly, inexplicably, and the chill in her bones deepened. ‘Come on,’ she said in a quiet tone. ‘To the inner ward. I want to witness this.’ She edged back from the crowd and set off.
‘If they’ll let us,’ Buruk muttered, hurrying to catch up.
‘We stay in the background and say nothing,’ she instructed. ‘It’s likely they’ll all be too preoccupied to pay us much attention.’
‘I don’t like this, Acquitor. Not any of it.’
She shared his dread, but said nothing.
They crossed the bridge well ahead of the procession, although it was evident that word had preceded them. The noble families were all out in the compound, motionless in the rain. Foremost among them were Tomad and Uruth, a respectful space around the two Edur and their slaves.
‘It’s one of the Sengar brothers,’ Seren Pedac said under her breath.
Buruk heard her. ‘Tomad Sengar was once a rival of Hannan Mosag’s for the throne,’ he muttered. ‘How will he take this, I wonder?’
She glanced over at him. ‘How do you know that?’
‘I was briefed, Acquitor. That shouldn’t surprise you, all things considered.’
The procession had reached the bridge.
‘Ah.’ Buruk sighed. ‘The Warlock King and his K’risnan have emerged from the citadel.’
Udinaas stood a pace behind Uruth on her right, the rain running down his face.
Rhulad Sengar was dead.
He was indifferent to that fact. A young Edur eager for violence – there were plenty of those, and one fewer made little difference. That he was a Sengar virtually guaranteed that Udinaas would be tasked with dressing the corpse. He was not looking forward to that.
Three days for the ritual, including the vigil and the staining of the flesh. In his mind, he ran through possibilities in a detached sort of way, as the rain seeped down behind his collar and no doubt gathered in the hood he had not bothered to draw up over his head. If Rhulad had remained unblooded, the coins would be copper, with stone discs to cover the eyes. If blooded and killed in battle, it was probable that gold coins would be used. Letherii coins, mostly. Enough of them to ransom a prince. An extravagant waste that he found strangely delicious to contemplate.
Even so, he could already smell the stench of burning flesh.
He watched the group cross the bridge, Fear pulling the sled on which Rhulad’s wrapped body had been laid. Binadas was limping badly – there must have been considerable damage, to resist the sorcerous healing that must already have been cast upon him. Theradas and Midik Buhn. And Trull Sengar, in the lead. Without the ever-present spear. So, a battle indeed.
‘Udinaas, do you have your supplies?’ Uruth asked in a dull voice.
‘Yes, mistress, I have,’ he replied, settling a hand on the leather pack slung from his left shoulder.
‘Good. We will waste no time in this. You are to dress the body. No other.’
‘Yes, mistress. The coals have been fired.’
‘You are a diligent slave, Udinaas,’ she said. ‘I am pleased you are in my household.’
He barely resisted looking at her at that, confused and alarmed as he was by the admission. And had you found the Wyval blood within me, you would have snapped my neck without a second thought. ‘Thank you, mistress.’
‘He died a blooded warrior,’ Tomad said. ‘I see it in Fear’s pride.’
The Warlock King and his five apprentice sorcerors strode to intercept the party as they arrived on this side of the bridge, and Udinaas heard Uruth’s gasp of outrage.
Tomad reached out to still her with one hand. ‘There must be a reason for this,’ he said. ‘Come, we will join them.’
There was no command to remain behind, and so Udinaas and the her slaves followed Tomad and Uruth as they strode towards their sons.
Hannan Mosag and his K’risnan met the procession first. Quiet words were exchanged between the Warlock King and Fear Sengar. A question, an answer, and Hannan Mosag seemed to stagger. As one, the five sorcerors closed on him, but their eyes were on Rhulad’s swathed form, and Udinaas saw a mixture of consternation, dread and alarm on their young faces.
Fear’s gaze swung from the Warlock King to his father as Tomad’s group arrived. ‘I have failed you, Father,’ he said. ‘Your youngest son is dead.’
‘He holds the gift,’ Hannan Mosag snapped, shockingly accusatory in his tone. ‘I need it, but he holds it. Was I not clear enough in my instructions, Fear Sengar?’
The warrior’s face darkened. ‘We were attacked, Warlock King, by the Jheck. I believe you know who and what they are-’
Tomad growled, ‘I do not.’
Binadas spoke. ‘They are Soletaken, Father. Able to assume the guise of wolves. It was their intention to claim the sword-’
‘What sword?’ Uruth asked. ‘What-’
‘Enough of this!’ Hannan Mosag shouted.
