Deadhouse Gates

was felt that that would not last.

The pathetic herd accompanying the Chain of Dogs died on that march, animals simply collapsing, even as the Wickan cattle-dogs converged with fierce insistence that they rise — dead or no — and resume the journey. When butchered, these carcasses were little more than ropes of leathery flesh.

Starvation joined the terrible ravaging thirst, for the Wickans refused to slaughter their horses and attended them with eloquent fanaticism that no-one dared challenge. The warriors sacrificed of themselves to keep their mounts alive. One petition from Nethpara's Council, offering to purchase a hundred horses, was returned to the noble-born leader smeared in human excrement.

The twin vipers struck again and again, contesting every league, the attacks increasing in ferocity and frequency, until it was clear that a major clash approached, only days away.

In the column's wake followed Korbolo Dom's army, a force that had grown with the addition of forces from Tarxian and other coastal settlements, and was now at least five times the size of Coltaine's Seventh and his Wickan clans. The renegade commander's measured pursuit — leaving engagement to the wild plains tribes — was ominous in itself.

He would be there for the imminent battle, without doubt, and was content to wait until then.

The Chain of Dogs — its numbers swollen by new refugees fleeing Bylan — crawled on, coming within sight of what the maps indicated was the Nenoth Odhan's end, where hills rose in a wall aross the southern horizon. The trader track cut through the only substantial passage, a wide river valley between the Bylan'sh Hills to the east and the Saniphir Hills to the west, the track running for seven leagues, opening out on a plain that faced the ancient tel of Sanimon, then wrapped around it to encompass the Sanith Odhan and, beyond that, the Geleen Plain, the Dojal Odhan — and the city of Aren itself.

No relief army emerged from Sanimon Valley. A profound sense of isolation descended like a shroud on the train, even as the valley's flanking hills began to reveal, in the day's dying light, twin encampments, both vast, of tribesmen — the main forces of the Tregyn and the Bhilard.

Here, then, at the mouth of the ancient valley … here it would be.

'We're dying,' Lull muttered as he came up alongside the historian on his way to the briefing. 'And I don't mean just figuratively, old man. I lost eleven soldiers today. Throats swollen so bad with thirst they couldn't draw breath.' He waved at a fly buzzing his face. 'Hood's breath, I'm swimming in this armour — by the time we're done, we'll all look like T'lan Imass.'

'I can't say I appreciate the analogy, Captain.'

'Wasn't expecting you to.'

'Horse piss. That's what the Wickans are drinking these days.'

'Aye, same for my crew. They're neighing in their sleep, and more than one's died from it.'

Three dogs loped past them, the huge one named Bent, a female, and the lapdog scrambling in their wake.

'They'll outlive us all,' Lull grumbled. 'Those damned beasts!'

The sky deepened overhead, the first stars pushing through the cerulean gauze.

'Gods, I'm tired.'

Duiker nodded. Oh, indeed, we've travelled far, friend, and now stand face to face with Hood. He takes the weary as readily as the defiant. Offers the same welcoming grin.

'Something in the air tonight, Historian. Can you feel it?'

'Yes.'

'Maybe Hood's Warren has drawn closer.'

'It has that feel, doesn't it?'

They arrived at the Fist's command tent, entered.

The usual faces were arrayed before them. Nil and Nether, the last remaining warlocks; Sulmar and Chenned, Bult and Coltaine himself. Each had become a desiccated mockery of the will and strength once present in their varied miens.

'Where's Bungle?' Lull asked, finding his usual camp-chair.

'Listening to her sergeant, I'd guess,' Bult said, with a ghost of a grin.

Coltaine had no time for idle talk. 'Something approaches, this night. The warlocks have sensed it, though that is all they can say. We are faced with preparing for it.'

Duiker looked to Nether. 'What kind of sense?'

She shrugged, then sighed. 'Vague. Troubled, even outrage — I don't know, Historian.'

'Sensed anything like it before? Even remotely?'

'No.'

Outrage.

'Draw the refugees close,' Coltaine commanded the captains. 'Double the pickets-'

'Fist,' Sulmar said, 'we face a battle tomorrow-'

'Aye, and rest is needed. I know.' The Wickan began pacing, but it was a slower pace than usual. It had lost its smoothness as well, its ease and elegance. 'And more, we are greatly weakened — the water casks are bone dry.'

Duiker winced. Battle? No, tomorrow will see a slaughter. Soldiers unable to fight, unable to defend themselves. The historian cleared his throat, made to speak, then stopped. One word, yet even to voice it would be to offer the cruellest illusion. One word.

Coltaine was staring at him. 'We cannot,' he said softly.

I know. For the rebellion's warriors as much as for us, the end to this must be with blood.

'The soldiers are beyond digging trenches,' Lull said into the heavy, all-too-aware silence.

'Holes, then.'

'Aye, sir.'

Holes. To break mounted charges, snap legs, send screaming beasts into the dust.

The briefing ended then, abruptly, as the air was suddenly charged, and whatever threatened to arrive now announced itself with a brittle crackle, a mist of something oily, like sweat clogging the air.

Coltaine led the group outside, to find the bristling atmosphere manifested tenfold beneath the night's sparkling canopy. Horses bucked. Cattle-dogs howled.

Soldiers were rising like spectres. Weapons rustled.

In the open space just beyond the foremost pickets, the air split asunder with a savage, ripping sound.

Three pale horses thundered from that rent, followed by three more, then another three, all harnessed, all screaming with terror. Behind them came a massive carriage, a fire-scorched, gaudily painted leviathan riding atop six spoked wheels that were taller than a man. Smoke trailed like thick strands of raw wool from the carriage, from the horses themselves, and from the three figures visible behind the last three chargers.

The white, screaming train was at full gallop — as if in headlong flight from whatever warren it had come from — and the carriage pitched wildly, alarmingly, as the beasts plunged straight for the pickets.

Wickans scattered to either side.

Staring with disbelief, Duiker saw all three figures sawing the reins, bellowing, flinging themselves against the backrest of their tottering perch.

The horses drove hooves into the earth, biting down on their momentum, the towering carriage slewing behind them, raising a cloud of smoke, dust and an emanation that the historian recognized with a jolt of alarm as outrage. The outrage, he now understood, of a warren — and its god.

Behind the lead carriage came another, then another, each pitching to one side or the other to avoid collision as they skidded to a halt.

As soon as the lead carriage ceased its headlong plunge, figures poured from it, armoured men and women, shouting, roaring commands that no-one seemed to pay any attention to, and waving blackened, smeared and dripping weapons.

A moment later, even as the other two carriages stopped, a loud bell clanged.

The frenzied, seemingly aimless activities of the figures promptly ceased. Weapons were lowered, and sudden silence filled the air behind the fading echo of the bell. Snorting and stamping, the lathered horses tossed