Assail

by Ian C. Esslemont

  Kyle reached for the grip of the blade snug at his side to reassure himself, and continued on. None of the bones that he passed showed any signs of violence: no shattering, or gashes or cuts. They had not even been gnawed by scavengers. Fat femurs had not been cracked open for the rich marrow.

  Equipment too lay scattered about: corroded armour, metal fittings, wind-smoothed coins, and naked rusted blades. But no leather, cloth, padding, or even wood. How could it have rotted away so quickly?

  That night the winds returned with redoubled violence. It was as if they wished to pick him up and send him tumbling back down to the prairie of the Silent People. They seemed to punch him from all directions and sent needle-sharp lances of sand that stung and burned any patch of exposed skin. He tucked himself entirely under his blanket in a desperate effort to escape their constant lashing and hissing.

  In the morning, when he shook out the blanket, he found it full of holes. Patches of it had been eaten away entirely. Something about this troubled him far back in his mind: memories from the ancient stories he’d heard in his youth. The Land of Dust … the Land of Winds. He shook his head; surely the winds alone couldn’t kill a man. But perhaps they could scour the padding from discarded armour.

  He rolled up the blanket, took a sip of water, and moved on. The silver heights of the Salt range beckoned. The distant peaks shimmered suspended over a layer of haze, or clouds, like ships at sea.

  Towards noon a dust storm struck. It swept down from the north. A swirling churning mass of solid yellow that engulfed the entire plain ahead. Kyle tore off a strip of cloth and tied it over his face leaving only his eyes exposed. He ducked his head, raised a hand to shelter his eyes.

  The wall struck like a blow of rage. Sand and grit blasted at him. It gnawed the flesh of his hand, bit at his scalp. The noise was a howling and a grinding avalanche combined. Kyle walked blind, a hand extended into the murky haze of gusting blankets of dust. There was no cover anywhere at all. If it became unendurable, he supposed he would have no option but to lie down and curl into a self-protecting ball.

  And the thought came: As so many others had done before him …

  Land of Winds. Land of Dust. Put these two together and you have a desolate uninhabitable desert that scours all life from itself.

  Then a shape resolved itself out of the sweeping scarves and twists of sand and dust. Vaguely humanoid; a shape of seething hissing winds and grit. A blunt arm pointed. A moaning wind-voice spoke: ‘You I would allow to pass. But you carry a thing of chaos. This cannot be allowed to pass.’

  Thing of chaos? Kyle clutched at the blade. He called uselessly into the winds: ‘What do you mean? This is the sword of Osserc!’ He heard no sound of his own voice yet the creature answered.

  ‘Yes. This thing he carried for a time. Yet its origins are older than he. Know you not what it is?’

  ‘It is a sword.’

  ‘It is no sword. Lay it down and you may pass.’

  ‘No! It was given to me by Osserc himself!’

  ‘Then he did you no favour. All that will be left of you will be that artefact. And that I shall grind until its dust is spread across the continent entire.’

  Artefact? ‘No!’ Kyle yanked the blade free, swinging across his front. The winds flinched. At least that was how it felt to him. He almost tumbled forward into a lull that lasted a fraction of a moment. The winds’ howling doubled. It rasped and growled in what seemed like frustration.

  ‘Then die!’ the creature bellowed, and raised its arms of churning dust.

  Kyle charged, rolled forward, and swung. The blade bit into the shape at its broad base, and just as when he had struck the manifestation of a goddess on Fist an enormous blast of unleashed energies threw him backwards to land on the rock, depriving him of his breath and bringing stars to his vision.

  When he regained his senses, he raised his head to see the dust storm dispersing. It fell in uncoiling scarves of particles that came hissing down. He stood, brushed a thick layer of it from his chest and hair. He raised the blade still gripped tightly in his hand. He remembered that someone had once told him it wasn’t made of metal – it certainly didn’t look like metal. It was creamy amber, opaque at its thick spine verging down to translucent towards the curve of its keen edge. He ran his fingers down the side of the blade. It felt organic to him, like horn, or scale. An artefact? Artefact of what? And chaos? What had that being meant about chaos? Yet he didn’t imagine he’d killed the creature. Just as at Fist, when he’d struck the Lady, she had merely dispersed for a time. So too here, probably. Shrugging, he resheathed the blade, carefully, edge up, and walked on.

