Forge of Darkness (Kharkanas Trilogy 1) Read online

  Through it all, however, even as the wine softened the scene, she took in every word, every gesture, desperate to make sense of this gathering.

  Guests.

  They never had guests. Traders simply visited, and those that stayed overnight camped outside the walls. On much rarer occasions, another Jaghut arrived, to pick up on some obscure argument with Haut – a reluctant, pained exchange of words – and then was gone again, often leaving in the dead of night, and Haut’s mood would be foul for days thereafter.

  The Jheleck had ignored her upon seating themselves and settling into their feast. Wine was guzzled like water from the well. Comments in two languages were flung back and forth. Belches and grunts accompanied every mouthful. There were no women among the warriors, leading Korya to wonder if this was some sect, a gaggle of priests or a brotherhood. Among the Thel Akai could be found monks sworn to weapons they themselves had fashioned from raw ore; perhaps these Jheleck were similarly avowed – they had not discarded their blades, after all, whereas Haut had divested himself of his martial gear as soon as he strode into the chamber.

  The warrior seated on her left crowded against her, his heavily muscled shoulder and arm jostling her again and again. The Jheleck opposite seemed amused by her discomfort when he finally took notice. ‘Sagral,’ he suddenly barked, ‘ware your lumpy self, lest you end up in her lap.’

  Raucous laughter greeted this comment, while Haut simply grunted, reaching for a jug of wine. Pouring himself another cup, he then said, ‘Careful you do not awaken her temper.’

  The one who’d spoken lifted shaggy eyebrows. ‘You’ve suffered it, then, captain?’

  Captain?

  ‘I have not, but she is Tiste and she is a young woman. I have waited for its coming since she first arrived, and still I wait. I am certain that it exists, although no amount of abuse I hurl at her has managed to sting it awake.’

  Sagral leaned hard against her, thrusting close his broad, scarred face. ‘Anger is a sign of sharp wits, nay, of intelligence itself.’ His black eyes fixed on her. ‘Is it so?’ he asked. ‘Have years of Jaghut nonsense obliterated every spark? Assuming you had any to begin with?’

  She studied him, making no effort to recoil, and said nothing.

  Sagral’s eyes widened, and then he looked to Haut. ‘Is she a mute?’

  ‘She’s never said as much,’ Haut replied.

  The brutes laughed again, and already she longed to be ignored as she had been earlier, but it seemed that now she was to be the butt of every jest. She turned to Haut. ‘Master, I wish to be excused.’

  ‘Impossible,’ Haut replied. ‘After all, they’re here for you.’

  * * *

  Typically, Haut was in no hurry to explain and she was left with a tumble of pointless questions filling her mind. They had given him a title; they had called him a captain. That was a military rank in the manner of Urusander’s Legion, or the Forulkan. But hostages were never given to soldiers: no army could be said to hold noble title, after all. Had her people erred in sending her here? Had they sent her into the keeping of a commoner?

  No, that made no sense. If she—

  ‘Captain,’ said the warrior opposite her, his sharp tone snapping her out of her confused thoughts, ‘without trust there can be no peace. You, among all of us, know this as truth. In this gift, we shall find a name, and it shall be a name of honour.’

  Haut slowly nodded – all at the table were now silent, listening. ‘And you wish to twine your gesture with that which I have the power to give to you. In return for what?’

  ‘Peace.’

  ‘I have peace, Rusk.’

  The spokesman grinned, showing filed teeth. ‘Nothing lasts for ever.’

  Haut grunted, reaching again for his cup. ‘Did your defeat at the hands of the Tiste teach you hounds nothing?’

  Rusk’s grin vanished, and it was Sagral who answered, ‘You have no Borderswords. You have no Urusander’s Legion. You have no Houseblades of the High Families. What have we learned, captain? Your army is gone. This is what we have learned.’

  ‘We never had an army, Sagral,’ Haut replied, the vertical slits of his pupils narrowing as if in bright light. ‘We are Jaghut. Armies are anathema, and we have no taste for war. When facing fools who proclaim themselves our enemy, we simply destroy them. And we are thorough. For centuries you have tested us, and each time we have flung you back.’

