‘I’m always greedy.’
‘Too greedy, then.’
He heard his wife laughing as a heavy, brawny pair of legs straddled him, as he was pushed inside, and a body began moving rhythmically against him.
‘It is dark enough,’ said someone, ‘when you keep your eyes closed.’
This was, Listar decided, the strangest dream, but one for which he had no complaint.
* * *
Commander Toras Redone had been riding beside him in silence since they’d broken camp that morning. By the day’s end they would reach the Hust encampment. Galar Baras studied the track ahead as it slipped between denuded, pockmarked hills, bending round slopes of tailings, the scoured flats where furnaces had once stood, along with sheds and ditches, all lining the old road to either side.
The day was cool, but he could feel the weather turning, as if a new season was rushing upon them. Word had come on the day they had left Henarald’s estate: Urusander’s Legion had departed Neret Sorr. They had begun their march on Kharkanas.
He listened to the horses’ hoofs strike the frozen ground, at times sharp as the strike of a ballpeen against raw rock. The sword at his hip murmured incessantly.
‘If you think I hate them, you would be wrong.’
Startled, he glanced across at her. She wore a heavy cloak of sable, the hood drawn up to hide her profile, and sat slumped heavily in the saddle. ‘Sir?’
She smiled. ‘Ah, back to the honorifics, then? No more thought of the sweat between us, as we grapple every night beneath the furs? Our breaths shared, out from me and into you, out from you and into me, our taste as one – could two people hold each other tighter? Oh, for a sorcery to merge our flesh. If I could, I would swallow you, Galar Baras, my body a mouth, my arms a forked tongue to wrap about you, to pull you in.’
‘I beg you, sir, no more of that.’ Your words torment me.
‘This day too bright? All things in stark detail, a focus so sharp as to cut the mind? No matter, come the night I will fold you in, yet again, like a lost child. I was speaking of Urusander’s Legion. And Hunn Raal, whom I should despise, but do not.’
He thought about that, and then shrugged. ‘He is truly of the Issgin line, sir, a betrayer, a poisoner – if not hate, then what?’
‘Yes, the Issgin line. Possessing a well-matched claim to the throne, only to lose the bloody struggle. By virtue of failure, they are now condemned, tarred, vilified as the quintessential villains. Do not let our perpetual reinvention of the past deceive you, captain.’
He shrugged. ‘Then is this pity that you feel?’
‘Consider well my warning. We can make no claim to righteous vengeance. These prisoners now wearing the Hust, they have no anger to mine, no ruinous rubble to crush down with fury. You may well seek to bleed down upon them all, and so stain them alike, but such a desire will fail, captain.’
He said nothing to that, as she had touched upon his own fear. There was no cause for this new Hust Legion. In manner, they are mercenaries who have already been paid, with all the suspect loyalty such an error in judgement entails.
‘Hunn Raal and his ilk seek stature and wealth,’ said Toras Redone. ‘A redistribution of power. The highborn of the Greater and Lesser Houses deem the table crowded enough. So, we now have a war.’
‘There is also the matter of Urusander, and the High Priestess Syntara—’
‘Temple squabbles, and worse yet, captain, some hoary remnant of misplaced notions on monarchy, when our queen has long since left us to become a goddess, making the whole debate a charade. But let them elevate Urusander into godhood, a Father Light for Mother Dark. Do you see the assumption yet?’
‘I’m afraid I do not, sir.’
‘It is this atavistic absurdity, this clinging to kings and queens who must be bound in matrimony, as the putative parents of Kurald Galain. Captain, listen to this drunken whore here, when she tells you that there can be a Father Light and a Mother Dark without the former having to jam his cock into the latter’s cunt. More to the point, a god and a goddess need not be married to rule us. Let her keep her lover. Let him fuck his scrolls. What of it?’
He stared at her, speechless.
She tilted her hood back, showed him her sallow, puffy face. The ebon hue was fading, like a failing of convictions. Her smile was broken. ‘But they’ll not listen to me, captain. It’s gone too far. The highborn will see Draconus taken down. The priestesses will see their victims wed. Hunn Raal will see the power of the nobles broken, and his own lackeys in their place.’
