Kellanved had a handkerchief out and was mopping his face. ‘Thank you so very much, m’lady.’
Nightchill leaned back against the side of the boat, looking away, as if to ignore him.
Kellanved tapped his walking stick in one palm, clearing his throat. ‘Ah, yes, well …’ He turned to Dancer. ‘Now then, you and I have an errand to run.’
Surly stepped up, ‘What’s this? You’re not taking off, are you?’
‘Regrettably, yes. Unavoidable.’ He urged Surly away. ‘Go and establish your foothold here in the Outer Round. We are off to move against the Five.’
‘We don’t have the troops!’ she snarled, but Dancer was no longer listening as the world darkened around him and he recognized a shift through Shadow. The darkness faded and with the slightest half-step he recognized where he now stood – in the catacombs beneath Heng. He even knew where: in the precincts of the mage Ho. ‘What are we doing here?’ he asked Kellanved, keeping his voice low.
The mage was tapping his walking stick to his lips now, squinting at the many cell doors lining the hall. ‘Now, which ones were they … ah! Here we are.’ He rapped on a thick door.
‘Lar!’ came a yell from the cell beyond, startling Dancer. ‘Lar, Lar, Lar!’
Kellanved nodded to himself. ‘Yes. These three here, if you would, Dancer.’
A touch anxious, Dancer unlatched the three doors then stood, hands on weapons, waiting. Three men poked their heads out to peer round, then stepped out, and he was astonished to see three near identical individuals, all clearly brothers to the mage Ho – save that each was even shabbier, in dirty torn clothes.
Kellanved waved them to him. ‘Your freedom, friends,’ he announced, ‘for one small errand.’ The three exchanged eager glances, and Dancer was a touch unnerved by their strange, empty half-smiles and wild eyes. ‘Your brother,’ Kellanved continued. ‘Find him and bring him to me. I would have a word with him.’
The three grinned even more broadly, nudging one another, and tramped off with a lumbering, flat-footed stride. Dancer watched them go, then turned to Kellanved. ‘So, that’s Ho, then?’
The mage nodded. ‘Yes. And my, ah, agents tell me Koroll is no longer in the city.’ Dancer raised a brow – apparently one or more of Kellanved’s young lads and lasses had actually returned to Heng to spy for him. Courageous, that. ‘The rest of the Five alone are not a worry. That leaves Shalmanat.’
Dancer had to steady himself. Ah. This was where things were going to get … difficult. The mage peered round the tunnel and shook his head. ‘No. Not the right place.’ He gestured, and darkness enveloped Dancer once more.
When the shadows dispersed he found himself atop one of the ring-walls of Heng, the Inner Precinct wall surrounding the palace and the tall towering spire itself. He looked to the short hunched mage. ‘You’re getting much better at this.’
Kellanved dipped his head in acknowledgement. ‘My thanks.’ Letting out a long hard breath, he tapped his walking stick to the flagstones of the walk and announced, ‘Tem Benasto, Bonecaster of the T’lan Imass! I call you! Come. It is I – occupant of the throne.’
Dancer whipped out his blades, peering round. ‘Don’t compel them!’ he warned Kellanved.
‘I’m not compelling them – I’m just calling them … Ah!’
Dust swirled about the mage as if in a whirlwind. When Dancer’s vision returned there stood not just Tem Benasto in his huge hunting cat headdress, but the other Bonecasters of the Logros clan, along with the sword-bearing Onos T’oolan.
Hengan guards who had been closing upon them halted, jaws agape, and began scrambling away. Dancer ignored them for now.
‘You summon us away from our work gathering our brothers and sisters?’ Tem demanded. ‘Here? To what purpose? You waste our time.’
The mage raised his hands. ‘Please! Hear me out. An enemy is near.’
‘Enemy?’ Onos T’oolan grated breathlessly, his fleshless hand moving to the wrapped grip of his flint blade. ‘We care nothing for your pathetic scramblings for power. I consider this call … unworthy.’
Dancer half drew his heaviest parrying blades, leaning forward.
‘No, no,’ Kellanved pleaded. ‘Really. A true enemy. I swear.’
Tem Benasto extended a withered hand to Onos T’oolan to check him. ‘Speak,’ he told Kellanved.
‘Here,’ Kellanved stressed, ‘in this very city. I have seen him with my own eyes in the flesh. Not longer than one year ago … a Jaghut!’
T’oolan’s blade whipped free of his belt in a motion too swift for Dancer to follow. ‘What!’
Tem Benasto pointed a bony finger at the Dal Hon mage. ‘This is impossible. We ourselves cleansed these lands many ages ago. No Jaghut remain on this continent.’ He tilted his head sideways, as if confused by the little Dal Hon mage. ‘You do understand that if you are lying you will be judged … unworthy.’
Kellanved rubbed his neck, then dipped his head in acknowledgement. ‘None the less, I saw what I saw.’ He opened his arms. ‘Prove me wrong.’
Tem Benasto turned his wide cat-jaw headdress to his brethren. ‘Summon our brothers and sisters and search the city.’
*
Silk and Smokey had taken up post at the Eastern Inner river gate when a wash of major sorcery made them both stagger. Moments later a rumbling came and dust rose over the Outer Round river gate.
‘What in the name of the Nine was that?’ Silk demanded.
Smokey was rubbing his forehead and wincing. ‘Don’t know. But – damn.’
‘This is no two-bit raid,’ Silk growled.
‘The Cawnese did warn us that it looked as though that Dal Hon runt was bringing mages.’
Silk nodded at that. Yes. But he’d been expecting a few ship’s mages, or a drunken hedge wizard – not this. He backed away from the wall, thinking, Hood take it, if they got through I know where they will be headed. And that damned assassin is with them …
He turned and ran for the nearest stairs.
‘What about the defence, man!’ Smokey yelled after him. ‘The walls!’
But in Silk’s eyes there was only one thing worth defending.
He found the palace in a panic. Functionaries and servants ran every which way. He grabbed one’s arm, demanding, ‘What’s going on?’
‘Creatures!’ the woman gasped. ‘The dead walk!’
Silk curled a lip. ‘Really? Did you see these?’
‘Well, no. But everyone’s saying—’
Snarling, he released her. He knew it; that damned Dal Hon sneak was up to something.
He pushed further into the complex. Curiously, just where he’d expect to see barricades or wall-to-wall palace guards, he found none. Yet neither was there blood, or corpses, or the ruin of battle. It was as if everyone had simply upped and run away. It troubled him greatly, but he made for the central cynosure, hoping to find Shalmanat.
Heaving open the door of the domed inner sanctum, he froze, absolutely shocked as he faced the backs of four individuals who, frankly, fitted perfectly the description he’d been given of dead walking. Without a pause he threw out his hands and gave them every ounce of summoned Warren power he possessed.
The conflagration of energies left the floor glowing and crackling and through the smoke he saw Shalmanat limping away through a distant door. Of the interlopers nothing remained, just smoke and charred ash.
He hurried forward only to be yanked backwards off his feet and lifted by an iron-hard grip at his neck. He was turned to stare into a face that was, frankly, death incarnate: dried, aged flesh stretched over bone, dark empty eye-pits and bared tannin-stained teeth. And round this head, the opened fleshless skull of a wolf, jaws agape.