  ‘We came in small packs,’ Sagral said in a growl. ‘This time, we shall come in our thousands.’

  ‘And when you came to raid, in your small packs, Sagral, we were content to drive you off, killing only a few of you. Should you now come in your thousands, our restraint is at an end.’

  Rusk had been sucking on crystals of sugar, one after another, his small eyes fixed on Korya, and now he said, ‘We will return her home unharmed, captain.’

  ‘This is not how the hostage system works,’ Haut answered, slowly shaking his head. ‘Your treaty with the Tiste demands from you hostages – of your own blood. You cannot borrow one from someone else in lieu of the sacrifice you must make. The Tiste will accept only Jheleck hostages.’

  ‘But they offer none to us!’ Sagral snapped.

  ‘Because you lost the war, Sagral. You were faced with a simple choice: concessions or annihilation. By your presence we see which choice you made; now you must live with it or plunge once more into war.’

  ‘The Jheleck are not slaves!’

  Haut glanced at Korya. ‘Hostage, do you consider yourself a slave?’

  She knew the answer he expected from her, but it was the thought of travelling in the company of these beasts that motivated her reply. ‘Of course not. I am Tiste, born of House Delack. I am hostage to the Jaghut; the only hostage to ever have come to the Jaghut, and now the only one who ever will. In two years I will be returned to my family: the Jaghut tell us they are no longer a people. They tell us they have surrendered all claims.’

  Sagral thumped the table, startling her. ‘Even their claim to you, child! It is only Haut’s selfishness that keeps you in his clutches! We will deliver you home, and we can leave with the dawn! Do you not wish this, or has Haut crushed the life from you? Made you a slave in all but name?’ He reared back, on his feet. ‘Even the Tiste know to disregard the Jaghut now – these tusked fools are nothing. They have abandoned the future and are doomed to die out. Their city lies in a bed of dust, ruled over by a mad man! You, hostage! You waste your life away here – two more years! For nothing!’

  Korya had twisted in her chair to look up at him. She studied his rage-darkened face, the gleam of his bared teeth and their sharpened tips, the challenge in his eyes. Then she faced Rusk and asked, ‘Does this one need a leash?’

  The sudden laughter stole the tension from the room, and all down the length of the table Jheleck warriors reached once more for the wine jugs. Sagral thumped back down, silent with shame. Bested by a Tiste female barely a woman – if that boyish frame was any indication – and made a pup once more was dour Sagral, kicked cowering into the cold – and all these biting comments were spoken in Jaghut, for her benefit, no doubt. When Korya glanced at Haut, she saw his pale eyes fixed upon her. She could never read them – neither approval nor disgust could alter that look; it was steady and unrelenting.

  Captain. There had never been a Jaghut army. He had never been a captain of anything. The honorific made no sense at all.

  Some unseen signal quelled the raucousness once more, and then Rusk spoke. ‘Captain, the Tiste have asked for fifty hostages. Fifty of our young ones. We will not surrender the lives of fifty Jheleck, young or old.’

  ‘It is hardly surrendering their lives, Rusk—’

  ‘The Tiste are heading into civil war.’

  ‘That fear has been uttered before,’ Haut replied. ‘It is meaningless. And even then, should civil war erupt, the lives of hostages will remain sacrosanct; indeed, I expect each family would immediately return your children to you, even at the risk of the
preservation of their own Houses.’

  Rusk snorted. ‘If you believe so, captain, then you understand nothing of civil war. And why should you? It is unthinkable to the Jaghut; but it is not so with us.’

  A third Jheleck, silver-haired and scarred, said, ‘Our kin to the south were once united with us; in all ways they were identical – we were all Jheleck.’

  ‘I well recall your civil war,’ Haut said, nodding slowly. ‘And I have seen how it has made of you two people now. Varandas has written at length on the birth of the Jheck culture, and its myriad distinctions from your own.’

  Rusk growled deep in his throat. ‘Varandas had no right.’

