Forge of Darkness

She raised the jug to drink.



Someone shouted a warning. Galar Baras drew his sword and the weapon shrieked. The blade lashed out, struck the jug. Clay shards exploded. Wine erupted like blood from a broken skull.



On all sides, the Hust weapons awoke. From every tent, from every scabbard, the swords howled.



Galar Baras staggered beneath the assault, dropping his weapon and clapping hands over his ears. But the sound was inside him, wailing through his bones, clawing through his mind. He felt himself torn free, severed from his body and flung skyward, buffeted by the cries, the ever-rising screams. Through tears, he saw wooden scabbards burst apart at the belts of the surrounding soldiers as the men and women fell or staggered, as they opened their mouths to add to the howls.



Poison. They’re all dead.



Toras -



She was on her hands and knees, gouging up clumps of wine-soaked clay, pushing them into her mouth, coughing, choking — Galar saw himself spinning high above her. He saw how the first of the wagons had reached the descent, but the oxen were collapsing in their yokes, thrashing, legs kicking, and the lead wagon’s front wheels cut sharply to one side, and then the wagon toppled, spilling out the wooden crates on the bed.



He saw those crates burst apart, revealing Hust Henarald’s last gift to the Hust Legion — chain hauberks of the same iron, and helms and greaves and vambraces. The armour was answering the cry of the weapons in the valley below. The drovers were upon the ground, bleeding from their noses, their ears and eyes.



And still the howling built. It rent the canvas of the tents in the camp, snapped guide ropes. In the distant corrals to the west, the horses broke down the fences and fled in terror.



Galar was a battered kite in the rising storm of those terrible voices.



‘ Corporal Ranyd came running in. He drew his sword. He should never have done that.’



Abruptly, the howling stopped. Galar plunged earthward, and in the moment he struck the ground, blackness engulfed him.



‘ Never, and never again.’



TWENTY



Endest Silann looked old, as if his youth had been torn away, revealing something aged with grief. Many times Rise Herat had seen a face stripped back by the onslaught of loss, and each time he wondered if suffering but waited under the skin, shielded by a mask donned in hope, or with that superstitious desperation that imagined a smile to be a worthy shield against the world’s travails. These things, worn daily in an array of practised expressions insisting on civility, ever proved poor defenders of the soul, and to be witness to their cracking, their pathetic surrender to a barrage of emotion, was both humbling and terrible.



The young priest had come to his door like a beggar, fingers entwined on his lap and twisting ceaselessly, as if he held newborn snakes in his fists; and in his eyes there was a wretched pleading; but even this was of the kind that expected no largesse. How could one help a beggar who saw no salvation in a coin, or a meal, or a warm bed at night?



Rise had stepped back in invitation and Endest had shuffled past, moving like one afflicted by a host of mysterious ailments, proof against any medicine. He selected a chair near the fire and sat, not yet ready to speak, and studied his writhing hands. And there he remained.



After a time, the historian cleared his throat. ‘I have mulled wine, priest.’



Endest shook his head. ‘I close my eyes to sleep,’ he said, ‘and meet the same horrid dream, as if it but awaits me.’



‘Ah, that sounds unpleasant. Perhaps a draught to make you senseless would help.’



He glanced up with red-shot eyes, and then looked down again. ‘I have no certainty of this world, historian. This is the dream’s legacy, its curse upon my wakefulness — even now I am haunted and so in need of reassurance.’



‘Set hand upon stone, priest. Feel wood’s familiar grain, or the cool flank of a clay vessel. None of these things are uncertain. But if you would look to us soft creatures who move through this world, then I fear you will find us ephemeral indeed.’



Endest’s hands parted and made fists on his lap, the knuckles whitening, but still he would not look up. ‘Do you mock me?’



‘No. I see the weight of a curse upon you, priest, as surely it is upon us all. You close your eyes and dread the waiting dream. While here I pace in my room, longing to open my eyes and so discover all this to have been a dream. So here we face one another, as if to contest wills.’



Abruptly, Endest began thumping his thighs, swinging down upon them hard with his fists, in growing ferocity.



Rise stepped closer, alarmed. ‘Hear me! You are not asleep, friend!’