‘Nobleborn officers, you mean.’
‘Bluntly, yes. The purchasing of commissions-Dassem would never have permitted that, and from what I gather, nor does the Empress. Not any more, in any case. There was a cull-’
‘Yes, I know, L’oric. By your argument, then, Tavore’s personality has no relevance-’
‘Not entirely, mistress. It has, for tactics are the child of strategy. And the truth of Tavore’s nature will shape that strategy. Veteran soldiers speak of hot iron and cold iron. Coltaine was cold iron. Dujek Onearm is cold iron, too, although not always-he’s a rare one in being able to shift as necessity demands. But Tavore? Unknown.’
‘Explain this “cold iron”, L’oric.’
‘Mistress, this subject is not my expertise-’
‘You have certainly fooled me. Explain. Now.’
‘Very well, such as I understand it-’
‘Cease equivocating.’
He cleared his throat, then turned and called out, ‘Mathok. Would you join us, please.’
Sha’ik scowled at the presumption behind that invitation, but then inwardly relented. This is important, after all. I feel it. The heart of all that will follow. ‘Join us, Mathok,’ she said.
He dismounted and strode over.
L’oric addressed him. ‘I have been asked to explain “cold iron”, Warchief, and for this I need help.’
The desert warrior bared his teeth. ‘Cold iron. Coltaine. Dassem Ultor-if the legends speak true. Dujek Onearm. Admiral Nok. K’azz D’Avore of the Crimson Guard. Inish Garn, who once led the Gral. Cold iron, Chosen One. Hard. Sharp. It is held before you, and so you reach.’ He crossed his arms.
‘You reach,’ L’oric nodded. ‘Yes, that’s it. You reach. And are stuck fast.’
‘Cold iron,’ Mathok growled. ‘The warchief’s soul-it either rages with the fire of life, or is cold with death. Chosen One, Korbolo Dom is hot iron, as am I. As are you. We are as the sun’s fires, as the desert’s heat, as the breath of the Whirlwind Goddess herself.’
‘The Army of the Apocalypse is hot iron.’
‘Aye, Chosen One. And thus, we must pray that the forge of Tavore’s heart blazes with vengeance.’
‘That she too is hot iron? Why?’
‘For then, we shall not lose.’
Sha’ik’s knees suddenly weakened and she almost staggered. L’oric moved close to support her, alarm on his face.
‘Mistress?’
‘I am… I am all right. A moment…’ She fixed her gaze on Mathok once more, saw the brief gauging regard in his eyes that then quickly slipped once again behind his impassive mien. ‘Warchief, what if Tavore is cold iron?’
‘The deadliest clash of all, Chosen One. Which shall shatter first?’
L’oric said, ‘Military histories reveal, mistress, that cold iron defeats hot iron more often than not. By a count of three or four to one.’
‘Yet Coltaine! Did he not fall to Korbolo Dom?’
She noted L’oric’s eyes meet Mathok’s momentarily.
‘Well?’ she demanded.
‘Chosen One,’ Mathok rumbled, ‘Korbolo Dom and Coltaine fought nine major engagements-nine battles-on the Chain of Dogs. Of these, Korbolo was clear victor in one, and one only. At the Fall. Outside the walls of Aren. And for that he needed Kamist Reloe, and the power of Mael, as channelled through the jhistal priest, Mallick Rel.’
Her head was spinning, panic ripping through her, and she knew L’oric could feel her trembling.
‘Sha’ik,’ he whispered, close by her ear, ‘you know Tavore, don’t you? You know her, and she is cold iron, isn’t she?’
Mute, she nodded. She did not know how she knew, for neither Mathok nor L’oric seemed able to give a concrete definition, suggesting to her that the notion derived from a gut level, a place of primal instinct. And so, she knew.
L’oric had lifted his head. ‘Mathok.’
‘High Mage?’
‘Who, among us, is cold iron? Is there anyone?’
‘There are two, High Mage. And one of these is capable of both: Toblakai.’
‘And the other?’
‘Leoman of the Flails.’
Corabb Bhilan Thenu’alas lay beneath a sheath of sand. The sweat had soaked through his telaba beneath him, packing down his body’s moulded imprint, and had cooled, so that he now shivered unceasingly. The sixth son of a deposed chief among the Pardu, he had been a wanderer of the wastelands for most of his adult life. A wanderer, trader, and worse. When Leoman had found him, three Gral warriors had been dragging him behind their horses for most of a morning.
The purchase price had been pathetically small, since his skin had been flayed away by the burning sands, leaving only a bloodied mass of raw flesh. But Leoman had taken him to a healer, an old woman from some tribe he’d never heard of before, or since, and she in turn had taken him to a rockspring pool, where he’d lain immersed, raving with fever, for an unknown time, whilst she’d worked a ritual of mending and called upon the water’s ancient spirits. And so he had recovered.
Corabb had never learned the reason behind Leoman’s mercy, and, now that he knew him well-as well as any who’d sworn fealty to the man-he knew better than to ask. It was one with his contrary nature, his unknowable qualities that could be unveiled but once in an entire lifetime. But Corabb knew one thing: for Leoman of the Flails, he would give his life.
They had lain side by side, silent and motionless, through the course of the day, and now, late in the afternoon, they saw the first of the outriders appear in the distance, cautiously ranging out as they ventured onto the pan of cracked salts and clay.
Corabb finally stirred. ‘Wickans,’ he hissed.
‘And Seti,’ Leoman rumbled in reply.
‘Those grey-armoured ones look… different.’
The man beside him grunted, then swore. ‘Khundryl, from south of the Vathar River. I had hoped… Still, that arcane armour looks heavy. The Seven know what ancestral tombs they looted for those. The Khundryl came late to the horse, and it’s no wonder with that armour, is it?’
Corabb squinted at the vast dust cloud behind the outriders. ‘The vanguard rides close to the scouts.’
‘Aye. We’ll have to do something about that.’
Without another word the two warriors edged back from the crest, beyond the sight of the outriders, pausing briefly to reach back and brush sand over where their bodies had lain, then made their way back to the gully where they’d left their horses.
‘Tonight,’ Leoman said, collecting his mount’s reins and swinging up into the saddle.
Corabb did the same and then nodded. Sha’ik would know, of course, that she had been defied. For the Whirlwind Goddess had her eyes on all her children. But this was their land, wasn’t it? The invaders could not be left to walk it uncontested. No, the sands would drink their blood, giving voice on this night to the Shrouded Reaper’s dark promise.
L’oric stood near the trail that led to Toblakai’s glade. A casual look around, then the faintest of gestures from one hand marked a careful unveiling of sorcery-that vanished almost as soon as it arrived. Satisfied, he set off down the trail.
She might be distracted, but her goddess was not. Increasingly, he sensed questing attention directed towards him, sorcerous tendrils reaching out in an effort to find him, or track his movements. And it was becoming more difficult to elude such probes, particularly since they were coming from more than a single source.
Febryl was growing more nervous, as was Kamist Reloe. Whilst Bidithal’s paranoia needed no fuel-and nor should it. Sufficient, then, all these signs of increased restlessness, to convince L’oric that whatever plans existed were soon to seek resolution. One way or another.