‘No. But they were sworn followers of the Wolves of War, and indeed, War Leader, it seemed those treacherous, foul beasts tracked them – always at a distance, yet in vast numbers. Until the Ganetok Elders invoked magic and drove them all away.’ Masarch hesitated, then said, ‘Redmask, the war leader among the Ganetok—’
Unseen behind the mask, a slow smile formed. ‘Firstborn son of Capalah. Hadralt.’
‘How did you know?’
‘Tomorrow, Masarch, we drive the herds east – to the Ganetok. I would know more of those hapless foreigners who chose to fight for us. To die for the people of the Awl’dan.’
‘We are to crawl to the Ganetok as did the Sevond and the Niritha?’
‘You are starving. The herds are too weakened. I lead six youths none of whom has passed the death night. Shall the seven of us ride to war against the Letherii?’
Though young, it was clear that Masarch was no fool. ‘You shall challenge Hadralt? Redmask, your warriors – we, we will all die. We are not enough to meet the hundreds of challenges that will be flung at us, and once we are dead, you will have to face those challenges, long before you are deemed worthy to cross weapons with Hadralt himself.’
‘You will not die,’ Redmask said. ‘And none shall challenge any of you.’
‘Then you mean to carve through a thousand warriors to face Hadralt?’
‘What would be the point of that, Masarch? I need those warriors. Killing them would be a waste. No.’ He paused, then said, ‘I am not without guardians, Masarch. And I doubt that a single Ganetok warrior will dare challenge them. Hadralt shall have to face me, he and I, alone in the circle. Besides,’ he added, ‘we haven’t the time for all the rest.’
‘The Ganetok hold to the old ways, War Leader. There will be rituals. Days and days before the circle is made—’
‘Masarch, we must go to war against the Letherii. Every warrior of the Awl—’
‘War Leader! They will not follow you! Even Hadralt could only manage a third of them, and that with payment of rodara and myrid that halved his holdings!’ Masarch waved at the depleted herds on the hillsides. ‘We – we have nothing left! You could not purchase the spears of a hundred warriors!’
‘Who holds the largest herds, Masarch?’
‘The Ganetok themselves—’
‘No. I ask again, who holds the largest herds?’
The youth’s scowl deepened. ‘The Letherii.’
‘I will send three warriors to accompany the last of the Renfayar to the Ganetok. Choose two of your companions to accompany us.’ The dray dog rose and moved to one side. Redmask collected the reins of his horse and set out down towards the camp. The dray fell in to heel on his left. ‘We shall ride west, Masarch, and find us some herds.’
‘We ride against the Letherii? War Leader, did you not moments ago mock the notion of seven warriors waging war against them? Yet now you say—’
‘War is for later,’ Redmask said. ‘As you say, we need herds. To buy the services of the warriors.’ He paused and looked back at the trailing youth. ‘Where did the Letherii get their beasts?’
‘From the Awl! From us!’
‘Yes. They stole them. So we must steal them back.’
‘Four of us, War Leader?’
‘And one dray, and my guardians.’
‘What guardians?’
Redmask resumed his journey. ‘You lack respect, Masarch. Tonight, I think, you will have your death night.’
‘The old ways are useless! I will not!’
Redmask’s fist was a blur – it was questionable whether, in the gloom, Masarch even saw it – even as it connected solidly with the youth’s jaw, dropping him in his tracks. Redmask reached down and grabbed a handful of hide jerkin, then began dragging the unconscious Masarch back down to the camp.
When the young man awoke, he would find himself in a coffin, beneath an arm’s reach of earth and stones. None of the usual traditional, measured rituals prior to a death night, alas, the kind that served to prepare the chosen for internment. Of course, Masarch’s loose reins displayed an appalling absence of respect, sufficient to obviate the gift of mercy, which in truth was what all those rituals were about.
Hard lessons, then. But becoming an adult depended on such lessons.
He expected he would have to pound the others into submission as well, which made for a long night ahead.
For us all.
The camp’s old women would be pleased by the ruckus, he suspected. Preferable to wailing through the night, in any case.
