The words, confusing as they were, chilled Torrent nonetheless. The waterskin dangled in his hand, and its pathetic weight now mocked him.
The head lifted, and beneath those jutting brow ridges Torrent saw a face of dead skin stretched across prominent bones. Black pits regarded him above a permanent grin. The beaded threads he had thought he’d seen turned out to be strips of flesh-as if some clawed beast had raked talons down the old woman’s face. ‘You need water. Your horse needs fodder. Come, I will lead you and so save your useless lives. Then, if you are lucky, I will eventually find a reason to keep you alive.’
Something told Torrent that refusing her was impossible. ‘I am named Torrent,’ he said.
‘I know your name. The one-eyed Herald begged me on your behalf.’ She snorted. ‘As if I am known for mercy.’
‘The one-eyed Herald?’
‘The Dead Rider, out from Hood’s Hollow. He knows little respite of late. An omen harsh as a crow’s laugh, thus comes Toc the Younger-but do I not cherish the privacy of my dreams? He is rude.’
‘He haunts my dreams as well, Old One-’
‘Stop calling me that. It is… inaccurate. Call me by my name, and that name is Olar Ethil.’
‘Olar Ethil,’ said Torrent, ‘will he come again?’
She cocked her head, was silent a moment. ‘As they shall, to their regret, soon discover, the answer is yes .’
Sunlight spilled over a grotesque scene. Cradling his injured arm, Bakal stood with a half-dozen other Senan. Behind them, the new self-acclaimed Warleader of the White Faces, Maral Eb, was cajoling his warriors to wakefulness. The night had been long. The air smelled of spilled beer and puke. The Barahn were rising rough and loud, unwilling to relinquish their abandon.
Before Bakal and the others was the flat where their encampment had been-not a tent remained, not a single cookfire still smouldered. The Senan, silent, grim-faced, were ready to begin the march back home. A reluctant escort to the new Warleader. They sat on the ground to one side, watching the Barahn.
Flies were awakening. Crows circled overhead and would soon land to feed.
Onos Toolan’s body had been torn apart, the flesh deboned and pieces of him scattered everywhere. His bones had been systematically shattered, the fragments strewn about. His skull had been crushed. Eight Barahn warriors had tried to break the flint sword and had failed. In the end, it was pushed into a fire built from dung and Tool’s furs and clothing, and then, when everything had burned down, scores of Barahn warriors pissed on the blackened stone, seeking to shatter it. They had failed, but the desecration was complete.
Deep inside Bakal, rage seethed black and biting as acid upon his soul. Yet for all its virulence, it could not destroy the knot of guilt at the very centre of his being. He could still feel the handle of his dagger in his hand, could swear that the wire impressions remained on his palm, seared like a brand. He felt sick.
‘He has agents in our camp,’ said the warrior beside him, his voice barely a murmur. ‘Barahn women married into the Senan. And others. Stolmen’s wife, her mother. We know what Hetan’s fate will be-and Maral Eb will not permit us to travel ahead of him-he does not trust us.’
‘Nor should he, Strahl,’ replied Bakal.
‘If there were more of us and less of them.’
‘I know.’
‘Bakal, do we tell the Warleader? Of the enemy Onos Toolan described?’
‘No.’
‘Then he will lead us all to our deaths.’
Bakal glared across at the warrior. ‘ Not the Senan. ’ He studied the array of faces before him, gauging the effect of his words, and then nodded. ‘We must cut ourselves loose.’
‘Into the Lether Empire,’ said Strahl, ‘as Tool said. Negotiate settlement treaties, make peace with the Akrynnai.’
‘Yes.’
They fell silent again, and, inevitably, eyes turned once more to the scene before them. Their rendered Warleader, the endless signs of vicious blasphemy. This dull, discredited morning. This foul, accursed land. The crows had landed and were now hopping about, beaks darting down.
‘They will hobble her and kill the spawn,’ said Strahl, who then spat to clear the foulness of the words. ‘Yesterday, Bakal, we would have joined in. We would have each taken her. One of our own knives might well have tasted the soft throats of the children. And now, look at us. Ashes in our mouths, dust in our hearts. What has happened? What has he done to us?’
‘He showed us the burden of an honourable man, Strahl. And yes, it stings.’