progress is far more fragile than it outwardly seems. In the end, they must ever back up what they seek with force.’ Trull pointed to the sword. ‘With that.’
‘We shall guide them, Trull. Hannan Mosag understood this-’
‘You revise the past now, Fear. He was not intending to wage war on the Letherii.’
‘Not immediately, true, but it would have come. And he knew it. So the K’risnan have told me. We had lost Father Shadow. It was necessary to find a new source of faith.’
‘A faceless one?’
‘Damn you, Trull! You knelt before him – no different from the rest of us!’
‘And to this day, I wonder why. What about you, Fear? Do you wonder why you did as you did?’
His brother turned away, visibly trembling. ‘I saw no doubt.’
‘In Hannan Mosag. And so you followed. As did the rest of us, I suspect. One and all, we knelt before Rhulad, believing we saw in each other a certainty that did not in truth exist-’
With a roar, Fear spun round, the sword lifting high. It swung down-
– and was halted, suddenly, by the demon, whose massive hand had closed round Fear’s forearm and held it motionless. ‘Release me!’
‘No,’ Lilac replied. ‘This warrior stole my death. I now steal his.’ Fear struggled a moment longer, then, seeing it was hopeless, he sagged.
‘You can let him go now,’ Trull said.
‘If he attacks again I will kill him,’ the demon said, releasing Fear’s arm.
‘We followed Hannan Mosag,’ Trull said, ‘and yet, what did we know of his mind? He was our Warlock King, and so we followed. Think on this, Fear. He had sought out a new source of power, rejecting Father Shadow. True, he knew, as we did, that Scabandari Bloodeye was dead, or, at best, his spirit lived but was lost to us. And so he made pact with… something else. And he sent you and me, Binadas and Rhulad and the Buhns, to retrieve the gift that… thing… created for him. The fault lies with us, Fear, in that we did not question, did not challenge the Warlock King. We were fools, and all that is before us now, and all that will come, is our fault.’
‘He is the Warlock King, Trull.’
‘Who arrived at absolute power over all the Edur. He held it and would not lose it, no matter what. And so he surrendered his soul. As did we, when we knelt before Rhulad.’
Fear’s eyes narrowed on him. ‘You are speaking treason, brother.’
‘Against what? Against whom? Tell me, I truly want to know. Have you seen the face of our new god?’
‘Were Binadas standing here and not I,’ Fear whispered, ‘you would be dead now.’
‘And, in our wondrous new empire, will that be the singular fate of all those who voice dissent?’
Fear looked down at the sword in his hand. Then let it drop. ‘Your warriors are awaiting you, Trull. In two days’ time we resume our march. South, to Letheras.’ He then turned and walked away.
Trull watched him for a moment, then looked out on the river once more. For every eddy in the current, in the lees of boulders and notches in the bank, the river rushed on, slave to relentless laws. When he had placed his hand in the water, it had quickly grown numb. ‘Eventually, Lilac, we will make sense of this.’
The demon said nothing.
Trull walked to a nearby boulder and sat down on it. He lowered his head into his hands and began to weep.
After a time the demon moved to stand beside him. Then a heavy hand settled on his shoulder.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Invisible in all his portions This thick-skinned thing has borders Indivisible to every sentinel Patrolling the geography of Arbitrary definitions, and yet the Mountains have ground down The fires died, and so streams This motionless strand of sharp Black sand where I walk Cutting my path on the coarse Conclusions countless teeth Have grated – all lost now In this unlit dust – we are not And have never been The runners green and fresh Of life risen from the crushed Severing extinctions (that one past this one new) all hallowed and self-sure But the dead strand moves unseen, The river of black crawls on To some wistful resolution The place with no meaning Inconsequential in absence Of strings and shadows Charting from then to now And these stitched lines Finding this in that…
Excerpt from
THE CORPSE BEYOND THE PIER WAS BARELY VISIBLE, A PALLID PATCH resisting the roll of the waves. The shark that rose alongside it to make a sideways lunge was one of the largest ones Udinaas had yet seen during the time he’d sat looking out on the harbour, his legs dangling from the jetty’s edge.
Gulls and sharks, the feast lasting the entire morning. The slave watched, feeling like a spectator before nature’s incessant display, the inevitability of the performance leaving him oddly satisfied. Entertained, in fact. Those who owed. Those who were owed. They sat equally sweet in the bellies of the scavengers. And this was a thing of wonder.
The emperor would summon him soon, he knew. The army was stirring itself into motion somewhere beyond Trate’s broken gates, inland. An oversized garrison of Beneda Edur was remaining in the city, enforcing the restitution of peace, normality. The once-chief of the Den-Ratha had been given the title of governor. That the garrison under his control was not of his own tribe was no accident. Suspicion had come in the wake of success, as it always did.
Hannan Mosag’s work. The emperor had been… fraught of late. Distracted. Suffering. Too often, madness burned in his eyes.
Mayen had beaten Feather Witch senseless, as close to killing the slave outright as was possible. In the vast tent that now served as Edur headquarters – stolen from the train that had belonged to the Cold Clay Battalion – there had been rapes. Slaves, prisoners. Perhaps Mayen simply did to others what Rhulad did to her. A compassionate mind might believe so. And as for the hundreds of noble women taken from the Letherii by Edur warriors, most had since been returned at the governor’s command, although it was likely that many now carried half-blood seeds within them.
The governor would soon accept the many requests to hear delegations from the various guilds and merchant interests. And a new pattern would take shape.
Unless, of course, the frontier cities were liberated by a victorious Letherii counter-attack. Plenty of rumours, of course. Clashes at sea between Edur and Letherii fleets. Thousands sent to the deep. The storm seen far to the west the night before had signalled a mage-war. The Ceda, Kuru Qan, had finally roused himself in all his terrible power. While Letherii corpses crowded the harbour, it was Edur bodies out in the seas beyond.
Strangest rumour of all, the prison island of Second Maiden Fort had flung back a succession of Edur attacks, and was still holding out, and among the half-thousand convicted soldiers was a sorceror who had once rivalled the Ceda himself. That was why the Edur army had remained camped here – they wanted no enemy still active behind them.
Udinaas knew otherwise. There might well be continued resistance in their wake, but the emperor was indifferent to such things. And the Letherii fleet had yet to make an appearance. The Edur ships commanded Katter Sea as far south as the city of Awl.
He drew his legs up and climbed to his feet. Walked back down the length of the pier. The streets were quiet. Most signs of the fighting had been removed, the bodies and broken furniture and shattered pottery, and a light rain the night before had washed most of the bloodstains away. But the air still stank of smoke and the walls of the buildings were smeared with an oily grit. Windows gaped and doorways that had been kicked in remained dark.
He had never much liked Trate. Rife with thugs and the dissolute remnants of the Nerek and Fent, the market stalls crowded with once-holy icons and relics, with ceremonial artwork now being sold as curios. The talking sticks of chiefs, the medicine bags of shamans. Fent ancestor chests, the bones still in them. The harbour front streets and alleys had been crowded with Nerek children selling their bodies, and over it all hung a vague sense of
