"Bastards!" then raised his voice to carry throughout the camp. "Good riddance! More gold for us, eh, men?" Several cheers answered him.
"Dremas!" "Yes, Master?" "Gather the hounds, torches, and…"
Walloch looked around again. "How many men do we have left?" "In camp, fifteen, Master. The Khassidi were out scouting, but I fear that if the other Tuigan got word to them, we won't see them again."
"Bastards," Walloch said through clenched teeth, then shrugged. "Can't be helped, eh? I want three men left to guard the horses and two the prisoners. If they get out of line, kill a few till they're down to a more respectable number-the prisoners, not the horses. Get those damned hounds and torches ready. The rest of us are going hunting."
"Yes, Master." Dremas turned to obey, his mouth open to begin issuing orders, when every animal in camp went skittish. The horses began to pull at their hobbles, snort, and strain at the ropes round their necks. The goats bleated and kicked. The hunting hounds in the pens tried to howl, but with their cut vocal cords it came out a long rasp.
The curs roaming through the camp sniffed at the air, whined, and ran out of camp as fast as they could, heedless even of campfires in their path. "What-?" said Dremas, then stopped. The air had gone bitter cold. Not the crisp chill of autumn in the Wastes. A frigid, bone-breaking cold seized the air, as if the very dead of winter had come to the steppe, quick as the stopping of a heart. "Oh, no," said Walloch, and his breath came out in a cloud that hung in the air a moment before it froze and fell to the ground. "M-master?" "Silence!" said Walloch. Darkness pressed down upon the camp, and even the fires seemed to shrink and cling to their coals. Nothing moved. Everyone sat or stood frozen, as if afraid to move. It was then that Dremas realized he was afraid, though he could not say why. An unreasoning terror had seized him, and he found himself shivering. The riffling of the breeze through the grasses and the crackle of the campfires struck his ears as too loud, and in his mind Dremas urged them to hush. Then he heard it-something moving in the dark. Footfalls, unhurried and deliberate. He saw them-pale forms walking toward the camp, and something dark behind them, almost like a bit of night blown by the wind. The pale figures, five of them, walked into the camp with the easy gait of tigers, the subdued light from the fires washing over them. They were men, but their skin was pale as snow, and their hair-every man wore it long and unbound-ranged from frost white to the silver sheen of starlight on ice. Their clothes were an assortment of leather and skins, the edges lined with fur. Every man had a long knife belted at his waist and a quiver full of barbed throwing spears on his back. Four had short swords in leather scabbards, but one carried a double-headed battle axe. Dremas thought he saw runes carved into the haft. The belt the man wore across his chest was made from braided scalps. "Sossrim!" someone whispered behind Dremas. "Nai," said Gegin, who was from Damara, where people often traded with the Sossrim. "Those be Aikulen Jain. Frost Folk. Damn us all, we should have gone with the Tuigan." Behind his back, Dremas made the sign to ward off evil. He'd never been farther north than Nathoud, and even he had heard of the Frost Folk. People said they drank the blood of their captives and sacrificed to the ancient devils of Raumathar, who granted them sorcerous powers. Dremas looked to Walloch. What had the wizard gotten them into? "Greetings, my friends!" said Walloch, throwing his arms open wide. Walloch's voice was warm, cheerful, but Dremas could hear he was forcing it. "I did not expect you so soon. I would have prepared a feast to welcome you." The Frost Folk said nothing. The leader glanced at Walloch but did not otherwise acknowledge his words. He and his comrades spread out so that they faced Walloch in a wide semicircle. They did not look at Walloch, nor at any one thing in particular. Rather they glanced throughout the camp, taking in their surroundings very much as if they were guests invited to a strange home. Dremas shuddered as their gaze passed over him, and his bladder suddenly felt very full. At first Dremas thought a wisp of fog had risen and was billowing into camp, but then he saw another figure passing through the yurts. Dremas could make out no distinct features, for the walker was swathed head to toe in robes the color of cold ash. A cloak of the same hue covered his robes, topped by a hood too deep for the light to penetrate. The cloaked one glanced neither right nor left, but came straight for Walloch. The man stopped a few paces before Walloch, who bowed before the newcomer. "Greetings, my lord." "I come to fulfill the covenant," said the cloaked man.
Dremas had to force his hands down, to keep them from covering his ears. There was something altogether wrong with the newcomer's voice.
His speech was careful and precise, but it seemed as if there were two voices speaking at once, and one seemed out of tune. Dissonant. Like fingernails scraping over dry stone. "I was not expecting you so soon," said Walloch. "Tomorrow after sunset, your man said, eh?"
Walloch looked to the pale newcomer with the axe. "Tomorrow you said, eh?" "Where is the boy?" said the cloaked figure. Dremas could take no more. He fell to his knees and huddled inside his cloak, shivering. He closed his eyes and prayed the dark thing in the cloak would leave.
"Slippery little rat g-got away," said Walloch. "His mother… had one spell saved, I guess. She took out two guards and she, uh, she got away. With the boy." "You let the woman live? I told you not to underestimate her." "Y-you said any other captives were mine to keep."
Walloch gestured to the group of men and women tied not far away. "I took her staff. H-her spellbook too, eh? Took 'em both. Put guards on her. But she hid one last bit of magic away and hit when I was out of camp. We went after them. I led them personally, Lord. I caught 'em soon enough, but my Tuigan betrayed me and left-never again will I hire spineless Tuigan bastards!-then two interlopers attacked and let the boy get away. I killed the woman, though-killed that bukhla good!
But don't you worry, Lord! You and your men stay here as our guests, eh? I was just about to lead men out with the hounds to find the boy.
He can't have gone far." "The boy," said the cloaked figure, "you left him in the woods?" Dremas clenched his eyes shut as tight as he could.
Blood roared in his ears. "Last I saw him he was less than two leagues from here. Whelp was running south. T-toward the lake. You'll have him by morning, my lord. I promise!" "Yes. I will." "Wh-what are you-?"
"Uthrekh rakhshan thra!" Dremas opened his eyes. The world went white.
Arzhan Island, the Lake of Mists in the lands of the Khassidi She opened her eyes to a ghost of fire. Her right eye would open no more than a slit, but she could see well enough with the other. A figure, not a ghost after all, but an old man painted orange by the light of the flames, leaned over her. His long hair hung in front of his face, obscuring his features. She could hear him chanting in a strange tongue that seemed all hisses and swallows, and he swayed slightly as if in rhythm with the breath of the nearby flames. "My… son," she said, her voice no more than a hoarse whisper. Even that slight breath felt like sand in her throat. If the old man heard her, he gave no sign. "My! Son!" she said, and cried out from the pain.
Another figure leaned over her, but his features were hidden in shadow. Beyond him she could see only a hint of branches obscured in fog. "Rest now," the new figure said in a deep voice. One she thought she'd heard before. "Lendri and Mingan search for your son. Rest now.
Let the belkagen work." What's a Lendri? she wondered. She fought to keep her eyes open, but they refused her. As sleep seized her again, drawing her back into darkness, she heard the cawing of a raven.