The last tier of the buried city proved the most interesting, as far as Udinaas was concerned. He’d had his fill of the damned sniping that seemed to plague this fell party of fugitives, a testiness that seemed to be getting worse, especially from Fear Sengar. The ex-slave knew that the Tiste Edur wanted to murder him, and as for the details surrounding the abandonment of Rhulad – which made it clear that Udinaas himself had had no choice in the matter, that he had been as much a victim as Fear’s own brother – well, Fear wasn’t interested. Mitigating circumstances did not alter his intransigence, his harsh sense of right and wrong which did not, it appeared, extend to his own actions – after all, Fear had been the one to deliberately walk away from Rhulad.
Udinaas, upon regaining consciousness, should have returned to the Emperor.
To do what? Suffer a grisly death at Rhulad’s hands? Yes, we were almost friends, he and I – as much as might be possible between slave and master, and of that the master ever feels more generous and virtuous than the slave – but I did not ask to be there, at the madman’s side, struggling to guide him across that narrow bridge of sanity, when all Rhulad wanted to do was leap head-first over the side at every step. No, he had made do with what he had, and in showing that mere splinter of sympathy, he had done more for Rhulad than any of the Sengars – brothers, mother, father. More indeed than any Tiste Edur. Is it any wonder none of you know happiness, Fear Sengar? You are all twisted branches from the same sick tree.
There was no point in arguing this, of course. Seren Pedac alone might understand, might even agree with all that Udinaas had to say, but she wasn’t interested in actually being one of this party. She clung to the role of Acquitor, a finder of trails, the reader of all those jealously guarded maps in her head. She liked not having to choose; better still, she liked not having to care.
A strange woman, the Acquitor. Habitually remote. Without friends . . . yet she carries a Tiste Edur sword. Trull Sengar’s sword. Kettle says he set it into her hands. Did she understand the significance of that gesture? She must have. Trull Sengar had then returned to Rhulad. Perhaps the only brother who’d actually cared – where was he now? Probably dead.
Fresh, night-cooled air flowed down the broad ramp, moaned in the doorways situated every ten paces or so to either side. They were nearing the surface, somewhere in the saddleback pass – but on which side of the fort and its garrison? If the wrong side, then Silchas Ruin’s swords would keen loud and long. The dead piled up in the wake of that walking white-skinned, red-eyed nightmare, didn’t they just. The few times the hunters caught up with the hunted, they paid with their lives, yet they kept coming, and that made little sense.
Almost as ridiculous as this mosaic floor with its glowing armies. Images of lizard warriors locked in war, long-tails against short-tails, with the long-tails doing most of the dying, as far as he could tell. The bizarre slaughter beneath their feet spilled out into the adjoining rooms, each one, it seemed, devoted to the heroic death of some champion – Fouled K’ell, Naw’rhuk A’dat and Matrons, said Silchas Ruin as, enwreathed in sorcerous light, he explored each such side chamber, his interest desultory and cursory at best. In any case, Udinaas could read enough into the colourful scenes to recognize a campaign of mutual annihilation, with every scene of short-tail victory answered with a Matron’s sorcerous conflagration. The winners never won because the losers refused to lose. An insane war.
Seren Pedac was in the lead,
twenty paces ahead, and Udinaas saw her halt and suddenly crouch, one hand lifting. The air sweeping in was rich with the scent of loam and wood dust. The mouth of the tunnel was small, overgrown and half blocked by angled fragments of basalt from what had once been an arched gate, and beyond was darkness.
Seren Pedac waved the rest forward. ‘I will scout out ahead,’ she whispered as they gathered about just inside the cave mouth. ‘Did anyone else notice that there were no bats in that last stretch? That floor was clean.’
‘There are sounds beyond human hearing,’ Silchas Ruin said. ‘The flow of air is channelled through vents and into tubes behind the walls, producing a sound that perturbs bats, insects, rodents and the like. The Short-Tails were skilled at such things.’
‘So, not magic, then?’ Seren Pedac asked. ‘No wards or curses here?’
‘No.’
Udinaas rubbed at his face. His beard was filthy, and there were things crawling in the snarls of hair. ‘Just find out if we’re on the right side of that damned fort, Acquitor.’
‘I was making sure I wouldn’t trip some kind of ancient ward stepping outside, Indebted, something that all these broken boulders suggests has happened before. Unless of course you want to rush out there yourself.’
‘Now why would I do that?’ Udinaas asked. ‘Ruin gave you your answer, Seren Pedac; what are you waiting for?’
‘Perhaps,’ Fear Sengar said, ‘she waits for you to be quiet. We shall all, I suppose, end up waiting for ever in that regard.’