  The air was clearing. The winds were dying. The peaks and shoulders of the distant Salt range emerged from the haze of dust once again. He raised his last remaining waterskin, shook it to listen to its meagre sloshing, and let it fall. He angled his route a touch to the east.

  * * *

  This village was larger than any of the ones she’d yet found. The sight of the collection of round hide roofs was a gut-punch to Silver-fox when she topped a slight rise. She paused, nearly toppling from her quivering lathered mount. Pran appeared at her side, ready to catch or steady her.

  She flinched from his presence, kicked her mount on. It started forward with heavy clumsy steps.

  As before she found them strewn where they’d fallen. As before, kites and crows lifted like dark shadows from her advance to hover overhead, waiting for the momentary disruption to move on. The vultures merely spread their wide black wings and waddled to one side.

  Occasionally, foxes and wild dogs scampered off into the grasses, their muzzles wet and dark with blood. There they lurked, awaiting her departure.

  But this time it was quiet. So quiet she could hear the hide flaps tapping and slapping in the wind, the grasses shushing, the wind moaning through gaping open entrances. No strained voices rising in near-crazed grief shattered the silence. No screams of rage. No weeping.

  This time all was silent. Silverfox slid from her mount, let the reins fall. She stepped on to soil dark and wet with blood yet hardly noticed. She found that she had to consciously urge her legs to move. Pran appeared from behind a hut ahead of her.

  ‘Summoner,’ he began, and she thought she heard pain in his voice, ‘you need not—’

  ‘Yes,’ she snapped. The word felt torn from her. ‘I must. I must … witness this.’

  She brushed past him. She walked between silent huts of poles and hide, stepped over knifed women, men, and children. Many had fallen curled round their young, protecting them. Slaughtered. All. She raised her gaze, found it blurred. All? All?

  Lanas … how could you? What will they say of you? Of the T’lan?

  She lifted her wrinkled, age-darkened hands to her face, turned them over and over. Yet what was this but a glimpse of the old ways? Her people’s hands were no more clean. No one’s were. How could this have once been the norm? How could the ancestors have named this a great victory and boasted of it? The slaughter of children? Perhaps it was a good thing to be reminded of this – once in a while.

  Sound reached her. So wrapped in her horror was she that it took some time for it to register for what it was: the wail of a baby. She started, jerking, and ran in the direction of the noise. Rounding a hut she came up short, her breath catching.

  All were not dead. A woman stood ahead. She cradled a tiny squirming bundle awkwardly in her muscular arms. A woman not of this village, nor even of this continent. For Silverfox knew her, and as she advanced the woman’s sharp gaze reflected their mutual recognition. Dark earth-brown she was. Sun-darkened even more over her wide arms. Sturdy-boned, heavy-browed, with smooth silken black hair, in old buckskins.

  Kilava. Last living Bonecaster of the Imass.

  Silverfox inclined her head in greeting. The baby writhed in its wrap of a coarse blanket. It squalled anew. Silverfox found she had to swallow hard to wet her throat to speak. ‘Just …’

  ‘… her,’ Kilava
finished. ‘Yes.’

  Silverfox peered anew round the silent village. ‘Who were they?’

  ‘They called themselves the Children of the Wind.’

  Silverfox regarded the babe. ‘It is hungry.’

  ‘I have no milk to give,’ Kilava said. She arched a brow to Silver-fox. ‘We neither have any milk left, do we?’

  Silverfox shared the knowing look. ‘We are neither the nurturing sort.’

  Kilava gestured to her hair. ‘You have come into your name.’

  Reflexively, Silverfox lifted and examined a twist of her long ash-grey streaked hair. ‘So I have.’

  They regarded one another for time in a heavy silence; the ancient Bonecaster’s gaze shifted to peer behind Silverfox. She turned to see both Pran and Tolb standing at a respectful distance. ‘They would remain out of my reach,’ Kilava muttered to Silverfox.

  ‘They have tasted your temper.’

  ‘I have not changed my mind!’ Kilava shouted.

  ‘I would not have thought so,’ Pran answered.

