The three Forkrul Assail were silent then, each preoccupied with their own thoughts.
And then Sister Freedom said, ‘I shall seek to enslave the soldiers we face. They could prove useful.’
‘But not the hundred I hunt,’ said Brother Grave.
‘No,’ she agreed. ‘Kill them all, Brother.’
Ben Adaephon Delat reined in hard, his horse’s hoofs skidding through the parched grasses.
Cursing, Kalam wheeled his mount round, the beast pitching beneath him in its exhaustion. He glared back his friend. ‘What is it now, Quick?’
But the wizard held up a hand, shaking his head.
Settling back to ease his aching spine, Kalam looked round, seeing nothing but empty, rolling land. The taint of green from the jade slashes overhead made the world look sickly, but already he was growing used to that.
‘Never mind the Adjunct,’ Quick Ben said.
Kalam shot him a startled look. ‘What? Her brother—’
‘I know – you think this was easy? I felt them pulling apart. I’ve been thinking about that all morning. I know why Ganoes wants us to find her – I know why he sent us ahead. But it’s no good, Kalam. I’m sorry. It’s no good.’
The assassin stared at his friend for a moment longer, and then he sagged, spat to clear the taste of ashes from his mouth. ‘She’s on her own, then.’
‘Aye. Her choice.’
‘No – don’t even try that, Quick. This is your choice!’
‘She’s forced my hand, damn you!’
‘How? What has she done? What’s all this about pulling apart? What in Hood’s name does that even mean?’
Quick Ben’s horse must have picked up some of its rider’s agitation, for it now shied beneath him and he fought to regain control for a moment. As the animal backed in a half-circle, the wizard swore under his breath. ‘Listen. It’s not with her any more. She’s made herself the sacrifice – how do you think I can even know this? Kalam, she’s given up her sword.’
Kalam stared. ‘What?’
‘But I can feel it – that weapon. It’s the blank place in my vision. That’s where we have to go.’
‘So she dies, does she? Just like that?’
Quick Ben rubbed at his face. ‘No. We’ve been doing too much of this – all of us. From the very start.’
‘Back to the fucking riddles.’
‘Underestimating her! From damned near the first day I ended up with the Bonehunters, I’ve listened to us all second-guessing her, every damned step she took. I did my share, Hood knows. But it wasn’t just me, was it? Her officers. The marines. The fucking camp cook – what did you tell me a while back? About that moment in Mock’s Hold, when she asked you to save her? You did it, you said, because she just asked you – no bargaining, no reasons or explanations. She just went and asked you, Kalam. Was it hard saying yes? Tell me the truth. Was it?’
Slowly, Kalam shook his head. ‘But I sometimes wondered … did I just feel sorry for her?’
Quick Ben reacted as if he’d been slapped. In a soft voice he asked, ‘Do you still think that, Kalam?’
The assassin was silent, thinking about it. Then he sighed. ‘We know where Ganoes wants us. We even know why – he’s her brother, for Hood’s sake.’
‘We know where she wants us, too, Kalam.’
‘Do we?’
Quick Ben slowly nodded.
‘So which of the fucking Parans do we obey here?’
‘Which one would you rather face – here or other side of the Gates – to tell ’em you failed, that you made the wrong choice? No, I don’t mean brazening it out, either. Just standing there, saying what needs saying?’
Fuck. ‘I feel like I’m back in Mock’s Hold,’ he said in a growl. ‘I feel as if I never left.’
‘And she meets your eyes.’
Abruptly a sob took the assassin, vicious as a body blow and just as unexpected.
His friend waited, saying nothing – and Kalam knew that he wouldn’t, because they’d been through it all together. Because true friends knew when to keep silent, to give all the patience needed. Kalam struggled to lock down on his emotions – he wasn’t even sure what had taken him, in that moment. Maybe this unrelenting pressure. This endless howl no one else even hears.
I stood looking down on the city. I stood knowing I was about to walk a path of blood.
The betrayal didn’t even matter, not to me; the Claw was always full of shits. Did it matter to her either? No. She’d already dismissed it. Just one more knife in her chest, and she was already carrying plenty of those, starting with the one she stuck there with her own hands.
Kalam shook himself. ‘Same direction?’
‘For now,’ Quick Ben replied. ‘Until we get closer. Then – southwest.’
‘To the sword.’
‘To the sword.’
‘Anyone babysitting it, Quick?’
‘I hope not.’
Kalam gathered his reins, drew a deep breath and slowly eased it back out. ‘Quick – how did she manage to cross that desert anyway?’
The wizard shook his head, half smiled. ‘Guess we … underestimated her.’
After a moment, they set out once again.
Wings crooking, Silchas Ruin slid earthward. After a moment, Tulas Shorn followed. To the south they could see something like a cloud, or a swarm. The air hissing past their wings felt brittle, fraught with distant pain rolling like waves across the sky.
Silchas Ruin landed hard on the ground, sembled almost immediately, and staggered forward, hands held over his ears.
Taking his Edur form, Tulas Shorn studied his friend, but drew no closer. Overhead, one of the jade slashes began edging across the face of the sun. A sudden deepening of shadow enveloped them, the gloom eerie and turgid.
Groaning, Silchas finally straightened, stiff as an old man. He looked across. ‘It’s the Hust sword,’ he said. ‘Its howling was driving me mad.’
‘I hear nothing,’ Tulas said.
‘In my skull – I swear I could feel bones crack.’
‘Unsheathe it, friend.’
Silchas Ruin looked over with wide eyes, his expression filling with dread.
‘Grasp it when you veer.’
‘And what will that achieve?’
‘I don’t know. But I cannot imagine that this gift was meant to torture you. Your only other choice, Silchas, is to discard it.’ He gestured southward. ‘We are almost upon them – I am, frankly, astonished that she still lives. But if we delay here much longer …’
‘Tulas, I am afraid.’
‘Of dying? A little late for that.’
Silchas smiled, but it was more of a grimace. ‘Easy for you to say.’
‘I dwelt a long time in the House of Death, tormented by the truth that I failed to achieve what I most wanted in my life. That sense, of terrible incompleteness, overwhelmed me many times. But now I stand with you, my brother, and I will fall in your stead if I can in this battle to come. Oblivion does not frighten me – I see only its blessed release.’
Silchas Ruin studied him. Then he sighed and reached for the sword. Hand closing on its plain grip, he slid the weapon free.
The Hust sword bucked in his hand, voicing a deafening shriek.
Tulas Shorn was driven back a step, and he stared in shock as enormous ghostly chains appeared, writhing from the sword’s patterned blade. Those chains seemed to be anchored deep into the ground, and suddenly the land beneath them was shaking, pitching them about as if the world was rolling its shoulders. From below, a rising thunder—
A blast of dirt and stone lifted skyward off to Tulas Shorn’s left, and he bellowed in shock upon seeing a dragon clawing its way free of the steaming earth. And then, off to the right, another erupted in a shower of debris, and then a third – each one chained as it rose from the ground, wings hammering the dust-filled air.
Their roars – of release – ripped across the plain.