Toll the Hounds
Out on the lake the water glittered with golden tears.
As if the sun might relinquish its hard glare and, for just this one moment, weep for the fate of a child.
xx
When can he not stand alone
Where in darkness no shadows are cast
Whose most precious selves deny the throne
While nothing held in life will last a moment longer
Than what’s carved into the very bones
But this is where you would stand
In his place and see all bleak and bridled
An array of weapons each one forged
For violence
When can he not stand alone
Where darkness bleeds into the abyss so vast
Whose every yearning seeks a new home
While each struggle leaves the meek to the stronger
And the fallen lie scattered like stones
But this is the life you would take in hand
To guide him ‘cross the path so broken so riddled
Like the weapon of your will now charged
In cold balance
When can he not stand alone
Where in darkness every shadow is lost
Whose weary selves cut away and will roam
While nothing is left but this shielded stranger
Standing against the wind’s eternal moans
But this is your hero who must stand
Guarding your broken desires the ragged flag unfurled
Rising above the bastion to see your spite purged
In his silence
– Anomandaxis , Book III, Verses 7-10, Fisher Kel That
The swath of ground where all the grasses had been worn away might have marked the passing of a herd of bhederin, if not for the impos-sibly wide ruts left behind by the enormous studded wheels of a wagon, and the rubbish and occasional withered corpses scatttred to either side, vultures and crows danced among the detritus.
Traveller sat slouched in the Seven Cities saddle atop the piebald gelding. Nearby, at the minimum distance that his horse would accept, was the witch, Samar Dev, perched like a child above the long-legged, gaunt and fierce Jhag horse whose name was, she had said, Havok. The beast’s true owner was somewhere ahead, perhaps behind the Skathandi and the Captain’s monstrous carriage, or be-yond it. Either way, she was certain a clash was imminent.
‘He dislikes slavers,’ she had said earlier, as if this explained everything.
No demon, then, but a Toblakai of true blood, a detail that sent pangs of regret and pain through Traveller, for reasons he kept to himself-and though she had seen something of that anguish in his face it appeared she would respect his pri-vacy. Or perhaps feared its surrender, for Samar Dev was a woman, he suspected, prone to plunging into vast depths of emotion.
She had, after all, travelled through warrens to find the trail of the one ahead of them on this plain, and such an undertaking was not embraced on a whim. All to deliver a horse. He knew enough to leave it at that, poor as it might be as justifi-cation for such extremity. The Kindaru had accepted the reason with sage nods, seeing nothing at all unusual in any of it-the horse was a sacred beast, after all, a Jhag, brother to their cherished horses-of-the-rock. They possessed legends with similar themes, and indeed they had spent half the night recounting many of them-and now they had found themselves a new one. Master of the Wolf-Horses met a woman so driven as to be his own reflection, and together they rode into the north, having drawn their threads through the last camp of the Kindaru, and were now entwined each with the other and both with the Kindaru, and though this was a tale not yet done it would nevertheless live on, for as long as lived the Kindaru themselves.
He had noted the grief in Samar Dev’s weary, weathered face, as the many wounds delivered-in all innocence-by the Kindaru slowly sank deeper, piercing her heart, and now compassion swirled dark and raw in her eyes, although the Kindaru were far behind them now. It was clear, brutally so, that both she and Traveller had collected a new thread to twist into their lives.
‘How far ahead?’ she asked.
’Two days at the most.’
‘Then he might have found them by now, or they him.’
‘Yes, it’s possible. If this Skathandi Captain has an army, well; even a Toblakai can die.’
‘I know that,’ she replied. Then added, ‘Maybe.’
‘And there are but two of us, Samar Dev.’
‘If you’d rather cut away from this trail, Traveller, I will not question your de-cision. But I need to find him.’
He glanced away. ‘His horse, yes.’
‘And other things.’
Traveller considered for a time. He studied the broad, churned-up track. A thou-sand or five thousand; when people were moving in column it was always difficult to tell. The carriage itself would be a thing worth seeing, however, and the direction just happened to be the one he needed to take. The prospect of being forced into a detour was unacceptable. ‘If your friend is smart, he won’t do anything overt. He’ll hide, as best one can on these plains, until he sees an advantage-though what that advantage might be, against so many, I can’t imagine.’