House of Chains

He rose up on his saddle. ‘Lieutenant! They’re going to ride into it! Use it as cover! We’d better not-’

‘Flap that tongue at me one more time, Sergeant, and I’ll tear it out! You hear me?’

Fiddler subsided. ‘Aye, sir.’

‘Full pursuit, soldiers!’ Ranal barked. ‘That storm’ll slow them!’

Oh, it will slow them, all right…

Gesler glared into the blinding desert. ‘Now who,’ he wondered under his breath, ‘are they?’

They had drawn to halt when it became obvious that the four strange riders were closing fast on an intercept course. Long-bladed white swords flashing over their heads. Bizarre, gleaming white armour. White horses. White everything.

‘They’re none too pleased with us,’ Stormy rumbled, ru

‘That’s fine,’ Gesler growled, ‘but they ain’t renegades, are they?’

‘Sha’ik’s? Who knows? Probably not, but even so…’

The sergeant nodded. ‘Sands, get up here.’

‘I am,’ the sapper snapped.

‘What’s your range, lad, with that damned thing?’

‘Ain’t sure. No chance to try it yet. Fid’s is anywhere from thirty to forty paces with a cusser-which is ugly close-’

‘All right. Rest of you, dismount and drive your horses down the other side. Truth, hold on good to their reins down there-if they bolt we’re done for.’

‘Saw Borduke and his squad south of here,’ Pella ventured.

‘Aye, as lost as we are-and you can’t see ’em now, can you?’

‘No, Sergeant.’

‘Damn that Ranal. Remind me to kill him when we next meet.’

‘Aye, Sergeant.’

The four attackers were tall bastards. Voicing eerie warcries now as they charged towards the base of the hill.

‘Load up, lad,’ Gesler muttered, ‘and don’t mess up.’

The lobber had been copied from Fiddler’s own. It looked decent, at least as far as lobbers went-which ain’t far enough. Thirty paces with a cusser. Hood roast us all…

And here they came. Base of the slope, horses surging to take them up the hill.

A heavy thud, and something awkward and grey sailed out and down.

A cusser-holy f-‘Down! Down! Down!’

The hill seemed to lift beneath them. Gesler thumped in the dust, coughing in the spiralling white clouds, then, swearing, he buried his head beneath his arms as stones rained down.

Some time later, the sergeant clambered to his feet.

On the hill’s opposite side, Truth was trying to run in every direction at once, the horses trailing loose reins as they pelted in wild panic.

‘Hood’s balls on a skillet!’ Gesler planted his hands on his hips and glared about. The other soldiers were picking themselves up, shaken and smeared in dust. Stormy closed on Sands and grabbed him by the throat.

‘Not too hard, Corporal,’ Gesler said as Stormy began shaking the sapper about. ‘I want him alive for my turn. And dammit, make sure he ain’t got any sharpers on his body.’

That stopped Stormy flat.

Gesler walked to the now pitted edge of the hill and looked down. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘they won’t be chasing us any more, I’d say.’

‘Wonder who they were?’ Pella asked.

‘Armour seems to have weathered the blast-you could go down and scrape out whatever’s left inside ’em… on second thought, never mind. We need to round up our horses.’ He faced the others. ‘Enough pissing about, lads. Let’s get moving.’

Lying on the smoking edge of the crater, sprayed in horseflesh and deafened by the blast, Jorrude groaned. He was a mass of bruises, his head ached, and he wanted to throw up-but not until he pried the helm from his head.

Nearby in the rubble, Brother Enias coughed. Then said, ‘Brother Jorrude?’

‘Yes?’

‘I want to go home.’

Jorrude said nothing. It would not do, after all, to utter a hasty, heartfelt agreement, despite their present circumstance. ‘Check on the others, Brother Enias.’

‘Were those truly the ones who rode that ship through our realm?’

‘They were,’ Jorrude answered as he fumbled with the helm’s straps. ‘And I have been thinking. I suspect they were ignorant of Liosan laws when they travelled through our realm. True, ignorance is an insufficient defence. But one must consider the notion of i

From off to one side, Malachar grunted. ‘I

‘Indeed. Were not these trespassers but pulled along-beyond their will-in the wake of the draconian T’lan Imass bonecaster? If an enemy we must hunt, then should it not be that dragon?’

‘Wise words,’ Malachar observed.

‘A brief stay in our realm,’ Jorrude continued, ‘to resupply and requisition new horses, along with repairs and such, seems to reasonably obtain in this instance.’

‘Truly judged, brother.’

From the other side of the crater sounded another cough.

At least, Jorrude dourly reflected, they were all still alive.

It’s all the dragon’s fault, in fact. Who would refute that?

They rode into the sandstorm, less than fifty strides behind the fleeing horse warriors, and found themselves floundering blind in a maelstrom of shrieking winds and whipping gravel.

Fiddler heard a horse scream.

He drew hard on his own reins, the wind hammering at him from all sides. Already he’d lost sight of his companions. This is wide-eyed stupid.

Now, if I was the commander of those bastards, I’d-

And suddenly figures flashed into view, scimitars and round shields, swathed faces and ululating warcries. Fiddler threw himself down against his horse’s withers as a heavy blade slashed, slicing through sand-filled air where his head had been a moment earlier.

The Wickan mare lunged forward and to one side, choosing this precise moment to buck its hated rider from the saddle.

With profound success.

Fiddler found himself flying forward, his bag of munitions rolling up his back, then up over his head.

Still in mid-air, but angling down to the ground, he curled himself into a tight ball-though he well knew, in that instant, that there was no hope of surviving. No hope at all. Then he pounded into the sand, and rolled-to see, upside-down, a huge hook-bladed sword spi

A surprised look beneath the ornate helm-then rider, horse and munitions vanished into the whirling sands.

Fiddler clambered to his feet and began ru

A hand snagged his harness from behind. ‘Not that way, you fool!’

And he was yanked to one side, flung to the ground, and a body landed on top of him.

The sergeant’s face was pushed into the sand and held there.

Corabb bellowed. The bulky, heavy sack was hissing in his arms. As if filled with snakes. It had clunked hard against his chest, arriving like a flung boulder out of the storm, and he’d time only to toss his sword away and raise both arms.

The impact threw him onto the horse’s rump, but his feet stayed in the stirrups.

The bag’s momentum carried it over his face, and the hissing filled his ears.

Snakes!

He slid on his back down one side of the mount’s heaving hindquarters, letting the bag’s weight pull his arms with it. Don’t panic! He screamed.

Snakes!

The bag tugged in his hands as it brushed the ground.

He held his breath, then let go.

Tumbling clunks, a burst of frenzied hissing-then the horse’s forward charge carried him blissfully away.

He struggled to right himself, his leg and stomach muscles fiercely straining, and finally was able to grasp the horn and pull himself straight.

One pass, Leoman had said. Then wheel and into the storm’s heart.