Memories of Ice

'She is a treasure, is she not?' Harllo murmured with a sigh.

'Never seen you so lovestruck before,' Gruntle said with a sidelong glance.

'It's the unattainable, friend, that's what's done for me. I long helplessly, morosely maundering over unrequited adoration. I dream of her and Nektara … with me snug between 'em-'

'Please, Harllo, you're making me sick.'

'Uhm,' Keruli said, 'I believe I shall now return to the carriage.'

The three Barghast were clearly siblings, with the woman the eldest. White paint had been smeared on their faces, giving them a skull-like appearance. Braids stained with red ochre hung down to their shoulders, knotted with bone fetishes. All three wore hauberks of holed coins — the currency ranging from copper to silver and no doubt from some looted hoard, as most of them looked ancient and unfamiliar to Gruntle's eye. Coin-backed gauntlets covered their hands. A guardblock's worth of weapons accompanied the trio — bundled lances, throwing axes and copper-sheathed long-hafted fighting axes, hook-bladed swords and assorted knives and daggers.

They stood on the other side of a small stone-ringed firepit — burned down to faintly smouldering coals — with Stonny still seated on her horse to their left. A small heap of jackrabbit bones indicated a meal just completed.

Gruntle's gaze settled on the Barghast woman. 'Our master invites you to travel in our company. Do you accept?'

The woman's dark eyes flicked to the carriage as Harllo drove it to the camp's edge. 'Few traders still journey to Capustan,' she said after a moment. 'The trail has become … perilous.'

Gruntle frowned. 'How so? Have the Pannions sent raiding parties across the river?'

'Not that we have heard. No, demons stalk the wild-lands. We have been sent to discover the truth of them.'

Demons? Hood's breath. 'When did you learn of these demons?'

She shrugged. 'Two, three months past.'

The captain sighed, slowly dismounted. 'Well, let us hope there's nothing to such tales.'

The woman grinned. 'We hope otherwise. I am Hetan, and these are my miserable brothers, Cafal and Netok. This is Netok's first hunt since his Deathnight.'

Gruntle glanced at the glowering, hulking youth. 'I can see his excitement.'

Hetan turned, gaze narrowing on her brother. 'You must have sharp eyes.'

By the Abyss, another humourless woman for company.

Looping a leg over her saddle, Stonny Menackis dropped to the ground, raising a puff of dust. 'Our captain's too obvious with his jokes, Hetan. They end up thudding like ox dung, and smelling just as foul. Pay him no mind, lass, unless you enjoy being confused.'

'I enjoy killing and riding men and little else,' Hetan growled, crossing her muscled arms.

Harllo quickly clambered down from the carriage and approached her with a broad smile. 'I am named Harllo and I am delighted to make your acquaintance, Hetan!'

'You can kill him any time you like,' Stonny drawled.

The two brothers were indeed miserable creatures, taciturn and, as far as Gruntle could determine, singularly thick. Harllo's futile efforts with Hetan proved amusing enough whilst they sat around the rekindled hearth beneath a star-spattered sky. Keruli made a brief appearance shortly before everyone began bedding down, but only to share a bowl of herbal tea before once again retiring to his carriage. It fell to Gruntle — he and Hetan the last two lingering at the firepit — to pry loose more information from the Barghast.

'These demons,' he began, 'how have they been described?'

She leaned forward and ritually spat into the fire. 'Fast on two legs. Talons like an eagle's, only much larger, at the ends of those legs. Their arms are blades-'

'Blades? What do you mean?'

She shrugged. 'Bladed. Blood-iron. Their eyes are hollow pits. They stink of urns in the dark circle. They make no sound, no sound at all.'

Urns in the dark circle? Cremation urns. in a chamber bar-row. Ah, they smell of death, then. Their arms are blades. how? What in Hood's name does that mean? Blood-iron — that's iron quenched in snow- chilled blood … a Barghast practice when shamans invest weapons. Thus, the wielder and the weapon are linked. Merged… 'Has anyone in your clan seen one?'

'No, the demons have not journeyed north to our mountain fastnesses. They remain in these grasslands.'

'Who, then, delivered the tales?'

'Our shouldermen have seen them in their dreams. The spirits whisper to them and warn of the threat. The White Clan has chosen a warchief — our father — and await what is to come. But our father would know his enemy, so he has sent his children down onto the flatlands.'

Gruntle ruminated on this, his eyes watching the fire slowly ebb. 'Will your father the warchief of the White Faces lead the clans south? If Capustan is besieged, the Capan territories will be vulnerable to your raids, at least until the Pannions complete their conquest.'

'Our father has no plans to lead us south, Captain.' She spat a second time into the fire. 'The Pannion war will come to us, in time. So the shouldermen have read in bhederin blades. Then, there shall be war.'

'If these demons are advance elements of the Pannion forces…'

'Then, when they first appear in our fastnesses, we will know that the time has come.'

'Fighting,' Gruntle muttered. 'What you enjoy the most.'

'Yes, but for now, I would ride you.'

Ride? More like batter me senseless. Ah, well. 'What man would say no to such an elegant offer?'

Collecting her bedroll in both arms, Hetan rose. 'Follow me, and hurry.'

'Alas,' he replied, slowly gaining his feet, 'I never hurry, as you're about to discover.'

'Tomorrow night I shall ride your friend.'

'You're doing so tonight, dear, in his dreams.'

She nodded seriously. 'He has big hands.'

'Aye.'

'So do you.'

'I thought you were in a hurry, Hetan.'

'I am. Let's go.'

The Barghast Range crept down from the north as the day slowly passed, from distant mountains to worn, humped-back hills. Many of the hills edging the traders' track to Capustan were sacred sites, their summits displaying the inverted tree trunks that were the Barghast custom of anchoring spirits — or so Hetan explained as she walked alongside Gruntle, who was leading his horse by the reins. While the captain had little interest in things religious, he admitted to some curiosity as to why the Barghast would bury trees upside-down in hills.

'Mortal souls are savage things,' she explained, spitting to punctuate her words. 'Many must be held down to keep them from ill-wandering. Thus, the oaks are brought down from the north. The shouldermen carve magic into their trunks. The one to be buried is pinned beneath the tree. Spirits are drawn as well, as guardians, and other traps are placed along the edges of the dark circle. Even so, sometimes the souls escape — imprisoned by one of the traps, yet able to travel the land. Those who return to the clans where they once lived are quickly destroyed, so they have learned to stay away — here, in these lowlands. Sometimes, such a sticksnare retains a loyalty to its mortal kin, and will send dreams to our shouldermen, to tell us of danger.'

'A sticksnare, you called it. What does that mean?'

'You may well see for yourself,' she replied with a shrug.

'Was it one of these sticksnares that sent the dreams of demons?'

'Yes, and other spirits besides. That so many sought to reach us…'

Added veracity to the threat, aye, I understand. He scanned the empty land before them, wondering what was out there.

Stormy rode fifty paces ahead. At the moment, Gruntle could not see her, as the trail leaned round a boulder-studded hill and vanished from sight thirty paces on. She had a frustrating knack for ignoring his orders — he'd wanted her to remain in sight at all times. The two Barghast brothers ranged to the sides, flanking the carriage