'If that,' Harllo said, 'I would have positively stared.'
'You're disgusting.'
'You misunderstand me, dearest. Not your tit—though that would be a fine sight indeed—but you with a baby! Hah, a baby!'
Stonny threw him a sneer.
They were sitting in a back room in the tavern, the leavings of a meal on the table between them.
'In any case,' Gruntle said, sighing, 'that meeting will last the rest of the night, and come the morning our master will be the only one among us privileged to catch up on his sleep—in the comfy confines of his carriage. We've got rooms upstairs with almost-clean beds and I suggest we make use of them.'
'That would be to actually sleep, dearest Stonny,' Harllo explained.
'Rest assured I'll bar the door, runt.'
'Nektara has a secret knock, presumably.'
'Wipe that grin off your face or I'll do it for you, Harllo.'
'How come you get all the fun, anyway?'
She grinned. 'Breeding, mongrel. What I got and you ain't got.'
'Education, too, huh?'
'Precisely.'
A moment later, the door swung open and Keruli entered.
Gruntle leaned back in his chair and eyed the priest. 'So, have you succeeded in recruiting the city's thugs, murderers and extortionists to your cause?'
'More or less,' Keruli replied, striding over to pour himself some wine. 'War, alas,' he sighed, 'must be fought on more than one kind of battlefield. The campaign will be a long one, I fear.'
'Is that why we're headed to Capustan?'
The priest's gaze settled on Gruntle for a moment, then he turned away. 'I have other tasks awaiting me there, Captain. Our brief detour here in Saltoan is incidental, in the great scheme of things.'
And which great scheme is that, Priest? Gruntle wanted to ask, but didn't. His master was beginning to make him nervous, and he suspected that any answer to that question would only make matters worse. No, Keruli, you keep your secrets.
The archway beneath Sunrise Gate was as dark as a tomb, the air chill and damp. Waytown's shanty sprawl was visible just beyond, through a haze of smoke lit gold by the morning sun.
Grainy-eyed and itching with flea bites, Gruntle nudged his horse into an easy trot as soon as he rode into the sunlight. He'd remained in Saltoan, lingering around the Gate for two bells, whilst Harllo and Stonny had driven the carriage and its occupant out of the city a bell before dawn. They would be at least two leagues along the river road, he judged.
Most of the banditry on the first half of this stretch to Capustan was headquartered in Saltoan—the stretch's second half, in Capan territory, was infinitely safer. Spotters hung around Sunrise Gate to mark the caravans heading east, much as he'd seen their counterparts on the west wall at Sunset Gate keeping an eye out for caravans bound for Darujhistan. Gruntle had waited to see if any local packs had made plans for Keruli's party, but no-one had set out in pursuit, confirming the master's assertion that safe passage had been guaranteed. It wasn't in Gruntle's nature to take thieves at their word, however.
He worked his horse into a canter to escape Waytown's clouds of flies and, flanked by half-wild, barking dogs, rode clear of the shanty-town and onto the open, rocky river road. Vision Plain's gently rolling prairie reached out to the distant Barghast Range on his left. To his right was a rough bank of piled stones—mostly overgrown with grasses—and beyond it the reedy flats of the river's floodplain.
The dogs abandoned him a few hundred paces beyond Waytown and the captain found himself alone on the road. The trader track would fade before long, he recalled, the dyke on his right dwindling, the road itself becoming a sandy swath humped with ant nests, bone-white driftwood and yellow knots of grass, with floods wiping the ruts away every spring. There was no chance of getting lost, of course, so long as one kept Catlin River within sight to the south.
He came upon the corpses less than a league further on. The highwaymen had perfectly positioned their ambush, emerging from a deeply cut, seasonal stream bed and no doubt surrounding their victim's carriage in moments. The precise planning hadn't helped, it seemed. Two or three days old at the most, bloated and almost black under the sun, their bodies were scattered to both sides of the track. Swords, lance-heads, buckles and anything else that was metal had all melted under some ferocious heat, yet clothing and leather bindings were unmarked. A number of the bandits wore spurs, and indeed there would have been no way of getting out this far without horses, but of the beasts there was no sign.
