Dust of Dreams

She spoke in his mind. ‘Mortal Sword. Your words have been heard. By all. We shall obey.’

‘Gods below,’ Stormy muttered.

Kalyth stepped close to Gesler. Her eyes were wide. ‘A darkness lifts from the K’Chain Che’Malle.’ But in those eyes, beyond the wonder, he saw a flittering fear. She sees me sowing false hope. Gods, woman, what do you think a commander does? He walked up to one of the Ve’Gath, gripped what passed for a saddle horn, set one boot into a stirrup that suddenly clasped tight round his foot, and then swung himself astride the enormous beast.

‘Get ready to march,’ he said, knowing his words were heard by all. ‘We’re not waiting for the Nah’ruk to come to us. We’re heading straight for them, and straight down their damned throats. Kalyth! Does anyone know-will that sky keep follow? Will they fight?’

‘We don’t know, Mortal Sword. We think so. What else is left?’

Stormy was struggling to climb on to his beast. ‘Trying to crush my damned foot!’

‘Relax into it,’ Gesler advised.

The One Daughter spoke in his mind. ‘The Shi’gal comes.’

‘Good. Let’s get this mess started.’

Gu’Rull tilted his wings, swept close round the towering cliff-face of Ampelas Uprooted. There was but one Shi’gal left inside-he’d managed to deliver fatal wounds to the other before he’d been driven from the Nest, and then the city. Deep slashes wept thick blood down his chest, but none of these threatened his life. Already he had begun to heal.

Before him on the plain the massed Furies had resumed their ground-eating march. Thousands of K’ell Hunters spread out to form a vast screen in a crescent as they struck southward, where dark clouds boiled on the horizon, slowly disappearing as the sun finally sank beneath the western hills. The Nah’ruk had fed this day, but the quarry had proved deadlier than they could have anticipated.

This Mortal Sword and his words impressed Gu’Rull, in so far as these soft humans could do so; but then, neither the one named Gesler nor the one named Stormy were truly human. Not any more. The aura of their presence was almost blinding to the Shi’gal’s eyes. Ancient fires had forged them. Thyrllan, Tellann, perhaps even the breath and blood of the Eleint.

The K’Chain Che’Malle did not bow in worship, but when it came to the Eleint, this abhorrence weakened. Children of the Eleint. But we are nothing of the sort. We simply claim the honour. But then, is this not what all mortals do? In grasping their gods, in carving the vicious rules of worship and obedience? Children of the Eleint. We name our cities for the First Born Dragons, those who once sailed the skies of this world.

As if they cared.

As if they even noticed.

This Mortal Sword spoke of a refusal, a defiance of the fate awaiting them. He possessed courage, and stubborn will. Laudable conceits. I answer his summons. I give him my eyes, for as long as I remain in the skies. I do not warn him that such time shall not long survive the commencement of battle. The Nah’ruk will see to that.

Even so. In Gunth’an Acyl’s memory, I shall abide.

Doubts swirled round the red-bearded one, the Shield Anvil. His heart was vast, it was true. He was a thing of sentimentality and compassion, so contrary to his bestial appearance, his simian fire. But such creatures were vulnerable. Their hearts bled too freely, and the scars never knitted true. It was madness to embrace the pain and suffering of the K’Chain Che’Malle-not even a Matron would yield to such a thing. The mind would howl. The mind would die.

No matter, he was but one mortal, a human at that. He would take what he could, and then fail. Falchions would descend, an instant of purest mercy-

‘Enough of that-and I don’t give a flying fuck for all your miserable thoughts. Assassin, I am Gesler. Your Mortal Sword. On the morning to come, on the dawn of battle, you will be my eyes. You will not flee. I don’t care how nasty it gets up there. If you ain’t looking like a pigeon that’s gone through a windmill by the time we’re all done, you’ll have failed me-and your kin, too. So don’t even think-’

I hear your words, Mortal Sword. You shall have my eyes, more’s the pity.

‘So long as we’re understood. Now, what should I be expecting when we sight the Nah’ruk?’

And so Gu’Rull told him. The human interrupted again and again with sharp, percipient questions. And, as the shock of his power-which had so easily torn through his defences to plunder Gu’Rull’s mind-slowly faded to a welt of indignation, the Shi’gal’s esteem for the Mortal Sword grew, grudgingly, half in disbelief, half in resentment. The Assassin would not permit himself the delusion of hope. But, this man was a warrior in the truest sense.

And what is that true sense? Why, it is the insanity of belief. And now you make us believe. With you. In you. And in your madness, which you so insist upon sharing.

You taste bitter, human. You taste of your world.

