then went on. The sun was not even up, sir. Not even up.’
‘Who? Who did you see riding away? Your relief? Why would they do that?’
‘Like ghosts, sir. In that gloom. Like ghosts.’ He laughed again, and now Galar Baras saw tears tracking down from the man’s eyes. ‘Corporal Ranyd came running in. He drew his sword. He should never have done that. Never, and never again.’
His mind is unhinged. Galar swung his mount round and rode for the commander.
She had stopped now, and stood in the centre of the compound, a ring of her soldiers facing her but keeping their distance.
He rode through that ring and reined in before her. ‘Sir!’
When she looked up at him, it seemed that she struggled to recognize him.
‘It’s Galar,’ he said, dismounting. ‘Commander, I was bringing word from Lord Henarald-’
‘Too late,’ she said, and then lifted the jug. ‘He left it. A parting gift. I did not think he could be so… understanding. Galar, my husband isn’t here, but you are, black skin and all, and you’ll have to do.’ Abruptly she sat down, worked free the stopper and held the jug up. ‘Join me, dear lover. I’ve been sober since the dawn and so it’s been a long day.’
He drew nearer, and then paused and looked across to the soldiers. They watched, silent. One turned away suddenly and fell to her knees, bringing her hands up to cover her face.
‘Galar,’ said Toras Redone. ‘Join me in this drink, will you? Let’s celebrate peace.’
‘Peace, sir? I bring news of war.’
‘Ah, well, I fear it’s over. Can you not hear how peaceful we are? No clamour, no blathering voices from fools who can’t stop talking, even though they have nothing of worth to say. Have you not ever noticed that? The mouths that run too fast make dead seeds of every word, flung to barren ground in their wake, yet on they rush — and you see in their eyes a kind of desperation, I think, as they long for a gardener’s touch, but no talent finds them, and never will, and surely they know it.’
‘Commander, what has happened here?’
Her brows lifted. ‘Oh, a night of revelry. Ale and wine, but you know how the sleep that follows gives little rest. Why is it, I wonder, that the gods of the world made of every pleasurable habit a poison? These gods, I think, have no understanding of joy. They make feeling good a thing of evil. Don’t ask me to worship such miserable shits, Galar Baras. Their paradise is a desert. In such a place we must bless the sun, eschew the begging for water, and call friend the infernal heat. I see those sands, crowded with scorched remnants of souls, but at least they were pure, yes?’ The smile she offered then was terrible to behold. ‘Join me, sit down at my side, lover. Let us drink to peace.’
Uncomprehending, but feeling so bereft he was not even capable of shame or guilt each time she called him lover, he stepped close.
Toras Redone rocked back slightly, waving the jug. ‘Come all, my friends! One last drink for the Hust Legion! Then we will be done, and we can walk into that desert and greet those sour-faced gods! We’ll make of their puritanical misery a virtue, and set upon it the holiest of words! And what word might that be? Why, it is suffering.’
She raised the jug to drink.
Someone shouted a warning. Galar Baras drew his sword and the weapon shrieked. The blade lashed out, struck the jug. Clay shards exploded. Wine erupted like blood from a broken skull.
On all sides, the Hust weapons awoke. From every tent, from every scabbard, the swords howled.
Galar Baras staggered beneath the assault, dropping his weapon and clapping hands over his ears. But the sound was inside him, wailing through his bones, clawing through his mind. He felt himself torn free, severed from his body and flung skyward, buffeted by the cries, the ever-rising screams. Through tears, he saw wooden scabbards burst apart at the belts of the surrounding soldiers as the men and women fell or staggered, as they opened their mouths to add to the howls.
Poison. They’re all dead.
Toras -
She was on her hands and knees, gouging up clumps of wine-soaked clay, pushing them into her mouth, coughing, choking — Galar saw himself spinning high above her. He saw how the first of the wagons had reached the descent, but the oxen were collapsing in their yokes, thrashing, legs kicking, and the lead wagon’s front wheels cut sharply to one side, and then the wagon toppled, spilling out the wooden crates on the bed.
He saw those crates burst apart, revealing Hust Henarald’s last gift to the Hust Legion — chain hauberks of the same iron, and helms and greaves and vambraces. The armour was answering the cry of the weapons in the valley below. The drovers were upon the ground, bleeding from their noses, their ears and eyes.
And still the howling built. It rent the canvas of the tents in the camp, snapped guide ropes. In the distant corrals to the west, the horses broke down the fences and fled in terror.
Galar was a battered kite in the rising storm of those terrible voices.
‘ Corporal Ranyd came running in. He drew his sword. He should never have done that.’
Abruptly, the howling stopped. Galar plunged earthward, and in the moment he struck the ground, blackness engulfed him.
‘ Never, and never again.’
TWENTY
Endest Silann looked old, as if his youth had been torn away, revealing something aged with grief. Many times Rise Herat had seen a face stripped back by the onslaught of loss, and each time he wondered if suffering but waited under the skin, shielded by a mask donned in hope, or with that superstitious desperation that imagined a smile to be a worthy shield against the world’s travails. These things, worn daily in an array of practised expressions insisting on civility, ever proved poor defenders of the soul, and to be witness to their cracking, their pathetic surrender to a barrage of emotion, was both humbling and terrible.
The young priest had come to his door like a beggar, fingers entwined on his lap and twisting ceaselessly, as if he held newborn snakes in his fists; and in his eyes there was a wretched pleading; but even this was of the kind that expected no largesse. How could one help a beggar who saw no salvation in a coin, or a meal, or a warm bed at night?
Rise had stepped back in invitation and Endest had shuffled past, moving like one afflicted by a host of mysterious ailments, proof against any medicine. He selected a chair near the fire and sat, not yet ready to speak, and studied his writhing hands. And there he remained.
After a time, the historian cleared his throat. ‘I have mulled wine, priest.’
Endest shook his head. ‘I close my eyes to sleep,’ he said, ‘and meet the same horrid dream, as if it but awaits me.’
‘Ah, that sounds unpleasant. Perhaps a draught to make you senseless would help.’
He glanced up with red-shot eyes, and then looked down again. ‘I have no certainty of this world, historian. This is the dream’s legacy, its curse upon my wakefulness — even now I am haunted and so in need of reassurance.’
‘Set hand upon stone, priest. Feel wood’s familiar grain, or the cool flank of a clay vessel. None of these things are uncertain. But if you would look to us soft creatures who move through this world, then I fear you will find us ephemeral indeed.’
Endest’s hands parted and made fists on his lap, the knuckles whitening, but still he would not look up. ‘Do you mock me?’
‘No. I see the weight of a curse upon you, priest, as surely it is upon us all. You close your eyes and dread the waiting dream. While here I pace in my room, longing to open my eyes and so discover all this to have been a dream. So here we face one another, as if to contest wills.’
Abruptly, Endest began thumping his thighs, swinging down upon them hard with his fists, in growing ferocity.
Rise stepped closer, alarmed. ‘Hear me! You are not asleep, friend!’
