Forge of Darkness (Kharkanas Trilogy 1) Page 28

  ‘And what of your secrets, Sharenas Ankhadu?’

  ‘Alas, mostly venal, I admit. But if you enquire, you shall have them in abundance.’

  To her astonishment, the weathered face creased in a smile. ‘It is said that among the three, you are the cleverest.’

  She snorted. ‘Among the three that’s hardly a triumph of wit.’

  ‘Will you side with Urusander?’

  ‘You waste little time, Tulas.’

  Tulas made a strange sound, and then said, ‘Time? In abundance it is no more than preparation. In short supply it is every necessary deed. We are hoarders of time’s wealth, yet worshippers of its waste.’

  ‘You have spent years now, preparing to die, Tulas. A waste? Most assuredly.’

  ‘I’ll bear the cut of your tongue and wipe away what blood may flow.’

  She looked ahead through the grainy gloom. Another day was past and the time of failing light was upon them. ‘Calat Hustain was a wall, against which Hunn Raal flung arguments. Stone after stone, shattering, raining down. His words were futile as dust. It was glorious.’

  ‘Ilgast Rend was a bear among wolves, yet the wolves saw it not.’

  ‘You knew his purpose?’

  ‘I surmised. He is a conservative man, and only grows more hardened in his ways. Whatever he said to Calat was all the bulwark the commander needed and as you say: the walls did not so much as tremble.’

  ‘My sister and cousin will back Urusander, if only to wound Draconus. Better a husband than a consort, if she is to rule us all.’

  ‘Children cleave to the security of a formal union in the matter of parents,’ said Tulas. ‘It is in their nature to dislike their mother’s lover, if that is all he is. There is a way among the Jheleck, when they have veered into their wolf form, that males are taken by a fever of violence and they set out to slay the pups of their rivals.’

  Sharenas thought about that, and then smiled. ‘We do the same and call it war.’

  ‘No other reasons serve?’

  She shrugged. ‘Forms and rules serve to confound what is in essence both simple and banal. Now, you ask which way I will fall. I have thought about it, yet am still undecided. And you?’

  ‘I shall side with peace.’

  ‘Who among any of us would claim otherwise?’

  ‘Many speak of peace, yet their hearts are torrid and vile. Their one love is violence, the slaying of enemies, and in the absence of true enemies, they will invent them. I wonder, how much of this hatred for Draconus comes from base envy?’

  ‘I have wondered the same,’ Sharenas admitted.

  They rode on for a time then, silent. The caustic air, so near the as yet unseen Vitr, burned in the throat, made raw the eyes. They passed the carcasses of slain wolves, the beasts scaled rather than furred, and though only days old already the hide was crumbling, the jutting bones gnawed by the very air.

  Deep into the night Bered called a halt. It was a wonder to Sharenas that the Wardens had managed to follow a trail this long. Now the captain dismounted and walked back to her and Tulas. ‘Here, Finarra Stone emerged from among the rocks, coming from the shore. Her steps were laboured, her stride unsteady. We will rest here, as best we can in this foul atmosphere, and approach the Vitr with the dawn. Lady Sharenas, Lord Tulas, will you join us in a meal?’

  * * *

  The sun was like a wound in the sky, reflecting dully on the tranquil surface of the Vitr Sea. They were arrayed in a row upon the high bank, looking down through a scatter of pocked boulders. Just up from the shore sprawled an enormous, headless carcass. Close to it was the mangled remains of Finarra Stone’s horse.

  ‘She spoke true, then,’ Sharenas said. ‘But how is it that a creature with its head cut away was able to live on, much less launch an attack?’

  Bered, his face pale and drawn tight, dismounted and closed a gauntleted hand on the sword at his belt. ‘Selad, Stenas, Quill, walk your horses with me. Lances out.’

  Tulas grunted and then said, ‘Captain, the beast is clearly dead. Its flesh rots. Its organs are spilled out and sun-cracked.’

  Not replying, Bered set out down the makeshift trail between the boulders. The three named Wardens accompanied him, each picking his own path.

  Tulas slipped down from his horse and followed the captain.

