Blood and Bone Page 3

  K’azz walked at her side, hands clasped at his back. ‘Yes. I can feel their presence. No doubt they rank among her most powerful. She’s telling us that she takes their message very seriously. Unfortunately, we can’t oblige …’

  ‘Such was my answer.’

  ‘But they want to hear it from me.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s why I’m here …’

  Shimmer’s questing gaze fell to the gravel road that wound to Haven Town. And when they go – so too will you? Off into the wilderness again? Do you not worry about the effects of these long absences? The rumours and disquiet? Not among us Avowed, of course, but the regular troops and the lay people. Some even claim you died long ago and we merely rule in your name.

  Still, she mused, it was just like the old days when so often they laid false rumours of his presence or absence … Blues and others even masquerading as him … all as precautions against the ever-present threat of those damned Claw assassins …

  Blinking, Shimmer came up short, realizing that they’d reached the town already. The long descent down the rear of the cliff seemed to have passed in an instant. They must have spent the entire walk in a long mutual silence.

  And ahead, down the main strip, the two emerged from the inn, no doubt just as aware of their proximity as they of theirs. The big man, Nagal, was forced to duck quite low to manage the small doorway. From windows and open doors curious locals watched as they closed upon one another. None of the four of them, Shimmer noted, carried a blade longer than a dirk. A deliberate wariness?

  The dark woman offered the sketch of a bow. The forest of amulets upon her breast rustled and clattered. K’azz answered the bow. ‘Duke D’Avore,’ she said. ‘Or is it Prince?’

  ‘I have held many titles,’ he answered easily enough. ‘I suggest the one of which I am most proud – Commander.’

  ‘Very well … Commander. I am Rutana and this is Nagal.’ The huge fellow, who appeared to have been suppressing a crooked secretive smile the entire time, also bowed.

  ‘Greetings and welcome to Stratem. How may we be of service?’

  ‘You have my message,’ she snapped. ‘You should know how you may be of service. Your vassal, Skinner, has returned to Jacuruku and would make war upon us. It is your responsibility to come and rid us of him.’

  ‘He is no longer my vassal. I am no longer answerable for his actions.’

  The woman was undeterred. She raised her chin, her mouth twisting into something even more sour. ‘What then of reparations for his crimes in our lands during the time he was your vassal? His elimination would perhaps be just blood-price for those!’

  Again, the woman’s imperiousness stole Shimmer’s breath. Gods above! She stands in K’azz’s lands and denounces him for crimes committed by another – and all in a distant kingdom? It was too much to tolerate. She would have sent them off that instant.

  K’azz, however, seemed to possess inhuman patience. The man merely tilted his head as if considering the woman’s point from all possible angles. Then from behind his beard he allowed a small considered frown. ‘It occurs to me, Rutana, that Skinner entered into vassalage to your mistress when he first arrived in Jacuruku, did he not?’

  The woman clutched the leather bindings of her arm, twisting them savagely, and rage darkened her features. After a moment she mastered her emotions enough to answer: ‘There was no formal agreement as such. For a time my mistress and he merely struck up a relationship.’

  K’azz’s shrug announced he considered the subject closed. ‘Be that as it may, Skinner has long gone his own route and I am in no way answerable.’

  ‘Yet even now the Vow sustains him,’ Nagal suddenly broke in, his voice low and melodious. ‘Your Vow, K’azz.’

  Something like pain clutched at the prince’s features. ‘I would revoke that if I possessed the power,’ he answered, strained. ‘As it is, I have disavowed him.’

  ‘That is not enough,’ he answered. ‘Still the Vow encompasses him. Our mistress knows the mysteries of it, K’azz. Are you not curious?’

  Shimmer felt a profound unease. Through these two servants she was aware of the influence of this mistress of all witches, Ardata, stretching out to touch them. The sensation made her queasy and her flesh crawled as if befouled. K’azz, she could see, was shaken by what could only be taken as an Ascendant implicitly offering to examine something entwined with his very identity.

  Tentatively, he began, ‘I do not question your mistress’s wisdom and power. Perhaps, in the future, I shall take advantage of her generous offer.’ He inclined his head without taking his eyes from the two. ‘But until such time I bid you a safe return journey.’

