Steven Erikson - Forge of Darkness

She was not a child any more, to cower before such creatures.

As she walked with the young laundress, she said, ‘If I have made an enemy, I trust I will in turn have many allies?’

Wide eyes lifted to her, and then the girl’s round face split into a broad smile. ‘Hundreds, mistress! Thousands!’

‘My father was a hero in the wars,’ Sandalath said, ‘and I am his daughter.’

‘In the wars! Like Ivis!’

‘Like Ivis,’ she agreed. ‘Is Ivis well liked?’

‘He never looks happy, mistress, and is known to be harsh with his soldiers. But to us he is ever kind.’

‘As he was to me. Will you tell me more of him?’

‘All I know!’

‘Do you think him handsome? Soldiers have a way about them, I think.’

‘But he is old, mistress!’

‘Perhaps in your eyes, he is. But I see a man still in his years of strength, younger than my father, and sure of command. No doubt Lord Draconus values him most highly.’

They came to a heavy wooden door, artfully carved in intricate geometric patterns. The girl pushed it open to reveal a narrow room tiled from floor to ceiling, and at the far end a wash basin and then a tub of copper, large enough to accommodate a man. As Sandalath entered the chamber, she felt waves of heat rising from the floor. Crouching, she set a palm flat upon the tiles. ‘There is fire beneath?’

The girl nodded. ‘I think so, yes. I am rarely here, mistress. But there are flues from the Great Hearth, leading everywhere.’

‘Then this is not a cold house in the winter.’

‘No, mistress, it is blessedly warm!’

Sandalath looked round. ‘I feel welcomed by this house, most welcomed.’

The girl smiled again. ‘You are very pretty, mistress. We’d thought-’

‘What did you all think? Tell me.’

‘We thought you’d be a child, mistress.’

‘As are most new hostages, yes. But you see, I have done this before. And truth be told, in some ways I feel a child again. Every day, the world is born anew.’

The girl sighed.

‘Born anew,’ Sandalath repeated, breathing deep the warm, scented air.

There were moments of lucidity, when finarra stone became aware of strange, discordant details. She was bound to Spinnock Durav, a horse labouring under them both. Black blades of Glimmer Fate’s savage grasses rasped against the mount’s wooden armour, rustled past like swirling waves. It was night and she could smell Spinnock’s sweat, could feel his heat against her chilled body.

She slipped away, only to awaken again, and this time she saw before them a wavering blur of yellow light, swimming in a penumbra that seethed with moths and bats. The frenzied motion of the creatures hurt her eyes and she looked away, to where the high grasses had been chopped down, forming a killing field surrounding the fort; and then the walls, stretched out beneath the lantern suspended above the gate — the ‘logs’ of bound grass, patchy with sun-fired black clay — the gate opening and sudden voices — she felt Spinnock sag as ropes were cut and she was gently drawn away from him.

Firm hands carried her quickly into the fort, crossing the compound, a flare of harsher light, the gust of heat from a fire, and then she was inside the main room. They set her down on a bench. A dog brushed close, wet nose smearing the back of her swollen hand, and was then sent scurrying with a slap.

Finarra blinked her vision clear and found she was staring up at her commander’s face, the man’s features grave, his eyes firelit from a blazing hearth. ‘We have guests, captain,’ he said to her. ‘Serendipitous guests. Ilgast Rend is with us, well versed in the healing arts. The poison will be expunged — he wagers your leg will be saved. Do you understand my words?’

She nodded.

‘Spinnock tells us of Faror Hend’s mission — she has not yet returned. Tracking a stranger from the Vitr — this was not wise.’

‘The decision,’ Finarra said, startled at finding her voice sounding so thin, so cracked, ‘was hers.’

‘Her betrothed is with us. He even now prepares a troop to set out in search of her.’

Kagamandra Tulas? Has he come for her, then? She stumbled in the confusion of her own thoughts. Where was Spinnock? What had driven Faror Hend into such a foolhardy venture? She suddenly recalled the look in Faror’s eyes, at the moment when she was about to ride into the high grasses. The lust for death, the curse of the Tiste. Had Faror known that her betrothed was coming for her? But Finarra had heard nothing of that before they’d departed, and she most certainly would have done.

‘She is in great danger,’ she said to Calat Hustain.

‘You know more of this stranger, then?’

‘Inimical. Defiant of death. They may be… Soletaken.’

‘From the Vitr? You speak of more than one — have invaders come among us?’

‘They come,’ she said. ‘Eager to slay. The one Faror tracks, it took a human form. A child or woman. No less dangerous. Upon the shore

… my horse, slain.’

‘I will send a troop back upon your trail, captain.’

‘Tell them… do not assume death in what they find, no matter the evidence before their eyes.’

‘Ilgast Rend will attend to you now, captain. He will make you sleep.’

She struggled to sit up. ‘I have slept too long as it is-’

‘You are fevered. Infection has set in — the bite of a naked wolf. He will scour it from your blood. If you refuse to sleep, there will be great pain. There is no virtue in knowing it.’

‘I was careless-’

‘If this proves a matter for disciplining, that is for me to decide, captain. Lie back, the Lord insists.’

She relented, caught site of Ilgast Rend’s broad, battered face, the softness in his eyes. He set a calloused hand upon her brow, and darkness flooded up to take her.

Watching from a distance, Hunn Raal stood with his arms crossed, his back resting against a smoke-stained wall of cracked clay. He was drunk, but in the way of old, in that few could tell, and his thoughts, while loose, were clear enough. Beside him was Osserc, his young face high with colour from the unexpected excitement of this broken troop’s return. The Vitr was a mystery, to be sure, but until now it had been indifferent in its destruction, no more malicious than a winter storm or spring flood. The thought of that vast sea bearing ships or some such thing, followed by the heavy footfalls of invaders, was indeed alarming.

They did not need another war, and yet in that possibility Hunn Raal could see certain advantages, though he could not but view them with unease. The resurrection of Urusander’s Legion. An invasion would give cause to take up arms once more, in a flurry of veterans reinstated, and so set the stage for undeniable clout should internal matters turn sour and threats were needed. Of course, this assumed that the invaders could be quickly dealt with, and Hunn Raal was reluctant to walk that path. He well understood the risks of being dismissive, and was not unaware of how sweet self-serving beliefs could taste in these heady times.

He could see Calat Hustain’s sudden sharpness on the matter. The commander had a quick and sure cause now to dismiss the turgid debate that had threatened to bog them all down in this fort for days, if not weeks. Ilgast Rend had spoken in private with Calat, and there had been betrayal in that, Hunn suspected. The firstborn son of Hust Henarald was now adamant in his neutrality, and in the immediate aftermath of that decision this had amounted to a defeat in Hunn Raal’s eyes.

But in truth he had no cause to be shocked by it. And in some ways, now that he’d time to mull on the matter, he might even consider it a kind of victory. Calat was married to the commander of the Hust Legion, after all, and everyone knew that the Hust Legion belonged to Mother Dark, and were one and all her children.