Steven Erikson - Forge of Darkness

As they passed among them, skirting the high edge of the valley’s north side, Korya saw that most were abandoned, and those few that showed signs of habitation were distant, and it seemed that Haut’s route deeper into the now dead Jaghut city deftly avoided drawing too near any of them.

She saw no evidence of industry, or farming, or manufacture. There were no outbuildings to be seen, either for storing food or stabling animals. For sustenance, these Jaghut must have supped on air.

Her thighs and calves ached from all the walking. The silence from Haut was oppressive and there was a steady pain behind her eyes and blood had soaked through the pad of moss between her legs. She awaited a word from him, something to snap at and so feel better, but he strode ahead without pause, until she felt as if he’d bound an invisible leash round her neck and was simply pulling her along like a reluctant pet. She wanted him to tug on that leash, draw her too close and so come within reach of her claws.

Not that she had any. Nights of cooking over campfires had made scorched and smudged bludgeons of her hands. And for all her vehemence, her strength was gone, withered away by this seemingly endless trek. Her clothes and hair were filthy and stank of smoke.

Another square tower was just ahead, and this one Haut was making no effort to avoid and so she assumed that it too was abandoned. Another monument to failure. How I long for Kurald Galain!

When her master reached it, he halted and turned to Korya. ‘Prepare camp,’ he said. ‘Tonight we will sleep within, since there will be rain.’

She glared up at the cloudless sky, and then at the Jaghut.

‘Will the child doubt the adult in all things?’ he asked.

‘I trust,’ she said as she dropped the pack from her shoulders, ‘that was rhetorical.’

Haut pointed at a stunted tree outside the gaping entrance to the tower. ‘That shrub is called ilbarea.’

‘It’s dead.’

‘It does appear that way, yes. Collect a bag full of its leaves.’

‘Why?’

‘I see that you are in discomfort and ill-humour and so would remedy that. Not as much for your sake as for mine, since I have no desire to dodge barbs all night.’

‘I have questions, not barbs.’

‘And to grasp each one is to behold thorns. Collect the driest of the dead leaves and know that I do this for both of us.’

‘You just said-’

‘Bait to test your mood. The trap is sprung yet you still profess to a backbone and raised hackles. I will see you calmed and no longer so sickly-looking.’

‘Well, we can’t have your sensibilities so offended, can we?’ She rummaged in her pack and found a small sack that had once held tubers — ghastly tasting things even when boiled to a mush: she had thrown the rest away after the first night.

‘It is better,’ said Haut, ‘when you cook with enthusiasm.’

‘I thought we were hunting murderers,’ she said as she walked over to the shrub. ‘Instead we just walk and walk and get nowhere.’ She began plucking the dry, leathery leaves. ‘This will make wretched tea.’

‘I’m sure it would,’ he replied behind her. ‘Once you have filled the bag, we shall need a fire. There should be a wood pile behind the tower, in the yard. I have held on to a single bottle of wine and for that you will thank me, once you rediscover a thankful mood.’

‘I suggest you hold your breath while awaiting its arrival,’ she said, tugging at the leaves.

He grunted. ‘I have failed you with too much shelter, I now see. You are resilient in civil settings, yet frail in the wilds.’

‘You call this wild, master?’

‘You would deem it civilization, hostage?’

‘Civilization on its knees — if that roof proves dry to the nonexistent rain. I am far from enamoured, master, exploring this legacy of surrender. But this is only the wildness of neglect, and that is ever sordid for the tale it tells.’

‘True enough, there is nothing more sordid than civil failure, in particular its way of creeping up on one, in such minute increments as to pass unnoticed. If we are to deem civilization a form of progress, then how should it be measured?’

She sighed. Still more lessons. ‘You would engage an ill-tempered woman in debate, master?’

‘Hmm, true. Woman you are. Child no longer. Well, as I am bored, I will gird my armour and march into the perilous ferment of a woman’s fury.’

She so wanted to dislike him, but again and again it proved impossible. ‘The progress of civilization is measured in its gifts to labour and service. We are eased by the coalescing of intent, willingness and capability.’

‘Then how does one measure the stalling of said progress? Or indeed, its decline?’

‘Intent remains. Willingness fades and capability is called into question. Accord dissolves but blame is impossible to assign, leading to malaise, confusion and a vacuous resentment.’ The bag was stuffed full. Eyeing the shrub she was startled to see that upon every branch she had stripped bare new shoots had appeared, just as brown as the leaves they replaced. ‘What a ridiculous tree,’ she said.

‘Its disguise is death,’ said Haut. He had removed his gauntlets and was shrugging out from his surcoat of mail. ‘Give me the ilbarea, thus freeing your hands to collect wood.’

‘That is kind of you, master. But I wonder, if I am to be a mahybe, a vessel to be filled, why fill it with mundane tasks and seething frustration?’

He sat on a stone near the old firepit and then glanced up at her. ‘Have you ever held a stoppered bottle under water? No? Yes, why should you? No matter. Pull the stopper and what happens?’

‘If the bottle held air, then the air bubbles out and is replaced with water. If it held liquid, then I imagine a certain slow admixture with the water. These are the experiments suited to a child in a tub. But, master, as you can see, I am not under water, nor am I as empty as you would think me.’

‘These disciplines, hostage, are for your own good in that they bring ease and comfort to my being. I have been too long in civilization to understand the mundane cogitations of its basic requirements.’

‘You are intent without capability and entirely lacking in will.’

‘Just so, and I would not be a teacher of worth, if in neglect I led you into a life similarly devoid of useful knowledge.’

She eyed him for a long moment and then made her way to the back of the tower. Instead of an overgrown garden, she found a massive hole in the ground. It was four or five paces across and when she ventured to its edge and peered down, she saw only blackness. Collecting up a rock, she held it out and dropped it. The stone struck something after a few heartbeats, and then bounced and clattered until the sounds faded away.

The wood was stacked up against the wall, enough for a dozen nights at the campfire. That thought left her despondent. She collected an armful and returned to where Haut sat expectantly. He had set his last remaining wine bottle on the ground beside him. Eyes on the bottle, Korya contemplated smashing it over Haut’s hairless pate. Instead, she crouched and set down the wood beside the firepit, and then went off in search of kindling.

A short time later, she had the fire lit and sat waiting for a decent bed of embers. The cookpot sat waiting, filled with water and a handful of dubious vegetables.

Haut rummaged in his pack and removed three goblets, which he set to polishing with a silk handkerchief she had never seen before. He lined up the goblets in a perfect row in front of the bottle.

A sound from the tower made her turn. A Jaghut was standing in the doorway. He was taller than Haut by more than a hand, broad across the shoulders and long-limbed. His tusks were stained almost black, except at the upthrust tips, where they faded to red-tinted amber. An old but savage scar seamed a ragged path diagonally across his face. He wore nothing but a colourless loincloth that failed to hide the lower half of his manhood. The vertical pupils of his eyes were thin as slits.