  Shrugging, Haut said, ‘No matter, Rusk. The fool burned all his writings on the Night of the Dissension. What value history when no one heeds it anyway? My point remains none the less. Through your own experience, you now predict a similar fate to engulf the Tiste. But the Tiste are not Jheleck, nor are they Jheck, and the power at the heart of Kharkanas is not the wild force of your Vitr-born Soletaken, and Mother Darkness made no bargain with beast gods. No, Wise Kharkanas is a black diamond at the heart of the Tiste people, and so long as its inner fires burn, no sword can shatter it.’

  ‘We will not yield up fifty of our young.’

  ‘Then, Rusk, you will have war again. Although, if that occurs, you can find reason for relief, in that such an external conflict will unite the Tiste once more, thus ensuring no civil war.’

  ‘We do not fear their civil war, captain. We would welcome it, for when it closes, all Tiste lands will be ripe for conquest. But we will not risk the lives of our young.’

  ‘Korya is not your solution,’ Haut said.

  ‘Send her home then! Free her! She is of no value to you!’

  ‘When it is time I shall do precisely that. Education, Rusk, is a long-term investment. Expect no fruit in the first season. Expect none in the next, nor the one that follows. No, the reward is years away, and so it has been and so it remains with Korya. I have prepared the way for her life, and in that I am almost done. But not quite.’

  ‘You can do nothing more for her,’ said Rusk. ‘We can feel the essence of her soul. It is dark, empty. It has no power. She is not a child of Mother Dark, not in her soul, for the darkness that dwells there is not Kurald Galain. It is simply absence.’

  ‘Yes, perfectly so.’

  ‘Then what awaits it?’ Rusk demanded.

  ‘In the language of the Dog-Runners, Rusk, I have fashioned a mahybe. A vessel. Protected, sealed and, as you say, empty. What remains to be done? Why, its filling, of course.’

  Hostage.

  Stunned, frightened, Korya thought of the dolls in her room, each one awaiting life, each one awaiting the destiny that only a goddess could grant. They’d not moved in years. They crowded the darkness inside a stone chest.

  ‘With the dawn,’ said Haut to the Jheleck, ‘you leave. Alone.’

  ‘You will regret this,’ Rusk vowed.

  ‘One more threat from you,’ Haut replied, ‘and your host will feel ire. He might well cast you out to sleep under the stars, as befitting rude hounds that know nothing of honour. Or, if he judges you beyond salvage, he might simply kill you all.’

  Korya saw Rusk pale beneath the grime. He rose, gestured, and all the other warriors pushed back their chairs, reaching for their discarded gear. ‘For the repast,’ Rusk said, voice heavy, ‘we thank you, captain. When next we dine in this hall, it shall be upon your snapped bones.’

  Haut also rose. ‘So you twitch in your dreams, Jheleck. Now begone. I am done with you.’

  * * *

  Once they had trooped out, and Korya prepared to clear away the leavings, Haut gestured distractedly and said, ‘I shall awaken the sorcery of Omtose Phellack this night, Korya. Return to your room.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Sorcery has value,’ he said. ‘It will aid me in de-lousing this chamber at the very least. Now, to your room. You have nothing to fear from those Soletaken.’

  ‘I know,’ she replied. ‘Master, if you have made me into a vessel … well, I do not feel it. I am not empty inside. I am not at peace.’

  The word seemed to startle him. ‘Peace? I spoke not of peace. In absence, Korya, there is yearning.’ His strange eyes focused on her. ‘Do you not so yearn?’

  She did. She knew the truth of it, as soon as he had spoken of what was inside her. She was the goddess who had tired of her children, who had seen the summers grow ever shorter, tinged with impatience, yet had not known what might arrive in place of the lost age.

  ‘Sleep this night,’ Haut said, in a tone she had never before heard from him. It was almost … gentle. ‘On the morrow, Korya, the lessons begin in earnest.’ He turned away, ‘My last task awaits us both, and we shall be worthy of it. This I promise.’ He gestured again, and she hurried from the room, her mind awhirl.

  * * *

  The carriage had been drawn up in front of the once-palatial entrance to the House of Delack. A single horse stood forlorn in the harness, head nodding as it chewed on its bit. The journey awaiting it would be arduous, for the carriage was heavy and in years past would have been drawn by a team of four. Beyond it, just visible from where stood Lady Nerys Drukorlat on the steps, the small boy was playing along the edge of the charred ruin of the stables, and she could see that his hands were black with soot, and he’d already stained his knees.