‘Sir, Lord Anomander—’
‘Is a man. Of honour and integrity. Mother Dark commands him to keep sheathed his sword. He thinks this a denial. A refusal of all that he is. He sees no other path, comprehends nothing of her meaning.’
‘Then, by the Abyss, Toras, someone should tell him! No! She should! Mother Dark!’
‘She has, from the arms of her lover.’
‘Too subtle!’
She laughed. ‘Too subtle by far, Galar Baras. Should have left this all to us women with lovers, yes? We are the ones who trampled the barriers, the sacred agreements, snapped the chains constraining our sordid appetites. We see outside the strictures – look at you, Galar Baras. We could ride to the very edge of the Hust camp, only to have me drag you from your saddle and fuck you blind, witnessed by all, and you could not stop me. Could you?’
‘There is virtue in being brazen, Toras? What of your husband?’
‘Yes, the humiliation of being so publicly cuckolded, and there we lay bare the heart of everything.’
‘How?’
She drew her hood up again, reaching down for her flask, from which she drank, long and deeply, before saying, ‘Men. It’s all about saving face. Every argument, every duel, every battle, every war. You would level a world to keep from being made to look a fool. And so you shall.’
‘I will speak to Lord Anomander. Your solution is simple yet elegant. Indeed, as you say, it is wholly natural. Urusander seeks no wife. Mother Dark seeks no husband, yet she has not once spoken against the notion of a god at her side. Lord Anomander will realize this.’
‘They’ll not let him.’
‘Sir?’
‘He is trapped. Utterly, irrevocably trapped. Mind you, so is Urusander. Chained and caged. The holders of the keys, darling, are the priestesses, and Hunn Raal. And, of course, the highborn. No,’ she said, after another mouthful from the flask, ‘there will be a battle. Many people must die – do you not feel it, captain? This clawing thirst?’
‘I feel, commander, fates converging, a maelstrom of deaths, all unnecessary, all a terrible waste.’
She grunted. ‘Better a whore on the throne. Or behind it.’
Her comment left him bemused, and he said nothing as he pondered its meaning.
They rode out from the knot of hills, and saw before them the Hust encampment. As they lifted their mounts into a canter, and drew closer to the picket line, Galar Baras glanced across at Toras Redone, to see her face turned towards him.
She laughed.
* * *
Wareth sat in his tent, staring at the armour lying on a carpet opposite him, the blood hue of the iron links, the overlapped coin-shaped scales protecting the leather straps, the studded rivets sheathing the gauntlets. He looked upon the helm, flared at the neck, with a camail of chain depending from just inside the rim, and the broad cheek-guards flanking the nasal spine. For all the artistry inherent in the design, there were no elaborations, no creative touches, not a single swirl or inset pattern. Like the swords, the armour was plain, purely functional. It promised the utilitarian application of prowess in the midst of violence. There was something both beautiful and terrible in this.
And yet, none of it was for him. The trappings rode him uneasily, no matter how tightly he fit the straps, or cinched the buckles. There needed to be solid flesh beneath the chain, not this shying unease that now seemed to plague him, as if every muscle upon his bent frame had be
come uncertain. Shivering despite the brazier, he sat with his hands together, fingers knotted.
Cursed weapons and the like belonged in fairy tales, along with magical rings and staves that sprouted fire. In each, a wish was fulfilled only for a price to be paid, the wagers of life reduced to a simplistic morality tale delivered to children. But here, in this world, even sorcery defied the conventions of wishes made real, unearned power suddenly within reach, and none of these gifts settled easily into the reality he had made for himself.
Too many of the prisoners had seen it differently. They now strutted. They laughed with the blades, hummed in time with the keening links of chain. They took to the marching in serried ranks, the wheels in formation, the chorus of weapons drawn in unison. Their crimes dwindled behind them, their punishments – whether felt deserved or otherwise – had been magically transformed.
And yet.
