Ilm Absinos said, in a whisper, ‘The spirits died when we died.’
‘A thing that dies to us is not necessarily dead,’ Nom Kala replied. ‘We do not have that power.’
‘What does your name mean?’ Ulag asked.
‘Knife Drip.’
‘How did the ritual fail?’
‘The wall of ice fell on us. We were all killed instantly. The Ritual was therefore uncompleted.’ She paused, and then added, ‘Given the oblivion that followed, failure seemed a safe assumption-were we capable of making assumptions. But now, it appears, we were in error.’
‘How long ago?’ Ulag asked her. ‘Do you know?’
She shrugged. ‘The Jaghut were gone a hundred generations. The K’Chain Che’Malle had journeyed to the eastern lands two hundred generations previously. We traded with the Jheck, and then with the Krynan Awl and the colonists of the Empire of Dessimbelackis. We followed the ice in its last retreat.’
‘How many of you will return, Knife Drip?’
‘The other two bonecasters have awakened and even now approach us. Lid Ger-Sourstone. And Lera Epar-Bitterspring. Of our people, we cannot yet say. Maybe all. Perhaps none.’
‘Who summoned us?’
One more time she cocked her head. ‘Trell-blood, this is our land. We have heard clear his cry. You cannot? We are summoned, T’lan Imass, by the First Sword. A legend among the Brold that, it seems, was not a lie.’
Ulag was rocked back as if struck a blow. ‘Onos T’oolan? But… why?’
‘He summons us beneath the banner of vengeance,’ she replied, ‘and in the name of death. My new friends, the T’lan Imass are going to war.’
The birds launched into the air like a tent torn loose of its tethers, leaving upon the soft clays nothing but a scattering of tiny tracks.
Bitterspring walked towards the other T’lan Imass. The emptiness of the land was a suffocating pressure. When everything goes, it is fitting that we are cursed to return, lifeless as the world we have made. Still… am I beyond betrayal? Have I ceased to be a slave to hope? Will I once again tread the old, worn trails?
Life is done, but the lessons remain. Life is done, but the trap still holds me tight. This is the meaning of legacy. This is the meaning of justice.
What was, is.
The wind was insistent, tugging at worn strips of cloth, the shredded ends of leather straps, loose strands of hair. It moaned as if in search of a voice. But the lifeless thing that was Toc the Younger held its silence, its immutability in the midst of the life surrounding it.
Setoc settled down on aching legs and waited. The two girls and the strange boy had huddled together nearby and were fast asleep.
Their saviour had carried them leagues from the territory of the Senan Barghast, north and east across the undulating prairie. The horse under them had made none of the normal sounds a horse should make. None of the grunting breaths, the snorts. It had not once sawed at the bit or dipped its head seeking a mouthful of grass. Its tattered hide remained dry, not once twitching to the frustrated deerflies, even as its ropy muscles worked steadily and its hoofs drummed the hard ground. Now it stood motionless beneath its motionless rider.
She rubbed at her face. They needed water. They needed food. She didn’t know where they were. Close to the Wastelands? Perhaps. She thought she could make out a range of hills or mountains far to the east, a dusty grimace of rock shimmering through the waves of heat. Lolling in the saddle behind Toc, she had been slipping into and out of strange dreams, fragmented visions of a squalid farmstead, the rank sweat of herds and small boys shouting. One boy with a face she thought she knew, but it was twisted with fear, and then hard with sudden resolve. A face that had transformed in an instant to one that awaited death. In one so young, nothing was more horrifying. Dreaming of children, but not these children here, not even Barghast children. At times, she found herself wheeling high above this lone warrior who rode with a girl in front, a girl behind, a girl and a boy in the crooks of his arms. She could smell scorched feathers, and all at once the land far below was a sea of diamonds, cut in two by a thin, wavering line.
She was fevered, or so she concluded now as she sat, mouth dry, eyes stinging with grit. Was this meant to be a rest? Something in her was resisting sleep. They needed water. They needed to eat.
A mound a short distance away caught her eye. Groaning, she stood, dragged herself closer.
A cairn, almost lost in the knee-high grasses. A wedge-shaped stone set atop a thinner slab, and beneath that a mound of angled rocks. The wedge was carved on its sides. Etching the eyes of a wolf. Mouth open with the slab forming the lower jaw, the scratchings of fangs and teeth. Worn down by centuries of wind and rain. She reached out a trembling hand, set her palm against the rough, warm stone.