  Here, in this failing estate, this was a battle that Nerys had no hope of winning. But childhood was short, and in these troubled times she would do all she could to make it even shorter. The boy needed guidance. He needed to be shaken free of his imaginary fancies. Nobility was born in the rigid stricture of proper attitude, and the sooner her grandson was bound to the necessities of adulthood, the sooner would he find his place as heir to the ancient House; and with proper guidance he would one day return the bloodline to the glory and power it had once possessed.

  And she would hear nothing of that dreadful word, that cruel title that hung now over Orfantal like a crow’s mocking wing.

  Bastard.

  No child could choose. The venal stupidity of his mother, the lowborn pathos of his drunken father – these were not the boy’s crimes, and his innocence was not for others to denigrate. People could be vicious. Eager with hard judgement, eager with contempt.

  ‘The wounded will wound.’ So said the poet Gallan, and no truer words were spoken. ‘The wounded will wound / and every hurt is remembered.’ These lines came from his latest collection, his ominously titled Days of Skinning, which had been published at the beginning of the season and continued to foment outrage and heated condemnations. Of course, the truly cultured among the Houses could look upon unpleasant truths without blinking, and if Gallan in his courage had set blade to the Tiste culture and peeled back the skin, was not all that fury proof that he had seen true?

  There was much to despise about one’s own kind, and the banality of fading glory was indeed bitter to bear. One day, there would be a rebirth. And if one saw clearly, and planned well enough in advance, then in the rising of a new age of fervour the bloodline could burst into new life, at the very heart of unimagined power. The opportunity would come, but not in her time. All that she did now was meant to serve the future, and one day they would see that; one day, they would understand her own sacrifices.

  Orfantal had found a splintered shaft of wood, from one of the fence rails, and was now waving it over his head, shouting and running. She watched as he clambered atop a low heap of rubble, his expression one of triumph. He jammed one end of the shaft between two chunks of masonry, as if planting a standard, only to suddenly stiffen, as if speared through by some invisible weapon. Back arching, he stared skyward, his expression shocked, filling with imagined agony, and then he staggered down from the mound, stumbling to his knees, one hand clutching his stomach. A moment later he fell over and lay like one dead.

  Silly games. And always ones of war and battle, heroic yet ending in tragedy. S
he’d yet to see the boy pretend to die while facing his imagined enemy. Again and again, it seemed he was enacting betrayal, the knife thrust from behind, the surprise and hurt filling his eyes. The hint of indignation. Boys were foolish at this age. In their ridiculous games they martyred themselves to their own belief in the injustice of the world, the chores that cut into their play time, the lessons that stole the daylight and summer’s endless dreaming, the shout from the kitchen that ended the day.

  It all needed expunging. From young Orfantal’s mind. The great wars were over. Victory had won this peace, and young men and young women must now turn to other things – the sword-wielders’ time was past, and all these veterans, wandering through the settlements like abandoned dogs, getting drunk and spinning wild tales of bravery and then weeping over lost comrades – it was a poison to everyone, especially the young, who were so easily seduced by such tales and those crushing, wretched scenes of grief.

  Soldiers lived in ways no others had, or could hope to, unless they too found the truths of war. Veterans returned home with all illusions scoured from their eyes, their minds. They looked out from a different place, but there was nothing healthy in that, nothing worthy. They had lived their days of skinning, and now all that they looked upon was duly exposed: gristle and sinew, bone and meat and the trembling frailty of organs.

  Her husband had confessed as much to her, the night before he took his own life, the night before he abandoned them all, leaving only a legacy of shame. The hero who returned – what cause had he to kill himself? Returned to his beloved wife – the woman he had talked about, and longed for, each and every day while on the march – returned, rewarded, honoured, invited into a well-earned retirement far from strife and rigour. Home for less than a month, and then he drives a dagger into his own heart.

  When the shock passed; when the horror faded; when eyes settled upon Nerys, the veiled widow … then came the first whispers.