too-that it was a true miracle whenever two could meet in mutual understanding, or even passive acceptance. Proof, Skintick had once said, of life’s extraordinary flexibility. But then, he had added, it is our curse to be social creatures, so we’ve little choice but to try to get along.
They were camped on a broad terrace above the last of the strange ruins-the day’s climb had been long, dusty and exhausting. Virtually every stone in the rough gravel filling the old drainage channels proved to be some sort of fossil-pieces of what had once been bone, wood, tooth or tusk-all in fragments, pieces. The entire mountainside seemed to be some sort of midden, countless centuries old, and to imagine the lives needed to create so vast a mound was to feel bewildered, weakened with awe. Were the mountains behind this one the same? Was such a thing even possible?
Can’t you see, Nenanda, how nothing is simple? Not even the ground we walk upon. How is this created? Is what we come from and where we end up any different? No, that was badly put. Make it simpler. What is this existence?
As Nenanda might answer, it does a warrior no good to ask such questions. Leave us this headlong plunge, leave to the moment to come that next step, even if it’s over an abyss. There’s no point in all these questions.
And how might Skintick respond to that? Show a bhederin fear and watch it run off a cliff. What killed it! The jagged rocks below, or the terror that made it both blind and stupid! And Nenanda would shrug. Who cares! Let’s just eat the damned thing,
This was not the grand conflict of sensibilities one might think it was. Just two heads on the same coin, one facing right on this side, the other facing left on the other side. Both winking.
And Desra would snort and say, Keep your stupid words, I’ll take the cock in my hand over words any time.
Holding on for dear life, Skintick would mutter under his breath, and Desra’s answering smile fooled no one. Nimander well remembered every conversation among his followers, his siblings, his family, and remembered too how they could repeat themselves, with scant variation, if all the cues were triggered in the right sequence.
He wondered where Clip had gone to-somewhere out beyond this pool of fire-light, perhaps listening, perhaps not. Would he hear anything he’d not heard before? Would anything said this night alter his opinion of them? It did not seem likely. They bickered, they rapped against personalities and spun off either laugh-ing or infuriated. Prodding, skipping away, ever seeking where the skin was thinnest above all the old bruises. All just fighting without swords, and no one ever died, did they?
Nimander watched Kedeviss-who had been unusually quiet thus far-rise and draw her cloak tighter about her shoulders. After a moment, she set off into the dark.
Somewhere in the crags far away, wolves began howling.
Something huge loomed just outside the flickering orange light, and Samar Dev saw both Karsa and Traveller twist round to face it, and then they rose, reaching for their weapons. The shape shifted, seemed to wag from side to side, and then-at the witch’s eye level had she been standing-a glittering, twisting snout, a broad flattened halo of fur, the smear of fire in two small eyes.
Samar Dev struggled to breathe. She had never before seen such an enormous bear. If it reared, it would tower over even Karsa Orlong. She watched that uplifted head, the flattened nose testing the air. The creature, she realized, clearly relied more on smell than on sight. / thought fire frightened such beasts-not summoned them.
If it attacked, things would happen… fast. Two swords flashing into its lunge, a deafening bellow, talons scything to sweep away the two puny attackers-and then it would come straight for her. She could see that, was certain of it. The bear had come for her.
De nek okral. The words seemed to foam up to the surface of her thoughts, like things belched from the murky depths of instinct. ‘De nek okral,’ she whispered.
The nostrils flared, dripping.
And then, with a snuffling snort, the beast drew back, out of the firelight. A crunch of stones, and the ground trembled as the animal lumbered away.
Karsa and Traveller moved their hands away from their weapons, and then both eased back down, resuming their positions facing the fire.
The Toblakai warrior found a stick and dropped it into the flames. Sparks whirled skyward, bright with liberation, only to wink out. His expression looked thoughtful.
Samar Dev glanced down at her trembling hands, and then slipped them beneath the woollen blanket she had wrapped about herself.
‘Strictly speaking/ said Traveller, ‘not an okral. De nek…’, He raised his brows.’”Short nose?”‘
‘How should I know?’ Samar Dev snapped.
His brows lifted higher.
‘I don’t know where those words came from. They just… arrived.’
‘They were Imass, Samar Dev.’
‘Oh?’
‘Okral is the word for a plains bear, but that was no plains bear-too big, legs too long-’
‘I would not,’ said Karsa, ‘wish to be chased by that beast, even on horseback. That animal was built for running its prey down.’
‘But it was not hunting,’ said Traveller.
‘I don’t know what it was doing,’ Karsa conceded with a loose shrug. ‘But I am glad it changed its mind.’
‘
‘From you two,’ Samar said, ’it would have sensed no fear. That alone would have made it hesitate.’ Her voice was harsh, almost flinging the words out. She was not sure why she was so angry. Perhaps naught but the aftermath of terror-a terror that neither companion had the decency to have shared with her. They made her feel… diminished.
Traveller was still studying her, and she wanted to snarl at him. When he spoke, his tone was calm. ‘The old gods of war are returning.’
‘War? The god of war? That was Fener, wasn’t it? The Boar.’
‘Fener, Togg, Fanderay, Treach, and,’ he shrugged, ‘De nek Okral-who can say how many once existed. They arose, I would imagine, dependent on the environment of the worshippers-whatever beast was supreme predator, was the most savage-’
‘But none were,’ cut in Karsa Orlong. ‘Supreme. That title belonged to us two-legged hunters, us bright-eyed killers.’
Traveller continued to stare at Samar Dev. ‘The savagery of the beasts reflected the savagery in the souls of the worshippers. In war, this is what was shared. Boar, tigers, wolves, the great bears that knew no fear.’
‘Is this what Fener’s fall has done, then?’ Samar Dev asked. ‘All the hoary, for-gotten once clambering back to fight over the spoils? And what has that to do with that bear, anyway?’
‘That bear,’ said Traveller, ‘was a god.’
Karsa spat into the fire. ‘No wonder 1 have never before seen such a beast.’
‘They once existed,’ said Traveller. ‘They once ruled these plains, until all that they hunted was taken from them, and so they vanished, as have so many other proud creatures.’
‘The god should have followed them/ said Karsa. ‘There are too many faces of war as it is.’
Samar Dev grunted. ‘That’s rich coming from you.’
Karsa eyed her over the flames, and then grinned, the crazed tattoos seeming to split wide open on his face. ‘There need be only one.’
Yours. Yes, Toblakai, I understand you well enough. ‘I have one true fear/ she said. ‘And that is, when you are done with civilization, it will turn out that you as master of everything will prove no better than the ones you pulled down. That you will find the last surviving throne and plop yourself down on it, and find it all too much to your liking.’
‘That is an empty fear, Witch,’ said Karsa Orlong. ‘I will leave not one throne to sit on-I will shatter them all. And if, when I am done, I am the last left standing-in all the world-then I will be satisfied.’
‘What of your people?’
‘I have listened too long to the whispers of Bairoth Gild and Delum Thord. Our ways are but clumsier versions of all the other ways in which people live-their love of waste, their eagerness to reap every living thing as if belonged to them, as if in order to prove ownership they must destroy it.’ He bared his teeth. ‘We think no
