Forge of Darkness (Kharkanas Trilogy 1) (108 page)

‘That is a bitter vision, Faror.’

‘Is it? What greater courage than love’s confession? When the duelling is done unto exhaustion, one or the other must drop their guard, and then smile at the spilling of their own blood. Next comes the question: will the one doing the wounding now step close to set tongue to that wound?’

‘No, he will turn the blade upon himself, cousin, and so conjoin this crimson flow.’

‘And so the game ends with the promise of scars.’ She shook her head. ‘Play on, then, cousin, and think not of me.’

He edged out from the doorway, his expression filled with sorrow and dismay. ‘Fare you well in your journey, cousin.’

‘And you.’

When he was gone she shut the door, and then sat down heavily on her cot.
The blood runs clear until every drop becomes a tear. The
game
is lost the moment you forget that it was ever a game. To hear the song of love is to be deafened by a chorus of fools!
Wiping at her wet cheeks, she resumed her preparations.

* * *

‘One thing at a time,’ Calat Hustain said. ‘I need you here.’

Ilgast Rend grunted, and then sat down heavily in the chair behind the map table. ‘I cannot understand Urusander. He should have reined in Hunn Raal – Abyss take me, he should have had the hide whipped from the dog long ago.’

‘Hunn Raal’s machinations would have stumbled, and then stalled,’ Calat said as he paced. ‘Without that damned Azathanai’s interference at Yannis, this contest would have remained purely political, and so open to compromise. This war of faiths is like a weapon thrust into his hand.’

Ilgast shook his head. ‘Hunn Raal is of the Issgin line. This is all down to his family’s fall from glory. He yearns to be a noble and sees himself as his bloodline’s champion. He will ride the wave of every concession the Legion wins, and if the foam should turn red, so be it.’

Calat nodded. ‘His ambitions are well known, Lord.’

‘I will keep the Wardens in a state of readiness, commander. Of course I but hold them so until your return. Then, with great relief, I will yield to you and quit this.’ He looked up. ‘Friend, do you think me irresponsible?’

‘I cannot say, Lord. I continue to believe that the greatest threat to Kurald Galain is the Vitr. If you can glean its truths from among the Jaghut, or even the Azathanai, then we may all bless your devotion a century from now.’

Ilgast snorted. ‘A century? Then I will gird myself to weather a hundred years’ worth of curses until that time. Preferable, I think, to this wayward tugging I now suffer.’

‘In announcing your neutrality, Lord, you perhaps offer a way out for many, highborn and common alike. I cannot imagine that every old captain of Urusander’s Legion is thrilled with this pogrom. Those falling to their swords might be Deniers, but they remain Tiste. Lord, I am appalled by this turn of events.’

Ilgast considered Calat’s words. He rubbed at his face. ‘There is a madness, commander, that runs like a poison stream through us. It flows beneath the bedrock of our much vaunted propriety. The stone bears pressure until it cracks. Civility drowns in that vile flood, and the disingenuous thrive in the discord that follows.’ He leaned back, making the chair creak with his weight. ‘In my bleakest moments, I wish for the coming of a god, a thing righteous yet cool of regard. A god to reach down among us and pluck forth our most venal, self-serving
kin
. And then, in a realm that burns like acid through every deceit, every cynical lie, make for them all an unwelcome but most deserving home.’ He closed his eyes. ‘I long for a power to wash away the worst that is in us, Calat.’ After a long moment he opened his eyes again, to see the commander motionless, studying him. Ilgast managed a wry smile. ‘Would I fear such power in Mother Dark’s hands?’

‘Voice no confessions to me, Lord. I have doubts enough of my own.’

‘I wonder, where are our formidable wits, commander, that we should so easily be driven into this wash of treachery by thick-skulled, obvious fools? By the malign of intent and the heartless of spirit?’

‘You begin to question your neutrality, Lord?’

‘I suspect its evasiveness. Still, I see before me but one path not soaked in blood. I shall travel west, into the lands of the Jaghut and the Azathanai.’