‘Warlock King,’ Tomad Sengar said, stepping closer, ‘Rhulad is dead. You can retrieve this gift of yours-’
‘It is not so simple,’ Fear cut in. ‘Rhulad holds the sword still – I cannot pry his fingers from the grip.’
‘It must be cut off,’ Hannan Mosag said.
Uruth hissed, then shook her head. ‘No, Warlock King. You are forbidden to mutilate our son. Fear, did Rhulad die as a blooded warrior?’
‘He did.’
‘Then the prohibitions are all the greater,’ she said to Hannan Mosag, crossing her arms.
‘I need that sword!’
In the fraught silence that followed that outburst, Trull Sengar spoke for the first time. ‘Warlock King. Rhulad’s body is still frozen. It may be, upon thawing, that his grip on the sword loosens. In any case, it seems clear the matter demands calm, reasoned discussion. It may in the end prove that our conflicting desires can be resolved by some form of compromise.’ He faced his father and mother. ‘It was our task, given us by the Warlock King, to retrieve a gift, and that gift is the sword Rhulad now holds. Mother, we must complete the task demanded of us. The sword must be placed in Hannan Mosag’s hands.’
There was shock and horror in her voice as Uruth replied, ‘You would cut off your dead brother’s hands? Are you my son? I would-’
Her husband stopped her with a fierce gesture. ‘Trull, I understand the difficulty of this situation, and I concur with your counsel that decisions be withheld for the time being. Warlock King, Rhulad’s body must be prepared. This can be conducted without attention being accorded the hands. We have some time, then, do you agree?’
Hannan Mosag answered with a curt nod.
Trull approached Udinaas, and the slave could see the warrior’s exhaustion, the old blood of countless wounds in his tattered armour. ‘Take charge of the body,’ he said in a quiet tone. ‘To the House of the Dead, as you would any other. Do not, however, expect the widows to attend the ritual – we must needs postpone that until certain matters are resolved.’
‘Yes, master,’ Udinaas replied. He swung round and selected Hulad and one more of his fellow slaves. ‘Help me with the sled’s tethers. With solemn accord, as always.’
Both men he addressed were clearly frightened. This kind of open conflict among the Hiroth Edur was unprecedented. They seemed on the verge of panic, although Udinaas’s words calmed them somewhat. There were values in ritual, and self-control was foremost among them.
Stepping past the Edur, Udinaas led his two fellow slaves to the sled.
The waxed canvas sheathing the ice had slowed the melt, although the slabs beneath it were much diminished, the edges softened and milky white.
Fear passed the harness over to Udinaas. The two other slaves helping, they began dragging it towards the large wooden structure where Edur corpses were prepared for burial. No-one stopped them.
Seren Pedac gripped Buruk’s arm and began pulling him back towards the bridge. He swung her a wild look, but wisely said nothing.
They could not manage the passage unseen, and Seren felt sweat prickling on her neck and in the small of her back as she guided the merchant back towards the guest camp. They were not accosted, but their presence had without doubt been marked. The consequences of that would remain undetermined, until such time as the conflict they had witnessed was resolved.
The Nerek had extended a tarp from one of the wagons to shield the hearth they kept continually burning. They scurried from the smoky flames as soon as Buruk and Seren arrived, quickly disappearing into their tents.
‘That looks,’ Buruk muttered as he edged closer to the hearth and held out his hands, ‘to be serious trouble. The Warlock King was badly shaken, and I like not this talk of a gift. A sword? Some kind of sword, yes? A gift from whom? Surely not an alliance with the Jheck-’
‘No,’ agreed Seren, ‘given that it was the Jheck with whom they fought. There’s nothing else out there, Buruk. Nothing at all.’
She thought back to that scene on the other side of the bridge. Fear’s brother, not Binadas, but the other one, who’d counselled reason, he… interested her. Physically attractive, of course. Most Edur were. But there was more. There was… intelligence. And pain. Seren scowled. She was always drawn to the hurting ones.
‘A sword,’ Buruk mused, staring into the flames, ‘of such value that Hannan Mosag contemplates mutilating a blooded warrior’s corpse.’
‘Doesn’t that strike you as odd?’ Seren asked. ‘A corpse, holding on to a sword so tight even Fear Sengar cannot pull it loose?’
‘Perhaps frozen?’
‘From the moment of death?’
He grunted. ‘I suppose not, unless it took his brothers a while to get to him.’
‘A day or longer, at least. Granted, we don’t know the circumstances, but that does seem unlikely, doesn’t it?’
‘It does.’ Buruk shrugged. ‘A damned Edur funeral. That won’t put the Warlock King in a good mood. The delegation will arrive at precisely the wrong time.’
