‘Your daughters need a whipping,’ the Gilk Warchief said. ‘Those I have met, anyway.’
‘Even Spultatha? You’ve been dimpling her thighs the last three nights straight-some kind of record for her, by the way. Must be she likes your barbarian ways.’
‘Especially her, Firehair. Wilful, demanding-any Barghast but a Gilk would have died of exhaustion by now.’ He barked a laugh. ‘I like you, and so I would never want to see you hobbled.’
‘But the wound that is named Tool is still raw, is it?’
He nodded. ‘Disappointment is a cancer, Queen.’
‘Tell me about it,’ she responded, thinking of her husband, and a few other things besides.
‘A woman hobbled has her feet chopped and can refuse no man or woman or, indeed, camp dog.’
‘I see. Use that word in the same sentence as my name again, Spax, and I’ll chop your cock off and feed it to my favourite corpse-rat.’
He grinned. ‘See these teeth?’
‘That’s better.’
The three Khundryl were waiting on the road, still in their saddles, but as the Bolkando contingent approached, the feather-cloaked warrior in the centre swung down and left his horse behind him as he stepped forward three paces. A moment later his two companions did the same.
‘Look at that,’ Abrastal observed under her breath. ‘Show me a Bolkando horse that just stands there once its reins are dropped.’
‘Horse-warriors,’ said Spax. ‘They are closer to their horses than they are to their wives, husbands and children. They are infuriating to fight against, Queen. Why, I recall the Rhivi-’
‘Not now, Spax. And stay back, among my soldiers. Watch. Listen. Say nothing.’
The Gilk shrugged. ‘As you like, Firehair.’
Despite herself, Abrastal was forced to admit that her first impression of Warleader Gall of the Burned Tears left her uneasy. He had the sharp, avid eyes of a hunting bird. He was well into his sixth decade, she judged, but he had the physique of a blacksmith. The black tattoos of tears tracked down his gaunt cheeks, vanishing into an iron-shot beard. The vast crow-feather cape was too heavy to ride out behind him as he strode towards her, instead flaring to the sides until it seemed he was perpetually emerging from a cavern mouth. The scales of his black-stained hauberk were tear-shaped across his broad chest, elongating into layered feathers on his shoulders.
His two bodyguards looked barely out of their teens, but they had the same predatory glint in their dark eyes. Abrastal had a sudden vision of taking the young men to her bed, and something delicious squirmed below her rounded belly. The young ones were best, not yet sunk into self-serving habits and whatnot, pliable to her domination, her measured techniques of training that some might call corruption. Well, her lovers never complained, did they?
The Queen blinked away the distraction and focused once more upon the Warleader. She had learned something of the cult binding these Khundryl. Struck to awe and then worship upon witnessing an enemy on the field of battle-an extraordinary notion, she had trouble believing it. So… foreign. In any case, whoever that commander was-who, in death, had found worshippers among his enemies-he must have possessed unusual virtues. One thing was undeniable, these savages had been fatally underestimated.
‘Warleader Gall,’ she said as the warrior halted two paces in front of her, ‘I am Abrastal, commander of the Evertine Legion and Queen of the Bolkando.’
There was amusement in his eyes as they flicked to scan the heavily armoured legion bodyguards arrayed behind her. ‘And these are the soldiers you command, Highness? These… tent-pegs. When the Khundryl whirlwind finds them, will they hold fast?’
‘You are welcome to find out, Warleader.’
He grunted, and then said: ‘They will hold, I’m sure, even as the tent you call a kingdom is torn to shreds behind them.’ He shrugged. ‘We’ll take care not to stumble upon them when we leave. No matter, it pleases me that the first title you gave yourself was that of commander. That you are also the Queen had the flavour of an afterthought. By this, am I to assume that this parley is to be between commanders?’
‘Not entirely,’ Abrastal replied.
‘So what you have to say this afternoon binds the kingdom itself, including your husband, the King?’
‘It does.’
He nodded. ‘Good.’
‘I will hear from you your list of grievances, Warleader.’
His bushy brows lifted. ‘Why? Are we to badger each other with matters of interpretation? Your merchants practised extortion on the Khundryl and clearly had the backing of the military. We took their contempt for us and rammed it up their backsides, and now we are but a day from the walls of your capital. And here you are, seeking to bar the way. Do we fight, or do you seek peace between us?’