'Shut up, Gruntle.'
'Head in the other direction, please,' he continued. 'You wouldn't want to stumble over anything… unsightly.'
'Damn right in that. Let's go, Netok.'
They walked off, the Barghast trailing like a pup on a leash.
The captain swung to Buke. 'You fool.'
The man just shook his head, staring down at the fire.
Emancipor Reese reached for the tin pot holding the spiced wine. 'Two more nights,' he muttered. 'Typical.'
Gruntle stared at the old man for a moment, then grinned. 'We ain't dead yet—who knows, maybe Oponn's smiling down on you.'
'That'd make a change,' Reese grumbled.
'How in Hood's name did you get tied up with your two masters, anyway?'
'Long story,' he muttered, sipping at his wine. 'Too long to tell, really. My wife, you see… Well, the posting offered travel…'
'Are you suggesting you chose the lesser of two evils?'
'Heavens forfend, sir.'
'Ah, you've regrets now, then.'
'I didn't say that, neither.'
A sudden yowl from the darkness startled everyone.
'Which one made that sound, I wonder?' Gruntle mused.
'None,' Reese said. 'My cat's come back.'
A carriage door opened. Moments later Bauchelain's black-clad form appeared. 'Our sticksnare returns… hastily. I suggest you call in the others and prepare your weapons. Tactically, attempt to hamstring these hunters, and stay low when you close—they prefer horizontal cuts. Emancipor, if you would kindly join us. Captain Gruntle, perhaps you might inform your master, though no doubt he is already aware.'
Suddenly chilled, Gruntle rose. 'We'll be lucky to see anything, dammit.'
'That will not be an issue,' Bauchelain replied. 'Korbal, dear friend,' he called out behind him, 'a broad circle of light, if you please.'
The area was suddenly bathed in a soft, golden glow, reaching out thirty or more paces on all sides.
The cat yowled again and Gruntle caught sight of a tawny flash, darting back out into the darkness. Hetan and Harllo approached from one side, hastily tucking in clothing. Stonny and Netok arrived as well. The captain managed a strained grin. 'Not enough time, I take it,' he said to her.
Stonny grimaced. 'You should be more forgiving—it was the lad's first try.'
'Oh, right.'
'A damned shame, too,' she added, pulling on her duelling gloves. 'He had potental, despite the grease.'
The three Barghast had gathered now, Cafal jabbing a row of lances into the stony earth whilst Hetan busied herself tying a thick cord to join the three of them. Fetishes of feather and bone hung from knots in the cord, and Gruntle judged that the span between each warrior would be five or six arm-lengths. When the other two were done, Netok handed them double-bladed axes. All three set the weapons down at their feet and collected a lance each. Hetan leading, they began a soft, rumbling chant.
'Captain.'
Gruntle pulled his gaze from the Barghast and found Master Keruli at his side. The man's hands were folded on his lap, his silk cape shimmering like water. 'The protection I can offer is limited. Stay close to me, you and Harllo and Stonny. Do not allow yourselves to be drawn forward. Concentrate on defence.'
Unsheathing his cutlasses, Gruntle nodded. Harllo moved to the captain's left, his two-handed sword held steady before him. Stonny stood to Gruntle's right, rapier and sticker readied.
He feared for her the most. Her weapons were too light for what was coming—he recalled the chop-marks on Bauchelain's carriage. This would be brutal strength at play here, not finesse. 'Stay back a step, Stonny,' he said.
'Don't be stupid.'
'I'm not talking chivalry, Stonny. Poking wire-thin holes won't hurt an undead.'
'We'll just see, won't we?'
'Stay close to the master—guard him. That's an order, Stonny.'
'I hear you,' she growled.
Gruntle faced Keruli again. 'Sir, who is your god? If you call upon him or her, what should we expect?'
The round-faced man frowned slightly. 'Expect? I am afraid I have no idea, Captain. My—uh—god's powers are newly awakened from thousands of years of sleep. My god is Elder.'
Gruntle stared. Elder? Weren't the Elder gods abandoned because of their ferocity? What might be unleashed here? Queen of Dreams defend us.
He watched as Keruli drew forth a thin-bladed dagger and cut deep into his left palm. Blood dripped into the grass at his feet. The air suddenly smelled like a slaughterhouse.
