Steven Erikson - Forge of Darkness

Startled, Rint looked round again. ‘Not for centuries, I would say, Lord. Not for centuries.’

Grimacing, Draconus dismounted. ‘We shall have to make do.’

‘And on the morrow, Lord?’ Rint asked.

Raskan shot him a sharp look at the question, but Draconus was easy in his reply, ‘By midday, we should reach Herelech River which, unlike most in these lands, flows year round.’

‘Very good, Lord,’ Rint said.

Feren was removing the saddle from her horse, as if unmindful of the challenges facing them this night. The horses needed most of the water they carried. There would be little left for cooking and none for washing away the day’s sweat and grime. Yet his sister seemed eager to yield to all these inconveniences.

He realized he was scowling as he watched her, and so turned away.

Arathan had slipped down from his gelding, standing with a little less of the unsteadiness he had shown before. He was finding himself on this journey. More than he imagined, no doubt. But be wary, Arathan, that by this journey’s end you do not lose far more than what you gained.

Raskan watched the Borderswords readying the camp. Lord Draconus had walked up to wander in the ruins, while Arathan brushed down his horses, beginning with the gelding — though the young man’s eyes strayed over to Feren again and again.

Now that Arathan rode at his father’s side these days — ever since the night of Grizzin Farl’s visit — the sergeant had found himself more or less alone, riding between Draconus and his son to the fore, and the two Borderswords behind him, yet he felt himself a bridge to neither. Rint and Feren were at odds, but in the silent manner of siblings wishing to hide their mutual enmity from outsiders, lest family secrets spill forth. And of the conversations the Lord held with his bastard son, well, it seemed that there were few of those, and when they did occur, Raskan could not make out the words exchanged between them.

The ease that had been Grizzin Farl’s gift was crumbling. Deep in the night, Feren rutted with Arathan amidst gasps and low cries that sounded oddly desperate; and she was not content with a single grapple. He had heard her wake the boy up more than once, and it was beginning to show in the dark smudges under Arathan’s eyes.

Raskan wondered when Draconus would intercede. Surely the Lord could see that something untoward was being forged between Feren and his son. She was twice his age, if not older. And Raskan thought he saw a weakness in her that had heretofore been well hidden. The veneer of professionalism was fraying in the Bordersword.

Nor was her brother oblivious of all this.

Tensions mounted.

Draconus reappeared. ‘Jheleck,’ he said, gesturing at the ruins behind him.

‘They struck here, Lord?’

‘All that they could carry, including the roof beams and slate tiles.’

Raskan frowned. ‘It must have been long ago, Lord. Was it Grizzin Farl who assured you that this place was still occupied? Clearly he did not come along this trail.’

Draconus studied him briefly, and then nodded. ‘As you say, sergeant. No matter. We shall make do, I am sure.’

‘Of course, Lord. Shall I attend to your horse?’

‘No, thank you. Leave me with something to do while supper is being prepared.’ Draconus seemed to hesitate, however, and seeing this Raskan edged closer.

‘Lord?’

‘A quiet word with you, sergeant.’

They walked off a way, round the faint mound on which stood the ruins. Raskan was startled to see an avenue carved into the slope on this side, marking the entrance to a barrow. But before he could enquire as to it, Draconus spoke.

‘The boy needs warning off.’

At once Raskan understood the Lord’s meaning, and so he nodded. ‘I fear so, Lord. It is natural zeal-’

‘Her zeal is anything but natural, sergeant.’

He had meant Arathan’s, but Draconus had cut to a deeper truth. ‘I think she is eager to beget a child from this union, Lord. But I do not think it is to hold a blade above House Dracons.’

‘No, I agree — that would be pointless.’

Raskan wondered at that comment, but knew no proper means of querying it. ‘She advances in years, perhaps-’

‘She is forty years of age, give or take a year. She can bear more children for decades to come, if not longer.’

‘It is the capacity for love for a child that withers among older women, Lord,’ said Raskan. ‘Few choose to give birth once past their first century. Tracks deepen to ruts. Independence is hoarded with avarice.’

‘This is not the source of her impatience, sergeant.’

He was not inclined to disagree with that assessment. He had ventured his observations in invitation to Draconus, that the Lord might choose them to mitigate his unease. But this man standing before him was not one to embrace delusions simply because they offered comfort. After a moment, Raskan said, ‘One might wonder, since we do not know, if she has never been a mother before. But to my eyes, Lord, hers is a body that has carried a child to term, and fed it at the breast.’

‘No doubt of that, sergeant.’

‘I would warn him, then, Lord. But he is only half the problem here.’

‘Yes.’

‘As her commander I can-’

‘No, sergeant. You show courage in assuming that burden, but it is not yours to bear. It is mine, and I will speak with her. Tonight, with darkness upon us. Take Arathan off, but away from this place here.’

‘Yes, Lord. Back along our trail, perhaps?’

‘That will do.’

Arathan could not take his eyes off her. She had become his vortex, around which he circled, tugged inward with a force against which he had no strength. Not that he struggled much. In her heated embrace he thought he could vanish, meld into her flesh, her bones. He thought that, one day, he might look out from her eyes, as if she had devoured him whole. He would not have resented the loss of his freedom, the abandonment of his future. Her drawn breath would be his; the taste in her mouth would be his taste, the supple movement of her limbs his own.

They would look for him, in the morning, and find no trace, and he would hide well behind her eyes and she in turn would give nothing away, content in a glutted, swollen way. He wondered if what he was feeling was the definition of love.

Unfurling his bedroll, Arathan collected up the weights and set them near his saddle. He had thoughts of Sagander, and how his tutor now fared. It would seem strange to be delivering gifts from a scholar who had been left behind, and all the knowledge the old man so desired would remain beyond his reach. Questions never asked, answers never offered — these remained somewhere ahead of Arathan, formless as a low cloud on the horizon. The weights, carefully stacked on the dusty ground, looked useless. Out here, nothing could be weighed, nothing could be measured out; out here, so far now beyond the borders of Kurald Galain, there was a kind of wildness, swirling through everyone.

He felt every current and at times seemed but moments from drowning, swept under into something animal, something base. Such a fate, when he considered it, amounted to little or no loss. All that he had known, all that he had come from, now seemed small, banal. The sky was vast overhead, the plain unending, and in moving beneath, in crossing it, they made bold their desires. This motion he felt, day after day, seemed to him far grander than any raised keep, any ruined house. He remembered playing in a heap of sand behind the workhouse, when he was much younger. It had been brought in for the potter who was visiting on her rounds. Something to do with grit in the clay, and moulds for firing and shaping. The sand had felt soft, sun-warmed on the surface but cool underneath, and he recalled lying sprawled across it, reaching out with one hand, watching his fingers sink deep, and then dragging handfuls close, as if to bury himself.