House of Chains
Felisin Paran, hold up this mirror at your peril.
Outside stole the first light of dawn. And Sha’ik reached for her helm.
L’oric could just make out the Dogslayer positions at the tops of the cobbled ramps. There was no movement over there in the grey light of dawn. It was strange, but not surprising. The night just done would make even the hardest soldier hesitant to raise a gaze skyward, to straighten from a place of hiding to begin the mundane tasks that marked the start of a new day.
Even so, there was something strange about those trenches.
He strode along the ridge towards the hilltop where Sha’ik had established her forward post to observe the battle to come. The High Mage ached in every bone. His muscles shouted pain with every step he took.
He prayed she was there.
Prayed the goddess would deign to hear his words, his warning, and, finally, his offer.
All hovered on the cusp. Darkness had been defeated… somehow. He wondered at that, but not for long-there was no time for such idle musings. This tortured fragment of Kurald Emurlahn was awakening, and the goddess was about to arrive, to claim it for herself. To fashion a throne. To devour Raraku .
Ghosts still swirled in the shadows, warriors and soldiers from scores of long-dead civilizations. Wielding strange weapons, their bodies hidden beneath strange armour, their faces mercifully covered by ornate visors. They were singing, although that Tanno song had grown pensive, mournful, sighing soft as the wind. It had begun to rise and fall, a sussuration that chilled L’oric.
Who will they fight for? Why are they here at all? What do they want?
The song belonged to the Bridgeburners. Yet it seemed the Holy Desert itself had claimed it, had taken that multitude of ethereal voices for itself. And every soul that had fallen in battle in the desert’s immense history was now gathered in this place.
The cusp.
He came to the base of the trail leading up to Sha’ik’s hill. There were desert warriors huddled here and there, wrapped in their ochre telabas, spears thrust upright, iron points glistening with dew as the sun’s fire broke on the east horizon. Companies of Mathok’s light cavalry were forming up on the flats to L’oric’s right. The horses were jittery, the rows shifting uneven and restless. The High Mage could not see Mathok anywhere among them-nor, he realized with a chill, could he see the standards of the warleader’s own tribe.
He heard horses approach from behind and turned to see Leoman, one of his officers, and Toblakai riding up towards him.
The Toblakai’s horse was a Jhag, L’oric saw, huge and magnificent in its primal savagery, loping collected and perfectly proportionate to the giant astride its shoulders.
Toblakai and his horse were dragging a pair of objects that bounced and rolled on the ends of chains, and L’oric’s eyes went wide upon seeing what they were.
He’s killed the Deragoth. He’s taken their heads.
‘L’oric!’ Leoman rasped as he drew rein before him. ‘Is she above?’
‘I don’t know, Leoman of the Flails.’
All three dismounted, and L’oric saw Toblakai favouring his mangled leg. A hound’s jaws did that . And then he saw the stone sword on the giant’s back. Ah, he is indeed the one, then. I think the Crippled God has made a terrible mistake …
Gods, he killed the Deragoth.
‘Where is Febryl hiding?’ Leoman asked as the four of them began the ascent.
Toblakai answered. ‘Dead. I forgot to tell you some things. I killed him. And I killed Bidithal. I would have killed Ghost Hands and Korbolo Dom, but I could not find them.’
L’oric rubbed a hand across his brow, and it came away wet and oily. Yet he could still see his breath.
Toblakai went on, inexorably. ‘And when I went into Korbolo’s tent, I found Kamist Reloe. He’d been assassinated. So had Henaras.’
L’oric shook himself and said to Leoman, ‘Did you receive Sha’ik’s last commands? Shouldn’t you be with the Dogslayers?’
The warrior grunted. ‘Probably. We’ve just come from there.’
‘They’re all dead,’ Toblakai said. ‘Slaughtered in the night. The ghosts of Raraku were busy-though none dared oppose me.’ He barked a laugh. ‘As Ghost Hands could tell you, I have ghosts of my own.’
L’oric stumbled on the trail. He reached up and gripped Leoman’s arm. ‘Slaughtered? All of them ?’