A small, man-shaped collection of sticks and twigs and twine scurried into the circle of light, trailing sorcery like smoke. The stick-snared shaman.
Gruntle felt the earth shuddering to fast approaching steps, a low, relentless drumming like warhorses. No, more like giants. Upright, five pairs, maybe more. They were coming from the east.
Ghostly shapes loomed into sight, then faded again. The tremors in the earth slowed, scattered, as the creatures spread out.
The Barghast chant ended abruptly. Gruntle glanced in their direction. The three warriors faced east, lances ready. Coils of fog rose around their legs, thickening. In moments Hetan and her brothers would be completely enveloped.
Silence.
The familiar leather-bound grips of the heavy-cutlasses felt slick in Gruntle's hands. He could feel the thud of his heart in his chest. Sweat gathered, dripped from chin and lips. He strained to see into the darkness beyond the sphere of light. Nothing. The soldier's moment, now, before the battle begins—who would choose such a life? You stand with others, all facing the same threat, all feeling so very alone. In the cold embrace of fear, that sense that all that you are might end in moments. Gods, I've no envy for a soldier's life—
Flat, wide, fang-bristling faces—sickly pale like snake bellies—emerged from the darkness. Eyes empty pits, the heads seemed to hover for a moment, as if suspended, at a height twice that of a man. Huge black-pocked iron swords slid into the light. The blades were fused to the creatures' wrists—no hands were visible—and Gruntle knew that a single blow from one of those swords could cut through a man's thigh effortlessly.
Reptilian, striding on hind legs like giant wingless birds and leaning forward with the counterweight of long, tapering tails, the undead apparitions wore strangely mottled armour: across the shoulders, on the chest to either side of the jutting sternum, and high on the hips. Skull-cap helmets, low and long, protected head and nape, with sweeping cheek-guards meeting over the snout to join and bend sharply to form a bridge-guard.
At Gruntle's side Keruli hissed. 'K'Chain Che'Malle. K'ell Hunters, these ones. Firstborn of every brood. The Matron's own children. Fading memories even to the Elder gods, this knowledge. Now, in my heart, I feel dismay.'
'What in Hood's name are they waiting for?' the captain growled.
'Uneasy—the swirling cloud that is Barghast sorcery. An unknown to their master.'
Disbelieving, the captain asked, 'The Pannion Seer commands these—'
The five hunters attacked. Heads darting forward, blades rising, they were a blur. Three struck for the Barghast, plunging towards that thick, twisting fog. The other two charged Bauchelain and Korbal Broach.
Moments before reaching the cloud, three lances flashed out, all striking the lead hunter. Sorcery ripped through the beast's withered, lifeless flesh with a sound like spikes driven into—then through—tree trunks. Dark grey muscle tissue, bronze-hued bone and swaths of burning hide flew in all directions. The hunter's head wobbled atop a shattered neck. The K'Chain Che'Malle staggered, then collapsed, even as its two kin swept round it and vanished into the sorcerous cloud. Iron on iron rang explosively from within.
Before Bauchelain and Korbal Broach, the other two hunters were engulfed in roiling, black waves of sorcery before they had taken two strides. The magic lacerated their bodies, splashed rotting, acidic stains that devoured their hides. The beasts drove through without pause, to be met by the two mages—both wearing ankle-len
gth coats of black chain, both wielding hand-and-a-half swords that trailed streamers of smoke.
'Ware behind us!' Harllo suddenly screamed.
Gruntle spun.
To see a sixth hunter darting through screaming, bolting horses, charging directly for Keruli. Unlike the other K'Chain Che'Malle, this creature's hide was covered in intricate markings, and bore a dorsal ridge of steel spikes running down its spine.
Gruntle threw a shoulder against Keruli, sending the man sprawling. Ducking low, he threw up both cutlasses in time to catch a horizontal slash from one of the hunter's massive blades. The Gadrobi steel rang deafeningly, the impact bolting like shocks up the captain's arms. Gruntle heard more than felt his left wrist snap, the broken ends of the bones grinding and twisting impossibly before suddenly senseless hands released the cutlasses—wheeling, spinning away. The hunter's second blade should have cut him in half. Instead, it clashed against Harllo's two-handed sword. Both weapons shattered. Harllo lurched away, his chest and face spraying blood from a savage hail of iron shards.
