‘Would that I had seen you then.’
But she shook her head. ‘Imagine the pain now, had you done so.’
‘Ah, there is that. I am sorry.’
‘As am I, Bonecaster.’
‘Are we there yet? My feet hurt.’
Draconus halted, turned to observe the half-blood Toblakai. ‘Yes, perhaps we can rest for a time. Are you hungry?’
Ublala nodded. ‘And sleepy. And this armour chafes my shoulders. And the axe is heavy. And I miss my friends.’
‘There is a harness ring for your axe,’ Draconus said. ‘You don’t have to carry it at the ready. As you can see, no one can come upon us without our seeing them from some distance away.’
‘But if I see a rabbit or a chicken, I can run it down and then we can eat.’
‘That won’t be necessary—you have already seen that I am able to conjure food, and water.’
Ublala scowled. ‘I want to do my part.’
‘I see. I am sure you will, before too long.’
‘You see something?’ Ublala straightened, looked round. ‘Rabbit? Cow? Those two women over there?’
Draconus started, and then searched until he found the two figures, walking now towards them but still three hundred or so paces away. Coming up from the south, both on foot. ‘We shall await them,’ he said after a moment. ‘But, Ublala, there is no need to fight.’
‘No, sex is better. When it comes to women, I mean. I never touched that mule. That’s sick and I don’t care what they said. Can we eat now?’
‘Build us a fire,’ Draconus said. ‘Use the wood we gathered yesterday.’
‘All right. Where is it?’
Draconus gestured and a modest stack of broken branches appeared almost at Ublala’s feet.
‘Oh, there it is! Never mind, Draconus, I found the wood.’
The woman in the lead was young, her garb distinctly barbaric. Her eyes shone from a band of black paint that possibly denoted grief, while the rest of her face was painted white in the pattern of a skull. She was well-muscled, her long braided hair the colour of rust. Three steps behind her staggered an old woman, barefoot, her hide tunic smeared with filth. Rings glittered on blackened fingers, a jarring detail in the midst of her dishevelled state.
The two stopped ten paces from Draconus and Ublala. The younger one spoke.
Ublala looked up from the fire he’d just sparked to life. ‘Trader tongue—I understand you. Draconus, they’re hungry and thirsty.’
‘I know, Ublala. You will find food in that satchel. And a jug of ale.’
‘Really? What satchel—oh, never mind. Tell the pretty one I want to have sex with her, but say it more nicely—’
‘Ublala, you and I speak the same trader tongue, more often than not. As we are doing now.’ He stepped forward. ‘Welcome, then, we will share with you.’
The younger woman, whose right hand had closed on a dagger at her belt as soon as Ublala made his desire plain, now shifted her attention back to Draconus. ‘I am Ralata, a Skincut of the Ahkrata White Face Barghast.’
‘You are a long way from home, Ralata.’
‘Yes.’
Draconus looked past her to the old woman. ‘And your companion?’
‘I found her, wandering alone. She is Sekara, a highborn among the White Faces. Her mind is mostly gone.’
‘She has gangrenous fingers,’ Draconus observed. ‘They must be removed, lest the infection spread.’
‘I know,’ said Ralata, ‘but she refuses my attentions. It’s the rings, I think. Her last claim to wealth.’ The Skincut hesitated, and then said, ‘My people are gone. Dead. The White Face Barghast are no more. My clan. Sekara’s. Everyone. I do not know what happened—’
‘Dead!’ shrieked Sekara, holding up her rotted hands. ‘Frozen! Frozen dead!’
Ublala, who’d jumped at the old woman’s cries, now edged closer to Draconus. ‘That one smells bad,’ he said. ‘And those fingers don’t work—someone’s going to have to feed her. Not me. She says awful things.’
Ralata resumed: ‘She tells me this a hundred times a day. I do not doubt her—I cannot—I see slaughter in her eyes. And in my heart, I know that we are alone.’
‘The infection has found her brain,’ said Draconus. ‘Best if you killed her, Ralata.’
‘Leaving me the last of the White Faces? I do not have the courage to do that.’
‘You give me leave to do so?’ Draconus asked.
Ralata flinched.
