‘Well, so am I.’
‘Not when I look into your eyes. It is not the same with this Soletaken,’ he continued, seemingly unmindful of the wound he had just delivered. ‘No, those yellow eyes are young.’
‘Innocent?’
A nod. ‘Trusting, as a child is trusting.’
‘A gentle mother, then.’
‘She did not raise him,’ Onrack said.
Ah, the Imass, then. And now I begin to see, to understand. ‘We will be vigilant, Onrack.’
‘Yes.’
Rud Elalle led them into a split between two upthrust knobs of layered rock, a trail that then wound between huge boulders before opening out into the Imass village.
Rock shelters along a cliff. Tusk-framed huts, the spindly frames of drying racks on which were stretched hides. Children running like squat imps in the midst of a gathering of perhaps thirty Imass. Men, women, elders. One warrior stood before all the others, while off to one side stood three more Imass, their garb rotted and subtly different in cut and style from that of the Bentract-the strangers, Trull realized-guests yet remaining apart.
Upon seeing them, Onrack’s benign expression hardened. ‘Friend,’ he murmured to Trull, “ware those three.’
‘I decided the same myself,’ Trull replied under his breath.
Rud Elalle moved to stand at the Bentract leader’s side. ‘This is Ulshun Pral,’ he said, setting a hand on the man’s thick shoulder-a gesture of open affection that seemed blissfully unmindful of the growing tension at the edge of this village.
Onrack moved forward. ‘I am Onrack the Broken, once of the Logros T’lan Imass, child of the Ritual. I ask that we be made guests among your tribe, Ulshun Pral.’
The honey-skinned warrior frowned over at Rud Elalle, then said something in his own language.
Rud nodded and faced Onrack. ‘Ulshun Pral asks that you speak in the First Language.’
‘He asked,’ Onrack said, ‘why 1 chose not to.’
‘Yes.’
‘My friends do not share the knowing of that language. I cannot ask for guesting on their behalf without their understanding, for to be guest is to be bound to the rules of the tribe, and this they must know, before I would venture a promise of peace on their behalf
‘Can you not simply translate?’ Rud Elalle asked.
‘Of course, yet I choose to leave that to you, Rud Elalle, for Ulshun Pral knows and trusts you, while he does not know me.’
‘Very well, I shall do so.’
‘Enough with all this,’ Hedge called out, gingerly setting down his pack. ‘We’ll all be good boys, so long as no-one tries to kill us or worse, like making us eat some horrible vegetable rightly extinct on every other realm in the universe.’
Rud Elalle was displaying impressive skill and translating Hedge’s words almost as fast as the sapper spoke them.
Ulshun Pral’s brows lifted in seeming astonishment, then he turned and with a savage gesture yelled at a small crowd of elderly women at one side of the crowd.
Hedge scowled at Onrack, ‘Now what did I say?’ he demanded.
But Trull saw his friend smiling. Ulshun Pral has just directed the cooks to fish the baektar from the stew they have prepared for us.’
‘The baek-what?’
‘A vegetable, Hedge, that will be found nowhere but here.’
All at once the tension was gone. There were smiles, shouts of apparent welcome from other Imass, and many came forward to close, first on Onrack, and then-with expressions of delight and wonder, on Trull Sengar-no, he realized, not on him-on the emlava cubs. Who began purring deep in their throats, as thick, short-fingered hands reached out to stroke fur and scratch behind the small, tufted ears.
‘Look at that, Quick!’ Hedge was staring in disbelief. ‘Now is that fair?’
The wizard slapped the sapper on the back. ‘It’s true, Hedge, the dead stink.’
‘You’re hurting my feelings again!’
Sighing, Trull released the leather leashes and stepped back. He smiled across at Hedge. ‘I smell nothing un-toward,’ he said.
But the soldier’s scowl only deepened. ‘Maybe I like you now, Trull Sengar, but you keep being nice and that’ll change, I swear it.’