  Pulling her gaze away, Sharenas stared out upon the Vitr. Its placid mien belied its evident malice. Rising on her stirrups, she scanned the length of shoreline, first to the west, and then to the east. She frowned. ‘There is something there,’ she said, and then pointed. ‘A shadow, half in, half out of the water. No boulder could long survive that.’

  One of the Wardens near her, second in rank behind Bered, guided his horse down to the left, out on to the strand. Sharenas glanced back at Bered and the others. They had reached the two carcasses, and Bered, sword sheathed, was pulling loose the saddle from the dead horse. He’d already retrieved Finarra’s weapons and delivered them to one of his Wardens. Tulas stood a few paces back, watching.

  Her chest felt tight, much like after a night with the pipe, and she could feel vehemence in the fumes flowing against her exposed skin. Eyes stinging, she set out after the veteran. Joining him on the strand she said, ‘Nothing untoward with the captain. It seems the creature is finally dead. Let us ride to examine our find, and then we can be quit of this place.’

  ‘The Vitr yields no detritus, Lady Sharenas.’

  ‘It seems that now it does.’

  The observation made him clearly unhappy. Sighing, he nodded. ‘Quickly then, as you say.’

  They kicked their mounts into a slow canter. The sharp sands beneath the horses’ hoofs sounded strangely hollow.

  Four hundred or so paces ahead, the object casting the shadow looked angular, tilted like a beached ship, but far more massive than any ship Sharenas had seen – although in truth she had only seen ships in illustrations, among Forulkan books and hide paintings, and scale was always dubious in such renderings, so eager were the artists to magnify personages aboard such craft.

  From one of the two spars something like sailcloth hung down in torn shrouds. The other spar was broken halfway down its length, tilted with its tip buried in the sand.

  But as they drew closer, both riders slowed their mounts.

  Not a ship.

  The Warden’s voice was weak with disbelief. ‘I thought them tales. Legends.’

  ‘You imagine Mother Dark succumbed to invention? She walked to the End of Darkness, and stood on a spar surrounded in chaos. And when she called upon that chaos, shapes emerged from the wildness.’

  ‘Is it dead, do you think? It must be dead.’

  Illustrators had attempted to make sense of Mother Dark’s vague descriptions. They had elected to draw inspiration from a winged lizard that had once dwelt in abundance in the Great Blackwood, before the trees in which they nested were all cut down. But such forest denizens were small, not much larger than a month-old hunting hound. They had been called Eleint.

  The spars were the bones of wings, the sailcloth thin membrane. The sharp angles were jutting shoulder blades, splayed hips. At the same time, this was so unlike the beast that had attacked Finarra Stone as to belong to someone else’s nightmare. It massed three times the size, for one.

  Dragon. Thing of myth, the yearning for flight made carnate. Yet … see its head, the length of its neck so like a serpent’s body. And those jaws could devour a horse entire. See its eyes, smeared black in blood like tears.

  The Warden reined in. ‘Captain Bered must see this.’

  ‘Ride back,’ said Sharenas. ‘I will examine it more closely.’

  ‘I would advise against that, milady. Perhaps it is a quality of the Vitr that nothing dead stays dead.’

  She shot him a look. ‘An intriguing notion. Go on. I intend to be careful, as I happen to greatly value my life.’

  He swung his horse round, kicked it into a canter, and then a gallop.

  Facing the dragon aga
in, she rode closer. At fifty paces her mount baulked, so she slipped down from the saddle and hobbled the horse.

  The giant beast was lying on its side. Its flank bore wounds, as of ribs punching out through the thick, scaled hide, but she could see no thrust of white bone from any of them, and there were scores. The huge belly, facing her, had been sliced open. Entrails were spilled out in a massive heap, and these had been slashed and chopped at, savaged as if by a sword swung in frenzy.

  Something else was lying near the belly wound, amidst disturbed sands. Sharenas approached.

  Clothing. Armour, stained by acids. Discarded. A long, thin-bladed sword was lying close to the gear, black with gore. And there … footprints leading away.

  Sharenas found that she was standing, motionless, unable to take another step closer. Her eyes tracked the prints up the strand to where they vanished between boulders crowding the verge.

