'Oh, that was smart,' Paran snapped.
The mage ducked. 'Aye, well, it wasn't the first one we crossed and all the others were sleepy enough. Anyway, the spirits reached up and snatched Quick, dragged him outa sight. We waited a while. Then they spat him back out, like this. Captain, the warrens have gone sour. Nasty sour. Quick said it was the Pannion, only not really the Pannion, but the hidden power behind it. Said we was all in trouble.'
Footsteps approached and Paran turned to see Mallet and Blend approach. Behind them walked Trotts. A few ragged, sardonic cheers rose to greet him from the other squads, followed by a loud raspberry. Trotts bared his teeth and changed direction. A figure bolted like a rabbit. The Barghast's grin broadened.
'Get back here, Trotts,' Paran ordered. 'We need to talk.'
Shrugging, the huge warrior swung round and resumed his approach.
Mallet leaned heavily on Paran's shoulder as he knelt down. 'Sorry, Captain,' he gasped. 'I ain't feeling right.'
'I won't ask you to use your warren again, Healer,' Paran said. 'But I need Quick Ben awake. Any suggestions?'
Mallet squinted down at the wizard. 'I didn't say I was weakened, sir, only that I ain't feeling right—I got help healing Trotts. Spirits, I think now. Maybe Barghast. They put me back together, somehow, someway, and Hood knows I needed putting back together. Anyway, it's like I got someone else's legs, someone else's arms…' He reached out and laid a hand against Quick Ben's brow, then grunted. 'He's on his way back. It's protective sorcery that's keeping him asleep.'
'Can you speed things up?'
'Sure.' The healer slapped the wizard.
Quick Ben's eyes snapped open. 'Ow. You bastard, Mallet.'
'Stop complaining, Quick. Captain wants to talk to you.'
The wizard's dark eyes swivelled to take in Paran, then, looming over the captain's shoulder, Trotts. Quick Ben grinned. 'You all owe me.'
'Ignore that,' Mallet said to Paran. 'The man's always saying that. Gods, what an ego. If Whiskeyjack was here he'd clout you on the head, Wizard, and I'm tempted to stand in for him on that.'
'Don't even think it.' Quick Ben slowly sat up. 'What's the situation here?'
'Our heads are still on the chopping block,' Paran said in a low voice. 'We haven't many friends here, and our enemies are getting bolder. Humbrall Taur's command is shaky and he knows it. Trotts killing his favoured son hasn't helped. Even so, the warchief's on our side. More or less. He may not care one whit for Capustan, but he knows the threat the Pannion Domin represents.'
'He doesn't care about Capustan, huh?' Quick Ben smiled. 'I can change that attitude. Mallet, you got company in that body of yours?'
The healer blinked. 'What?'
'Feeling strange, are you?'
'Well—'
'So he says,' Paran cut in. 'What do you know about it?'
'Only everything. Captain, we've got to go to Humbrall Taur. The three—no, the four of us—you too, Trotts. Hood, let's bring Twist, too—he knows a lot more than he's let on, and maybe I can't see that grin, Moranth, but I know it's there. Spindle, that hairshirt reeks. Go away before I throw up.'
'Some gratitude for protecting your hide,' Spindle muttered, edging back.
Paran straightened and swung his gaze back to Humbrall Taur's tent. 'Fine, here we go again.'
Sunset approached, spreading a gloom across the valley. The Barghast had resumed their wild dancing and vicious duels with an almost febrile intensity. Thirty paces away from Humbrall Taur's tent, sitting amidst discarded armour, Picker scowled. 'They're still in there, the bastards. Leaving us to do a whole lot of nothing, except watch these savages mutilate each other. I don't think we should be thinking it's all over, Blend.'
The dark-eyed woman at her side frowned. 'Want me to hunt Antsy down?'
'Why bother? Hear those grunts? That's our sergeant taking that Barahn maiden for a ride. He'll be back in a moment or two, looking pleased—'
'And the lass trailing a step behind—'
'With a confused look on her face—'
'"That's it?"'
'She blinked and missed it.'
They shared a short, nasty laugh. Then Picker sobered again. 'We could be dead tomorrow no matter what Quick Ben says to Taur. That's still the captain's thinking, so he leaves us to our fun this night…'
'"Hooded comes the dawn…"'
'Aye.'