‘Have I offended you-’
‘Ignore Hedge,’ Quick Ben cut in, ‘at least when he’s talking. Trust me, it was the only way the rest of us in the squad stayed sane. Ignore him… until he reaches into that damned sack of his.’
‘And then?’ Trull asked in complete bewilderment.
‘Then run like Hood himself was on your heels.’
Onrack had separated himself from his welcomers and was now walking towards the strangers.
‘Yes,’ Quick Ben said in a low voice. ‘They’re trouble indeed.’
‘Because they were like Onrack? T’lan Imass?’
‘Of the Ritual, aye. The question is, why are they here?’
‘I would imagine that whatever mission brought them to this place, Quick Ben, the transformation they experienced has shaken them-perhaps, as with Onrack, their spirits have reawakened.’
‘Well, they look unbalanced enough.’
Their conversation with Onrack was short, and Trull watched as his old friend approached.
‘Well?’ the wizard demanded.
Onrack was frowning. ‘They are Bentract, after all. But from those who joined the Ritual. Ulshun Pral’s clan were among the very few who did not, who were swayed by the arguments set forth by Kilava Onass-this is why,’ Onrack added, ‘they greet the emlava as if they were Kilava’s very own children. Thus, there are ancient wounds between the two groups. Ulshun Pral was not a clan chief back then-indeed, the T’lan Bentract do not even know him.’
‘And that is a problem?’
‘It is, because one of the strangers is a chosen chief-chosen by Bentract himself. Hostille Rator.’
‘And the other two?’ Quick Ben asked.
‘Yes, even more difficult. Ulshun Pral’s Bonecaster is gone. Til’aras Benok and Gr’istanas Ish’ilm, who stand to either side of Hostille Rator, are Bonecasters.’
Trull Sengar drew a deep breath. ‘They contemplate usurpation, then.’
Onrack the Broken nodded.
‘Then what had stopped them?’ Quick Ben asked.
‘Rud Elalle, wizard. The son of Menandore terrifies them.’
The rain thundered down, every moment another hundred thousand iron-tipped lances crashing down out of the dark onto slate rooftops, exploding on the cobbled streets where streams now rushed down, racing for the harbour.
The ice north of the island had not died quietly. Sundered by the magic of a wilful child, the white and blue mountains had lifted skyward in pillars of steam that roiled into massive stormclouds, which had then marched south freed from the strictures of refusal, and those clouds now erupted over the beleaguered city with rage and vengeance. Late afternoon had become midnight and now, as the half-drowned chimes of midnight’s bells sounded, it seemed as if this night would never end.
On the morrow-if it ever came-the Adjunct would set sail with her motley fleet. Thrones of War, a score of well-armed fast escorts, the last of the-transports holding the rest of the Fourteenth Army, and one sleek black dromon propelled by the tireless oars manned by headless Tiste Andii. Oh, and of course, in the lead would be a local pirate’s ship, captained by a dead woman-but never mind her. Return, yes, to that black-hulled nightmare.
Their hosts had worked hard to keep the dread truth of that Quon dromon from Nimander Golit and his kin. The severed heads on the deck, mounded around the mainmast, well, they had kept them covered. No point in encouraging hysteria, should their living Tiste Andii guests see the faces of their kin, their true kin, for were they not of Drift Avalii? Oh yes, they were indeed. Uncles, fathers, mothers, oh, a play on words now would well serve the notion-they were, yes, heads of families, cut away before their time, before their children had grown old enough, wise enough, hard enough to survive in this world. Cut away, ha ha. Now, death would have been one thing. Dying was one thing. Just one and there were other things, always, and you didn’t need any special wisdom to know that. But those heads had not died, not stiffened then softened with rot. The faces had not fallen away to leave just bone, just the recognition that came with a sharing of what-is, what-was and what’ would-be. No, the eyes stared on, the eyes blinked because some memory told them that blinking was necessary. The mouths moved, resuming interrupted conversations, the sharing of jests, the gossip of parents, yet not a single word could claw free.