Steven Erikson - Dust of Dreams

‘As the victorious ever do,’ the sticksnare hissed. ‘Their wounds heal quickly, yes. Nothing festers, nothing rots, there is no bitterness on their tongues.’

She spat in disbelief. ‘How can you say that? Their Emperor is dead. They are driven from all the lands they conquered!’

‘ But not by our hands! ’

The shriek snatched heads round. Warriors drew closer. Cafal remained silent, his expression suddenly closed, while Torrent leaned forward on the saddle, squinting down at the sticksnare as if doubting his own sanity.

Setoc smiled at Talamandas. ‘Yes, that is what galls, isn’t it? So. Now,’ and she turned to face the score or so warriors half-encircling them, ‘now, yes, you would deliver such defeat upon the Akrynnai. Wounds that will fester, rot that sinks deep into the soul, that cruel taste riding every breath.’

Her tirade seemed to buffet them. She spat again. ‘They did not kill your scouts. You all know this. And you do not even care.’ She pointed at Cafal. ‘And so the Great Warlock now goes to Tool, and he will say to him: War Master, yet another clan has broken away. They wage senseless war upon the wrong enemy, and so it will come to pass that, by the actions of the Gadra Clan, every people in this land will rise up against the Barghast. Akrynnai, D’rhasilhani, Keryn, Saphinand, Bolkando. You will be assailed from all sides. And those of you not killed in battle will be driven into the Wastelands, that vast ocean of nothing, and there you will vanish, your bones turning to dust.’

There was movement in the crowd, and warriors stepped aside as a scowling Warchief Stolmen lumbered forward, his wife a step behind him. That woman’s eyes were dark, savage with hatred as she fixed her glare upon Setoc.

‘This is what you do, witch,’ she said in a rasp. ‘You weaken us. Again and again, you seek to weaken us!’

‘Are you so eager to see your children die?’ Setoc asked her.

‘Eager to see them win glory!’

‘For themselves or for you, Sekara?’

Sekara would have flung herself at Setoc then, but Stolmen held out a staying arm, knocking her back. Though he could not see it, his wife then shot him a look of venomous malice.

Torrent spoke quietly to Setoc. ‘Come with me, wolf-child. We will ride out of this madness.’ He reached down with one hand.

She grasped hold of his forearm and he swung her easily on to the horse’s back. As she closed her arms round his waist he said, ‘Do you need to collect anything, Setoc? From your tent?’

‘No.’

‘Send them off!’ snarled Sekara. ‘Go, you foreign liars! Akrynnai spies! Go and poison your own kind! With terror-tell them, we are coming! The White Face Barghast! And we shall make of this land our home once again! Tell them, witch! They are the invaders, not us!’

Setoc had long sensed the animosity building among the women in this clan. She drew too many eyes among the men. Her wildness made them hungry, curious-she was not blind to any of this. Even so, this burst of spite startled her, frightened her. She forced herself to meet Sekara’s blazing eyes. ‘I am the holder of a thousand hearts.’ Saying this, she looked to Sekara’s husband and smiled a knowing smile.

Stolmen was forced to restrain his wife as she sought to lunge forward, a knife in one hand.

Torrent backed his horse, and she could feel how he tensed. ‘Enough of that!’ he snapped over his shoulder. ‘Do you want us skinned alive?’

The mob had grown and now surrounded them. And, she saw at last, there were far more women than men in it. She felt herself withering beneath the hateful stares fixed upon her. Not just wives, either. That she was sitting snug against Torrent was setting fires in the eyes of the younger women, the maidens.

Cafal stepped closer, his face pale in dread mockery of the white paint of the warriors. ‘I am going to open a warren,’ he said in a low voice. ‘With the help of Talamandas. We leave together, or you will be killed here, do you understand? It’s too late for the Gadra-your words, Setoc, held too many truths. They are shamed. ’

‘Be quick, then,’ Torrent said in a growl.

He swung round. ‘Talamandas.’

‘Leave them to their fate,’ muttered the sticksnare, crouched like a miniature ghoul. It seemed to be twitching as if plucked and prodded by unseen hands.

‘No. All of us.’

‘You will regret your generosity, Cafal.’

‘The warren, Talamandas.’

The sticksnare snarled wordlessly and then straightened, spreading wide its scrawny twig arms.

‘Cafal!’ hissed Setoc. ‘Wait! There is a sickness-’

White fire erupted around them in a sudden deafening roar. The horse screamed, reared. Setoc’s grip broke and she tumbled back. Searing heat, stunning cold. As quickly as the flames arrived, they vanished with a thunderous clap that reverberated in her skull. A kick from a hoof sent her skidding, pain throbbing from a bruised thigh. There was darkness now-or, she thought with a shock-she was blind. Her eyes curdled in their sockets, cooked like eggs-

Then she caught a glimmer, something smeared, a reflected blade. Torrent’s horse was backing, twisting from side to side-the Awl warrior still rode the beast and she could hear him cursing as he fought to steady the animal. He had drawn his scimitar.

‘Gods below!’

That cry had come from Cafal. Setoc sat up. Stony, damp earth, clumps of mould or guano squishing beneath her. She smelled burning grasses. Crawling to the vague blot in the gloom whence came the Warlock’s voice, she struggled against waves of nausea. ‘You fool,’ she croaked. ‘You should have listened. Cafal-’

‘Talamandas. He’s… he’s destroyed.’

The stench of something smouldering was stronger now, and she caught the gleam of scattered embers. ‘He burned? He burned, didn’t he? The wrong warren-it ate him, devoured him-I warned you, Cafal. Something has infected your warrens-’

‘No, Setoc,’ Cafal cut in. ‘It is not like that, not like what you say-we knew of that poison. We were warded against it. This was… different. Spirits fend, we have lost our greatest shaman-’

‘You did not know it, did you? That gate? It was unlike anything you’ve ever known, wasn’t it? Listen to me! It is what I have been trying to tell you!’

They heard Torrent dismount, his moccasins thudding on the yielding, strangely soft ground. ‘Be quiet, both of you. Argue what happened later. Listen to the echoes-I think we are trapped inside a cavern.’

‘Well,’ said Setoc, carefully climbing to her feet. ‘There must be a way out.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘Because, there’s bats.’

‘But I have my damned horse! Cafal-take us somewhere else!’

‘I cannot.’

‘What?’

‘The power belonged to Talamandas. A binding of agreements, promises, with countless human gods. With Hood, Lord of Death. The Barghast gods are young, too young. I–I cannot even sense them. I am sorry, I do not know where we are.’

‘I am cursed to follow fools!’

Setoc flinched at the anguish in that shout. Poor Torrent. You just wanted to leave there, to ride out. Away. Your stupid sense of honour demanded you visit Tool. And now look…

No one spoke for a time, the only sounds their breathing and anxious snorts from the horse. Setoc sought to sense some flow of air, but there was nothing. Her thigh aching, she sank back down. She then chose a direction at random and crawled. The guano thickened so that her hands plunged through up to her wrists, and then she found a stone barrier. Wiping the mess from her hands, she tracked with her fingers. ‘Wait! These stones are set-I’ve found a wall.’

Scrabbling sounds behind her, and then the scratch of flint and iron. Sparks, actinic flashes, and then a burgeoning glow. Moments later Torrent had a taper lit and was setting the flame to the wick of a small camp lantern. The chamber took shape around them.