  The Bonecaster snorted at that. She lowered her attention to the babe. ‘I will take this one south. Find willing arms for her. Then I will return to warning the tribes.’

  Silverfox’s breath caught. ‘Then some have escaped …’

  ‘Those who have heeded my warnings. I’ve been sending them to the west. The Kerluhm are headed to the mountains – I do not believe they will divert for refugees.’

  ‘Thank you, Kilava.’

  ‘I did not do it for your benefit, Silverfox. Your task remains and I wish you’d taken hold of it.’

  Silverfox felt her cheeks heating. She snapped, ‘We’ve been through this already.’

  Kilava did not answer. She adjusted the babe in her arms then brushed past to walk on to the south. Once she was gone, Pran and Tolb came to Silverfox’s side.

  ‘A powerful ally,’ Pran observed.

  ‘We cannot count on her aid,’ she warned them.

  Behind her, Pran and Tolb shared a silent glance. Silverfox examined them. ‘Where’s my horse?’

  ‘We have found another,’ Tolb said.

  She turned to peer among the silent empty huts, rubbed her eyes. ‘I can’t stay here. I’ll keep going – have it brought to me.’

  The two Bonecasters bowed. Silverfox walked on. The two stood motionless for a time, then Tolb spoke: ‘Should we reach the very north it will be good to have her with us.’

  Pran’s dry sinews creaked as he nodded his agreement. ‘Even she would not stand aside … then.’

  *

  Atop the heights of a rocky cordillera, a file of skeletal figures came to the lip of a tall hillock of mixed gravel and sands. Here, ages ago, a continent-spanning mountain of ice ground to a halt, piling up this near mountain of debris. Wordlessly, they spread out to line the edge. The bones of their feet clattered and grated across the stones. The rag-ends of hides and furs snapped and lashed in the cold dry wind. Here they stood still as statues of bone and ligament. The wind whistled through dry chest cavities and gaping fleshless jaws. Several times the sun rose, traced its path across the sky, and set. They waited, as patient as the stones themselves.

  Beneath the cold light of the moon the shifting and grinding of stones announced movement within the slope. Stones came sliding down, banging and clattering. The talus heap shifted, slipping. A fist punched free of the gravel and a forearm of bare aged bone emerged. A figure straightened, sending dust and sand blowing in the wind from a long tattered bearhide cloak that glowed dirty white beneath the moon. It lifted a ravaged head half scoured of flesh.

  A figure, nearly identical but for the cloak, advanced to greet this newcomer. They clasped hands to bony forearms. ‘Ut’el Anag,’ the cloakless one said. ‘Long have we been parted.’

  The newcomer nodded its battered skull. ‘Lanas. It warms my spirit to see you once again.’

  Further Imass now came dragging themselves free of the heaped moraine. Ut’el raised his head as if to sample the chill night air through his naked nostril slits. ‘Omtose retreats before us.’

  ‘As it ever has.’

  The Kerluhm Bonecaster turned his head to the east. Lanas shared his gaze: across a shimmering plateau rose sapphire peaks, capped in silver. ‘The stain has spread,’ Ut’el observed, ‘and the source remains.’

  ‘We arrive to wash it away – as ever. Though we are opposed.’

  The head snapped round. ‘Who?’

  ‘Remnants of the Ifayle … and now the Kron.’

  Ut’el nodded. ‘They will come round and will thank us before the end.’

  ‘As it always has been.’

  Without further word Ut’el stalked off to the east. Lanas remained. ‘There are survivors here,’ she called.

  Ut’el turned. ‘Forget these lesser ones. The source lies to the east.’

  ‘The source?’

  ‘The Matriarch. The mother of their kind.’ He raised an arm of ligament and bone sheathed in tattered leathers, pointed to the distant peaks. ‘She awaits us, Lanas. She’s known we would come. Like the thawing of the spring, we come. Eventually.’

  ‘It will be a long walk,’ Lanas answered.

  ‘As it has ever been, Lanas.’

  She inclined her head in assent and came abreast of Ut’el. Together, the two struck a path to the north-east over the rocky slope. The rest of the Imass followed in a rattling and clack of bone over stones. Behind, more of their brethren dragged themselves free of the eroding moraine, sloughing off a rain of dirt and mud.