  ‘Faror Hend,’ she murmured, ‘who walks with you now?’

  EIGHT

  ‘THERE IS NOTHING bold in the wearing of weapons,’ haut said, the vertical pupils of his eyes narrowed down to the thinnest of lines as he studied the array on the table’s battered, gouged surface. ‘Each one you see here is but a variation. What they share is of far greater import, Korya. They are all arguments in iron.’ He turned upon her his lined, weathered face, and his tusks were the hue of old horn in the meagre light, the greenish cast of his skin reminding her of verdigris. ‘You will eschew such obvious conceits. For you, iron is the language of failure.’

  Korya gestured at the weapons on the table. ‘Yet, these are yours, and by their wear, you have argued many times, master.’

  ‘And won the last word each and every time, yes. But what has that availed me? More years heaped upon my back, more days beneath the senseless sun and the empty wind in my face. More nights under indifferent stars. More graves to visit, more memories to haunt me. In my dreams, Korya, I have lost the gift of colour. For so long now, in passing through my eyes the world is bleached of all life, and strikes upon my soul in dull shades of grey.’

  ‘I must tire you, then, master.’

  He grunted. ‘Foolish child. You are my lone blaze. Now, heed me well, for I shall not repeat myself. We must quit this place.’

  ‘Do you fear the return of the Jheleck?’

  ‘Cease interrupting me. I have spoken now of the education awaiting you, but all that I have done has been in preparation. There are things you must now learn that are beyond my expertise. We journey south, to where powers are awakening.’

  ‘I do not understand, master. What powers? Have not the Jaghut surrendered all claims upon such things?’

  Haut took up a weighty belt bearing a sword in a heavy leather scabbard. He strapped it on, adjusted it briefly, and then removed it with a scowl. The weapon thumped heavily back on to the tabletop. ‘Azathanai,’ he said. ‘Someone has been precipitous. But I must speak with my kin. Those who have remained, that is. The rest can go rot.’

  ‘Why am I so important, master?’

  ‘Who said you were?’

  ‘Why then have you spent years preparing me, if I am to have little or no value?’

  ‘Impertinence serves you well, Korya, but you ever risk the back of someone’s hand across the face.’

  ‘You have never struck me.’

  ‘So, like some Jheleck mongrel, you play the odds, do you?’ He lifted free a heavy halberd, stepped back and waved it about, until the blade bit into a wall, sending stone chips flying. He dropped the weapon with a clang, rubbed at his wrists.

  ‘What will you discuss with your kin?’

  ‘Discuss? We never discuss. We argue.’

  ‘With iron?’

  A quick, savage smile lit his features, only to vanish again a moment later. ‘Delightful as the notion is, no.’

  ‘Then why are you girded for war?’

  ‘I fear too light a step,’ he replied.

  Korya fought the urge to leave the chamber, to head back up the tower. To stand beneath the morning stars and watch the sun slay them all. Haut had forbidden her any possessions beyond a change of clothes for this journey. Even so, she believed they would never return here.

  Haut collected a double-bladed axe with an antler shaft and hefted it. ‘Thel Akai. Where did I come by this? Handsome weapon … trophy or gift? My conscience makes no stir, so … not booty. How often, I wonder, must triumph drip blood? And is it by this that we find its taste so sweet?’

  ‘Master, if it is not by iron I am to defend myself, then what?’

  ‘Your wits, child. Now, can you not see that I am busy?’

  ‘You told me to listen well, master. I remain, listening well.’

  ‘I did? You are?’

  ‘We are to travel south, among your kin. Yet the source of your curiosity will be found among the Azathanai. Thus, I assume we will meet with them as well. This promises to be a long journey, and yet we have but a small bag of food, a single waterskin each, two blankets and a pot.’

  ‘I see your point. Find us a ladle.’

  ‘Will you be passing me on to one of your kin, master? To further my education?’

  ‘Who would have you? Get such absurd notions out of your head. We might as well be bound together in shackle and chain. You are the headache I cannot expunge from my skull, the old wound crowing the coming of rain, the limp that stumbles on flat ground.’ He found a leather strap to take the weight of the Thel Akai axe. ‘Now,’ he said as he collected up his helm and faced her, ‘are you ready?’

