The Bonehunters

Perhaps half a league away ran a ridge, possibly a raised road, and figures were visible there, in a ragged line, marching towards the distant battle, pikes on their backs.



'Quickly!' Sathbaro Rangar hissed, hobbling forward. 'Stay low, gather round – no, there! Crouch, you fools! We must leave!'



****

Steth and Aystar, brother and sister, who had shared memories of pain, hands and feet nailed to wood, ravens at their faces tearing at their eyes – terrible nightmares, the conjurings of creative imaginations, said their mother, Minala – crept forward through the gloom of the fissure, the rocky floor beneath them slick, sharp-edged, treacherous.



Neither had yet fought, although both voiced their zeal, for they were still too young, or so Mother had decided. But Steth was ten years of age, and Aystar his sister was nine; and they wore the armour of the Company of Shadow, weapons at their belts, and they had trained with the others, as hard and diligently as any of them. And somewhere ahead stood their favourite sentinel, guarding the passage. They were sneaking up on him, their favourite game of all.



Crouching, they drew closer to where he usually stood.



And then a grating voice spoke from their left. 'You two breathe too loud.'



Aystar squealed in frustration, jumping up. 'It's Steth! I don't breathe at all! I'm just like you!' She advanced on the hulking T'lan Imass who stood with his back to the crevasse wall. Then she flung herself at him, arms wrapping about his midsection.



Onrack's dark, empty gaze settled upon her. Then the withered hand not holding the sword reached up and gingerly patted her on the head. 'You are breathing now,' the warrior said.



'And you smell like dust and worse.'



Steth moved two paces past Onrack's position and perched himself atop a boulder, squinting into the gloom beyond. 'I saw a rat today,' he said. 'Shot two arrows at it. One came close. Really close.'



'Climb down from there,' the T'lan Imass said, prying Aystar's arms from his waist. 'You present a target in silhouette.'



'Nobody's coming any more, Onrack,' the boy said, twisting round as the undead warrior approached. 'They've given up – we were too nasty for them. Mother was talking about leaving-'



The arrow took him full on the side of the head, in the temple, punching through bone and spinning the boy round, legs sliding out onto a side of the boulder, then, with a limp roll, Steth fell to the ground.



Aystar began screaming, a piercing cry that rang up and down the fissure, as Onrack shoved her behind him and said, 'Run. Back, stay along a wall. Run.'



More arrows hissed down the length of the crevasse, two of them thudding into Onrack with puffs of dust. He pulled them loose and dropped them to the floor, striding forward and taking his sword into both hands.



****

Minala's face looked old, drawn with days and nights of fear and worry, the relentless pressure of waiting, of looking upon her adopted children, rank on rank, and seeing naught but soldiers, who had learned to kill, who had learned to watch their comrades die. All to defend a vacant throne.



Trull Sengar could comprehend the mocking absurdity of this stand. A ghost had claimed the First Throne, a thing of shadows so faded from this world even the undead T'lan Imass looked bloated with excess beside it. A ghost, a god, a gauze-thin web-tracing of desire, possessiveness and nefarious designs – this is what had claimed the seat of power, over all the T'lan Imass, and would now see it held, blocked against intruders.



There were broken T'lan Imass out there, somewhere, who sought to usurp the First Throne, to take its power and gift it to the Crippled God – to the force that now chained all of the Tiste Edur. The Crippled God, who had given Rhulad a sword riven with a terrible curse. Yet, for that fallen creature, an army of Edur was not enough.



An army of Letherii was not enough. No, it wanted the T'lan Imass.



And we would stop him, this Crippled God. This pathetic little army of ours.



Onrack had promised anger, with the battle that would, inevitably, come at last. But Trull knew that anger would not be enough, nor what he himself felt: desperation. Nor Minala's harsh terror, nor, he now believed, the stolid insensibility of Monok Ochem and Ibra Gholan – that too, was doomed to fail. What a menagerie we are.



He pulled his gaze from Minala, glanced over to where stood Monok Ochem, motionless before the arched entranceway leading into the throne room. The bonecaster had not moved in at least three cycles of sleeping and waking. The silver-tipped fur on his shoulders shimmered vaguely in the lantern light. Then, as Trull studied the figure, he saw the head cock slightly.