Staring down thoughtfully, until distant motion and the sound of horse hoofs snared his attention. Behind him, villagers had returned to retrieve the pregnant woman.
And now he watched as the rider rode directly towards him.
On a lathered horse the colour of sun-bleached bone. Wearing dust-sheathed armour lacquered white. The man’s face pale beneath the rim of his helm, drawn with grief. Reining in, he slipped down from the saddle and, ignoring Barathol, staggered over to the demon, where he fell to his knees.
‘Who – who did this?’ he asked.
‘T’lan Imass. Five of them. A broken lot, even as T’lan Imass go. An ambush.’ Barathol pointed towards the body of the tattooed man. ‘They were after him, I think. A priest, from a cult devoted to the First Hero Treach.’
‘Treach is now a god.’
To that, Barathol simply grunted. He looked back at the ramshackle hovels of the hamlet he had come to think of as home. ‘There were two others. Both still alive, although one will not last much longer. The other is pregnant and even now gives birth—’
The man stared up at him. ‘Two? No, there should have been three. A girl…’
Barathol frowned. ‘I’d thought the priest was their target – they were thorough with him – but now I see that they struck him down because he posed the greatest threat. They must have come for the girl – for she is not here.’
The man rose. He matched Barathol in height, if not breadth. ‘Perhaps she fled… into the hills.’
‘It’s possible. Although,’ he added, pointing at a dead horse nearby, ‘I’d wondered at that extra mount, saddled like the others. Cut down on the trail.’
‘Ah, yes. I see.’
‘Who are you?’ Barathol asked. ‘And what was this missing girl to you?’
Shock was still writ deep into the lines of his face, and he blinked at the questions, then nodded. ‘I am named L’oric. The child was… was for the Queen of Dreams. I was coming to collect her – and my familiar.’ He looked down once more at the demon, and anguish tugged at his features yet again.
‘Fortune has abandoned you, then,’ Barathol said. A thought occurred to him. ‘L’oric, have you any skill in healing?’
‘What?’
‘You are one of Sha’ik’s High Mages, after all—’
L’oric looked away, as if stung. ‘Sha’ik is dead. The rebellion is crushed.’
Barathol shrugged.
‘Yes,’ L’oric said, ‘I can call upon Denul, if required.’
‘Is the life of that girl all that concerns you?’ He gestured down at the demon. ‘You can do nothing for your familiar – what of their companions? The young man will die – if he has not already done so. Will you stand here, dwelling only on what you have lost?’
A flash of anger. ‘I advise caution,’ L’oric said in a low voice. ‘You were once a soldier – that much is obvious – yet here you have hidden yourself away like a coward, whilst the rest of Seven Cities rose up, dreaming of freedom. I will not be chastised by one such as you.’
Barathol’s dark eyes studied L’oric a moment longer, then he turned away and began walking towards the buildings. ‘Someone will come,’ he said over his shoulder, ‘to dress the dead for burial.’
Nulliss had chosen the old hostelry to deposit her charges. A cot was dragged out from one of the rooms for the woman, whilst the eviscerated youth was laid out on the communal dining table. A cookpot filled with water steamed above the hearth, and Filiad was using a prod to retrieve soaked strips of cloth and carry them over to where the Semk woman worked.
She had drawn out the intestines once more but seemed to be ignoring that pulsing mass for the moment, both of her hands deep in the cavity of his gut. ‘Flies!’ she hissed as Barathol entered. ‘This damned hole is filled with dead flies!’
‘You will not save him,’ Barathol said, walking to the bar counter and setting down his axe on the battered, dusty surface, the weapon making a heavy clunking sound on the wood. He began removing his gauntlets, glancing over at Hayrith. ‘Has she given birth?’ he asked.
‘Aye. A girl.’ Hayrith was washing her hands in a basin, but she nodded towards a small bundled shape lying on the woman’s chest. ‘Already suckling. I’d thought things were gone bad, blacksmith. Bad. The baby came out blue. Only the cord weren’t knotted and weren’t round its neck.’
‘So why was it blue?’
‘Was? Still is. Napan father, I’d say.’
‘And the mother’s fate?’