  ‘The ladle?’

  ‘Since you are so eager to be armed, why not? It hangs on a hook above the hearth.’

  ‘I know that,’ she snapped, turning round to retrieve it. ‘I mislike mysteries, master.’

  ‘Then I shall feed you nothing but, until you are bloated and near to bursting.’

  ‘I despise riddles even more.’

  ‘Then I shall make of you an enigma to all. Oh, just reach for it, will you? There. No, tuck it into your belt. Now you can walk with a swagger, bold as a wolf. Unless you’d rather carry the axe?’

  ‘No. Weapons frighten me.’

  ‘Then some wisdom at least I have taught you. Good.’

  She did not want to leave. By far the greater host of her memories belonged in this tower, rather than in the place of her birth; but now it seemed she would make her pilgrimage, by a most circuitous route, back home. In her path, however, she would find other Jaghut, and then the Azathanai. Since the Jheleck visit, Haut had been animated by something, his mood mercurial, and it seemed that his infirmities were vanishing from his withered form, like skins in the heat. He bore himself like a warrior now, readying himself for an argument in iron.

  She followed him to the door, frowning at it as if seeing it for the first time. All at once, she had no faith in what waited beyond it. A sweep of yellow grasses, the muted rise of worn hills ahead, a sky paling as if brushed with light – these would be as they always were. What then to fear?

  As Haut reached out for the handle he paused and glanced back. ‘You’re learning.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  The Jaghut flung open the door. Darkness swirled in like smoke around him, tendrils curling round his legs. He muttered something, but, turned away as he was from her, she could not make out the words.

  Dread held Korya motionless. Her heart beat wildly, like a trapped bird.

  This time, when Haut spoke, she heard him clearly. ‘I begin to see now, what they did. It is clever, yet rife with risk. Very well, we shall walk it, and see where it leads.’

  ‘Master – what has happened to the world?’

  ‘Nothing … yet. Come along.’

  Somehow she managed to step into his wake, the ladle banging at her thigh with each stride. Flickers of irritation sought to distract her, but she held her gaze upon the strange, smoky darkness. As it flowed up and around her, she was startled to realize that she could see through its ethereal substance. Haut marched ah
ead, his worn boots thumping and scuffing across gravel.

  Crossing the threshold of the tower’s entrance, she beheld a narrow path running along a ridge barely an arm’s reach across. To either side there was nothing but empty space. She swallowed down a sudden vertigo. When she spoke, the vastness devoured her voice. ‘Master, how can this be?’

  Under her feet, she felt the gravel shifting unsteadily and looked down. She saw, in gleam and sparkle, jewellery: a thick carpet of gems, rings, baubles; a veritable treasure underfoot. Haut paid it no heed, kicking through the clutter as if it were nothing more than woodchips and pebbles. Crouching, she collected up a handful. The rings were all cut through, twisted as if pulled from senseless fingers. She held a neck torc of solid gold, bent and gouged as if by knife cuts. Snapped necklaces slithered down between the fingers of her hand, cool as serpents. Glancing up, she saw that Haut had stopped and was looking back at her.

  Korya shook her head in disbelief. ‘Wealth to make a noble less than a beggar. Master, who would leave such a trail?’

  Haut grunted. ‘Wealth? Is it rarity that warrants value? If so, of greater value than these trinkets are trust, truth and integrity. Of greater value still, forgiveness. Of greatest value among them all, an outstretched hand. Wealth? We live in paucity. And this here is a most treacherous path – and we must walk it with unerring step, child.’

  Korya dropped the treasure and straightened. ‘I fear that I might stumble. I might fall, master.’

  He shrugged, as if the notion gave him no qualm. ‘This is loot. A slayer’s hoard. The path wends upward and who can say what waits at its very end? A keep groaning beneath melted sheaths of gold? A throne of diamond where sits a rotted corpse? Will you believe this path to be so obvious? Who defends this realm? What army kneels in service to gold and silver? How warm is their bed of jewels at night?’

  ‘I said I dislike riddles, master. What realm is this?’