‘And your Houseblades?’

‘They will maintain my holdings. That and nothing more. So I have ordered.’

‘Will you journey alone?’

‘I will take a handful, for the company.’

Calat nodded. ‘Lord, I shall endeavour to not linger too long at the Sea of Vitr. I see well the burden of this favour I have asked of you.’

‘If I can, commander, I will not move from this chair until your Wardens are once more safely under your wing.’

‘Trust in my officers, Lord.’

‘Indeed, and if possible, I will avoid the necessity of giving a single order.’

Calat strode to the door, gathering up his weapon belt and strapping it on. He faced Ilgast Rend. ‘This god you wish for, Lord. The very thought of it frightens me.’

‘Why so, commander?’

‘I fear that, in the name of righteousness, it would reach down and pluck us all.’ Calat Hustain departed, closing the door behind him.

Ilgast stared at that barrier of rough wood for some time.

* * *

‘In facing the unexpected,’ said Kagamandra Tulas, ‘we are revealed to ourselves. I have seen this borne out among the hunting dogs I trained. Some flee. Some growl. Some attack. But I would wager, not a single beast is truly surprised by its own actions. Yet, we cannot say the same, can we? Between our bristling hide and the muscles that might quiver underneath stretches a layer of shame, and it is upon that warp that self-regard weaves its delusions.’

The wind coming down from the north was dry and cool, carrying with it dust from the harvested fields, and chaff spun in the air like a
presentiment
of the snows soon to arrive. Sharenas Ankhadu contemplated her companion’s words, watching the wagons burdened with grain wending into Neret Sorr, although the village itself was almost lost amidst the tents of Urusander’s gathering Legion.

The residents of Neret Sorr would face a hard winter, she realized. Lord Urusander was confiscating the majority of the grain. There was the promise of payment and no doubt the commander would prove generous. But one could not eat coins, and with the stores of fuel wood and dried dung diminishing by the day, neither could coin feed a hearth fire.

Yet the people of the village were too cowed to complain. Over a thousand armed soldiers now lived among them, with more arriving day and night.

She set a gloved hand against her horse’s neck and waited to feel the animal’s warmth seep through. ‘You’ve not fled, friend. Nor have you growled in answer to the commander’s order, and I see no chance of you ever assaulting his position.’

‘And so I am frozen in place,’ Kagamandra confessed. ‘And still we have heard nothing from Kharkanas, yet each evening we look west and see the sun made copper by smoke. I fear for the forest, Sharenas, and all who dwell within it.’

‘I am expecting Sergeant Yeld to return to us soon,’ Sharenas said. ‘But even without the details, we can be certain that Deniers are being hunted down and butchered.’

‘Surely many have fled to the protection of the monasteries,’ Kagamandra said. ‘And this smoke but comes from homes set alight. Winter draws ever closer. Sharenas, will we see Tiste corpses frozen to the ground in the months to come? I am sickened by the thought.’

‘With luck,’ she said, ‘this absurd war will be over by then. Do we not still bow to the will of Mother Dark? Lord Urusander will march soon, and you can be sure that he will see justice set upon the murderers who act in his name. By blade’s edge, he will end the madness.’

‘And Hunn Raal?’

She had no answer to that question. The captain’s whereabouts remained unknown. Even cousin Serap could not say where Hunn Raal had gone. After a long moment, she sighed. ‘He will face Urusander or he will face the ire of the highborn. Will he take responsibility for this wretched pogrom? I rather doubt it. Besides, he is not the only captain loose in the countryside.’

‘It may well be,’ Kagamandra conceded, ‘that events have proceeded beyond his control, and that indeed the Legion has splintered, with renegade elements taking advantage of the chaos.’

‘I have decided on my place in this,’ said Sharenas. ‘And so must you, friend.’

