Steven Erikson - Forge of Darkness

‘And the Mother?’

‘Dead. Eventually.’ And his smile broadened.

‘Is it,’ Tathe asked, ‘that you do not find my daughter attractive?’

‘C-captain,’ Sagander stammered, ‘she rivals even you.’

Tathe slowly blinked. ‘I am well aware of that.’

There was something ominous in her tone and Sagander felt his gaze drop yet again.

‘We tire of your indecision,’ said Hallyd Bahann. ‘Do not think she will be unfamiliar with her purpose. She is no virgin and is indeed now well into her womanhood. We do not approve of consort with children and among our soldiers we count it a heinous crime punishable by castration or, in the case of women, the branding of their breasts. Now then, will you accept our offer or not?’

‘A most generous reward,’ Sagander said in a mumble. ‘I–I am pleased to accept.’

‘Go then,’ said Tathe Lorat. ‘She awaits you in her tent.’

As always, it was a struggle to climb upright, using his crutch like a ladder, and then tottering as he found his balance. Breathing hard with the effort, he made his way out of the command tent.

The stench of smoke filled the air, drifting down into the streets and alleys of Abara Delack. Here and there walked squads of Legion soldiers, still loud and boisterous in the aftermath of the battle, although more than a few could be seen who were silent, for whom the end of the killing saw a second battle, this time with grief. Sagander looked upon them all as savages, filled with brutal appetites and the stupidity that marked bullies. Every civilization bred such creatures and he longed for a time when they could, one and all, be done away with. A civilization for ever within easy reach of a blade had little to boast about.

No, the only hope for humility was in the disarming of everyone, and with it the end of the threat of physical violence. He knew he could well hold his own in a society where words alone sufficed, where victories could be measured in conviction and reasoned debate. Yet here, on these streets in this cowed village, it was the thugs who swaggered drunk on ale and death, their faces alive with animal cunning and little else. With them, he could win nothing by argument, since in the failing of their wits they ever had recourse to the weapons at their sides. Was it not Gallan who had once said ‘ At the point of a sword you will find the punctuation of idiots ’?

He hobbled towards the tent where awaited Tathe Lorat’s daughter. Shame had driven him to this, step by stuttering step. A hundred or more lives had been taken away this night, all by his own hand. In some ways, it would have been worse had he been whole, rather than the maimed, pain-filled wretch that he was now. Because then he would have no excuses, no justifications for the betrayals his wounded heart had unleashed. Still, he was committed to this path, and at its very end there would come what he desired most: vengeance against Lord Draconus and his pathetic whelp of a bastard son.

The Legion knew its enemies, after all.

Reaching the tent, he fumbled one-handed at the flap. A sound from within made him pause, and a moment later a long-fingered hand appeared to pull to one side the heavy canvas.

Ducking, Sagander hobbled inside. He found he could not look at her. ‘Forgive me,’ he whispered.

‘What for?’ the young woman asked. She stood close and yet still in shadow. The lone lantern cast little light from its shortened wick. He could smell rosewater on her breath.

‘I am old. Since I lost my leg, ah, I beg you, do not mock me, but I am able to do… nothing.’

‘Then why accept me as your reward?’

‘Please, I would sit at least.’

She gestured to the cot. He kept his gaze averted from her as he made his way over to it. ‘I am no fool,’ he said. ‘Your mother knows you as her rival and would see you used, damaged even. Broken and dissolute. You must find a way to win free of her.’

Her breathing was soft, and he thought he could feel the heat from her body — but that was unlikely. ‘I am not at risk of dissolution, tutor Sagander, and against me my mother can only fail. Because she is old and I am young.’

‘Yet she delights in casting you into the arms of men, some of whom might be cruel, even violent.’

‘None dare, and this will not change. I am not my mother, tutor, and nothing that I give of myself I value overmuch. I can out-wait her.’

Trembling, he looked up and met her eyes. They were clear, but not languid. They held sympathy, but not empathy. This, he realized, was a woman who had learned how to protect herself. ‘If you ever need my help, Sheltatha Lore,’ he said, ‘I am yours.’

She smiled. ‘Be careful with such promises, tutor. Now, if you are incapable of making love, will passing a night in the arms of a woman please you?’

‘ This one to finish her! She’s a beauty, Waft, and she’s all yours! ’ The soldier’s voice laughed the words in Narad’s head. He measured his paces by them as the company moved through the smoke-filled forest. He sat hunched beneath them when the Legion camped for the night, his back to the cookfires, his hands reaching up again and again to probe the bulges and indents of his face. They echoed in the darkness when all had bedded down on damp ground and insects whined close to draw blood from whatever was exposed. In his dreams he felt her again, in his arms, her skin impossibly soft and still warm — he knew the truth of that no matter what they told him — and how she had yielded to his awkwardness and so made of herself a welcome embrace.

She had been past all hurting by then. He told himself this again and again, as if by incantation he could silence that soldier’s laughing voice, as if he could impose a balance between cruelty and mercy. But even this haunted him, since he could not be sure which was which. Was there pity and mercy in that soldier’s gleeful invitation, and cruelty in Narad’s answering it? Had he not sought to be tender, to show a gentle touch when taking her? Had he not thrown his body over hers to shield her from their laughter and their raw jests, their eager eyes?

What had they fed on that day, in that hall, when looking upon what they had done to that poor bride? Not once had he felt a part of it; not once did he imagine himself truly belonging to this company of killers. He asked himself how he had come to be among them, sword in hand, padding out from the night into a horror-filled dawn.

There had been a boy once, not ugly, not filled with venom or fear. A boy who had walked into town with his small paw nestled inside someone else’s hand, and that boy had known warmth and impossible freedom — with all the sands ahead smooth and clean. Perhaps, suckling on the tales of war, he had filled his head with dreams of battle and heroism; but even then, his place in every scene had been unquestioned in its righteousness. Evil belonged to the imagined enemies, for whom viciousness was sweet nectar sipped with wrongful pleasure, and all vengeance awaited those enemies by the toy sword he held.

In the world of that not-ugly boy, he was the saviour of maidens.

Anguish filled Narad at the thought of the boy he had once been, and at the thought of the crooked path he now saw crossing blood-splashed sands behind him.

There was slaughter in the forest. There was the smoke of fire and burnt-out glades and blackened patches, and endless ash drifting in the air. He had lost all sense of direction and now followed his comrades blindly, and for all their bluster it still felt like flight. Sergeant Radas, who led his squad with her ever flat eyes and bitter expression, had told them that they were trekking north, and that their destination was a stretch of land on the other side of the river from House Dracons, where they would at last rendezvous with Captain Scara Bandaris.