‘I think not,’ Seren said. ‘The Edur have been unbalanced by this. Hannan Mosag especially. Unless there’s quick resolution, we will be among a divided people.’
A quick, bitter smile. ‘We?’
‘Letherii, Buruk. I am not part of the delegation. Nor, strictly speaking, are you.’
‘Nor Hull Beddict,’ he added. ‘Yet something tells me we are irredeemably bound in that net, whether it sees the light of day or sinks to the deep.’
She said nothing, because he was right.
The sled glided easily along the wet straw and Udinaas raised a boot to halt its progress alongside the stone platform. Unspeaking, the three slaves began unclasping the straps, pulling them free from beneath the body. The tarp was then lifted clear. The slabs of ice were resting on a cloth-wrapped shape clearly formed by the body it contained, and all three saw at the same time that Rhulad’s jaw had opened in death, as if voicing a silent, endless scream.
Hulad stepped back. ‘Errant preserve us,’ he hissed.
‘It’s common enough, Hulad,’ Udinaas said. ‘You two can go, but first drag that chest over here, the one resting on the rollers.’
‘Gold coins, then?’
‘I am assuming so,’ Udinaas replied. ‘Rhulad died a blooded warrior. He was noble-born. Thus, it must be gold.’
‘What a waste,’ said Hulad.
The other slave, Irim, grinned and said, ‘When the Edur are conquered, we should form a company, the three of us, to loot the barrows.’ He and Hulad pulled the chest along the runners.
The coals were red, the sheet of iron black with heat.
Udinaas smiled. ‘There are wards in those barrows, Irim. And shadow wraiths guarding them.’
‘Then we hire a mage who can dispel them. The wraiths will be gone, along with every damned Edur. Nothing but rotting bones. I dream of that day.’
Udinaas glanced over at the old man. ‘And how badly Indebted are you, Irim?’
The grin faded. ‘That’s just it. I’d be able to pay it off. For my grandchildren, who are still in Trate. Pay it off, Udinaas. Don’t you dream the same for yourself?’
‘Some debts can’t be paid off with gold, Irim. My dreams are not of wealth.’
‘No.’ Irim’s grin returned. ‘You just want the heart of a lass so far above you, you’ve not the Errant’s hope of owning it. Poor Udinaas, we all shake our heads at the sadness of it.’
‘Less sadness than pity, I suspect,’ Udinaas said, shrugging. ‘Close enough. You can go.’
‘The stench lingers even now,’ Hulad said. ‘How can you stand it, Udinaas?’
‘Inform Uruth that I have begun.’
It was not the time to be alone, yet Trull Sengar found himself just that. The realization was sudden, and he blinked, slowly making sense of his surroundings. He was in the longhouse, the place of his birth, standing before the centre post with its jutting sword-blade. The heat from the hearth seemed incapable of reaching through to his bones. His clothes were sodden.
He’d left the others outside, locked in their quiet clash of wills. The Warlock King and his need against Tomad and Uruth and their insistence on proper observance of a dead blooded warrior, a warrior who was their son. With this conflict, Hannan Mosag could lose his authority among the Tiste Edur.
The Warlock King should have shown constraint. This could have been dealt with quietly, unknown to anyone else. How hard can it be to wrest a sword loose from a dead man’s hands? And if sorcery was involved – and it certainly seemed to be – then Hannan Mosag was in his element. He had his K’risnan as well. They could have done something. And if not… then cut his fingers off. A corpse no longer housed the spirit. Death had severed the binding. Trull could feel nothing for the cold flesh beneath the ice. It was not Rhulad any more, not any longer.
But now there could be no chance of secrecy. The quarrel had been witnessed, and, in accordance with tradition, so too must be the resolution.
And… does any of it matter?
I did not trust Rhulad Sengar. Long before his failure on night watch. That is the truth of it. I knew… doubts.
His thoughts could take him no further. Anguish rose in a flood, burning like acid. As if he had raised his own demon, hulking and hungry, and could only watch as it fed on his soul. Gnawing regret and avid guilt, remorse an unending feast.
We are doomed, now, to give answer to his death, again and again. Countless answers, to crowd the solitary question of his life. Is it our fate, then, to suffer beneath the siege of all that can never be known?
There had been strangers witnessing the scene. The realization was sudden, shocking. A merchant and his Acquitor. Letherii visitors. Advance spies of the treaty delegation.
Hannan Mosag’s confrontation was a dreadful error in so many ways. Trull’s high regard for the Warlock King had been damaged, sullied, and he longed for the world of a month past. Before the revelation of flaws and frailties.
