Authors: Steven Erikson
Galar Baras smiled with little humour. ‘I wondered at what insubordination led you here.’
‘A bridge left unguarded was the first of our crimes,’ Dathenar replied. ‘But worse than that, we malingered too long in the Citadel, lured into cups until we sloshed with careless aplomb. Fools that we were, to so offend the white crow with our indolence. We judge this just, and will endeavour, sir, to avoid all future disapprobation.’
‘By this,’ Prazek added, ‘he means we will serve with all the distinction nature has accorded us, and more besides.’
‘Pushed past nature, aye,’ Dathenar said, nodding. ‘Into arcane constructs of obscure logic, yielding to us the perfect symbol with swords that crow and armour eager with contempt. See how well it fits, sir. One day the Hust Legion will be asked to stand against the impossible. I foresee this legion breaking hearts, sir.’
Galar Baras felt his gaze slide away from Dathenar’s bright, challenging regard. He looked upon the mob now gathering to receive weapons and armour. ‘Lieutenants, I leave the two of you in command. I must ride to Hust Forge. If it is at all possible, I will reawaken Toras Redone to our need for her. At the very least, I wonder if she has even heard of the fall of the Wardens. If not, best I be the one to bring her the news.’
‘You delight in heavy burdens, sir.’
Dathenar’s observation had come in a casual tone, but the truth of it cut Galar Baras, so that he stood for a moment, bereft of words, with something roaring in his skull. Shaking himself free of the paralysis, he turned away from the two lieutenants, and then paused and glanced back. ‘Welcome to the Hust Legion. Look to Wareth to inform you of any details with respect to the prisoners. Oh, and there is a killer in our midst, revisiting, perhaps, old hurts. Wareth will give you the details.’
‘Intrigue and mystery, sir, keep us young.’
Galar Baras eyed Dathenar, with his now placid expression, and then Prazek, who stood smiling like a man about to dance. ‘Again, you are both most welcome.’
An empty niche in a corridor, from which echoes still seemed to drift out, rebounding from some other place, but with weariness and overtones of loss. As the recollection of that day slowly faded from his mind, Galar Baras turned away from the niche and resumed his walk. Earlier in the day, before his eventual audience with Lord Henarald, he had walked the work yard, shocked by the fading energy of cooling blast furnaces, tall chimneys all but one yielding no column of smoke, an air of exhaustion heavy in the bitter winter air.
Behind the dozen bricked furnaces with their flanking bellows, there had been a row of wagons, sagging with coal left unattended. He had seen in all this the truth of what Henarald would soon tell him: the forges were dying. The charcoal was gone, the new seams of coal rotten. The age of weapons was itself coming to an end, in the manner that would surprise only a fool.
War, this artless collapse that sees every forged blade worked to its sole purpose. How is it, then, that in the perfection of the form, and in its equally perfect application, we bring upon ourselves nothing but chaos and destruction? Am I alone in seeing the irony of this? Industry, you unfold in the machinations of our minds, so sweetly reasoned that we believe you both inevitable and righteous. But see what you build. No, step around the monuments, around every glorious edifice. Walk here, to this place of tailings and slag.
Henarald was right. The only freedom left the world belongs to what we discard, the pointless wastage we so quickly sweep away. See the birds dance on the heaps, thinking every glistening twinkle the betrayal of an insect’s wings. But to feed there is to die, and the hunt’s lure rewards with nothing but starvation.
He had walked the yards, and now, as he drew closer to the inner wing of the keep, where Toras Redone had either retreated or been locked away from the sight of others, he listened for the distant roar of the forges, but heard nothing.
Industry, your artistry was an illusion. Your offer of permanence was a lie. You are nothing more than the maw we built, and then fed until both we and the world sank down in exhaustion, and in the failing of your fires, your never-satisfied hunger, we turn not upon you, but upon each other.
The Jaghut alone dared face you and name you the demon in their midst. Us? Why, we will die at your feet as if you were an altar, and hold with our last breath to the belief in your sanctity, even as the rust seizes your soul, and the last drop of blood falls from ours.
As with so many other things, Galar Baras realized, the seeds of civilization’s death were sown in its birth. But the Jaghut had proved that progress was not inevitable, that the fates could be defied, broken, utterly discarded.
He reached the door, studied its black bronze, its rivets and stained wood. Beyond it, alas, was his love. No matter her condition, he knew that he would fall to his knees upon seeing her, if not in body then in his soul.