Dismounted and wandering among the dead, Gruntle noted that the tracks of Keruli's carriage—they too had stopped to examine the scene—were overlying another set. A wider, heavier carriage, drawn by oxen.
There were no visible wounds on the corpses.
I doubt Buke had to even so much as draw his blade…
The captain climbed back into his saddle and resumed his journey.
He caught sight of his companions half a league further on, and rode up alongside the carriage a short while later.
Harllo gave him a nod. 'A fine day, wouldn't you say, Gruntle?'
'Not a cloud in the sky. Where's Stonny?'
'Took one of the horses ahead. Should be back soon.'
'Why did she do that?'
'Just wanted to make certain the wayside camp was… uh, unoccupied. Ah, here she comes.'
Gruntle greeted her with a scowl as she reined in before them. 'Damned stupid thing to do, woman.'
'This whole journey's stupid if you ask me. There's three Barghast at the wayside camp—and no, they ain't roasted any bandits lately. Anyway, Capustan's bare days away from a siege—maybe we make the walls in time, in which case we'll be stuck there with the whole Pannion army between us and the open road, or we don't make it in time and those damned Tenescowri have fun with us.'
Gruntle's scowl deepened. 'Where are those Barghast headed, then?'
'They came down from the north, but now they're travelling the same as us—they want to take a look at things closer to Capustan and don't ask me why—they're Barghast, ain't they? Brains the size of walnuts. We got to talk with the master, Gruntle.'
The carriage door swung open and Keruli climbed out. 'No need, Stonny Menackis, my hearing is fine. Three Barghast, you said. Which clan?'
'White Face, if the paint's any indication.'
'We shall invite them to travel with us, then.'
'Master—' Gruntle began, but Keruli cut him off.
'We shall arrive in Capustan well before the siege, I believe. The Septarch responsible for the Pannion forces is known for a methodical approach. Once I am delivered, your duties will be discharged and you will be free to leave immediately for Darujhistan.' His dark, uncanny eyes narrowed on Gruntle. 'You do not have a reputation for breaking contracts, else I would not have hired you.'
'No, sir, we've no intention of breaking our contract. None the less, it might be worth discussing our options—what if Capustan is besieged before we arrive?'
'Then I shall not see you lose your lives in any desperate venture, Captain. I need then only be dropped off outside the range of the enemy, and I shall make my own way into the city, and such subterfuge is best attempted alone.'
'You would attempt to pass through the Pannion cordon?'
Keruli smiled. 'I have relevant skills for such an undertaking.'
Do you now? 'What about these Barghast? What makes you think they can be trusted to travel in our company?'
'If untrustworthy, better they be in sight than out of it, wouldn't you agree, Captain?'
He grunted. 'You've a point there, master.' He faced Harllo and Stonny, slowly nodded.
Harllo offered him a resigned smile.
Stonny was, predictably, not so nearly laconic. 'This is insanity!' Then she tossed up her hands. 'Fine, then! We ride into the dragon's maw, why not?' She spun her horse round. 'Let's go throw bones with the Barghast, shall we?'
Grimacing, Gruntle watched her ride off.
'She is a treasure, is she not?' Harllo murmured with a sigh.
'Never seen you so lovestruck before,' Gruntle said with a sidelong glance.
'It's the unattainable, friend, that's what's done for me. I long helplessly, morosely maundering over unrequited adoration. I dream of her and Nektara… with me snug between 'em—'
'Please, Harllo, you're making me sick.'
'Uhm,' Keruli said, 'I believe I shall now return to the carriage.'
The three Barghast were clearly siblings, with the woman the eldest. White paint had been smeared on their faces, giving them a skull-like appearance. Braids stained with red ochre hung down to their shoulders, knotted with bone fetishes. All three wore hauberks of holed coins—the currency ranging from copper to silver and no doubt from some looted hoard, as most of them looked ancient and unfamiliar to Gruntle's eye. Coin-backed gauntlets covered their hands. A guard-block's worth of weapons accompanied the trio—bundled lances, throwing axes and copper-sheathed long-hafted fighting axes, hook-bladed swords and assorted knives and daggers.
They stood on the other side of a small stone-ringed firepit—burned down to faintly smouldering coals—with Stonny still seated on her horse to their left. A small heap of jackrabbit bones indicated a meal just completed.