And yet. It all remains a game to them. They sneer behind the backs of every officer. At night, gathered round their squad fires, they spit sizzling contempt into the flames, telling each other stories of looting, pillage and all the helpless victims to their every desire.
We are an army of monsters. Thugs. Mother help us should we ever win a battle.
Both Prazek and Dathenar had lost something in the days since their arrival, as if their equanimity was under siege by all that they witnessed, and all that they feared was still to come.
Wareth pitied the return of Galar Baras, and the thought of Commander Toras Redone seeing for herself the vicious travesty of her legion filled him with shame.
I warned them. This was a mistake. Corruption was inevitable. The Hust Legion should have been left dead, every sword and every hauberk of chain buried with the rotting flesh in the barrows.
Should they prevail against Urusander, should they crush this uprising, the Hust Legion would stand alone, unmatched on the field. It would turn on the highborn and their rich estates. It would turn on Kharkanas itself.
We will break this world. I warned them, and now it’s too late. The beast is made, its thousand limbs shaken loose, its multitude of eyes blinking open, each ablaze with avarice and lust.
Not even Prazek and Dathenar can hope to hold these reins. Nor Galar nor Toras Redone. Nor Faror Hend, nor any of us who once lived in the pits. We’re rolling to our feet, bristling and bold, and this sneer – still hiding in the shadows – will soon turn to a snarl.
An unexpected call to muster had sounded. He stared at his armour, and then, with trembling hands, he reached for it.
* * *
Faror Hend had been standing on the edge of the camp, facing east, when the harsh tone of the bell reached her. She had been waiting for something to appear on the horizon. A mounted figure, gaunt atop a weary horse, a man of grey and black, or perhaps revealing the bleached skin of one blessed by another god. She had thought to remain where she was as that rider approached, as if pinned to the frozen earth, spikes driven through her boots. She wondered at the words they might exchange, when at last he drew up before her.
Less than a legend, yet more than a careless promise of a future to be shared between them. She imagined him drawing closer, revealing ever more detail, a fleshless face, the hard angles of bone beneath stretched skin, his long iron-grey hair hanging limp from a peeling pate. And in the sockets where eyes belonged, only darkness.
‘I’ve come for what was promised.’
She nodded but said nothing as he continued.
‘Youth was lost to me. I will now have it back.’ Raising a skeletal hand. ‘Here, to hold.’
‘Yes, Lord Tulas, I understand. It was all I was ever meant to be, all I was made for. You name my purpose, sir.’
‘I have no power to steal your youth, nor would I. Rather, I would see you age. This, and this alone, is what I seek.’
‘Sir, will I never awaken your desire?’
‘You have already. In my keep there is a throne, elevated to embrace my lifeless presence. There I will sit, to witness the years take you. Such are the appetites of old men. My desire is appeased, my lust, coiled as a serpent, dreams of heat and is content in its torpor.’
‘Kagamandra Tulas, I will be your wife.’
‘You will be my regret.’
She frowned. ‘And this is all? There can be … nothing else?’
‘You speak of children,’ he replied.
‘Yes.’
‘Have as many as you like. I see you having no shortage of lovers.’
‘I see.’
‘You see before you the future’s face, Faror Hend.’
She shrugged. ‘That visage belongs to all of us, milord. Your death’s mask. The decay. The husk. You do not frighten me.’
‘I’ll never find you,’ he said, as he began to fade before her eyes.
‘No, we ride soon to a battle. I do not expect to survive it.’
‘Then … farewell, my darling. Think of me, and all that we could have had …’
Blinking, she squinted at the horizon, growing darker with each passing moment. Unbroken the line. No distant rider. Not yet.
Kagamandra Tulas, I impugn you with disservice. I raise you as a spectre of my own creation. This youthful visage that you see hides a welter of evil. Spinnock saw as much, and so he rejected me. If you ride now, Lord Tulas, better you arrive too late.
There was no fighting these despondent notions, these conjurings of an imagination driven to despair. The army at her back terrified her, and she found herself desiring only its annihilation. Even the charms of the captains could not hold this fraying leash for much longer. The swords whispered promises of murder, and their wielders did but lick their lips.
