weapon's edge ripped through armour. The soldier groaned and fell to one knee, blood sprurting on to the ground.
Lorn was in no position to defend him and could only watch in horror as the axe swung again, this time striking the man in the head. His helmet collapsed inward and his neck broke. He toppled sideways, laying at Lorn's feet. Her forward momentum carried her right over him.
A curse broke from her lips as she sprawled, crashing into the Bargh in front of her. She tried to bring the point of her sword up behind but he twisted lithely to one side and leaped away. Lorn took a swing at him, missing, even as she fell. She felt her shoulder dislocate as she hit the hard ground, and the sword dropped from her numbed hand. Now, she thought, the only thing left to do is die. She rolled on to back.
With a growl the Barghast was standing beside her, axe raised high. Lorn was in a good position to see the skeletal hand bursting from earth beneath the Barghast. It grasped an ankle. Bones snapped, the warrior screamed. Vaguely, as she watched, she wondered where the other two savages had gone. All sounds of fighting seemed to be stopped, but the ground rumbled with a growing, urgent thunder.
The Barghast stared down at the hand crushing his shin. He screamed again as the wide, rippled blade of a flint sword shot up between his legs. The axe left the warrior's hands as he frantically brought them down in an effort to deflect the sword, twisting to one side and kicking out his free leg. It all came too late. The sword impaled him, jamming against his hipbone and lifting him from the ground. His dying shriek rose ward.
Lorn climbed to her feet with difficulty, her right arm hanging useless at her side. She identified the thundering sound as the beat of hoofs, and turned in the direction from which they came. A Malazan. As that fact sank in, she swung her attention from the rider and looked around. Both her guards were dead, and arrows jutted from two Barghast bodies.
She took a shallow breath-all she could manage as pain spread across her chest-and gazed upon the creature that had risen from the earth. It was cloaked in rotting furs, and it stood over the warrior's body, one leg still clutched in its hand. The other hand gripped the sword, which had been pushed the length of the Barghast's body, the point emerging from his neck.
«I was expecting you days ago,» Lorn said, glaring at the figure.
It turned to regard her, its face hidden in shadow beneath the yellowed bone shelf of its helmet. The helmet, she saw, was the skull-cap of some horned beast, one horn broken off at its base.
The rider arrived behind her. «Adjunct!» he called out, dismounting. He came to her side, bow still in his hand and arrow nocked. His lone eye glanced across Lorn and, seeming satisfied that her wound was not mortal, fixed on the massive but squat creature facing them. «Hood's Breath, a T'lan Imass.»
Lorn continued glaring at the T'lan Imass. «I knew you were about. It's the only thing that explains a Barghast shaman bringing himself and his hand-picked hunters into the area. He must have used a Warren to get here. So where were you?»
Toc the Younger stared at the Adjunct, amazed at her outburst. His gaze flicked back to the T'lan Imass. The last time he'd seen one was in Seven Cities, eight years past, and then it had been from a distance as the undead legions marched out into the western wastelands on some mission even the Empress could learn nothing about. At this close range, Toc eagerly studied the T'lan Imass. Not much left of it, he concluded.
Despite the sorcery, three hundred thousand years had taken their toll.
The skin that stretched across the squat man's robust bones was a shiny nut brown in colour, the texture of leather. Whatever flesh it had once covered had contracted to thin strips the consistency of oak roots-such muscles showed through torn patches here and there. The creature's face, what Toc could see of it, bore a heavy chinless jawbone, high cheeks and a pronounced brow ridge. The eye sockets were dark holes.
«I asked you a question,» Lorn grated. «Where were you?»
The head creaked as the Imass looked down at its feet. «Exploring,» it said quietly in a voice born of stones and dust.
Lorn demanded, «Your name, T'lan?»
«Onos T'oolan, once of the Tarad Clan, of the Logros T'lan. I was birthed in the autumn of the Bleak Year, the ninth son to the Cla whetted as warrior in the Sixth Jaghut War-»
«Enough,» Lorn said. She sagged wearily and Toc moved to her side Glancing up at him she scowled, «You look grim.» Then a small smile came to her lips. «But good to me.»
Toc grinned. «First things first, Adjunct. A place for you to rest.» She did not protest as he guided her to a grassy knoll near the barrow and gently pushed her to her knees. He glanced back to see the T'lan Imas still standing where it had first emerged from the ground. It had turned however, and seemed to be studying the barrow. «We must make you arm immobile,» Toc said to the worn, weathered woman kneeling befor him. «I am named Toc the Younger,» he said, squatting down.
She raised her gaze at this. «I knew your father,» she said. Her smile returned. «Also a great bowman.»
He ducked his head in reply.
«He was a fine commander too,» Lorn continued, studying the ravaged youth who was now tending to her arm. «The Empress has regretted his death-»
«Not dead for sure,» Toc interrupted, his tone tight and his single eye averted as he began removing the gauntlet from her hand. «Disappeared.
«Yes,» Lorn said softly. «Disappeared since the Emperor's death.» She winced as he pulled away the gauntlet and tossed it aside.
«I'll need some strips of cloth,» he said, rising.
Lorn watched him stride to one of the Barghast bodies. She had not known who her Claw contact would be, only that he was the last left alive among Dujek's forces. She wondered why he had veered so sharply from his father's path. There was nothing pleasant, or proud, in being Claw. Only efficiency and fear.
He took a knife to the body's tanned leather armour, slicing it back to reveal a rough woollen shirt, into which he cut. Then he returned to her side, a handful of long strips in one hand. «I didn't know you had a Imass for company,» he said, as he crouched beside her again.