Gruntle's gaze settled on the Barghast woman. 'Our master invites you to travel in our company. Do you accept?'
The woman's dark eyes flicked to the carriage as Harllo drove it to the camp's edge. 'Few traders still journey to Capustan,' she said after a moment. 'The trail has become… perilous.'
Gruntle frowned. 'How so? Have the Pannions sent raiding parties across the river?'
'Not that we have heard. No, demons stalk the wildlands. We have been sent to discover the truth of them.'
Demons? Hood's breath. 'When did you learn of these demons?'
She shrugged. 'Two, three months past.'
The captain sighed, slowly dismounted. 'Well, let us hope there's nothing to such tales.'
The woman grinned. 'We hope otherwise. I am Hetan, and these are my miserable brothers, Cafal and Netok. This is Netok's first hunt since his Deathnight.'
Gruntle glanced at the glowering, hulking youth. 'I can see his excitement.'
Hetan turned, gaze narrowing on her brother. 'You must have sharp eyes.'
By the Abyss, another humourless woman for company…
Looping a leg over her saddle, Stonny Menackis dropped to the ground, raising a puff of dust. 'Our captain's too obvious with his jokes, Hetan. They end up thudding like ox dung, and smelling just as foul. Pay him no mind, lass, unless you enjoy being confused.'
'I enjoy killing and riding men and little else,' Hetan growled, crossing her muscled arms.
Harllo quickly clambered down from the carriage and approached her with a broad smile. 'I am named Harllo and I am delighted to make your acquaintance, Hetan!'
'You can kill him any time you like,' Stonny drawled.
The two brothers were indeed miserable creatures, taciturn and, as far as Gruntle could determine, singularly thick. Harllo's futile efforts with Hetan proved amusing enough whilst they sat around the rekindled hearth beneath a star-spattered sky. Keruli made a brief appearance shortly before everyone began bedding down, but only to share a bowl of herbal tea before once again retiring to his carriage. It fell to Gruntle—he and Hetan the last two lingering at the firepit—to pry loose more information from the Barghast.
'These demons,' he began, 'how have they been described?'
She leaned forward and ritually spat into the fire. 'Fast on two legs. Talons like an eagle's, only much larger, at the ends of those legs. Their arms are blades—'
'Blades? What do you mean?'
She shrugged. 'Bladed. Blood-iron. Their eyes are hollow pits. They stink of urns in the dark circle. They make no sound, no sound at all.'
Urns in the dark circle? Cremation urns… in a chamber barrow. Ah, they smell of death, then. Their arms are blades… how? What in Hood's name does that mean? Blood-iron—that's iron quenched in snow-chilled blood… a Barghast practice when shamans invest weapons. Thus, the wielder and the weapon are linked. Merged… 'Has anyone in your clan seen one?'
'No, the demons have not journeyed north to our mountain fastnesses. They remain in these grasslands.'
'Who, then, delivered the tales?'
'Our shouldermen have seen them in their dreams. The spirits whisper to them and warn of the threat. The White Clan has chosen a warchief—our father—and await what is to come. But our father would know his enemy, so he has sent his children down onto the flatlands.'
Gruntle ruminated on this, his eyes watching the fire slowly ebb. 'Will your father the warchief of the White Faces lead the clans south? If Capustan is besieged, the Capan territories will be vulnerable to your raids, at least until the Pannions complete their conquest.'
'Our father has no plans to lead us south, Captain.' She spat a second time into the fire. 'The Pannion war will come to us, in time. So the shouldermen have read in bhederin blades. Then, there shall be war.'
'If these demons are advance elements of the Pannion forces…'
'Then, when they first appear in our fastnesses, we will know that the time has come.'
'Fighting,' Gruntle muttered. 'What you enjoy the most.'
'Yes, but for now, I would ride you.'
Ride? More like batter me senseless. Ah, well… 'What man would say no to such an elegant offer?'
Collecting her bedroll in both arms, Hetan rose. 'Follow me, and hurry.'
'Alas,' he replied, slowly gaining his feet, 'I never hurry, as you're about to discover.'
