The commander dismounted.
The merchant bowed her head, her red-rimmed eyes holding steady as she drew herself straight. 'Please forgive the delay, sir,' she said in a voice that rasped with exhaustion.
'I take it you will find an alternate route back to Darujhistan,' Whiskeyjack said, eyeing the wagon behind her.
'We shall decide once we assess the damage.' She faced the dustcloud to the east. 'Has your army encamped for the night?'
'No doubt the order's been given.'
'Good. We're in no condition to chase you.'
'I've noticed.'
Three guards — shareholders — approached from one of the lead wagons, struggling beneath the weight of a huge, bestial arm, torn at the shoulder and still dripping blood. Three taloned fingers and two opposable thumbs twitched and waved a hand's breath away from the face of one of the guards. All three men were grinning.
'We figured it was still there, Haradas! Lost the other three, though. Still, ain't it a beauty?'
The merchant, Haradas, briefly closed her eyes and sighed. 'The attack came early on,' she explained to Whiskeyjack. 'A score of demons, probably as lost and frightened as we were.'
'And why should they attack you?'
'Wasn't an attack, sir,' one of the guards said. 'They just wanted a ride outa that nightmare. We would've obliged, too, only they was too heavy-'
'And they didn't sign a waiver neither,' another guard pointed out. 'We even offered a stake-'
'Enough, gentlemen,' Haradas said. 'Take that thing away.'
But the three men had come too close to the lead wheel of the huge wagon. As soon as the demonic hand made contact with the rim it closed with a snap around it. The three guards leapt back, leaving the arm hanging from the wheel.
'Oh, that's just terrific!' Haradas snapped. 'And when-ever will we get that off?'
'When the fingers wear through, I guess,' a guard replied, frowning at the arm. 'Gonna be a lumpy ride for a while, dear. Sorry about that.'
A troop of riders approached from the army's train.
'Your escort's arrived,' Whiskeyjack noted. 'We will ask for a detailed report of the journey, mistress — I suggest you stand down until this evening, and leave the details of distribution to your second.'
She nodded. 'Good idea.'
The commander searched for Silverfox. She had resumed her march, the two marines trailing. The blood of the god had stained the marines' boots and the Rhivi's legs.
Across the plain, for two hundred or more paces, the earth looked like a red matted, tattered blanket, plucked and torn into dissolving disarray.
As ever, Kallor's thoughts were dark.
Ashes and dust. The fools prattle on and on in the command tent, a vast waste of time. Death flows through the warrens — what matter? Order ever succumbs to chaos, broken unto itself by the very strictures it imposes. The world will do better with' out mages. I for one will not rue the demise of sorcery.
The lone candle, streaked with the crushed fragments of a rare sea-worm, gusted thick, heavy smoke, filling the tent. Shadows crawled beneath the drifting plumes. Flickering yellow light glinted off ancient, oft-mended armour.
Seated on the ornate, ironwood throne, Kallor breathed deep of the invigorating fumes. Alchemy is not magic. The arcana of the natural world holds far more wonders than any wizard could conjure in a thousand lifetimes. These Century Candles, for one, are well named. Upon my life, yet another layer seeps into my flesh and bone — I can feel it with each breath. A good thing, too. Who would want to live for ever in a body too frail to move? Another hundred years, gained in the passage of a single night, in the depth of this one reach of columned wax. And I have scores more.
No matter the stretch of decades and centuries, no matter the interminable boredom of inactivity that was so much a part of living, there were moments … moments when I must act, explosively, with certainty. And all that seemed nothing before was in truth preparation. There are creatures that hunt without moving; when they become perfectly still, perfectly motionless, they are at their most dangerous. I am as such a creature. I have always been so, yet all who know me are. gone. Ashes and dust. The children who now surround me with their gibbering worries are blind to the hunter in their midst. Blind.
Pale hands gripping the arms of the throne, he sat unmoving, stalking the landscape of his own memories, dragging them forth like corpses pulled from the ground, drawing their visages close for a moment before casting them away and moving on.
Eight mighty wizards, hands linked, voices rising in unison. Desperate for power. Seeking it from a distant, unknown realm. Unsuspecting, curious, the strange god in that strange place edged closer, then the trap was sprung. Down he came, torn to pieces yet remaining alive. Brought down, shattering a continent, obliterating warrens. Himself broken, damaged, crippled.
Eight mighty wizards, who sought to oppose me and so loosed a nightmare that rises once more, millennia later. Fools. Now, they are dust and ashes.
Three gods, assailing my realm. Too many insults delivered by my hand. My existence had gone beyond irritation, and so they banded together to crush me once and for all. In their ignorance, they assumed I would play by their rules. Either fight, or yield my realm. My, weren't they surprised, striding into my empire, only to find. nothing left alive. Nothing but charred bones and lifeless ash.
They could not comprehend — nor did they ever — that I would yield nothing. Rather than surrender all I had fashioned, I destroyed it. That is the privilege of the creator — to give, then to take away. I shall never forget the world's death cry — for it was the voice of my triumph.
And one of you remains, pursuing me once more. Oh, I know it is you, K'rul. But, instead of me, you have found another enemy, and he is killing you. Slowly, deliciously. You have returned to this realm, only to die, as I said you would. And did you know? Your sister has succumbed to my ancient curse as well. So little left of her, will she ever recover? Not if I can help it.
A faint smile spread across his withered, pallid face.
His eyes narrowed as a portal began to take shape before him. Miasmic power swirled from it. A figure emerged, tall, gaunt, a face shattered — massive cuts gaping red, the shards of broken bone glimmering in the candlelight. The portal closed behind the Jaghut, who stood relaxed, eyes flickering pools of darkness.
'I convey greetings from the Crippled God,' the Jaghut said, 'to you, Kallor' — he paused to survey the tent's interior — 'and your vast empire.'
'You tempt me,' Kallor rasped, 'to add to your … facial distress, Gethol. My empire may be gone, but I shall not yield this throne. You, of all people, should recognize that I am not yet done in my ambitions, and I am a patient man.'
Gethol grunted a laugh. 'Ah, dear Kallor. You are to me the exception to the rule that patience is a virtue.'
'I can destroy you, Jaghut, no matter who you call master these days. I can complete what your capable punisher began. Do you doubt me?'
'Most certainly not,' Gethol replied easily. 'I've seen you wield that two-handed sword of yours.'
'Then withdraw your verbal knives and tell me what you do here.'
'Apologies for disrupting your … concentration. I shall now explain. I am Herald to the Crippled God — aye, a new House has come to the Deck of Dragons. The House of Chains. The first renditions have been fashioned. And soon every Reader of the Deck will be seeking their likenesses.'
Kallor snorted. 'And you expect this gambit to work? That House shall be assailed. Obliterated.'