Fall of Light (116 page)
Authors: Steven Erikson
Galar Baras shook his head. ‘The commander will not sanction this.’
‘Our commander lies insensate to the world,’ Prazek retorted.
‘A singular proclamation,’ said Dathenar, ‘to embrace all manner of leader and politician. Waters made opaque by unsecured belief and misapprehension, to which dear Toras Redone has splashed a sampling of sour wine. We meet her inebriation with indifference, deeming it irrelevant to the failures implicit among all who would rule us.’
‘Mother Dark,’ said Prazek, scratching at his beard, ‘made no distinction in her blessing, and now leaves the skin to will its hue, as befits each man’s and each woman’s mercurial moods. This is a wavering faith, a host of questions devoid of stipulation.’
‘The Hust Legion,’ said Dathenar, ‘requires more than that. Manic blades and moaning armour will not suffice. The shared residue of pits and picks, shackles and groaning carts, of crimes snared and punishments binding, all prove insufficient to our need.’
Galar could now see a knot of figures entering the parade square, while from all sides, soldiers had abandoned their preparations for the march and were drawing closer in a rough, jostling ring. Swords bickered in scabbards. Chain and scales muttered incessantly. Dark faces remained expressionless.
Overhead, the sky was pale and dull, a formless white stretched across the heavens. A hint of warmth rode the soft winds from the south. The day seemed to slump, heavy feet rooted to the still frozen ground. Sounds were dying away, one by one, like unfinished thoughts.
He watched as the two Dog-Runner witches emerged from an unbidden divide among the soldiers, heading towards Rebble who now stood with Sergeant Rance at his side. The bearded man was gripping Rance’s left arm. Frowning, Galar Baras swung to Prazek. ‘Is that woman to be their sacrifice? I cannot permit—’
‘No blood will be spilled,’ Prazek said.
‘How do you know?’
‘Not the Dog-Runner way,’ Dathenar said. ‘Join us, Galar Baras. Stand in your commander’s stead. You need neither condone nor bless. We shall witness, and in witnessing, partake. Alas, what finds us on this day may well fail in penetrating our commander’s present state of unconsciousness.’
‘Unfortunate,’ muttered Prazek, ‘that the one who, perhaps, needs healing the most, has inadvertently excused herself. But then, who could have predicted the timing of this?’
‘Sergeant Rance,’ said Dathenar to Galar Baras, ‘has been killing men in the camp. And yet the woman you see yonder is in fact innocent, though the blood stains her hands.’
‘What riddle is this?’
‘Another hides within her, Galar Baras. One adept with sorcery, and yet consumed by the madness of murder.’
‘What will these witches do to her?’
‘We don’t know.’
Galar Baras stared at Dathenar, and then at Prazek. ‘And our soldiers are to witness all this as well? Have they not suffered enough scenes of punishment and retribution? And to now be reminded once again on the very day before we march? Gentlemen, you will see this legion torn apart!’
‘Possibly,’ Prazek conceded. ‘The manner in which we gamble defines the stakes. Win or lose, it shall be absolute.’
The two witches reached Rance, who at the last moment pulled back and would have fled if not for Rebble’s sudden, somewhat harsh intercession, as he wrapped both arms about her. Rance struggled in his grip, and then sagged as if in a faint, slipping down to the ground.
‘No,’ said Galar Baras, moving forward. ‘This is wrong.’
One of the witches knelt beside Rance, who now hung by one arm in Rebble’s grasp, her hair covering her face, as motionless as if death had taken her.
As Galar Baras drew closer, Rebble looked over and met the captain’s eyes. ‘She’s fled,’ he said. ‘Not away. Inside.’
‘Rebble, let her go.’
He released his grip and her arm flopped down.
The witch who knelt beside Rance now held up a staying hand. ‘No closer, Lover of Death.’
The title halted Galar Baras in his tracks. He was unable to speak. From the ring of soldiers surrounding the parade ground, there was now utter silence. Not a sword cackled. The chain and scale had ceased their desultory murmur. Something had come into the air, potent and febrile.
The other witch began dancing with slow steps, her naked form swaying above her broad hips. ‘Watch me!’ she cried. ‘All of you! I am Vastala Trembler, Bonecaster of the Logros! Watch me, and I will open your eyes!’
* * *
Faror Hend pushed through the ring of silent soldiers, her eyes fixed on the prone form of Rance. Fear shortened her breath. There was nothing fair in this. Even Rebble, who had now taken two steps back from where the Bonecaster knelt over Rance, was making a mute appeal to Galar Baras who also stood nearby.
But the witch who had been dancing in a circle around Rance now began stretching her steps into an outward spiral, and some unseen power emanated from her, visibly pushing away both Rebble and Galar Baras. As Faror Hend drew nearer, she felt a pressure building against her, resisting each step. After a moment she halted, panting. The dancing woman seemed to be trembling, shivering, her form blurring as if seen through thick glass.
Rance suddenly cried out, her shriek answered by three thousand Hust swords with a fierce metallic shout. Staggering back, Faror Hend saw soldiers collapsing in the line, one after another, while others struggled, fighting against something – and now she could feel it, a slithering sensation beneath her armour, as if snakes had been loosed here. Yet, wherever she frantically reached, she felt nothing.
They are beneath my skin!
She fell to her knees, desperately pulling at the straps and buckles.
* * *
An inexplicable rage filled Wareth as he pushed against the overwhelming pressure that rolled in waves from the centre of the parade ground. Whatever sorcery this was, it seeped through the armour as if it was little more than cheesecloth. It raced across his skin, and then burrowed beneath it, rushing into muscles and then bones. He was roaring his fury but could hear nothing but the deafening rush of that terrible power.