'Trotts did what he had to do in that scrap,' Blend observed. 'It should have been as simple as that.'
'Well, I'd have been happier if it'd been Detoran from the start. There wouldn't have been no near draw or whatever. She would have done that brat good. From what I've heard, our tattooed Barghast just stood back and let the weasel come to him. Detoran would've just stepped forward and brained the lad at the feather's drop—'
'Wasn't no feather drop, just a mace.'
'Whatever. Anyway, Trotts ain't got her meanness.'
'No-one has, and I've just noticed, she hasn't come back from dragging that Gilk warrior off into the bushes.'
'Compensation for Hedge running and hiding. Poor lad—the Gilk, that is. He's probably dead by now.'
'Let's hope she notices.'
The two women fell silent. The duels down by the fire were coming fast and with a ferocity that had begun drawing more and more Barghast onlookers. Picker grunted, watching another warrior go down with a rival's knife in his throat. If this keeps up, they'll have to start building a new barrow tomorrow. Then again, they might do that anyway—a barrow for the Bridgeburners. She looked around, picking out solitary Bridgeburners among the crowds of natives. Discipline had crumbled. That fast surge of hope at the news that Trotts would live had sunk just as fast with the rumour that the Barghast might kill them all anyway—out of spite.
'The air feels… strange,' Blend said.
Aye… as if the night itself was aflame… as if we're in the heart of an unseen firestorm. The tores on Picker's arms were hot and slowly getting hotter. I'm about due for another dousing in that water barrel—shortlived relief, but at least it's something.
'Remember that night in Blackdog?' Blend continued in a low voice. 'That retreat…'
Stumbling onto a Rhivi Burn Ground… malign spirits rising up out of the ashes… 'Aye, Blend, I remember well enough.' And if that wing of Black Moranth hadn't spied us and come down to pull us up…
'Feels the same, Picker. We've got spirits loosed.'
'Not the big ones—these are ancestors we've got gathering. If it was the big ones our hair'd be standing on end.'
'True. So where are they? Where are the nastiest of the Barghast spirits?'
'Somewhere else, obviously. With Oponn's luck, they won't show up tomorrow.'
'You'd think they would. You'd think they'd not want to miss something like this.'
'Try thinking pleasant thoughts for a change, Blend. Hood's breath!'
'I was just wondering,' the woman shrugged. 'Anyway,' she continued, rising, 'I think I'm going to wander for a while. See what I can pick up.'
'You understand Barghast?'
'No, but sometimes the most telling communication doesn't use words.'
'You're as bad as the rest, Blend. Likely our last night among the living, and off you go.'
'But that's the whole point, isn't it?'
Picker watched her friend slip away into the shadows. Damned woman… got me sitting here more miserable than before. How do I know where the serious Barghast spirits are? Maybe they're just waiting behind some hill. Ready to jump out tomorrow morning and scare us all shitless. And how do I know what that Barghast war chief's going to decide tomorrow? A pat on the head or a knife across the throat?
Spindle pushed through the crowd and approached. The stench of burned hair hung around him like a second cloak and his expression was grim. He crouched down before her. 'It's going bad, Corporal.'
'That's a change,' she snapped. 'What is?'
'Half our soldiers are drunk and the rest are well on their way. Paran and his cronies di
sappearing into that tent and not coming out ain't been taken as a good sign. We won't be in any shape to do a damned thing come the dawn.'
Picker glanced over to Humbrall Taur's tent. The silhouetted figures within had not moved in some time. After a moment she nodded to herself. 'All right, Spin. Stop worrying about it. Go have some fun.'
The man gaped. 'Fun?'
'Yeah, remember? Relaxation, pleasure, a sense of well-being. Go on, she's out there somewhere and you won't be around nine months from now either. Of course, you might have a better chance if you took off that hairshirt—for this night at least—'
'I can't do that! What will Mother think?'
Picker studied the mage's fraught, horrified expression. 'Spindle,' she said slowly, 'your mother's dead. She ain't here, she ain't watching over you. You can misbehave, Spindle. Honest.'
The mage ducked down as if an invisible hand had just clouted him and for a moment Picker thought she saw an impression of knuckles bloom on the man's pate, then he scampered away, muttering and shaking his head.