‘Ralata,’ said Draconus, ‘you two are not the last of your people. Others still live.’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘How do you know that?’
‘I saw them. At a distance, dressed little different from you. The same weapons. They numbered some five or six thousand, perhaps more.’
‘Where, when?’
Draconus glanced over at Ublala. ‘Before I found my Toblakai friend here. Six, seven days ago, I believe—my sense of time is not what it used to be. The very change of light still startles me. Day, night, there is so much that I had forgotten.’ He passed a hand over his face and then sighed. ‘Ralata, do you give me leave? It will be an act of mercy, and I will be quick. She will not suffer.’
The old woman was still staring at her blackened hands, as if willing them to move, but the swollen digits were curled into lifeless hooks. Her face twisted in frustration.
‘Will you help me raise her cairn?’
‘Of course.’
Ralata finally nodded.
Draconus walked up to Sekara. He gently lowered the woman’s hands, and then set his own to either side of her face. Her manic eyes darted and then suddenly fixed on his. At the last instant, he saw in them something like recognition. Terror, her mouth opening—
A swift snap to one side broke the neck. The woman slumped, still gaping, eyes holding on his even as he slowly lowered her to the ground. A few breaths later and the life left that accusing, horror-filled stare. Straightening, he stepped back, faced the others. ‘It is done.’
‘I’ll go find some stones,’ said Ublala. ‘I’m good at graves and stuff. And then, Ralata, I will show you the horse and you’ll be so happy.’
The woman frowned. ‘Horse? What horse?’
‘What Stooply the Whore calls it, the thing between my legs. My bucking horse. The one-eyed river eel. The Smart Woman’s Dream, what Shurq Elalle calls it. Women give it all sorts of names, but they all smile when they say them. You can give it any name you want and you’ll be smiling, too. You’ll see.’
Ralata stared after the Toblakai as he set off in search of stones, and then she turned to Draconus. ‘He’s but a child—’
‘Only in his thoughts,’ Draconus said. ‘I have seen him stripped down.’
‘If he tries—if either of you tries to rape me, I’ll kill you.’
‘He won’t. Nor will I. You are welcome to journey with us—we are travelling east—the same direction as the Barghast I saw. Perhaps indeed we will catch up to them, or at least cross their trail once more.’
‘What is that meat on the fire?’ she asked, drawing closer.
‘Bhederin.’
‘There are none in the Wastelands.’
Draconus shrugged.
Still she hesitated, and then she said, ‘I am hunting a demon. Winged. It murdered my friends.’
‘How are you able to track this winged demon, Ralata?’
‘It kills everything in its path. That’s a trail I can follow.’
‘I have seen no such signs.’
‘Nor I of late,’ she admitted. ‘Not for the past two days, since I found Sekara, in fact. But the path seems to be eastward, so I will go in that direction. If I find these other Barghast, all the better. If not, my hunt continues.’
‘Understood,’ he replied. ‘Now, will you join me in some ale?’
She spoke behind him as he crouched to pour the amber liquid into two pewter tankards. ‘I mean to bury her with those rings, Draconus.’
‘We are no
t thieves,’ he replied.
‘Good.’
She accepted the tankard he lifted to her.
Ublala returned with an armload of boulders.
‘Ublala,’ said Draconus, ‘save showing your horse for later.’
The huge man’s face fell, and then he brightened again. ‘All right. It’s more exciting in the dark anyway.’
Strahl had never desired to be Warleader of the Senan. It had been easier feeding himself ambitions he had believed for ever beyond reach, a simple and mostly harmless bolstering of his own ego, giving him a place alongside the other warriors opposed to Onos T’oolan, just one among a powerful, influential cadre of ranking Barghast. He had enjoyed that power and all the privileges it delivered. He had especially revelled in his hoard of hatred, a currency of endless value, and to spend it cost him nothing, no matter how profligate he was. Such a warrior was swollen, well protected behind a shield of contempt. And when shields locked, the wall was impregnable.
But now he was alone. His hoard had vanished—he’d not even seen the scores of hands reaching in behind his back. A warleader’s only wealth was the value of his or her word. Lies sucked the colour from gold. Truth was the hardest and purest and rarest metal of all.
