Steven Erikson - Dust of Dreams

The entire cavern was constructed of set stones, the ones overhead massive, wedged in place in seemingly precipitous disorder. In seething patches here and there clung bats, chittering and squeaking now in agitation.

‘Look, there!’ Cafal pointed.

The bats were converging on a conjoining of ill-set stones, wriggling into cracks.

‘There’s the way out.’

Torrent’s laugh was bitter. ‘We are entombed. One day, looters will break in, find the bones of two men, a child, and a damned horse. For us to ride into the deathworld, or so they might think. Then again, they might wonder at the gnaw marks on all but one set of bones, and at the scratchings and gougings on the stone. Tiny bat bones and heaps of dried-out scat…’

‘Crush that imagination of yours, Torrent,’ advised Cafal. ‘Though the way out is nothing but cracks, we know the world outside is close. We need only dig our way out.’

‘This is a stone barrow or something much like it, Cafal. If we start dragging stones loose the whole thing is likely to come down on us.’

‘We have no choice.’ He walked over to the wall where the bats had swarmed through moments earlier. Drawing a dagger, he began probing. A short time later, Torrent joined him, using his hunter’s knife.

To the sounds of scraping and sifting earth, Setoc sat down closer to the lantern. Memories of that white fire haunted her. Her head ached as if the heat had seared parts of her brain, leaving blank patches that pulsed behind her eyes. She could hear no muted howls-the Wolves were lost to her in this place. What world have we found? What waits beyond these stone walls? Does a sun shine out there? Does it blaze with death, or is this a realm for ever dark, lifeless?

Well, someone built this place. But… if this is indeed a barrow, where are the bones? She picked up the lantern, wincing at the hot handle which had not been tilted to one side. Gingerly rising, she played the light over the damp, mottled ground at her feet. Guano, a few stones dislodged from above. If there had ever been a body interred in this place, it had long since rotted down to crumbs. And it had not been adorned with jewellery; no buckles nor clasps to evince clothing of any sort. ‘This,’ she ventured, ‘is probably thousands of years old. There’s nothing left of whoever was buried here.’

A muted mutter from Torrent, answered by a grunt from Cafal, who then glanced back at her. ‘Where we’re digging, Setoc-someone has been through this way before. If this is a barrow, it’s been long since looted, emptied out.’

‘Since when does loot include the corpse itself?’

‘The guano is probably acidic,’ Cafal said. ‘It probably dissolved the bones. The point is, we can dig our way out and it’s not likely everything will collapse down on us-’

‘Don’t be so certain of that,’ Torrent said. ‘We need to make a hole big enough to get my horse out. The looters had no need to be so ambitious.’

‘You had best prepare yourself for the notion of killing your mount,’ Cafal said.

‘No. She is an Awl horse. The last Awl horse, and she is mine-no, we belong to each other. Both alone. If she must die, then I will die with her. Let this barrow be our home in the deathworld.’

‘You have a morbid cast of mind,’ Cafal said.

‘He has earned the right,’ Setoc murmured, still scanning the ground as she walked a slow circuit. ‘Ah!’ She bent down, retrieved a small, half-encrusted object. ‘A coin. Copper.’ She scraped the green disk clean and held it close to the lantern. ‘I recognize nothing-not Letherii, nor Bolkando.’

Cafal joined her. ‘Permit me, Setoc. My clan was in the habit of collecting coins to make our armour. It was his damned hauberk of coins that dragged my father to the sea bottom.’

She handed it to him.

He studied it for a long time, one side, then the other, over and over. And finally sighed and handed it back. ‘No. Some empress, I imagine, looking so regal. The crossed swords on the other side could be Seven Cities, but the writing is all wrong. This is not our world, Setoc.’

‘I didn’t think it was.’

‘Done with that, Cafal?’ Torrent asked from where he worked at the wall, impatience giving an edge to his tone.

Cafal offered her a wry smile and then returned to Torrent’s side.

A loud scrape followed by a heavy thud, and cool dew-heavy air flowed into the chamber.

‘Smell that? It’s a damned forest.’

At Cafal’s words, Setoc joined them. She held up the lantern. Night, cool… cooler than the Awl’dan. ‘Trees,’ she said, peering at the ragged boles faintly visible in the light.

There was possibly a bog out there-she could hear frogs.

‘If it was night,’ Torrent wondered, ‘what were the bats doing inside here?’

‘Perhaps it was only nearing dusk when we arrived. Or dawn is but moments away.’ Cafal tugged at another stone. ‘Help me with this one,’ he said to Torrent. ‘It’s too heavy for one man-Setoc, please, stand back, give us room.’

As they dragged the huge stone free, other rough-hewn boulders tumbled down. A large lintel stone ground its way loose and both men leapt back as it crashed on to the rubble. Clouds of dust billowed and a terrible grating groan sounded from the barrow’s ceiling.

Coughing, Cafal waved at Setoc. ‘Quickly! Out!’

She scrambled over the stones, eyes stinging, and staggered outside. Three paces and then she turned about. She heard the thump of stones from the ceiling. The horse shrilled in pain. From the gaping entrance Cafal appeared, followed a moment later by Torrent, who had somehow brought his mount down on to its knees. He held the reins and with rapid twitches on them he urged his horse forward. Its head thrust into view, eyes flashing in the reflected lantern light.

Setoc had never before seen a horse crawl-she had not thought it even possible, but here this mare was lurching through the gap, sheathed in dust and streaks of sweat. More rocks tumbled behind the beast and she squealed in pain, lunging, forelimbs scrabbling as she lifted herself up from the front end.

Moments after the animal finally lumbered clear the moss-humped roof of the barrow collapsed in thunder and dust. Decades-old trees that had grown upon it toppled in a thrash of branches and leaves. Wood splintered.

Blood streamed from the mare’s haunches. Torrent had calmed the beast once more and was tending to the gashes. ‘Not so bad,’ he muttered. ‘Had she broken a hip…’

Setoc saw that the warrior was trembling. This bond he had forged with his hapless mare stood in place of all those ties that had been so cruelly severed from his young life, and it was fast becoming something monstrous. ‘If she must die, then I will die with her.’ Madness, Torrent. It’s a damned horse, a dumb beast with its spirit broken by bit and rein. If she’d a broken hip or leg, we’d eat well this day.

She watched Cafal observing the Awl for a time, before he turned away and scanned the forest surrounding them. Then he lifted his eyes to the heavens. ‘No moons,’ he said. ‘And the stars seem… hazy-there’s not enough of them. No constellations I recognize.’

‘There are no wolves here.’

He faced her.

‘Their ghosts, yes. But… none living. They last ran here centuries past. Centuries.’

‘Well, there’s deer scat and trails-so they didn’t starve to death.’

‘No. Hunted.’ She hugged herself. ‘Tell me the mind of those who would kill every last wolf, who would choose to never again hear their mournful howls, or to see-with a shiver-a pack standing proud on a rise. Great Warlock, explain this to me, for I do not understand.’

He shrugged. ‘We hate rivals, Setoc. We hate seeing the knowing burn in their eyes. You have not seen civilized lands. The animals go away. And they never return. They leave silence, and that silence is filled with the chatter of our kind. Given the ability, we kill even the night.’ His eyes fell to the lantern in her hand.