‘She’ll live. I didn’t need Nulliss. I know how to clean and sear a wound. Why, I followed the Falah’d of Hissar’s Holy Army, seen plenty a battlefields in my day. Cleaned plenty a wounds, too.’ She flung water from her hands, then dried them on her grubby tunic. ‘She’ll have fever, of course, but if she survives that, she’ll be fine.’
‘Hayrith!’ called out Nulliss. ‘Get over here and rinse out these rags! Then toss ’em back in the boiling water – gods below, I’m losing him – his heart, it’s fading.’
The door swung open. Heads turned to stare at L’oric, who slowly stepped inside.
‘Who in Hood’s name is that?’ Hayrith asked.
Barathol unstrapped his helm as he said, ‘High Mage L’oric, a refugee from the Apocalypse.’
Hayrith cackled. ‘Well, ain’t he found the right place! Welcome, L’oric! Grab yourself a tankard a dust an’ a plate of ashes an’ join us! Fenar, stop staring and go find Chaur an’ Urdan – there’s horse meat out there needs butchering – we don’t want none a them wolves in the hills comin’ down an’ gettin’ it first.’
Barathol watched as L’oric strode over to where Nulliss knelt above the youth on the table. She was pushing in rags then pulling them out again – there was far too much blood – no wonder the heart was fading.
‘Move aside,’ L’oric said to her. ‘I do not command High Denul, but at the very least I can clean and seal the wound, and expunge the risk of infection.’
‘He’s lost too much blood,’ Nulliss hissed.
‘Perhaps,’ L’oric conceded, ‘but let us at least give his heart a chance to recover.’
Nulliss backed away. ‘As you like,’ she snapped. ‘I can do no more for him.’
Barathol went behind the bar, crouched opposite a panel of wood, which he rapped hard. It fell away, revealing three dusty jugs. Retrieving one, he straightened, setting it down on the counter. Finding a tankard, he wiped it clean, then, tugging free the stopper, poured the tankard full.
Eyes were on him – all barring those of L’oric himself, who stood beside the youth, hands settling on the chest. Hayrith asked, in a tone of reverence. ‘Where did that come from, blacksmith?’
‘Old Kulat’s stash,’ Barathol replied. ‘Don’t expect he’ll be coming back for it.’
‘What’s that I smell?’
‘Falari rum.’
‘Blessed gods above and below!’
Suddenly the locals present in the room were one and all crowding the bar. Snarling, Nuiliss pushed Filiad back. ‘Not you – too young—’
‘Too young? Woman, I’ve seen twenty-six years!’
‘You heard me! Twenty-six years? Ain’t enough to ’preciate Falari rum, you scrawny whelp.’
Barathol sighed. ‘Don’t be greedy, Nuillss. Besides, there’s two more jugs on the shelf below.’ Collecting his tankard, he moved away from them, Filiad and Jhelim both fighting as they scrabbled round the counter.
A livid scar was all that remained of the sword slash across the youth’s belly, apart from splashes of drying blood. L’oric still stood beside him, hands motionless on the chest. After a moment, he opened his eyes, stepping back. ‘It’s a strong heart… we’ll see. Where’s the other one?’
‘Over there. Shoulder wound. It’s been seared, but I can guarantee sepsis will set in and probably end up killing her, unless you do something.’
L’oric nodded. ‘She is named Scillara. The young man I do not know.’ He frowned. ‘Heboric Gh
ost Hands—’ he rubbed at his face – ‘I would not have thought…’ He glanced over at Barathol. ‘When Treach chose him to be his Destriant, well, there was so much… power. T’lan Imass? Five broken T’lan Imass?’
Barathol shrugged. ‘I myself did not see the ambush. The Imass first showed up months past, then it seemed that they’d left. After all, there was nothing here that they wanted. Not even me.’
‘Servants of the Crippled God,’ L’oric said. ‘The Unbound, of High House of Chains.’ He headed towards the woman he’d named Scillara. ‘The gods are indeed at war…’
Barathol stared after him. He downed half the rum in the tankard, then joined the High Mage once more. ‘The gods, you say.’
‘Fever already whispers within her – this will not do.’ He closed his eyes and began muttering something under his breath. After a moment, he stepped back, met Barathol’s eyes. ‘This is what comes. The blood of mortals spilled. Innocent lives… destroyed. Even here, in this rotted hole of a village, you cannot hide from the torment – it will find you, it will find us all.’