We do well to curse love. That makes us so abject, so eager to surrender. She need only meet my eye to know that I am hers, to do with as she pleases. Where then is my courage?
He hesitated.
Toras Redone, I bring sad news. The Wardens have been destroyed in battle. But Calat Hustain survives, and is blameless in the fate of his people. Or can that be said? Did he not give his command to Ilgast Rend? Was he not precipitous in setting out to the Vitr in such a time as this? The news is sad indeed, and you will choose which – the end of the Wardens, or that your husband still lives.
He could imagine himself, standing before her, unbowed by her sordid presence. Speaking his mind, flensing all decorum from the raw hungers and needs that plagued both him and her.
But no, I can hardly be certain of her, can I? She was drunk the night she made me her plaything. It left embers between us, fanned by flattery and chance gazes locked a moment too long. For all her games, her memory of that night might be blurred, stripped of all detail.
In her appetites she was ever blind, taking all within her reach.
I may walk in to find her recalling neither me nor herself. Grief and horror and recrimination, and jugs of wine. There may be nothing left of Toras Redone. Denied her chance to die with her soldiers, denied again upon the morning that followed, by my own hand
—
Oh, she should recall that, I would think. In a flare of hate, she will recall my staying hand.
Courage retreated before love. A brave man would have let her drink deep the poison.
Sad tidings, my love. He lives. You live. And so do I.
The Hust Legion? Well, the iron lives, too. You’ll know its voice by the laughter, the black chatter of crows feasting upon the dead. Listen, then, to war’s cold welcome.
He reached out, closed his hand upon the door’s heavy iron ring. It was time to look upon what was left of his love.
* * *
‘In times of war, privileges of rank are won in blood. Or so,’ Prazek added, ‘we make it known.’ He reached out to add another chip of dung to the fire. A small hearth, set well away from the others of the camp. Faror Hend had seen it from a distance while walking the perimeter, ensuring that the pickets were in place, and that two of every three soldiers on guard were, in fact, facing inward, upon the camp. For all that, there had been no desertions since the distribution of the Hust weapons and armour. None, indeed, since lieutenants – now captains – Prazek and Dathenar assumed temporary command of the Hust Legion.
Curious, Faror Hend had made her way to the flickering flames out upon the plain, fifty paces beyond the pickets, to find the two officers from Lord Anomander’s Houseblades attending a private fire ringed by stones that had been collected from a nearby cairn. Upon seeing her hesitant approach, and even as she had begun turning away, Dathenar had spoken an invitation to join them. And now she sat opposite the two men, feeling out of place.
Gallan had once called them his soldier poets, and after half a week in their company, official and otherwise, she well understood the honorific. But theirs was a wit too sharp for her, and even to witness it was to feel one’s own mind as something too blunt, likely to stumble should it seek to keep pace with the two men. Still, it proved a modest wound, given how entertaining they often were.
But this was a night for sober reflection, at least thus far, and what eloquence was loosed sounded wry, almost bitter at times. More to the point, it was heavy with exhaustion, and Faror had come to comprehend the sheer effort of aplomb. In the watery light of the fire, the faces before her were drawn, haggard, revealing all that they were wont to hide from others. This particular window’s view humbled her.
‘Private fires,’ said Dathenar, nodding in answer to Prazek’s earlier assertion. ‘We tend them as would any common soldier or peasant, and by any starry measure above we are just as unnoticed in the eyes of the firmament. Rank, my friend, is an impostor.’
‘It is the dung in my hand that belies my artless grace, Dathenar. Clumsy and feckless of gesture, I long for an able servant to make these flames dance as is proper. Perhaps it is the cold, or the too brief interim of desiccation afforded this chip, but I feel no heat from this fire. A cold serpent entwines my bones this night, and not even the fair face of Faror Hend can defeat this hearth’s woeful dearth.’
Dathenar grunted. ‘With a fire tended between us and her, my friend, we dare not reach through the heat, though we might – in most private and complimentary fashion – yearn for her softer warmth as a place beyond what burns.’
‘Sirs,’ said Faror Hend after a moment, ‘it seems my presence is an imposition—’
‘Not at all! Prazek?’
‘Anything but! Faror Hend, by the flame’s soft glow, your lovely visage blesses the night. If we falter, it is from beauty’s reflection, so poorly do we hide our longing. I see you surrounded in darkness, like the mien of a moon that looks upon a sun we cannot see. As Dathenar noted, you are well beyond our reach, humbling our regard.’
