Toe had his memories, a whole battlefield’s worth, and as the last man left standing he held few illusions of grandeur, either as witness or as player. So this lone eye cannot help but look askance. Is it any wonder I’ve taken to poetry?
The Grey Swords had been cut to pieces. Slaughtered. Oh, they’d yielded their lives in blood enough to pay the Hound’s Toll, as the Gadrobi were wont to say. But what had their deaths meant? Nothing. A waste. Yet here he rode, in the company of his betrayers.
Does Redmask offer redemption? He promises the defeat of the Letherii-but they were not our enemies, not until we agreed the contract. So, what is redeemed? The extinction of the Grey Swords? Oh, 1 need to twist and bend to bind those two together, and how am I doing thus far?
Badly. Not a whisper of righteousness-no crow croaks on my shoulder as we march to war.
Oh, Tool, I could use your friendship right now. A few terse words on futility to cheer me up.
Twenty myrid had been killed, gutted and skinned but not hung to drain their blood. The cavities where their organs had been were stuffed solid with a local tuber that had been sweated on hot stones. The carcasses were then wrapped in hides and loaded into a wagon that was kept apart from all the others in the train. Redmask’s plans for the battle to come. No more peculiar than all the others. The man has spent years thinking on this inevitable war. That makes me nervous.
Hey, Tool, you’d think after all I’ve been through, I’d have no nerves left. But I’m no Whiskeyjack. Or Kalam. No, for me, it just gets worse.
Marching to war. Again. Seems the world wants me to be a soldier.
Well, the world can go fuck itself.
‘A haunted man,’ the elder said in his broken growl as he reached up and scratched the savage red scar marring his neck. ‘He should not be with us. Fey in darkness, that one. He dreams of running with wolves.’
Redmask shrugged, wondering yet again what this old man wanted with him. An elder who did not fear the K’Chain Che’Malle, who was so bold as to guide his ancient horse between Redmask and Sag’Churok.
‘You should have killed him.’
‘I do not ask for your advice, Elder,’ Redmask said. ‘He is owed respite. We must redeem our people in his eyes.’
‘Pointless,’ the old man snapped. ‘Kill him and we need redeem ourselves to no-one. Kill him and we are free.’
‘One cannot flee the past.’
‘Indeed? That belief must taste bitter for one such as you, Redmask. Best discard it.’
Redmask slowly faced the man. ‘Of me, Elder, you know nothing.’
A twisted smile. ‘Alas, I do. You do not recognize me, Redmask. You should.’
‘You are Renfayar-my tribe. You share blood with Masarch.’
‘Yes, but more than that. I am old. Do you understand? I
am the oldest among our people, the last one left… who was there, who remembers. Everything.’ The smile broadened, revealing rotted teeth, a pointed red-almost purple-tongue. ‘I know your secret, Redmask. I know what she meant to you, and I know why.’ The eyes glittered, black and red-rimmed. ‘You had best fear me, Redmask. You had best heed my words-my advice. I shall ride your shoulder, yes? From this moment on, until the very day of battle. And I shall speak with the voice of the Awl, my voice the voice of their souls. And know this, Redmask: I shall not countenance their betrayal. Not by you, not by that one-eyed stranger and his bloodthirsty wolves.’
Redmask studied the old man a moment longer, then fixed his gaze ahead once more.
A soft, ragged laugh at his side, then, You dare say nothing. You dare do nothing. I am a dagger hovering over your heart. Do not fear me-there is no need, unless you intend evil. I wish you great glory in this war. I wish the end of the Letherii, for all time. Perhaps such glory shall come by your hand-together, you and I, let us strive for that, yes?’
A long moment of silence.
‘Speak, Redmask,’ the elder growled. ‘Lest I suspect defiance.’
An end to the Letherii, yes,’ Redmask finally said, in a grating voice. ‘Victory for the Awl.’
‘Good,’ grunted the old man. ‘Good.’
The magic world had ended abruptly, an ending as sudden as the slamming of a trunk lid-a sound that had always shocked her, frozen her in place. Back in the city, that place of reeks and noise, there had been a house steward, a tyrant, who would hunt down slave children who had, in his words, disappointed him. A night spent in the musty confines of the bronze box would teach them a thing or two, wouldn’t it?
Stayandi had spent one such night, enclosed in cramped darkness, two months or so before the slaves joined the colonists out on the plain. The solid clunk of the lid had truly seemed, then, the end of the world. Her shrieks had filled the close air of the trunk until something broke in her throat, until every scream was naught but a hiss of air.
Since that time, she had been mute, yet this had proved a gift, for she had been selected to enter the Mistress’s domain as a handmaiden in training. No secrets would pass her lips, after all. And she would have been there still, if not for the homesteading.
A magic world. So much space, so much air. The freedom of blue skies, unending wind and darkness lit by countless stars-she had not imagined such a world existed, all within reach.
And then one night, it ended. A fierce nightmare made real in screams of slaughter.
Abasard-
She had fled into the darkness, stunned with the knowledge of his death-her brother, who had flung himself into the demon’s path, who had died in her place. Her bared feet, feather-light, carrying her away, the hiss of grasses soon the only sound to reach her ears. Stars glittering, the plain bathed silver, the wind cooling the sweat on her skin.
In her mind, her feet carried her across an entire continent. Away from the realm of people, of slaves and masters, of herds and soldiers and demons. She was alone now, witness to a succession of dawns, smeared sunsets, alone on a plain that stretched out unbroken on all sides. She saw wild creatures, always at a distance. Darting hares, antelope watching from ridgelines, hawks wheeling in the sky. At night she heard the howl of wolves and coyotes and, once, the guttural bellow of a bear.
She did not eat, and the pangs of hunger soon passed, so that she floated, and all that her eyes witnessed shone with a luminous clarity. Water she licked from dew-laden grasses, the cupped holes of deer and elk tracks in basins, and once she found a spring, almost hidden by thick brush in which flitted hundreds of tiny birds. It had been their chittering songs that had drawn her attention.
An eternity of running later, she had fallen. And found no strength to rise once more, to resume the wondrous journey through this glowing land.
Night then stole upon her, and not long after came the four-legged people. They wore furs smelling of wind and dust, and they gathered close, lying down, sharing the warmth of their thick, soft cloaks. There were children among them, tiny babes that crawled as did their parents, squirming and snuggling up against her.
And when they fed on milk, so did Stayandi.
The four-legged people were as mute as she was, until they began their mournful cries, when night was at its deepest; crying-she knew-to summon the sun.
They stayed with her, guardians with their gifts of warmth and food. After the milk, there was meat. Crushed, mangled carcasses-mice, shrews, a headless snake-she ate all they gave her, tiny bones crunching in her mouth, damp fur and chewy skin.
This too seemed timeless, a foreverness. The grown-ups came and went. The children grew burlier, and she now crawled with them when it was time to wander.