There had been an instant, a single, blinding instant, when he’d stood before his tribe, raising high that truth, forged by hands grown cold. He had claimed it for his own, and in turn his kin had met his eyes, and they had answered in kind. But even then, in his mouth there had been the taste of ashes. Was he nothing more than the voice of the dead? Of fallen warriors who each in turn had been greater than Strahl could ever hope to be? He could voice their desire—and he had done precisely that—but he could not think their thoughts, and so they could not help him, not here, not now. He was left with the paltry confusions of his own mind, and it was not enough.
It had not taken long for his warriors to discover that. After all, where could he lead them? The people of the settled lands behind them sought their blood. The way ahead was ravaged, lifeless. And, as bold as the gesture had been, the Senan had fled a battle, leaving their allies to die. No one wanted the guilt of that. They gave it all to Strahl. Had he not commanded them? Had he not ordered their withdrawal?
He could not argue the point. He could not defend himself against the truths they spoke. This belongs to me. This is my crime. The others died to give it to me, because they stood where I now stand. Their courage was purer. They led. I can only follow. If it had been any other way, I could have been their match.
He squatted, facing away from the few remaining fires of the camp stretched out in a disorganized sprawl behind him. Stars spread a remote vista across the jade-soaked sky. The Talons themselves seemed much closer, as if moments from cleaving the heavens and slashing down to the earth itself. No clearer omen could be imagined. Death comes. An age ends, and with it so end the White Face Barghast, and then their gods, who were freed only to be abandoned, given life only to die. Well, you bastards, now you know how it feels.
They were almost out of food. The shouldermen and witches had exhausted themselves drawing water from this parched land. Soon the effort would begin killing them, one by one. The retreat had already claimed the eldest and weakest among the Senan. We march east. Why? No enemy awaits us out there. The war we sought is not the one we found, and now glory has eluded us.
Wherever that one true battle is, the White Faces should be there. Cutting destiny off at the knees. So sought Humbrall Taur. So sought Onos Toolan. But the great alliance is no more. Only the Senan remain. And we falter and soon will fade. Flesh to wood, wood to dust. Bone to stone, stone to dust. The Barghast shall become a desert—only then will we finally find a land on which to settle. These Wastelands, perhaps. When the wind stirs us awake with each dawn.
Before long, he knew, he would be cut down. Sometimes, after all, guilt must be excised with a knife. He would not resist. Of course, as the last surviving Senan staggered and fell, the final curse on their lips would be his name. Strahl, who stole from us our glory. Not much of a glory, to be sure. Maral Eb had been a fool and Strahl could shrug off most of the venom when it came to that fiasco. Still, we could have died with weapons in our hands. That would have been something. Like spitting to clear the taste. Maybe the next watery mouthful of misery won’t be as bad. Like that. Just that one gesture.
Eastward then. Each step slowing.
Suicide was such an ugly word. But one could choose it for oneself. When it came to an entire people … well, that was different. Or was it? I will lead us, until someone else does. I will ask for nothing. We march to our deaths. But then, it is all we ever do. This last thought pleased him. In the ghoulish darkness, he smiled. Against futility, guilt did not stand a chance.
Life is a desert, but, dear friends, between my legs you will find the sweetest oasis. Being dead, I can say this with not a hint of irony. If you were me, you’d understand.
‘You have a curious expression on that painted face, Captain. What are you thinking?’
Shurq Elalle pulled her gaze from the desolate sweep of sullen grey waves and glanced over at Felash, fourteenth daughter of King Tarkulf and Queen Abrastal of Bolkando. ‘My First Mate was complaining, Princess, a short time ago.’
‘This has been a pleasant enough journey thus far, if somewhat tedious. What cause has he to complain?’
‘He is a noseless, one-eyed, one-handed, one-legged half-deaf man with terrible breath, but I agree with you, Princess. No matter how bad things can appear to be, they can always get worse. Such is life.’
‘You speak with something like longing, Captain.’
Shurq Elalle shrugged. ‘You may be young, but you are not easily deceived, Princess. I trust you comprehend my unique circumstances.’