‘No dog is so foolish as to stand in the path of a charging boar. Yet in this, the dumb brute shows more wit than me. I believe I will return to Glimmer Fate, and so bring to a close this pursuit of my betrothed.’ The smile he then offered her was, she suspected, meant to be wry; instead, it was a bitter grimace. ‘I will chase her down, if only to tell her that she need not fear me. That my zeal was ever honourable, and I will make my studied distance a gesture of respect. Though we clasp hands on the day of marriage, no other infliction will come by my touch.’

‘Kagamandra Tulas, you have learned to savour the taste of your own blood.’

His face clouded and then he looked away. His bared hands were white on the horn of the saddle.

Returning her gaze to the wagons on the road below, and feeling the chill wind loose icy serpents beneath her clothes, Sharenas shook herself and said, ‘My friend. Do look her in the eye and say the things you would say. I cannot gauge her answer beyond what I would feel if I were in her place. And what I would feel is anger and humiliation. You free her to love other men and deem this generous. But all women wish to be desired, and loved. I see your sacrifice as selfish.’

‘It is the very opposite of selfish!’

‘You would make a martyrdom of marriage. You would ask from your betrothed not her love but her pity. What will stand firm on such foundations? I see you both upon your knees, your backs to one another, each facing a door you long to pass through, and yet locked together by crimes of will and pride. She’ll not yield to your sordid invitation, since that could only serve to confirm your own sense of worthlessness – such a choice for a woman comes after years of hard weather in an unfeeling husband’s arms. The taking of lovers is a desperate search for things few would dare name. To make of this offer her wedding gift cuts to the core of her heart.’

‘But I am the one who speaks out of pity! She is young. She deserves what I once had, not this broken man old enough to be her father, who would flee his ageing years! I am too frail to carry the weight of every necessary delusion in this union!’

She shook her head. ‘Many a fine union has come from such disparity of age.’

‘It is crass and venal.’

‘You call her young and make of the word a belittlement. This hints of arrogance, Kagamandra.’

‘Without the sharing of years to bind two souls—’

‘Then share those to come. But at last we reach to the core of things. You yield your claim to your wife from a place of fear, a place deeply wounded and chary of sensation’s return. It is no sacrifice at all, but self-indulgence. Your every wound is a trophy, with suffering worn in
most
resplendent regalia. But you have outstayed its season, friend, and it is threadbare. If not a wife to draw these rags from you, then who? Hear me now. If you see no courage in each woman you look upon, then you are blind and, worse, you scorn the dignity of the woman you lost years ago. Go to Faror Hend. In this much at least, your instinct is true. But meet her eye and see for yourself – she will not flinch.’

When she looked across to him, she felt a sudden fear, so pale had his visage become. Remorse cut through her. ‘Oh, forgive me. I leap past all propriety. Send me on this wind with a curse and I will go without complaint. This is my flaw, and it pulls from my grasp every wisp of love. See well, sir, that my life is as forlorn as yours, and in my every word of advice I poorly hide my own bitter self.’

He said nothing for a long time, and then collected up the reins. ‘It is no wonder, then, Sharenas Ankhadu, that we are such friends. We take this hill by bold storm only to be bludgeoned half senseless by truths. The wind and the grasses mock our self-importance, and the season begins to show us a cold regard. Had I known more of you, I would have silenced every offer but yours.’

Her breath caught, and she felt heat rush through her. ‘I would strip the hide from you.’

‘And make of it a better trophy.’

‘Worn,’ she whispered as she met his eyes, ‘with pride.’

Then there was a moment, as if the sun had sliced through the heavy clouds, when the years were stolen from his gaunt face, and she saw the man a woman had once loved; a man from before the wars, from whom not every precious thing had been stolen away amidst violence and treachery. An instant later, it was gone and he broke her gaze.

‘We will not speak this way again, Sharenas Ankhadu.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘I imagine not.’ But these words felt like water washing down cracks in stone.

‘I will leave in the morning. As a highborn, it is necessary for me to relinquish my rank in the Legion.’

‘It is soldiers like you and Ilgast Rend that Lord Urusander so values, Kagamandra. You stand bridging the gulf and through you he sees a path to compromise.’