Dust of Dreams

as was demanded by Hetan’s position as wife to the Warleader. Well, the whore was paying the soul’s coin for that now, wasn’t she?

Balamit ran through her mind once more the fateful moment when Hega’s hatchet descended. The way Hetan’s whole body contorted in pain and shock, the deafening shriek cutting like a knife in the air. Some people lived as if privilege was something they were born to, as if everyone else was a lesser being, as if their domination was a natural truth. Well, there were other truths in nature, weren’t there? The gathering of the pack could bring down the fiercest wolf.

Balamit grinned as the rain spat icy against her face. Not just a pack, but a thousand of her kind! The pushed-down, the murky shapes that made up the common crowd, the ignored subjects of contempt. No, this was a worldly lesson, was it not? And, sweetest truth of all, we are far from finished.

Maral Eb was a fool, just another one of those superior bastards who thought their damned farts could buy a crown. Bakal was a much better choice-a Senan for one, and the Barahn were no match for her tribe-to think they could just step into the stirrup, when they’d not even had a hand in killing Onos Toolan, why, it was-

A huge shape stepped out from between two tarp-covered dung-piles, bulled into her hard enough to make her stagger. The figure reached out to right her even as she hissed a curse, and then the hand clutched tighter and snatched her close. A knife-blade sank between her ribs, the point slicing her heart in half.

Blinking in the sudden darkness, Balamit’s legs gave out beneath her, and she fell to the mud.

Her killer left her there without a backward glance.

Jayviss finally rose from her place close to the fire, as the flames had at last guttered out beneath the rain. Her bones ached terribly when the weather turned cold, and the injustice of that galled her. She was barely into her fifth decade, after all-but now that she was among the powerful, she could demand a ritual of healing to scour clean the rot in her joints, and she would have to pay nothing, nothing at all.

Sekara had promised. And Sekara knew the importance of favouring her allies.

Life would be good once again, as it had been in her youth. She could take as many men as she wanted. She could take for herself the finest furs to stay warm at night. She might even buy a D’ras slave or two, to work oils into her skin and make her supple once more. She’d heard they could take away stretch marks and make sagging breasts taut. They could smooth the wrinkles from her face, even the deep bird-track between her brows, where had gathered a lifetime of injustice and anger.

Seeing the last of the coals blacken at her feet, she turned away.

Two warriors stood before her. Barahn-one of them Kashat, Maral Eb’s brother. The other warrior she did not recognize.

‘What do you want?’ Jayviss demanded in sudden fear.

‘Just this,’ Kashat said, and he lashed out.

She caught the gleam of an etched blade. A sting against her throat, and suddenly heat poured down the front of her chest.

The ache in her bones vanished, and after a time the knot in her brow slowly relaxed, making her face, as the rain kissed it, almost young again.

Little Yedin crouched beside the body of Hega, staring at the pool of blood that still steamed even as raindrops pounded its surface. The nightmare would not end, and she could still feel the heat of the iron paddle she’d used to cauterize Hetan’s feet. It pulsed like fever up her arms, but could not reach the sickly chill wrapped about her heart.

So terrible a thing, and Hega had made her do it, because Hega had a way of making people do things, especially young people. She’d show them the dangerous thing in her eyes and nothing more would be needed. But Hetan had never been mean, had never been anything but nice, gentle, always ready with a wink. And Stavi and Storii, too. Always making Yedin laugh, the acts they put on, all their crazy ideas and plans.

The world ahead was suddenly dark, unknowable. And look here, someone had gone and killed Hega. The dangerous thing in her eyes hadn’t been enough, but then, what was?

What those men did to Hetan-

A hand grabbed the back of her collar and she was lifted from the ground.

A stranger’s face stared at her own.

From one side another voice spoke, ‘She won’t remember much of this, Sagal.’

‘One of Hega’s imps.’

‘Even so-’

Sagal set her down and she tottered on wobbly legs. He put his huge hands against the sides of her head. Their eyes met and Yedin saw a darkness come to life there, a dangerous thing-

Sagal snapped her neck, dropped the body on to Hega’s. ‘Find Befka. One more to go this night. For you.’

‘What of Sekara and Stolmen?’

Sagal grinned. ‘Kashat and me-we’re saving the best for last. Now go, Corit.’

The warrior nodded. ‘And then I get my turn with Hetan.’

‘She’s worth it, the way she squirms in the mud.’