He could feel his blood thinning to water in his veins, while something else flooded through him, thick and viscous. It seemed to burn through his rage and his terror, whispering secrets he could feel but not hear.
But Rance was thrashing on the ground, her agony and torment plain to see, and he would not stop as he clawed his way towards her. The Bonecaster kneeling at her side had reached into Rance’s abdomen, as if plunging her hands through flesh, and there was blood on her forearms, clear fluids stretching like webs down from her elbows.
No woman could survive such wounds. He found he was reaching for his sword, but the blade would not pull free of the scabbard. It was howling, as if matching Rance’s pain, and yet helpless, its pealing voice shrill with frustration.
He fought his way closer, was now less than ten paces from the dancing witch, whom he could barely see as she slipped past his field of vision, her arms seeming to spin.
No one should die like that—
An eruption took his mind, swept away every thought. Amidst the chaos, he felt a revelation, opening like a poisonous flower. He stared into its core and, inexorably, felt his sanity torn apart by what he saw.
* * *
Whatever gifts the Bonecasters had bestowed upon Listar sustained him through the ordeal of the ritual. On his knees at the edge of the clearing, he witnessed the collapse of everyone. The weapons and armour fell silent, as if struck mute by their uselessness in the face of this foreign sorcery. He saw officers fall. He saw the Bonecaster Hataras lift something small and bloody from Rance, quickly wrapping its still form in a hide. He saw Vastala cease her dance, shedding her trembling like a skin, whereupon she fell to her knees and vomited on to the frozen ground.
Listar staggered to his feet. He made his way towards them, his eyes on the body of Rance. There had been blood, but now there was none. She was unmarked, her eyes shut, and as he came closer he saw the steady rise and fall of her chest.
‘Punished Man,’ said Hataras, her voice raw and her eyes red. ‘She had a twin, dead in her mother’s womb. A short life starved and wanting, struggling and failing.’ She waved a hand. ‘But it had power that not even death could still.’
Not quite understanding, Listar reached Rance. He studied the woman. ‘She will live?’
‘The other wanted a child. She found one. Gave it death to be with her. A night of drowning, to begin many other nights. Death and blood on the hands. Blood on the sorcery itself.’
Vastala stumbled closer, wiping at her face. ‘A tormented sea,’ she said, ‘yet I drank deep. I drank it dry, leaving bones and rocks and shells. Leaving all that drowns in light and air. What remains in them is a gift of dust.’
Listar knelt beside Rance.
Hataras moved closer, settled a hand upon his shoulder and leaned close. ‘Punished Man. You need to understand.’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t.’
‘No soul is truly alone. It only seems so, when it is the last left standing in a field of war. And that war is waged within each of us. Her twin – that shrunken, blackened corpse in the womb – it fed on every thought murdered upon awakening, or snuffed out in its sleep, where hopes unfold into dreams and dreams become nightmares. It devoured the rendered remains of stillborn ideas, sudden wants, of avarice and betrayal. Imagination, Punished Man, can be a most wicked realm.’
Vastala spoke. ‘I took from them everything. I have left them nowhere to hide.’ She paused, looked around. ‘I have made this army into a terrible thing. These soldiers. They will not hesitate. They will march into Mother’s fire if it is asked of them. They will fight all who face them. And they will die, one by one, no different from any other soldier. No different, and yet,
utterly
different.’ She pulled Hataras to her feet. ‘My love, we must flee. They will rise soon, in silence. They will blink. They will not meet the eyes of friend or rival. The cursed iron flinches from their touch. These soldiers, beloved, are an abomination.’
‘This is what you gave us?’ Listar demanded. ‘This is not what was asked of you! We sought a blessing!’
Vastala bared her teeth. ‘Oh, they are blessed, Punished Man. But think on this, what comes to a mortal soul, when it finds that truth is unwelcome?’ She faced Hataras again. ‘What fate the witch within the orphaned twin?’
Hataras shrugged. ‘Her possessor lies dead, its flesh gone, but the husk of its soul remains. This one,’ and she nodded at Rance, ‘must learn to reach into it, to find the sorcery residing there.’
‘Ugly magic,’ said Vastala.
‘Yes,’ Hataras agreed. ‘Ugly magic.’
Listar remained beside Rance. Looking around, he saw the army fallen, as if slain where they stood.
It must have been like this when Hunn Raal poisoned them all.
The Bonecasters had already departed the clearing. He felt the absence of their touch as a sharp ache somewhere deep inside.
So easy their abandonment of me. No, I do not understand Dog-Runner ways.
Then his gaze caught movement, and he turned to see a woman stepping out from the command tent. She stood, swaying slightly, looking out upon the thousands of motionless soldiers, lying in poses no different from death, and the weapons remained silent. The only sound Listar could hear was the soft wind, carrying with it the last of the afternoon’s warmth.
Abyss take me, that must be Toras Redone.
Listar climbed to his feet. He made his way towards her. When she saw him she flinched and took a step back. ‘No more ghosts,’ she said.
‘They are alive,’ Listar replied, slowing his steps. ‘All of them. It is not what it seems.’
Her lips curled in a wretched smile. ‘Nor am I.’
‘There were Bonecasters among us,’ Listar said. ‘A ritual.’
She studied him with red-rimmed eyes, from a face bleak and desolate. ‘And what did this ritual achieve, beyond the collapse of my soldiers?’
He hesitated, and then said, ‘Sir, forgive me. I do not know.’
