The bodies, he realized then, had not been looted. Their beautiful weapons were scattered about, the blades devoid of blood.
Torrent felt his nerves awaken, as if brushed by something unholy. He looked once more at the corpses-not a contraction, but a converging… upon a single foe. And the wounds-despite the efforts of the scavengers-displayed nothing of what one would expect. As if they closed upon a beast, and see how the blows struck downward upon them. A plains bear? No, there are none left. The last surviving skin of one of those beasts-among my people-was said to be seven generations old. He remembered the thing, vast, yes, but tattered. And the claws had been removed and since lost. Still…
Torrent glanced at the two dogs as they trotted up. The beasts looked preternaturally cowed, stubby tails ducked, the glances they sent him beseeching and frightened. If they had been Awl drays, they would now be moving on to the enemy’s trail, eager, hackles raised. He scowled down at the quivering beasts.
He swung his horse back round and set off for the Gadra camp. The dogs hurried after him.
A beast, yet one that left no trail whatsoever. A ghost creature.
Perhaps his solitary rides had come to an end. He would have to surrender to those eager women. They could take away his unease, he hoped.
Leave the hunt to the Barghast. Give their shamans something worthwhile to do, instead of getting drunk on D’ras beer every night. Report to the chief, and then be done with it.
He already regretted riding out to find the bodies. For all he knew the ghost creature was close, had in fact been watching him. Or something of its foul sorcery lingered upon the scene, and now he was marked, and it would find him no matter where he went. He could almost smell that sorcery, clinging to his clothes. Acrid, bitter as a snake’s belly.
Setoc, who had once been named Stayandi, and who in her dreams was witness to strange scenes of familiar faces speaking in strange tongues, of laughter and love and tenderness-an age in the time before her beasthood-stood facing the empty north.
She had seen the four dogs come into the camp, in itself an event unworthy of much attention, and if the patrol was late in returning, well, perhaps they had surprised a mule deer and made a kill, thus explaining the absence of two dogs from the pack, as the beasts would have been strapped to a travois to carry back the meat. Explanations such as these served for the moment, despite the obvious flaws in logic (these four would have remained with the patrol in such a case, feeding on the butchered carcass and its offal and whatnot); although the truth of it was Setoc spared few thoughts for what interpretations the nearby Barghast might kick up in small swirls of agitated dust, as they tracked with their eyes the sweat-lathered beasts, or for their growing alarm when the dogs then sank down on to their bellies.
So, she watched as a dozen or so warriors gathered weapons and slowly converged on the exhausted beasts, and then returned her attention to the north.
Yes, the animals stank of death.
And the wild wolves in the emptiness beyond, who had given her life, had howled with the dawn their tale of terror.
Yes, her first family ever remained close by, accorded a kind of holy protection in the legend that was the girl’s finding-no Barghast would hunt the animals, and now even the Akrynnai had been told the story of her birth among the pack, of the lone warrior’s discovery of her. Spirit-blessed, they now all said when looking upon her. The holder of a thousand hearts.
At first, that last title had confused Setoc, but her memories slowly awakened, with each day that she grew older, taller, sharper-eyed. Yes, she held within herself a thousand hearts, even more. Wolf gifts. Milk she had suckled, milk of blood, milk of a thousand slain brothers and sisters. And did she not recall a night of terror and slaughter? A night fleeing in the darkness?
They spoke of her legend, and even the shoulder-seers made her offerings and would come up and touch her to ease their troubled expressions.
And now the Great Warlock, the Finder of the Barghast Gods, the one named Cafal, had come to the Gadra, to speak with her, to search her soul if she so permitted it.
The wild wolves cried out to her, their minds a confused tumult of fear and worry. Anxious for their child, yes, and for a future time when storms gathered from every horizon. They understood that she would be at the very heart of that celestial conflagration. They begged to sacrifice their own lives so that she might live. And that, she would not permit.
If she was spirit-blessed, then the wolves were the spirits that had so blessed her. If she was a thing to be worshipped here among the Barghast, then she was but a symbol of the wild and it was this wild that must be worshipped-if only they could see that.