Padding through the forest, mind filled with the urgency of dire news. A spear left in his wake, iron point buried deep in the chest of a Letherii. Leaden legs taking him through shadows, moccasins thudding on the dappled trail. The sense of having just missed something, an omen unwitnessed. Like entering a chamber someone else has just walked from, although in his case the chamber had been a forest cathedral, Hiroth sanctified land, and he had seen no signs of passage to give substance to his suspicion.
And it was this sense that had returned to him. They had passed through fraught events, all unmindful of significance, of hidden truths. The exigencies of survival had forced upon them a kind of carelessness.
A gelid wave of conviction rose within Trull Sengar, and he knew solid as a knife in his heart, that something terrible was about to happen.
He stood, alone in the longhouse.
Facing the centre post and its crooked sword.
And he could not move.
Rhulad Sengar’s body was frozen. A pallid grey, stiff-limbed figure lying on the stone platform. Head thrown back, eyes squeezed shut, mouth stretched long as if striving for a breath never found. The warrior’s hands were closed about the grip of a strange, mottled, straight-bladed sword, frost-rimed and black-flecked with dried blood.
Udinaas had filled the nose and ear holes with wax.
He held the pincers, waiting for the first gold coin to reach optimum heat on the iron plate suspended above the coals. He had placed one on the sheet, then, twenty heartbeats later, another. The order of placement for noble-born blooded warriors was precise, as was the allotted time for the entire ritual. Awaiting Udinaas was a period of mind-numbing repetition and exhaustion.
But a slave could be bent to any task. There were hard truths found only in the denigration of one’s own spirit, if one was inclined to look for them. Should, for example, a man require self-justification. Prior to, say, murder, or some other atrocity.
Take this body. A young man whose flesh is now a proclamation of death. The Edur use coins. Letherii use linen, lead and stone. In both, the need to cover, to disguise, to hide away the horrible absence writ there in that motionless face.
Open, or closed, it began with the eyes.
Udinaas gripped the edge of the Letherii coin with the pincers. These first two had to be slightly cooler than the others, lest the eyes behind the lids burst. He had witnessed that once, when he was apprenticed to an elder slave who had begun losing his sense of time. Sizzling, then an explosive spurt of lifeless fluid, foul-smelling and murky with decay, the coin settling far too deep in the socket, the hissing evaporation and crinkling, blackening skin.
He swung round on the stool, careful not to drop the coin, then leaned over Rhulad Sengar’s face. Lowered the hot gold disc.
A soft sizzle, as the skin of the lid melted, all moisture drawn from it so that it tightened round the coin. Holding it fast.
He repeated the task with the second coin.
The heat in the chamber was thawing the corpse, and, as Udinaas worked setting coins on the torso, he was continually startled by movement. Arched back settling, an elbow voicing a soft thud, rivulets of melt water crawling across the stone to drip from the sides, as if the body now wept.
The stench of burnt skin was thick in the hot, humid air. Rhulad Sengar’s corpse was undergoing a transformation, acquiring gleaming armour, becoming something other than Tiste Edur. In the mind of Udinaas he ceased to exist as a thing once living, the work before the slave little different from mending nets.
Chest, to abdomen. Each spear-wound packed with clay and oil, encircled with coins then sealed. Pelvis, thighs, knees, shins, ankles, the tops of the feet. Shoulders, upper arms, elbows, forearms.
One hundred and sixty-three coins.
Udinaas wiped sweat from his eyes then rose and walked, limbs aching, over to the cauldron containing the melted wax. He had no idea how much time had passed. The stench kept his appetite at bay, but he had filled the hollow in his stomach a half-dozen times with cool water. Outside, the rain had continued, battering on the roof, swirling over the ground beyond the walls. A village in mourning – none would disturb him until he emerged.
He would have preferred a half-dozen Edur widows conducting the laying of coins, with him at his usual station tending to the fire. The last time he had done this in solitude had been with Uruth’s father, killed in battle by the Arapay. He had been younger then, awed by the spectacle and his role in its making.
Attaching the handle to the cauldron, Udinaas lifted it from the hearth and carefully carried it back to the corpse. A thick coating over the front and sides of the corpse. A short time for the wax to cool – not too much, so that it cracked when he turned over the body – then he would return to the gold coins.
Udinaas paused for a moment, standing over the dead Tiste Edur. ‘Ah, Rhulad,’ he sighed. ‘You could surely strut before the women now, couldn’t you?’
‘The mourning has begun.’
