Dust of Dreams

gazed westward. A dozen or more riders. ‘Akrynnai,’ she said. ‘They will see our Barghast clothing. They will seek to kill us. Then again,’ she added, ‘if you ride to them, they may change their minds.’

‘And why would that be?’ he asked, even as he kicked his horse forward.

She saw the Akrynnai horse-warriors fan out, saw lances being readied.

Toc rode straight for them, an arrow nocked to the bowstring.

As they drew closer, Setoc saw the Akrynnai falter, even as their lances lifted defensively. Moments later the warriors scattered, horses bucking beneath them. Within a few more heartbeats, all were in flight. Toc slowly wheeled his mount and rode back to where she stood.

‘It seems you were right.’

‘Their horses knew before they did.’

He halted his mount, returned the arrow to its quiver and deftly unstrung the bow.

‘Actually, you’ll need those,’ Setoc said. ‘We need food. We need water, too.’

It seemed he’d stopped listening, and his head was turned to the east.

‘What is it?’ she asked. ‘More hunters?’

‘She wasn’t satisfied,’ he muttered. ‘Of course not. What can one do better than an army can? Not much. But he won’t like it. He never did. In fact, he may turn them all away. Well now, Bonecaster, what would you do about that? If he releases them?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. She? Him? What army?’

His head turned to look past her. She swung round. The boy was on his feet, walking over to the wolf cairn. He sang, ‘Blalalalalalala…’

‘I wish he’d stop doing that,’ she said.

‘You are not alone in that, Setoc of the Wolves.’

She started, turned back to eye the undead warrior. ‘I see you now, Toc Anaster, and it seems you have but one eye-dead as it is. But that first night, I saw-’

‘What? What did you see?’

The eye of a wolf. She waved towards the cairn. ‘You brought us here.’

‘No. I took you away. Tell me, Setoc, are the beasts innocent?’

‘Innocent? Of what?’

‘Did they deserve their fate?’

‘No.’

‘Did it matter? Whether they deserved it or not?’

‘No.’

‘Setoc, what do the Wolves want?’

She knew by his intonation that he meant the god and the goddess-she knew they existed, even if she didn’t know their names, or if they even had ones. ‘They want us all to go away. To leave them alone. Them and their children.’

‘Will we?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

She struggled for an answer.

‘Because, Setoc, to live is to wage war. And it just happens that no other thing is as good at waging war as we are.’

‘I don’t believe you! Wolves don’t wage war against anything!’

‘A pack marks out its territory and that pack will drive off any other pack that seeks to encroach upon it. The pack defends its claim-to the land, and to the animals it preys upon in that land.’

‘But that’s not war!’

He shrugged. ‘Mostly, it’s just the threat of war, until threat alone proves insufficient. Every creature strives for dominance, among its own kind and within its territory. Even a pack of dogs will find its king, its queen, and they will rule by virtue of their strength and the threat their strength implies, until they are usurped by the next in line. What can we make of this? That politics belong to all social creatures? So it would seem. Setoc, could the Wolves kill us humans, every one of us, would they?’

‘If they understood it was them or us, yes! Why shouldn’t they?’

‘I was but asking questions,’ Toc replied. ‘I once knew a woman who could flatten a city with the arch of a single perfect eyebrow.’

‘Did she?’ Setoc asked, pleased to be the one asking questions.

‘Occasionally. But, not every city, not every time.’

‘Why not?’

The undead warrior smiled, the expression chilling her. ‘She liked a decent bath every now and then.’

After Toc had set off in search of food, Setoc set about building a hearth with whatever stones she could find. The boy was sitting in front of the cairn, still singing his song. The twins had awakened but neither seemed to have anything to say. Their eyes were glazed and Setoc knew it for shock.

‘Toc’ll be back soon,’ she told them. ‘Listen, can you make him stop that babbling? Please? It’s making my skin crawl. I mean, has he lost his mind, the little one? Or are they all like that? Barghast children aren’t, at least not that I remember. They stay quiet, just like you two are doing right now.’

Neither girl replied. They simply watched her.

The boy suddenly shouted.

At the cry the ground erupted twenty paces beyond the cairn. Stones spat through a cloud of dust.

And something clambered forth.

The twins shrieked. But the boy was laughing. Setoc stared. A huge wolf, long-limbed, with a long, flat head and heavy jaws bristling with fangs, stepped out from the dust, and then paused to shake its matted, tangled coat. The gesture cut away the last threads of fear in Setoc.

From the boy, a new song. ‘Ay ay ay ayayayayayayay!’

At its hunched shoulders, the creature was taller than Setoc. And it had died long, long ago.

Her eyes snapped to the boy. He summoned it. With that nonsense song, he summoned it.

Can-can I do the same? What is the boy to me? What is being made here?

One of the twins spoke: ‘He needs Toc. At his side. At our brother’s side. He needs Tool’s only friend. They have to be together.’

And the other girl, her gaze levelled on Setoc, said, ‘And they need you. But we have nothing. Nothing.’

‘I don’t understand you,’ Setoc said, irritated by the stab of irrational guilt she’d felt at the girl’s words.

‘What will happen,’ the girl asked, ‘when you raise one of your perfect eyebrows?’

‘What?’

‘ “Wherever you walk, someone’s stepped before you.” Our father used to say that.’

The enormous wolf stood close to the boy. Dust still streamed down its flanks. She had a sudden vision of this beast tearing out the throat of a horse. I saw these ones, but as ghosts. Ghosts of living things, not all rotted skin and bones. They kept their distance. They were never sure of me. Yet… I wept for them.

I can’t level cities.

Can I?

The apparitions rose suddenly, forming a circle around Toc. He slowly straightened from gutting the antelope he’d killed with an arrow to the heart. ‘If only Hood’s realm was smaller,’ he said, ‘I might know you all. But it isn’t and I don’t. What do you want?’

One of the undead Jaghut answered: ‘Nothing.’

The thirteen others laughed.

‘Nothing from you,’ the speaker amended. She had been female, once-when such distinctions meant something.

‘Then why have you surrounded me?’ Toc asked. ‘It can’t be that you’re hungry-’

More laughter, and weapons rattled back into sheaths and belt-loops. The woman approached. ‘A fine shot with that arrow, Herald. All the more remarkable for the lone eye you have left.’

Toc glared at the others. ‘Will you stop laughing, for Hood’s sake!’

The guffaws redoubled.

‘The wrong invocation, Herald,’ said the woman. ‘I am named Varandas. We do not serve Hood. We did Iskar Jarak a favour, and now we are free to do as we please.’

‘And what pleases you?’

Laughter from all sides.

Toc crouched back down, resumed gutting the antelope. Flies spun and buzzed. In the corner of his vision he could see one of the animal’s eyes, still liquid, still full, staring out at nothing. Iskar Jarak, when will you summon me? Soon, I think. It all draws in-but none of that belongs to the Wolves. Their interests lie elsewhere. What will happen? Will I simply tear in half? He paused, looked up to see the Jaghut still encircling him. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘Wandering,’ Varandas replied.

Another added in a deep voice, ‘Looking for something to kill.’

Toc glanced again at the antelope’s sightless eye. ‘You picked the wrong continent. The T’lan Imass have awakened.’

All at once, the amusement surrounding him seemed to vanish, and a sudden chill gripped the air.

Toc set down his knife and dragged loose the antelope’s guts.