‘Tormenting you, Fear, gives me my only pleasure.’
‘A sad admission indeed,’ Seren Pedac murmured, then edged forward, over the tumbled rocks, and into the night beyond.
Udinaas removed his pack and settled down on the littered floor, dried leaves crunching beneath him. He leaned against a tilted slab of stone and stretched out his legs.
Fear moved up to crouch at the very edge of the cave mouth.
Humming to herself, Kettle wandered off into a nearby side chamber.
Silchas Ruin stood regarding Udinaas. ‘I am curious,’ he said after a time. ‘What gives your life meaning, Letherii?’
‘That’s odd. I was just thinking the same of you, Tiste Andii.’
‘Indeed.’
‘Why would I lie?’
‘Why wouldn’t you?’
‘All right,’ Udinaas said. ‘You have a point.’
‘So you will not answer my question.’
‘You first.’
‘I do not disguise what drives me.’
‘Revenge? Well, fine enough, I suppose, as a motivation – at least for a while and maybe a while is all you’re really interested in. But let’s be honest here, Silchas Ruin: as the sole meaning for existing, it’s a paltry, pathetic cause.’
‘Whereas you claim to exist to torment Fear Sengar.’
‘Oh, he manages that all on his own.’ Udinaas shrugged. ‘The problem with questions like that is, we rarely find meaning to what we do until well after we’ve done it. At that point we come up with not one but thousands – reasons, excuses, justifications, heartfelt defences. Meaning? Really, Silchas Ruin, ask me something interesting.’
‘Very well. I am contemplating challenging our pursuers – no more of this unnecessary subterfuge. It offends my nature, truth be told.’
At the tunnel mouth, Fear turned to regard the Tiste Andii. ‘You will kick awake a hornet’s nest, Silchas Ruin. Worse, if this fallen god is indeed behind Rhulad’s power, you might find yourself suffering a fate far more dire than millennia buried in the ground.’
‘Fear’s turning into an Elder before our eyes,’ Udinaas said. ‘Jumping at shadows. You want to take on Rhulad and Hannan Mosag and his K’risnan, Silchas Ruin, you have my blessing. Grab the Errant by the throat and tear this empire to pieces. Turn it all into ash and dust. Level the whole damned continent, Tiste Andii – we’ll just stay here in this cave. Come collect us when you’re finished.’
Fear bared his teeth at Udinaas. ‘Why would he bother sparing us?’
‘I don’t know,’ the ex-slave replied, raising an eyebrow. ‘Pity?’
Kettle spoke from the side chamber’s arched doorway. ‘Why don’t any of you like each other? I like all of you. Even Wither.’
‘It’s all right,’ Udinaas said, ‘we’re all just tortured by who we are, Kettle.’
No-one said much after that.
* * *
Seren Pedac reached the edge of the forest, keeping low to remain level with the stunted trees. The air was thin and cold at this altitude. The stars overhead were bright and sharp, the dust-shrouded crescent moon still low on the horizon to the north. Around her was whispered motion through the clumps of dead leaves and lichen – a kind of scaled mouse ruled the forest floor at night, a species she had never seen before. They seemed unusually fearless, so much so that more than one had scampered across her boots. No predators, presumably. Even so, their behaviour was odd.
Before her stretched a sloped clearing, sixty or more paces, ending at a rutted track. Beyond it was a level stretch of sharp, jagged stones, loose enough to be treacherous. The fort squatting in the midst of this moat of rubble was stone-walled, thick at the base and tapering sharply to twice the height of a man. The corner bastions were massive, squared and flat-topped. On those platforms were swivel-mounted ballestae. Seren could make out huddled figures positioned around the nearest one, while other soldiers were visible, shoulders and heads, walking the raised platform on the other side of the walls.
As she studied the fortification, she heard the soft clunk of armour and weapons to her left. She shrank back as a patrol appeared on the rutted track. Motionless, breath held, she watched them amble past.
After another twenty heartbeats, she turned about and made her way back through the stunted forest. She almost missed the entrance to the cave mouth, a mere slit of black behind high ferns beneath a craggy overhang of tilted, layered granite. Pushing through, she stumbled into Fear Sengar.
‘Sorry,’ he whispered. ‘We were beginning to worry, or, at least,’ he added, ‘I was.’