Gods… maybe all our ancestors are here! Picker glared about. Come near me, Da, and I'll slit your Hood-damned throat, just like I did the first time…
Grainy-eyed with exhaustion, Paran stepped clear of the tent entrance. The sky was grey, faintly luminescent. Mist and woodsmoke hung motionless in the valley. A pack of dogs loping along one ridge was the only movement he could see.
And yet they're awake. All here. The real battle is done, and now, here before me—I can almost see them—stand the dark godlings of the Barghast, facing the dawn… for the first time in thousands of years, facing the mortal dawn…
A figure joined him. Paran glanced over. 'Well?'
'The Barghast Elder Spirits have left Mallet,' Quick Ben said. 'The healer sleeps. Can you feel them, Captain? The spirits? All the barriers have been shattered, the Old Ones have joined with their younger spirit kin. The forgotten warren is forgotten no more.'
'All very well,' Paran muttered, 'but we've still a city to liberate. What happens if Taur raises the standard of war and his rivals deny him?'
'They won't. They can't. Every shoulderrnan among the White Faces will awaken to the change, to the burgeoning. They'll feel that power, and know it for what it is. More, the spirits will make it known that their masters—the true gods of the Barghast—are trapped in Capustan. The Founding Spirits are awake. The time has come to free them.'
The captain studied the wizard at his side for a moment, then asked, 'Did you know the Moranth were kin to the Barghast?'
'More or less. Taur may not like it—and the tribes will howl—but if the spirits themselves have embraced Twist and his people…'
Paran sighed. I need to sleep. But I can't. 'I'd better gather the Bridgeburners.'
'Trotts's new tribe,' Quick Ben said, grinning.
'Then why can I hear his snores?'
'He's new to responsibility, Captain. You'll have to teach him.'
Teach him what? How to live beneath the burden of command? That's something I can't manage myself. I need only look into Whiskeyjack's face to understand that no-one can—no-one who has a heart, anyway. We learn to achieve but one thing: the ability to hide our thoughts, to mask our feelings, to bury our humanity deep in our souls. And that can't be taught, only shown.
'Go rouse the bastard,' Paran growled.
'Yes, sir.'
Chapter Twelve
In the Mountain's Heart she waited, dreaming of peace, so deeply curled around her grief, when he found her, the man's search was done, and he took upon himself her every scar for power's embrace is a love that wounds.
Rise of the Domin
Scintalla of Bastion
(1129-1164)
THE MOUNTAIN FASTNESS OF OUTLOOK, ITS BACK TO THE LAKE, WAS the colour of water-thinned blood in the sunset. Condors wheeled around it, twice the mass of Great Ravens, their collared necks crooked as they studied the humans seething around the base of the fortress amidst a grounded starscape of campfires.
The one-eyed Tenescowri who had once been a scout in Onearm's Host followed their curving flight with deep concentration, as if godly messages could be read in the condors' sweeping patterns against the deepening sky. He had been truly embraced, agreed those who knew him by sight. Felled mute by the Domin's vastness since that day in Bastion, three weeks past. There had been a savage hunger in his lone eye from the very beginning, an ancient fire that whispered ever louder of wolves padding the darkness. It was said that Anaster himself, First among the Children of the Dead Seed, had noted the man, had indeed drawn him closer during the long march, until the one-eyed Tenescowri had been given a horse, and rode with Anaster's lieutenants at the vanguard of the human tide.
Of course, Anaster's company of lieutenants changed faces with brutal regularity.
The shapeless, starving army now waited at the feet of the Pannion Seer. At dawn he would appear upon a balcony of Outlook's central tower, and raise his hands in holy benediction. The bestial howl that would rise to greet his blessing would shatter a lesser man, but the Seer, ancient as he was, was no ordinary man. He was the embodiment of Pannion, the god, the only god.
When Anaster led the Tenescowri army north, to the river, then beyond, to Capustan, he would carry within him the power that was the Seer. And the enemy that had gathered to oppose them would be raped, devoured, obliterated from the earth. There was no doubt in the minds of the hundred thousand. Only certainty, a razor-sharp sword of iron held in the grip of ceaseless, desperate hunger.