  * * *

  Orman jogged downhill from one high mountain valley to the next, ever angling to the east. For two days ghosts, Sayer ancestors, pointed the way. On the third day he came to a ridge separating the Sayer Holding from the Bain. Here, an immense half-dead white pine stood taller than all its kind. Pinned to the trunk by a hunting knife hung Jass’s cloak.

  He understood the message, for he recognized the knife. He’d last seen it pushed through the belt of Lotji Bain. He ran on, leaving the challenge hanging for others to find. Should any others be following. He descended the ridge, crossed a forest towards a stream rushing over a wide bed of naked broken rock. Here, a shout sounded over the pounding waters.

  Lotji stepped forth from the cover of the wide bole of a pine. He held Jass before him, a knife to his throat, the lad’s hands tied. He bellowed up: ‘I’m glad you came, hiresword! You’ve saved me a lot of time. You know what I want. You and me! Now!’

  Orman squeezed the haft of Svalthbrul so tight it seemed to squirm in his hands. He picked his way across the tumbled rocks. He so wanted to meet this man – to cut him to pieces with Svalthbrul – but what if he lost? What of Jass then? Jass, as he’d known all along, was far more important to him than any weapon. No matter how storied. He raised the spear. ‘I have something you want, Lotji … and you have something I want. Let’s exchange.’

  The offer brought the man up short. His face wrinkled in distaste. ‘An exchange?’ he shouted, almost in disbelief. ‘An exchange? You would part with Svalthbrul for this useless pup?’

  ‘I would.’

  ‘Why?’

  Something in Orman resisted revealing his true reason and it took him a moment to identify it: the man was not worthy of such an intimacy. It was a family matter – not for outsiders. ‘Honour!’ he shouted over the pounding stream. ‘I swore to serve the Sayers!’

  Lotji shook his head, his gaze scornful. ‘Hearthguard,’ he snorted. ‘Hearthguard you are and hearthguard you will ever remain – nothing more!’

  They closed further and Jass choked out: ‘Leave me to die! I deserve no better.’

  Lotji shook him by the neck like a disobedient dog. ‘Quiet!’ He motioned to the rocks between him and Orman. ‘Far enough. Set the spear there and back away.’

  ‘Release the lad!’

  ‘Back away first!’

  Orman jammed the butt of the spear amid the rocks so that it stood tall and straight. He backed away one st
ep. ‘Release him!’

  Lotji waved him off. ‘Further!’ He pressed a knife blade to Jass’s throat.

  Orman snarled a curse but backed away a few more steps until clear of the spear. Lotji edged up almost within arm’s reach of it.

  ‘Now the boy!’

  Lotji just shook his head. ‘You stupid fool!’ He snatched up the spear. ‘Now I have both and you have nothing!’

  Orman felt his shoulders fall. Damn. Should’ve fought him.

  Lotji examined Svalthbrul’s knapped stone spearhead, then cast an arched glance to him. ‘You do have one thing left, though. And now I’ll take that …’

  Orman moved to draw his hatchets.

  Lotji jerked his arm, Svalthbrul lashed out and crashed against Orman’s skull. He was unconscious before he hit the ground.

  *

  He snapped to wakefulness in a panic, fighting for breath. Something was choking him; he strained to raise his hands to pull at whatever it was, but his arms were secured behind his back. He saw that he hung from a branch; Lotji was tying off the rope round the trunk even as he watched. Jass lay to one side, weeping, his hands tied behind his back.

  Lotji appeared before him, peering up. ‘I was looking forward to killing you in a duel, hearthguard. But you stole the pleasure from me. Therefore, I demand a blood-price.’ He extended the nut-brown faceted stone head of Svalthbrul to Orman’s face. He tried to squirm aside but the spear licked forward. Fire engulfed his head. He screamed, or tried to, lurching and spinning as he struggled. The rope squeezed tighter about his throat.

  ‘Farewell, fool,’ Lotji called, now yanking Jass to his feet. ‘Perhaps this will teach you wisdom.’

  Orman fought to scream, to curse, to beg, but nothing could escape the twisting noose strangling his throat. His vision, oddly restricted now, darkened. He felt nothing, sensed nothing – only a swelling balm that seemed to soothe all pain and tension from his body.