'Then you should be addressing the Tusked One himself, sir,' Brukhalian rumbled.
'Ah, alas, this has proved no longer posssible, Mortal Sword. Fener's attention is elsewhere. In fact, your lord has been drawn, with great reluctance, to the very edge of his realm.' The Herald's unhuman eyes narrowed. 'Fener is in great peril. The loss of your patron's power is imminent. The time has come, Hood has decided, for compassionate gestures, for expressions of the true brotherhood that exists between your lord and mine.'
'What does Hood propose, sir?'
'This city is doomed, Mortal Sword. Yet your formidable army need not join in the inevitable crush at Hood's gate. Such a sacrifice would be pointless, and indeed a great loss. The Pannion Domin is no more than a single, rather minor, element in a far vaster war — a war in which all the gods shall partake … allied one and all … against an enemy who seeks nothing less than the annihilation of all rivals. Thus. Hood offers you his warren, a means of extrication for you and your soldiers. Yet you must choose quickly, for the warren's path here cannot survive the arrival of the Pannion's forces.'
'What you offer, sir, demands the breaking of our contract.'
The Herald's laugh was contemptuous. 'As I most vehemently told Hood, you humans are a truly pathetic lot. A contract? Scratchings on vellum? My lord's offer is not a thing to be negotiated.'
'And in accepting Hood's warren,' Brukhalian said quietly, 'the face of our patron changes, yes? Fener's … inaccessibility … has made him a liability. And so Hood acts quickly, eager to strip the Boar of Summer's mortal servants, preferably intact, to thereafter serve him and him alone.'
'Foolish man,' Gethol sneered. 'Fener shall be the first casualty in the war with the Crippled God. The Boar shall fall — and none can save him. The patronage of Hood is not casually offered, mortal, to just anyone. To be so honoured-'
'Honoured?' Brukhalian cut in, his voice the slide of iron on stone, his eyes flickering with a strange light. 'Allow me, on Fener's behalf,' he said in a low whisper, 'to comment on the question of honour.' The Mortal Sword's broadsword hissed in a blur from its scabbard, the blade cleaving upward to strike the Herald across the face. Bone snapped, dark blood sprayed.
Gethol reared back a step, withered hands rising to his shattered features.
Brukhalian lowered his weapon, his eyes burning with a deep rage. 'Come forward again, Herald, and I shall resume my commentary.'
'I do not,' Gethol rasped through torn lips, 'appreciate your … tone. It falls to me to answer in kind, not on Hood's behalf. Not any more. No, this reply shall be mine and mine alone.' A longsword appeared in each gauntleted hand, the blades shimmering like liquid gold. The Herald's eyes glittered like mirrors to the weapons. He took a step forward.
Then stopped, swords lifting into a defensive position.
A soft voice spoke behind Brukhalian. 'We greet you, Jaghut.'
The Mortal Sword turned to see the three T'lan Imass, each one strangely insubstantial, as if moments from assuming new forms, new shapes. Moments, Brukhalian realized, from veering into their Soletaken beasts. The air filled with a stale stench of spice.
'Not your concern, this fight,' Gethol hissed.
'The fight with this mortal?' Bek Okhan asked. 'No. However, Jaghut, you are.'
'I am Hood's Herald — do you dare challenge a servant of the lord of death?'
The T'lan Imass's desiccated lips peeled back. 'Why would we hesitate, Jaghut? Now ask of your lord, does he dare challenge us?'
Gethol grunted as something dragged him bodily back, the warren snapping shut, swallowing him. The air swirled briefly in the wake of the portal's sudden vanishing, then settled.
'Evidently not,' Bek Okhan said.
Sighing, Brukhalian sheathed his sword and faced the T'lan Imass Bonecasters. 'Your arrival has left me disappointed, sirs.'
'We understand this, Mortal Sword. You were doubtless well matched. Yet our hunt for this Jaghut demanded our … interruption. His talent for escaping us is undiminished, it seems, even to the point of bending a knee in the service of a god. Your defiance of Hood makes you a worthwhile companion.'
Brukhalian grimaced. 'If only to improve your chances of closing with this Jaghut, I take it.'
'Indeed.'
'So we are understood in this.'
'Yes. It seems we are.'
He stared at the three creatures for a moment, then turned away. 'I think we can assume the Herald will not be returning to us this evening. Forgive my curtness, sirs, but I wish solitude once again.'
The T'lan Imass each bowed, then disappeared.
Brukhalian walked to the hearth, drawing his sword once more. He set the blunt end amongst the cold embers, slowly stirred the ashes. Flames licked into life, the coals burgeoning a glowing red. The spatters and streaks of Jaghut blood on the blade sizzled black, then burned away to nothing.
He stared down at the hearth for a long time, and despite the unveiled power of the sanctified sword, the Mortal Sword saw before him nothing but ashes.
Up from the darkness, a clawing, gasping struggle. Explosive blooms of pain, like a wall of fire rising behind his eyes, the shivering echoes of wounds, a tearing and puncturing of flesh — his own flesh.
A low groan escaped him, startled him into an awareness — he lay propped at an angle, taut skins stretched beneath him. There had been motion, a rocking and bumping and scraping, but that had ceased. He opened his eyes, found himself in shadow. A stone wall reared to his left, within reach. The air smelled of horses and dust and, much closer, blood and sweat.
Morning sunlight bathed the compound to his right, glimmered off the blurred figures moving about there. Soldiers, horses, impossibly huge, lean wolves.
Boots crunched on gravel and the shadow over him deepened. Blinking, Gruntle looked up.
Stonny's face was drawn, spattered with dried blood, her hair hanging in thick, snarled ropes. She laid a hand on his chest. 'We've reached Capustan,' she said in a ragged voice.
He managed a nod.
'Gruntle-'
Pain filled her eyes, and he felt a chill sweep over him.
'Gruntle … Harllo's dead. They — they left him, buried under rocks. They left him. And Netok — Netok, that dear boy. so wide-eyed, so innocent. I gave him his manhood, Gruntle, I did that, at least. Dead — we lost them both.' She reeled away then, out of the range of his vision, though he heard her rushed footsteps, dwindling.
Another face appeared, a stranger's, a young woman, helmed, her expression gentle. 'We are safe now, sir,' she said, her accent Capan. 'You have been force-healed. I grieve for your losses. We all do — the Grey Swords, that is. Rest assured, sir, you were avenged against the demons …'
Gruntle stopped listening, his eyes pulling away, fixing on the clear blue sky directly overhead. I saw you, Harllo. You bastard. Throwing yourself in that creature's path, between us. I saw, damn you.
A corpse beneath rocks, a face in the darkness, smeared in dust, that would never again smile.
A new voice. 'Captain.'
Gruntle turned his head, forced words through the clench of his throat. 'It's done, Keruli,' he said. 'You've been delivered. It's done. Damn you to Hood, get out of my sight.'
The priest bowed his head, withdrew through the haze of Gruntle's anger; withdrew, then was gone.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The harder the world, the fiercer the honour.
Dancer
The bones formed hills, stretching out on all sides. Clattering, shifting beneath Gethol as the Jaghut struggled for purchase against the slope. The blood had slowed its flow down his ruined face, though the vision of one eye was still obscured — blocked by an upthrust shard that glimmered pink-white — and the pain had dulled to a pulsing throb.