Once Strahl had left, Bakal sat alone in his yurt. His wife would not return this night, he knew, and he admitted he would be not too upset if she did not return at all. Amazing, that surprises could come to a marriage after so many years. The skein of rules was torn apart this night, strands winging on the black wind. A thousand possibilities awakened in people’s souls. Long-buried feuds clawed up out of the ground and knives dripped. A warrior could look into a friend’s eyes and see a stranger, could look into a mate’s eyes and see the flare of wicked desires.

She wanted another man but Bakal was in the way. That man wanted her in turn, but his wife was in the way. Bakal’s wife had stood before him, a half-smile playing on her face, a living thing pleased to deliver pain-if pain was possible, which he’d found, to his own bemusement, it was not. The moment she’d realized that, her visage had transformed into hatred.

When she left, she was holding her knife. Between her and her new lover, a woman would die tonight.

Would he stop them?

He had not yet decided. Nothing raged inside him. Nothing smouldered an instant’s breath from bursting into flame. Even the effort of thinking exhausted him.

‘Blood runs down.’ An ancient saying among the Barghast. When a ruler is murdered, a thousand blades are drawn, and the weak become savage. We are in our night of madness. An enemy marches to find us, and we are locked in a frenzy of senseless slaughter, killing our own. He could hear faint screams cutting through the howling wind.

The image of his wife’s face, so ugly in its wants, rose before him.

No, I will not let it be. He rose, cast about until he found his coin-scaled hauberk. If he was too late to save the woman, he would kill both his wife and her lover. An act, he decided, devoid of madness.

‘Find him!’ exhorted Sekara. ‘His brothers are out-killing our allies! Maral Eb is alone-’

‘He is not,’ said Stolmen. ‘On this night, that would be insane.’

She glared at him. Huge in his armour, a heavy hook-knife in one gauntleted hand, a miserable look on his stolid face. ‘Tell him you would discuss the alliance of the Gadra Clan-just find a reason. Once you cut his throat-’

‘His brothers will hunt me down and kill me. Listen, woman, you told me you wanted Maral Eb to command the warriors-’

‘I did not expect him to move on us this very night! Hega is dead! Jayviss is nowhere to be found. Nor is Balamit. Don’t you understand what’s happening?’

‘It seems you don’t. If they’re all dead, then we are next.’

‘He’ll not dare touch us! I have a hundred slayers-I have spies in every clan! No, he still needs us-’

‘He won’t think that way when I try and kill him.’

‘Don’t just try, husband. Do it and be sure of it. Leave his fool brothers to me.’

The rain was hammering down on the thick hides humped over the sapling frame of the yurt’s ceiling. Someone shrieked nearby. Stolmen’s face was ashen.

Spirits below, he doesn’t even need the paint tonight. ‘Must I do this, too? Are you worth anything to me?’

‘Sekara, I stand here ready to give up my life-to protect you. Once this night is done, the madness will end. We need only survive-’

‘I’m not interested in just surviving!’

He stared at her, as if seeing her for the first time. Something in that look, so strange on his face, sent a tendril of disquiet through Sekara. She stepped closer, set a hand on his scaled chest. ‘I understand, husband. Know that I value what you are doing. I just don’t think it’s necessary, that’s all. Please, do this for me. Find Maral Eb-and if you see that he is surrounded by bodyguards, then return here. We will know that he fears for his life-we will have struck our first blow against him without even raising a hand.’

He sighed, turned to the entrance.

The wind gusted round him when he pushed aside the flap and stepped outside.

Sekara backed away from the chill.

A moment later she heard a heavy thump, and then something rolled into the tent wall before sliding to the ground.

Heart in her throat, hands to her mouth, Sekara froze.

Sagal was the first to enter the yurt. His brother Kashat came in behind him, a tulwar in one hand, the blade slick with watery blood.

‘Sekara the Vile,’ said Sagal, smiling. ‘’Tis a cruel night.’

‘I’m glad he’s dead,’ she replied, nodding to the dripping blade. ‘Useless. A burden upon my every ambition.’

‘Ambitions, yes,’ muttered Kashat, looking round. ‘You’ve done yourself well, I see.’

‘I have many, many friends.’

‘We know,’ said Sagal. ‘We’ve met with some of them this night.’

‘Maral Eb needs me-he needs what I know. My spies, my assassins. As a widow, I am no threat to you, any of you. Your brother shall be Warleader, and I will make certain he is unassailed.’

Sagal shrugged. ‘We’ll think on it.’