They were condemned, you see. Rejected by us all and cast down into the pits. Sentenced to labour in tunnels of unlit rock, where even thoughts could not escape to the light. Wareth comprehends. Even in Rebble’s eyes there is a glint of fear. And thrice since Rance has tried to take her own life. So now she sits in her tent, a guard standing over her, and will not speak.
Castegan has taken to the pipe, lost in his opiate dreams. The entire command structure totters, only moments from utter collapse.
The camp was stirring behind her, in answer to the call to muster. She heard the laughter of swords half-drawn, the rising atonal song of the chain hauberks and the keening cacophony of helms being readied.
Yes, war will deafen us all. This seems fitting enough, I suppose.
Sighing, she turned about and made her way into the camp, and to her tent, where awaited both weapon and armour.
I was a Warden. I did not ask for this.
They said others were coming. Refugees from the winter fort. But none have arrived. I remain alone. They were wise to avoid this place, this fate. Would that I could flee and join them now, wherever they may be.
Instead, she walked to her tent.
* * *
Seltin Ryggandas, the quartermaster, had rushed into the command tent with the news. Galar Baras was returning with Commander Toras Redone. After dismissing the man, Prazek collected up his gauntlets and then paused, looking down at Dathenar. His companion was sprawled in the padded chair that seemed more suited to an estate, flanking a fire, with a dog lying asleep at its foot. Where it had come from, none knew.
‘Despondent in this surrender of our brief elevation, now we must scan left and right, seeking another bridge to patrol.’
‘We yield in the manner of the genuflected,’ Dathenar replied. ‘Upon hands and knees, posterior raised to take the boot.’
‘Boot, or riding crop. ’Tis rumoured she has rough appetites.’
‘Then I’ll wince in ecstasy.’
‘Rise then, my friend, fore and aft, and let us make a stand of our surrender, as befits the discarded.’
Sighing, Dathenar climbed to his feet. ‘We hand over a belligerent beast, our knuckles scraped and raw, and must compose our features with earnest innocence.’ He collected up his cloak and fastened the clasp high on his left breast. ‘Evince
no hint of relief, as three thousand pairs of eyes will be fixed upon us, give or take.’
‘A one-eyed man among the ranks.’
‘A women whose left wanders.’
‘While the right impugns.’
‘Jaded eye.’
‘Jaundiced eye, lowered eye, squinting eye, ego’s eye, an I in the eye other than thine own, that we should meet, to gauge the distance between us, these gulfs too treacherous to cross, the self an island among islets, the chain relegated to maps.’ Prazek paused, and then sighed. ‘An eye to draw the straightest line, or rounded in wondrous regard, unto itself.’
‘They shall stare at us,’ Dathenar said, nodding.
‘The weight of such knowing offends me,’ Prazek replied. He paused at the tent’s doorway. ‘Presumably, Galar Baras has prepared her. Still, these new soldiers know her by name alone, an utterance swaddled in reluctance. A broken woman, no less. How fragile her approach, how timorous her comportment.’
‘As you say,’ Dathenar agreed. ‘Then gird yourself once more, friend, as we place ourselves between the archer and the arrow butt. Paint the placid façade, targeted upon your face—’
‘Attain the aplomb, the swaggering ease of confidence.’
‘Unruffled the surface of our equanimity.’
‘Pellucid the shallows.’
‘Impenetrable the depths.’
‘We must be moon-drawn, the steady advance of an ocean’s familiar broach.’
Dathenar nodded and approached the tent flap. ‘Time, then, to lap her boots.’
They exited the tent, looked out upon the companies already forming up in a rising moan of armour and the chittering of scabbarded swords. The sun was nearing zenith, lending a hint of warmth, and where snow lingered on the plain, amidst tangled stretches of yellow grass, it made deflated dunes.
As the ranks assembled to either side of the camp’s central parade ground, two riders appeared at the far end.
Side by side, Prazek and Dathenar set out to meet them.
The time for conversation had passed, barring the swords and their almost nervous muttering, and so neither captain spoke as they crossed the ground.
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