'Tomorrow night I shall ride your friend.'
'You're doing so tonight, dear, in his dreams.'
She nodded seriously. 'He has big hands.'
'Aye.'
'So do you.'
'I thought you were in a hurry, Hetan.'
'I am. Let's go.'
The Barghast Range crept down from the north as the day slowly passed, from distant mountains to worn, humped-back hills. Many of the hills edging the traders' track to Capustan were sacred sites, their summits displaying the inverted tree trunks that were the Barghast custom of anchoring spirits—or so Hetan explained as she walked alongside Gruntle, who was leading his horse by the reins. While the captain had little interest in things religious, he admitted to some curiosity as to why the Barghast would bury trees upside-down in hills. 'Mortal souls are savage things,' she explained, spitting to punctuate her words. 'Many must be held down to keep them from ill-wandering. Thus, the oaks are brought down from the north. The shouldermen carve magic into their trunks. The one to be buried is pinned beneath the tree. Spirits are drawn as well, as guardians, and other traps are placed along the edges of the dark circle. Even so, sometimes the souls escape—imprisoned by one of the traps, yet able to travel the land. Those who return to the clans where they once lived are quickly destroyed, so they have learned to stay away—here, in these lowlands. Sometimes, such a sticksnare retains a loyalty to its mortal kin, and will send dreams to our shouldermen, to tell us of danger.'
'A sticksnare, you called it. What does that mean?'
'You may well see for yourself,' she replied with a shrug. 'Was it one of these sticksnares that sent the dreams of demons?'
'Yes, and other spirits besides. That so many sought to reach us…' Added veracity to the threat, aye, I understand. He scanned the empty land before them, wondering what was out there.
Stonny rode fifty paces ahead. At the moment, Gruntle could not see her, as the trail leaned round a boulder-studded hill and vanished from sight thirty paces on. She had a frustrating knack for ignoring his orders—he'd wanted her to remain in sight at all times. The two Barghast brothers ranged to the sides, flanking the carriage from a distance that varied with the demands of the ground they covered. Cafal had taken the inland side and was jogging up the same hill's rocky slope. Netok walked along the sandy bank of the river, surrounded by a c
loud of midges that seemed to grow larger and thicker with every stride. Given the alarmingly thick and rancid greases with which the Barghast covered their bodies, Gruntle suspected those insects were suffering from frustration—drawn close by a warm body but unwilling or unable to alight.
That grease had been something of a challenge the night just past, Gruntle reflected, but he'd managed none the less, sporting a formidable collection of bruises, scratches and bites as proof. Hetan had been… energetic—
A shout from Cafal. At the same moment Stonny reappeared. The slow canter at which she approached eased the captain's nerves somewhat, though it was clear that both she and the Barghast on the hill had spotted something ahead. He glanced over to see Cafal now crouched low, his attention fixed on something further up the trail, but he had not drawn his weapons.
Stonny reined in, her expression closed. 'Bauchelain's carriage ahead. It's been… damaged. There's been a fight of some kind. Messy.'
'See anyone still standing?'
'No, just the oxen, looking placid enough. No bodies either.' Hetan faced her brother on the hill and caught his eye. She made a half-dozen hand gestures, and, drawing forth a lance, Cafal padded forward, dropping down from view.
'All right,' Gruntle sighed. 'Weapons out—let's go for a look.'
'Want me to keep back?' Harllo asked from the driver's bench. 'No.'
Rounding the hill, they saw that the trail opened out again, the land flattening on both sides. Forty paces on was Bauchelain and Korbal Broach's massive carriage, on its side, the rear spoke torn entirely off and lying shattered nearby. The four oxen stood a few paces away, grazing on the prairie grasses. Swathes of burned ground stretched out from the carriage, the air reeking of sorcery. A low mound just beyond had been blasted open, the inverted tree it had contained torn up and shattered as if it had been struck by lightning. Smoke still drifted from the gaping pit where the burial chamber had once been. Cafal was even now cautiously approaching it, his left hand scribing warding gestures in the air, the lance poised for a cast in his right.
Netok jogged up from the river bank, a two-handed axe in his grip. He halted at his sister's side. 'Something is loose,' he growled, his small eyes darting.