Trull started, then turned to find Fear standing at his shoulder. ‘What? Oh. Then what has been decided?’
‘Nothing.’ His brother swung away and walked to the hearth. His face twisted as he regarded the low flames. ‘The Warlock King proclaims our efforts a failure. Worse, he believes we betrayed him. He would hide that suspicion, but I see it none the less.’
Trull was silent a moment, then he murmured, ‘I wonder when the betrayal began. And with whom.’
‘You doubted this “gift”, from the very first.’
‘I doubt it even more now. A sword that will not relinquish its grip on a dead warrior. What sort of weapon is this, Fear? What sorcery rages on within it?’ He faced his brother. ‘Did you look closely at that blade? Oh, skilfully done, but there are… shards, trapped in the iron. Of some other metal, which resisted the forging. Any apprentice sword-smith could tell you that such a blade will shatter at first blow.’
‘No doubt the sorcery invested would have prevented that,’ Fear replied.
‘So,’ Trull sighed, ‘Rhulad’s body is being prepared.’
‘Yes, it has begun. The Warlock King has drawn our parents into the privacy of his longhouse. All others are forbidden to enter. There will be… negotiations.’
‘The severing of their youngest son’s hands, in exchange for what?’
‘I don’t know. The decision will be publicly announced, of course. In the meantime, we are left to our own.’
‘Where is Binadas?’
Fear shrugged. ‘The healers have taken him. It will be days before we see him again. Mages are difficult to heal, especially when it’s broken bone. The Arapay who tended to him said there were over twenty pieces loose in the flesh of his hip. All need to be drawn back into place and mended. Muscle and tendons to knit, vessels to be sealed and dead blood expunged.’
Trull walked over to a bench alongside a wall and sat down, settling his head in his hands. The whole journey seemed unreal now, barring the battle-scars on flesh and armour, and the brutal evidence of a wrapped corpse now being dressed for burial.
The Jheck had been Soletaken. He had not realized. Those wolves…
To be Soletaken was a gift belonging to Father Shadow and his kin. It belonged to the skies, to creatures of immense power. That primitive, ignorant barbarians should possess a gift of such prodigious, holy power made no sense.
Soletaken. It now seemed… sordid. A weapon as savage and as mundane as a raw-edged axe. He did not understand how such a thing could be.
‘A grave test awaits us, brother.’
Trull blinked up at Fear. ‘You sense it as well. Something’s coming, isn’t it?’
‘I am unused to this… to this feeling. Of helplessness. Of… not knowing.’ He rubbed at his face, as if seeking to awaken the right words from muscle, blood and bone. As if all that waited within him ever struggled, futile and frustrated, to find a voice that others could hear.
A pang of sympathy struck Trull, and he dropped his gaze, no longer wanting to witness his brother’s discomfort. ‘It is the same with me,’ he said although the admission was not entirely true. He was not unused to helplessness; some feelings one learned to live with. He had none of Fear’s natural, physical talents, none of his brother’s ease. It seemed his only true skill was that of relentless observation, fettered to a dark imagination. ‘We should get some sleep,’ he added. ‘Exhaustion ill fits these moments. Nothing will be announced without us.’
‘True enough, brother.’ Fear hesitated, then reached out and settled a hand on Trull’s shoulder. ‘I would you stand at my side always, if only to keep me from stumbling.’ The hand withdrew and Fear walked towards the sleeping chambers at the back of the longhouse.
Trull stared after him, stunned by the admission, half disbelieving. As I gave words to comfort him, has he just done the same for me?
Theradas had told him they could hear the sounds of battle, again and again, cutting through the wind and the blowing snow. They’d heard bestial screams of pain, wolf-howls crying in mortal despair. They’d heard him leading the Jheck from their path. Heard, until distance stole from them all knowledge of his fate. And then, they had awaited the arrival of the enemy – who never came.
Trull had already forgotten most of those clashes, the numbers melding into one, a chaotic nightmare unstepped from time, swathed in the gauze of snow stretched and torn by the circling wind, wrapping ever tighter. Bound and carried as if made disparate, disconnected from the world. Is this how the direst moments of the past are preserved? Does this pain-ridden separation occur to each and every one of us – us… survivors? The mind’s own barrow field, the trail winding between the mounded earth hiding the heavy stones and the caverns of darkness with their blood-painted walls and fire-scorched capstones – a life’s wake, forlorn beneath a grey sky. Once walked, that trail could never be walked again. One could only look back, and know horror at the vastness and the riotous accumulation of yet more barrows. More, and more.
