‘Toc’ll be back soon,’ she told them. ‘Listen, can you make him stop that babbling? Please? It’s making my skin crawl. I mean, has he lost his mind, the little one? Or are they all like that? Barghast children aren’t, at least not that I remember. They stay quiet, just like you two are doing right now.’
Neither girl replied. They simply watched her.
The boy suddenly shouted.
At the cry the ground erupted twenty paces beyond the cairn. Stones spat through a cloud of dust.
And something clambered forth.
The twins shrieked. But the boy was laughing. Setoc stared. A huge wolf, long-limbed, with a long, flat head and heavy jaws bristling with fangs, stepped out from the dust, and then paused to shake its matted, tangled coat. The gesture cut away the last threads of fear in Setoc.
From the boy, a new song. ‘ Ay ay ay ayayayayayayay! ’
At its hunched shoulders, the creature was taller than Setoc. And it had died long, long ago.
Her eyes snapped to the boy. He summoned it. With that nonsense song, he summoned it.
Can-can I do the same? What is the boy to me? What is being made here?
One of the twins spoke: ‘He needs Toc. At his side. At our brother’s side. He needs Tool’s only friend. They have to be together.’
And the other girl, her gaze levelled on Setoc, said, ‘And they need you . But we have nothing. Nothing.’
‘I don’t understand you,’ Setoc said, irritated by the stab of irrational guilt she’d felt at the girl’s words.
‘What will happen,’ the girl asked, ‘when you raise one of your perfect eyebrows?’
‘ What? ’
‘ “Wherever you walk, someone’s stepped before you.” Our father used to say that.’
The enormous wolf stood close to the boy. Dust still streamed down its flanks. She had a sudden vision of this beast tearing out the throat of a horse. I saw these ones, but as ghosts. Ghosts of living things, not all rotted skin and bones. They kept their distance. They were never sure of me. Yet… I wept for them.
I can’t level cities.
Can I?
The apparitions rose suddenly, forming a circle around Toc. He slowly straightened from gutting the antelope he’d killed with an arrow to the heart. ‘If only Hood’s realm was smaller,’ he said, ‘I might know you all. But it isn’t and I don’t. What do you want?’
One of the undead Jaghut answered: ‘Nothing.’
The thirteen others laughed.
‘Nothing from you,’ the speaker amended. She had been female, once-when such distinctions meant something.
‘Then why have you surrounded me?’ Toc asked. ‘It can’t be that you’re hungry-’
More laughter, and weapons rattled back into sheaths and belt-loops. The woman approached. ‘A fine shot with that arrow, Herald. All the more remarkable for the lone eye you have left.’
Toc glared at the others. ‘Will you stop laughing, for Hood’s sake!’
The guffaws redoubled.
‘The wrong invocation, Herald,’ said the woman. ‘I am named Varandas. We do not serve Hood. We did Iskar Jarak a favour, and now we are free to do as we please.’
‘And what pleases you?’
Laughter from all sides.
Toc crouched back down, resumed gutting the antelope. Flies spun and buzzed. In the corner of his vision he could see one of the animal’s eyes, still liquid, still full, staring out at nothing. Iskar Jarak, when will you summon me? Soon, I think. It all draws in-but none of that belongs to the Wolves. Their interests lie elsewhere. What will happen? Will I simply tear in half? He paused, looked up to see the Jaghut still encircling him. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Wandering,’ Varandas replied.
Another added in a deep voice, ‘Looking for something to kill.’
Toc glanced again at the antelope’s sightless eye. ‘You picked the wrong continent. The T’lan Imass have awakened.’
All at once, the amusement surrounding him seemed to vanish, and a sudden chill gripped the air.
Toc set down his knife and dragged loose the antelope’s guts.
‘We never faced them,’ said Varandas. ‘We were dead long before their ritual of eternal un-life.’
A different Jaghut spoke. ‘K’Chain Nah’ruk, and now T’lan Imass. Doesn’t anyone ever go away?’
After a moment, all began laughing again.
Through the merriment Varandas stepped close to Toc and said, ‘Why have you killed this thing? You cannot eat it. And since that is true, I conclude that you must therefore hunt for others. Where are they?’