Steven Erikson - Forge of Darkness

Half the night was gone, and still they padded along. All Sukul wanted to do now was stop, rest, even sleep.

The swirl of stars had spun half round when she collided with Rancept’s back — she’d not been looking ahead, eyes instead on those now-dusty boots that were torturing her feet. Grunting at the collision, she stumbled back, but a hand snapped out to right her, and then that hand drew her close.

She smelled the lanolin of the thick sheepskin jacket he was wearing, and somehow the familiarity of it steadied her.

He leaned down. ‘Riders ahead,’ he said in a whisper.

Sukul looked past him, but Ribs was nowhere in sight.

‘No questions,’ he continued as she started to speak, and his other hand pressed against her mouth, but just briefly — before panic could take her. ‘We wait for Ribs.’

Bandits had carved out numerous hidden trails through these hills, and Risp led her dozen soldiers along one of them that would bring them out on to the road close to where they’d seen the smoke. The old Denier camps they’d come across were abandoned, at least a season old, but she knew the cause of that: the Hust Forge’s demand for ore had grown prodigious of late, for reasons not one of Hunn Raal’s spies could glean. In any case, banditry had been given up and now those miners were growing wealthy with Hust coin.

Thoughts of the Hust Legion — perhaps soon to be bolstered by new recruits — left her disquieted. Every cry for peace was echoed by the beating of iron into blades. No one was fooled unless they willed it upon themselves. Civil war was coming. Hunn Raal meant it to be short; necessarily bloody, true enough, but short.

Urusander escorted to Kharkanas by his triumphant Legion, every enemy of the realm dispensed with and feeding the weeds; an end to the divisiveness and all these private armies; a grand marriage to bind the military and the faith: this was the proper path awaiting them. The Hust Forge would fall under the command of Urusander’s Legion, and that cursed Hust Legion would be gone, disbanded, their dreadful weapons melted down into slag. Houseblades would be reduced to a modest family and estate guard, with prohibitions against re-arming. The Borderswords and the Wardens of the Outer Reach would be folded into the Legion, under Osserc’s command. In this way, peace would be won.

The best solutions were the simple ones. Besides, she had liked the look of the Wardens of the Outer Reach, and had thoughts of commanding them at some point. Her first order would be the burning down of Glimmer Fate, followed by the killing of the naked wolves and whatever other terrible beasts dwelt in those black grasses. They could then face the Vitr directly, and meet its challenge from a position of strength. If an invasion from that sea was forthcoming, she would stand ready for it upon its very shore.

Urusander placed much value in merit; he cared not if the blood was low or highborn among his officers. That was why the nobles hated him so. Calat Hustain was highborn and this alone granted him the privilege and power of command — and Risp had well seen the result of that: the Wardens were little more than a rabble, devoid of discipline and far too respectful of eccentricity among the ranks. She would change all of that.

Assuming any survived the purge.

They emerged from a narrow, choked avenue between crags, moving on to a level clearing partly encircled by low stone huts. An old fire-pit marked the centre, ringed in flat slabs of shale. Off to one side, near the far end, was a heap of animal bones and rubbish. Risp reined in beside the fire-pit. She never liked places of abandonment. They seemed redolent with failure. People were generally disinclined to move; only necessity forced them from a place, whether it was pressure from stronger neighbours or the loss of clean water or sufficient game. For these herders who were, no doubt, occasional bandits, it had been the call of wealth. Everyone took the coin road sooner or later, with haunted, hungry eyes. She eyed the pile of bones and fought a shiver.

Her sergeant pulled up alongside her. ‘Not far now, I should think,’ he said in a soft growl.

She glanced across at him. He was one of Hunn Raal’s men. He had lost most of his toes on both feet to frostbite in the wars against the Jheleck, and now wore boots inserted with wooden plugs. He walked badly but rode well. ‘When we arrive,’ she said, ‘we should wait for dawn.’

He nodded, tugging at the strap of his helm. ‘These hills don’t seem as empty as they should, lieutenant. It’s just a feeling, but I’ve learned to trust what my gut’s telling me.’

‘All right.’

‘I’d advise two scouts ahead and two trailing, sir.’

‘Do it,’ Risp said, and watched as he communicated his orders with a half-dozen terse gestures. Two women rode ahead to where the trail resumed beyond the clearing.

The sergeant nodded to Risp.

They set out once more. The sky was paling with false dawn and the air was bitterly cold. Breaths plumed. Wending between crags again, the path began a stuttered descent and she guessed that they were nearing the road. The hoofs of the two horses ahead clopped and scrabbled on loose stones; the riders’ silhouettes were hunched over, one to each side, eyes on the trail although surely it was too dark to see much. In any case, they were all making noise, loud enough to Risp’s ears to announce their presence to anyone within a thousand paces in these hills.

The track levelled and a short time later they reached the road, riding up on to it. Here the stench of foul smoke was acrid in the air. ‘East, I think,’ said the sergeant.

They reached the site of the battle where the road made a sharp bend. The two wagons had burned down, although embers still gleamed amidst the charred wreckage and ash. The beasts that had drawn them were nowhere to be seen. The bodies of the slain formed a kind of row on the road, two of them blackened by their proximity to the fired wagons, their clothes burned off to reveal swollen limbs and split torsos, the hair roasted away and the skin of their pates curled back to expose smoke-blackened skulls.

Dismounting beside the two scorched corpses, Risp could feel the heat from the embers just beyond them, and the pleasure she gained from that warm breath felt perverse. Silann was a liability, and the proof of that was all around them. Gripp might well have been one of Anomander’s spies, but to Risp’s mind the news of a troop of disbanded Legion soldiers on the road heading west was not a back-breaker — both Gripp and his lord would have little more than questions, with few answers forthcoming. Besides, if Anomander was not yet prowling with hackles raised, then he was both blind and a fool, and that man was neither.

The spilling of blood here was the real disaster to her mind. Especially if old Gripp had escaped the carnage.

‘Here, sir,’ said the sergeant, and she saw him standing a dozen or so paces away, where the road’s ditch dropped down against the out-cropping that marked the bend.

Risp joined him. The man gestured to a crack at the base of the out-crop. ‘He went down there, and I’d wager he rolled.’

‘Rather than fell? Why?’

‘There’s a rise before the edge, rubble and dirt sifting down from the cliff. You don’t slip uphill, sir. He’d have needed to work to get over that.’

She went to stand on the edge, leaning over to peer down. ‘But he couldn’t have guessed how deep, though.’

‘True enough,’ the man agreed. ‘It’s a good chance he broke his neck, if that goes down any distance. Or his legs, depending on how he landed.’

‘They couldn’t see all the way down,’ Risp muttered. ‘But they didn’t drop a rope and make sure either.’