A taloned, three-toed foot struck Gruntle on an upward track. Grunting, the captain was thrown into the air. Pain exploded in his skull as he collided with the hunter's jaw, snapping the creature's head up with a bone-breaking, crunching sound.
Stunned, the breath driven from his lungs, Gruntle fell to the ground in a heap. An enormous weight pinned him, talons puncturing armour to pierce flesh. The three toes clenched around his chest, snapping bones, and he felt himself dragged forward. The scales of his armour clicked and clattered, dropping away as he was pulled along through dust and gravel. Twisted buckles and clasps dug into the earth. Blind, limbs flopping, Gruntle felt the talons digging ever deeper. He coughed and his mouth filled with frothy blood. The world darkened.
He felt the talons shudder, as if resonating from some massive blow. Another followed, then another. The claws spasmed. Then he was lifted into the air again, sent flying. Striking the ground, rolling, crashing up against the shattered spokes of a carriage wheel.
He felt himself dying, knew himself dying. He forced his eyes open, desperate for one last look upon the world—something, anything to drive away this overwhelming sense of confused sadness. Could it not have been sudden? Instant? Why this lingering, bemused draining away? Gods, even the pain is gone—why not awareness itself? Why torture me with the knowing of what I am about to surrender?
Someone was shrieking, the sound one of dying, and Gruntle understood it at once. Oh yes, scream your defiance, your terror and your rage—scream at that web even as it closes about you. Waves of sound out into the mortal world, one last time—The shrieks fell away, and now there was silence, save for the stuttering heart in Gruntle's chest.
He knew his eyes were open, yet he could see nothing. Either Korbal Broach's spell of light had failed, or the captain had found his own darkness.
Stumbling, that heart. Slowing, fading like a pale horse riding away down a road. Farther, fainter, fainter…
Book Two
Hearthstone
Midnight comes often in the dusk of my life, when I look back upon all that I have survived. The deaths of so many for whom I cared and loved in my heart, have expunged all sense of glory from my thoughts. To have escaped those random fates has lost all triumph.
I know you have seen me, friend, my lined face and silent regard, the cold calcretions that slow my embittered pace, as I walk down the last years, clothed in darkness as are all old men, haunted by memories…
The Road Before You
Jhorum of Capustan
Chapter Seven
And all who would walk the fields when the Boar of Summer strides in drum-beat hooves, and the Iron Forest converges to its fated, inevitable clash—all, all are as children, as children once more.
Fener's Reve
Destriant Dellem (b?)
BORN ON A SEA DARK AS SPICED WINE, THE WIND MOANED ITS WAY across the seaside killing ground, over and around the East Watch on its low, brick-strewn hill, where faint torchlight glimmered from the fortress's battened shutters. The wind's voice rose in pitch as it rolled up against the city's mortarless walls, flinging salty spray against its rounded, weathered stone. Rising then, the night's breath reached the battlements and swept between the merlons and along the platforms, then down into Capustan's curving, undulating streets, where not a soul stirred.
From the corner tower parapet looming above the ancient barracks, Karnadas stood facing the storm, alone, his boar-maned cloak whipping in the savage gusts. Though the parapet's killing arc guarded the southeast approach, from his position he could just make out, five hundred paces to the north along the wall, the object of his fiercest attention.
The brooding, cliff-like palace of Prince Jelarkan was like no other building in Capustan. Windowless, the grey-stoned structure towered in a chaotic confusion of planes, angles, overhangs and seemingly pointless ledges. It rose well above the flanking coast-facing wall, and in his mind's eye the mercenary watched huge boulders arcing towards it from the killing field beyond, crashing into its sides, sending the whole edifice down into ruin.
Unworthy of you. Where resides the comforting knowledge of history's vast, cyclical sweep, the ebb and flow of wars and of peace? Peace is the time of waiting for war. A time of preparation, or a time of wilful ignorance, blind, blinkered and prattling behind secure walls.
