Even the highborn warriors of the Houseblades were made uneasy by the Hust Legion and their haunted weapons. Not all, of course, and something was about to come of that, and it was for this reason that Galar Baras found himself riding in the company of Kellaras, commander of the Houseblades of Purake.
There had been changes to that House. Upon the blessing of Nimander, for his service to Mother Dark, all land holdings had been relinquished to Mother Dark, and all those Tiste born to the bloodline, and their attendant staff, warriors, mendicants and scholars, now served her, taking the name of Andii, Children of Night.
The First Son of Darkness, Lord Anomander, whom Kellaras served, had shown no reluctance in his praise for the Hust Legion, and was open in his admiration for the House of Hustain. His forces had been the first to arrive in relief of the south Borderswords following the Stand at the Mines, and Galar remembered seeing Lord Anomander crossing the bloodied ground to speak with Toras Redone, the seniormost warrior who had assumed command of the Borderswords and in the days following would be officially granted the title of commander. That march itself was a measure of respect: the Lord could have as easily summoned Toras; instead, it was he who reached out to clasp her forearm, astonishing all the Borderswords present.
On that day, in the minds of the warriors who would soon become soldiers of the Hust Legion, they became Andiian; they too became Sons and Daughters of Night.
None of them could have imagined the political divisiveness that would result from that fateful moment: the schism that would rupture the relationship between Urusander’s Legion and that of the Hust. From months fighting side by side, suddenly Galar Baras and his fellow Hustain – with their dread weapons – were no longer welcome among Urusander’s ranks.
It was absurd and it was hurtful, and every effort to bridge that schism had failed; if anything, it was growing ever wider. Most of Urusander’s Legion had been disbanded, sent into the limbo of the reserve ranks, while the Hust Legion remained intact, standing continued vigilance over the precious mines. As Toras Redone had muttered, on a drunken night in her headquarters, when all the other staff had departed leaving only Galar and his commander, peace had become a disaster. Recalling that night, Galar allowed himself a private smile. He hadn’t been drunk – he couldn’t stomach alcohol – while she’d finished off most of a bottle of wine, but there’d been no recriminations afterwards. For both him and Toras, it had been their first lovemaking since the war. They’d needed each other, and though thereafter they rarely spoke of that night – the only one they had shared – she had once commented, in a private moment, that she’d drunk so much to find the courage to invite him to lie with her. When he’d laughed, she’d turned away, as if mortified. He’d hastened to explain that his laughter had been of disbelief, for in courage he too had failed until that instant.
They should have held to that moment of confession, he knew now. They should have found each other’s eyes and forged into a single blade their desires. Galar’s smile faded in the thinking of such thoughts, as they did every time he succumbed to reminiscence.
She had sent him away only a few months later, to serve in Kharkanas as the liaison officer of the Hust Legion. For a man and a woman who had fought a war, it seemed that their bravery ended at the edge of the battlefield. Still, it was no doubt all for the best. Toras Redone was married, after all, and her husband was none other than Calat Hustain, the son of Henarald – the man who had given him his Hust sword.
Now that Galar spent most of his time in the Citadel, he could at any time find comfort in the arms of a priestess, though he’d yet to do so. Instead, he seemed to be spending his days under siege, blind to half the weapons being thrust at him, and each night he slumped, exhausted, in his modest quarters. Wishing he could stomach alcohol.
He had since heard that Calat Hustain had accepted the commission of commander of the Wardens of the Outer Reach, far to the north on the Plain of Glimmer Fate. Was Toras now alone? Did she drink herself into other arms? He did not know and, perhaps, did not want to know.
Still, he was unable to fight off his anticipation, twisted as it was with anxiety, as they rode into the vastly thinned Old Forest. Once they emerged from its patchwork, silent stillness, they would come within sight of Hust Forge, the Great House itself. He told himself to expect nothing – it was likely she was not even in attendance, since the mines, where the Legion was stationed, were well to the south. Indeed, it would be better if she wasn’t. He had enough discord in his life these days.
