‘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 not 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.