He rose and made his way to his sleeping mat. Wearied by the thought of those whom the Edur worshipped, who had lived tens upon tens of thousands of years, and the interminable horror of all that lay behind them, the endless road of deed and regret, the bones and lives now dust bedding corroded remnants of metal – nothing more, because the burden life could carry was so very limited, because life could only walk onward, ever onward, the passage achieving little more than a stirring of dust in its wake.
Sorrow grown bitter with despair, Trull sank down onto the thinly padded mattress, lay back and closed his eyes.
The gesture served only to unleash his imagination, image after image sobbing to life with silent but inconsolable cries that filled his head.
He reeled before the onslaught, and, like a warrior staggering senseless before relentless battering, he fell backward in his mind, into oblivion.
Like a bed of gold in a mountain stream, a blurred gleam swimming before his eyes. Udinaas leaned back, only now fully feeling the leaden weight of his exhausted muscles, slung like chains from his bones. The stench of burnt flesh had painted his lungs, coating the inside of his chest and seeping its insipid poison into his veins. His flesh felt mired in dross.
He stared down at the gold-studded back of Rhulad Sengar. The wax coating the form had cooled, growing more opaque with every passing moment.
Wealth belongs to the dead, or so it must be for one such as me. Beyond my reach. He considered those notions, the way they drifted through the fog in his mind. Indebtedness and poverty. The defining limits of most lives. Only a small proportion of the Letherii population knew riches, could indulge in excesses. Theirs was a distinct world, an invisible paradise framed by interests and concerns unknown to everyone else.
Udinaas frowned, curious at his own feelings. There was no envy. Only sorrow, a sense of all that lay beyond his grasp, and would ever remain so. In a strange way, the wealthy Letherii had become as remote and alien to him as the Edur. He was disconnected, the division as sharp and absolute as the one before him now – his own worn self and the gold-sheathed corpse before him. The living and the dead, the dark motion of his body and the perfect immobility of Rhulad Sengar.
He prepared for his final task before leaving the chamber. The wax had solidified sufficiently to permit the turning over of the body. Upon entering this house, Rhulad’s parents would expect to find their dead son lying on his back, made virtually unrecognizable by the coins and the wax. Made, in fact, into a sarcophagus, already remote, with the journey to the shadow world begun.
Errant take me, have I the strength for this?
The corpse had been rolled onto wooden paddles with curved handles that were both attached to a single lever. A four-legged ridge pole was set crossways beneath the lever, providing the fulcrum. Udinaas straightened and positioned himself at the lever, taking the Blackwood in both hands and settling on it the weight of his upper body. He hesitated, lowering his head until his brow rested on his forearms.
The shadow wraith was silent, not a single whisper in his ear for days now. The blood of the Wyval slept. He was alone.
He had been expecting an interruption through the entire procedure. Hannan Mosag and his K’risnan, thundering into the chamber. To cut off Rhulad’s fingers, or the entire hands. Having no instructions to the contrary, Udinaas had sheathed the sword in wax, angled slightly as it reached down along the body’s thighs.
He drew a deep breath, then pushed down on the lever. Lifting the body a fraction. Cracks in the wax, a crazed web of lines, but that was to be expected. Easily repaired. Udinaas pushed harder, watching as the body began turning, edging onto its side. The sword’s weight defeated the wax sheathing the blade, and the point clunked down on the stone platform, drawing the arms with it. Udinaas swore under his breath, blinking the sweat from his eyes. Plate-sized sheets of wax had fallen away. The coins, at least – he saw with relief – remained firmly affixed.
He slipped a restraining strap over the lever to hold it in place, then moved to the corpse. Repositioning the sword, he nudged the massive weight further over in increments, until the balance shifted and the body thumped onto its back.
Udinaas waited until he regained his breath. Another coating of wax was needed, to repair the damage. Then he could stumble out of this nightmare.
A slave needn’t think. There were tasks to be done. Too many thoughts were crawling through him, interfering with his concentration.
He stumbled back to the hearth to retrieve the cauldron of wax.
A strange snapping sound behind him. Udinaas turned. He studied the corpse, seeking the place where the wax had broken loose. There, along the jaw, splitting wide over the mouth. He recalled the facial contortion that had been revealed when the bindings had been removed. It was possible he would have to sew the lips together.
He picked up the cauldron and made his way back to the corpse.
He saw the head jerk back.
A shuddering breath.
And then the corpse screamed.
From nothingness a scene slowly came into resolution, and Trull Sengar found himself standing, once more amidst gusting wind and swirling snow. He was surrounded, a ring of dark, vague shapes. The smeared gleam of amber eyes was fixed on him, and Trull reached for his sword, only to find the scabbard empty.