Since settling into the city, Galar Baras had realized that the schism between Urusander’s Legion and the Hust Legion was but one of many; that even the beloved adoption of the title Andii had become a source of contention. To make matters worse, there was a growing power at the side of Mother Dark, and none could predict the fullest extent of Lord Draconus’s ambitions – though his most vociferous detractors never hesitated to imagine all manner of diabolical intent. For himself, Galar saw Draconus as a man in a precarious position, especially now that there was talk of a marriage – a union explicitly political, of course, seeking to mend old wounds; seeking, in fact, to head off civil war. If Draconus had ambitions, surely they did not extend further than solidifying whatever status he had attained, and even then the Consort must understand that he could fall from grace at any moment.
Unless, as his enemies boldly proclaimed, Draconus was forging secret alliances among all the noble families – the least absurd of the rumours to date – seeking to make the marriage impossible. The flaw in that possibility was, of course, the power possessed by Mother Dark herself. She might well love Draconus – and Galar suspected she did – but she was not a submissive creature. Her will was its own Heartline of the Blade. No lover could sway her, just as no argument could batter her down by sheer force of exhortation.
In many ways, she embodied the Forulkan ideal of justice and order – not that, in their myopic bigotry, they were even capable of recognizing that truth.
Her greatest gift to her children – to all of her children – was just that, Galar believed. So long as she remained, there would be no disorder, no chaos. And in that there was immeasurable comfort. Should the marriage occur, should Urusander of Neret Sorr find himself sharing Mother Dark’s rule as her husband, perhaps then the enmity would end, every schism healed, and no longer would the Hust Legion struggle in this seething atmosphere of malice and spite.
What would Draconus do then? He would have no place in the Citadel; indeed, no place in all of Kharkanas. Would he simply bow with grace and then retire to his north Hold on the banks of Young Dorssan Ryl? Galar believed Draconus was an honourable man. He believed that the Lord would yield to the will of the woman he loved.
No one could escape sadness in their lives. No one could evade the pain of loss. Draconus was wise enough to know this.
Peace could be forged. Only a fool would invite civil strife. Sons and daughters of the Tiste had given their lives defending the realm; the blood of every House and Hold, no matter how powerful or how minor, had been spilled. Who would dare turn their backs on that?
* * *
Commander Kellaras held to his silence as he rode alongside the Hust captain. He could hear muttering from the blackwood scabbard strapped to Galar’s side, and the sound chilled him like the touch of a corpse. He had heard many tales about this grim legion with its haunted weapons, but this was the first time he had been in extended company with a Hust soldier.
The journey out from Kharkanas, pacing the Dorssan Ryl with the plain called the Forging stretching out upon his left, and now this denatured scattering of trees, the old name of which could now not be spoken without the drip of irony, had been conducted with but the briefest exchanges; nothing approaching a conversation, and Kellaras had begun to believe the tales he’d heard from the Citadel Wardens, who were one and all veterans of Urusander’s Legion. The Hust swords were cursed, bleeding poison into their wielders. There was a darkness about such men and w
omen now, but not pure as among those who served Mother Dark; this was murky, shot through with something sickly, as if infected with the chaos of Vitr.
Kellaras’s hands were damp with sweat inside his riding gloves. He felt buffeted by the power beside him – this officer of the Hust Legion with his never-silent sword, who seemed the heart of some swirling malevolence. Outwardly, Captain Galar Baras had the look of a man too young to bear the weight of a past war; his features were boyish in the way that never seemed to surrender to age – he would, Kellaras suspected, look much as he did now in three hundred years, or even five hundred. Yet, that sort of face usually belonged to someone irrepressible in their humour, in their optimism. It was a face that should be quick to smile, and smile often, alight with laughter at every turn.