She gestured him back into the cave.
‘Good news,’ she said once they were inside. ‘We’re behind the garrison – the pass ahead should be virtually unguarded—’
‘There are K’risnan wards up the trail,’ Silchas Ruin cut in. ‘Tell me of this garrison, Acquitor.’
Seren closed her eyes. Wards? Errant take us, what game is Hannan Mosag playing here? ‘I could smell horses from the fort. Once we trip those wards they’ll be after us, and we can’t outrun mounted soldiers.’
‘The garrison,’ Silchas said.
She shrugged. ‘The fort looks impregnable. I’d guess there’s anywhere between a hundred and two hundred soldiers there. And with that many there’s bound to be mages, as well as a score or more Tiste Edur.’
‘Silchas Ruin is tired of being chased,’ Udinaas said from where he lounged, back resting on a stone slab.
Dread filled Seren Pedac at these words. ‘Silchas, can we not go round these wards?’
‘No.’
She glanced across at Fear Sengar, saw suspicion and unease in the warrior’s expression, but he would not meet her eyes. What conversation did I just miss here? ‘You are no stranger to sorcery, Silchas Ruin. Could you put everyone in that fort to sleep or something? Or cloud their minds, make them confused?’
He gave her an odd look. ‘I know of no sorcery that can achieve that.’
‘Mockra,’ she replied. ‘The warren of Mockra.’
‘No such thing existed in my day,’ he said. ‘The K’risnan sorcery, rotted through with chaos as it is, seems recognizable enough to me. I have never heard of this Mockra.’
‘Corlos, the mage with Iron Bars – the Crimson Guard mercenaries – he could reach into minds, fill them with false terrors.’ She shrugged. ‘He said the magic of Holds and Elder Warrens has, almost everywhere else, been supplanted.’
‘I had wondered at the seemi
ng weakness of Kurald Galain in this land. Acquitor, I cannot achieve what you ask. Although, I do intend to silence everyone in that fort. And collect for us some horses.’
‘Silchas, there are hundreds of Letherii there, not just soldiers. A fort needs support staff. Cooks, scullions, smiths, carpenters, servants—’
‘And the Tiste Edur,’ Fear added, ‘will have slaves.’
‘None of this interests me,’ the Tiste Andii said, moving past Seren and leaving the mouth of the cave.
Udinaas laughed softly. ‘Red Ruin stalks the land. We must heed this tale of righteous retribution gone horribly wrong. So, Fear Sengar, your epic quest twists awry – what will you tell your grandchildren now?’
The Edur warrior said nothing.
Seren Pedac hesitated; she could hear Silchas Ruin walking away – a few strides crunching through leaves – then he was gone. She could hurry after him. Attempt one last time to dissuade him. Yet she did not move. In the wake of Ruin’s passage the only sound filling the forest was the scurry and rustle of the scaled mice, in their thousands it seemed, all flowing in the same direction as the Tiste Andii. Sweat prickled like ice on her skin. Look at us. Frozen like rabbits.
Yet what can I do? Nothing. Besides, it’s not my business, is it? I am but a glorified guide. Not one of these here holds to a cause that matters to me. They’re welcome to their grand ambitions. I was asked to lead them out, that’s all.
This is Silchas Ruin’s war. And Fear Sengar’s. She looked over at Udinaas and found him studying her from where he sat, eyes glittering, as if presciently aware of her thoughts, the sordid tracks each converging on a single, pathetic conclusion. Not my business. Errant take you, Indebted.
Mangled and misshapen, the K’risnan Ventrala reached up a scrawny, root-like forearm and wiped the sweat from his brow. Around him candles flickered, a forlorn invocation to Sister Shadow, but it seemed the ring of darkness in the small chamber was closing in on all sides, as inexorable as any tide.
He had woken half a bell earlier, heart pounding and breath coming in gasps. The forest north of the fort was seething with orthen, a rock-dwelling scaled creature unique to this mountain pass – since his arrival at the fort he had seen perhaps a half-dozen, brought in by the maned cats the Letherii locals kept. Those cats knew better than to attempt to eat the orthen, poison as they were, yet were not averse to playing with them until dead. Orthen avoided forest and soft ground. They dwelt among rocks. Yet now they swarmed the forest, and the K’risnan could feel something palpable from their presence, a stirring that tasted of bloodlust.