‘Forgive us,’ Dathenar murmured.
‘If I am reduced to a view, sirs, then best I keep quiet, to better serve your elevation of my worth.’
‘Ah, Prazek, see how she stings? In our appreciation we are unmanned.’
Faror Hend sighed. ‘Commanding this legion is surely a burden. But you are not entirely alone, sirs. And more help may be on the way, when Galar Baras returns with Toras Redone.’
‘Will she ride Galar Baras home, I wonder?’
Faror Hend blinked at Prazek, startled by his question. ‘It is said her spirit is broken, and no surprise at that. Hunn Raal was clever in his infamy. But then, he did offer her the poisoned wine. Was that a gesture of mercy, do you think?’
Prazek eyed her for a moment, and then shrugged. ‘Rank is the issue here, alas. There are times when it is the spine of an army that carries its commander, but these are rare moments. Propriety insists that it is the commander who must bear the army’s burden, roughly measured by its will, its heart and its resolve.’
Dathenar added, ‘But a legion of prisoners, well … we must find our spine, I think. No armour intended for mortals can sustain flesh weakened by a damaged spirit. No weapon can lend its wielder the ferocity of its purpose. We are fitted in the trappings, but they are not enough.’
Faror Hend shook her head. ‘You two have done well. You must know that. Better, in some ways, than Galar Baras. You weave seduction with your words and manner. You invite in us a confidence we cannot muster on our own.’
Prazek grunted. ‘Fourteen dead men, each and all slayers of women and children. Someone is confident enough, it seems.’
‘I fear Wareth is not working too hard on finding the murderer,’ Faror Hend said. ‘Although, that said, he worries on Listar’s behalf. Oddly, that man still lives, even though he refuses added protection.’
‘There is a clue there, I should think,’ Dathenar observed.
‘Some feel the accusations are suspect,’ she replied. ‘Those against Listar, I mean. Sergeant Rance looks upon him and shakes her head, saying he is no killer. I am inclined to believe her.’
‘Women see nothing in him, then.’
‘Nothing to suggest he has blood on his hands, no.’
‘Then the murderer,’ concluded Dathenar, ‘agrees with you. A woman wields the knife.’
Faror Hend nodded. ‘That is generally accepted, sir.’
‘Wareth drags his feet.’
‘Perhaps he hopes the situation will simply go away,’ Faror suggested. ‘That at some point, the killer will be satisfied that enough justice has been served.’
‘You sound doubtful.’
‘I cannot say, Dathenar. Justice, I would think, acquires strength upon its deliverance, enough to sustain the zeal.’
‘She speaks of momentum,’ Prazek murmured, poking at the fire with a flimsy stick. ‘The unseen current. Will without mind. An army can find it as easily as can a mob. We must hope for Toras Redone’s resurrection. We must hope that the Hust Legion will find sure guidance to whatever fate awaits it.’
‘And much of that responsibility,’ Faror said, sighing, ‘falls to us officers as well. Before you two arrived, well, Galar Baras did not have many from which to choose. Wareth, Rance, Rebble, Curl – you’ve met them now, and the others. Even Castegan—’
‘Castegan,’ Prazek interrupted, making the name a growl. ‘We know his cut, Faror Hend. Leave that man to us.’
‘Though as yet unknown, sir, I already regret his fate. I surely would not want both or either of you to set upon me your sanction.’
‘Opprobrium will do for that man,’ Dathenar said, waving the stick in a dismissive gesture. ‘He is lonely and grieves, yet twists both into spite for the survivors, of whom he is the first and foremost. We will turn him about.’
‘Or slap him silly,’ Prazek said.
‘Rance,’ said Dathenar after a moment, looking up at Faror. ‘She is the quiet one with the wounded hands, yes?’
‘She heats a brimming cauldron every morning,’ said Faror. ‘Nigh unto boiling. Then, behind her tent, stripped down to the waist, she plunges her hands into the scalding water. She scrubs them raw with pumice and lye.’ After some hesitation, during which neither man spoke, she continued. ‘She has no memory of drowning her newborn babe. But her hands remind her. The pain reminds her too, I suppose. She answers what she never felt, and cannot recall, with rituals of hurt. Sirs, I beg you, this is not to be challenged. It may be that she cannot command a company, but that she holds herself together at all is, to me, remarkable.’