The Jheck had found him at last, and this time there would be no escape. Trull spun round, and again, as the huge wolves edged closer. The wind’s howl filled his ears.
He searched for a dagger – anything – but could find nothing. His hands were numb with cold, the blowing snow stinging his eyes.
Closer, now, on all sides. Trull’s heart pounded. He was filled with terror, filled as a drowning man is filled by the inrush of deadly water the shock of denial, the sudden loss of all strength, and with it, all will.
The wolves charged.
Jaws closed on his limbs, fangs punching through skin. He was dragged down beneath the weight of onslaught. A wolf closed its mouth round the back of his neck. Dreadful grinding motions chewed through muscle. Bones snapped. His mouth gushed full and hot with blood and bile. He sagged, unable even to curl tight as the beasts tore at his arms and legs, ripped into his belly.
He could hear nothing but the wind’s shriek, ever climbing.
Trull opened his eyes. He was sprawled on his sleeping mat, pain throbbing in his muscles with the ghost memory of those savage teeth.
And heard screaming.
Fear appeared in the entranceway, his eyes strangely red-rimmed, blinking in bewilderment. ‘Trull?’
‘It’s coming from outside,’ he replied, climbing stiffly to his feet.
They emerged to see figures running, converging on the House of the Dead.
‘What is happening?’
Trull shook his head at his brother’s question. ‘Perhaps Udinaas…’
They set off.
Two slaves stumbled from the building’s entrance, then fled in panic, one of them shouting incoherently.
The brothers picked up their pace.
Trull saw the Letherii Acquitor and her merchant on the bridge, figures rushing past them as they made a slow, hesitant approach.
The screams had not abated. There was pain in those cries, and horror. The sound, renewed breath after breath, made the blood gelid in Trull’s veins. He could almost…
Mayen was in the doorway, which was ajar. Behind her stood the slave Feather Witch.
Neither moved.
Fear and Trull reached them.
Feather Witch’s head snapped round, the eyes half mad as they stared up at first Trull, then Fear.
Fear came to the side of his betrothed in the doorway. He stared inward, face flinching with every scream. ‘Mayen,’ he said, ‘keep everyone else out. Except for Tomad and Uruth and the Warlock King, when they arrive. Trull-’ The name was spoken like a plea.
Mayen stepped back and Trull edged forward.
Side by side, they entered the House of the Dead.
A mass, a hunched shape, covered in wax like peeling skin, revealing the glitter of gold coins, slouched down at the foot of the stone platform, face lowered, forehead on knees, arms wrapped tight about shins but still holding the sword. A mass, a hunched shape, voicing endless shrieks.
The slave Udinaas stood nearby. He had been carrying a cauldron of wax. It lay on its side two paces to the Letherii’s left, the wax spilled out amidst twigs and straw.
Udinaas was murmuring. Soothing words cutting beneath the screams. He was moving closer to the shape, step by careful step.
Fear made to start forward but Trull gripped his upper arm and held him back. He’d heard something in those shrieks. They had come to answer the slave’s low soothings, defiant at first, but now thinning, the voice filling with pleading. Strangled again and again into shudders of raw despair. And through it all Udinaas continued to speak.
Sister bless us, that is Rhulad. My brother.
Who was dead.
The slave slowly crouched before the horrid figure, and Trull could make out his words as he said, ‘There are coins before your eyes, Rhulad Sengar. That is why you can see nothing. I would remove them. Your brothers are here. Fear and Trull. They are here.’
The shrieks broke then, replaced by helpless weeping.
Trull stared as Udinaas then did something he did not think possible. The slave reached out and took Rhulad’s head in his hands, as a mother might an inconsolable child. Tender, yet firm, the hands slowly lifted it clear of the knees.
A sobbing sound came from Fear, quickly silenced, but Trull felt his brother tremble.
The face – oh, Father Shadow, the face.
A crazed mask of wax, cracked and scarred. And beneath it, gold coins, melded onto the flesh – not one had dislodged – angled like the scales of armour around the stretched jaw, the gasping mouth.
Udinaas leaned closer still, spoke low beside Rhulad’s left ear.
Words, answered with a shudder, a spasm that made coins click – the sound audible but muted beneath wax. A foot scraped across the stone flagstones surrounding the platform, drew in tighter.
Fear jolted in Trull’s grip, but he held on, held his brother back as Udinaas reached down to his belt and drew out a work knife.
Whispering; rhythmic, almost musical. The slave brought the knife up. Carefully set the edge near the tip alongside the coin covering Rhulad’s left eye.
