Steven Erikson - Forge of Darkness

‘Panic, sir,’ said the sergeant. ‘It can take anyone, like a hand to the throat. They had wounded and fallen comrades. They needed to get off the road, out of sight.’

Risp snorted. ‘You’re too forgiving, sergeant.’

‘Just seeing how it was, sir. We ain’t none of us immune to making mistakes.’

‘I wouldn’t have made this one,’ she replied.

‘No sir, we wouldn’t have.’

Not with you at my side, you mean. I’ll earn your respect yet, old man. ‘I don’t want to wait and wonder, sergeant. Lanterns, rope, let’s get on with this.’

‘Yes sir. You want it should be me climbing down?’

‘No. I’ll do it.’

‘Lieutenant-’

‘I’ll do it, I said. Tie the rope’s end to the lantern handle — we’ll see if we can lower it straight down. Did he hit ledges on the way down? Anything to break his fall? The light will show us.’

‘Yes sir.’

‘And get a burial detail for these poor guards. It’s the least we can do.’

When Ribs finally reappeared, the dog’s burr-snagged tail was wagging. Rancept’s grunt was soft. ‘Caught the echoes,’ he then said in a low voice.

‘What?’ Sukul demanded.

‘Riders, coming down from the north. Heading for the road. And they ain’t bandits.’

‘And you know all this from a wagging tail?’

‘That and the drooping left ear.’

There was no way to tell if he was serious and in any case she was already fed up with him and this whole venture. ‘How many riders?’

He seemed to be studying her in the gloom, and he made no reply.

After a moment she sighed. ‘Can we get going again? I’m cold.’

Ribs disappeared once again as soon as they rose. A short time later they came to a clearing. She saw the dog at the mouth of a trail to their right, just beyond a jumble of goat and sheep bones. Low stone houses offered up black doorways in an uneven ring around the expanse, like open, sagging mouths; she half expected to hear sorrowful moans drifting out from them.

‘This is how bandits live?’ she asked.

Rancept glanced back at her. ‘They used it, yes. But those huts have been standing there for five thousand years at least.’

She looked at them with renewed interest. ‘How do you know that?’

‘They’re old, milady. You’ll just have to take my word for it. About a dozen horses crossed this clearing. Went down where Ribs is. We’re about two thousand paces from the road here. They’ll come out just down from the ambush, but it’s a loose descent and there’s a chance they’ll hear us. There’s a bend on the road, just east of here. We can use another trail to take us opposite it.’

Rancept swung left and made his way towards one of the stone houses. Ribs leapt up and scampered to the castellan’s side, but halted at the threshold of the doorway.

Sukul saw the animal sink down, tail dipping.

‘Back of the hut,’ said Rancept when she joined him. ‘There’s a slab on the floor, with stone bosses set in a frame.’

‘A tunnel?’

‘A passageway,’ said Rancept. ‘But it cuts through rock we can’t climb over. Took a bit of work but it’s now clear enough for us to use.’

‘Why did you do that?’

Instead of answering, he ducked and disappeared inside the hut. Ribs edged in after him.

When she followed, she found herself stepping down a sharp slope to a sunken floor of flat stones set in earth. The ceiling was high enough for her to stand without hunching, but she was short for her age. Rancept was bent over like a drunk looking for his feet. He made his way to the far end and began working loose the stone trap. She edged up alongside him. ‘Do all the huts have these?’

‘No,’ he replied in a grunt, levering up the door.

Roots had made a tangled web across the tunnel and would have proved impassable but for Rancept’s past efforts at hacking a way through. Sukul frowned. ‘But there are no trees,’ she said.

He lowered himself into the hole, and then paused to look up at her. ‘The roots belong to a tree, but not the way you’d think.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘You’ll see.’ With those muffled words, he sank down and out of sight.

Sukul glanced at Ribs. The animal was shivering. ‘You don’t like this place, do you?’

The crazed eyes gleamed, catching the reflection from some unknown source of light. Noticing that, Sukul’s frown deepened and she looked round. She should have been blind, lost in pitch black; instead, she could make out every detail in this hut: the way the angled flat slabs were perfectly fitted to make the sloped walls, with no signs of mortar; the pit in the centre, artfully ringed in stone, that would have once held a cookfire. But there was no obvious source of light. Shivering, she worked her way down the hole in Rancept’s wake.

The cut ends of thick roots snagged her clothing and dug into her flesh. Tendrils dragged through her hair, earth sifting down. The air was close and surprisingly warm, smelling of mud. She had no idea how Rancept had managed to push his bulk through this tunnel, but he was little more than a vague smudge ahead and was still working his way forward.

Whatever faint, ethereal light had been emanating in the hut behind her, it did not reach far into this passage and soon she was groping her way, fingers brushing roots, and instead of lined stones to either side she found damp clay. There was nothing holding in place the walls or ceiling and she felt a thrill of fear rush through her. From ahead came a faint breath of cooler air.

She could hear Ribs behind her, scrabbling and snuffling.

A moment later her outstretched fingers found nothing and she froze in place. ‘Rancept?’

‘Let yourself adjust,’ he said from somewhere ahead.

‘Adjust to what? There’s no light!’

‘So stop looking with your eyes.’

‘What else should I look with? My thumbs?’

The dog edged past her, dirty fur against her high boot and then the roll of ribs beneath the slack skin. The beast was aptly named. Hands still held out, grasping empty air, she sensed that they were in a cavern. Reaching up, she found no ceiling.

‘This is Dog-Runner magic,’ said Rancept.

‘That’s impossible. There were never any Dog-Runners this far east.’

‘This wasn’t always Tiste land, milady.’

That made no sense either. ‘We were always here. No one argues with that, castellan. You’ve not had much schooling. That’s not your fault, by the way. It’s just how it turned out for you and your family.’

‘Dog-Runner magic is all about fire, and earth. Dog-Runner magic fears the sky. Fire and earth, and tree and root. They’re gone from here because the forests are gone.’

‘Folk tales.’

But he went on. ‘There’s Dog-Runner blood in the Deniers, who hold on in what’s left of the forests of the realm. Pushing them out was easy — just cut down the forests. Didn’t need any war. Didn’t need to round them up or anything. They just melted away. You call all that folk tales, milady. As you like, but this here is a Dog-Runner temple, and if you open your senses, it’ll show itself to you.’

Ribs was back around her legs, trembling. ‘Why is your dog so scared, Rancept?’

‘Memories of the Ay,’ he said in a mutter.

She had no idea what he meant. ‘Just take my hand and lead me across. We have things to do, and lounging in some buried temple isn’t one of them.’

‘Sorry, milady.’ A moment later he took hold of her right hand, with fingers gnarled and rough as roots. ‘Just step, the ground’s level.’

When he guided her forward, however, it was clear that he was taking a circuitous route. ‘What are we going around, Rancept?’

‘It don’t matter, milady.’