The Bonehunters

These ghost hands, they have proved the illusion of their touch – no benediction, no salvation, not for anyone they dared touch. And these reborn eyes, with all their feline acuity, they fade now into their senseless stare, a look every hunter yearns for in the eyes of their fallen foe.



So many warriors, great heroes – in their own eyes at least – so many had set off in pursuit of the giant tiger that was Treach – knowing nothing of the beast's true identity. Seeking to defeat him, to stand over his stilled corpse, and look down into his blank eyes, yearning to capture something, anything, of majesty and exaltation and take it within themselves.



But truths are never found when the one seeking them is lost, spiritually, morally. And nobility and glory cannot be stolen, cannot be earned in the violent rape of a life. Gods, such pathetic, flailing, brutally stupid conceit… it was good, then, that Treach killed every damned one of them. Dispassionately. Ah, such a telling message in that.



Yet he knew. The T'lan Imass who had killed him cared nothing for all of that. They had acted out of exigency. Perhaps somewhere in their ancient memories, of the time when they were mortal, they too had sought to steal what they themselves could never possess. But such pointless pursuits no longer mattered to them.



Heboric would be no trophy.



And that was well.



And in this final failure, it seemed there would be no other survivors, and in some ways that was well, too. Appropriate. So much for glory found within his final thoughts.



And is that not fitting? In this last thought, I fail even myself.



He found himself reaching… for something. Reaching, but nothing answered his touch. Nothing at all.



Book Three



Shadows of the King

Who can say where divides truth and the host of desires that, together, give shape to memories? There are deep folds in every legend, and the visible, outward pattern presents a false unity of form and intention. We distort with deliberate purpose; we confine vast meaning into the strictures of imagined necessity. In this lies both failing and gift, for in the surrender of truth we fashion, rightly or wrongly, universal significance. Specific gives way to general; detail gives way to grandiose form, and in the telling we are exalted beyond our mundane selves. We are, in truth, bound into greater humanity by this skein of words…



Introduction to Among the Consigned



Heboric



Chapter Twelve



'He spoke of those who would fall, and in his cold eyes stood naked the truth that it was we of whom he spoke. Words of broken reeds and covenants of despair, of surrender given as gifts and slaughter in the name of salvation.



He spoke of the spilling of war, and he told us to flee into unknown lands, so that we might be spared the spoiling of our lives…'



Words of the Iron Prophet Iskar Jarak



The Anibar (the Wickerfolk) One moment the shadows between the trees were empty, the next moment that Samar Dev glanced up, her breath caught upon seeing figures. On all sides where the sunlit clearing was clawed back by the tangle of black spruce, ferns and ivy, stood savages… 'Karsa Orlong,' she whispered, 'we have visitors…'



The Teblor, his hands red with gore, cut away another slice of flesh from the dead bhederin's flank, then looked up. After a moment he grunted, then returned to his butchering.



They were edging forward, emerging from the gloom. Small, wiry, wearing tanned hides, strips of fur bound round their upper arms, their skin the colour of bog water, stitched with ritual scarring on exposed chests and shoulders. On their faces grey paint or wood ash covered their lower jaws and above the lips, like beards. Elongated circles of icy blue and grey surrounded their dark eyes. Carrying spears, axes at hide belts along with an assortment of knives, they were bedecked in ornaments of cold-hammered copper that seemed shaped to mimic the phases of the moon; and on one man was a necklace made from the vertebrae of some large fish, and descending from it was a gold-ringed, black copper disc, representing, she surmised, a total eclipse. This man, evidently a leader of some kind, stepped forward.



Three strides, eyes on an unmindful Karsa Orlong, out into the sunlight, where he slowly knelt.



Samar now saw that he held something in his hands. 'Karsa, pay attention. What you do now will determine whether we pass through their land peaceably or ducking spears from the shadows.'



Karsa reversed grip on the huge skinning knife he had been working with, and stabbed it deep into the bhederin carcass. Then he rose to face the kneeling savage.



'Get up,' he said.



The man flinched, lowering his head.



'Karsa, he's offering you a gift.'



'Then he should do so standing. His people are hiding here in the wilderness because he hasn't done enough of that. Tell him he needs to stand.'