The face flinched, but Udinaas drew his right arm round into a kind of embrace, leaned closer, not pausing in his murmuring. Pressure with the edge, minute motion, then the coin flashed as it came loose along the bottom. A moment later it fell away.
The eye was closed, a mangled, red welt. Rhulad must have sought to open it because Udinaas laid two fingers against the lid and Trull saw him shake his head as he said something, then repeated it.
A strange tic from Rhulad’s head, and Trull realized it had been a nod.
Udinaas then reversed the position of his arms, and set the knife edge to Rhulad’s right eye.
Outside was the sound of a mass of people, but Trull did not turn about. He could not pull his gaze from the Letherii, from his brother.
He was dead. There was no doubt. None.
The slave, who had worked on Rhulad for a day and a night, filling mortal wounds with wax, burning coins into the cold flesh, who had then seen his charge return to life, now knelt before the Edur, his voice holding insanity at bay, his voice – and his hands – guiding Rhulad back to the living.
A Letherii slave.
Father Shadow, who are we to have done this?
The coin was prised loose.
Trull pulled Fear along as he stepped closer. He did not speak. Not yet.
Udinaas returned the knife to its sheath. He leaned back, one hand withdrawing to settle on Rhulad’s left shoulder. Then the slave pivoted and looked up at Trull. ‘He’s not ready to speak. The screaming has exhausted him, given the weight of the coins encasing his chest.’ Udinaas half rose, intending to move away, but Rhulad’s left arm rustled, hand sobbing away from the sword’s grip, coins clicking as the fingers groped, then found the slave’s arm. And held on.
Udinaas almost smiled – and Trull saw for the first time the exhaustion of the man, the extremity of all that he had gone through – and settled down once more. ‘Your brothers, Rhulad,’ he said. ‘Trull, and Fear. They are here to take care of you now. I am but a slave-’
Two coins fell away as Rhulad’s grip tightened.
‘You will stay, Udinaas,’ Trull said. ‘Our brother needs you. We need you.’
The Letherii nodded. ‘As you wish, master. Only… I am tired. I – I keep blacking out, only to awaken at the sound of my own voice.’ He shook his head helplessly. ‘I don’t even know what I have said to your brother-’
‘It matters not,’ Fear cut in. ‘What you have done…’ His words trailed away, and for a moment it seemed his face would crumple. Trull saw the muscles of his brother’s neck tauten, then Fear’s eyes closed tight, he drew a deep breath and was himself once more. He shook his head, unable to speak.
Trull crouched beside Udinaas and Rhulad. ‘Udinaas, I understand. You need rest. But stay for a few moments longer, if you can.’
The slave nodded.
Trull shifted his gaze, studied Rhulad’s ravaged face, the eyes still shut – but there was movement behind them. ‘Rhulad. It is Trull. Listen to me, my brother. Keep your eyes closed, for now. We must get this – this armour – off you-’
At that Rhulad shook his head.
‘They are funereal coins, Rhulad-’
‘Y-yes. I… know.’
Words raw and heavy, the breath pushed out from a constricted chest.
Trull hesitated, then said, ‘Udinaas has been with you, alone, preparing you-’
‘Yes.’
‘He is used up, brother.’
‘Yes. Tell Mother. I want. I want him.’
‘Of course. But let him go now, please-’
The hand dropped away from the slave’s arm, clunking hard and seemingly insensate on the floor. The other hand, still holding the sword, suddenly twitched.
And a ghastly smile emerged on Rhulad’s face. ‘Yes. I hold it still. This. This is what he meant.’
Trull edged back slightly.
Udinaas crawled off a short distance, leaned up against the chest of coins. He drew himself up into a shape echoing that of Rhulad, and, in the moment before he turned his face away, Trull saw the visage fill with anguish.
Exhaustion or no, for Udinaas peace and rest was ten thousand paces away – Trull could see that, could understand that brutal truth. Rhulad had had the slave, but whom did Udinaas have?
Not a typical Edur thought.
But nothing – nothing – was as it was. Trull rose and moved close to Fear. He thought for a moment, then swung round to the entranceway. Mayen was still standing there, at her side the Letherii, Feather Witch. Trull gestured at the slave, then pointed to where Udinaas crouched.
He saw her face stretch in horror. Saw her shake her head.
Then she ran from the building.
Trull grimaced.
A commotion at the entrance, and Mayen withdrew from sight.
Tomad and Uruth appeared.
And behind them, as they slowly edged forward, came Hannan Mosag.
Oh. Oh no. The sword. The damned sword-