Instead, Galar looked like a man who had lost sight of joy, and now stumbled in shadows. Ill-chosen as liaison, as the Hust Legion’s representative and ranking officer in Kharkanas – he was unliked in the city, rarely invited to events. As far as Kellaras knew, Captain Galar Baras spent his unofficial time alone. What were his interests? No one could say. What brought him pleasure? As Gallan once wrote, Closed doors do not sweat. There was nothing garrulous here, and he could not imagine ever approaching the captain’s private quarters, seeking his company. As far as he knew, no one did.
There were as many stumps in this wood as living trees, and the ones still standing looked unwell, the leaves more dull grey than polished black. He had seen no small mammals flittering through the dried leaves of the forest floor, and the rare birdsong he caught sounded querulous and plaintive, as if ever unanswered. Despite the sunlight finding its way down through the gaping holes in the canopy overhead, Kellaras could feel his spirits struggling.
He carried in his messenger’s satchel, strapped to his mount’s saddle, a missive from his master, Lord Anomander. He had been instructed to deliver it into the hands of Hust Henarald himself, and to await a reply. None of this required an escort, and it seemed to Kellaras that Galar’s insistence on this matter marked a kind of mistrust, even suspicion. It was, in fact, offensive.
Yet the First Son of Darkness was not ill-disposed towards the Hust Legion; in fact, the very opposite, and so Kellaras was not prepared to challenge his companion on this or any other matter. They could ride in silence then – it was not much farther, as he could now see the way open ahead – and pretend to amity.
Galar Baras startled him with a question. ‘Sir, have you any notion of your lord’s message to Lord Henarald?’
Kellaras stared across at the man as they cantered into the light. ‘Even if I knew the details, captain, it is not for us to discuss them, is it?’
‘Forgive me, sir. I did not mean to ask for details. But Lord Hust Henarald is well known for his personal involvement in the workings among his forges, and I fear he will not be in residence at his house. Therefore, I sought to ascertain if there was some urgency to the missive.’
‘I see.’ Kellaras thought for a moment, and then said, ‘I am to wait for the Lord’s response.’
‘Then it may well be sensitive to any delay.’
‘What do you propose, captain?’
‘The Great House to begin with, of course. If, however, Lord Henarald has travelled south to the mines, then I am afraid I must pass you on to a household escort, as I cannot be away from the Citadel for that length of time.’
Ahead of them waited the massive stone walls surrounding the Hust Forge. Kellaras said nothing, forcing himself to admit to having been knocked askew by the captain’s words. He cleared his throat and said, ‘You lead me to wonder, captain, why you insisted on escorting me in the first place. Do you doubt the reception I might receive at the house?’
Brows lifted. ‘Sir? Of course not.’ He then hesitated for a moment, before adding, ‘Very well, sir. I elected to ride with you in order to stretch my legs. I was a Bordersword since I first came of age, yet now I find myself trapped inside stone walls, in a palace where darkness bleeds so thick one cannot stand on a balcony and see a single star in the night sky. I thought, sir, that I might go mad if so confined for much longer.’ He was slowly reining in, eyes suddenly averted. ‘I apologize, sir. Hear the chimes? They have identified you and now prepare your welcome. I need go no further—’
‘But you shall, captain,’ Kellaras said, only now realizing that the young face belonged to a young man. ‘Your horse needs the rest and watering – if indeed I must ride onward, then I expect you to accompany me, for I shall be riding into holdings under the command of the Hust Legion. You will accord me the proper honour of an officer’s escort.’
It was a gamble. Strictly speaking, Kellaras’s rank could not be imposed upon an officer of the Hust Legion. But if this man was wilting inside what he viewed as a prison, chained there by duty, then only a countermand could keep him from returning to his office of misery.
He caught a moment of bright relief on the captain’s flushed visage, only to see it overwhelmed with sudden dread.
What now?
But Galar Baras kicked his horse forward again, resuming the pace alongside Kellaras. ‘As you command, sir, I am at your disposal.’
The enormous bronze gates were swinging open ahead, in a slithering rattle of heavy chains. Kellaras cleared his throat a second time, and said, ‘Besides, captain, have you no interest in seeing Lord Henarald’s expression when he learns that my master seeks to commission a sword?’