Within the palace, the Mortal Sword Brukhalian was mired in yet another meeting with the prince and a half-dozen representatives of the Mask Council. The Grey Swords' commander forbore such tangled marathons with what seemed to Karnadas superhuman patience. I would never have suffered this spider-bitten dance, not this long, not night after night, weeks on end. Still, it's remarkable what can be achieved even as the debates rage on, and on. How many of the Mortal Sword's—and Prince Jelarkan's—proposals have already been implemented, whilst the wrangling continues unending and those masked bastards utter their lists of objections in all ignorance. It's too late, you fools—we've already done what we could… to save your damned city.
In his mind's eye rose the fur-painted, articulated mask of the one priest on the Council he and the company should have been able to count on as an ally. Rath'Fener spoke for the Boar of Summer—the Grey Swords' own patron god. But political ambition consumes you, as it does your rivals in the Council. You kneel before summer's bloody tusk, yet… is it naught but a lief
The wind howled, the only answer to Karnadas's silent question. Lightning lit the clouds churning over the distant bay. Rath'Fener was a priest of the Sceptred Rank, a veteran of temple politics and thus at the pinnacle of what a mortal could achieve within Fener's sanctified walls. But the Boar of Summer is not a civilized god. Ranks and orders and ivory-clasped gowns… secular pomp, petty plays of arrogance in the pursuit of mundane power. No, I must not impugn Rath'Fener with questions of his faith—he serves our god in his own way.
The Boar of Summer was the voice of war. Dark and grisly, as ancient as humanity itself. The song of battle—the screams of the dying and the vengeful, the discordant, hacking music of iron weapons, of shields resounding to blows, of hissing arrows and quarrels… And forgive us all, the voice grows to a roar. It is not the time to hide behind temple walls. Not the time for foolish politics. We serve Fener by striding the soaked, steaming earth, weapons bared in quicksilver promise. We are the clash and clangour, the bellows of rage, pain and terror…
Rath'Fener was not the only priest of the Boar in this city to have achieved a Sceptred Rank. The difference was this: while Rath'Fener possessed such an ambition—to kneel before the boar cloak and humbly assume the ancient title of Destriant, vacant for so long—Karnadas had already achieved it.
Karnadas could put Rath'Fener in his place with a simple unveiling of his own position in the mortal hierarchy. In his place? I could depose the bastard with a gesture. But Brukhalian had forbidden him that sweet revelation. Nor could the Mortal Sword be swayed. The time for such a move was not propitious, he'd sa
id, its yield as yet of too low a currency. Patience, Karnadas, that time will come…
Not an easy thing to accept…
'Is this a welcome night, Destriant?'
'Ah, Itkovian, I did not see you there in the gloom. 'Tis the Boar's storm, this night. So, how long have you stood there, Shield Anvil?' How long, in your cold, closed-in fashion, have you stared upon your High Priest? Black-mannered Itkovian, will you ever unsheathe your true self?
There was no way to read the man's expression in the darkness. 'Moments only, Destriant.'
'Does sleep elude you, sir?'
'Not when I seek it.'
Looking upon the Shield Anvil's blue chain surcoat beneath the grey rain-cape, the wrist-length cuffed gauntlets now slick and black with rain, Karnadas slowly nodded. 'I had not realized it was so close to dawn. Do you anticipate being gone for long?'
Itkovian shrugged. 'No, assuming they have indeed crossed in strength. I am restricted to leading but two wings in any case. Should we come upon little more than scouting parties, however, then the first blows against the Domin shall be made.'
'At last,' the Destriant said, grimacing as yet another gust of wind roiled over the battlement.
There was silence for a while.
Then Karnadas cleared his throat. 'What then, may I ask, has brought you up here, Shield Anvil?'
'The Mortal Sword has returned from the latest gathering. He wishes to speak with you.'
'And he has sat patiently waiting whilst we chatted?'
'I would imagine so, Destriant.'
The two Grey Swords turned to the tower's spiral stairs. They descended the slick, limned steps amidst streams trickling down the stone walls to either side. By the third tier down they could see their breaths. Until the arrival of the company, these barracks had been left virtually uninhabited for close to a century. The chill that had seeped into the thick-walled old fortress keep defied every effort to dispel it.
Among the major structures in Capustan, it predated the Daru Keep—now re-named the Thrall and home to the Mask Council—and every other building with the exception of Prince Jelarkan's Palace. And that palace was not raised by human hands, most certainly not. I'd swear that on Fener's bristly hump.