Barathol finished the rum. ‘Will you now hunt for the girl?’
‘And singlehanded wrest her from the Unbound? No. Even if I knew where to look, it is impossible. The Queen of Dreams’ gambit has failed – likely she already knows that.’ He drew a deep, ragged breath, and Barathol only now noticed how exhausted the man was. ‘No,’ he said again, with a vague, then wretched look. ‘I have lost my familiar… yet…’ he shook his head, ‘yet, there is no pain – with the severing there should be pain – I do not understand…’
‘High Mage,’ Barathol said, ‘there are spare rooms here. Rest. I’ll get Hayrith to find you some food, and Filiad can stable your horse. Wait here until I return.’
The blacksmith spoke to Hayrith, then left the hostelry, returning once more to the west road. He saw Chaur, Fenar and Urdan stripping saddles and tack from the dead horses. ‘Chaur!’ he called, ‘step away from that one – no, this way, there, stand still, damn you. There. Don’t move.’ The girl’s horse. Reaching it, he moved round carefully, seeking tracks.
Chaur fidgeted – a big man, he had the mind of a child, although the sight of blood had never bothered him.
Ignoring him, Barathol continued reading the scrapes, furrows and dislodged stones, and finally found a small footprint, planted but once, and strangely twisting on the ball of the foot. To either side, larger prints, skeletal yet bound here and there by leather strips or fragments of hide.
So. She had leapt clear of the fatally wounded horse, yet, even as her lead foot contacted the ground, the T’lan Imass snared her, lifting her – no doubt she struggled, but against such inhuman, implacable strength, she had been helpless.
And then, the T’lan Imass had vanished. Fallen to dust. Somehow taking her with them. He did not think that was possible. Yet… no tracks moved away from the area.
Frustrated, Barathol started back to the hostelry.
At a whining sound behind him he turned. ‘It’s all right, Chaur. You can go back to what you were doing.’
A bright smile answered him.
As he entered, Barathol sensed that something had changed. The locals were backed to the wall behind the bar. L’oric stood in the centre of the chamber, facing the blacksmith who halted just inside the doorway. The High Mage had drawn his sword, a blade of gleaming white.
L’oric, his eyes hard on Barathol, spoke: ‘I have but just heard your name.’
The blacksmith shrugged.
A sneer twisted L’oric’s pale face. ‘I imagine all that rum loosened their tongues, or they just plain forgot your commands to keep such details secret.’
‘I’ve made no commands,’ Barathol replied. ‘These people here know nothing of the outside world, and care even less. Speaking of rum…’ He slid his gaze to the crowd behind the bar. ‘Nulliss, any of it left?’
Mute, she nodded.
‘On the counter then, if you please,’ Barathol said. ‘Beside my axe will do.’
‘I would be foolish to let you near that weapon,’ L’oric said, raising the sword in his hand.
‘That depends,’ replied Barathol, ‘whether you intend fighting me, doesn’t it?’
‘I can think of a hundred names of those who, in my place right now, would not hesitate.’
Barathol’s brows rose. ‘A hundred names, you say. And how many of those names still belong to the living?’
L’oric’s mouth thinned into a straight line.
‘Do you believe,’ Barathol went on, ‘that I simply walked from Aren all those years ago? I was not the only survivor, High Mage. They came after me. It was damned near one long running battle from Aren Way to Karashimesh. Before I left the last one bleeding out his life in a ditch. You may know my name, and you may believe you know my crime… but you were not there. Those that were are all dead. Now, are you really interested in picking up this gauntlet?’
‘They say you opened the gates—’
Barathol snorted, walked over towards, the jug of rum Nulliss had set on the bar. ‘Ridiculous. T’lan Imass don’t need gates.’ The Semk witch found an empty tankard and thunked it on the counter. ‘Oh, I opened them all right – on my way out, on the fastest horse I could find. By that time, the slaughter had already begun.’
‘Yet you did not stay, did you? You did not fight, Barathol Mekhar! Hood take you, man, they rebelled in your name!’