Felash pursed her plump lips, fluttering her fingers dismissively. ‘It took some time, to be honest. Indeed, it was my handmaiden who first broached the possibility. You do well in disguising your situation, Captain, a most admirable achievement.’
‘Thank you, Highness.’
‘Still, I wonder what so consumed your thoughts. Skorgen Kaban, I have learned, has no end of gripes, not least the plague of superstitions ever haunting him.’
‘He has not been at his best,’ Shurq admitted. ‘Ever since you purchased this extension, in fact. A thousand rumours have drifted from Kolanse, not one of them pleasing. The crew are miserable, and to the First Mate, that misery feeds his every fear.’
‘It is well understood, I trust,’ said Felash, ‘that most of the Perish fleet has preceded us. Have we seen any indication that disaster befell them?’
‘That depends,’ Shurq replied. ‘The absence of evidence of any sort is ominous enough, especially for sailors—’
‘Then they can never be satisfied, can they?’
‘Absolutely true, which is why I adore them so.’
‘Captain?’
She smiled at the princess. ‘Neither can I. You wondered what I was thinking, and that is my answer.’
‘I see.’
No, little girl, you do not. But never mind. Give it time.
Felash continued: ‘How frustrated you must be!’
‘If it is frustration, it is a most delicious kind.’
‘I find you fascinating, Captain.’
The plump princess was wearing a furlined cloak, the hood drawn up against the sharp offshore wind. Her round, heavily made-up face looked dusted and flawless. She clearly worked very hard at appearing older than she in truth was, but the effect reminded Shurq of those porcelain dolls the Shake used to find washed up on the beaches, the ones they traded away as if the things were cursed. Inhuman in perfection, but in truth hinting at deeper flaws. ‘And you in turn interest me, Highness. Is it the simple privilege of royalty that permits you to commandeer a foreign ship, captain and crew, and set out on a whim into the unknown?’
‘Privilege, Captain? Dear me, no. Burden, in fact. Knowledge is essential. The gathering of intelligence is what
ensures the kingdom’s continued survival. We are not a great military power, such as the Letherii who can hold their insensitive bullying as if it was a virtue of forthright uncomplexity. Attitudes of false provincialism serve a well-honed suspicion of others. “Deal me straight and true and I am your friend. Deal me wrong and I will destroy you.” So goes the diplomat’s theme of discourse. Of course, one quickly learns that all those poses of righteous honesty are but a screen for self-serving avarice.’
‘I take it,’ Shurq said, ‘the children of the Bolkando King and Queen are well schooled in such theories of diplomacy.’
‘Almost from birth, Captain.’
Shurq smiled at the exaggeration. ‘It seems your sense of Lether is somewhat antiquated, if I dare venture an opinion on the matter.’
But Felash shook her head. ‘King Tehol is perhaps more subtle than his predecessors. The disarming charm hides a most devious mind.’
‘Devious? Oh yes, Highness. Absolutely.’
‘Naturally,’ Felash went on, ‘one would be a fool to trust him. Or believe anything he says. I would wager his Queen is precisely the same.’
‘Indeed? Consider this, if you will, Princess: you see two rulers of a vast empire who just so happen to despise virtually every trait that empire possesses. The inequity, the cruel expression of privilege and the oppression of the dispossessed. The sheer idiocy of a value system that raises useless metals and meaningless writs above that of humanity and plain decency. Consider two rulers who are trapped in that world—yes, they would dismantle all of it, if they could. But how? Imagine the resistance. All those elites so comfortable with their elevated positions of power. Do you truly believe such people would willingly relinquish that?’ Shurq leaned on the rail and regarded Felash, whose eyes were wide.
‘Well, Highness? Imagine, in fact, if they delivered upon you and your people a diplomatic onslaught of emancipation. The end of the nobility and all the inherited rank and privilege—you and your entire family, Princess, out on your asses. The end of money and its false strictures. Gold? Pretty rings and baubles, oh yes, but beyond that? Might as well hoard polished stones from a shoreline. Wealth as proof of superiority? Nonsense. Proof only of the power to deliver violence. I see by your shocked expression, Highness, that you begin to comprehend, and so I will leave it there.’
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