Udinaas sighed. Most of the noble-born Edur were at the interment ceremony for the murdered fisherman, along with a half-dozen kin from the Beneda, since the Edur’s identity had finally been determined. Fewer than a dozen warriors remained in the compound behind him. Shadow wraiths seemed to grow bolder at such times, emerging to flit across the ground, between longhouses and along the palisade walls.
He had often wondered at that. But now, if Wither was to be believed, he had his answer.
Udinaas rose and brushed the sand from his coarse woollen trousers. He looked about. Three slaves from the Warlock King’s citadel were down by the river mouth, beating clothes against rocks. A lone fisher-boat was out on the water, but distant. ‘How far will I need to walk?’
‘If I am perceived to be straying too far, I will be killed outright.’
‘I am named Udinaas, and so you will address me.’
‘I am more than a slave, Wither, as you well know.’
‘Enough.’ He walked down to the waterline. The sun threw his shadow into his wake, pulled long and monstrous.
The rollers had built a humped sweep of sand over the stones, on which lay tangled strands of seaweed and a scattering of detritus. A pace inland of this elongated rise was a depression filled with slick pebbles and rocks. ‘Where should I be looking?’
Udinaas stared down, scanning the area. ‘I see nothing.’
A misshapen lump that sat heavy in his hand. Finger-length and tapered at one end, the metal object within swallowed by thick calcifications. ‘What is it?’
‘Hundreds of millennia? There would be nothing left-’
‘Why?’
There was nothing pleasing in this, but Udinaas straightened and tucked the lump in his belt pouch. He returned to his nets. ‘I shall not,’ he muttered, ‘be the hand of your vengeance.’
Wither’s laugh followed him in the crunch of stones.
There was smoke hanging above the lowlands, like clouds dragged low and now shredded by the dark treetops.
‘A funeral,’ Binadas said.
Seren Pedac nodded. There had been no storms, and besides, the forest was too wet to sustain a wildfire. The Edur practice of burial involved a tumulus construction, which was then covered to form a pyre. The intense heat baked the coin-sheathed corpse as if it was clay, and stained the barrow stones red. Shadow wraiths danced amidst the flames, twisted skyward with the smoke, and would linger long after the mourners were gone.
Seren drew her knife and bent to scrape mud from her boots. This side of the mountains the weather daily crept in from the sea shedding rain and mist in pernicious waves. Her clothes were soaked through. Three times since morning the heavily burdened wagons had skidded off the trail, once crushing a Nerek to death beneath the solid, iron-rimmed wheels.
Straightening, she cleaned her knife between two gloved fingers, then sheathed it at her side.
Moods were foul. Buruk the Pale had not emerged from his wagon in two days, nor had his three half-blood Nerek concubines. But the descent was finally done, and ahead was a wide, mostly level trail leading to Hannan Mosag’s village.
Binadas stood and watched as the last wagon rocked clear of the slope, and Seren sensed the Edur’s impatience. Someone had died in his village, after all. She glanced over at Hull Beddict, but could sense nothing from him. He had withdrawn deep into himself, as if building reserves in anticipation of what was to come. Or, equally likely, struggling to bolster crumbling resolve. She seemed to have lost her ability to read him. Pain worn without pause and for so long could itself become a mask.
‘Binadas,’ Seren said, ‘the Nerek need to rest. The journey before us is clear. There is no need for you to remain with us as escort. Go to your people.’
His eyes narrowed on her, suspicious of her offer.
She added nothing more. He would believe what he would believe, after all, no matter how genuine her intent.
‘She speaks true,’ Hull said. ‘We would not constrain you, Binadas.’
‘Very well. I shall inform Hannan Mosag of your impending visit.’
They watched the Edur set off down the trail. In moments the trees swallowed him.
‘Do you see?’ Hull asked her.
‘I saw only conflicting desires and obligations,’ Seren replied, turning away.
‘Only, then, what you chose to.’
Seren’s shrug was weary. ‘Oh, Hull, that is the way of us all.’
He stepped close. ‘But it need not be so, Acquitor.’
Surprised, she met his gaze, and wondered at the sudden earnestness there. ‘How am I supposed to respond to that?’ she asked. ‘We are all like soldiers, crouching behind the fortifications we have raised. You will do what you believe you must, Hull.’
‘And you, Seren Pedac? What course awaits you?’
He turned away. ‘I have no expectations, Seren, only fears. We should resume the journey.’
She glanced over at the Nerek. They sat or squatted near the wagons, steam rising from their backs. Their expressions were slack, strangely indifferent to the dead kin they had left behind in his makeshift grave of rutted mud, rocks and roots. How much could be stripped from a people before they began stripping away themselves? The steep slope of dissolution began with a skid, only to become a headlong run.
The Letherii believed in cold-hearted truths. Momentum was an avalanche and no-one was privileged with the choice of stepping aside. The division between life and death was measured in incremental jostling for position amidst all-devouring progress. No-one could afford compassion. Accordingly, none expected it from others either.
It began to rain once more.
Far to the south, beyond the mountains they had just crossed, the downfall of the Tiste Edur was being plotted. And, she suspected, Hull Beddict’s life had been made forfeit. They could not afford the risk he presented,