The one-eyed man continued staring at the condors as the light faded. Perhaps, some whispered, he was in communion with the Seer himself, and his gaze was not on the wheeling birds, but on the fortress of Outlook itself.
This was as close to the truth as the peasants would come. Indeed, Toc the Younger was studying that towering fastness, an antiquated monastery warped misshapen by military accretions: battlements and enfilading walls, vast gatehouses and sheer-walled trenches. The efforts continued, the masons and engineers clearly intent on working through the night beneath towering braziers of dancing flames.
Oh, hurry with this latest frenzy of improvements. Feel what you feel, old man. It's a new emotion to you, but one the rest of us know very well. It's called fear. The seven K'ell Hunters you sent south yesterday, the ones that passed us on the road… they won't be coming back. And that magefire you see lighting the southern sky at night… it's coming closer. Inexorable. The reason's simple enough—you've angered dear Lady Envy. She's not nice when she's angry. Did you visit the carnage in Bastion? Did you send your favourite Urdomen there to return with a detailed report? Did the news turn your legs to water? It should have. The wolf and the dog, huge and silent, ripping through the press of humanity. The T'lan Imass, his sword a rust-hued blur as it sliced through your vaunted elites. And the Seguleh, oh, the Seguleh. The punitive army of three, come to answer your arrogance…
The pain in Toc's stomach had dulled; the knot of hunger had tightened, shrunk, become an almost senseless core of need, a need that had itself starved. His ribs were sharp and distinct beneath stretched skin. Fluids were swelling his belly. His joints ached interminably, and he'd felt his teeth loosening in their sockets. The only taste he knew these days was the occasional scrap, and the malty bitterness of his own saliva, washed away every now and then by stale, wine-tinted water from the casks on the wagons or a rare flagon of ale reserved for the First Child's favoured few.
Toc's fellow lieutenants—and indeed Anaster himself—were well enough fed. They welcomed the endless corpses the march had claimed and continued to claim. Their boiling cauldrons were ever full. The rewards of power.
The metaphor made real—I can see my old cynical teachers nodding at that. Here, among the Tenescowri, there is no obfuscating the brutal truth. Our rulers devour us. They always have. How could I ever have believed otherwise? I was a soldier, once. I was the violent assertion of someone else's will.
He had changed, not
a difficult truth to recognize in himself. His soul torn by the horrors he saw all around him, the sheer amorality born of hunger and fanaticism, he had been reshaped, twisted almost beyond recognition into something new. The eradication of faith—faith in anything, especially the essential goodness of his kind—had left him cold, hardened and feral.
Yet he would not eat human flesh. Better to devour myself from within, to take my own muscles away, layer by layer, and digest all that I was. This is the last remaining task before me, and it has begun. None the less, he was coming to realize a deeper truth: his resolve was crumbling. No, stay away from that thought.
He had no idea what Anaster had seen in him. Toc played the mute, he was the defier of gifted flesh, he offered to the world nothing but his presence, the sharpness of his lone eye—seeing all that could be seen—and yet the First had descried him, somehow, from the multitudes, had dragged him forth and granted him a lieutenancy.
But I command no-one. Tactics, strategies, the endless difficulties of managing an army even as anarchistic as this one—I attend Anaster's meetings in silence. I am asked for no opinions. I make no reports. What is it he wants of me?
Suspicions still swirled dark and deep beneath the numbed surface. He wondered if Anaster somehow knew who he was. Was he about to be delivered into the hands of the Seer? It was possible—in what the world had become, anything was possible. Anything and everything. Reality itself had surrendered its rules—the living conceived by the dead, the savage love in the eyes of the women as they mounted a dying prisoner, the flaring hope that they would take within them the corpse's last seed as it fled—as if the dying body itself sought one last chance to escape the finality of oblivion—even as the soul drowned in darkness. Love, not lust. These women have given their hearts to the moment of death. Should the seed take root…
Anaster was the eldest of the first generation. A pale, gangly youth with yellow-stained eyes and lank, black hair, leading the vast army from atop his draught horse. His face was a thing of inhuman beauty, as if no soul resided behind the perfect mask. Women and men of all ages came to him, begging his gentle touch, but he denied them all. Only his mother would he let come close; to stroke his hair, rest a sun-darkened, wrinkled hand on his shoulder.