Cursing, Stormy forced his mount up alongside Gesler. ‘I’m picking up a stink of something. It’s hiding in back thoughts, at the bottom of deep pools-’

‘What in Hood’s name are you talking about?’ Gesler demanded. ‘And be quick, that Assassin’s even now winging towards the enemy-they’re camped, I can see them-there are fires and one big one-lots of smoke. Gods, my head’s ready to explode-’

‘You ain’t listening,’ Stormy said. ‘That stink-they know something. Gunth Mach-she knows something and she’s hiding it from us. I got this-’

Gesler snapped out a hand, and Stormy could see a distant look in his friend’s battered face, and as he watched, he saw horror filling the man’s eyes. ‘Beru fend… Stormy. I’m seeing wreckage-heaps of armour and weapons. Stormy-’

‘Those Nah’ruk-they-’

‘The Bonehunters-they found ’em, they… gods, there’s piles of bones! They fucking ate them!’ As Gesler reeled Stormy reached out to steady him.

‘Ges! Just tell me what you’re seeing!’

‘What do you think I’m doing! Gods below!’

But all at once words dried up, and Gesler could only stare downward as the Assassin wheeled over the battlefield, the massive encampment, a crater that could swallow a palace, and the vast stain of what looked like coals amidst flame-licked tree-stumps-no, not stumps. Limbs. Scorched Nah’ruk, still burning. Was it magic that hit them? Gesler could not believe that. A single release of a warren, torching thousands? And that crater-a hundred cussers maybe… but we didn’t have a hundred cussers.

He could hear Stormy shouting at him, but the voice seemed impossibly distant, too far away to be of any concern. Trenches ribboned a ridge, some of them filled with shattered armour and weapons. Lesser craters pocked the summit, crowded with bones. Off to one side, hundreds of Nah’ruk were moving through the carcasses of horses and blackened bodies. Heavy wagons trailed them, slabs of meat heaped on their beds. Dozens of Nah’ruk were harnessed to them, straining in their yokes.

That was a Khundryl charge. Wiped out. At least some of the allies arrived in time-in time for what? Dying. Gods, this was the Lord’s cruellest push. They weren’t looking for a fight-not with damned lizards, anyway. Not here in the useless Wastelands.

The Shi’gal Assassin’s voice intruded. ‘Your kin have damaged the Nah’ruk. This harvest was paid for, Mortal Sword. At least three Furies have been destroyed.’

Those were my friends. This wasn’t their fight.

‘They were brave. They did not surrender.’

Gesler frowned. Was surrender possible?

‘I do not know. I doubt it. The matter is irrelevant. Against us, tomorrow, there will be no quarter.’

‘You got that right,’ Gesler said in a growl.

‘Gesler!’

Blinking, the scene spinning away from his mind, he turned to Stormy. Wiping his eyes, he said, ‘It’s bad. Bad as it can get. The Nah’ruk were marching to meet these K’Chain Che’Malle. They slammed like a fist right into the Bonehunters. Stormy, there was slaughter, but only one army remains-’

Gu’Rull spoke once again in his mind. ‘I have found a trail, Mortal Sword. Signs of retreat. Shall we pursue it? The Nah’ruk can feel our approach-our Ve’Gath are as thunder in the earth. They prepare to march to meet us-the sky is a place of no light, there are alien winds-I cannot-’

Lightning flashed to the south, cracking through the night. Gesler grunted as the concussion reverberated through his skull. Assassin? Where are you? Answer me-what’s happened?

But he could not reach out to the winged lizard; he could not find Gu’Rull anywhere. Shit.

‘Is that a damned storm cloud up ahead, Gesler? Is that blood on your face? Tell me what the Hood’s going on!’

‘You really that curious?’ Gesler said, baring his teeth. He then spat. ‘The Nah’ruk have dropped everything. They’re coming for us. We’re on our own.’

‘And the Bonehunters?’

‘We’re on our own.’

The scouts emerged from the unforgiving darkness. On this night the Slashes had vanished, taking the stars and the jade glow with them. Even the swollen haze that was the moon did not dare the sky. Shivering in the sudden chill, Warleader Strahl waited for the scouts to reach him.

The two Senan warriors were hunched over, as if fearful, or perhaps wounded. When they halted before him, both knelt. They were exhausted, he saw, their chests heaving.

Look at them. Look at this darkness. Has the world ended this night?

He would not rush them, demanding words they would struggle to feed. The dread was thick enough in their harsh breaths.

Behind the Warleader the Senan Barghast waited. Some slept, but for most sleep would not come. Hunger. Thirst. The famine of loss, a song of soft weeping. He could feel scores of eyes fixed upon him, seeing, he knew, little more than a vague, smudged silhouette. Seeing the truth of him, and before them he had nowhere to hide.

One of the scouts had recovered his wind. ‘Warleader. Two armies on the plain.’