  He turned and walked away, rather stiffly. Shimmer followed, backing away, unwilling to take her eyes from the two.

  The big man, Nagal, simply raised his voice to call: ‘Yes, some time in the future, Prince. For do we not possess all the time in the world, yes?’

  That checked K’azz for a moment but then he moved on.

  ‘One last thing!’ Rutana shouted.

  Sighing, K’azz turned. ‘Yes?’

  ‘As you are uncooperative, my mistress has empowered me to reveal one last point.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You know my mistress’s powers as seer and prophetess. She has foreseen that soon there shall be an attempt upon the Dolmens of Tien. What say you to that, K’azz? Can that be allowed?’

  At first this obscure warning meant nothing to Shimmer. Then she remembered where she’d heard that odd name before: the very locale where K’azz had been imprisoned in the lands of Jacuruku. Her attention snapped to him and she was shocked to see his reaction: he had gone chalky white and his shoulders visibly bowed as if beneath a crushing burden. He shook his head in denial. ‘That mustn’t happen,’ he finally grated, his voice thick.

  Rutana’s smile revealed a hungry triumph. ‘My mistress is in agreement with that, Prince.’

  ‘You’ve made your point, Witch.’ He turned to Shimmer. ‘Summon the Avowed. I sail for Jacuruku.’ And he walked away.

  Shimmer stared after him in stunned amazement. Just like that? One vague threat or hint, or whatever that was, and he agrees? She glanced back to the two but their avid gazes ignored her, following instead the rigid, stick-like figure of K’azz as he appeared to drag himself, painfully, up the road.

  * * *

  The vessel’s bow slid up the strand with a loud scraping of wood on sand. At the bow its master stood scanning the dunes and scrub stretching inland. All the crew and the assembled warriors awaited his command, for though cruel and harsh he had led them on many successful raids and they trusted his leadership in war. His long coat of grey mail hung to the decking, ragged and rusted. His hair and beard hung likewise grey and ragged. The Grey Ghost, some named him – in the faintest whispers only. He preferred the title Warleader.

  With a savage yell he vaulted the side, landing in the surf in a splash. His crew followed him, howling like wolves. Of them, if any one might be named second in command, this was Scarza. A great hulking warrior who some whispered possessed more than a drop of Trell blood. He came now to the Warleader’s side, noting, in passing, how the rust of the man’s armour left a great blood-like bloom trailing behind in the surf.

  ‘No shaking of the earth, Scarza,’ the Warleader observed, shading his gaze upon the scrublands. ‘No pealing of trumpets. Not the end of the world.’

  ‘What is this you speak of, Warleader?’

  The man’s aged sallow eyes flicked to him, then away. ‘Nothing, my good Scarza … It has just been a great many years since I last walked these shores.’

  ‘And what are we to do in this wretched land that reminds me too painfully of my own?’

  The deeply furrowed lines of the ancient’s face darkened as he smiled; he seemed to enjoy his second in command’s caustic vein of humour. ‘It’s not these lands I want, Scarza. It’s the neighbouring kingdom. It’s ruled by a complacent set of self-aggr
andizing mages who style themselves master alchemists and theurgists. Here, however, are ragged bands that make their living raiding the Thaumaturgs. These we will take under our wing and show what rewards a sustained campaign can bring.’

  ‘Their deaths, you mean?’

  The lean man’s lined mouth drew down as if in mild disapproval. ‘Well,’ he admitted, ‘eventually.’

  The Warleader turned to the surf where the rest of the fleet of ten raiders now came grinding up on to the strand. ‘In the meantime send out scouts and see to the unloading, then dismantle the ships for their timber, yes?’

  Scarza bowed. ‘At once, Warleader.’

  The grey man returned his attention inland, shading his gaze once more. ‘So,’ he breathed. ‘I’m back, you wretched circle of mages. What will you do? Yes … what will you do?’