‘Too bad they didn’t think to ask me first,’ he replied in a growl, filling the tankard. ‘Now, put that damned sword away, High Mage.’
L’oric hesitated, then he sagged where he stood and slowly resheathed the weapon. ‘You are right. I am too tired for this. Too old.’ He frowned, then straightened again. ‘You thought those T’lan Imass were here for you, didn’t you?’
Barathol studied the man over the battered rim of the tankard, and said nothing.
L’oric ran a hand through his hair, looked round as if he’d forgotten where he was.
‘Hood’s bones, Nulliss,’ Barathol said in a sigh, ‘find the poor bastard a chair, will you?’
The grey haze and its blinding motes of silver slowly faded, and all at once Felisin Younger could feel her own body again, sharp stones digging into her knees, the smell of dust, sweat and fear in the air. Visions of chaos and slaughter filled her mind. She felt numbed, and it was all she could do to see, to register the shape of things about her. Before her, sunlight flung sharp-edged shafts against a rock wall rent through with stress fractures. Heaps of windblown sand banked what used to be broad, shallow stone steps that seemed to lead up into the wall itself. Closer, the large knuckles, pale beneath thin, weathered skin, of the hand that clutched her right arm above the elbow, the exposed ligaments of the wrist stretching, making faint sounds like twisting leather. A grip she could not break – she had exhausted herself trying. Close and fetid, the reek of ancient decay, and visible – every now and then – a blood-smeared, rippled blade, broad near its hooked point, narrowing down at the leather-wrapped handle. Black, glassy stone, thinned into translucence along the edge.
Others stood around her, more of the dread T’lan Imass. Spattered with blood, some with missing or mangled limbs, and one with half its face smashed away – but this was old damage, she realized. Their most recent battle, no more than a skirmish, had cost them nothing.
The wind moaned mournfully along the rock wall. Felisin pushed herself to her feet, scraped the embedded stones from her knees. They’re dead. They’re all dead. She told herself this again and again, as if the words were newly discovered – not yet meaningful to her, not yet a language she could understand. My friends are all dead. What was the point of saying them? Yet they returned again and again, as if desperate to elicit a response – any response.
A new sound reached her. Scrabbling, seeming to come from the cliff-face in front of them. Blinking the stinging sweat from her eyes, she saw that one of the fissures looked to have been widened, the sides chipped away as if by
a pick, and it was from this that a bent figure emerged. An old man, wearing little more than rags, covered in dust. Suppurating sores wept runny liquid on his forearms and the backs of his hands.
Seeing her, he fell to his knees. ‘You have come! They promised – but why would they lie?’ Amidst the words issuing from his mouth were odd clicking sounds. ‘I will take you, now – you’ll see. Everything is fine. You are safe, child, for you have been chosen.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Felisin demanded, once again trying to tug her arm free – and this time she succeeded, as the deathly hand unclenched. She staggered.
The old man leapt to his feet and steadied her. ‘You are exhausted – no surprise. So many rules were broken to bring you here—’
She stepped away from him and set a hand against the sun-warmed stone wall. ‘Where is here?’
‘An ancient city, Chosen One. Once buried, but soon to live once more. I am but the first who has been called upon to serve you. Others will come – are coming even now, for they too have heard the Whispers. You see, it is the weak who hear them, and oh there are very many, very many of the weak.’ More clicking sounds – there were pebbles in his mouth.
Turning, Felisin faced away from the cliff wall, studied the stretch of broken, wasted land beyond. Signs of an old road, signs of tillage… ‘We walked this – weeks ago!’ She glared at the old man. ‘You’ve taken me back!’
He smiled, revealing worn, chipped teeth. ‘This city belongs to you, now, Chosen One—’
‘Stop calling me that!’
‘Please – you have been delivered and blood has been spilled in that deliverance – it falls to you to give such sacrifice meaning—’
‘Sacrifice? That was murder! They killed my friends!’
‘I will help you grieve, for that is my weakness, you see? I grieve always – for myself – because of drink, and the thirst always within me. Weakness. Kneel before it, child. Make of it a thing to worship. There is no point in fighting – the world’s sadness is far more powerful than you can ever hope to be, and that is what you must come to understand.’
‘I want to leave.’
Bonehunters Page 58