«They choose their own modes of travel,» Lorn said, a hint of anger in her voice. «And come when they please. But yes, he's an integral player in my mission. She fell silent, gritting her teeth in pain as Toc slipped th rude sling over her shoulder and under her arm.
«I have little good to report,» Toc said, and he told her of Paran's disappearance, and of Whiskeyjack and his squad departing without the yJ I captain in attendance. By the time he had finished he had adjusted the sling to his own satisfaction, and sat back on his haunches with sigh.
«Damn,» Lorn hissed. «Help me to my feet.»
After he'd done so, she wobbled a bit and gripped his shoulder to steady herself. Then she nodded. «Get me my sword.»
Toc strode to the spot she'd indicated. After a brief search he found the longsword in the grass, and his eye thinned to a slit upon seeing the weapon's dusty red blade. He brought it to her, and said, «An Otataral sword, Adjunct, the ore that kills magic.»
«And mages,» Lorn said, taking the weapon awkwardly in her left hand and sheathing it.
«I came upon the dead shaman,» Toc said.
«Well,» Lorn said, «Otataral is no mystery to you of the Seven Cities, but few here know it, and I would keep it that way.»
«Understood.» Toc turned to regard the immobile Imass.
Lorn seemed to read his thought. «Otataral cannot quench their magic-believe me, it's been tried. The Warrens of the Imass are similar to those of the Jaghut and the Forkrul Assail-Elder-, blood- and earthbound-that flint sword of his will never break, and it cuts through the finest iron as easily as it will flesh and bone.»
Toc shivered and spat. «I'll not envy you your company, Adjunct.»
Lorn smiled. «You'll be sharing it for the next few days, Toc the Younger. We've a long walk to Pale.»
«Six, seven days,» Toc said. «I expected you to be mounted.»
Lorn's sigh was heartfelt. «The Barghast shaman worked his talents on them. A disease took them all, even my stallion, which I brought with me through the Warren.» Her lined face softened momentarily, and Toc could feel her genuine sorrow.
It surprised him. All that he'd heard of the Adjunct had painted for him a picture of a cold-blooded monster, the gauntleted hand of death that could descend from anywhere at any time. Perhaps this side of her existed; he hoped he would not have to see it. Then again, he corrected himself, she'd not spared her soldiers a second glance. Toc spoke, «You'll ride my mare, Adjunct. She's no warhorse, but she's quick and long on endurance.»
They walked to where he'd left his horse, and Lorn smiled. «That's a Wickan breed, Toc the Younger,» she said, as she laid a hand on the mare's neck, «so cease the modesty, else I lose trust in you. A fine animal.»
Toc helped her into the saddle. «Do we leave the Imass where it is?» he asked.
Lorn nodded. «He'll find his own way. Now, let's give this mare the opportunity to prove herself. Wickan blood is said to smell of iron.» She reached down and offered her left arm. «Mount up,» she said.
Toc barely managed to hide his shock. Share the saddle with the Adjunct of the Empire? The notion was so absurd that he came near to laughing. «I can walk, Adjunct,» he said gruffly. «With such little time to waste, you would be better to ride on, and ride hard. You'll see Pale's walls in three days. I can manage a jog at ten-hour stretches.»
«No, Toc the Younger.» Lorn's tone brooked no argument. «I need you in Pale, and I need to hear all there is about the occupying legions, and Dujek, and Tayschrenn. Better to arrive a few days late than unprepared. Now, grasp my arm and let's be on with it.»
Toc complied.
As he sank into the saddle behind Lorn, his mare snorted and stepped quickly to one side. Both he and the Adjunct almost fell. They turned to see the T'lan Imass standing beside them. It raised its head to Lorn.
«The barrow has yielded a truth, Adjunct,» Onos T'oolan said.
Toc felt her stiffen. «And that is?»
«We are upon the right path,» the T'lan Imass replied.
Something told Toc that the path the creature referred to had nothing to do with the trader's track leading south to Pale. He cast one final glance back at the barrow as Lorn silently swung the horse around, and then at Onos T'oolan. Neither seemed likely to unveil their secrets, but Lorn's reaction had raised the hairs on the back of his neck, and the itch around his lost eye roused itself. Toc muttered a curse under his breath and began to scratch.
«Something the matter, Toc the Younger?» Lorn asked, not turning.
He thought about his reply. He said, «The price of being blind, Adjunct. Nothing more.»
Captain Paran paced in the narrow room. This was madness! All he knew was that he was being hidden, but the only answers to his questions would come from a bed-ridden sorceress locked in some strange fever, and a nasty puppet whose painted eyes seemed to fix on him with intense hatred.
Vague memories haunted him as well, the feel of slick, cold stones scraping beneath his fingernails at a moment when all his strength had poured from his body; and then the hazy vision of a massive dog-a Hound? — in the room, a dog that seemed to breathe death. It had been seeking to kill the woman, and he'd stopped it-somehow, he wasn't sure of the details.
A suspicion nagged him that the dog wasn't dead, that it would be back. The puppet ignored most of his questions, and when it did speak to him it was to voice dire threats. Apparently, though the Sorceress was ill, her presence alone-her continued existence-was all that kept Hairlock from fulfilling those threats.
Where was Whiskeyjack? Had the sergeant left without him? What would that do to Adjunct Lorn's plan?
He ceased pacing and turned a glare on the sorceress lying in the bed.
Hairlock had told Paran that she'd somehow hidden him when Tayschrenn arrived, the High Mage having sensed the dog's presence.