  CHAPTER I

  The voice of an old friend hailed me, when, first returned from my Wanderings, I paced again in that long street of Darujhistan which is called the Escarpment Way; and suddenly taking me wonderingly by the hand, said, ‘Tell me, since you are returned again by the assurance of Osserc, whilst we walk, as in former years, towards the blossoming orchards, what moved you, or how could you take such journeys into the Wastes of the World?’

  Chanat D’argatty

  Journeys of D’argatty

  SAENG POUNDED MORTAR with pestle, grinding the sauce for the midday meal. In went nuts, young crayfish, greens and peppers, all to be mixed in with sliced unripe papaya for a salad. She worked on her knees, bent over the broad stone mortar, her muscular forearms clenching and flexing. Her long black hair stuck to her sweaty brow and she pushed it away with the back of a hand.

  All the other women her age in the village were performing the same task in their family huts, yet with the all-important difference of fixing the meal for husbands and children. Saeng had neither. She prepared meals and cleaned house for herself and her aged mother, who, to Saeng’s continual annoyance, never missed an opportunity to criticize her efforts, or to wonder pointedly why her daughter was on her way to an early spinsterhood. How could it be otherwise, Mother? With you dismissing all our neighbours’ religious festivals as superstitious cowshit, their household shrines as false idols, and their faiths as ignorant childishness? No wonder Father disappeared. And no wonder we stand as the village pariahs.

  She dished the meal on to two banana leaves then squatted cross-legged, frowning. Not that her own habits helped. Everyone named her a witch. A servant of the Night-Mother, Ardata. In the past some had even secretly approached her asking that she curse a rival, or strike down a neighbour’s buffalo. And their indignation when she refused! It would be laughable if weren’t so sad.

  As it was, the village had their scapegoat for every stillborn calf, every sick child, and every poor harvest. And she herself was heartily tired of it. But Mother – who would take care of Mother? Yet again she wished Hanu was still with them. How she missed his quiet strength. He should’ve married and she should’ve moved in with him to rule it over his wife, leaving her free to escape all this. Instead, the unthinkable had happened and he’d been taken by the Thaumaturgs.

  And she supposed she should be thankful. For that fact alone – the prestige accruing from their sacrifice and the relief of all her neighbours that such a price fell to another – allowed them their tenuous grip here on the very edge of the village.

  She took up a pinch of rice with the salad and chewed without enthusiasm. And soon Mother would arrive fresh with gossip from her morning round. So-and-so is expecting another grandchild! And so-and-so’s nephew has a cough! Saeng hung her head. Gods deliver her!

  And here she comes up the path. Saeng took a steadying breath. ‘So,’ she welcomed her, ‘what news, Mother?’ After some moments she peered up, a pinch of rice in one hand. Her mother watched her, quite uncharacteristically silent. ‘Yes? What is it?’

  Her mother stood just before the open front veranda. She twisted her hands in the cloth of her mulitcoloured wrap. ‘News? Yes – real news this time, Saeng. Refugees passing the village. Fleeing the west. And Mae’s relations have arrived with nothing more than the clothes on their backs.’

  Saeng sat back, frowning even more than usual. ‘What is it?’

  ‘An army comes, littlest. Our lords the Thaumaturgs march to war and they come impressing into service everyone they find.’

  Saeng popped the ball of rice into her mouth and chewed thoughtfully. ‘Well, what is that to us? We’ve already paid.’

  Her mother shook her head. ‘I don’t think that will count any longer. And—’ but she stopped herself.

  ‘And what?’

  ‘Saeng,’ her mother began again, reaching out a hand, ‘the old faith is explicit! In times of war the priestess must be in the temple …’

  ‘Please, Mother … don’t go on about that.’

  Her mother clasped her hands, shocked. ‘Do not blaspheme! Your great-grandmother was unswerving in this – you must seek out the Great Temple.’

  Saeng could hardly find the words. ‘Mother … the old faith is long dead. No one even knows where the temples are!’ She laughed a touch nervously. ‘Really – you’re being … silly.’

  But her mother’s face eased into her usual disappointment and she shook her head. Clenching her lips, Saeng looked away and finished her meal.

  That night she couldn’t sleep. The Nak-ta called to her louder than they had in many years. No matter which way she tossed or turned she couldn’t shut them out. And even more distantly, when she concentrated, she thought she could hear the crash of great shapes lumbering ever closer through the jungle.