Galar Baras’s head snapped round in shock.
And then they were through the gates.
FOUR
THE PLAIN OF glimmer fate had not seen rain in decades, yet the black grasses were thick as fur on the gently rolling land, rising as high as a horse’s shoulder on the level flats. The thin, spiky blades gathered close the heat of the sun, and to pass through them was akin to plunging into the cauldron of a furnace. Iron accoutrements – buckles, clasps, weapons and armour – burned to the touch. Leather slowly shrivelled and cracked in the course of a day’s travel. Cloth suffocated skin, making it red, hot and irritated.
The Wardens of the Outer Reach, that northernmost region of the plain verging on the silver, mercurial sea of Vitr, wore silks and little else, and even then more than a few days out from their outlier posts they suffered terribly, as did their horses, which were burdened with thick wooden leaves of armour protecting their legs and lower quarters from both the heat and the sharp, serrated blades of the grass. Patrols out to the Vitr Sea were an ordeal, and there were few among the Tiste willing to serve as Wardens.
Which was just as well, Faror Hend reflected: if there were yet more people as mad as they were, then the Tiste would be in trouble. Close to the edge of the Vitr the grasses died away, leaving bare ground studded with rotting stones and brittle boulders. The air sliding in from the tranquil silver sea stung in the lungs, burned raw the inside of the nose, made bitter every tear.
She sat astride her horse, watching her younger cousin draw out his sword and set one edge into a groove in a boulder near the Vitr’s edge. Some poison from the strange liquid dissolved even the hardest rock, and Wardens had taken to fashioning whetstones from select boulders. Her companion’s sword had been forged by the Hust, but long ago and thus mercifully silent. Still, it was new to Spinnock Durav’s hand, a blade the length of which crossed generations in the family. She could see his pride and was pleased.
The third and last rider in this patrol, Finarra Stone, had ridden along the shoreline, westward, and Faror had lost sight of her some time back. It was not unusual to set off unaccompanied when so near to the Vitr – the naked wolves of the plain never ventured this close, and of other beasts only bones remained. Finarra had nothing to fear and would eventually return. They would camp for the night in the shelter of the high crags where past storms had gnawed deep into the shoreline, far enough from the Vitr to escape its more toxic effects, yet still some distance from the verge of the grasses.
With the reassuring sound of Spinnock’s blade rasp
ing as he honed it, Faror twisted in her saddle and stared out over the silver expanse of the sea. Its promise was dissolution, devouring flesh and bone upon contact. But for the moment the surface was calm, yet mottled, as if reflecting an overcast sky. The terrible forces that dwelt in its depths, or somewhere in its distant heart, remained quiescent. Of late, this was unusual. The last three times a patrol had arrived here, they had been driven back by the ferocity of storms, and in the aftermath of each one, more land was lost.
If the mystery of the Vitr could not be solved; if its power could not be blunted, forced back, or destroyed, then there would come a time, perhaps less than a dozen centuries away, when the poison sea devoured all of the Glimmer Fate, and so reached the very borders of Kurald Galain.
None knew with any certainty the source of the Vitr – at least, none among the Tiste. Faror believed that answers might be found among the Azathanai, but then, she had no proof of that and she was but a Warden of middling rank. And the scholars and philosophers of Kharkanas were an inward-looking, xenophobic lot, dismissive of foreigners and their foreign ways. It seemed that they valued ignorance, finding it a virtue when it was their own.
Perhaps among the war-spoils of the Forulkan, now in the possession of Lord Urusander, some revelations might be found; although it seemed that Urusander’s particular obsession, upon laws and justice, made the discovery of such revelations unlikely. Still, in his manic studies he might well stumble upon some ancient musings on the Vitr … but would he even notice?
The threat posed by the Vitr was acknowledged. Its imminence was well recognized. A few millennia were a short span indeed, and there were truths in the world that took centuries to truly understand. This led to a simple fact: they were running out of time.
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