House of Chains

The Teblor swung himself onto Havok’s back.

Lostara walked down the slope, the cracked ground crunching underfoot. At her side marched Pearl, breathing hard beneath the weight of Korbolo Dom’s bound, limp form.

Tavore still stood alone on the flats, a few paces from Sha’ik’s body. The Adjunct’s attention had been fixed on the Dogslayer trenches, and on the lone, ragged standard rising from the highest ground at the central ramp’s summit.

A standard that had no right being here. No right existing at all.

Coltaine’s standard, the wings of the Crow Clan.

Lostara wondered who had raised it, where it had come from, then decided she didn’t want to know. One truth could not be ignored, however. They’re all dead. The Dogslayers. All. And the Adjunct did not need to even raise a hand to achieve that.

She sensed her own cowardice and scowled. Skittering away, again and again, from thoughts too bitter with irony to contemplate. Their journey to the basin had been nightmarish, as Kurald Emurlahn swarmed the entire oasis, as shadows warred with ghosts, and the incessant rise and fall of that song grew audible enough for Lostara to sense, if not hear. A song still climbing in crescendo.

But, at the feet of… of everything. A simple, brutal fact.

They had come too late.

Within sight, only to see Tavore batter Sha’ik’s weapon out of her hands, then thrust that sword right through her… name it, Lostara Yil, you damned coward. Name it! Her sister. Through her sister. There. It’s done, dragged out before us.

She would not look at Pearl, could say nothing. Nor did he speak.

We are bound, this man and I. I didn’t ask for this. I don’t want it. I’ll never be without it. Oh, Queen forgive me…

Close enough now to see Tavore’s face beneath the helm, an expression stern-almost angry-as she turned to watch their approach.

Officers were riding down, though slowly.

There would be time, Lostara realized, for a private conversation.

She and Pearl halted six paces from the Adjunct.

The Claw dumped Korbolo Dom onto the ground between them. ‘He won’t wake up any time soon,’ he said, taking a deep breath, then sighing and looking away.

‘What are you two doing here?’ the Adjunct asked. ‘Did you lose the trail?’

Pearl did not glance at Lostara, but simply shook his head in answer to Tavore’s question. A pause, then, ‘We found her, Adjunct. With deep regret… Felisin is dead.’

‘Are you certain?’

‘Yes, Adjunct.’ He hesitated, then added, ‘I can say one thing for certain, Tavore. She died quickly.’

Lostara’s heart felt ready to explode at Pearl’s quiet words. Jaws clenching, she met the Adjunct’s eyes, and slowly nodded.

Tavore stared at them both for a long moment, then lowered her head. ‘Well, there is mercy in that, I suppose.’

And then sheathed her sword, turned away and began walking towards her approaching officers.

Under her breath, so low that only Pearl could hear her, Lostara said, ‘Yes, I suppose there is…’

Pearl swung to her suddenly. ‘Here comes Tene Baralta. Stall him, lass.’ He walked over to Sha’ik’s body. ‘The warrens are clear enough… I hope.’ He bent down and tenderly picked her up, then faced Lostara once more. ‘Yes, she’s a heavier burden than you might think.’

‘No, Pearl, I don’t think that. Where?’

The Claw’s smile lanced into her heart. ‘A hilltop… you know the one.’

Lostara nodded. ‘Very well. And then?’

‘Convince them to get out of Raraku, lass. As fast as they can. When I’m done…’ he hesitated.

‘Come and find me, Pearl,’ she growled. ‘Or else I’ll come looking for you.’

A flicker of life in his weary eyes. ‘I will. I promise.’

She watched his gaze flit past her shoulder and she turned. Tavore was still twenty paces from the riders, who had all but Baralta halted their horses. ‘What is it, Pearl?’

‘Just watching her… walking away,’ he replied. ‘She looks so…’

‘Alone?’

‘Yes. That is the word, isn’t it. See you later, lass.’

She felt the breath of the warren gust against her back, then the day’s heat returned. Lostara hitched her thumbs in her belt, and waited for Tene Baralta.

Her once-commander would have wanted Sha’ik’s body. A trophy for this day. He would be furious. ‘Well,’ she muttered, ‘that’s just too damned bad.’

Keneb watched her approach. There was none of the triumph there he thought he would see. Indeed, she looked worn down, as if the falling of spirit that followed every battle had already come to her, the deathly stillness of the mind that invited dire contemplation, that lifted up the host of questions that could never be answered.

She had sheathed her sword without cleansing it, and Sha’ik’s blood had run crooked tracks down the plain scabbard.

Tene Baralta rode past her, on his way, Keneb suspected, to Sha’ik’s body. If he said anything to the Adjunct in passing, she made no reply.

‘Fist Blistig,’ she a

Ah, so that was what that man was carrying. Keneb glanced back to where the duel had taken place. Only the woman stood there now, over the prone shape that was the Napan renegade, her face turned up to Tene Baralta, who remained on his horse and seemed to be berating her. Even at this distance, something told Keneb that Baralta’s harangue would yield little result.

‘Adjunct,’ Nil said, ‘there is no need to scout the Dogslayer positions. They are all dead.’

Tavore frowned. ‘Explain.’

‘Raraku’s ghosts, Adjunct.’

Nether spoke up. ‘And the spirits of our own slain. Nil and I-we were blind to it. We’d forgotten the ways of… of seeing. The cattle dog, Adjunct. Bent. It should have died at Coltaine’s feet. At the Fall. But some soldiers saved it, saw to the healing of its wounds.’

‘A cattle dog? What are you talking about?’ Tavore demanded, revealing, for the very first time, an edge of exasperation.

‘Bent and Roach,’ Nil said. ‘The only creatures still living to have walked the Chain the entire way. Two dogs.’

‘Not true,’ Temul said from behind the two Wickan shamans. ‘This mare. It belonged to Duiker.’

Nil half turned to acknowledge the correction, then faced Tavore once more. ‘They came back with us, Adjunct-’

‘The dogs.’

He nodded. ‘And the spirits of the slain. Our own ghosts, Adjunct, have marched with us. Those that fell around Coltaine at the very end. Those that died on the trees of Aren Way. And, step by step, more came from the places where they were cut down. Step by step, Adjunct, our army of vengeance grew.’

‘And yet you sensed nothing?’

‘Our grief blinded us,’ Nether replied.

‘Last night,’ Nil said, ‘the child Grub woke us. Led us to the ridge, so that we could witness the awakening. There were legions, Adjunct, that had marched this land a hundred thousand years ago. And Pormqual’s crucifed army and the legions of the Seventh on one flank. The three slaughtered clans of the Wickans on the other. And still others. Many others. Within the darkness last night, Tavore, there was war.’

‘Thus,’ Nether said, smiling, ‘you were right, Adjunct. In the dreams that haunted you from the very first night of this march, you saw what we could not see.’

‘It was never the burden you believed it to be,’ Nil added. ‘You did not drag the Chain of Dogs with you, Adjunct Tavore.’

‘Didn’t I, Nil?’ A chilling half-smile twisted her thin-lipped mouth, then she looked away. ‘All those ghosts… simply to slay the Dogslayers?’

‘No, Adjunct,’ Nether answered. ‘There were other… enemies.’

‘Fist Gamet’s ghost joined them,’ Nil said.

Tavore’s eyes narrowed sharply. ‘You saw him?’