  Then a voice called even louder than the wind rustling the palm leaves and shaking the rattan. Wordless it was; no more than a moan that sounded like someone gagged or wounded. Never before had she heard such a thing. And the voice – a man’s. One of the villagers? Occasionally some fool would stagger drunk or sick off the paths only to be taken. If she got to them soon enough she would try to intercede, but when the shades had claimed their victim it was almost impossible to retrieve him. Only once had she exerted the extra, and very perilous, effort necessary – and that had been for a child. She threw on her wrap and padded out past their cleared garden patch into the wall of trees that was the verge of the trackless jungle that stretched from one coast to the other of her land, Jacuruku.

  Once within the darkness between the tall trunks she paused, listening and sensing. She reached out, extending her awareness in an ever-broadening circle. She felt the footfall of the many night creatures surrounding the village, from a small family group of snuffling peccary to the nosing of a tiny shrew. Pushing even further she sensed the hot watchful presence of a night-hunting cat high in its perch, and on the far side of the circle of huts a troop of monkeys scavenged a meal – as far from the cat as possible.

  Strange. Was there no one? Usually those who left the paths at night crashed blindly about as hard to miss as an elephant. So much for the flesh. What of the discarnate? Perhaps—

  A footfall sounded. Close. Heavy. Far too heavy to be that of any villager. Then another. And a shape emerged from the deeper darkness, a monstrously huge figure, tall and broad. It crossed an errant beam of the green-tinged moonlight as it approached and Saeng’s breath caught as she recognized one of the Thaumaturg’s giant armoured soldiers. The yakshaka.

  So – they were here already.

  She calmed herself and knelt, head bowed, awaiting the arrival of its master, who could not be too distant. These indestructible giants guarded the Thaumaturgs and were the backbone of their armies. So it is true. They march to the eastern highlands. An advance upon the true source of the wilderness’s lurking dangers: the vast primeval tracks of the Demon-Queen’s demesnes. The jungle of Himatan, half of this land, half of the spirit realm.

  Yet I sense no others nearby.

  A strange grating noise raised her attention to the yakshaka. Wary, she peeped up. It was doing something at its neck
with its heavy armoured hands. Perhaps adjusting the great full helm. The mosaic of inlaid stones that covered its armour glittered as it moved. To Saeng’s horror the helm lifted off revealing a head beneath, the scalp shaved and horribly scarred. Dark eyes – human eyes – blinked, wincing even at this unaccustomed dim light, then peered down at her with a strange gentle intimacy.

  She stared, terrified, and irrationally all she could think was: They’ll blame me for breaking it!

  Then the mouth moved soundlessly, forming a word. A word she couldn’t believe such a creature would know. Her name, Saeng.

  And her flesh prickled in shocked recognition. She knew that face, disfigured though it might be.

  She answered, hardly daring to breathe: ‘Hanu …’

  The yakshaka nodded, its mangled lips rising in a travesty of a smile.

  She came close and pressed a hand to its chest, then recoiled at the cold rigidity of the armour. ‘What happened? Why are you here? What’s going on? Oh, dear Hanu – what’s happened to you?’

  The smile fell from her brother’s lips and his gaze fell. Taking a deep breath he touched a finger to his lips then opened his mouth. Puzzled, Saeng looked, then felt the strength leave her knees and darkness take her.

  His tongue had been sliced away.

  She came to, finding herself propped up against a tree. Hanu stood over her, his gaze on the surrounding woods. She peered up at him for a time, enjoying the old familiarity of his presence.

  Guarding me still. But you should not be here. What’s going on?

  ‘Hanu,’ she whispered, ‘why are you here?’

  He turned, peering down. With one gauntleted hand he made a shape and Saeng recognized it as one of their old hand-language signs, part of a system they had invented for silent communication.

  ‘Promise.’

  ‘Promise? Whatever do you mean, promise? Your promise to protect me? That?’

  ‘Coming,’ he signed.

  ‘Coming? So – they are coming.’ She stood, brushed the damp rotting humus from herself. ‘Well … what’s that to me?’